Well, good morning. It's good to see you today.
If you have your Bible, you can open some Matthew chapter 4 in
the last few verses of chapter 4 today.
Then we'll get into the sermon on the mounts beginning next
week. So Matthew chapter 4 will be in
23 through 25. We are standing, I guess, at
what you might call a or an important turning point in this
gospel. All right, Jesus has in recent
weeks, we've seen Jesus baptized.
We've seen Jesus in the wilderness overcoming Satan.
We saw last week from Brother Dustin Meadows that Jesus began
calling his disciples. And So what we've been observing
is that the king has arrived. And now Matthew offers what what
we might call a summary of what his ministry looks like.
Now it's not to say there isn't real things happening that we're
going to look at today, but it's kind of a summary that's going
to show us really the what the rest of the gospel is showing
us. So these 3 verses are might be
kind of like a wide angle lens or a 30,000 foot view, if you
will, before we get into really specific teaching in the Sermon
on the Mount in chapter 5, before we see specific miracles
in chapters 8 and 9 and, and, and beyond.
Matthew is going to offer the sweeping picture of the
authority of Jesus, you might say the authority of the king.
And so we're about to see what kind of king he is.
All right, We, we've heard for a while now as we walk through
this and he's the king and he's the king has arrived.
The king is being prepared for his ministry.
What we're seeing, though, I hope so far, and I just want to
reiterate to you now, is that this is not a distant king,
right? This is the king who has come
near. This is not a weak king.
Rather he is mighty in power. This is not a harsh king, right?
He extends mercy and compassion and kindness.
We'll see a lot of that this morning.
This is a king who teaches with truth.
This is a king who proclaims good news.
This is a king who heals the broken, confronts darkness,
draws people to himself, right? This is the all powerful king of
heaven. This is the Son of God, Jesus
Christ. And so this passage shows us
both the power and the compassion of Christ.
So it shows the power and the compassion of Christ, and it
prepares us to listen carefully to everything we see or
everything that he's going to say next in the Sermon on the
Mount. So as we read, I don't want you
to just hear about activity that's going on.
All right, it's easy. This, this is one of those
paragraphs in the Scriptures that you might just quickly read
over in your Bible reading. All right, I don't want you to
just hear about activity. I want you today to see the
authority of the king. I want you to see the heart of
the king on display. And we should ask ourselves as
we go through this, what kind of response does this king deserve?
Right. What kind of response does this
king deserve? So if you're able to stand,
would you please stand as we read Matthew 423 through 25?
And he went all he went throughout all Galilee, teaching
in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the
Kingdom, and healing every disease and every affliction
among the people. So his fame spread throughout
all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted
with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those
having seizures and paralytics, and he healed them.
And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis
and from Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we humbly
approach your word this morning. My God, we acknowledge that you
have spoken, that the words that we read are the inspired Word of
God, written through your servant Matthew.
And Father, we ask that You would help us through this, that
You would help us by Your spirits to submit ourselves to
Your Word. Father, that You would open our
hearts, and that You would make them fertile soil for Your word
to be planted within, that it might bear fruit in the coming
days and years and decades and seasons.
Lord, that Your goodness might be seen for generations.
Because You have called Your people to yourself and they have
committed themselves to You, submitted themselves to Your
rule of their life. And so they know Your Word, that
they know Your presence, they know your help in time of need,
they know your grace and your mercy, they know your wisdom and
knowledge. And Father, they're equipped and
all these things and more for every good work.
Oh, Lord, would you help us to be faithful men and women today,
faithful boys and girls, as we hear your word, help us to
believe it. First of all, help us to stake
our lives on it, to be committed to it, to be transformed by it.
Help us to believe in in such a way that we walk in it.
Our God that we are we, we are like the one at the end of the
Sermon on the Mount who builds his house on the rock, builds
his house on your word. So the when the wind and the
rains come, when the storms beat against our house, they remain
solid. Father, would you build within
us lives that are solid, lives that are faithful?
Father, we trust you for this work, through this message,
through your Word today. It's in the name of Christ, I
pray. Amen.
You may be seated.
I think that it's true that if we're not careful, we'll read
these verses like a summary paragraph.
And like I said a moment ago, we'll move on too quickly.
We have to understand that Matthew's not writing filler
words here, all right? None of none of none of this.
There's nothing in here that's meant to be filler words, all
right? This is the inspired word of
God. God has spoken.
And so we know that there's nothing in here that's filler
there. Everything in here is meant to
impact our lives in one way or another, all right?
It's it's meant to transform us. And so we must pay attention to
God's word when we come to it, even even if it's something
difficult like a genealogy, all right, even if it's something
like this that feels like, well, that's really cool, but let's
move on to the Sermon on the Mount.
That's where things get interesting.
But we want to understand that this is revelation from God on
high, all right? This is him speaking through
Matthew to us, through those in the in the 1st century.
And in just three verses, we are shown something pretty
significant. We're shown who Jesus really is.
Now you and I live in a world that's full of weak authority,
All right. It, it will propagate itself as
strong authority, it'll posture as strong authority.
But we live in a world that's full of weak authority.
We live in a world with authority that disappoints us.
We live in a world with authority that abuses we we live
in a world with authority that collapses under pressure, right?
We live in a world that has political authority that fails
often there's cultural authority that just shifts with every wind
that comes. Personal authority we find is
actually very fragile, All right?
It's it's fragile because it's led by fragile hearts, fragile
desires. And so if we're honest, many
people today are suspicious of authority altogether.
We rebel against authority. But Matthew 4 shows us something
radically different about this particular authority, the
authority of Christ. Here we see authority with
power. Here we see authority that
carries compassion with it. Here we see authority that
restores instead of crushes. Here we see authority that
belongs to the King of heaven and earth.
And every one of us must decide what to do with Christ right
there. Every one of us has to decide
what are we going to do with the man who walks with such
authority? How are we going to respond to
him? Are we going to trust him?
Are we going to doubt him? Are we going to believe in him?
We're going to disbelieve. Are we going to think that some
things are worth taking but other things we could throw out?
Because, you know, a lot of time has passed and surely there's a
better way to do things now. But you have to understand Jesus
is not presented here as an option.
Jesus has presented to us in this passage as the reigning
king. His authority touches sickness
and heals it. It meets suffering and delivers.
It casts Satan out. It rescues souls, right?
So we, we need this passage today.
We need it because we need to know whether Jesus truly has
authority over what is broken in our own lives.
We we need it because we need to see whether his Kingdom is worth
our full allegiance. We need it because we need to
examine our own hearts, our own lives, and to see whether we are
just simply a member of a crowd or we're a true follower of
Christ. So the main point of the passage
this morning, I think, is this. We we must see the King's
authority, trust his power, and follow him wholeheartedly.
We must see the King's authority, trust his power, and
follow him wholeheartedly. If you have a worship guide, you
can fill in the blanks as we go. Those will be there.
And so Matthew's going to show us 3 realities about this king.
One, we're going to see that the king proclaims his Kingdom,
right? His, his sorry, his authority is
declared in truth. Second, we're going to see that
the king displays his authority through compassion on the
masses, right? His power restores what sin has
broken. There's a new Kingdom reigning.
And then finally, we'll see that the king draws a following.
He does, in fact, draw a following.
His authority demands a response.
Now, these verses prepare us for everything that follows in
Matthew's Gospel. Before Jesus ever commands us to
live differently, which we're going to see a lot of over the
next few chapters, Matthew shows us here why he has authority to
command us at all and why he can be trusted.
So we're going to look closely at this king because how you see
his authority today will determine how you respond to his
rule tomorrow. So the first thing that Matthew
reveals about his authority is the king proclaims the Kingdom,
verse 23, part A.
And he went throughout all Galilee, Matthew writes,
teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the
Kingdom. Now, these words are not some
throwaway detail, right? They're, they're a window into
the authority of Jesus and into the nature of his Kingdom.
And there's so there's a few things here that I want you to
note. 1 I want you to note the King's movement.
It says that he went all throughout Galilee.
Jesus is not stationary. Now we're going to see in the
next passage that he does sit down and begin to teach.
But what we're seeing here is that he's not stationary.
He's he's not waiting on the crowds to find him.
And so Matthew emphasizes the scope of the king here.
He's going all throughout Galilee.
The king is advancing. You might say he's on the
offensive right now. This matters because it tells us
something about God. It tells us something about the
heart of God. Our God is a seeking God, right?
Jesus will tell us elsewhere that he has come to seek and to
save the lost. Now from the Garden of Eden,
right? Post creation, Adam and Eve are
existing in the garden. They fall into the temptation of
the serpent. They sin.
Everything is broken, everything's in decay.
There's destruction, there's death, right?
Ultimately, namely, I should say, there's this, there's this
severing of a beautiful relationship with the Father in
which they recognize now that they are naked and they are
sorry, they are ashamed. They recognize that they've
sinned against God and they're ashamed of this.
And so they hide themselves from God.
They sow fig leaves over themselves.
They hide. And what does God do in Genesis
3? He comes and he seeks them out.
And so from Eden forward all the way throughout your Old
Testament now into the New Testament, sinners do not
naturally move toward God, right?
We don't naturally move towards God.
We naturally move away from God. If you're unsure of that, just
right in the margin of your notes, Romans 3, read Romans 3.
You can see who we are naturally.
What we find there is that we are incapable.
What we find in Romans 1 is that we actually suppress the truth.
We don't acknowledge it, we don't entertain it, we don't
worship it. We suppress the truth.
We exchange Creator worship for creation worship.
We hide, we excuse, we shift blame.
But here, here in Matthew 4, the king moves outward into dark
places to bring light. This is what we saw a couple of
weeks ago. And so right away Matthew
confronts our doctrine of ourselves, our doctrine of man,
but he's confronting this thing in us.
If we are left to ourselves, we will not come to Christ.
We, we will not seek the Lord. We, we, we do not pursue God.
We do not even stumble into the Kingdom by some reason of effort
or goodwill in US. No, Christ must come to us.
And what we see here is that He does.
God so loved the world that he sent his Son.
He does come. And so some of us assume at
times that if I ever really need God, I'll reach for him, right?
But this text says the opposite. This text tells us that your
only hope is that Christ first reaches for you.
The apostle John and his gospel sorry and his first letter will
say that we love because he first loved us, right?
Our love for him exists because God has first shown love to us,
and he does so through the ordinary means of his Word, His
Word being proclaimed, His Word being taught, His Word being
pressed into the conscience, the call of the Spirit that comes
with that. The second thing I want you to
notice is the King's method. What was he up to?
He's going all throughout Galilee, but what is he doing?
