The Dawning of God’s Kingdom
Matt. 4:12-25 sermon manuscript
I love dawn. Occasionally, we get out of the house early enough to see the sunrise, as I drive my wife to work. I love seeing the sky brighten gradually, and I really love seeing the magnificent array of colors. It seems that God delights to bring light into darkness. He did it at creation, and he does it every time he saves a sinner, and he does it in a unique way at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry. Following Jesus’s first great victory over the devil, resisting all of his temptations in the wilderness, achieving a perfect score on his Father’s test by trusting what his Father had said in Scripture and obeying what his Father had said in Scripture, Matthew concludes his introduction of Jesus with another note about Jesus’s geographical movements. This sets up the first block of Jesus’s teaching, the Sermon on the Mount. But Matthew sees this particular move of Jesus as a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy about God’s light once again shining in darkness.
We begin this morning in Matthew 4:12-16. Follow along as I read: Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.”
John’s arrest marks the close of his public ministry. The voice of John had been silenced.[1] Jesus takes the baton from him and steps out into his public ministry. Jesus sees John’s arrest as an indicator that it’s time for him to move from Nazareth to Galilee, to the city of Capernaum specifically.[2] AndMatthew recognizes Jesus’s movement as fulfilling Isaiah 9:1-2. In these verses, Isaiah was describing what was going to happen to Israel after the judgment of exile. Isaiah chapter 8 had focused on announcing that God was sending the Assyrians to punish Israel, and this was to serve as a warning to the southern kingdom, Judah. At the end of chapter 8, Isaiah described the lostness and the darkness of Judah, evident because they would prefer to seek help from witches than to pray to Yahweh their God!
Then Isaiah 9 opens with a fantastic picture of the light that will break into the darkness, and he specifies that this light is going to arrive in “Galilee of the Gentiles.” This phrase probably emphasizes that Galilee is under the rule of Gentiles, not so much that it is dominated or inhabited by Gentiles in general. In Isaiah’s day, it was the Assyrians who ruled over the people of Israel; in Jesus’s day, it was the Romans.[3] While the Jewish region of Galilee is under the influence and rule of Gentile overlords,[4]still under the judgment of God, light will appear to dispel the darkness.[5]
Matthew is saying that the light has dawned in Jesus’s transition from Nazareth to Galilee. He is the light Isaiah highlighted. Dawn is the time when the sun just begins to get rid of the darkness of night; dawn is the time when the sun just begins to brighten our day. So it is that Jesus begins his great work officially and publicly by settling in the city of Capernaum,[6]and he begins this work first in Galilee, which was a part of the northern kingdom of Israel, which was sent into the darkness of exile first.[7]And so it is that Matthew immediately summarizes the heart of Jesus’s message in verse 17.
From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” This is precisely the message John the Baptist had been preaching. Though John’s voice is now silenced, his message continues to sound forth from the mouth of Jesus, the King himself. There are two main features of Jesus’s message, as it is summarized here. The announcement is that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He says that second, but this fact is the reason for the command he issues to the people. Matthew’s distinctive phrase, “the kingdom of heaven,” comes from the lips of Jesus; it’s not just a polite accommodation to Jewish concerns about saying the name of God or even the word “God.” Instead, it communicates an emphasis that this kingdom has its source in heaven. This kingdom is coming down from heaven to encompass the broken earth. It is God’s kingdom to be sure, and the primary emphasis in this phrase is the idea of God’s reign. The word “kingdom” often makes us think first of all about a place, but a kingdom is a kingdom because there is a King who reigns over his subjects.[8] Yes, he also reigns over those subjects in a place, but the primary idea is his reign.[9]
So, the message is that God’s reign over all things is being established now. It is “at hand,” which is to say that it is dawning; it has arrived, but not fully. Jesus is the King; he carries the royal authority in himself. So, now that he has arrived, the kingdom has arrived. Jesus is going to exercise his royal authority throughout his ministry. He will demonstrate his kingship as he banishes demons and sickness from his realm,[10]offers royal pardons to sinners, calls those sinners to submit to his rule, and promises to transform the citizens of his kingdom. Thus, Jesus’s message begins with a command, a royal decree: repent! That is the only appropriate response of sinners to the arrival of the heavenly King.
