Matthew 4:23-25 Kingdom On The Move

Well, this morning we land on a penultimate section in a way of speaking before we embark on what is famously known as the Sermon on the Mount. And at this point in the context, Matthew has well established that Jesus of Nazareth is the awaited Messiah of the Jews who comes announcing and proclaiming the arrival of the kingdom of God in his person.

We have moved now beyond the baptism of Jesus, beyond the temptation in the wilderness Jesus faced by the hand of Satan, and we noted that given in verse 12 of chapter 4, John the Baptist has been taken into custody, a great sign that there is a pressure coming on this what is in a way a new movement, the arrival of Jesus and John the Baptist. And so Jesus has moved his ministry north to a region in Israel called Galilee, and the town of Capernaum to be exact.

So here Jesus' public ministry truly begins to take its shape, and it's here we get to witness Jesus with whom and in whom comes the rule and reign of God, overcoming the spiritual darkness with the light of his person. He's loosening the foothold of the satanic powers, capturing the minds and hearts of the people. He's setting free the prisoners and slaves as we are by nature to sin and death.

Matthew summarized these things for us in verse 17 of chapter 4, where he said from that time Jesus began to preach, saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

So we come down to Matthew chapter 4 in these verses here, 23 to 25, and if verse 17 gave us a summary of Jesus' ministry message, that of the kingdom of heaven and repentance of sins, then what we have in these three verses of interest to us this morning shows us this message in its power, in its full scope, in its impact on all who heard the voice of the Son of God as he went about from place to place.

And so it's here that the Messiah is about his work. Here is the promised and long-awaited one. Here is the man for whom God's people had died in hope one day of his coming. Here is the promised seed of the woman, the greatest son of Adam, come to be a new representative of man before God. Here is the promised seed of Abraham, the man through whom the nations would be blessed. Here is the greatest son of David, establishing that rule, that reign, that throne of promise, which shall eternally endure.

And so here is the inauguration of immense prophetic fulfillment, and it's a call to the Jewish people. Here is your King. Here is the Shiloh, the servant of the Lord, announced by your prophets since ages past. Here he is. And to the Gentiles, to the non-Jews, Christ comes to raise spiritual seed for Abraham by faith that all types of people around the world might be saved by his shed blood on the cross.

And so this morning, in just a few verses, Matthew shows us the scope and the breadth of Jesus' ministry. And so I have entitled this message, "Kingdom on the Move." We embark with Jesus on a teaching, preaching, and healing tour of the region of Galilee. The light must go out. It must reach more and more. So he will bind the strong man, Satan, renounce his claim. The gospel light must multiply, and it must even break outside the borders of Israel.

I simply have two headings for you this morning, and the first, as you have in your supplement, is the nature of Jesus' ministry. We want here to press into verse 23 in particular.

The Nature Of Jesus' Ministry

So again, we read, "Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among all the people."

Matthew gives us a great deal of help in these verses to have a clear picture of what Jesus' public ministry really looked like. Jesus' ministry is multidimensional in the gospels, as you know. Take for instance, aside from his public ministry, his preparatory ministry, that is his training ministry. Though there were tremendous demands upon Jesus as a public man, he never forsook opportunity to spend a special amount of time with his 12 inner disciples, who would later become his apostles, of course, training them.

So there's Christ in his preparatory ministry, but there's also Christ from the perspective of his private ministry, that of his prayer ministry. In private, Christ would draw strength for the demands of his public ministry from his Father. Again and again, he would center his will upon that which the Father had purposed for him, a critical aspect of Jesus' ministry that we too often overlook.

And so those preparatory and private aspects of Jesus' ministry are important in and of themselves, but here the focus is upon Jesus' public ministry among the peoples of the land. Christ was a public man, let us not forget it. All that he said and did, he did openly before the masses. The death that he died was public. The resurrection life that he gained was public.

In this verse here, verse 23, first we notice that Jesus is itinerant. That is that though having his home in Capernaum, he is traveling from place to place during this period of his Galilean ministry. It's been estimated on this particular Galilean ministry block, if you will, it lasted for a number of months. There was a large number of cities and towns in the region, and even if Jesus was able to go to two every day, including a break for the Sabbath, it would still take him months to get around all the towns and villages in Galilee.

