Before Jesus has done anything in a public ministry way,
he has to confront the devil.
So when we talk about the gates of hell shall not prevail,
right at the beginning of Jesus' ministry
is here's the devil trying to derail Jesus.
The gates of hell shall not prevail.
That's what I'm talking about in this series.
And in the first episode,
I talked about Satan's job description.
In the second episode, I talked about Jesus' job description.
And in this episode, I'm talking about Jesus' mission.
How did his abundant life that he promised us,
how does that actually get worked out in the world?
How does that really happen?
And Jesus, going back to Nazareth,
he's just beginning his ministry.
He has been baptized by John the Baptist.
He's been out in the wilderness
and been tempted by Jesus for 40 days and 49th fasting prayer
and he comes back and he comes back into
probably the synagogue that he grew up in.
He's handed the Bible,
he's handed the Old Testament to read.
It was his time to read.
He read it, he reads from Isaiah and then he announces,
I mean, I'm sure that everybody there
didn't know exactly what they were experiencing,
but he's actually announcing what his mission is,
how he's gonna carry out his purpose
and his mission on the earth.
So if you have your Bible, turn to Luke chapter four,
Luke chapter four on the mission of Jesus.
And you could go back all the way to verse one,
Jesus being filled with the Holy Spirit
returned from the Jordan
and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,
being tempted 40 days by the devil.
So before Jesus has done anything in a public ministry way,
he has to confront the devil.
So when we talk about the gates of hell shall not prevail,
right at the beginning of Jesus' ministry
is here's the devil trying to derail Jesus,
trying to prevail over him.
And we notice here that the first temptation
from Satan in verse three is if you are the son of God,
command this stone to become bread.
In other words, Jesus is hungry.
He's been fasting for 40 days
and the devil comes and tempts him
to take a stone and turn it into bread.
In other words, meet his own needs first,
take care of his own appetites,
use his supernatural power to take care of his appetites.
And in verse four, Jesus said,
it is written man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word of God.
In other words, Jesus is going to live by the word of God,
the will of God, the kingdom of God.
And that's what feeds his soul,
not just food, but also spiritual food,
which comes from the word of God.
And the temptations move into authority and power
in verses five through eight,
and then verses nine through 12,
Jesus comes back against the devil.
And that's his interaction with Satan one-on-one
in the wilderness.
But now what I wanna camp on though
is when Jesus actually pronounces what he's come to do.
You see what a mission is?
A mission is how you carry out a vision.
And the vision that Jesus had,
we talked about in the last episode,
was he said, I've come that you might have a life
and might have abundant life.
And we talked about that word abundantly,
perizo in the Greek has the idea of super abundance,
overflowing, more than you can imagine.
So Jesus is going way over the top.
He's saying anything you can imagine as far as life goes,
I wanna give that to you.
I want you to go after that.
It's part of the kingdom of God.
Well, now here in this passage,
Jesus is explaining how that happens.
And really it's a confrontation with the devil.
It's a confrontation with the flesh.
It's a confrontation with the kingdoms of this earth.
Let's pick it up in verse 16 of Luke four.
He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day
and stood up to read.
And he was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah.
And when he had opened it, opened the book,
he found the place where it was written.
The spirit of the Lord is upon me
because he has anointed me.
me to preach the gospel of the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim
liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who
are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." So this is the mission
of Jesus. If anybody ever asks you, does Jesus have a mission statement? This is it, Luke
4, 18 and 19. So let's look at it. He says, first of all, the Spirit of the Lord is upon
me. So the first thing we need to realize is the mission of Jesus is about being filled
with the Holy Spirit. Even Jesus said, the Spirit of the Lord has to be upon me to accomplish
what God the Father has told me to do. You out there that are listening to this, the
challenge is, are you filled with the Holy Spirit? Do you have the power of the Holy
Spirit flowing in your life? Because you're not going to be able to be a part of the mission
of Jesus if you don't. You do not have the capacity to do it. But he says, first of all,
preach the gospel to the poor. What I've done in my Bible is I've underlined all these
direct objects about who Jesus was after. And the first one he says is, preach the gospel
to the poor. This means physically poor, financially poor, spiritually poor, emotionally
poor, psychologically poor. Jesus is going after those who do not have the abundant life.
