The Power of a Kingdom Revolution: Matthew 4:12-25 - Matthew: Kingdom of God Revolution

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Jesus did not come to store religion, but to start a revolution.

If we could see a kingdom of God revolution in our day, it would change our nation economically, politically, media, education, school, sports teams, it would change how mothers and fathers parents and kids.

We need a kingdom of God revolution.

And it begins with Jesus and he says repent.

At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Turning your Bibles to Matthew 4, last week we looked at the temptations of Christ and we talked about the universal temptations that are true in all of our lives.

Satan hasn't changed.

Demons haven't changed.

And God's power to withstand the temptations of the enemy haven't changed.

And we see the picture of Jesus coming out of the filling and the baptism of the Holy Spirit and then moving right into the temptations, actually being led by the Holy Spirit.

Do you know that God can actually lead you to confront the devil?

God can actually lead you to confront demons in your life.

Now he doesn't lead us into temptation.

That's one of the key aspects of the Lord's Prayer.

Father, do not lead us into temptation.

But what he does do, the more, and it's really the more powerful you become in the Spirit and through the Word, God will use you to break strongholds, first in your own life, but in the lives of others.

God wants to use you to pray for people to be set free, to share your faith or your testimony with someone that begins a work of setting them free.

You see, it's the proclamation illustrated through the demonstration of the Spirit that brings a kingdom of God revolution in the lives of others.

And so we looked at those temptations.

And then here we see Jesus, and it's very cryptic.

Look at verse 12.

It just says this.

Now when Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he departed to Galilee.

So he leaves, he leaves the Judean wilderness.

If you place Luke chapter 4 over Matthew chapter 4, which is what I did all week, you see that Jesus first goes to Galilee and he preaches in the synagogue in Galilee, and then there he's going to leave for Capernaum.

Luke 4 · chapter mention Matthew 4 · chapter mention

But what was the indication to Jesus to move out of the Judean wilderness back to Galilee and then into Capernaum, but the imprisoning of John.

Now here's something that's really fascinating about Scripture.

Every time the enemy is on the move, where we see the enemy at work, and I believe the enemy under the guidance of the sovereignty of God and actually the fulfilling of Scripture with John the Baptist, there's always reformation, redemption, and the grace of God, listen, following right behind.

Does that make sense to you?

What we can do, oh, John's been put in prison.

Remember, he had the largest movement happening in Israel at the time, and that would have spread like wildfire.

John's been put in prison.

Jesus begins his move of redemption and the kingdom of God revolution as John is being put in prison.

Men and women, let me challenge you with this.

Anytime the enemy's at work, and you're seeing stuff happen in your family or at your job or at work, not unlike this, where you feel like you're being cast into prison, as it were.

God's light is shining right behind it, and he's doing a fresh new work if you'll have eyes to see.

So John's put in prison, Jesus rises up.

John's being put in prison where he's going to lose his head, and Jesus is about to announce the kingdom of God has come, and he can't do it until John is moved out of the way.

John had a purpose, now he's moved out of the way, and Jesus is coming in.

And look what happens next.

And leaving Nazareth, remember he goes into Nazareth, that's his hometown.

He came in Luke 4.

You could just, if you had a little parentheses, between verses 12 and 13, you could just put, some of you might want to jot that down, you could put Luke chapter 4, is between verses 12 and 13.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali.

Very fascinating.

Why didn't he start in Jerusalem?

Why didn't he start in Magdalah?

Why didn't he start in some of the major cities?

Why didn't why didn't God begin the kingdom of God movement in these major cities?

These were major religious cities.

And yet he goes to Capernaum in Galilee.

Well, I'll explain in just a moment why I think he did that.

Verse 14.

That it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, by way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, and this is what I've circled in in my Bible, Galilee of the Gentiles.

Really interesting passage.

The Galilee of the Gentiles.

The people who sat in the darkness have seen a great light.

And upon those who sat in the region, the shadow of death, light is gone.

