Exploring My Strange Bible - Jesus and the Kingdom of God - Gospel of Matthew Part 4

Episode Date: May 21, 2018

This teaching is about the second half of Matthew Chapter 4. Jesus is an adult in this segment, and he says his first words to the public (the people of Israel). He talks about the Kingdom or the reign of God. To me, this was a foundational idea and a big part of my own rediscovery of Jesus’ own life, mission, and values. This is ground zero for understanding Jesus and why you should follow him.

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. All right. Well, in this episode, we're going to continue exploring the gospel according to Matthew.

And this was a teaching series I contributed to many years ago when I was a pastor at Dwarf Hope. Went through the whole gospel. And this teaching is the point at which we got to Matthew chapter 4. This is on the second half of Matthew chapter 4, where Jesus is as an adult. And he's saying his first words to the public, to the people of Israel. And what he talks about is the kingdom or the reign of God. So there you go. This to me was a foundational idea and a big part of my own rediscovery of Jesus's own life and mission and the value set and what he was all about. And so Matthew chapter 4, this is like ground zero for understanding Jesus and what it means to follow him. So Jesus and the kingdom of God, there you go. It seems

simple, and those words might just wash over you as like Christian lingo, but dude, this is where everything starts right here. So Matthew chapter 4, I encourage you to open up or turn on a Bible, and there you go. Let's learn. encourage you to open up or turn on a Bible, and there you go. Let's learn. Here's what I'd like us to do, and we're going to do this a lot, I think, as we go through Matthew. For many of you, you know, you grew up around the church. You grew up in churchianity or something like that, some version of religious whatever. And so many of these stories are familiar to you, especially from Matthew, you know, the calling, the guys fishing and their nets and so on. I mean, some of you grew up singing songs, you know, about this very story right here. And

then for lots of others of you, this is all kind of new and maybe you've seen a picture of Jesus or something with fishermen. I don't know. But it's not that familiar to you. We're all over the map here. And so I think it's important for us is when we come to these stories from 2,000 years ago, we have to use our imaginations to get into the lives of these characters and to experience what was going on. So I want to put the question to us like this. So let me, I want to put the question to us like this. Let's say you're like one of these four fishermen right here, and you live in, you know, 2,000 years ago, Israel, Palestine, you're Jewish, right? You're living on your ancestral homeland, and you're very aware that your people are not living free on their ancestral homeland because there's Roman soldiers everywhere. And they've been around

for about 50 years, big Roman empire. They've militarized the place, checkpoints, taxes keep going way up. And that's really a bummer. You know, your uncle and like your neighbor and their cousin, they keep going into debt and have to sell off their ancient homelands and so on to other wealthy Romans because the taxes keep going up. Life is really hard. But, you know, if you're a fisher, fisherman, or a fisherwoman, fisherman or fisherwoman, is that the fisherwoman? Yeah, yeah, I'm sure they existed. So you're doing okay because you got a huge lake full of fish, right? This region called the Galilee has a huge, huge lake right at the center of it, and you're doing

okay, although the Romans keep raising the taxes and so on, and they'll break your kneecaps if you don't pay them. You know, it's that kind of situation. And so you hear these reports that there's this young prophet named Yeshua, Yeshua Minotzeret, Jesus who is from Nazareth. And he's been making the circuit around the towns and the villages around the Lake of Galilee. And he has this very explosive message everywhere he goes, huge crowds, people are bringing, you've heard reports like people bringing sick or people who have stuff wrong with their body. And then they walk away from this encounter with him totally transformed, totally changed, and healed. And so you hear that he's coming to your synagogue.

You're near a little town by the lake or something like that, and you hear that he's coming, and you go because you're just utterly intrigued. And you see the synagogue. It's not that big of a building, and there's like 400 people around him, and it's really hard to actually see him. And you kind of crowd your

way in, and you start to make out what he's teaching. And what do you hear him saying? Like, use your imagination. You're that fisher woman. What do you hear Jesus saying? And what's interesting is, if you try and put yourself in that scenario, what you think you hear Jesus saying will actually tell you a lot about what you think about Jesus. In other words, what comes to your mind when you think of what Jesus said on any given day as he went around teaching or preaching or something like that, what you think of what he said will tell you a lot about how you think about him right now. And maybe you might think, you know, he's a memorable teacher. So he's got the golden rule thing. That one's pretty memorable, you know. So the dude unto others is, you know, you want them to do to you. He has all these parables. You might think, oh, I would hear him talk about parables,

about sheep and trees and birds or something like that. Or maybe you would hear him say, you know, these radical teachings of loving your enemy, you know, or turning the other cheek or something like that. And odds are you would hear him say one of those things. But you would hear him say those things only as one small part of a big, clear theme and message that he was always talking about. You'll always hear it on his lips. You'll always see it being displayed in his actions. And for some reason, most modern readers of these gospels just tend not to notice the fact that Jesus is talking about this thing all of the time. Because if the golden rule, if you think of Jesus primarily as a moral teacher, I just encourage you, like, just read the story again and see if you don't pick up another theme.

