“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:18-19 CEB
There is been a pretty popular musical at the Straz Center currently. The musical is all about Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers of the United States of America. In this musical there is a song titled, “My Shot” where Alexander Hamilton talks about making the most of his shot. In the lyrics Hamilton’s character sings, “Don’t be shocked when your history book mentions me, I will lay down my life if it sets us free, eventually, you’ll see my ascendancy.” While I am not very familiar with the musical I do know that Hamilton’s purpose was to help a young fledgling country begin to reach her potential. The lyric shows that he is committed to this purpose—so much so he was willing to give his life to it—and believed it was his shot to make a difference. Purpose is crucial in life. Purpose provides the difference between success and failure. Without purpose success may just be accidental.
Jesus knew this well. God, the Father, had given Jesus a very particular purpose. It was foretold long before Jesus’ birth. Definitely long before Jesus opened the scroll in the synagogue and read the words of the Prophet Isaiah. It must have been a little unusual to read words from hundreds of years before your birth that outline your distinct purpose. Jesus was anointed by God, the Father, to do five specific things with his life. Jesus was anointed to preach good news to the poor, proclaim release to the prisoners, recover sight to the blind, liberate the oppressed, and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. These were the words most, if not all, in the synagogue would have heard many times before. Yet, on this day Jesus brings something different to the synagogue. When he was done reading he rolled up the scroll and handed it back to the assistant. Then Luke writes that every eye was fixed upon Jesus [shades of Hebrew 12]. Then Jesus told them, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled just as you heard it.”
Jesus basically said, “I am the anointed one.” This was a divine anointing prophesied about by the prophet Isaiah. This was a miraculous purpose for which no one else was anointed. Jesus is the only one who could bring good news, release those who were captive, make the blind to see, and liberate the oppressed. This fulfillment of scripture is announced while Jesus is at the very beginning of his ministry. It was from this point on that Jesus would demonstrate his miraculous purpose through healing, forgiveness, peace, power, and love. All of this came out of his sense of miraculous purpose for which he was called and anointed by his heavenly father. What amazing faithfulness to the purpose God gave him.
What is your purpose? Would you believe me if I told you that God has a miraculous purpose for you? I believe it for you. I believe this because Jesus made a promise to his disciples, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” Jesus said you have a miraculous purpose for your life. Believe it!
This Sunday we begin our message series for Lent entitled “Miraculous.” We will look at several of the miracles of Jesus and how they show the miraculous purpose of Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection. This is our purpose, to follow Jesus in every way. We can choose to live a miraculous life in Jesus Christ. I hope you will join me this Sunday at 8:15|NINE45|11:15 in worship. You can also go to saumc.net and join us via livestream. The best is yet to come. I love you all and can’t wait to see you in church!