The Inaugural Campaign Text: Luke 4:14-15
Introduction: Power and Popularity
We live in an age that is obsessed with power and with popularity. Our politicians crave power, our celebrities crave popularity, and most of us, if we are honest, crave some measure of both in our own little kingdoms. We want influence. We want to be well-regarded. We want our lives to have an impact. And so we scheme, we market ourselves, we build our platforms, we curate our images, and we do all of this in the flesh. The result is a world full of noisy, anxious, and ultimately impotent striving.
Into this world of self-made men and carefully constructed reputations, the Lord Jesus Christ enters. But He does not enter as the world expects a king to enter. He does not hire a PR firm. He does not conduct focus groups. He does not build a coalition or raise funds. He returns from a forty-day contest with the devil in the wilderness, and He does so "in the power of the Spirit." This is the headwaters of the entire Christian faith. This is the beginning of the campaign that will, in the end, conquer the entire world. It is a campaign that runs on a different kind of fuel, a different kind of power.
The world thinks power is the ability to coerce, to intimidate, to bend others to your will through brute force or clever manipulation. The world thinks popularity is the fickle applause of the crowd, something to be won through charm and compromise. But our text this morning shows us the grammar of the Kingdom. True power is the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit. True influence is the unavoidable byproduct of a life lived in that power. And the glory that results is not something that can be manufactured; it is the spontaneous combustion that occurs when Heaven invades earth.
Luke has just finished telling us about the testing of Jesus. The Spirit led Him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, and having defeated the enemy on every front, the Spirit now leads Him out onto the field of battle. This is not a quiet retreat to recover. This is the launch of an invasion. And in these two short verses, we see the pattern for all effective ministry, from that day to this. It is a ministry empowered by the Spirit, validated by its fruit, and conducted in the central places of the culture, all for the glory of God.
The Text
And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about Him spread through all the surrounding district. And He was teaching in their synagogues, being glorified by all.
(Luke 4:14-15 LSB)
The Engine of Ministry (v. 14a)
We begin with the source of Christ's power.
"And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit..." (Luke 4:14a)
Everything hinges on this first clause. Jesus, in His humanity, undertakes His ministry in complete and utter dependence on the Holy Spirit. This is a staggering thought. The eternal Son of God, through whom the universe was made, condescends not only to become a man, but to live His life as a man in the way that all men were created to live: in the power of the Spirit. He did not pull from some secret, internal divine energy source that is unavailable to us. He modeled perfect, Spirit-filled humanity. This is crucial. If He did it as God, then His life is admirable, but not imitable. But because He did it as a man filled with the Spirit, His life is the pattern for our own.
The "power of the Spirit" is not an impersonal force, like electricity. The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity. He is the one who hovered over the waters of creation, bringing order out of the formless void. He is the one who breathed life into Adam. And He is the one who now anoints the second Adam for the work of new creation. This power is personal, relational, and covenantal. It is the power that raised Christ from the dead, and it is the same power that raises us from our spiritual death.
Notice the sequence. The Spirit descended on Him at His baptism, the Spirit led Him into the wilderness, and now He returns in the Spirit's power. There is a pattern here: anointing, testing, and then ministry. We often want to skip straight to the ministry part. We want the power without the testing, the platform without the preparation. But God's economy does not work that way. The wilderness is the proving ground for Galilee. The private victory over temptation is the necessary prerequisite for the public display of power.
The Unstoppable Report (v. 14b)
The immediate consequence of this Spirit-empowered return is a fame that spreads without any human effort to promote it.
"...and news about Him spread through all the surrounding district." (Luke 4:14b LSB)
When the power of God is genuinely present, you do not need a marketing committee. The news just spreads. It is an organic, irrepressible reality. A fire does not need to advertise that it is hot; it simply is, and everyone who comes near it knows it. In the same way, the ministry of Jesus had an authenticity that created its own publicity. The Greek word here for "news" is pheme, from which we get our word "fame." A report about Him went out. What was the report? It was a report of His teaching, His wisdom, His authority, and soon, His miracles.
This is a profound rebuke to the modern church's obsession with relevance and marketing. We spend so much time and money trying to make the gospel palatable, to make Jesus popular, to get the word out through clever branding. But the book of Acts was not launched with a branding campaign. It was launched by the coming of the same Spirit that empowered Jesus. When the church is walking in the power of the Spirit, the world can't help but talk about it. Sometimes they will talk in rage, and sometimes in wonder, but they will not be able to ignore it. A Spirit-filled church is newsworthy. A carnal church is boring, and no amount of clever marketing can fix that.