Because there is a theme that Jesus talks about. The Gospel of Matthew is 30 pages right here in the Bible I've got here, which means that he talks about this theme 1.5 times on every single page. So there is a theme and a word and a phrase you find on Jesus' lips over 50 times in these mere 30 pages, the Gospel of Matthew. And what is that phrase? What is that idea that you for sure would hear Jesus talking about? What is it? How did Matthew summarize? If you wanted to summarize everything Jesus said, here it is in one sentence. And how does Matthew put it? Repent. So pay attention. There's something really significant happening that is going to force you to reckon with what is most important and that you have a decision to make about how you're going to respond. Or you could just say repent,

but I kind of like that version to say that. So there's something. And what is that thing that is here that forces you to reckon with it, and you're going to have to respond to it, and it's right here, Matthew 4, verse 17, the kingdom. The kingdom of heaven. Or as you read on in this gospel, it also goes by the phrase what? The kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God. If you read the other accounts of Jesus' life in Matthew and in Luke, you'll find the kingdom of God more often, sometimes the kingdom of heaven. What's interesting in Matthew is that most often it's the kingdom of heaven. They mean the same thing. They mean the same exact thing. To say the kingdom of heaven,

heaven is this image in the Bible, not of God actually living in the atmosphere or something like that. Silly. But it's the idea heaven is high above us. It's transcendent, right? God is exalted and high above us. And as the creator, he's other than us. And so heaven becomes an image for God himself. It's just like in English, we might say, you know, like the White House issued a statement today. And of course, no one thinks the White House actually has a big mouth that speaks. It's ridiculous, right? So the point is the people who run, you know, the government in the White House, they issued a statement today. And so to say the kingdom of heaven is to say the kingdom of God, because heaven is God's space, God who is above all. Two sides the

same coin. They mean the same thing. So here you go. You're the fisherwoman, and you went to the synagogue, and you hear Jesus saying, hey, pay attention. The kingdom of God is here. So point one. This is just because this is going to come up over and over again, and you know, as a teacher, I'm just going to get really pedantic about it right now. When you think of Jesus, you must think of the message that he made absolutely central to all of his teaching, his preaching, even his actions were meant to be pointers to the kingdom, his parables. When you think of Jesus, you have to think of his announcement of the kingdom. If you think of Jesus without the kingdom, you're missing at least who he thought he was and what he was all about. You think of Jesus, you think of the kingdom, you think of

the kingdom, you think of Jesus. You guys with me here? Okay. Now, of course, that just raises the question, well, what on earth does that mean? Like, what does that mean to walk around 2,000 years ago in Jewish Palestine and saying the kingdom of heaven is here? What does that mean to these fishermen and fisherwomen and so on? And to ask that question then kicks us up a level above the story of Jesus in to seeing how the story of Jesus ties into the storyline of the ancient scriptures and the storyline of human history as a whole. And so here you go. I do this every week, you guys. We're going to do a tour through the Old Testament, relevant passages, and then we'll read the same words again and be like, oh my gosh, this is the coolest thing in the world. So are you guys with

me? You guys with me? So here's good trivia. Some of you are going to go to some gathering with friends this coming Friday night, and you need some good conversation starters or something like that. So here's one. Here's a good one. Can you think of the first time in the Bible that the idea of kingdom, the idea of ruling or reigning or kings, where does that occur first in the Bible for the first time? That's kind of a trick question, because that's why no one's saying out loud, or one of you is

saying out loud, right? And you're probably right. So my great joy is to show how everything in the Bible always leads back to either page one or two of the Bible. In this case, it's on page two. The first time you find the idea of ruling or reigning or kings or kingdoms or whatever, it's on page two of your Bible. Two. Two, right. I did make it through grad school. I don't know what, anyway. So page two. Page two. And so here's page one. Page one is this, God is depicted as this royal artist who speaks a world of order and beauty and a garden into existence out of chaos in the cycle of just one Sabbath cycle, right? Of work and then of rest. And the capstone to God packing this amazing world full of potential and goodness is on page two, where he

