Jesus returns to His hometown in Nazareth after His baptism and reads the scroll aloud in the synagogue out of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” Isaiah 61 was Jesus’ mission statement that He began with his ministry and what he handed to His church in Acts 1:8, “the Holy Spirit will come upon you…” Chris Carter continued our sermon series on Isaiah 61, highlighting the anointing to receive and give comfort. Jesus knew what to do in the presence of those who are sick and hurting under the anointing of the Spirit. Jesus is moved by compassion towards us in our struggles, condition, sickness, pain, and a broken heart. And now we, like Jesus, have been anointed by the Spirit and moved by supernatural compassion to carry the healing anointing to those who are wounded in the body, soul, and spirit. 

Jesus returns to His hometown in Nazareth after His baptism and reads the scroll aloud in the synagogue out of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” Isaiah 61 was Jesus’ mission statement that He began with his ministry and what he handed to His church in Acts 1:8, “the Holy Spirit will come upon you…”  Walking through the last two phrases of the first verse of Isaiah 61, R.A. Martinez explains the call of every believer to proclamation the gospel and liberating power Jesus purchases at the cross. The gospel is illumination to the blind eyes of unbelief and freedom from the brokenness of sin. We have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of the Beloved Son.

Jesus returns to His hometown in Nazareth after His baptism and reads the scroll aloud in the synagogue out of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” Isaiah 61 was Jesus’ mission statement that He began with his ministry and what he handed to His church in Acts 1:8, “the Holy Spirit will come upon you…”  R.A. Martinez expounds on Isaiah 61 which is the Great Commission spelled out in detail. Jesus left the comfort, familiarity, and riches of one culture to enter another culture, learning a new language, embracing hardship, difficulty, and death to lift the very ones fighting against Him up from the ashes into everlasting life. Jesus sent us into neighborhoods and nations to do the same. The Spirit is looking to wrap Himself around weak humans beings to bring good news to the poor and to bind up the brokenhearted. 

Jesus returns to His hometown in Nazareth after His baptism and reads the scroll aloud in the synagogue out of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” Isaiah 61 was Jesus’ mission statement that He began with his ministry and what he handed to His church in Acts 1:8, “the Holy Spirit will come upon you…”  R.A. Martinez dives into Isaiah 61 - Jesus’ 7-part mission statement, the baptism of Jesus, and the passing of the Isaiah 61 mandate from Jesus to us with the promise of the same Spirit to rest upon us to carry that mandate to the ends of the earth. 

Jesus wants to have a conversation with the church in your city. After nine months of walking through Revelation chapters 1-3, we must ask ourselves, “What is God saying to our spiritual family?” R.A. Martinez shares the conclusion to this series and the lessons learned from studying the Man Among the Lampstands and the Seven Letters. R.A. recaps the specific lessons learned from each letter written by Jesus and penned by John to the seven churches in Eurasia.

Jesus wants to have a conversation with the Church in your city. In the Letter to the Church in Laodicea, Jesus measures the success of the church by their love and purity, willing spirit, and humility, which is opposite from how the world defines success. Jesus wants the church to, instead of manufacture revival, take His hand as he leads them into brokenness, a deep acknowledgment of insufficiency, and an utter dependency on Him. Jesus wants to rescue His Church from independence.

Jesus is the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God. Because He is the source of life, He can tell us our true condition. Through the church in Laodicea, Jesus is inviting us to lay down areas of indifference and independence so that we can have intimate fellowship with Him. To those who overcome, there is an invitation to reign and rule with Him.

Jesus wants to have a conversation with the Church in your city. In the Letter to the Church in Philadelphia, Jesus encourages and exhorts the people to persevere, hold fast, and fix their attention upon eternity. Jesus emphasizes His care for His people as He intervenes to open and shut doors, helping those who are persecuted and in difficulty to fulfill His will. He then lays out the rewards to those who overcome, promising that those who keep His Word are able to because they are being kept by Jesus.

Jesus wants to have a conversation with the Church in your city. In Jesus's letter to the Church in Sardis, He is asking the leaders and believers “Where is the most important place for your name to be known?” The Church in Sardis had fallen asleep spiritually, coasting on their reputation as a revival church. In reality, they had lost a deep desire for God's presence, a hunger for the Word, and had a dullness on their spirit in the midst of the busyness of ministry. Jesus calls the church to “wake up," take a hard look at the condition of their hearts, respond to His words, and align with reality.

The generation of the Lord's return will witness the greatest crisis that the earth has ever experienced as man's sin matures in unprecedented wickedness coinciding with the judgments of God in the nations. But that's not the end of the story! The most glorious days of the Church are coming when she is beatified in holiness, victorious in love, moving in power, and giving witness to the Gospel throughout the nations of the earth. We must be a people who declares and prepares for both the coming crisis and the coming glory, responding rightly to Jesus now as He prepares us to walk in the days ahead.