He's teaching and proclaiming. Matthew says uses 2 terms here
on purpose. The first, teaching.
Many of you know teaching right, carries the idea of instruction.
But we should go a little further than that.
What are we doing when we're instructing?
What are we doing when we're teaching?
Well, we ought to be explaining. We ought to be forming someone.
We ought to be shaping the mind and the heart.
And so when we think about Jesus teaching, we ought to think
about how he's explaining the Gospel.
He's sharing the good news. He's teaching, right?
He's forming people's hearts and minds.
He's shaping them. This is discipleship language.
But the next word he uses is proclaiming.
Now that's Herald language, right?
Teaching his discipleship language, proclaiming his herald
language. When we think of a herald, we're
thinking of announce an announcement from the King,
right? This is not a suggestion.
This is not a discussion. The King speaks.
This is a proclamation. It's a declaration that demands
a response, or we can't hear the King speak and not respond.
Now that distinction, I think, is helpful to us because
Christianity is not only information, but it is also an
invitation. It's both, right?
Christ teaches the truth and He heralds the good news.
He instructs the church and he confronts the world.
I notice where he does it. It's all throughout Galilee,
yes, but where specifically in the synagogues?
That matters too, right? The synagogue was where
Scripture was read and where it was explained.
And so Jesus steps into the public worship life of the
people, and he brings his authority to bear through the
Word. I think this is one reason, kind
of side note here, that we must always emphasize the centrality
of preaching, right? Not because the preacher is
impressive. Lord knows I am not impressive.
We emphasize it because God has appointed the heralding of his
Word as the primary means by which Christ rules and gathers
his people. We say that in Romans 10.
We see it in Second Timothy 4. We also have this helpful
reminder from Spurgeon in which he says the gospel is not an
essay, it is a proclamation. So if Christ is king, then his
word is not optional and you're weak is it?
Shouldn't be. Many of us make it an option.
Many of us think, well, things are good right now, so I'll just
go on about my life. When things get real bad, well,
then I'll reach for help. I'll look for counselors, I'll
look for his word. I'll pray more, all right, but
but if Christ is King, then His word is not optional.
Wait. We should not be looking for
ways to fit God's Word into our week.
We should order our life around God's Word.
It becomes the very fiber of our being.
You might think about this as a husband and a father, right?
Part of your calling is to see that your home is placed under
the sound of the Word, right? Through Lord's Day, worship,
through family worship, through Scripture, just in rhythms of
life. All right?
In doing so, we're obeying Deuteronomy 6, We're obeying
Ephesians 6, our wives and our mother and the mothers around
us, they, they come along and they support us in this.
And you might think also is just general believers, right?
We should not treat God's word as merely religious content,
right? That this, this is just
religious content. No, we, we should receive it as
though a king has addressed us as one of his subjects.
He comforts us, he warns us, He commands us, He promises, he
instructs, teaches, he rebukes, He trains us for all godliness
through his word. We should notice also hear the
King's message, the gospel of the Kingdom.
Matthew says. So Matthew does not merely say
he's wandering throughout all of Galilee, he's teaching and
proclaiming in the synagogue's good advice, three steps to a
better life under Rome's rule. Five steps to a happy marriage,
10 steps to freedom. No, it's not merely spiritual
principles. It's not a how to live your best
life type message. Matthew says he proclaims the
gospel of the Kingdom. That means at least three
things. One, the Kingdom is God's reign
breaking into enemy territory. Jesus is announcing that God's
promise rule has arrived in him, and we see that more explicitly
in Mark One. This is why Matthew will
immediately move into the Sermon on the Mount Right.
Kingdom ethics flow from Kingdom authority.
Secondly, it shows us that the Kingdom is good news because it
addresses our deepest problem. What's our deepest problem?
You can answer. Sin, sickness and suffering are
real. We see that here.
We also see it in our lives. We see it in our church.
But sickness and suffering are not ultimate, are they?
That the ultimate disaster that we face is rebellion against a
perfectly holy God, Ongoing rebellion, right?
And so the gospel of the Kingdom is the announcement that God
reconciles sinners to himself through the King by repentance
and faith. Another thing this means for us
is that the Kingdom creates a crisis for us.
The crisis is that you cannot remain neutral it if a herald
walked into our town and announced a new king has taken
the throne, no one should say, well, that's interesting.
You, you would immediately know something must change,
allegiance, law, loyalty, right? There's going to be a change
now. That's the point of
proclamation. Christ is not merely offering
help to us. He's announcing a new rule.
And as Thomas Watson put it, till sin be bitter, Christ will
not be sweet. Till sin be bitter, Christ will
not be sweet. So the Kingdom gospel humbles us
before it can heal us. We must be humbled by the
gospel. We must be humbled in
understanding that we have broken the law of God, that we
are rebellious sinners, and that the gospel of Christ, the gospel
of a Kingdom coming is the remedy to that, that the gospel
names are true disease. You see, Christ, the second
member of the Trinity, puts on flesh, dwells on the earth,
lives a perfect life because you and I cannot live a perfect life
perfectly atones for sin because you and I could never atone for
our own sins. He's the spotless lamb.
He's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
He's the ultimate sacrifice. He's the propitiation for our
sins. He's the mediator between US and
the Father. We do have a true disease.
It's sin, and sin keeps us from God.
And Christ is the one who brings redemption through his own body
and blood. Here's the issue.