sets these creatures called humans or Adam over it. And here's what God says about these creatures, the capstone of the project in Genesis 1. It says, so God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God, he created them, male and female. He created them. So these creatures who are like God, they image God, they reflect the Creator into the creation. And God blessed them and said, go for it, have a blast, be fruitful, increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it, i.e. harness its potential. There's all of this raw potential just packed into the creation. Harness it. And by doing that, you will rule. There you go. Rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, over every living creature that moves on the ground. Now,

the word rule in the Bible, it actually is very similar to how we use the word rule in English. If you're like a manager, you oversee a coffee shop or something like that, or whatever, you oversee a t-shirt printing shop or something like that. Would you ever say, I rule this place? Would you ever say you rule, like that's your job, you rule? And maybe, you know, the people you oversee might think you act like that's what you think, you know, that you think you rule the place, but actually you don't. You manage it, right? You oversee it. But here, this is a very unique idea. This is the language of kings and queens. These image-bearing creatures who represent God and are like God in the creation rule along with God or on God's behalf here. They're installed as kings and queens of creation to help bring out its potential and make it even more awesome than it already is. That's how the

story of the Bible begins. The story of the Bible is a story about God wanting to set up the world as a partnership with these creatures so that they make it even more awesome than it already is. Now, that's on page two of the Bible, and things are really good until page three of the Bible, right? And so, what happens on page three of the Bible is that humans rebel, and they see their opportunity to rule as an opportunity for their own self-advantage. They don't trust God. They don't trust God's motives. They don't want to trust They don't trust God's motives. They don't want to trust God's definition of good and evil. They want to define good and evil for themselves. That's what's going on with the tree and so on. And so things go horribly wrong, right?

And instead of ruling on behalf of God or as like as God's deputies, if you think of Dukes of Hazzard, think deputies, right? Humans are there as deputies on God's behalf. And they totally, they just seize, you know, the wheel and they want to do this thing themselves. And so what they end up creating, as the story of the Bible goes on, is an alternate kingdom. The kingdom of this world, it's sometimes called, or resulting in a world called the age of sin and death, as the Apostle Paul calls it, or Jesus calls it this age. He'll call it later on in the Gospel of Matthew. And it's the Bible's way of explaining why is the world the way that it is, all screwed up and tragic and horrible things happen. And at the core of the Bible's explanation, it's because human beings have rejected God's kingdom

and have made our own instead. So what is God's response to that? What is God's response? And again, the story of the Bible goes on that God forms a people. Out of all rebellious humanity in their kingdoms, he takes one people and he says, these are going to be my people and I'm going to liberate them out of the kingdom of this world and make them my own people, and I will be their king. And that story of God rescuing his people out of the kingdom of this world and make them my own people, and I will be their king. And that story of God rescuing his people out of the evil kingdoms of this world, think Old Testament, what storyline are we talking about? God rescuing people out. We're thinking of the Exodus story, right? And who's the big bad guy? It's big bad Pharaoh. He's murderous. He kills babies. He

enslaves a whole people group, wants to grind them into the dust and work them to death. And so God shows up, right, and says, like, you can't do that. That's no way to run a kingdom. And Pharaoh's like, I don't, who's Yahweh, this God? I don't care, whatever. And so Pharaoh takes off his boxing gloves, so to speak, and so does God. And if you know the story, it's really intense. God visits his justice on this murderous, power-hungry king, and he frees and liberates his people. And the iconic scene is God bringing his people through the waters of the Red Sea, and Pharaoh chases after them and is crushed by the waters. Now, here's another good Bible trivia question for this Friday night that's coming up for you. So you know the first one, right, about what's on page two, the first idea of people ruling and reigning. Where's

the first time that God is called a king? Where's the first time in the story of the Bible that God is described as a king? And where you'll find it is precisely in the song that the people of Israel sing after they pass through the waters of the sea and Pharaoh and his armies are crushed. It's a musical, actually. It's Exodus chapter 15. The people are liberated from their slavery and they sing a song, Exodus 15. It says, Moses and the Israelites sang this song to Yahweh. They said, I sing to Yahweh. He's highly exalted. The horse and the driver, he's hurled into the sea, talking about the destruction of Pharaoh and so on. Yahweh is my strength. He's my defense. He's become my salvation.

