December 11, 2005

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The Life and Ministry of Jesus

Matthew 4:12-25

          This week we move on in the story of Christ to examine his life and ministry.  As Pastor Rod mentioned last week, we don’t know much about the life of Christ from birth until about the age of 30 when his public ministry began.  Despite what we do not know we can be confident that his experience as a human being was common to the experience of every person.  He had friends, he had enemies, he had a spiritual life, and he was involved in the life of his local faith community.  His earthly life was every bit as normal as ours.  He was both fully human and fully divine.  He was exempt from no common human experience, except that he never disobeyed the Father by choosing sin.

          We know from scripture that his friendships were very human.  He had to accept and learn to deal with the same personality defects that affect the quality of our relationships.  His close relationship to Mary, Martha, and Lazarus is perhaps one of the best examples of Jesus’ human relationships.  He met this family and developed a close bond with them.  He was often a guest in their home.  They always looked forward to his visits.  But they were very real people full of pride, jealousy, and people pleasing tendencies.  Sound like anyone you know?  Though they loved Christ, they were still very much in process. 

Jesus experienced many things with them.  He walked through the difficult experience of grief with these women when their brother Lazarus died.  Jesus sat with them as they cried and complained.  He experienced the pain of this loss too and wept at the loss of this friend.  We know the rest of the story.  We know that Jesus eventually raises Lazarus from the dead and the story has an incredible ending.  But there is so much to learn about the quality of Jesus’ human relationships from his friendship with these people. 

          Once Jesus is engaged in ministry we learn that he selected some very human, very flawed, very normal men to be his disciples.  They spent every waking moment together in ministry: traveling, eating, sleeping, and sharing their hearts.  We can imagine times of great laughter and joy as well as times of frustration and disagreement.  We know they were a highly competitive lot with Jesus often playing the role of referee; settling disputes among them.  But what we know most of all is that Jesus and his disciples really loved each other.  Despite all the interpersonal conflict they were committed to Christ and to each other.

          This may come as a surprise to us, but Jesus had some very real enemies.  Some people desperately wanted to destroy him.  Jesus’ enemies would often try to trap him or attack him with their theological inquiries.  They wanted to trip him up.  They wanted to trap him in a lie.  They wanted to prove him to be a fake.  He refused to fall for their tricks and always turned the microscope on their own hearts.  Jesus lived out what he taught his disciples about how to treat their enemies.  He rebuked his enemies’ unbelief because they should have known better.  But he never got violent with them and never returned evil for evil. 

          Throughout the NT, especially after his ministry is inaugurated, we see Jesus engaging in his spiritual life.  Through the prayers of Jesus we get a window into his spiritual heart.  As he is praying for himself, his disciples, his followers, and for the world in John 17 we get a glimpse into the spiritual heart of Christ.  In Gethsemane, we see Jesus praying to God in his brokenness.  He makes a very human request asking God if there is any way around the suffering he knew he would face on the cross.  But then he shifts his focus back onto the mission God sent him to complete and says to the Father, “Not my will but yours be done.”  He also valued solitude and we are told numerous times that Jesus and the disciples would make time to get away for rest and refreshment after particularly vigorous times of ministry.  Jesus was intentional about maintaining and nurturing his intimate connection to the Father and his spiritual life is the primary example of a godly life for us all.

          Jesus was part of a faith community.  From childhood on, Jesus would have been fully immersed in the life of the local synagogue in Nazareth.  He would have gone to services there to hear the rabbi’s teaching.  He would have attended school there as well.  If his teaching at the Temple in Jerusalem at age 12 is any indication, he probably spent much of his time engaged in conversation and theological debate with the local rabbis and religious scholars.  Jesus was thoroughly Jewish and his involvement in the community of faith was foundational to who he was as a person. 

Moving on from the life of Christ, the Bible tells us that Jesus’ earthly ministry began in earnest following his forty days and nights of temptation and testing in the desert.  Following that experience, Jesus moved from his hometown of Nazareth to Capernaum, about 20 miles north.  Capernaum was in the region of Galilee.  There is no clear reason for the move, but Matthew wanted his readers, especially his Jewish readers, to connect the location of Jesus’ earthly ministry to the prophecy of Isaiah 9:1-2. 

Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah would be a light to the land of Zebulun and Naphtali.  These were two of the original twelve tribes of Israel.  They were given this land during the conquest of Canaan under Joshua but were deported by the Assyrians when they conquered the Northern Kingdom.  When the Assyrians captured a land they would repopulate the area with people from other nations.  The location of Jesus’ early ministry became known as Galilee of the Gentiles.  Eventually, the Jews moved back to the area but it was an area consumed by darkness and evil.  When Jesus arrived in the region the long awaited prophecy was fulfilled, Israel’s light had come, and he began to carry out the mission for which he was sent: to preach the Good News of the arrival of the Kingdom of heaven and hope for those in bondage to sin and darkness.

Matthew 4:17 gives us the first words of Christ’s earthly ministry, “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is near.”  Jesus initiated his ministry with the same word John was preaching to prepare the way for his arrival: repent.  The message is the same for us today.  Becoming a Christian begins with repentance, an intentional turning away from our self-centeredness and self-control by turning to Christ and bending our will toward his.  Even our repentance is initiated by God’s loving kindness wooing us back to his heart.

The second component of Jesus’ first words was the basis for Christ’s call to repentance.  Jesus says they should repent because: “the Kingdom of God is near”.  Matthew, writing for a mostly Jewish audience, used the word heaven in place of God respecting the intense reverence the Jewish people had for the name of God.  In speaking about God, the Jews would refer to him using other names: Adonai, Elohim, or Lord, but they would not say YAHWEH out of respect for the sacredness of God’s name.

This announcement had profound implications for the Jews.  If the Kingdom of God is near then his justice won’t be far behind.  God will come to tip the scales in their favor.  All of the abuse, scorn, and suffering they’ve endured as his people will be avenged and the people of the world will get what’s coming to them.  The Jews of Jesus’ day were looking for a Messiah who would establish God’s Kingdom on earth and exist for all eternity.  This Messiah would be a descendant of King David. 

So when Jesus said, “The Kingdom of heaven is near,” they would have understood what he meant: the Messiah of God had come to inaugurate his long-awaited earthly kingdom.  As you can imagine, this stirred up great excitement among the people.  But it also created some problems.  They misunderstood what the Messiah’s kingdom would be like and when it would begin.  The Kingdom of God began when God entered history as a human being in the person of Jesus Christ.  But Christ’s Kingdom is both a present in future reality.  It will not reach fulfillment until Christ returns as King and Judge to finally and decisively rid the world of sin and evil and reign over all the earth for eternity.

The Israelites hoped the Messiah’s arrival would establish them once again as a world power, overthrowing the Roman government, with its oppression and persecution, and initiate a universal kingdom of peace.  But the Kingdom of God, which began quietly in a manger in Bethlehem, was God’s rule in people’s hearts.  So what does this mean?  It means the Kingdom of God is only as “near” as our willingness to make Jesus king and Lord of our lives.  Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke17:21, NIV).  We do not know when God’s Kingdom will arrive in its fullness, but it can be a present spiritual reality when we accept Jesus as savior in our hearts.

Matthew builds a case, for his Jewish readers, to authenticate Jesus’ identity as Israel’s long-awaited Messiah.  But it serves a purpose for us as well.  We can be confident putting our faith in him because he is who he says he is.  The Bible bears this truth out connecting Jesus to the words of the OT prophets and Jesus’ own life and ministry validate this truth.  We have the strong assurance that our faith in Christ will secure not only our salvation from sin and death but also our place in eternity with God.  God has made a way back home and that way is Jesus.

Matthew 4:18-22 recounts the calling of the first disciples.  This is the second major event of Christ’s initial ministry.  This is important.  Jesus sets out in ministry on his own, but he immediately reaches out to the creation he desperately loves and invites them to join him in his work.  This reaching out, this calling of the first disciples is symbolic of our partnership with Christ.  His mission was clear and he knew the culmination of his earthly ministry would lead to his death and eventual resurrection.  If the Kingdom would continue it’s advance, when Jesus returned to the Father, it would need human ambassadors willing to embrace his mission and carry it out into the world.

It is important that Jesus recruited disciples so early in his ministry, but it is also important to notice who he calls first.  Jesus does not go looking for disciples among the intellectual or religious elite.  He goes to the shore of the Sea of Galilee looking for hardworking men who fished for a living.  Why these guys?  Why not the ones with the best minds and most education?  Why not the ones with training in theology?  Why, because he wasn’t necessarily looking for the most qualified men, socially or educationally, he was looking for people who would, despite their character flaws and shortcomings, follow him with passion and abandon.  His selection of these fishermen was anything but random?  He wasn’t walking the shore just asking anyone to follow him.  He had specific people in mind.  He was walking that beach with purpose.

He first encounters two brothers: Simon (whom we know as Peter) and Andrew.  We know this was not their first encounter with Christ from John’s account in John 1:35-49.  When Jesus meets up with them he finds them casting a net into the sea.  As they’re working he says to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men,” (Matthew 4:19, NKJV).  Matthew tells us their response to the call of Christ was immediate, “They immediately left their nets and followed him” (Matthew 4:20, NKJV).

Jesus calls two more brothers: James and John, also fishermen, and their response to the call of Christ was identical to Simon and Andrew’s response, “Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him” (Matthew 4:22, NRSV).  It is interesting that not only were the first four disciples all fishermen, but they were also two pairs of brothers in business together.  Simon and Andrew had a fishing business and James and John had a fishing business.  Their prior working relationships indicated they would already understand how to work together to accomplish a common purpose.  Their willing and prompt response to the call of Christ indicates the Spirit of God was already at work before they heard and responded to the call.

In Jesus’ words to Simon and Andrew, and presumably to James and John though these words aren’t recorded in their call account, he says, “I will make you fishers of men.”  This implies something important about the disciples’ ministry that carries over into our carrying out the Great Commission today.  These men were professional fishermen.  They knew everything there was to know about the business of catching fish on the Sea of Galilee.  They knew what nets to use, the best fishing holes, and the right times to catch them.  But this business of fishing for souls was something altogether different. 

To be successful at gathering souls for the Kingdom of God they would need special training and Jesus would empower them to do just that.  As they followed him and watched him engaged in ministry they would learn from him what fishing for souls looked like.  He would first model for them an example of the ministry he would later entrust to them and to every believer after them.  Jesus’ example was all the training they needed to be successful in carrying on his mission following his return to the Father.

Jesus lays out his mission in the Great Commission, found later in Matthew 28:19-20.  The ministry of every believer needs to be focused on faithfully executing the command of Christ in the Great Commission, “Go, therefore, into all the world baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit and teaching them to obey all the things I have commanded you, and know I will always be with you, even to the end of the age.”  Jesus gave us the example we should follow and he promised that his presence would equip and empower us as we endeavor to complete the mission he began in his earthly ministry.

After calling the first four disciples, Jesus ministry really takes off.  In Matthew 4:23 we are told, “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people” (NIV).  The implication is that Jesus’ ministry was focused on the entire region of Galilee.  He was quite literally, all over the map.  His ministry reached into every corner of the region of Galilee, as well as Samaria and Judea.  He would have encountered both Jews and Gentiles in those areas.  The intensity of his schedule would have been demanding for anyone, and it was for him too.  Often we find Jesus retreating to a solitary place to connect with the Father and refuel for future ministry encounters. 

It was important for Jesus, a Jewish person by heritage, to reach out to Jewish people.  His first stop in the communities he encountered was the local synagogue.  These houses of teaching and preaching emerged during the exile when the Jews couldn’t worship at the Temple in Jerusalem.  Each synagogue was under the leadership of a presiding rabbi.  The rabbi was more an administrator than a pastor.  He would have been responsible for scheduling local rabbis to teach in the synagogue. 

It is likely Jesus would have been invited by the presiding rabbi to teach in the local synagogues.  Rod told us last week that even as a child, Jesus possessed a tremendous ability to teach.  His teaching ability was exceptional and it should have been because he was the Word of God incarnate, in the flesh.  He was doing and saying things that none of the other rabbis were doing and saying.  We know from scripture that anytime he was teaching large crowds formed to listen. 

Most teaching in synagogues was expository.  The rabbis would select a text and flesh out its meaning and application for the people.  Effective teaching relates truth to life.  We cannot expect to apply God’s Word if we do not understand what it means.  So it is important that we sit under the teaching of someone who can help us understand the truths we encounter and apply them to our lives. 

