Matt. 4:12-23 Theme: Proclaim the Goodnews of Christ
Text: Is. 8:22-93; 1 Cor. 1:10-13, 17; Matt. 4:12-23
Introduction: In the providence of God the message and ministry of John the Baptist served two special purposes. Firstly it prepared the hearts of the Israelites for the advent and revelation of their long awaited Messiah, Jesus Christ. Secondly it provided a link between the dispensation of the Law and the prophets and the dispensation of the gospel initiated by Jesus Christ. God will not leave Himself without a witness, or His Church without guides and when one useful instrument is removed God will raise up another. In Matthew’s introduction to the life and ministry of Jesus we discover the way Jesus ministered and the way He expects us to minister as His disciples. He teaches us that the good news of the Kingdom has priority over everything else. This is the reason why when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, He immediately left the area and began His ministry of preaching the good news, teaching and healing. He placed the preaching of the good news of the Kingdom as a priority in His life. He put it before his mother and brothers, before His own needs and ultimately even before His own life. Jesus’ example teaches us to serve God by seeking His will in whatever situation we find ourselves, placing our lives before Him in prayer and sharing the Good News. God has called us and sent us with a message. He has sent us to proclaim the Good News of Christ.
Step One: The Good News of the Kingdom
a) Repentance from dead works
The good news was the message that Jesus came to bring and He stated it clearly in the first sermon that He preached saying, “Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is near”. It is the good news of God’s love for His people, our restored relationship with Him, and our entrance into His Kingdom. This Kingdom is a kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. It is the Kingdom of eternal life and entrance into it is only through repentance and faith. Repentance is vital to a right relationship with God and is the first response to the gospel that God demands. It is a necessary preparation for the revelation of the Messiah. Nothing else can come before it and nothing else can take its place. Repentance means to change one’s mind and is a decision and not just a perceived spiritual experience. It is an inner change of mind resulting in an outward turning back, or turning around, to face or to move in a completely new direction. Repentance is more than being sorry for past sins. It is a determined and purposeful turning away from a sinful past and a full-hearted turning to God. It is putting into practice our Christian beliefs and not just giving verbal assent to them. It is the end of the old life and the beginning of the new life.
b) Faith towards God
True repentance always precedes true faith and without true repentance there can never be true faith. Without repentance faith alone is a mere empty profession. This is one reason why the experience of so many Christians today is so unstable and insecure. They are professing faith but have never practised true repentance. They are trying to build without first laying a foundation. As a result the faith they profess procures for them neither the favour of God nor the respect of the world.
Illustration: George Gallup, in a poll taken on spiritual life in America, uncovered that a majority of Americans believe that Christ rose from the dead and is a living Presence today. Yet very few translate that belief into action. Gallup remarks “There is little difference in ethical behaviour between the churched and the unchurched. There’s as much pilferage and dishonesty among the churched as the unchurched. And I’m afraid that applies pretty much across the board: religion per se, is not really life changing. People cite it as important, for instance, in overcoming depression – but it doesn’t have primacy in determining behaviour.” This is indeed a sad comment on Christianity. Just as being a descendant of Abraham did not guarantee salvation, neither does being a member of a Church. Only genuine repentance and faith can do this. True repentance will impact and determine our behaviour. John the Baptist prepared the people for the first coming of Christ by calling them to repentance. We have been sent to proclaim the good news of Christ and repentance is what ushers us into the Christian life. I once heard the story of an American woman on her first visit to Europe. She rented a car to tour the tourist sites only to return it the next day complaining that it was too loud and too slow. The rental firm told her that she had been given the best Mercedes, the quietest and the fastest. To prove her point she drove them a short distance driving the whole time in first gear. She had never driven a car with gears before and drove, as she was accustomed to with her automatic. The man from the rental firm took the wheel and began to drive. The car moved fast and made no noise at all. She learnt how to change gears and immediately fell in love with the car. This is the way many Christians behave. They not only fail to change the gears of their Christian lives properly but even attempt to drive without releasing the brakes. This makes the journey almost impossible. Inevitably the journey would end with damage to the car leading to an accident and injury to the occupants. We cannot lead the Christian life without first repenting of our sins. Without repentance we should not be surprised when we cannot live or enjoy the Christian journey.
Application: Repentance and faith leads to God’s forgiveness and abiding inward peace and victory over sin. Let us not only preach the good news but let us also demonstrate the changed lives made possible through repentance and faith toward God.
Step Two: Communicating the Good News
a) Preaching – Jesus’ concern for commitment
Christ needs followers to communicate the good news because it results in everlasting life. But only those who have a relationship with Christ can effectively preach the good news. This is because biblical preaching deals in certainties and not doubts and preachers must preach what they are certain of. Only those who have been called by God to a relationship with Him can preach the certainties of God. That which has been preached by our Lord before can be very profitably preached and heard again as it is the Word of God. The reason for preaching the message Jesus preached today is the same as it was when He preached it? The kingdom of heaven is here.
b) Teaching – Jesus’ concern for understanding
The spiritual certainties of God are the realities that affect the world. What happens in the physical is only a manifestation of what has happened in the spiritual and teaching is essential to spiritual understanding. We need an understanding of spiritual things for it is out of a lack of understanding that the people perish. We need to understand that the message of salvation is to everyone. We need to know that we were all born into the same sinful situation and live in the same sinful world. We need to know we have the same sinful temptations trying to lead us astray. We also need to know that the grace of God is available for everyone’s salvation.