He's my God. I will praise him. He's my Father's God, and I will exalt him. That's the beginning of the song. And look at the last sentence, right at the bottom there. What's the last sentence of this song? Who's king? Yahweh's king. Yahweh reigns as king forever, forever and ever. So here's what the story of the kingdom is about. It's a story, you've got to have a king, right? There's a king involved. There's a king who's trying to make and form a people.

And those people are going to be people that experience or live, we're just going to say, under the reign or under the rule of the king. And first it was the creator God who makes a people, and they, instead of submitting to God's reign, they want to make their own kingdom, and it all goes horribly wrong. And so God takes a new people and rescues, he calls them into being. And what does it look like when God's kingdom or God's reign shows up? He defeats evil. He confronts everything that's screwed up about humanity and our human kingdoms. He calls it what it is, and he's victorious over it, and he rescues his people. And then he invites those people to live under his reign. The next thing that happens in the Exodus story is these people that he freed out of slavery,

he brings them through the desert to the foot of a mountain. And then at this mountain, God gives these people his Torah, his teaching, instructions on how to live well as a human community and live under God's reign, so to speak. And so that's what this story is all about. Now, how does Israel do living obediently under God's reign with God as their king? Well, that's where the biblical story gets even more complicated, right? It's because they do a horrible job, because they're just as screwed up as the rest of humanity. And so they run the nation into the ground because they themselves don't submit to the reign of the very God who tried to rescue them in the first place, right?

It's a tragic story. And so Israel's poets and Israel's prophets, they kept alive this hope, this idea that one day God would take his world back. That he would become king, that God would do something where he would install his kingdom over humanity, over his people Israel, and it would be the right king, the creator, redeemer God, over the right people, the ones whom he's called,

who would submit obediently to his rule and to his reign. And the prophet Isaiah, this is the last little stop we'll make on our tour, the prophet Isaiah, he describes this anticipation and this hope. And he paints this beautiful scene in a poem that you got to place yourself on the city walls of like an ancient castle city. And you're like some of the watchmen and you're, you know, it's like morning time and you're anticipating news. There's horrible things

happening and the city could be destroyed. And you see a messenger coming down the hills and he's running. And you can see the messenger shouting. You're like, what am I hearing? What's the messenger going to say? That's the little story of this poem. And look how Isaiah depicts it. Isaiah depicts it.

It's beautiful. He says, shout for joy. When Yahweh returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes. So burst into songs of joy, you ruins of Jerusalem. Yahweh has comforted his people. He's redeemed Jerusalem. Yahweh will lay bare. Look at this very powerful metaphor. Yahweh will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God. So the prophets keep this hope that despite the fact that humanity has rejected God's kingdom, and even Israel has rejected God's kingdom, that Yahweh will come back one day, and he will reclaim his world, and he will form a people who will live under his reign, who will bring salvation and rescue for all the

nations of the earth. There you go. How you guys doing? So if you're Jewish and you go to synagogue every week and you sing the Psalms every morning and every evening with your family, these are the stories and the images that are just alive in your imagination. You already know all of this, right? And so you're that fisherwoman and you go to see the crowd of Jesus, around Jesus outside the synagogue, and you hear him saying something like, the kingdom of God, it's here. It's arrived, and you need to make a decision about what you're going to do about it. Here we go. So what is the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God is the story about how God is taking back his world from us and what we've done to the place.

Now, depending on how you spin that, that could sound very suspicious to you. And in fact, it has sounded suspicious to a lot of people, and I think for good reasons. I mean, how many movements throughout history? You guys, how many movements are on like the current world scene right now who claim to be bringing some divine God's will kingdom to bear here on earth and people need to submit to it? Can you think of anywhere in the world where that might be a live issue right now? Right? And so you're right to be suspicious because there are lots of people who forward their own agendas and call it God's kingdom, but they use violence or coercion and so on.

And so we come to this Jesus and we're like, well, what kind of kingdom is he bringing? And what kind of kingdom is he trying to build right now? And lucky for us, that's what the rest of Matthew chapter 4 is about. So Jesus, he says, here it is. And so you're just wondering, like, what's going to happen? What does this mean? Is God going to return? He's going to take back his world? What does that even involve?

