Today’s Passage: Luke 3:21–22; 4:14–21
For two days we have watched the Spirit of God at work. Today He comes to rest on one Man. Luke gives two scenes: Jesus praying at a river, then reading aloud in His hometown.
As you read, hold this: Even Jesus worked in the Spirit’s power.
Luke 3:21 (BSB)
²¹ When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as He was praying, heaven was opened,
All kinds of people were down at that river, and Jesus steps into the line with them. He had nothing to be sorry for. He went anyway.
And notice what He was doing when heaven opened. He was praying.
Luke 3:22 (BSB)
²² and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in a bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.”
Look who is in this one verse. The Son is in the water. The Spirit comes down. The Father speaks.
Now read the Father’s words slowly. He does not say, “Today You become My Son.” He says, “You are My beloved Son.” Jesus already was. The voice announces what is true. It does not make it true.
Hold on to that. Nothing was added to Jesus here that He was missing. Last week we spent seven days seeing that He is fully God, and He was fully God standing in that river. What begins here is His public work.
Watch how Luke describes Him going to that work.
Luke 4:14–15 (BSB)
¹⁴ Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and the news about Him spread throughout the surrounding region. ¹⁵ He taught in their synagogues and was glorified by everyone.
In the power of the Spirit. Luke writes it plainly, about Jesus. Do not read past that.
Context What a reading in Nazareth looked like
A synagogue was the local meeting house where Jewish people gathered to pray and hear Scripture. Nazareth was small, and everyone in that room had watched Jesus grow up.
Scripture was kept on scrolls, long rolls of leather wound around two sticks. Standing up to read meant, “These are God’s words.” Sitting down afterward meant, “I am about to teach you what they mean.”
Luke 4:16–17 (BSB)
¹⁶ Then Jesus came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. As was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath. And when He stood up to read, ¹⁷ the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. Unrolling it, He found the place where it was written:
As was His custom means He came every week, on the Sabbath, the day of rest. And notice: He found the place. Nobody chose it for Him.
Luke 4:18–19 (BSB)
¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, ¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Of all the words on all the scrolls, Jesus read these aloud about Himself. And the first thing they say is that the Spirit is on Him.
Word study "Anointed": chriō (Luke 4:18)
Greek: χρίω (chriō), pronounced KHREE-oh. Strong’s G5548.
The word means to pour oil on someone. In Israel that is how a king or a priest was marked out for his work. Oil was poured over his head where everyone could see. From then on he was God’s chosen man.
Now the part worth stopping for. Christos, the word we say as “Christ,” comes straight from this verb. Christ is not Jesus’ last name. It is a title, and it means Anointed One. The Hebrew for it is Messiah.
So when we say “Jesus Christ,” we are saying “Jesus the Anointed One.” And Luke 4:18 says what He was anointed with. Not oil. The Spirit of the Lord.
Look at who Isaiah’s list is for. The poor. Prisoners. The blind. The oppressed, meaning people treated harshly by someone stronger.
Luke 4:20–21 (BSB)
²⁰ Then He rolled up the scroll, returned it to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on Him, ²¹ and He began by saying, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
He rolled it up, handed it back, and sat down. Every eye followed Him.
Then one sentence. Today. Isaiah wrote those words hundreds of years earlier. Jesus tells His hometown the waiting is over.
Study notes The words Jesus was reading
Here is Isaiah’s own line, written centuries before that morning.
"The Spirit of the Lord GOD is on Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners," Isaiah 61:1 (BSB)
Read the opening again. Before Isaiah names the good news, he names the Spirit. God’s Anointed One was always going to be the Spirit-filled One, and Jesus told that room He was the Man.
So here is where today lands. Jesus is fully God, and nothing about that changed at the river or in that room. Yet Luke keeps telling us how the Son carried out His work on earth: in the power of the Spirit, first day to last.
Sit with that. If the Son of God worked that way, the Spirit’s power is nothing small. It is not a lesser gift for people who could not get the real one. It is the same Spirit, and God gives Him to ordinary people. Yesterday’s promise was pointing here.
Personal Application
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What is one thing you have been trying to do for God in your own strength?
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What would you attempt today if you really believed God’s Spirit was with you?
Pray to Close
The central truth: Even Jesus worked in the Spirit’s power. That same Spirit is given to ordinary people who belong to God.
Praise: praise God that Jesus stepped into the water beside ordinary people.
Ask: ask God to make you willing to work in His strength instead of your own.
Give thanks: thank Him that the power Jesus worked in is not kept far from you.
Decision of the day
Today’s decision: Before the first hard thing I face today, I will stop and say out loud, “God’s Spirit is in me, so I am not doing this alone.”
Worship for Today
Jesus Messiah · Chris Tomlin
Today we learned that Christ means Anointed One. This song takes that title and sings it straight back to Him.
Listen: