Seeing Jesus: The Kingdom of God and Healing

Give you guys an update. I mentioned last week at the end of the sermon that,

you know, had signed up for a gym, but I never went.

And I knew you guys would ask. So I did go to the gym and I regretted it. I was, I don't know.

It's like you want to start a habit and then you hurt for three days afterwards.

That's like, it's a terrible thing, but I guess I'll keep going.

So anyways, just thought you'd be interested.

You're not, it's okay. So I'm happy. I'm so happy that we're back like into the book of Matthew.

So you've got Bibles in front of you. If you want to open them to the book of

Matthew, that's where we're going to be. We're going to be in Matthew chapter eight.

If you've been around I-90, you kind of know we tend to do series through books of the Bible.

We did the book of Acts in my first couple of years here, and we've been going through Matthew.

So we'll spend four to eight weeks going through chapter by chapter,

verse by verse through just the text of scripture and studying it together.

And then we'll take a little break and we'll do some topical series or like

Christmas, you know, because you got to do Christmas.

And then we'll pick back up where we left off. And then back in November,

I think it was mid-November, we left off in Matthew chapter seven,

which is the end of the Sermon on the Mount. And we did a whole seven weeks

in the Sermon on the Mount.

And so, yeah, so we're picking up right there in Matthew chapter eight after the Sermon on the Mount.

And we're going to just start in verse one, which is the logical place to start.

So verse one, chapter eight, verse one says, when Jesus came down from the mountain,

large crowds followed him.

So just to kind of orient ourselves, like, because it's a narrative.

And so we have to kind of keep up with the narrative.

Jesus has just spent three beefy chapters from Matthew five to Matthew seven,

teaching what is known as what we refer to as the sermon on the mount.

It's called the sermon on the mount, because he went up to a mountain and he

gave the sermon to all the people listening.

Okay, so he's up on the mountain and quite naturally, having climbed up the

mountain to give the sermon, he asked to climb down the mountain because you

can't just stay up there all day long.

So he walks down to the mountain and as he's heading down, all these crowds

of people who are listening to him are just so drawn to him.

He doesn't tell them where he's going, but he just sets out and they begin to

follow him because the reaction to his sermon, it's just, it's just, it's palpable.

They're super excited. They are excited to hear more from Jesus and to learn

from Jesus. And they just want to follow after him.

Because the Sermon on the Mount is just, it's just mind-blowing.

Like, if we really stop, even if we become familiar with the Sermon on the Mount,

we stop and study it, it is so, such a contrast, particularly to these people,

to the type of teaching they would have had.

I mean, even to the type of knowledge or understanding that we have about God. Like, it's so amazing.

And as I argued, you know, in that series, it is, the Sermon on the Mount is

the definitive presentation of Jesus' ministry, his theology,

his understanding of how we relate to God.

Just, and it's like he does this on a mountain, right? And we kind of get this

sense in Matthew comparing or paralleling Jesus's ministry to Moses's ministry.

Because Moses, right, the man who led the Israelites out of Egypt and established

Israel, gave them their law, their way of understanding how do they relate to God.

He did that. He went up to a mountain. He got the Ten Commandments.

He brought them down to the people.

And that language is very much the language that is biblical language around

Moses is the same language used around Jesus here.

Matthew is signaling to us that just in the same way, Moses went up to the mountain

and gave this definitive message to Israel for their time.

Jesus has gone up to the mountain. He's giving a definitive message to those

who are going to follow after him.

The Sermon on the Mount is at the heart of the gospel.

And it's a sermon about righteousness.

It's a sermon about righteousness. Jesus was concerned about righteousness.

Moses was concerned about righteousness. His righteousness was through the law.

Jesus presents another kind of righteousness, a righteousness through love and

obedience that comes from love that's not based on law alone.

But it is about righteousness.

And we, just a quick review, like right at the beginning of the sermon,

Matthew 520, I think we referenced this verse every time through the series.

It says, Jesus tells him, he says, I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses

that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you'll never get into the kingdom of

heaven. So his instruction about righteousness is...

Bookended by this urgency. It ends with urgency. It begins with urgency.

It matters that you be a righteous person.

Righteousness actually matters for us. And he invites his listeners into a vision

of what righteousness looks like,

what flourishing and completion and joy and what you're called to as a human

being, it should look like.

And it's not tied up in law, like you do certain things and then God's not going to be angry at you.

It looks like a relationship with God that's driven by love.

Which is so much further than law.

Like I can stay in your good graces by just not stepping on your toes,

right? But that's not the same thing as loving you.

See, what Jesus presents is this idea of a relationship to God,

to others, and even in the way that we judge or assess other people's relationship

to God that is all about love. It's driven by love.