Jesus had a unique concern for his own people and desperately wanted them to embrace the Good News about the arrival of the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus’ commitment to teaching emphasized for his hearers the importance of, the centrality of the Word of God in the lives of those who believe.  The Word is the necessary diet for believers.  We need a healthy spiritual diet if we are to see our faith grow and mature.  God’s Word is the main course providing the necessary spiritual nourishment for our souls and the necessary inspiration and encouragement we need to press on in our journey as Christ’s disciples.  His teaching ministry reminds us that we have much to learn and the Word is the source of all learning for life and faith.

Next Matthew addresses the preaching ministry of Christ.  Different from his teaching ministry in that teaching has more to do with exposition or explaining the meaning of something.  Preaching has to do with exhortation or proclamation.  Preaching is the art of proclaiming the truth of God’s Word for his people.  Let’s frame the difference between preaching and teaching in the context of equipping your children with the skills they need to walk to school. 

Preaching is like saying, “Make sure you look both ways before you cross the street because it can be dangerous.”  This is a proclamation, an announcement, of some important truth you want them to understand.  But left at that they have no reason to believe you’re telling them the truth.  They might, through experimentation, find out that you’re correct.  Teaching, on the other hand, builds on the basic truth helping them better understand and apply the truth they’ve encountered.  By explaining what is dangerous about not looking both ways, such as the risk of getting hit by a car, they can learn to successfully avoid the danger and get to school without incident.   

What does Matthew tell us was the content of Jesus’ preaching: the good news of the kingdom.  When preaching in the synagogues of the Jewish communities Jesus entered he had the opportunity to proclaim the message of the arrival of God’s Kingdom and the hope of salvation that arrival provides lost and sinful human beings.  Jesus preached the Kingdom.  Everything Jesus did was a proclamation: this is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.  He took every opportunity to proclaim the arrival of God’s Kingdom to people. 

Why was this message so central to his preaching?  Because this is why he came.  The ministry of Christ cannot be divorced from the mission of Christ.  Jesus came to earth on a God-appointed mission.  More than all the miraculous healings, parables, and teachings of Christ, he was called primarily to one thing: to proclaim the arrival of the Kingdom of God and to make a way back to God for human hearts.  That is why Jesus came and everything he did in his earthly ministry was directed at this end.

The ministry of Christ emerged out of the mission of Christ.  To effectively make known the Kingdom he came proclaiming, Jesus would have to explain that kingdom in ways that related to people’s experience.  In Matthew 13, Jesus spoke about the Kingdom by relating it to things his hearers would have recognized from their everyday experience.  He taught them through parables what the Kingdom is like.  He said it is like a sower sowing good seed in all kinds of soil, like someone who sowed good seed in his field whose enemy sowed weeds among wheat, like a mustard seed, like yeast in a batch of flour, like treasure hidden in a field, like a merchant in search of fine pearls, and like a net thrown into the sea catching every kind of fish. 

All of these images would have made sense to them, would have given them a picture of what Jesus was trying to say about the Kingdom of God.  It is possible that they still missed the point even though he was teaching them about the Kingdom using everyday images from their culture.  The point today is not to explain the meaning of what Jesus was trying to teach, Pastor Rod has spent most of this year doing that, but to say that his ministry included both teaching and preaching about the topic his mission and ministry hinged on: the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

The final component of Jesus’ ministry Matthew addresses is the healing ministry of Christ.  Through acts of healing the compassion and mercy of God become real to us.  When God is moved in his heart to respond to the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs of people, by healing and restoring them to fullness of life, we get a vivid picture of what his Kingdom is like.  God’s desire for his creation is that they would be whole and complete: body, mind, soul, and spirit.  It is not God’s best desire for us to be afflicted.  That our suffering moves the heart of God should be an indication of the depth of compassion and mercy contained in his heart.  Jesus encountered so many broken, lost, and sick people.  Everywhere he went he was confronted by the enormity of human need.

Matthew tells us that Jesus was busy “healing every disease and sickness among the people” (4:23 c, NIV).  We do not know if Matthew was saying that every person brought to Jesus was in fact healed or if he was saying Jesus encountered every possible type of sickness, disease, or affliction in the people he healed.  Regardless, Jesus’ healing ministry provided powerful and convincing evidence that the Kingdom he proclaimed had indeed arrived.  His works of healing also served to authenticate his teaching and preaching; proving he was truly from God.