Matthew next tells us about an encounter between the King and a handful of sinful fishermen in verses 18-22.While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
Matthew focuses in on one particular encounter with these fishermen to highlight Jesus’s royal authority in calling sinners to salvation and discipleship.[11] He skips over the fact, which we learn in John’s Gospel, that Jesus had already met these men and interacted with them prior to this event.[12] This is a decisive turning point for these four fishermen. Jesus approaches them in the middle of their work and commands[13] them to abandon ship—literally!—and to follow him. What’s he commanding here? Basically, he’s saying, “Go where I go; do what I do.”
Jesus is not simply acting as a rabbi here, calling students to study him and his ways and his teachings. In fact, Jewish rabbis didn’t choose their students in this fashion; students would choose their rabbi and ask permission to become one of his disciples. Jesus chooses and calls his disciples.[14]
Now, I want to take a moment to reflect on the nature of this “call.” Is Jesus calling these men to salvation, or is he calling them to service, as the distinction is sometimes made? Some folks insist that this must be a special call to service that only applies to the apostles and does not apply to all Christians.[15] Or, if this kind of calling applies to Christians today, it is viewed as the kind of thing a pastor or a missionary might experience. The call to discipleship is viewed by some as a call to greater commitment that may not be for everybody, so that a person could be a Christian but not be a disciple. Others see this call as the call to salvation, so that to be a disciple is to be a Christian; a disciple is a believer.[16]
Perhaps the best way to say this is that the call to discipleship includes the call to salvation. Let me show you why I see a tight connection between Jesus’s call, “Follow me,” and salvation.Flip over to Matthew 19 for just a moment.This is the story of the rich young ruler. In Matt. 19:16, he approached Jesus to ask, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” Jesus reminds him of the Ten Commandments, which this rich young man claims to have kept sufficiently. So, Jesus then instructs him to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor, and, Jesus says in verse 21, “Come, follow me.” So, there’s the same “call” issued to this rich young man. You remember how the rich young man responds? He went home sad. Commenting on this encounter, Jesus says to his disciples in verse 24, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven.” So, Jesus here connects his call to “follow me” with entering the kingdom of heaven. He goes on to speak of the apparent impossibility of rich people entering the kingdom of God, and in verse 25 the disciples ask, in astonishment, “Who then can be saved?” So, in this passage we see Jesus’s call to “follow me” connected with having eternal life(the rich man’s question), entering the kingdom of God (Jesus’s comments to his disciples), and being saved (his disciples’ question).
Now, back to Matthew 4. If “going away sad” is the wrong response to Jesus’s call, then what does the proper response look like? I’m going to compress the two encounters because the four fishermen all respond essentially the same way. Matthew uses the same phrase each time: Immediately they left...and followed him (Matt. 4:20, 22).[17] Peter and Andrew left their nets, and James and John left their boat and their father. Jesus calls them in the middle of their workday,[18] and they respond without hesitation! These fishermen left their livelihood and their family. Allegiance to Jesus affects every area of life and changes the way you live.[19] These men abandoned their profession, which would have largely shaped their identity.[20] They were fisherman; now, at Jesus’s call, they must become something else.[21]
This takes us back to the promise Jesus makes to these men, and I am assuming that the promise he verbalized to Peter and Andrew applies just as well to James and John. He promises in verse 19, I will make you fishers of men. They were fishermen; Jesus promised to make them fishers of men, people-fishers. He was going to send them out to “catch” people. Think about that image for a moment; it’s quite ironic on a number of levels. How many of you would call yourselves fishermen? Raise your hands. Tell me, fishermen friends, what happens to the fish when you catch them? They die! We kill them and eat them![22] Transfer the image. Suddenly fishing for people doesn’t really sound that appealing. In fact, it’s this feature of fishing that usually comes out when the Bible uses fishing as a metaphor; several times in the Old Testament God is said to “fish for people,” meaning he’s catching the wicked for judgment, or God sends fishermen to announce his coming judgment.[23] Ironically, Jesus turns this image on its head; he is sending out fishermen who will save people from judgment![24] Ordinarily, “fishing kills, while Jesus’ new fishing brings life!”