Now, for you that have been with us from the beginning in Matthew, and we've done five messages so far, and you can go on our sermons online, you can put theroad.org slash sermons, and you can go to Kingdom of God Revolution, book of Matthew, and you could follow.

But one thing we've learned about Matthew is this Matthew was a tax collector.

This is actually his hometown.

So he's in Capernaum.

And he's about to be, he's about to be confronted with Jesus.

So this is before he's been confronted.

He's writing the story of Jesus.

So what he's about to describe to us is what he began the story with, which is in chapter 1, this idea, which was foreign to the Jews at that time, that a Messiah would come for Judaism.

That the Messiah, the coming Messiah, and listen, you guys, almost everything in Isaiah chapters 40 to 67 would indicate that, unless you have eyes to see, and nobody had eyes to see at that time, that the Messiah was going to come for the Jews.

Isaiah 40 · chapter mention

And what Matthew's going to present to us is that Jesus, the Messiah King, came for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles.

And so he picks up the story here with Capernaum versus going into Galilee and Nazareth, because Nazareth was predominantly Jewish.

Listen now, this is important.

You don't hear this very often.

But Capernaum was largely Gentile.

1500 was the populace, about 1500.

This is the home of Peter, James, John, Matthew.

This is their home.

If you go with me to Israel in 2020, we'll go to Peter's home, which has been venerated for thousands of years.

It's actually one of the places that I think is really the place.

Because we'll go to some places that I'll just tell you, you know, you know, the guide will lead us and talk about it.

And they go, this isn't, this isn't where it really happened.

This is not where it happened.

Okay.

But largely this is true because what we know of Capernaum.

Capernaum, they've got a whole village there, just like it was in the time of Jesus.

You'll go to Peter's house and probably where his mother-in-law gets healed, which comes up later here in Matthew and comes up later in Luke.

But here's the reality.

Isn't it interesting that the announcement that Matthew chooses to give us in the book of Matthew is where the predominant population was Gentile.

The Messiah was beginning his public ministry, a revolution of the kingdom to Gentiles.

That he was going to be a king for the whole world, for all of the earth, not just the Jewish king, but a kingdom to the Gentiles, the kingdoms to all the nations of the world.

And so this Messiah comes and he begins at Capernaum.

And Capernaum is one of the major trade routes.

The Los Maris trade route, found in Isaiah chapter 9, speaks of the trade route that went from Syria to Egypt right through Capernaum, right there on the Sea of Galilee.

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

And so the word that Jesus is about to bring is going to impact the nations, the nations of the world right from the beginning.

This is revolutionary stuff.

As a matter of fact, when you look at Luke 4, I'd encourage you to look at Luke chapter 4, you'll see where he makes.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

Let me just show you.

Go to Luke chapter 4.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

This is too good.

Keep your finger in Matthew 4.

This is good stuff.

And this comes from an old missionary, okay?

So this means a lot to me because we are inspired to go to the nations by the example and the modeling of Jesus.

Luke chapter 4, he preaches what I think is the missional statement of the kingdom.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

In Luke 4, 18 and 19, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

Now this is in his hometown.

This is in Nazareth.

Now look, re follow on down.

Now look at what he says.

Look at verse 23.

And he said to them, You will surely say this proverb to me, physician, heal yourself.

Whatever we've heard you've done in Capernaum, do also in your country.

And then, listen to what he does next.

Go down to verse 25.

But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel at the days of Elijah when the heaven was shut up three years and six months.

There was a great famine throughout the land.

But to none of them was Elijah sent except Zarephath in the region of Sidon to a woman who was a widow, and many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman, listen, the Syrian.

And now they cast him out because he's talking about the fact that even in the time of Isaiah, the prophetic word was that the gospel was going to go to all peoples.

You're here today because this is true.

And it breaks forth with a great revolution at Pentecost.

That all the nations are there.

They're from all over the globe.

They're all hanging out in Jerusalem.

At the time of the Passover, Holy Spirit falls.

Begin to speak in different languages, drawing the nations.

