Matthew 13:53-58 - Nazareth, the City of Unbelief
Introduction
A. After beginning His ministry, He filled Galilee and Judea with wonder with his powerful signs of healing and casting out demons, but also with the wisdom of His words and the authority of His style of teaching. Thousands flocked to Him and see and hear this wonderful Prophet of God.
1. Matthew 13:53-58. When Jesus returned to the city of His youth, He entered the synagogue and the folks that had known Him from His youth offered Him an audience, so He taught them.
2. Luke 4:16-30 offers us a little more detail of the exchange between them and Jesus.
3. This brief domestic scene gives us a glimpse of the real private life of the Son of Man who was the Son of God on this earth. The person that we know and love, even though we have not seen Him, was raised in an ordinary town among ordinary people. Jesus’ greatness was a “well-kept secret” in the society of Nazareth, which was to blind to see who He really was. To them He was just one of Mary’s many sons, who was raised by the local carpenter, Joseph. Although He was born in Bethlehem, near Jerusalem, at a young age his family settled in Nazareth to escape the dangers of the Herodian kings. They left behind the political centers of the priesthood in Jerusalem. The flocks of the great and powerful pastured near Bethlehem.
B. How can a town so blessed, be the city of so much unbelief?
I. They Looked Down on His Humble Beginnings
A. When Jesus read from Isaiah’s prophecy (61:1-2), “He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him and He began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’” They marveled but remained in their unbelief. Notice the implications of what Jesus said.
1. The Spirit of the Lord is upon Jesus, because He has anointed Him to proclaim good news to the poor. Thus, Jesus is an inspired prophet of God and they are the poor who are hearing the good news.
2. God sent Jesus to proclaim liberty to the captives. Therefore, they are captives who need to be freed from the bondage of their sins. That is the only message Jesus preached.
3. Jesus gave sight to the blind. This blindness is the voluntary blindness caused by sin and deception or ignorance. Therefore, they were the blind who needed to open their eyes and see what was happening in their own back yard.
B. They said, “Is this not the carpenter’s son?” That is, “He is only a carpenter’s son!”
1. They did not accept the message, nor the correction, because they did not appreciate who Jesus was.
2. Jesus confronted their prejudices and they did not like it.
C. John 7:2-5. In Nazareth, His own brothers had problems believing in Jesus. “Now the Jews' Feast of Booths was at hand. 3 So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. 4 For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” 5 For not even his brothers believed in him.”
1. They accuse Jesus of being a “glory-hound.” As if He sought attention and fame.
2. Why could they not see the hand of God in the works that He was doing?
3. If they who were raised with Jesus, could not see the glory of the only-begotten of the Father until after the resurrection, then God clearly orchestrated His power, so as to do great things, but in a quiet manner, so that only the ones whose eyes were open could see the implications of what He was doing. Prejudice and preconceived notions make blind men of us all.
D. John 7:45-52. Among the Jews of Jerusalem, some challenged the credentials of Jesus. “The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man!” 47 The Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? 48 Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? 49 But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.” 50 Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, 51 “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” 52 They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”
1. Jesus was not schooled at the feet of the “Rabbis” in Jerusalem like Saul of Tarsus. When Saul (as Paul the apostle) stood before the Jerusalem crowd who called for his blood, he related the credentials that they usually required of an authority. Acts 22:3, “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day.”
2. John observes that many actually did believe in Jesus but would not confess Him for fear of the others. John 12:42, “Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue.”
3. Jesus had a greater authority which Paul writes about in his letter to the Corinthians.
-- 2 Corinthians 10:7-18, “Look at what is before your eyes. If anyone is confident that he is Christ's, let him remind himself that just as he is Christ's, so also are we. 8 For even if I boast a little too much of our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for destroying you, I will not be ashamed … 11 Let such a person understand that what we say by letter when absent, we do when present. 12 Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding. … 18 For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.
4. What credentials qualify any man to preach the Gospel?
1. What is a “school”? Is it not a group of people who have chosen someone to teach them?
2. What is a “diploma” or a “degree”? Is it not a document prepared to state that a certain group of men consider someone prepared or competent according to their system of instruction? Who gives them the authority to award a degree or diploma? They themselves. One man commends another man. One man honors another. Whom does the Lord honor? How do we know? The Scriptures are the only criteria by which we may judge one another. Our decisions are our own and not necessarily God’s.
3. Who has the right to “ordain” a preacher? Who has the right to write a charter for a church? These are roles that men have assumed, and thus have usurped the authority of Jesus Christ the Son of God.
II. The Unbelief of Nazareth became evident when they tried to kill Jesus.
A. What made them so angry at Jesus?
B. Jesus called to their memory two of their greatest prophets from the late kingdom era: Elijah and Elisha.
1. Luke 4:25-26, “But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, 26 and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.”
2. The great famine that Jesus mentioned afflicted the nation in the days of king Ahab and his Phoenician wife Jezebel who imposed the worship of Sidon’s god Baal on Israel. God honored a Gentile widow, when he sent Elijah to her house for refuge from the famine that humbled Israel.
3. God honored another Gentile through the prophet Elijah. Luke 4:27, “And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” During the wars between Israel and Syria, a young maiden was taken and became a slave in the house of the Syrian Commander Naaman. Naaman suffered the ravages of leprosy. His young slave knew of the great wonders that God had performed through His prophets and one said to her mistress, “Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” 2 Kings 5 is devoted to the story of a Syrian leper whom God healed in the river Jordan, the only leper healed in Israel, and yet he was not an Israelite.
4. Nazareth was so incensed by Jesus’ words that they attempted to throw Him over the cliff, the brow of the city.
B. Unbelief is caused not by doubt or philosophical choices but by moral choices.
1. Psalm 14:1 The fool who says there is no God is simply corrupt and living in sin. The Psalmist says that he is greedy, that is, he is self-absorbed and willful. See also Psalm 10:3-4.
2. The atheistic scientists are following the lead of “dirty old men.” If the blind lead the blind, they will both fall into the pit. Matthew 15:14.
3. The unbelievers of Nazareth and of Jerusalem were simply unrepentant sinners who insulted the messenger of grace.
Conclusion: Can we learn from the fatal mistake that Nazareth made?