Illustration: We are all born into this world with a sinful nature, a nature that is an enemy of God. It is this sinful nature that darkens our lives and makes us like the deeds of darkness rather than the deeds of light. Sin makes us believe we do not really need God and His Word. God wants us to believe His Word with all our heart and so Jesus began His ministry by choosing those He would teach and who would continue with His ministry after He had left them. He chose ordinary people who had a yearning in their heart for the things of God. Simon Peter and Andrew immediately heeded Jesus’ call, dropped their fishing nets and followed Him. His message of repentance and the presence of the Kingdom of heaven was something they had been yearning for. It was a yearning that their busy lives as fishermen could not satisfy. It was a yearning that only Jesus could satisfy through a transformation of their lives – no longer fishing for fish but for men. A relationship with Christ always transforms and those in such a relationship are compelled to give expression to that relationship by a wholehearted trust and complete confidence in His Word. Jesus called His disciples so that He could change their hearts, train them, and send them into the whole world as bearers of the good news. It is interesting to note that the disciples were working when Jesus called them. Jesus does not call lazy people but those who are busy and hard at work. He calls patient, hard working, and persevering people who can endue hardships. He calls to a superior service that includes suffering and not to ease, comfort and recreation. If God calls you, you will love Jesus more than anything or anyone else in the world. You will love Jesus more than your mother, wife, husband, children, brothers, sisters, and even your own life. You will find that there is nothing greater than fishing for men.
Application: Do you love Jesus enough to heed His call to preach the good news? Jesus Christ is calling us today to come and follow Him. He is calling us to bring the good news of salvation to the many who are dying without it. If we have a relationship with Christ we will be concerned about what is important to Him.
Step Three: Living in the Kingdom
a) Physical healing – Jesus’ concern for the body
If you are a Christian, then you are a fisherman commissioned by God to catch those who are perishing and waiting to be judged and to bring them to salvation in Christ. You are to bring them into the Kingdom by proclaiming without shame that Christ died for our sins and was raised for our justification. Not only did Jesus’ ministry include preaching and teaching about God’s Kingdom, God’s mercy, and God’s grace, but it also included healing. Jesus healed the sick, cleansed the lepers, and gave sight to the blind. He healed the paralytics and those who were suffering with terrible seizures, and He cast out devils.
b) Spiritual healing – Jesus concern for the spirit
Physical healing proves our preaching and teaching about salvation is true. We know that the Messiah has come because we see the power of the Kingdom of heaven at work. With full authority Jesus preached, taught and successfully commanded demons to go out of people. He is the deliverer, the One who came to free people from the kingdom of Satan.
Illustration: John from his prison cell wanted to know whether Jesus was the Messiah and He cited the evidence in the words, “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised,” and most important of all, “the good news is preached to the poor”. Jesus referred John the Baptist to the Word of God. He of all people knew the prophecy of Isaiah and what Jesus was doing fulfilled that prophecy in its entirety. The Kingdom of God is here because the good news is being preached. The devil’s hostages are being set free because a great light, Jesus Christ, is shining in the darkness, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Kingdom of God. Jesus is the Light of the world, and the light the life of men. Jesus first went to Galilee because of the deep darkness there. It was the area of ancient Israel that had suffered most from their enemies and was greatly influenced by the paganism of their time. Jesus going to Galilee fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah predicting the return of the light of liberty and prosperity to those countries that had been in the darkness of captivity. It speaks of the good news of Christ bringing the people of that region reason for great joy celebration and fulfilling the prophecy that “the people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.” This implies not only a great darkness but also a great danger. Today we want to preach the good news of Christ where it is comfortable, where there is already light and where it is not dangerous and not where it is urgently needed.
Application: Preaching the good news has priority over everything else. We should see the urgency as the disciples did. They responded immediately by stopping what they were doing to follow Christ. Just as Jesus called those first disciples He is still calling us today to preach the good news.
Conclusion: Jesus has come to bring us out of darkness into His marvellous light. The presence of light always dispels darkness no matter how dark it may be. The light of Christ will change our death into life, our gloom into laughter, and our darkness into light. Jesus came as a light in the darkness, as a friend of sinners, and preached the good news. In going to Galilee to preach the good news, Jesus was foreshadowing the subsequent commissioning of His disciples for the universal proclamation of the gospel. The whole world was foreshadowed in Galilee, the place of deep darkness. To proclaim the good news Jesus had to choose and train disciples so He could send them into the world as bearers of light. Jesus Christ is calling us to be fishers of men. We are not to destroy them, but to save them. We are to fish for men, not for wealth, honour, and gain for ourselves but for souls to bring to Christ. Since it is Jesus Christ who calls and commissions us to fish for souls we must follow His example. We must know what the good news is, humble ourselves as He did, and reach out to the lost. The whole world is in trouble and we are Christ’s disciples and as such bearers of light. We are to follow the example of Christ and destroy the works of the devil and deliver those the devil has taken captive. We are to open the eyes of the blind and turn people from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins.
Personal response: We need to be wise and the wisest thing we can do is to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved. We need to turn from Satan and darkness to the Saviour and light and we need to commit ourselves to proclaiming the good news of Christ as faithful servants. This is the least we can do after all that Christ has done for us. Amen!