It's a reversal of the Tower of Babel.

So instead of the Tower of Babel being God giving different languages to break up the tower, it's now a renovation of and a restoration of the Tower of Babel, bringing unity with the kingdom of God.

Okay, turn back to Matthew 4.

First words out of Jesus' mouth.

A pattern of the kingdom.

Patterns that we've seen for thousands of years, a pattern of the kingdom.

And here's where it begins.

He says this.

From that time Jesus, circle Jesus, underline Jesus, highlight Jesus, began to preach and say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

As I've said numerous times, Jesus spoke of the kingdom over a hundred times.

It was his central message.

He spoke more about the kingdom than he did about forgiveness.

He spoke more about the kingdom than he did about getting saved.

He spoke more about the kingdom than he did about being born again.

He talked more about the kingdom than he did about obedience.

The kingdom of God was the rubric from which all those other things flow.

He speaks of a kingdom and he begins with repentance.

He's saying, change your mind.

You're going to have to change your thinking, brothers and sisters, because the majority of who he's speaking to are Jews.

Change.

You've got to think.

That's the first part of any revolution of the kingdom.

It starts with Jesus.

It starts with the person of Jesus.

It doesn't start with religion.

Jesus did not come to this earth to start a religion.

He came to start a revolution.

You guys believe that?

I know it's Memorial Day weekend and all that.

Wake up.

Jesus did not come to start a religion, but to start a revolution.

If we could see a kingdom of God revolution in our day, it would change our nation economically, politically, the media, education, our schools, our sports teams.

It would change TV programming.

It would change our radio.

It would change how lawyers do law.

How doctors do medicine.

It would change how mothers and fathers parent their kids.

We need a kingdom of God revolution.

And it begins with Jesus, and he says, repent.

Jesus is always talking about repentance.

And we've associated it oftentimes to repent and follow Jesus.

And that's true.

But it's bigger than that.

It's also for those who follow Jesus to follow Jesus.

Those who say that they know Jesus to start really following Jesus.

How many of you know there can be an intellectual understanding of who Jesus is, but not a revolution of the heart of the kind of character that Jesus lived?

That only comes through the power of the Holy Spirit.

So the metanoia, the changing of our mind is he's saying to the church at that time, the Jews at that time, he's saying, look, you guys, you've got to change your thinking.

I'm about to give you something that you've never understood before.

How many have Bibles that have the red?

The red stuff.

Okay, you got the red.

Look down.

Look down.

You're gonna have a little bit of black there, and then you're hitting red.

It's called the Sermon on the Mount.

And in the next few weeks, we're gonna get into the Sermon on the Mount, because that is the manifesto of the kingdom.

How many have heard of the Communist Manifesto?

Okay, there's a Communist Manifesto.

And the Communist Manifesto is a paper, a document that was written that in bullet form begins to explain why you need a Marxist or a communist revolution all over the world.

Well, guess what?

Jesus wrote a manifesto long before there was a guy named Lenin or Marx, and it's called the Sermon on the Mount, but we're gonna call it a Kingdom of God manifesto.

And you're gonna hear me say this: that if we could get the Kingdom of God manifesto into our churches and into our hearts, we would bring, we'd be a part of bringing a Kingdom of God revolution in our society.

So Jesus is setting things up, and he's saying, Look, to begin everything that I'm about to announce to you is this change your thinking.

And they don't even know what he's talking about.

He just says, the kingdom of God is at hand.

That's the first thing I want you to get, is that there's a kingdom now coming.

I'm coming with the kingdom of God, and that's the reign and the rule of God, first of all with Israel, but then beginning and starting there to go to the nations of the world.

So it starts there, Jesus the revolutionary.

And then he says, and this is the pattern, starts with the person and in the pattern, verse 18.

And Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers.

Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.

Then he said to them, Follow me.

Don't follow a religion, follow me.

And I, I will make you fishers of men.

They immediately left their nets and followed him.

Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, John, his brother, in the boat with Zebedee and their father, committing their nets.