What's the first thing that Jesus does after we're giving this announcement right here? What's the first thing he does? This is so great. He takes a walk. He takes a walk on the lake, like you do. He just, he will go, there you go. I mean, this is an explosive message. And then the next thing is just Jesus, like, walking along the lake. You're like, yes, that's so typical what he would do, right? And so here's what he does. It's these four fishermen, right? Simon, Andrew.

And look what he says to these guys. They're just fishermen, you know? So they're not the poorest of the poor. They're certainly not powerful, influential guys at all. Fishermen. And Jesus just walks up to them. And they're out, you know, we don't know, 100 meters out or something. And Jesus just says, hey, you guys, follow me. I'm going to make you fish for people now.

And they left their nets and they followed him. Now, what's the story underneath that? Don't think like they were looking for a career change or something like that. They're kind of dissatisfied, fishing is kind of boring or whatever. No, this is like their livelihood. It's the family business. Look at the next two guys. Look at the second two. They're with

their dad. James and John, they're with their dad. It's the family business in the family boat. The family nets. And Jesus waltzes up like he owns the place and he just calls them, follow me. And they leave not only their livelihood, they leave their dad. They leave their dad, and then they follow Jesus.

Now, just stop and think about this. What is Jesus doing? He announces that the kingdom has arrived. It's near. It's right here at the doorstep, and as we're going to see as we read on the story, he's claiming that it is actually present. God is taking back his world here in me, Jesus says, and in what I'm doing. And so he announces himself as the one who's bringing God's kingdom as its king, and what's the first thing Jesus does? He starts forming a new people. he starts forming a new people. Now, how many core disciples is he going to circle around himself? Twelve. What's he doing? He's doing the same exact thing that John the Baptist was doing, who went back to the place of Israel's roots by the Jordan River and is saying,

let's reboot the story and start the Israel story over again. It didn't go well. Let's reboot it and start it again. And so Jesus comes as Israel's and as the world's king, and he forms the nucleus of a new people of God around himself. And he asks them to submit to his reign. We don't know the conversation that happened, but it's this radical call. Like these guys, they don't, we're not told of any debates they have. The point is that if they're going to follow Jesus, it's this radical reorganizing of their priorities, of their life goals, of their identity. I mean, and specifically these 12 and 70 others, they're going to become homeless with Jesus and be itinerant or whatever. And this is a really big deal. Total reorganization. So when God calls a people into being, what is the kingdom of God? It's a story about God reclaiming his world in

Jesus and forming a people who are going to live under the reign of the king. Now, so let's think about this one a little more, because this is what the next paragraph is about. What does it look like once Jesus shows up and forms a people and then actually starts, like, taking the world back? Like, what does it look like when Jesus takes over the world? Right? Because that's what people would hear. And that's what the next paragraph tells us. We're told Jesus went throughout Galilee.

And what's he doing? Three things, we're told. Doing what? Teaching. Proclaiming. Healing. So you, because of current events, might have in your mind some idea of what it means for someone to take over the world. What does it mean when Jesus shows up? It means two things. First of all, he goes around teaching and proclaiming. And now this is really cool, the way this works out in Matthew. Teaching and proclaiming. And what's he teaching and proclaiming? What does it say here? The good news of the kingdom. Are you with me? The good news of

the kingdom. Now, if you have a Bible that makes all of the words of Jesus in red, which I'm guessing is quite a number of you, look at the next chapter, 5. Do you see a lot of red letters? Loads. Look at chapter 6. Red letters? Oh, yeah.

Chapter 7? Lots. Chapter 8? Not as much. A lot of black and red kind of mixed together here. So what's going on here? What Matthew's doing, he has compiled, what does it look like when Jesus teaches and proclaims the good news of the kingdom? Oh, lo and behold, he's given you three chapters so that you can relive the experience of the fisherwoman standing outside the crowd of the synagogue. So Matthews 5 through 7 is Jesus bringing the kingdom into being, we

could just say here, through his word. So teaching, Jesus is going to explore. Okay, sorry. We call this section of Matthew, what's the famous name for this section of Matthew right here? All those red words. The Sermon on the Mount. What is Matthew's title of it that we just read? The Good News of the Kingdom. So Jesus went around teaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. Hmm, I wonder what that involved. Oh, here's three chapters to show you what it looked like. So Matthew intentionally puts this right here so that you could hear on a given day, what is Jesus teaching and proclaiming the good news? What does it look like?