And love is going to be the thing that yields righteousness in our life.

Love for God, love for others, not just law-keeping.

That's Jesus' big message. And Jesus' teaching,

especially in contrast to the normal way that people would teach about God and

righteousness in his time, which is all about you follow these rules,

and if you follow these rules, then you'll be okay with God.

His teaching is mind-blowing to the people who are hearing this.

They are really excited about it.

And we read their reaction to the sermon at the end of chapter 7, Matthew 7, 28 and 29.

When Jesus had finished saying these things, that is the Sermon on the Mount,

the crowds were astonished at his teaching because he was teaching them like

one who had authority and not like they're scribes.

They're just like, man, this Jesus, he's on another level.

The reaction is astonishment, and rightfully so,

because he presents this dynamic and fascinating love-driven way of being with

God and being in relationship with others that is so far beyond the norm for his day.

And Jesus has authority that those who are just commenting on the law don't

have because he's presenting a new vision for righteousness that comes through

love and faith doesn't hang on law.

And I think that, like, I want to take some time here in the beginning of this

sermon and kind of orient us, because what becomes really clear as we go through

the book of Matthew, and actually if we're paying attention up to this point,

it becomes very clear that Jesus'

understanding of reality and his understanding of righteousness and his understanding

of his purpose in his ministry is totally tied up with this idea of the kingdom of God.

If you go back and look for that phrase, kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven,

they're kind of used interchangeably in the book of Matthew.

If you go back and you find those, I mean, in the seven chapters previous to

here, it's mentioned at least every chapter.

The idea of the kingdom of heaven

is going on oftentimes in the book of Matthew and it will continue on.

And the Sermon on the Mount is instructions on righteousness in the context

of the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus understood that he was all about the kingdom of heaven,

and the sermon and his messages is reinforced, or sorry, the logic of the sermon

is just all about the kingdom of heaven.

The first time after Jesus gets baptized, we hear about his first message,

and it's this, Matthew 4, 17.

So going back a little bit, once Jesus is baptized, he begins his ministry.

It says this, from then on, Jesus began to preach, repent because the kingdom of heaven has come near.

It's kind of the encapsulation of Jesus's message. Repent because the kingdom of heaven has come near.

So the message that Jesus goes around preaching, the message that's the context

for the Sermon on the Mount, is this message of repentance because the kingdom has come near.

And I mean, it's kind of a twofold message.

I think on the next slide, I've got it mapped out here.

There's proclamation and response, and it's actually flipped the other way in

the way he presents it. But logically, there's a reality that's proclaimed.

The kingdom of heaven has come near.

Jesus just understands the significance of his life, death, and resurrection, which he anticipates.

At this point, the people around him don't know this is coming,

but he knows it's coming.

He understands that the significance of him coming, him being on this earth,

what he's about to do, what he's about to accomplish, is that the kingdom of

heaven has come near through him, through his ministry.

Something has changed and it deserves a response.

So the response that he says is repent in light of what I am proclaiming and

revealing to be true, that the kingdom of heaven has come near.

Now, repentance is the response. And each of us probably has some ideas about what repentance is.

You probably, if you're a Christian, at one point you repented, right?

And you did. What you did is you heard the message, the proclamation,

that there is grace and forgiveness in Jesus Christ, and that now you can have

a life with God where before you were alien, you were dead, you were stuck in your sin.

Now I can come in and have a relationship with him, and suddenly I have life, eternal life.

And my response to that isn't repentance.

Sorry, is repentance. My response to that needs to be repentance.

Now, a lot of us, like when we found Jesus, it was really clear that we were

just like, I like was in this thing,

whatever it is, in this sin, stuck in this pattern of life that was totally

contradictory to the love and grace and commandments of Jesus Christ.

And so repentance is, I have a moral transformation.

So I leave behind this old way of life. I leave behind the drugs,

the drinking, the sex, you know, the selfishness, whatever the thing is, right?

We all have different stories, equally bad, right?

But what we do is we hear, well, God loves me. He's come, he's set up a kingdom.

His kingdom is a kingdom of grace and forgiveness. And so I respond to that.

And oftentimes it's moral.

It leads to a moral transformation.

But more than anything, all that we're doing when we repent is we're saying,

If this thing which Jesus says is true, and he insists that it is,

that the kingdom of heaven has come near, what does that mean for me?

And it's going to mean different things. Yeah, it's going to mean some moral

transformation, because Jesus has revealed what is going to make for your life

and your peace and your good, and he has plans and a future and a hope,

and it's not about your selfishness, and it's not about your self-indulgence,

and it's not about you fulfilling all your desires and self-actualizing and

all this stuff. I did the voice. I'm sorry about the voice.