You can admire Jesus and still refuse his reign.
You you can look at him from a distance and say, that's really
lovely. But man, he said a lot of really
great things. Or he showed a lot of compassion
and mercy. You can say all sorts of nice
things about Christ and never acknowledge his reign over your
life. You you can attend church your
whole life and still resist the King, but but the gospel of the
Kingdom calls you to repent it. It calls you to lay down self
rule and to bow to Christ. I want you to understand
something and then we see it clearly here.
And so I don't want to, I don't want to be misinterpreted as
trying to add something to this, right?
We see here that the King teaches and proclaims, and that
in teaching and proclaiming, he's not trying to crush you.
He's after your redemption. He wants to establish you in
himself. So when your conscience is
troubled, you've fallen into temptation and sinned yet again,
your conscience is troubled, you need to go back to what Christ
proclaims, good news for sinners.
It's not your performance, it's His promise.
Romans 81 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who
are in Christ Jesus. And so Matthew begins the text
where true Kingdom life always begins, under the King's word,
under his authority of speech, teaching, and proclamation.
But Jesus does not only announce the Kingdom, does he?
He demonstrates the Kingdom. And that leads us to the second
mark of his authority. The king displays his authority
through compassion. Look at the latter part of verse
23 and 24, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the
gospel of the Kingdom, and healing every disease and every
affliction among the people. So as fame spread throughout all
Syria and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with
various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those
having seizures and paralytics, and he healed them.
You see, Matthew wants you to understand that Jesus authority
is not theoretical. Jesus authority is not merely
rhetorical. It's active, it's visible, it's
merciful. The Kingdom is not just
announced. He is demonstrating the Kingdom.
It's a demonstration of power and authority.
I want you to notice the scope of his power.
He heals every disease and every affliction.
Now that little bitty word every is doing some heavy lifting,
isn't it? Every disease, every affliction?
Matthew is painting a portrait of comprehensive authority.
It's not some. It's not some disease, it's not
some affliction. It's not most disease, most
affliction. It's not the easy cases of
disease and the easy cases of affliction.
No, it's every disease, every affliction.
And what we see is that Jesus meets the full range of human
misery with full sufficiency. He is able, He is capable.
He is all powerful. This is not Matthew claiming
that Jesus healed every sick person in the world during his
earthly ministry. I want you to understand that.
However, it is Matthew showing us that no category of sickness,
no category of weakness or suffering is beyond the King's
reach. And so we should look at this
with great confidence and see that His authority has no rival.
There's no one as powerful as the King, there's no one as
mighty as Christ, there's no one as capable as our Lord.
There's no one with more authority than this King.
Amen. But notice the setting also.
He does this among the people, every disease, every affliction
among the people. I think this is pretty cool
because Jesus hasn't shown up at some amphitheater, walked onto
the stage and said, you know, send me all of your afflicted
and diseased and watch this. He's not doing this as a stage
performance for elite audiences. If you buy tickets, you can see
this guy speak and he's going to do some healing miracles for us
tonight. No, he's moving among ordinary
people. These are common burdens, common
pain, common brokenness among the people.
The King's power is married, married brothers and sisters to
his compassion. He's going to the people.
Now this is a foretaste of Isaiah's promised servant king,
right? God himself coming to bind up
what sin has broken. And Matthew will later
explicitly connect Jesus's healing ministry to Isaiah 53,
for he'll do that in Matthew 8. So we'll see that a long time
from now, but we'll get there. But what are we supposed to
think about this? Like, why?
Why should we think through this?
Well, because some of you and me are all of us, right, are living
with chronic weaknesses. What do you mean by chronic
weaknesses? I mean physical weaknesses,
spiritual weaknesses, emotional weaknesses, relational
weaknesses, chronic inability to do all that God's called us to
do because we're bound to this flesh and its evil desires.
It's war against God. And so this text says, do not
measure Christ's authority by your ability.
All right? Do not measure Christ authority
by your ability. His authority extends far and
above whatever you can name and whatever you cannot name.
Another thing this text shows us is the depth of His authority.
Bodies and souls, nature and the demonic, you might say, the
natural and the supernatural. There Matthew gives this catalog
in verse 24. Various diseases and pains,
those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, paralytics.
You see, Matthew's not only describing physical elements,
he's showing this, that Christ's authority reaches into realms
that no human authority could ever master.
All right, we see, we see the authority here over physical
suffering, diseases, pain, paralysis.
These are reminders that we live what you might say, east of
Eden, right? We, we live east of Eden.
Sickness is one of sins, grapefruits in a fallen world.
Sometimes that's traceable to a specific sin.
You might think something like STD's, but not every time is it
traceable to a specific sin. However, it's always connected
to the larger reality that death and decay entered the world
through the fall of Adam. You see that in Romans 5, four
or 512. Sorry.
So when Jesus heals I I want you to understand He's not merely
giving relief when he's announcing the gospel of the
Kingdom. And he follows that up with
miracles. It's a sign, brothers and
sisters. It's a sign that the Kingdom has
come to wage war against the curse.
The one who created all things out of nothing, simply by
speaking, has the ultimate power over all things.
By his word, he can command the diseases and they will leave.
He can command the demons and they will leave.
He can command the paralytic and he will get up and walk.
He can command the blind man and he will see.
See what I'm saying? These are signs.
But the Kingdom of Christ, the Kingdom of God, has come to wage
war against the curse. It won't be this way forever.
