By Rabbi Rev. Dr. Michael H. Koplitz 

Luke 4:23-30 

23 And He said to them, “No doubt you will quote this proverb to Me, ‘Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’” 24 And He said, “Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown. 25 “But I say to you in truth, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land; 26 and yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. 27 “And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” 28 And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things; 29 and they got up and drove Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff. 30 But passing through their midst, He went His way. 

Let me share a time when I was in shock. I came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior when I was 35 years old. At 37 years old, I was called by Jesus to preach the original meaning of the Bible. I had started seminary, and the Bishop sent me as a student pastor to a congregation. After two years, I was appointed to my first standalone church. It was a small family size church and had an average Sunday attendance of 80 people. I had taken my preaching class, and of course, the teacher said that we must preach the Bible even if people don’t like what we have to say. 

So, I went to this new assignment and started preaching the Bible, as I understood it from my seminary experiences. As I still do today, I researched the passage and did an exegetical review so that I could understand what the passage was all about. Now today I do even more because I search for the original meaning of the Scripture. I want to know when Jesus spoke, what people heard, and not what the church likes to tell us today. I was a novice at that part of understanding the Scripture back in 2001 when I was assigned to this small family size church. At that time, I used only the exegetical and interpretive research I was taught in seminary. 

You would think the people in the congregation would be happy about this because these were the things they had been hearing for years. Well, I was in shock. Oh yeah, I already said that. Why was I in shock? About one year into that ministry, a member of the congregation came to me after the worship celebration and cornered me. He looked at me and said, “We as the congregation are tired of hearing about what the Bible says. We don’t like being told what to do, so you need to stop.” 

Are you shocked also? I was being told that people came to church, but they didn’t want to hear what the Bible had to say to them. Well, it turns out they didn’t want to hear any of the commandments or requirements of being a Christian that Jesus told us. Why would you go to church and not want to learn what the Bible is saying? After all, the Bible is our manual for living that was given to us by God and Jesus. 

So, I asked this gentleman, “What am I supposed to be preaching if you don’t want to hear what the Bible has to say?” His response was that I should preach John chapter 3 verse 16 and only that verse. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Of course, he did not want to hear verse 17, which gives the requirements for receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior. No, he wanted to hear every Sunday that Jesus loved him no matter how much he sinned during the week or anywhere in his life and he was going to heaven. 

You can say that he wanted his ticket punched when the Jesus bus arrived. He knew that he could board the bus. Needless to say, he did not like my answer preaching only John 3:16 was not teaching all that the Bible tells us. There are some requirements.

A wise lady, for whom I have high respect, told me that there is no such thing as “cheap grace”. That is exactly what this man wanted. He wanted to know that no matter what he did and no matter what he said that Jesus was going to accept him flat out with no requirements on his part. Sorry folks, that’s called cheap grace, and cheap grace does not exist. You cannot say that Jesus is your Savior then go out into the world and do all the sinning you want to do. 

You can find this repudiation of cheap grace in Romans 6:1. “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?  May it never be!” The answer, of course, is no, we should not continue to sin after saying that Jesus is our Lord and Savior and died for your sins. Our obligation becomes trying not to sin.

And then there is James, the brother of Yeshua.  The phrase “faith without works is dead” is found in James 2:14-26. Here are some key verses.

James 2:17: “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” 

James 2:20: “But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?”

James 2:26: “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”

These verses emphasize that genuine faith in Christ should produce a life of good deeds. While we are saved by faith alone, that faith should naturally lead to good works. If there are no works, James argues, then the faith might not be genuine.

If you don’t know what the Bible says, then how do you know what God thinks is a sin? Right, you don’t know. Reading and understanding the Bible is the key to getting the salvation that Jesus offers. Jesus gives us the most beautiful ways to live by God’s laws, which is by his words and his actions. Jesus showed us exactly how we are supposed to react in so many situations so that we will always be pleasing to God. 

There is no free ticket to heaven. If you come before the Lord and you are baptized, and you proclaim Jesus as Lord and Savior who died for your sins, and you say that you will try to live by his ways and then you go out and totally forget about your commitment, then your baptism is meaningless. 

There are many people who go to Sunday worship today, and when they leave the church they go back to living their ungodly lives. Now, some of them aren’t that bad in what they do. However, they forget that they are trying to live like Jesus. Jesus said kind words to people and did things to help people. I know a lot of church people who wouldn’t give you the time of day once you are outside of that church building. I have even seen it happen in the parking lot of the church where people disrespected each other. 

This respect for people is something that should grown in our society. If 60+ percent of the people in the United States claim to be Christians, and if that is so, then we should see a lot of kindness in this country. However, we are not seeing it. Therefore, can we assume that this huge number of people who say they follow Jesus Christ really don’t and they’re looking for that cheap grace, that free ticket to get into heaven? 

 If you are getting irritated by my words, then you are one of those people who don’t want to hear that there is an obligation to being saved by Jesus. You have to do something. The church has struggled with this problem for centuries. This was one problem Martin Luther, who is given credit for the start of the Reformation and creation of Protestantism, had. He did not understand how much you must do in order to receive that salvation. Eventually, when Lutheranism was established the idea that you had to do nothing to receive salvation but believe was created (commonly known as “once saved, always saved”). Okay, do you think you don’t have to do anything to get Jesus’ love and his salvation upon you? Well, you must accept an obligation to live a certain way.

 Therefore, there is something you must do. Sanctification, this is a fancy word to say being saved from sin is not something that you or I can do to obtain. That comes from Jesus and from Jesus alone. However, once you receive that free gift you must accept the obligation to live like Jesus and to be like Jesus. 

 Like Jesus in the synagogue of Nazareth, who was telling the people the truth of God, he received the same reaction that often occurs in churches today when the preacher tells the people the truth of the Bible. The only difference is that today the people don’t physically beat up the preacher for what he said. Instead, the congregation will do whatever it can to force that preacher to leave the congregation. In Jesus’ day, they really did not want to kill him for what he said. However, they called him a blasphemer, and that required a humiliating punishment, not death. If the people wanted to truly kill Jesus, they would a stoned him in the town. 

 Today people humiliate the preacher when they don’t like the message they just heard. Most of the time, it’s a passive aggressive attitude that develops against the preacher and eventually forces him or her to leave. There are many ways that the congregation will do this to their preacher, and it is totally wrong if the preacher is truly giving the congregation the genuine message of the Bible. 

 I knew a preacher who told me he could not preach the truth of the Bible because the congregation could hold an immediate no-confidence vote in him and he could lose his job. He was afraid to preach the original meaning of the Bible to the people because they wouldn’t like it. Therefore, he had to temper everything he said so nobody would get upset. Yet, he understood that by watering down the Bible in this way, he really wasn’t accomplishing anything for God. However, he had a young family, and he needed employment. That sounds really sad, but it’s a truth that’s out there in our churches. 

 Therefore, the next time you hear a true biblical message from a preacher that stabs you in the heart because you’re not doing what the Bible says, you should do it  instead of getting mad at the preacher. Maybe you should get mad at yourself. Inspect inside of yourself and see if you agree with what the messenger from God is telling you. 

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