Jesus Begins His Public Ministry (Matthew 4)

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts. Morse Corner is a non-denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message. This was a scandalous thing in Israel and John was preaching against the king or against the political ruler.

You know, that's a risky thing to do. You know, we have rights in this country. We have liberties. Back then, not really. You know, if a preacher started speaking against one of the rulers, what could happen to him?

Well, he'd get arrested or, yeah, worse. And that's eventually what happened. This led to John's death. Some people view this as a mistake. That, you know, John shouldn't have gotten involved. John shouldn't have spoken about political things or something like that.

Because it cut his ministry short. But in reality, number one, in the Bible, do you know that light is associated with truth? And sometimes people don't like the truth. But the truth is something that the prophets and the preachers are called to declare.

That's number one. And number two, the office of prophet, this is what the prophets were. They were preachers. They were called to preach what was right and what was true. And that's what John did. You know, you could argue how much spiritual light there was in Israel or even in our nation today.

The amount of spiritual light in a country really depends on what the preachers are saying. You know, what's coming out of the synagogues? What's coming out of the church? So, was Israel in a time where there's great light?

No, it was in a time of darkness. So, much of the message coming out of the synagogues, it wasn't good. It wasn't true. It wasn't right. Same thing today. I think we live in a dark time where there's not a lot of truth.

There's not a lot of righteousness. We live in a dark time as well. So, John, he preached what the people wanted him to preach. No. He preached what was popular. No, he preached something that got him arrested.

So, John is arrested. If people were looking for hope, they weren't finding a whole lot of hope. And John, really, they should have known better because John's ministry was never supposed to endure anyway.

You know what John said? He said, I must decrease, but he must increase. So, John's ministry was never meant to be long. When John was put in prison, this is when Jesus, you know, John's going down. Jesus is coming up.

John's in prison. Jesus is beginning to start his ministry. Now, why did Jesus go? We're looking at Galilee and what was happening, what people were expecting. Why did Jesus go to Galilee? Just trying to ask some questions and discern what's happening here.

Why did Jesus go to Galilee? It's the last place people would expect. Yeah, well, it was a fulfillment of prophecy. Very good. Yeah, that's one reason. Some people believe Jesus went to Galilee because it was a safe region.

You know, going to Jerusalem would have been dangerous, so he went to Galilee because it was more safe. I don't think that's really in view here. He did it to fulfill prophecy, as Ray said. Good. But he also did it to call his main disciples.

Jesus called in Galilee his four main disciples, the four fishermen. And who are they? There's the brothers, Peter and Andrew, James and John. That's where these men lived. That's where they worked. They were fishermen in the region of Galilee.

So, we'll talk more about that next week. Look at verse 13. And it says,. And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali. So, by going there to preach, Jesus fulfilled the prophecy in Isaiah chapter 9.

Isaiah 9 verse 2 says,. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined. So, you see that prophecy quoted or referred to in Matthew chapter 4.

So, this area being known as Galilee of the Gentiles, this was also known as the area of what? Zebulun and Naphtali. So, these were two tribes. You remember Abraham gave birth to Isaac. Isaac gave birth to Jacob.

Jacob had his name changed to Israel. And then Israel or Jacob had 12 sons. And the 12 sons became the heads of the 12 tribes. So, two of those sons and two of those tribes, Zebulun and Naphtali. Have you ever heard of Zebulun?

At least one or two people here are like, who? Zebulun who? Who's that? See, these are not the elite tribes of Israel. They were seen as being not very important. Like, who cares? They've kind of been forgotten about.

Who are the elite tribes in Israel? Yeah, Judah. Benjamin was an elite tribe. Levi was a very important tribe. But Naphtali and Zebulun, yeah, like who cares about them? Galilee of the Gentiles, nothing really happening up there.

That's the way people looked at it. And I think you see a scriptural principle that those things and those people that are esteemed lightly by men are often very important in the eyes of God. The people that the world sees as important, you know, we believe that God wants the best for everybody.

You say, God so loved the world, okay. But oftentimes it's the people that the world discards, that the world forgets about, the people that are seen as unimportant. Oftentimes those are maybe the most important people in the eyes of God.

Do you realize that God works through average, ordinary people? We could go to 1 Corinthians 1 and it talks about this. God works through regular people. Who's Peter? Is this a regular guy, fisherman?

Who's James? Who's John? Same thing, regular, regular people. So Naphtali, Zebulun, Galilee of the Gentiles, nobody cares. Nobody cares. And yet that's where Jesus went to begin his ministry. I don't know about you, but I think that's pretty cool.