He has authority over spiritual oppression.
Matthew includes demon oppression because he wants you
to see that the king has authority not only over biology
or nature, but also over spiritual darkness.
He's all powerful, right? This is Genesis 315 yet again
being advanced in real time. What do I mean by that?
I mean that the serpent's work is being confronted by the
promised seed. Christ is going to crush Satan
because he has all authority to do so.
That matters for us because we are often tempted to flatten
reality. Sometimes we will ignore the
spiritual realm altogether. Everything's just physical.
Other times we blame everything on the spiritual realm.
But Matthew avoids both of those errors here, and he
distinguishes conditions, but he shows us that Christ rules over
every one of them. So when you see evil in darkness
in the world, or where you feel the weight of temptation in your
own heart, remember this. The king is not negotiating with
darkness. He is conquering darkness.
He's conquering it, right? You see in Ephesians 6, as
you're equipped with the armor of God that you can put to
death, you can put to death spiritual darkness by walking
with the king. You see in Romans 8, after six
and seven, which are all about sanctification and your ability
now to walk by the Spirit of God instead of by the flesh, to
present your members to God for righteousness instead of
continuing to present your members to God for
unrighteousness. And yes, there's this war within
us in Romans 7, right? All those things I want to do, I
cannot do. The things that I don't want to
do I continue to do. Lord, who will save me from this
body of death? Thanks be to God for our Lord
Jesus Christ. There is therefore now no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
And then you get to verse 13 of chapter 8 and we see that we are
able to mortify the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit of God which
has made us alive in Christ Jesus.
You see, you've been equipped and are being equipped presently
for every good work. Sin does not reign in your
mortal flesh anymore. Christ does if you are in Him.
And so the darkness is being conquered by the Spirit of God
dwelling in you. Another thing we see in this
passage is the King's compassion.
They brought them to him and he healed them.
It's pretty stunning and it's simplicity.
They brought him all the sick and he healed them.
Now Matthew emphasizes the bringing.
People come carrying pain. People come with their
weaknesses, fear, confusion, desperation, their sicknesses,
their oppressions, all these things.
And what does Jesus do? He doesn't stiff arm them and
say not right now. Now his arms are open to them
and he says come and he heals them.
This is a picture of what sinners do in faith.
It's a picture of what Saints ought to be doing in repentance
and faith as well. We, we come to Christ not with a
resume. Lord, look at all these things
that I am doing well. Would you hire me for service?
Or how about justifications? Lord, look at all these things
that I'm doing well. Can you believe the way she
continues to act or the way he continues to act in my life?
Why can't they notice how great I am right now?
No, we, we don't come to Christ with a resume.
We don't come to Christ saying look how holy I've been.
We don't come to Christ beating our own chest, proclaiming our
own accolades. Now we, we come to Christ with a
need. Lord, help me a Sinner.
Lord, I'm trying to follow you and I'm seeking to make good,
wise decisions, but I continue to fail at this.
I'm tempted to sin, and I sin over and again.
I lose control of my tongue. I lose control of my anger.
I lose control of my flesh and act in ways that are unholy and
unbecoming. They're unworthy of the gospel
that I say I've received. Father, forgive me and empower
me by your Spirit. Fill me with your Spirit to walk
by the Spirit today. Do you see the difference?
Brothers and sisters, we ought never, never to go to the Lord
in prayer and say, look how awesome I've been and yet the
world around me has fallen apart.
We come with humility. We come pleading for the help of
Christ and his Spirit. We come begging for another
morsel of bread today. We come asking your Kingdom
come. Your will be done on earth in my
life as it is in heaven this day.
Let me glorify you. Let me honor you and my home.
Let me glorify you. Let me honor you in my
workplace. Let me glorify you.
Let me honor you in the public square, in our church.
We ought to know nothing of pride within us.
So we come with a need. We don't come with our own
strength. We come with our sickness.
We don't come with bargaining chips.
Lord, I'll, I'll give you these if, if, if you in turn will
respond to this. No, we come with empty hands and
we say, Father, fill us again. This teaches us something about
ourselves, brothers and sisters. It teaches us that we are needy
and, and however dependent you think you are on God, you're far
more dependent than that. You are desperately, utterly
dependent on the Father for all of life.
We're needy. We also understand, if we're at
all, just in a moment, honest with ourselves, we understand
how fragile we are not, not just in lifespan that's fragile, but
in commitment and faithfulness. How fragile are you?
We're fragile before the Lord, We're often unfaithful, not
often faithful, we're often undisciplined, not often
disciplined. We're often unself controlled,
not often self controlled, Right.
We also see here that we're unable to heal ourselves
physically or spiritually. They were brought, all the sick,
all the oppressed, all the broken.
They were brought to Christ and He healed them.
If they were capable of healing themselves, they wouldn't have
shown up. We must be brought to Christ.
We must carry ourselves daily to the Lord.
And again, I just want to emphasize here the heart of
Christ because the text opens up the heart of Christ for us.
He, we, we see here that Christ is not repulsed by a needy
people. You can be a needy bunch,
brothers and sisters before the Lord and he welcomes you.
He encourages you to come. Never more explicitly.
I don't think then, well maybe 2 spots.
Matthew 11 Come to me, all of you who are heavy, labored and
burdened, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, for my my yoke is light and easy to bear.