As one commentator says, the sheer physical drain must have been enormous. You know, in the past I have worked physical jobs, as many of you do, and with long hours, and yet once the Lord's call came upon me for pursuing the ministry when I was in my early 20s, and I began to preach, I still find that preaching to this day is one of the most physically and emotionally draining things I have ever done. Sometimes on Sunday nights, I'm just absolutely cooked. I can't explain why. It's amazing how much energy can drain from someone in a half an hour to 40-minute period.

And so I understand, as I hope you will understand, the kind of immense effort that went into Christ's own ministry as he went for months on end, preaching and teaching. This makes us really pause and appreciate just how ceaselessly energized Jesus was in his ministry. In fact, we get our theology wrong when we think that Jesus got a pass on the physical tiredness of humanity because he was God incarnate. Well, that's not the case at all.

You see, in reality, in Jesus' humanity, he grew tired, he grew hungry, he grew weary, but he would give himself totally to the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom as Messiah. His presence was the divine light of the world, and he gave himself to all that it meant for him to secure the redemption of his people and discharge his duty to the fullest measure.

So I ask you this question as I have asked it myself in preparation. In what way do we imitate Christ's dedication to ministry? In what way are we ensuring that we too have a public-facing ministry? Are we known as Christians to the unbelievers who know us? Are we known associates of Jesus? I even might ask, what of our preparatory ministry as Jesus also had? Are we handing the baton of the gospel on to a new generation? Are we available for the discipling of the immature in faith? Or are we still remaining as infants in the faith ourselves?

It's interesting in the book of Hebrews, in Hebrews 5, the author says, "For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food." You see, there is an aspect to the Christian faith we must always be developing and growing mature in the things of God so that we can be of use to God and training others, handing on the baton of the gospel.

And what of the ministry of prayer? Another aspect to Jesus' own ministry. Jesus was totally given to prayer as he was in public, as he was in his preparatory ministry. So with what earnestness do we pray? Christ prayed even while he sweated drops of blood in the garden of Gethsemane, remember? Such was the angst through which he knew he must commune and draw strength for his work from the Father.

And so what have we, his people? May we follow the Lord and busy ourselves as he does for the ministry, be it in public, preparatory, or alone and private.

But notice also the nature of Jesus' ministry is threefold. It says here in the text he was teaching, preaching, or you might have proclaiming, and healing. Everywhere Jesus went until he was crucified, he was engaged in these three primary duties, all of which were the overflow of the announcement of the kingdom of God. That is the presence of ""the divine rule for the purposes of the divine glory", and I got that from Geerhardus Vos.

But I wonder if you have ever considered the distinction here between teaching and preaching as we find in Jesus' ministry here. You'll notice that this word here for proclaiming is a word that can be translated preached. He's teaching in their synagogues and he's preaching. What's the distinction between teaching and preaching?

To teach is to convey and impart knowledge of a certain subject. What does it mean to preach? Is preaching just teaching with a louder voice? Is that what preaching is? I know I have a loud voice. That's not preaching. Matthew uses a beautiful Greek word here. Preaching seeks to instruct as with teaching, but to win not only man's mind with the truth, but also his heart to capture his affections with the truth.

In this way, preaching is like heralding. It's truth, but it's truth given an authority. And so bring about the desired change. Martin Lloyd-Jones, the well-known expositor, said that preaching is logic on fire. Christ was both a teacher and a preacher, and understanding this difference is important for all preaching includes teaching, but not all teaching contains preaching.

Preaching is confronting. Preaching causes the listener to feel the force of the truth, its power, its relevance, the immediacy of action required. For example, if I said to you again, as I've already said, if I said to you, "Jesus was an itinerant preacher who tirelessly gave himself to the ministry," I have become a teacher with such a statement as that. I have conveyed the facts of Jesus' itinerant ministry.

What does preaching say about that same truth? Well, preaching would say that just as Jesus was an itinerant preacher who tirelessly gave himself to the ministry, some of us need to hear that in our nation of increasingly comfortable and lackadaisical Christianity, which is neither urgent in public, neither urgent in its preparation of the next generation, neither urgent in its private ministry. We need to watch the Savior work.

You see, now I have taken the truth, the facts of Jesus' itinerant ministry, and made them applicable for us. That is the work of preaching. I have both taught the facts and preached them.

But preaching is multifaceted. I might not just challenge you with that truth. I might also comfort you with that same truth. I might say, "Friends, as you watch our Saviour busy himself in teaching and preaching, are we not comforted by the fact that he was working and so working for us? That the gospel of the kingdom might come to us and we might rest in the deliverance that is in that kingdom for his people, for all who will believe by faith."