So we're going to spend the next three months right here, right here. That's what we're going to do with our Sunday gatherings for the next three months. But here's what happens after that. You were looking at chapter 8, and you'll see that chapter 8 doesn't have as much read because it's stories about Jesus doing stuff or sometimes saying things. And if you just even scan chapters 8 and 9 and look at the headings, maybe you have headings in your Bible, you see that every single one of those stories is a story about Jesus doing some kind of sign or wonder or healing, something utterly remarkable. And so you could say it this way. You could say in chapters 8 and 9

is about Jesus revealing the kingdom through his deeds. And so this is about another two months. So here we are. What does Jesus mean when he says the kingdom of God is here? Well, there you go. The next six months, we're going to explore that together as we work through the good news about the kingdom and as we work through Jesus bringing the kingdom into being. But in summary, Matthew's told us what it looks like when Jesus takes over the world. Matthew's told us what it looks like when Jesus takes over the world. And look in verse 23. It involves Jesus teaching, proclaiming, and healing.

And all of a sudden, people realize who Jesus is. And they have these encounters with him, and they walk away totally transformed and totally changed. And so it looks like people who are totally at the bottom, who are the most vulnerable, who are the most sick, the most hurting, the most unassuming, they're not the elite, they're not the healthy, wealthy, and wise. These are the people that flock to Jesus, and they find life. They find healing. They find good news about who God is and about what God is about to do on their behalf. That's what it looks like when Jesus takes over the world. People find themselves healed and transformed. People find

Jesus reading their mail, and they walk away from these encounters with Jesus and his words utterly changed and transformed. That's what it looks like when the kingdom of God comes. And that's because this isn't just an old story about something interesting that happened in Palestine. This is, Matthew's trying to tell us, the story of our world. This is the story of how God is getting humanity back on track again. In humanity, you and I is building our own little individual kingdoms, and then we organize in hundreds, you know, and build little tribal kingdoms based off clothing or foodie, whatever. And then we organize in bigger ones than that, hundreds and thousands and millions,

and we make those kingdoms. And they're kind of good and kind of really screwed up all at the same time. And Jesus is coming to get to the root of the issues that makes things as horrible as they are. And to deal with us as human beings and to call into being a people who will follow. And to call into being a people who will begin to live under the reign of King Jesus. What does it mean to live under the reign of King Jesus? And here we go. Oh my goodness.

oh my goodness, Jesus is, he is gonna, he's gonna at least tick every single one of us off once in the next three months, like big time, and he's gonna do that because he's getting at the root issues of what's wrong with us as human beings, and he's not gonna let any one of us be comfortable. He is, as some would say, he's going to get in your business big time. And so here's, and he's going to walk around just like he did on the side of the lake, saying, follow me. And he's going to say, whoever hears my words and rejects them, you're a fool,

building your house and your life on the sand. And whoever hears my words and follows them, you're wise and it's like you're building a house on a life on the sand. And whoever hears my words and follows them, you're wise, and it's like you're building a house on a firm bedrock foundation. Now, that takes some gumption to say something like that, right? And Jesus is going to do and say stuff like that. But the same Jesus that waltzes around like he owns the place and summons people to follow him is the same Jesus who's the compassionate, gracious one who's constantly looking for the outsider and the ones who are down and out to bring healing and hope to their lives. They're not opposite Jesuses. They're one

Jesus. And that's because Jesus is here to summon us to a new way of being human. He's here to both expose the ridiculousness and the pride and the pettiness of our own little kingdoms, and he's forming a new group of people who will lay down their kingdoms and just follow him as the king. And it's a radical call to leave your family. You have a whole way of doing things and living as humans, and it's your family, and it's what you're living, and it's what you've been doing for all these humans, and it's your family, and it's what you're living, and it's what you've been doing for all these years, and Jesus is just like, kingdom of heaven's here. Stop it. Follow me. And as you do that, you find life. I mean, the irony is that it sounds really intense, you know, submit to the king and so on. But the fact is, is Jesus around, going

around acting like he owns a place, is actually the best news you and I could possibly imagine. Because, and I don't know where you're at. This has to do with each of our own personal journeys. Some of us have already come to a place where we're like, yeah, I totally tried defining good and evil for myself and not paying attention to Jesus at all, and here's where it got me. And that was a bummer. That just didn't work out at all. And so a lot of us have already been there. And so we're on this journey of becoming disciples of Jesus, and we're discovering what it's like to live under his reign with him as our king. But there might be some of us who we're still totally at some other phase right here, and Jesus is going to say stuff that's totally going to tick you off. Because