He called them.

And immediately they left the boat with their father and they followed him.

Pattern.

The pattern of the kingdom is leadership.

I want you to look at me.

Say it together.

The pattern of the kingdom is leadership.

Say it to your neighbor.

The pattern of the kingdom is leadership.

Jesus, in his MO, makes someone a follower, then they become a disciple, and then they become a leader.

Jesus chose 12 women.

I mean, he chose 12 men and probably a hundred women.

There was 120 of them right there.

Remember in the upper room?

So lots of men and women he chose.

He anointed them with the Holy Spirit, and they changed the world.

They changed the world through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Because the pattern of the kingdom is always to raise up leaders.

Every one of you in this room, lead in some way, shape, or form.

You first become a follower, then you become a disciple, and then you become a leader.

And some of us in this room are leading in the right way, and some of us in this room are leading in the wrong way, but you're a leader.

Some of you fathers are leading in the wrong way, some of you are leading in the right way.

Some of you mothers are leading in the right way, some of you are leading in the wrong way.

Some of you young people that are not married yet are setting yourselves up to be the kind of person that's going to be a mighty leader of God.

You are.

I know some of the decisions that many of you are making, and this is the hard part, is you're just in that stage of laying foundations.

You know, just getting started, just starting to think about your vocation, just starting to think about marriage, maybe, or wanting to be married someday, thinking about the direction of your life.

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Turn your thinking toward the kingdom.

Begin to ask God, God, use me in a kingdom way with the skills that I've developed.

You know what's interesting about David?

What's fascinating about David is he not only was a man after God's own heart, but he also developed a skill.

He actually developed several skills.

We call it the 10,000-hour rule.

So for 10,000 hours on a hill in Bethlehem, he's learning how to play a harp.

He's learning how to swing a sling, and he's also in intimacy writing songs before Jesus.

For all of you that are young people, be developing skills alongside a passionate desire for God.

Or you'll work in a coffee shop for the rest of your life.

We need men and women that are leaders that are trained in skills but also are passionate for Jesus.

I mean, I got saved at the University of Georgia.

So I remember so many times, I'm like, what am I doing here?

What am I doing here?

But God was developing that, the discipline to go to college, to be in college, to prepare me for what he had next for me as a missionary.

So he comes into Capernaum and he takes a bunch of fishermen.

And later it's going to be a tax collector, too, which is going to cause all kinds of issues on the team.

Because the fishermen hated the tax collector.

By the way, the the uh Herod of Antipas, his main commercial center for tax collecting, guess where it was?

Capernaum.

So he's gonna pick Matthew later on.

But right now he's picking a group of men, calling them out.

I find it fascinating that he doesn't call James and John's dad.

Hmm.

But he calls them.

I was thinking about that over the last week.

That the father was left.

They left their father, they left him with the business.

And I think it says something about the compassion of Jesus, that at the place where probably their business was at, that he stayed there and would maintain that and provide for the rest of the family.

He was calling these young men out to go forth.

But the pattern of the kingdom is leadership, faith being developed through the presence of God, becoming like a child.

Jesus called a little one by his side.

He said, Learn this well.

Unless you dramatically change your way of thinking and become teachable and learn about heaven's kingdom realm, with the wide-eyed wonder of a child, you will never be able to enter in.

Whoever continually humbles himself to become like this gentle child is the greatest in heaven's kingdom realm.

And if you tenderly care for this little one on my behalf, you're tenderly caring for me.

That's why we love our children's ministry so much.

That's why we see God moving powerfully right now with our kids.

We had like nine kids that were touched by the Holy Spirit a few weeks ago.

And a couple of them went out and prayed for kids in the neighborhood, and the kids got healed.

Is that young man that I brought up?

Is he here?

Where's that little guy?

I brought him up.

Yeah.

I mean, he was he's downstairs.

That's where he should be, because he just can anoint those other kids and get them busted for Jesus.

But that young man came up here and he shared his testimony that week.