The scope is also important: "all the surrounding district." This is the beginning of the fulfillment of the Great Commission. The fame of Jesus begins in a corner of Galilee, but it is destined to fill the whole earth. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, small at the beginning, but growing into a great tree. This is the postmillennial engine warming up. The fame of Jesus Christ will one day be the central and defining reality for every nation on earth.
The Field of Battle (v. 15a)
Next, Luke tells us where Jesus took this Spirit-empowered ministry.
"And He was teaching in their synagogues..." (Genesis 1:15a LSB)
This is a critical strategic point. Jesus does not begin His ministry by starting a "new thing" out in the desert. He goes directly to the established centers of religious and community life in Israel: the synagogues. This was the equivalent of going to the universities, the halls of government, and the denominational headquarters of His day. He was not content to build a small, holy huddle of followers on the margins. He went straight to the heart of the culture to lay claim to it.
By teaching in their synagogues, He was doing two things. First, He was honoring the structures that God had ordained in the Old Covenant. He was a faithful Israelite. But second, He was issuing a direct challenge to the existing leadership. He taught, as Matthew tells us, "as one having authority, and not as the scribes." He was not just another commentator offering another opinion on the text. He was the Author of the text, stepping into the room to explain what it truly meant. This was an invasion. He was reclaiming His Father's house. The church must learn from this. We are not called to abandon the culture, but to go into its central institutions and reclaim them for Christ the King.
The Fleeting Applause (v. 15b)
The initial reaction to this invasion was overwhelmingly positive.
"...being glorified by all." (Genesis 1:15b LSB)
The word "glorified" here means He was praised, honored, and held in high esteem. Everyone was impressed. His teaching was brilliant. His presence was compelling. There was an authority about Him that was undeniable. And so, for a short time, He was the talk of the town, and the talk was all good. He was popular.
But we must be careful here. This is the glory that man gives, and it is as fickle as the wind. The same crowds that glorified Him would, before long, be the ones screaming for His crucifixion. Why? Because at this early stage, they had not yet understood the radical nature of His claims. They loved His wisdom, but they had not yet been confronted with His demand for total allegiance. They were impressed by His authority, but they had not yet been told that this authority required them to repent of their sins and bow the knee to Him as Lord.
This is a permanent lesson for the church. The world will often praise our good works. It might admire our beautiful music or our articulate preachers. It may even "glorify" us for our charitable work. But the moment we move from general wisdom to the specific, exclusive claims of the gospel, that glory turns to rage. The moment we say that Jesus is not just a good teacher, but the only way to the Father, the applause stops. The world's glory is a trap. It is a temptation to soften the message, to keep the applause coming. But Jesus did not seek the glory that comes from man. He sought only the glory that comes from the Father. And we must do the same. The approval of all is a dangerous thing. It is a sign that you have likely omitted the offensive, glorious, life-giving truth of the cross.
Conclusion: The Unchanging Pattern
So what do we take from this? We see in these verses the unchanging pattern for the mission of the Church. Our mission, like Christ's, must be undertaken in the power of the Holy Spirit. We cannot do it. Our programs cannot do it. Our budgets cannot do it. Our cleverness cannot do it. Only the Spirit of God can advance the kingdom of God.
When we are walking in that power, the fruit will be evident. A true report will go out. The world will notice. They may not like what they see, but they will not be able to deny that something real is happening. This is the kind of fame we should desire, not for our own name, but for His.
And we must take this Spirit-empowered mission to the synagogues of our day, to the centers of cultural influence. We must not be content to be a subculture. We are to be a counter-culture that aims to become the culture. We must teach with the authority of God's Word, declaring that Jesus Christ is Lord over every square inch of His creation.
And finally, we must not be seduced by the fleeting glory that the world offers. The applause of men is a snare. Our task is not to be popular, but to be faithful. The world glorified Jesus for a little while, and then it crucified Him. But in crucifying Him, it unwittingly accomplished the plan of God, which led to a far greater glory, the glory of the resurrection. Let us, therefore, follow our King, in the power of His Spirit, into the synagogues of our world, faithful to His Word, and content with the glory that comes from God alone.