it's going to be like, awesome, social justice, serve the poor Jesus, because he's all about that. And then it's also like, utter sexual integrity and purity and what you do with your money and reconciling your most difficult relationships, Jesus. And I think most of us are stoked on this one, and we're like, not really into this, but this Jesus here. And it doesn't work like that. not really into this, but this Jesus here. And it doesn't work like that. Jesus comes walking on the lake, and he sees us in the context of our lives and our families, and he's just, just follow me. And it's, it's going to be this halting revelation of who we are, but also the good news of the kingdom about who, about who Jesus is. And so here's where I want to land the plane here as we come to take the bread and the cup together.

Jesus coming as the king and calling into being a people who will submit to his reign. That's what the rest of the Gospel of Matthew will be about until Jesus is confronted by the kingdoms of this world who try to kill him and put him out. So that's where this whole story is going. And you and I, as a community of Jesus' disciples, we are being given the same opportunity

to respond and hear the call of Jesus and follow and live under his reign as those four no-name fishermen, right, who were by the Sea of Galilee. And the reason why these stories are in the gospel in the first place is so that they will actually confront us in the midst of our life activities and fishing and family and so on, and Jesus just interrupts and just says,

dude, you need to follow me. For some of us, it will mean a huge, huge life change. For some of us, it will mean smaller tweaks. For some of us, it will mean doing deep work inside of us about our motivations and all of the things about why we make the decisions that we make and why we are the people that we are. Jesus forces us to just wade through all of the things about why we make the decisions that we make and why we are the people that we are,

Jesus forces us to just wade through all of that stuff. And so let me conclude by highlighting two issues, I think, that this announcement of the kingdom puts in front of us. How are you guys doing? So one is, just to clarify, and the reason why I wanted to take a whole message and just camp out on clarifying what Jesus means by the kingdom is because this word has gotten really, how Christians use this word has gotten really sloppy in the last hundred years or so. There was a movement about a hundred years or so ago of a number of churches, mostly mainline denominations,

about 100 years or so ago, of a number of churches, mostly mainline denominations, and they saw that a lot of churches here in America were withdrawing from the public sphere. And they were instead letting the government take over fully the care for the poor and the most vulnerable and issues of social justice. And so there was a whole movement of churches that said, no, we need to reclaim. This is what the church has always done. Education and hospitals, these are all things that came from the history of the church and so on. And this was a movement called the Social Gospel or something like that. You might be familiar with it. But what happened was that the word kingdom came into play in that movement.

And so within that movement, it became very common to talk about building God's kingdom or advancing God's kingdom, or we're going to spread the kingdom or something like that. But here's what you'll find, is you'll find as you read the Gospel of Matthew, you won't ever, ever hear phrases like that. What you will find is Jesus calling disciples to submit to his rule and his reign and to live as participants in the kingdom. And what do participants in the upside down kingdom of Jesus do? And what do participants in the counterintuitive kingdom of Jesus do? And so a whole bunch of what he's going to say is, well, you reevaluate what you do with your money so you have lots to give it away to those who are vulnerable and who are hurting. it away to those who are vulnerable and who are hurting. It involves good works, which means serving the poor and the widow and the orphan so people can see the bright light of the kingdom

through what Jesus' people do. It involves radical commitment to forgiveness and to reconciliation and so on. Those are all things that Jesus calls his disciples to do, but he never says we are building the kingdom when you do that. What he says is we are entering the kingdom. We are experiencing the kingdom when those things happen. We are seeking the kingdom. We're participating in it. Whose kingdom is it? So it's God's kingdom that's come among us in Jesus. So who builds the kingdom? Jesus builds the kingdom. Who advances the kingdom? Jesus builds the kingdom. Who advances the kingdom? Jesus advances the kingdom. How does the kingdom advance?

By forming a people who participate in it, who submit to the word of the king and try to reorganize our lives and follow this radical call to come and to follow me. Now, you might think that's just semantics, and maybe it is, I don't know. But I think there's a semantics, and maybe it is, I don't know. But I think there's a real danger we need to avoid between just, here's the danger to avoid.

Followers of Jesus build institutions and organizations and churches or whatever, and we are called to bear witness to Jesus in the kingdom and experience it and enter it and seek it and so on. But somehow something happens when the organization that we build becomes so merged and identified with Jesus' kingdom that we come to think about our deal as the actual kingdom. And we're like building the kingdom.

