Matthew 4:12-17
Notes
Transcript
Matthew 4:12-17
Matthew 4:12-17
We have entered a new section of Matthew’s gospel, which focuses on the major theme of the kingdom of God. In the first chunk, we looked at how Matthew introduced the king over this kingdom, Jesus.
Now as we enter the section major section, we are seeing what this king is all about in his teaching and proclamation.
12 Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. 13 And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 15 “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— 16 the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” 17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Jesus’ basic message was the announcement of the kingdom of God
This is ALL OVER the gospel of Matthew, and all of the gospels; if you don’t understand the kingdom of God, you don’t really understand Jesus
What is the kingdom of God?
The Kingdom God is heaven, the place you go when you die
The Kingdom of God is the church
The Kingdom of God and the Church are synonymous
The Kingdom of God is good deeds
Therefore, the announcement of the kingdom is a call to social action
“Men build the Kingdom of God as they work for the ideal social order and endeavor to solve the problems of poverty, sickness, labor relations, social inequalities and race relationships. The primary task of the Church is to build the Kingdom of God.” - George Eldon Ladd, The Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God
Ladd’s critique of this view is fair; a) Jesus builds his kingdom, not us, and b) it is incomplete, as it does not address the issue of personal human sinfulness
All of these are not wrong, but the fail to capture the grandness of the biblical portrayal of the kingdom of God. They tend to be one dimensional, lacking depth, and not encompassing of the full biblical narrative.
How do we understand the kingdom of God, and why does our world so desperately need the kingdom of God?
I. The Kingdom of God is God’s people in God’s place under God’s rule
I. The Kingdom of God is God’s people in God’s place under God’s rule
There are many ways of communicating this reality
“A nation consists of a common people, sharing a common land, submissive to a common law, and having a common ruler.” - Bruce Waltke, The Kingdom of God in Biblical Theology
“The kingdom of God is the King’s power over the King’s people in the King’s place.” Patrick Schreiner, The Kingdom of God and the Glory of the Cross
The Kingdom of God involves the king’s reign, people, and place.
It is essential that we understand all three of these facets of the kingdom if we are to understand Jesus at all
The authority, power and reign of Jesus
The redeemed people of God
The spaces where God’s people go into, work, live, gather
Application: What does this have to do with the gathering of the church?
It is a gathering of God’s people, the redeemed people of God
This is the driving, primary identity of the people of God’s kingdom
It is God’s people who are made up of all who call upon the name of Jesus through faith in him
It is not a people who are bound to one another by ethnic, national, political, or recreational similarities, but rather by faith in Jesus
Who gather to celebrate and submit to God’s reign in worship of him
When we gather, we are gathered to celebrate and submit to the reign of King Jesus in worship of him
We are not gathered to celebrate anything else
Who gather in a particular place in order to worship him
This building is not intrinsically important ain and of itself
But it IS important insofar as it is the place where this local body of God’s people have chosen to gather together
This place is made special by virtue of it being the place where we regularly gather
So for Christians, we don’t view buildings as a temple, but we do view buildings as a cherished resource because they provide us physical spaces where we can gather together in common worship of God
The point is, when we gather as a church, we are coming together as the people of God celebrating the reign of God in a specific place, but also with the entirety of the kingdom of God in mind
Hebrews 12:22-24
22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
Hebrews 12:28-29
28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.
This theme of God’s kingdom is woven throughout all of the biblical narrative
Genesis begins with God creating human beings to rule over the good creation he has made
Genesis 1:26-27
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
In the ancient near east, “Image” had to do with sonship and kingship
The kings of ANE cultures viewed themselves having the right to rule because they were children and living images of the gods
The Hebrew Bible presents a radically different view and says that it’s not just kings who are made in the image of God, but all humans
Humanity is pictured as in a sense God’s child made in his image to serve him as a ruler over his creation but under his authority
Genesis 1:28-31
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Notice from the beginning, God has created a people to live under his gracious rule in his good creation: his reign over his people in his place
The first humans, representative of all of humanity, rebel against God’s rule and side with a rival kingdom headed up by the serpent
This rebellion subjugates all of creation to the rule of a rival king, Satan
The rest of the Old Testament is the beginning of the story of how God is going to reverse this rebellion
Israel was meant to serve as an image of how God was going to restore his rightful, loving rule over all of creation
But Israel also rebels against God and submits to the rival kingdom, so they were exiled from the land of Israel just as Adam and Eve were exiled from the garden
The prophets foretold of a day when God would restore Israel to her glory as his people, but also of a day when God’s kingdom would transcend even Israel
Jesus comes in fulfillment of that promise, as the true image of God as the only Son of God, and he comes to reign as king over God’s people
Jesus arrival was nothing short of an act of war, an assault on the kingdom of the world under the reign of Satan
“Enemy-occupied territory---that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.” - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
II. The kingdom of God is light in the darkness
II. The kingdom of God is light in the darkness
13 And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 15 “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— 16 the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.”
