The Good Life

Week 1: The Kingdom is Near

 

Welcome! 

 

Big Idea:This is a series based on the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus outlined the theme of the Kingdom of God, the subject that dominated Jesus’ teaching. It is the crucial piece for understanding everything about his life, death, and resurrection. It is also the key that unlocks the meaning of the entire narrative of scripture, and how the Old and New Testaments fit together.

 

Prayer: “Father, help us to see with fresh eyes what Jesus was talking about when he taught about the Kingdom of God. Open our minds to understand it, and our hearts to receive it. Give us courage to repent of anything that is preventing us from fully entering in.” 

 

Scripture:  Matthew 4:12-25  

 

Introduction

When Jesus arrived on the planet, for nearly 1000 years the people of Israel had been waiting in hope for the Messiah to come and establish his kingdom. It was partly a longing for the Golden Age of King David, but even greater. The dream had endured through the period of the divided kingdom, Israel in the North, and Judah in the South. It had survived and strengthened through the Exile in Babylon. It continued to grow during the years of foreign domination following the Exile, right up to the time of Christ during the domination by the oppressive Roman Empire. That’s a thousand years of waiting, and longing, and hoping. The question on everyone’s mind was, “When will God come and rescue us from our oppressors and restore the kingdom to Israel?”

 

This was the religious, social, and political environment into which Jesus stepped when he began his ministry.  So, how did he respond to this very real, very loaded situation?

 

Over the next 8 weeks we’ll be seeking to learn from Jesus’ response, the questions he asked, and the truths he taught in the midst of the desolate and divided 1st century Jewish/Roman culture. The sermon series is called The Good Life. And The Good Life  for us, is a life of following and learning from Christ - how to live then and now as we seek to become more like him.  

 

Main Teaching

 

So what does Jesus do first? as he begins his sermon on the mount, addressing the very loaded and real situation, we described a moment ago, Jesus Announced the kingdom. Jesus announced the Kingdom.

 

Verse 17:  From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Matthew makes it sound like that one sentence was the entire content of Jesus’ preaching. Mark makes it sound even more dramatic:

 

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.  “The time has come,” he said.  “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”  (Mark 1:14-15)

 

Can we even begin to imagine the shock of those words? The long wait is over; the time has arrived! It’s here; it has begun!

 

It didn’t look like what the people were expecting. What they were expecting was a military coup to overthrow the Roman occupation. A political kingdom centered in Israel. And maybe that’s why Jesus says the first step is repentance. Not from sin, necessarily. Rather, from wrong thinking, which is really what the word means; rethink…everything!

 

Think about the major groups of people in 1st Century Israel:

1. The Pharisees  They were very conservative, theologically and politically. This was the law-and-order crowd (OT law). Think of them as The Moral Majority of the 1st Century. They were extremely self-righteous and judgmental toward others who were not living up to their standards. The Pharisees believed if everyone in Israel would just get in line and keep the Torah perfectly for one day the Messiah would come. And that explains their anger with Jesus for ignoring—or sometimes trampling on—their traditions.
2. The Sadducees  This group made up the majority of the Sanhedrin—the Jewish High Court. They were very wealthy, and only nominally religious. The Sadducees were willing to accommodate and placate the Roman occupation in order to maintain their positions of power. These were the politicians of the 1st Century—the Senators and Congressmen.
3. The Zealots  These were devout Jews who advocated the use of violence to resist and overthrow the Roman occupation. They were the Anarchists of the 1st Century. The center of their activity was in the unruly northern territory of Galilee—sort of the wild, wild west of Palestine. They were always causing trouble for the Romans, always instigating protests and uprisings, even attempting to assassinate anyone they suspected of being a Roman sympathizer. And the Romans always dealt with them the same way: rounded up the leaders and crucified them—by the hundreds and even thousands.
4. The Essenes  They believed the whole situation was hopeless; the whole country was going to hell in a handbasket. So their response was just to withdraw into the desert, where they could live holy lives in separated communities completely removed from the rest of society. The Essenes  believed that they were the true Israel, and when the Messiah came everyone else would be destroyed for their wickedness. These were sort of like the Amish of 1st Century.
5. The Common People  They were mostly poor, just trying to eek out an existence, not always by the most honorable means. They didn’t really fit in any of the other four groups, though they made up the vast majority of the population. They were not particularly religious, because they didn’t have the time or resources to observe all the Jewish rituals the way the proper religious folks thought they should. Note: These are the people who heard Jesus gladly. But to the other four groups, Jesus said, “Repent. Rethink your understanding of the Messiah and his Kingdom. If you don’t, you’re in danger of missing it completely, and bringing the full wrath of Rome down on your heads.”

 

Illustration:  Dallas Willard writes about the coming of electricity to rural Missouri in his childhood. Each house was hooked up. Then the day approached when a master switch would be thrown somewhere, and the “Kingdom of Electricity” would dawn. But, curiously, inevitably, there were some who would not “repent” of their kerosene lamps, their ice-boxes and cellars, their scrub boards and rug-beaters, their hand-powered sewing machines, and their radios with dry-cell batteries. The power that could make their lives far better was right there near them—at hand—but they refused to enter the “Kingdom of Electricity.”

 

Question:  Do you recognize yourself in any of the groups from 1st Century Israel?  What might you need to rethink to enter, and participate in, the Kingdom of God?

 

Second, Jesus called persons into the Kingdom. Matthew 4:18-22   “As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’  At once they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.”