Beyond that, do fish want to be caught? Think about fishing without bait on a hook; think about fishing with a cast net, which is what Peter and Andrew were doing. When fish get caught in a net, they immediately begin frantically trying to escape. Fast forward a few years in Peter’s life. Peter has a big catch of fish on the Day of Pentecost; about 3000 people were caught in Peter’s net. But Peter casts his net again at the end of Acts 3, and we read these words in Acts 4:1-3: And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. Sounds like these fish don’t want to be caught! In spite of this, the next verse tells us that many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand. Later, the religious leaders arrest them again and insist on stopping these fishermen from fishing in Jerusalem, but they defiantly refuse! So, the religious leaders have them beaten and then tell them one more time to stop speaking in the name of Jesus, but then we read these words in Acts 5:42, immediately after they are released: And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus. It sounds like Jesus made good on his promise; he has made Peter a people-fisher. That is Peter’s new identity; he couldn’t stop being a people-fisher even if he’d wanted to![25]
Now, Matthew 4 concludes with an epic summary of the beginning of Jesus’s ministry. Look at verses 23-25:And 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.
Teaching, preaching, and healing—a great summary of Jesus’s ministry activity. I want to connect this back to verse 17. The kingdom of heaven is at hand, and we see this by Jesus’s teaching, preaching, and healing. The appropriate response to the arrival of the kingdom is for sinners to repent; Jesus will teach that the appropriate response to both healing and preaching is repentance. In Matt. 11:20, he says, Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. So, when Jesus performed “mighty works,” miracles, including healing, the proper response would’ve been repentance. Then, in Matt. 12:41, he says, The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. Jonah’s preaching resulted in repentance—an incomplete and partial repentance, but repentance nonetheless. Therefore, how much more should sinners repent when they hear Jesus’s preaching, and, indeed, how much more completely should they repent, since Jesus and his preaching is greater than Jonah and his preaching?
Note the repetition of the word “all” or “every” in these verses. Jesus “went throughout all Galilee.” He healed “every disease and every affliction.” “His fame spread throughout all Syria.” “They brought him all the sick…and he healed them.” Notice also the emphasis on geography. Seven place names are mentioned, including Galilee twice.There is a map on the back of your sermon notes, so you can see these regions.[26]
Syria is up in the far north; Galilee is there to the northwest of the Jordan River, and the Decapolisis there to the southeast of the Sea of Galilee; then, you can see Judea to the south, with Jerusalem there in the middle of Judea; and finally, the region beyond the Jordan refers to the territory east of the Jordan, in the province of Perea.[27]Matthew seems to want us to see that Jesus has come to draw all Jews from all over the world to himself.[28] Indeed, Matthew may be portraying Jesus as a new Joshua, in a sense re-conquering the Promised Land and re-establishing the people of Israel as God’s people.[29] The true return from exile is beginning,[30] not simply as a return to the land, but as a return to God himself in the person of Jesus Christ. But, at this point, people are drawn simply by hearing of his miracle-working power.
This is indeed the dawning of God’s kingdom on earth. The good news that God’s reign is beginning with God’s human King on the scene is being announced,[31] and his authority is being demonstrated by sending sickness and evil spirits out of those who come to him. “The gospel of the kingdom” is a phrase only used in Matthew’s Gospel,[32] and it is important to see the connection between the gospel as we typically understand it, the message focused on Jesus’s sacrificial death and victorious resurrection, and the kingdom.[33] I’d like for you to watch a video[34] that does a good job of illustrating and explaining this concept, and then I’ll come back and conclude our message this morning. The video begins by depicting Isaiah 52:7-12.[35]