And then in Hebrews 4, we have a sympathetic high priest, one who
is torn the veil of the temple, and one who is ascended the
throne himself. He's a high priest who didn't
use something else to make sacrifices.
He became the sacrifice himself. And he's a sympathetic high
priest because he was tempted and tried in every way that you
and I are, yet without sin. Sometimes we think Christ can't
fully know me because he never sinned.
How can he know the pain that I feel in my sin?
I used to think this way. I used to think, how could he be
sympathetic with me when he has not been in my place?
That was foolish of me. It was ignorant.
Christ had laid on him the depravity of the wicked and
experienced the wrath of God in a way that I'll never have to
experience it. How could I sympathize with Him?
Christ endured temptation all the way down to its depths and
did not sin. I often can't withstand it for
10 minutes without sinning. He's sympathetic, and he tells
us to come boldly before his throne in our time of need.
A throne of grace. It says that we'll find mercy
and grace to help you see He welcomes us.
He's not repulsed by your need. He says come to me, all of you
who are needy, that will give you rest.
We also see here he's not inconvenienced by the weaknesses
that are around him. He takes the time with each one.
Even limited by physical flesh, he takes the time with each one.
We also see he's not stingy with mercy.
He didn't cut the line off at some point.
So that's, that's all I've got today.
I'm out of mercy or I'm out of breath.
I'm tired. No, he wasn't stingy with mercy.
He extended mercy to all who came.
I want you to know that that's the character of God.
He extends mercy to all who humble themselves before him and
seek His face. You understand that the Lord
says, if you seek me, you will find Me.
If you knock, the door will be opened.
If you ask, you will receive. He's not stingy with His mercy.
Christ never turns away the one who comes to Him for mercy.
In John chapter 6 verse 37, Jesus says whoever comes to me,
I will never cast him out. Now let's be honest with
ourselves for a moment. Some of us live like Jesus is
powerful but not approachable. I've sinned yet again.
I can't go to Him. I've got to get myself cleaned
up. I have to get this figured out.
I have to stop sinning. Then I can go to Christ.
Oh, brothers and sisters, He's approachable.
Some of us think that his authority makes him distant.
He's perfectly holy. He's just, He's righteous, he's
loving, He's all good. He's never wrong.
He's never evil. And because we're marked by all
the opposite of those things, we think he's unapproachable.
He's distant from us. No, he's near.
He's near. That's what Matthew's saying.
Matthew is letting us know the opposite of him.
He's letting us know that his authority actually makes him
able. It actually makes him available.
His compassion makes him willing to help in our time of need.
Others of you in here may be waiting till you get your life
together before you come to Christ.
Let me just get some things sorted out.
But the text says they brought all the sick, that that's who
Christ receives. He if if you wait until your
well, you'll never come. So I urge you, come sick, come
needy. Come now.
We also see here the purpose of his healings, the signs of the
Kingdom. They're not substitutes for the
Gospel. Matthew calls these works part
of the King's ministry. But we must read them as Matthew
intends. These miracles are signs.
They're not mere displays of raw power.
They are Kingdom credentials. This is who I am.
Let me show you this they they confirm that his proclamation is
true, that they are, they are mercy in the moment, but they
point to a deeper mercy available, which is forgiveness
and new life. We see this later when Jesus
heals A paralytic and explicitly ties it to his authority to
forgive sins in Matthew Chapter 9, that the deeper healing that
we're all in need of is reconciliation with God.
So yes, God still heals we. We should pray for healing.
We should ask boldly for God to heal the sick.
But we must not confuse temporally relief with eternal
rescue, Right? Even the people who were healed
here in Matthew 4 at some point passed away.
How do we know? Well, they're not living with us
today. The greater miracle is being
raised from spiritual death through the gospel.
Now, this protects us from 2 errors. 1.
It protects us from despair. We might think, we're tempted to
think that if God doesn't heal me now, he must not love me.
No, Brothers and sisters, there's an ultimate healing that
awaits you on the other side of death.
It also to protects us from presumption where we think if I
have enough faith, I can force God's healing hand.
No, brothers and sisters, maybe God means for you to learn
something different about him through your illness, through
your suffering, through your pain.
So the Kingdom is the the Kingdom promises not you will
never suffer. If you've lived more more than
two minutes on earth, you know that they're suffering and pain.
The the Kingdom promises this. The king has authority over
suffering and one day he will end it for his people.
Revelation 21 makes this abundantly clear.
This shows us where this road goes.
You recognize you're a sojourner on your way to a heavenly
homeland, right? This place is not your home.
It's a temporary home place, but it's not your eternal resting
spot. You will enter into eternal rest
one day. Eternal reward, eternal presence
with the King. In Revelation 21, Jesus gives
John a picture of this and I heard a loud voice from the
throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with
man. He will dwell with them, and
they will be his people, and God himself will be with them, as
their God just can never get through it.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall
be no more. Neither shall there be mourning,
nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have
passed away. Amen.
So the king proclaims the Kingdom, yes, and he does it
with authority. And the king demonstrates the
Kingdom with compassionate power.
And when that kind of authority is seen, when it's put on
display, when truth is preached and mercy is displayed, the
people cannot remain indifferent any longer.
And so we see finally that the king draws a following, verse
25, And great crowds followed him from Galilee and that the
capitalists and from Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the
Jordan. Matthew's not just reporting
attendance numbers, all right? He's not being a good usher.