They do not have the riches of the kingdom of God in their life. And he's going to proclaim
the freedom of the gospel to the poor. And so men and women, as we look at the gates
of hell not prevailing in our lives, are you using your voice to proclaim the gospel
to the poor? Jesus is saying, this is my mission, and I want it to be your mission. Then he
says, he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted. So Jesus went after the brokenhearted, and
he came not to keep them brokenhearted, but to heal them, heal their heart. Remember what
I said? That Satan's job description is to steal your heart, to kill your vision, and
to destroy your future. Jesus is saying just the opposite. He's saying, I have come to
take those on this earth who are brokenhearted and to heal them. Jesus primarily, the most,
the biggest thing eternal life means is the healing of a broken heart. Eternal life's
not just about where we go when we die. Eternal life begins with the kingdom of God coming
into our lives when we give our heart to Christ here on the earth. And the first thing that
the Holy Spirit wants to do in our lives is heal our broken heart. And so if you know
someone who's brokenhearted, tell them about Jesus. If you're listening to this and you
have a broken heart, surrender your heart to Jesus. Let him come and soothe your heart
and to heal your broken heart. Secondly, he says, proclaim liberty to the captives. So
some people are in captivity, literally in captivity by being in prisons and jails. Others
are in the captivity of their own emotional jail, their own emotional prison, their own
spiritual prison, their own physical prison in their life for various reasons. And Jesus
came to proclaim, look, you can, you can have liberty over your captivity. I came to set
you free. I can set you free. I came to set the captives free. Jesus is a freedom fighter.
Jesus comes to set the captives free emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually. That's
what he does. That's his mission is to set the captives free. And some of you here are
struggling with addictions. You might be struggling with drug addiction. You might be struggling
with sex addiction. You might be struggling with alcohol. I don't know what it is, but
I do know this, that Christ comes to set you free. That's what he does. That's his mission
is set captives free. If you'll surrender your life fully to Christ right now, wherever
you are, that begins right then the process of the Holy Spirit coming into your life to
set you free. You will not get free any other way. You have to get free only through Jesus
Christ. Then he says recovery of sight to the blind. So a lot of us have blinders over
our eyes. We have emotional blinders. We have spiritual blinders. Some of you might even
be literally physically blind, but Christ came to take blindness and to heal the blind.
heal the blindness and give us sight, give us sight.
I can tell you hundreds of people
that have had the privilege of being around
who have given their heart to Christ
who could not see the gospel, could not see truth,
could not see righteousness.
And then they gave their heart to Christ
and suddenly their blindness was healing.
It was like, I mean, it's literally like scales
came off their eyes and they could see.
Before, couldn't even understand the Bible.
After, totally understood the Bible.
It made sense to them.
It came alive in their life because the spirit of God
comes to bring recovery of sight to the blind.
Next, Jesus says, to set at liberty those who are oppressed.
So not just depressed, but oppressed.
Oppression, I think, is something from the outside
that's impacting you on the inside and driving you down.
This oppression of culture, this oppression
of what and how we view ourselves
is something that Christ came to set at liberty.
So instead of being in bondage,
the Lord wants you to be free and to walk in liberty
and break the power of oppression.
And then lastly, he says to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord.
In other words, accept and proclaim the goodness of God,
the love of God, the abundance that is ours in God.
So this mission of Jesus is about healing the brokenhearted,
preaching the gospel of the poor,
proclaiming liberty to captives,
recovery of sight to the blind,
and to set at liberty those who are oppressed
and proclaim the good and acceptable year of the Lord.
Amazing.
That's the mission of Jesus.
And the more we walk that out,
the more we discover that in our personal lives,
the more that kind of liberty,
that kind of freedom is gonna take over our lives
in every area of our life.
So as we talk about the gates of hell shall not prevail,
what we mean is to allow Christ come into our life,
give him the gates of hell in our life.
What are those gates of hell in our lives
that are holding us back, that are causing oppression,
that are causing captivity,
that are causing blindness over our lives?
Christ came and he can begin to set us free
in a mighty and powerful way.
So hopefully that's helpful to you.
And in our next episode,
we're gonna be talking about the battle,
the battle between light and darkness and good and evil,
and how Christ came basically to take down evil
on this Earth through people like you and me.
God bless you.