Geography - MAP
Galilee was a region west of the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee
Not a large area, but a very fertile area with a considerable population
Important roads passed through the area, and Galilee functioned as an international trade route
“Judaea is on the way to nowhere: Galilee is on the way to everywhere”
Culture
Galilee was a populous center where many people lived and where many different ethnic groups had come over the span of history
It was therefore despised by those in Jerusalem and Judea who thought that Galilee was the region where true Jewish culture had been tainted by the pluralistic influence of other cultures and people groups
Galilee was to Judea as Bend is to Redmond in Central Oregon, or as Portland is to all of Central Oregon
This is where Jesus went to live and begin his ministry; why?
To fulfill God’s purposes as written down in the prophetic ministry of Isaiah
So Jesus goes to live in Galilee of the gentiles, and Matthew uses the words of Isaiah to describe this so beautifully: “The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.”
The biblical metaphor of darkness
Delusion - the idea that people do not understand God
Ephesians 4:17-18
17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.
Depravity - people live in bondage and slavery to their own sin, in unbounded gratification of their sinful desires
Ephesians 4:19
19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
Despondency - as people experience the consequence and devastation of sin, it leads them into increasing hopelessness and gloom
Ephesians 2:11-12
11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
The people in Galilee are living in darkness, in the shadow of death
They do not believe God, and as a result they live in their sin and depravity, and the consequence of their own sin and depravity continues to loop back upon themselves, leading them to greater and greater hopelessness
This caused the religious leaders in the south to despise them
This caused Jesus to take up his residence among them
Jesus comes preaching that the kingdom of God has come near, is encroaching upon the kingdom of darkness
Application: Where we opened with the idea of how a right theology of the kingdom of God actually informs and gives shape to our gathering, here see that a right theology of the kingdom of God informs and gives shape to our scattering and our mission
First, Jesus is the great light shining in the darkness of your life
In your delusion
In your depravity
In your despondency
As the redeemed people of God who celebrate and submit to the righteous reign of King Jesus, we don’t just gather in this place, but we scatter into many places in our lives, where we are to go as ambassadors of the king,
Representing his reign over his people in every place where we go
Shining a light in the darkness of our world
In my observation, this is needed as serious paradigm shift in the church today
We often act much like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day who despised the people who we see as living in darkness
We aren’t going to go and take up residence with them and live life alongside them; we are going to circle our wagons, talk about how dark it is out there, talk to one another about how delusional or depraved people out there are, lament how dark our world is
It’s a wagon circling approach rather than a missional, light bearing, kingdom advancing approach
We do not desire to be a people who retreat from the world around us and hide in our Christian bubbles, but rather a people who take the gospel into a dark culture that desperately needs it
“Why blame the dark for being dark? It is far more helpful to ask why the light isn’t as bright as it could be.” Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith
There are two answers to the question posed by Bell
Ironically, he and the progressive Christianity he represents have shown us one
The light of the world is ultimately Jesus himself, and to the extent Christians abandon the true biblical Jesus, we walk in darkness and fail to shine any light into the world around us
You are not in and of yourself light in the world; you are light insofar as you hold out the hope and light of the gospel of Jesus Christ
The other reason is that we view those in darkness as those to be despised rather than those to be loved with the light of the gospel
Conclusion
Conclusion
So my prayer for our church and for you is twofold
That we would hold firmly to Jesus as the one who is the light in the darkness of our life
In our confusion, sin, and hopelessness, in our darkness; let us not think that there is light to be found anyone but the person of Jesus
That we would boldly shine the light of the darkness of our world, not retreating in fear but engaging in love