And isn't it a good thing Jesus has us on his side? Good thing. None of us would ever say that, I don't think. But there's a danger there because humans are screwed up and churches are screwed up. I don't think. But there's a danger there because humans are screwed up, and churches are screwed up. I don't think that's news to any of you, right? Because they're full of screwed up people. There's a lot of good things that happen. There's a lot of bad things that happen. And so to completely identify any, you know, organization of Jesus' disciples with the kingdom that Jesus is building, I just think it's dangerous. And it's not the way that the New Testament talks about kingdom. The kingdom is what Jesus is doing, bringing God's reign and

his rule over his people. And we are called to submit to it and be disciples in it and to live according to this new way God's remaking the world, which will involve all of those things that are significant, but it's not the kingdom. Now, there's probably 30 of you that care about that topic or whatever, but I think it's important to say it, and we'll explore it even more. The second implication is really where I want to circle around and land about this scene by the lake. This is such a powerful scene, and the story of these four fishermen, you know, hearing the radical call of Jesus and his announcement of the kingdom, and the fact that they just leave what they're doing and

they just follow. What is, this is a model for us. This is an image for us as we hear the call of Jesus. Now, I don't think that means that every single one of us needs to quit our jobs or something and go be homeless or something like that. So I think the point, because there were plenty of Jesus' disciples who Jesus did not ask to go tour around with him

and become homeless and something. So they stayed where they were. They lived in their homes. They had their communities and so on. But what this story, it puts this just radical mark in the sand that becoming a disciple of Jesus is not a story about how I'm attracted to

a church or to Jesus or Christianity or something because I really like these pieces of it. But then there's these pieces of what Jesus says, and I'm like, I just don't know what I think about that, right? So I love the social, care for the poor, and I love the generosity theme. And then when he starts talking about marriage and about sex, I'm just like, well, that's a little too much Jesus for me, right? And I just want to put it in front of us like this, the way this works is not like that. That's not the mindset of a disciple. The mindset of a disciple is someone who's so enamored with Jesus, and just because he's so awesome, and the way he treats people is so amazing, and the way that people

walk away from their encounters with him, finding themselves whole and transformed. He's so awesome. Jesus is so compelling. And so there comes this moment where you and I are forced with this decision about if I'm going to be a disciple of the kingdom, someone who lives in the kingdom, there has to be, I have to start from this position of trust. And so there's going to be things that I like that Jesus says, there's going to be things that I don't like at all. And the question in that moment is, is I'm going to trust him? And the question in that moment is, is I'm going to trust him? And am I going to trust that Jesus is calling me to become a different kind of human than I've ever known from my family or my way of fishing and my life here? Or am I going to just step out and be like, okay, and be open-minded?

Like, what if Jesus is right about what it means to be a human being? And like, we are the ones who have all these distorted, screwed up ways, and that's what leads to all of our stupid decisions that we make. And so the mindset of a disciple is to look at King Jesus and just say, I trust you. And one step, one day, I'm going to follow you. And that's going to involve very difficult decisions for every single one of us as we go along through this journey of Jesus's presenting the kingdom in word and in deed. And I don't know what else to tell you. I don't know what else to tell myself. It's just like

one day at a time, one day at a time of hearing the call, of leaving my nets, and choosing to follow. And so I'm going to conclude us in prayer, and here's what I'd like us to do for our time of worship and communion. I'd like you to get, maybe it's a decision that you're in, that you have to make right now, and it's front and center, and it's a difficult decision, and you're trying to figure out what's the way of a disciple of Jesus in this moment. Maybe some of you are in some kind of tense relational difficulty, right? Ever had one of those before? So a difficult relationship? What? And the way of Jesus is the way of love and giving and of generosity and of forgiveness. That's crazy.

And that's because that is crazy. It's because it is crazy. And it's the way of a disciple. And so I just encourage you, get whatever scenario, whatever life choice that you're in the thick of right now, and that following Jesus is hard. And just put that in front of you, and as we sing and as we reflect and as we pray, I just ask you, like, read over these scriptures

and hear Jesus' call to you in this call to the fishermen. And ask yourself, what does it mean for God to take back his world and to take back my life from myself so that I can become the kind of person that he's made possible through his life and his death and his resurrection on my behalf. Amen? Thank you for listening to Exploring My Strange Bible. We will have more episodes in this series, Exploring the Gospel of Matthew, coming down

the pipeline. So we'll see you next time.