We know what it's like to be forgotten about, don't we? Where do we live? Western Mass, right? Where do all the important people live? Yeah, out towards Boston. You know, they don't even, I guess they're aware that we exist, but they don't really care much about us.

What is it, everyone west of 495? Don't worry about it. Yeah. Or where Route 2 goes down to one lane, like past Gardner. Like everyone west of there, like we don't matter. I don't think the politicians on Beacon Hill are all that worried about what we think.

So we kind of know what it's like in that regard. Well, that's the way it was with Naphtali and Zebulun. They felt forgotten about. They were left behind. People in Jerusalem didn't care about them, but God cared.

And you may be a normal person living in western Massachusetts in a job that, you know, people don't, you're not going to get any glory, what you're doing and where you work or whatever. God cares. God cares about you.

That's the message we see here. So this is the northern region of Israel, working class folks, Zebulun and Naphtali. They are also called what? The Lost Tribes, right? You've heard that? The Lost Tribes.

Are they lost to God? No. They're very important to the Lord because that's where Jesus goes to begin his ministry. And it's almost like a rebuke of the people in Jerusalem, that he would set up shop there instead of down there.

So the people that supposedly don't matter, what do we learn? That's not true. With God, that's not true. Everybody matters. What did Jesus say in Matthew 20, 16? So the last will be what? First. First and the first last.

So this is really unexpected that this would be the region Jesus establishes his ministry, where he first begins to preach the gospel publicly. Okay. So what is the gospel that Jesus preached? What is it?

Repent. Repent. Now, when we hear the gospel, we typically think of the message of Jesus Christ crucified and risen. That's the gospel. That's how the Bible, 1 Corinthians 15, that's how the Bible defines the gospel, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

What's the problem with that? None of that's happened yet. So when Jesus is preaching the gospel, obviously he isn't going to be preaching that. But what does he preach? The message, repent for the kingdom is at hand.

Look at verse 17. From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say. So the way I understand this, Jesus is preaching it publicly whenever he gets a chance. That's the driving force of the message. But he's also telling people.

The people that he encounters, he lets them know, hey, better repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The Greek word translated repent is metanoia. And what does it mean? To have a change of mind.

That's the first definition. To change one's mind. You are going one way. You are living one way. And then you repent. You turn. You change your mind and you turn. And now you're going another way. Now you're going in the direction that God wants you to go.

See, there's a whole world of people going one way, which leads to death and destruction. And the Lord wants them to turn and go on the path that leads to what? Everlasting life. So the message is repent because the kingdom is at hand.

So that's what repentance means. It means a changing of mind, but also means a turning around. You are going one way. Now you're going another way. Another way people define repentance as making amends.

You're amending one's life. You're changing. You're changing your life. The things that you did before, I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to do the right thing. Or a turning from sin. These are all the definitions.

It's worth echoing this again, that the message of both John and Jesus was this message of repentance. The cross, later on, Jesus' death and resurrection, is brought into this message. But that's the message.

Repentance. And we talked about this last week, how the cross is not just Jesus dying on the cross. The message for believers is what? Take up your cross. Take up your cross daily, Jesus said, and follow me.

So repentance is once you live for yourself, now you're living for the Lord. You have made a change. You have turned. Instead of serving yourself, now you want to serve God and you want to serve others.

It's a moment in time decision you make. I want everyone to be set on this because I found that talking with Christians and listening to different preachers, I think this really divides evangelical Christianity.

There's kind of two extremes here. There are those churches that will preach, hey, say the sinner's prayer. If you repeat the words, you say the sinner's prayer, you're saved. Say these words, come forward, receive Christ at the altar, now you're saved.

And they would identify either repentance as believing in Jesus or they would view repentance as a separate work. So that's one side. Repeat the words and you're saved. The other extreme is, hey, you need to turn from all your sins in order to be saved.

Have you heard preaching like this? What I hear being said is, if you turn from all your sins, then maybe God will love you. If you turn from your sins, then God will be willing to save you. But you need to turn from all your sins.

Well, should Christians turn from sin? Absolutely, 100%. But there's a problem with both of these things. I don't think either one really truly represents the gospel. People can say words and not mean it.

Maybe they didn't really understand. Maybe they didn't really mean it. You do have to call on the name of the Lord. So I'm not against saying the words. But this other doctrine of you need to repent of all your sins, you show me the man who has repented of all his sins.

Who is this man? Yeah, well, Jesus didn't have to repent of all his sins, but you're on the right track that Jesus didn't have sin. You realize, gee, and that's the point I'm making, there's only one man on this earth that has no sin.

So you show me a man who says he has turned from all his sin, and he doesn't sin anymore, and I'll show you a liar. Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Cornick Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message, or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, MorrisCornickChurch .com.

And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.