See, there is now both challenge and comfort from that same truth, teaching and preaching. And so we need to hear Christ as our teacher and our preacher. As we read the gospels, the mind ought to be not only fed and instructed, but most importantly, that teaching ought to strike a match in our hearts, stir the affections of our soul with respect to the things of God. Preaching, be it to ourselves, we ought to hear it, and it ought to draw out the transformation of the man or the woman.

And this is precisely what Christ occupied himself with. With all whom he accounted as he went, be it Gentile or Jew, the learned and the unlearned, he taught them all, he preached to them all. He taught that the kingdom, that is the rule and the reign of God, is at hand. And then he preached its application, repent and believe in the gospel. Believe that I am he who comes into the world.

But we also notice here that Christ is a miracle worker, Christ the healer. The miracles of Jesus are the scoffing of the critic and the wonder of those who perceive them rightly as the culminative evidence of his identity as the incarnate Son of God. I leave aside the conversation for now concerning the nature of Jesus' miracles specifically. There is a branch of Christianity alive, I'll make mention of this, alive and well today which I caution against carefully. A Christian movement which is obsessed in seeking experience of the supernatural today in the way of healings and so on.

They essentially will read passages like this that Christ was healing and so expect it to be all the same today and are constantly seeking experience after experience. My challenge would be, I think they are perhaps missing the substance. So what I would point to you now, however, is that in the scripture and in Jewish thinking, ailments, sickness, disease, even demonic possession were understood clearly against the backdrop of a fallen world.

In other words, these sufferings common to man occur because we live as fallen people with sin natures and we are estranged from God. So all manner of diseases and cancers, injuries, pain and suffering, these are reminders to us of the brokenness that is in ourselves and in the world. You see, in the original creation, such ailments were non-existent, and in Providence, Adam, could never have contracted cancer in the original state.

See then, Jesus, here is the one who comes with the light and powers of the world to come. Jesus' healings, you see, are pointers; they are signposts in the way to those who witnessed them. To us who read of their recording, they are signposts that in the age to come, suffering will be no more. You see, Jesus' healings are, number one, evidence of his person and identity. They are, number two, foretaste of the age to come. And number three, they are pointers to the cross, remembering that ultimately the reason that people needed healing at all was because of the sin nature that we all have and their needing of the cross of Christ.

That he came to deal with sin, the reason ultimately why we do suffer physically as we do. Matthew Henry said this, "We do not now find the Saviour's miraculous healing power in our bodies, but if we are cured by medicine, the praise is equally his." He says, "Sin is the sickness, disease, and torment of the soul. Christ came to take away sin and so heal the soul."

So Christ's miracles are rightly perceived as proof of his claims that he is the Messiah, the Son of God. We are not to see Jesus' miracles as ends in themselves, not to that which we are promised to experience in this life, though we might pray for healing as I do and as you hear me pray, we are not to expect them as normative experiences in our life, but rather as foretastes of the new creation and that which is to come.

You see, the message that the man or woman dying of cancer or any amount of disease common to man, the message they need to hear is not simply Jesus can heal your body; they need to hear Jesus can heal your soul. He can take from you the burden of your sin. Isaiah wrote of the coming of Christ, "And the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf will be unstopped, the lame will leap like a deer, the tongue of the mute will shout for joy." Christ's miracles were evidences of his identity as the Messiah and the servant of the Lord. You see, in his miracles, his identity and teaching are established. That's enough on the nature of Jesus' ministry there.

The Popularity Of Jesus' Ministry

Now I want to close on the popularity of Jesus' ministry, our second heading, the popularity of Jesus' ministry. And we come down to verse 24, and we read again, "The news about him spread throughout all Syria. They brought to him all who were ill, those suffering with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics, and he healed them. Large crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan."

So this threefold ministry of Jesus, his teaching, his preaching, and his healing power, it's caused the news about him to break outside the borders of Israel, outside the region of Galilee, and Syria here in the context most likely refers to the territory just north of Israel. It is another country, it's another land.

So the kingdom of heaven is on the move. The gospel is moving ahead even of Jesus so that more Gentiles are coming to the Messiah. They flock to Christ. There was no type of illness or disease that was beyond the power of Christ to miraculously heal after all the incarnate God of heaven and earth who by his spoken word made the world and all that is in it. This is nothing for him and by his power.