Matthew goes onto explain that Jesus’ fame grew and spread throughout all Syria (the area north of Galilee indicating that the message of Christ was moving beyond the borders of Palestine.  The Romans used Syria to refer to all of Palestine, except for the region of Galilee under the independent administration of Herod Antipas).  And he was inundated with requests for healings of all kinds of afflictions (physical and spiritual).  Jesus’ healing ministry really caused a stir among the people and he became well known very quickly. 

When people caught wind of the stories of miraculous healings he performed you can imagine they hoped beyond hope that he might do the same for their own suffering loved ones.  People would often travel to find him and bring him home to the person who was sick or would instead physically bring the person to Jesus.  This desperation was motivated by the intense hope that Jesus might bring healing to their house.

This week my wife and I have been desperate for healing to come to our house.  This has been a particularly challenging week for our family.  Brandon has been battling an ear infection for a couple of weeks.  He was initially prescribed a medication that was unsuccessful in treating the infection.  The doctor prescribed another medication that caused him to break out all over his body with red, puffy hives.  At one point his little eyes were swollen nearly shut. 

This violent reaction to the medication has been so painful and annoying for Brandon, and nothing short of heartbreaking for Tammy and I.  The severity of the reaction had us in the ER most of Friday morning.  After a series of blood tests they determined the reaction was not affecting his internal organs, a huge concern for us.  And it appears he is not in danger of the rare but fatal reaction this medication has been known to cause.  And so we praise God for his faithfulness in Brandon’s life.

The reason I’m sharing this story is to make this point: I have never been more desperate for or trusted in God’s power to heal more than this week.  As parents, you know that your ability to help your children has limits.  I would have taken those hives from Brandon in an instant, if I could.  But the truth is: I was quite literally helpless.  All I could do was fall into the loving arms of Jesus and trust in his power to heal.

Later Friday afternoon, following our visit to the ER, I was looking at some pictures of Jesus on the cross I have around my office at home.  I began thinking about God standing by and watching as his only son hung there dying on the cross.  God of course had unlimited power at his disposal and could have easily rescued Jesus from that suffering, but he chose not to intervene.  As one father to another, I began asking him why.  Why would you stand by and watch your Son die if there existed even the slightest possibility to prevent it?  He spoke this truth to me: because of the possibility his death might have the power to communicate the depth of my love for you.

Let me tell you that I don’t love any of you enough to let my son die for you.  When he is suffering I would do anything within my power to rescue him from it.  But that is precisely what makes God’s love so amazing.  He chose not to do what he could have done in an instant to secure the possibility of being in a relationship with us.  Now that is love.

This morning, I am immensely grateful for the healing ministry of Christ.  My son is improving by the day and through this experience I’ve learned a little more what it means to trust in the Lord with all my heart.

Jesus’ healing ministry exists as a testimony to God’s desire to make us whole and complete.  Some of the religious folk in Jesus’ day tried to tempt him to perform miracles for them to show off his power.  But Jesus never jumped at the requests of the religious elite to display his miracle working power.  Mostly because he knew the motive of their hearts was to prove him a fake.  But often he was moved by the faith displayed by family members bringing sick people to him.  Mark tells us of a time he was teaching in someone’s home and these men broke through the roof of the house to get their sick friend to Jesus.  Now that is faith.  And Jesus responded by their display of faith by bringing healing to the man.  In those contexts, others would also come to faith in Christ as they witnessed these amazing healing miracles.

What we learn from the example of Christ’s earthly ministry is this: every single situation we encounter, every single opportunity we have for sharing our faith is an opportunity to let down the nets of the Kingdom and invite others to receive Christ and to enter the fellowship of believers.  Jesus was focused on completing the mission the Father sent him to complete, always with an eye on the cross.  We too must set our focus on being willing servants of the Kingdom of heaven.  We like Jesus should be devoted to seeing God’s Kingdom grow and spread.  His is a Kingdom of compassion and mercy, a Kingdom of forgiveness, grace and love.  Why wouldn’t we want every person we meet to come into this Kingdom and join us in loving and serving God in Christ?  We must be a community whose doors are open to all, whose hearts are full of the love of Christ, and whose minds are engaged by and growing in his Word.

Eli Dorman

eli.dorman@mulberrryumc.org