So here's who we had No, he, he's showing us the effect of
the King's authority. When Jesus teaches with
authority, when he heals with compassionate power, people are
moved. All right, The question is, what
kind of following is this? Who are these people?
And so first we see the magnitude, right?
Great crowds followed him. Matthew wants you to feel the
weight of it like great crowds, right?
That's not a trickle. It's not some small group of
eclectic people off to the side. It's a swelling mass of people.
It's a great crowd. Now this is a theme in Matthew.
Crowds gather around Jesus repeatedly.
You'll see it in Matthew 581213, right?
So on the King's presence creates unavoidable attention.
People notice, and so neutrality becomes more difficult.
It's harder, right? Christ's Kingdom here, we see,
is expansive in its nature, all right?
It's expansive. When the king arrives, the
effects do not remain private. The light spreads, the darkness
diminishes, word travels, people gather.
Right? This previews the promise that
the Gospel will go beyond Israel to the nations, which Matthew
explicitly will show us in Matthew chapter 28.
But Matthew also shows that crowds are not the same as the
cycles. Crowds can be amazed and still
be unconverted. Crowds can follow for benefits
rather than bow for worship. And that's exactly why Matthew
will soon show that Jesus sits down to teach.
He sits down to teach because he intends to sift the crowd into
true disciples through the Sermon on the Mount.
The Sermon on the Mount is not a sermon about how to join a
crowd. It's what it means to belong to
the Kingdom. This is a distinction between
crowds and followers. That distinction is a
distinction that we need to know how to make.
We live in an age where people confuse attendance with
obedience, interest with repentance, spiritual enthusiasm
with saving faith. But Matthew won't let us do
that. Secondly, we see the reach,
right? The geography that he mentions
here tells a story. If you look at the regions,
Galilee, that's the immediate area.
There's familiar crowds there. Then he mentions the Decapolis.
This is a largely Gentile tin city region east and southeast
of the of the Sea of Galilee. Then you see Jerusalem and
Judea. Well, that's the religious like
epicenter. It's the heartland right of
Israel. And then he mentions beyond the
Jordan, this is wider surrounding territories.
So Matthew's painting this map for us of spreading influence,
the Gospels going forward, People are hearing about it.
The news is being broadcast. It's moving outward like ripples
in the water when you throw the rock in, right.
And it's not accidental that Matthew has already quoted
Isaiah about Galilee and how they saw a great light, because
now you're seeing the first fruits.
People from varied regions are being drawn in to Christ.
The King is already gathering a Kingdom, people that will not be
confirmed to one city or are confined to one city, one class
or one ethnicity. You remember the promise to
Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 that he would be a blessing to
the nation's? That's beginning to show itself
here, right? This should reshape how we think
about mission and outreach. The Kingdom is not a private
club. Dustin did a really great job of
explaining this last week that the king draws people from
beyond. He draws people in.
Then what that means is that our church must think beyond.
We must think beyond comfort, beyond routine, beyond our kind
of people. If Christ draws widely, we
should proclaim the gospel widely and expect a harvest of
sinners. There's also some ambiguity
here. And they followed him.
It's a bit ambiguous. It can mean different things,
right? The verb followed is important,
but it's also dangerous. People can follow Jesus in
different ways. Some follow Jesus as spectators,
right? They're curious.
I mean, if a man shows up and he's healing people with
diseases and casting out demons and the lame or walking, you're
going to be tempted, whether you're believe it or not, you're
going to be tempted to follow that around for a little bit,
right? Am I the only one?
So they're spectators. There's possibly consumers
present, right? Those who want to follow because
of the benefits that fellowship come with.
There's going to be critics who are in the crowd, those who are
there to test Christ, to trap him.
And then there's also going to be disciples, people who are
willing to submit themselves to Christ and his rule and to obey
him. Matthew's going to show us all
of these. The crowds that follow in
chapter 4 are not automatically the disciples who obey in
chapter 28, though. That's what I want you to
understand. So here's the pressure point for
you and me today. Do we follow Jesus as the King?
Do we submit to him as the Lord, or do we trail behind him, just
close enough, as long as he's useful to us in our lives?
And so Matthew helps us to test this in John's gospel.
When the crowds wanted bread more than Christ, Jesus exposes
them in John chapter 6. And Matthew, Jesus will do the
same thing through the Sermon on the Mount.
He presses past surface level attraction and demands heart
level allegiance. Friends, I want you to hear me
closely today. Many want Christ's benefits, but
few want Christ's yoke upon them.
And that's essentially what Jesus later teaches in Matthew
11. As I mentioned earlier, take my
yoke upon you. Real following is about
submission to the Lord. It's about humbling ourselves
before the Lord, submitting to His rule.
Yet real following is also about rest, because His yoke is good.
So if you only follow when life improves, you're following
circumstances, not Christ. If you only follow when everyone
approves, you're following crowds, not Christ.
If you only follow, as long as Jesus never contradicts you,
you're following yourself, not Christ.
But true discipleship says even when he rebukes me, I trust Him.
Even when obedience cost me something, I follow Him.
Even when I don't understand what he's doing, I submit to Him
because he is King. The final thing we see here is
the call. It's the call to move from the
crowds to becoming a disciple. Matthew setting up a question
for us within his report. What does the king deserve from
me? I want you to know it's not
simply admiration. It's not occasional attention.
It's not religious dabbling, no. He, he deserves repentance.