So from verse 25, we see really that the entire land, so far as gossip can reach, is abuzz with the person of Jesus. He is the talking point of every home, every politician, every workman, every labourer. The news about him is spread far and wide. Just as he himself moves to preach the gospel and testify to the fulfillment of the promises of God and himself as the Messiah. We see in a way the outworking of what Jesus will later say in Matthew 24:14. "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come." Here in Matthew 4:23-25, we are seeing a glimpse, a foretaste of that promise coming to fruition as even those in Syria, a land dominated by Gentiles mostly, some Jews, are coming to Christ.

Jesus is indiscriminate about who the news of the kingdom of God is relevant for. Jew or Gentile, people's needs are exactly the same. We all have the same spiritual darkness, and we all need Jesus to forgive our sins. And so just recognize here that Jesus has ministered in all different places, in all different settings to all kinds of people, and he is healing all kinds of diseases.

And yet he is teaching but one single message with a single bottom line that is the gospel of the arrival of the kingdom. Not one is the kingdom of men, for this is the kingdom of God. And Jesus' indiscriminate ministry is contrasted with many Pharisees of the day who would look down on non-Jews and consider them as dogs. But what did Paul, after the Lord saved him from Pharisaic Judaism, write? He wrote, "Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since indeed God who would justify the circumcised, (that is the Jew), by faith and the uncircumcised, (that is the Gentile), through faith is one."

And so my application of this point is this: the kingdom of God, the message of Christ is rightly proclaimed to by his followers in all places, at all times, in all settings, to all people without discrimination, for such was the way of our Lord.

So just think of that girl that you saw walking down the street with blue hair, with nose piercings, looking really quite abnormal, the way that she dresses etc. Perhaps you're silently, secretly judging her. Her needs are exactly the same as yours, friend. She needs Jesus in her heart. Think about that man that you've seen who looks like he's been in prison half his life, covered in tattoos, a slave to the bottle. His needs are no different from yours. And apart from Christ, there is no difference.

There's no difference to the high-flying wealthy and elite with their lives visibly together, the needs are the same. There is spiritual darkness in the heart of man until the light of Christ drives it out. They're lost. See, the kingdom does not discriminate between persons. Paul says in Romans 1:14, "I'm under obligation to Greek, and to the barbarian, to both the wise and to the foolish."

There was a great scope and breadth in Jesus' ministry. He came to bring and fulfill the Abrahamic covenant promises, blessings for the nations through the preaching of the gospel. And so to our prayers, our giving, our carrying of the gospel, be it even a social media post on Facebook, be it the sharing of a sermon with a link, be it an in-person conversation, there are many means by which the gospel can go out. All settings, all places, all people at all times. We are to be involved.

But I want to close on this observation of Jesus' popularity. Look at verse 25 and particularly note the large crowds that followed Jesus. The large crowds, it wasn't only that large crowds followed him at times, but if you know, if you're familiar with your gospels, you know that at times they pursued Jesus, they mobbed and swamped Jesus, pressing upon him. And this is the point we must show great care to understand the popularity of Jesus in light of the end of the gospels.

You see, the crowds that flocked after him, many will later turn against him. None will rise up to spare him, but only condemn him and reject him. See, be wary of following the masses. Crowds are fickle. Truth is not found in popularity. Look at what happened to Jesus in the end. The false motives of so many people's hearts for why they were flocking to Jesus were exposed.

For some, he was a sensation. Someone was talking about him and pressing into him, flocking to him, whatever building they discovered him to be in. But can you hear the crowds again as we remember Jesus on the cross, as it says in Matthew 27:39, "Those who were passing by were hurling abuse at him."

So why do you follow Jesus this morning? Is it because your parents taught you that church is a great tradition to keep up? Is it because you think there are certain benefits that you might have in your life by being a religious person? Is it because you like the community and having somewhere to come where you can share with people about your week and maybe you haven't really got someone to talk to through the weekend, so you like to come to church so someone will listen to you?

Is it because there's a certain inner peace that you get about hearing about God and faith and heaven and such topics? Or do you follow Jesus because without him you now realize that life itself would be nothing. Nothing without a saviour. Nothing without you being reconciled to your God.

You see, the crowds had all sorts of reasons to follow him as a powerful preacher. People are attracted to people who can speak well, and especially as he is a healer and miracle worker. They had all sorts of reasons to be attracted to Christ, but until one encounters Jesus as the incarnate God who lived, who died, who rose again for sinners like us, we have no true knowledge of Christ.

In John's Gospel, he says in John 1:11, "He came to his own, and those who were his own did not receive him," that's the Jews, "but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become the children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."