I don't know if you were here or not, but it was, and his little lip was quivering, and it wasn't because he was nervous, it was because he had been touched tenderly by God.

Church! God wants us to change our way of thinking from this sophisticated mental ascent, which is great, it's good, don't lose that.

But also the tender faith of a child.

God, you can do anything.

God, you can move mountains in my life.

I am not going to put restrictions on you.

It hasn't been my experience of the past, but I'm gonna study and read and believe that this book is not my experience.

God, you can do anything in my life.

That's a kingdom of God revolution, church.

That's a kingdom of God revolution.

He continues.

So the person, the pattern, verse 23.

And Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.

Then his fain went through all Syria, and they brought to him, wow, all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who are demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them all.

The person, the pattern, the power.

The power, the proclamation and demonstration of the kingdom.

I don't know if I could be wrong on this, but I don't know if there's any nation on the globe that has proclaimed Jesus more than the United States of America.

If I look at the statistics from the major evangelistic organizations, we have saved this nation about five times over.

Everybody's been saved and written on cards at least three times.

But if you look at our culture and where it's going, if you look at our school system and where it's going, if you look at the political arena and where it's going, if you look at our media and where it's going, we got a major disconnect here, folks.

Hello?

We got a major disconnect.

We need, yes, keep proclaiming it.

Of course, that's fantastic.

That's what Jesus is doing.

But we need a proclamation and a demonstration of the kingdom of God.

We need illustrations.

People need to see Jesus, not just hear about him.

Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.

Now, some of you do need to talk more, by the way.

But we got a lot of talk and not a lot to do.

And what Jesus came doing, and this is what a Kingdom of God revolution is, it's word and deed.

It's word and deed.

It's spring's initiative in July, going and painting houses and fixing up houses.

It's actually as simple as when we walk out here picking up those cards for the block party and actually taking your children with you so that they see you do something kingdom instead of just talking about it.

And then you actually go door to door and you just say, hey, we'd love for you to come to our block party, and you hand them a card.

Woo, that's scary stuff.

But it is, isn't it?

Everybody go like that is a little bit scary.

You know?

Because we'd rather go eat.

I say, go eat first, then go do the houses.

It'll take you 10 minutes, 15 minutes to do it.

Blessed are the mouths.

Oh, wait.

Blessed are the tongue.

What?

Oh, blessed are the feet of those who bring good news.

Feet.

Feet.

Everybody say feet.

We need more feet and less mouth.

Now you need both, you do.

But I love what St.

Francis of Assisi said.

He says, wherever you go and whatever you do, proclaim the kingdom.

And if you must, use words.

You see, the problem with the church today is that we proclaim the good news, but we become the bad news.

That's a big problem, folks.

God wants us to be the good news, speak the good news, and do the good news.

Jesus came in word and deed.

He's healing the sick, he's casting out demons.

We can turn going to King Supers to get food into going to King Supers to be the Great Commission.

So what we do is we go into King Supers and you got your little list, the honeydew list, you know.

And you walk in there, and okay, there's the fruit and the veggies over here, and there's the other things over there.

And you start saying, Lord, use me while I'm at King Supers.

God, would you use me in a mighty way?

God, would you give me words of knowledge about someone in here who needs to know the kingdom, who, who, who's desperate for you, would you lead me?

And you think Jesus is in heaven just going, man, I don't think what a nut.

God is so weird.

You know?

Man, he loves that stuff.

That's that's the kingdom pattern.

That's the way he works.

And he'll speak to us and he'll guide us in some of the stories that have come from many of you of God using you in a mighty way in king supers.

Or at you're gonna go out.

How many are going out to eat after after uh the service today?

Raise your hand.

Raise your hand.

Okay.

So go, be kingdom people as you go out.

And so then this is the result.

The result, verse 25.

Verse 25, great multitudes followed him from Galilee and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.

So, church, when God begins to move through his church, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the word gets out.

His fame begins to be expressed throughout all the regions.

What a great place! Could the modern-day Capernaum be Colorado Spring?

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

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Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.