1. The call was personal:  He singled out Andrew and Peter, then James and John.
2. The call was personalized:  “Follow me, and I will send you out to fish for people.” Notice: He said that to fishermen. He didn’t say it to everyone he called. Question: What could Jesus say to you that would grab your attention? What would touch the deepest longings and fears of your heart? Maybe those longings and fears are exactly what He’s saying—or at least a part of it.
3. The call was compelling:  These guys dropped everything to follow Jesus. Too often we focus on the demands of God’s call—the sacrifices God requires. But there is another possibility:  I don’t think these four fishermen heard any demands at all. Instead, they heard something that started their heart pounding, and their adrenaline pumping, and their hopes rising. They would have gladly left anything to follow this King into his Kingdom. Sacrifice?  What sacrifice? This is a joy and a privilege—the opportunity of a lifetime!

 

Illustration:  This is exactly what Jesus was getting at when he told the parables of The Hidden Treasure and The Pearl of Great Price:

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.  “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” (Matt. 13:44-46)

 

Question:  What would you be willing to leave behind to enter God’s kingdom?  What might God ask you to leave behind in order to enter?

 

Third, Jesus demonstrated the Kingdom. Verses 22-25 “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.  News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them.  Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.”

Jesus healed every disease among the people.

1. Those suffering severe pain
2. the demon-possessed
3. those having seizures
4. the paralyzed

Jesus himself considered these healings demonstrations of the kingdom’s arrival, as evidenced by his response to John’s question in Matthew 11:2-6, “When John heard in prison what Jesus was doing, he sent messengers to ask, ‘Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?’  Jesus replied, ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.  Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.’”

 

In other words, “I’m doing exactly what was prophesied of the Messiah.” (Isa. 61:1-3, which Jesus read in the synagogue at Nazareth.) “And you will be blessed in the Kingdom if you don’t reject me because I don’t fit your preconceived ideas of what the Messiah should be and do.”

 

So, what do these demonstrations tell us about God’s Kingdom?

1. In God’s Kingdom, there is concern for hurting people.
2. In God’s Kingdom, there is real, life-changing power.
3. In God’s Kingdom, spiritual realities intersect with real life.

 

A reminder: What the Kingdom of God is not:

1. Heaven. Matthew uses that word in place of “God” so as not to offend his Jewish readers. But when Jesus talks about the Kingdom he is not talking about life after death.
2. Of this world. It is not a political entity, or a geographical realm. It is not physical, or material.
3. The church. The church is a servant of the kingdom. It is the society of people who live by kingdom values, as a witness to the rest of the world of the possibility of a better kind of life. We’re supposed to be like a demonstration plot of what the world could be like if God’s dreams for it could be fulfilled.

1. A future Utopian period that will only happen after Jesus’ second coming. Jesus said it was “at hand”—meaning “available, within reach”—to them, his first century hearers. There is a whole theological system that teaches this postponement theory: that Jesus offered the Kingdom to the Jews, but they rejected it. So, Paul came along and taught the gospel of Grace to the Gentiles (us) in an interim period (which apparently we are still in after 2000 years). And someday, Jesus will return to finally establish his kingdom for the whole Jewish race, along with the Gentiles who have been grafted in by faith.

 

But Paul—the Apostle to the Gentiles—taught about the Kingdom of God to the Gentiles also. This was some thirty years after Jesus, and it was the core message of his teaching just like it was Jesus’s.

 

• Acts 28:23  “He witnessed to them from morning till evening, explaining about the kingdom of God, and from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets he tried to persuade them about Jesus.”
• Acts 28:30-31  “For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him.  He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance.”

 

Question:  What about Paul’s message of salvation by grace through faith?

 The Gospel is the good news of the Kingdom of God—it’s here; the dream of God for the restoration of all creation has begun. Salvation by grace through faith is the door—the entry point into life in the Kingdom. It’s also the way the playing field has been leveled—access to the Kingdom is the same for everyone—by trusting in Jesus. This is part of the reason that Western Christianity is so far off base: We don’t even know what the Gospel is. It’s supposed to be the good news that in Jesus Christ, God’s new creation has begun. The kingdom of God is here!  Enter in!  Start living it! But we have reduced the Gospel into information about how to go to heaven after you die. Hugh Halter and Matt Smay, in The Tangible Kingdom, call this “The Incredible Shrinking Gospel.” Dallas Willard called it “Vampire Christianity”: We only need Jesus for his blood. The Good News is supposed to be announcing a way to live in this world so you can experience life as God intended—the life of the ages! The Good Life!

 

What the Kingdom of God is: In Greek, the word is Basilea, which means Kingship, or Royal Rule. It’s about God’s will being done on earth for everybody, as Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer. It is both personal and social, private and public, secret and visible, spiritual and physical, eternal and historic, heavenly and earthly. It’s about character and love, which are personal and individual and hidden. But it’s also about justice and peace, which are public and social and visible. It starts in the heart of every individual who yields to the reign and rule of Christ…then it flows outward in actions that begin to change the world.

 

Conclusion

Every kingdom has a charter, or constitution, that governs the relationships of the citizens of that realm. In Old Testament Israel it was Torah, the Law. In the New Covenant it is the Law of Love, and Jesus spelled it out in the Sermon on the Mount.

Over the next several weeks we’re going to look at this specific section of scripture - some would call it the greatest sermon to have ever been preached – to discover what Kingdom Life is all about— The Good Life, is a life of following and learning from Christ - how to live then and now as we seek to become more like him. 

Amen