He deserves faith. He he deserves whole life
obedience. A church.
You and I were prone to drift into crowd Christianity because
it feels safe. Near enough to feel religious,
yet far enough to avoid surrender.
Far enough that I can keep my pet sins, but the Kingdom does
not actually allow that sort of middle ground.
Jesus is soon going to declare that the gate is narrow and the
way is hard that leads to life. I want you to know that the
crowd always prefers the wide Rd.
You can compare it to a parade versus enlistment.
In a parade, crowds line the streets, they cheer, they watch,
they enjoy. But a soldier enlist.
He submits, He follows orders, He belongs, and many will parade
follow Jesus. Few will actually enlist follow
Jesus. And Matthew is calling us to
enlist under the king. So here is what Matthew has
shown us in these verses. The king proclaims the Kingdom
with authority, the king demonstrates the Kingdom with
compassionate power, and the king draws a following that must
be tested. Are they a crowd or are they a
disciple? And that brings us to the
question that you and I cannot avoid.
How will you respond to the authority of the king?
I've read 3 verses today with no commands.
There's no commands in these 3 verses.
But Matthew does give us a king. And once you see the king
clearly, the commands become inevitable.
This is not a soft portrait of Jesus.
This is authority from on high. This is authority over truth,
authority over sickness, authority over demons, authority
over geography, authority that moves people right.
This is not a soft Christ. And here is the weight of that.
You cannot see this king and remain neutral.
You will either trust his authority or you will resist it.
You will either walk after him, you will either follow him, or
you will remain in the crowd. But remember, we must see the
King's authority. We must trust his power.
We must follow him wholeheartedly.
And so to the unbeliever in here today, if you're not in Christ,
Matthew 4 confronts you. Jesus is not merely offering
spiritual improvement for you. He is announcing his reign.
The gospel of the Kingdom means this.
You are not your own king. Your sin is not as small as you
think it is. Your rebellion is not harmless,
and your need is not superficial.
It's supernatural, but the king who proclaims we saw also heals.
The king who has authority also has compassion.
The same authority that casts out demons is the authority that
can forgive your sin. The same power that heals
paralysis is the power that can raise your dead heart to life.
So do not admire him from a distance.
Do not linger in the crowd. Repent, repent of your sin.
Lay down yourself, rule, trust Christ alone.
Come to him sick, come to him needy, Come to him now.
He receives those who come to the believer in here.
All of my brothers and sisters in Christ, I say to you, do not
shrink your king. He has all authority.
He's sovereign in power. He's never not in control.
He's never not in Rule. He doesn't take a day off.
Don't shrink him. Do not treat him like a
consultant in your life. Do not domesticate his
authority. Let him run wild.
Do not live as though his rule is negotiable in your life.
If he proclaims the Kingdom, submit to his word.
If he displays compassion, trust him in your weakness.
If he draws a following, follow him fully.
Believer, your King is not weak. Your king is not uncertain.
He's not overwhelmed, but overwhelms you.
Whatever sickness, whatever sorrow, whatever oppression,
whatever suffering, whatever darkness you face, those things
will never outrank Christ. He's above it all.
So follow. Follow him when it's costly.
Follow him when it's unpopular. Follow him when obedience feels
heavy. Because this king is good.
And one day the authority that healed in Galilee will fully and
finally restore all things. No more disease, no more
affliction, no more demonic oppression, no more crowds
divided between curiosity and commitment.
No more death, no more sin. Only a redeemed people under a
reigning king. That's what we have to look
forward to. So I'm going to leave all of you
with this question. Are you in the crowd or are you
under the king? See his authority, trust his
power, follow him wholeheartedly because the Kingdom has come and
the King is worthy of your allegiance.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for your word today. God, we thank you for what it
shows us of Christ and his authority over our lives and
over all the darkness that surrounds us and that we even
find within us. God, it's my prayer that you
would help us as believers to submit to Christ wholeheartedly,
to love him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, to love
our neighbor as ourself, to live a life devoted, faithful to
Christ. God, would you help us to do
that? Would you reveal our sin?
Would you reveal our transgression?
Would you draw us to yourself more deeply, more fully by your
Spirit, that we might know you and be known by you, that we
might walk with you, that we might live a life that's worthy
of the gospel we have? Lord, for the unbelievers today,
I ask that you withdraw them to yourself.
Let nothing hinder them from coming when they come.
I thank you that you are a merciful Savior, your mighty
God. You heal sickness and disease,
especially sin within us. You grant us your spirit that we
might have a new heart, become new creations in Christ, putting
to death the old man, taking on the new man God, would you save
them from their sins, give them new lives today?
I'm going to give you a moment now to respond.
They're in your seat through prayer, through seeking the
Lord. Reflect on the sermon, reflect
on God's Word, reflect on your own heart and your actions this
week. Repent today.
Seek the Lord. You will find him.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for a sympathetic High priest.
We thank you that He resides on the throne of grace and bids us
to come boldly in our time of need that we find might find
mercy and grace to help. I thank you that He declares
that He is able to save to the uttermost all of those who draw
near to the Father through Him. So, Father, would you hear our
prayers this morning? Would you hear our cries for
help? Would you meet us and our needs?
Would you minister to our hearts and minds in Christ through your
Spirit? Reconcile us to yourselves.
Reconcile us to one another. May we glorify you, honor you in
the lives that we live. It's in the name of Christ to
pray. Amen.