Like it's just it's the false gospel of the world tells us that oh you just

be you just be a great happy self happiness is what you need have you ever tried to be happy good luck.

What jesus says is look it don't try to search yourself out like in your own

strength the kingdom of heaven has come near i'm demonstrating the love that

god had your creator has for you on the cross and i'm doing that by dying for

your sin so that you can have fellowship with me when you didn't have it before.

And so repentance is just a response. If that's true, what does it mean for

your life? That's what repentance is.

Following that through, the logic of what's been proclaimed as true.

That God loves you, he cares for you, has a plan for you. You can participate in a life with him.

It's not about law, but it's about loving him. So if that's true,

repentance is like, okay, so getting my life in line with that not performatively but just like.

I was, you know, if you're going down the highway, you're in the left lane,

you get all these signs, like you go down into Bellevue right now,

all the time, you get all these big signs that say, this lane is ending, right?

As you're just going across the bridge into Mercer Island, right?

The left lane ends. Now, here's the thing.

Message being proclaimed. No more lane here, right?

I could keep driving, but accepting the message means I'm going to get to the

right and not kill some people. You know, not kill these construction workers

over here. I could keep driving.

But if I accept the message, it requires a response.

Repentance is saying, there's a message been proclaimed. The kingdom of heaven has come near.

Jesus Christ is the king. He invites you in to respond.

And so I bring my life in line with the message. That's what repentance is.

And I just want to dwell on this for a little bit.

Because well it'll become clear in a second i

want to share with you a diagram right this diagram i think is

a little bit helpful it's helped me to kind

of illustrate well what does it mean for me to be a person who's repenting living

into the kingdom like accepting jesus is invitation to to be a part of the kingdom

by his grace so what does that mean because it's a little bit complicated as Christians.

What you realize as a Christian is that when you accept what Jesus has done

on the cross, you don't suddenly live in another place.

You actually continue on the plane of existence, which you were doing beforehand, right?

So you're the same self. You now have a relationship with Jesus.

So something is different, but things are not always the same, right? And.

If you're a theology nerd, this is inaugurated eschatology.

So if that means something to you, great. If it doesn't, it's fine.

But it's just this idea that we have to reckon with in the Christian life is

that Jesus Christ has proclaimed the kingdom of God.

And that means that we, as people who continue on having responded in faith to that message,

believing it, we live in this reality where we are already a part of the kingdom

and yet have not yet fully enjoyed everything about the kingdom.

That there's something else coming, a future age, when God is going to remove

all sin, he's going to remove all death, he's going to remove all of the difficulty

in life, and we anticipate that.

And yet right now, before God has done that, we are living in the kingdom,

in a kingdom reality, right?

And so there's some already for us, we are already living in and enjoying the

kingdom of God here on earth, And yet we are not yet what we will be.

And we have not yet experienced all that we will when Jesus comes and he sets

this world right and he judges wickedness and he puts it away forever and he

wipes away every tear and heaven will come down to earth.

So like there's this already not yet reality that we're experiencing,

but I want us to think a little bit and I want us to zoom in on our own experience

of life in the midst of this reality, right? So I have another slide that I

think will help us kind of talk through this, okay?

Oh, yeah, I skipped it. Okay, go to the next one, and then we're going to come

back to this one, please, Beckett.

So, like, look, the fact is that we live in a world that the Bible calls this present evil age.

That's the age we live in, this present evil age. You can go back to that slide

in Galatians 1, 3 through 5.

It says this, Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus

Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age,

according to the will of God, of our God and Father.

To him be glory forever and ever.

Amen. So let's go back to that slide there, Beckett. So like what the Bible

says and the way it describes the world that we live in is that we live in the

midst of a present evil age.

And that's, I think, a hard thing for us to accept.

But what Jesus proclaims is that the kingdom of heaven has come near to this present evil age.

That's the gospel. that God is breaking through all the wickedness and all the

darkness and all the sin and all the futility of this world.

The fact that what creation has become in light of sin and light of the fall,

it's been broken. What God says is that the kingdom of heaven is coming near

and it's coming and manifesting in the midst of the evil and the darkness.

And the invitation that Jesus makes so clear throughout his ministry is that

by faith, we can enter into the kingdom.

We can become the sorts of people who continue to operate on this plane in this present evil age.

And yet we have a destination into heaven, eternal, a life with him into this future age.

We're going to be welcomed in because we are passing over from death to life

right now. And we are passing over from this darkness into his light right in this moment.

And that faith ends up pointing us upward, right? I have another slide for that, right?

So we have this response in this life in the kingdom in which we're living, right?

And the response that we come initially to by faith is that we become upward, right?

We look back to the cross. We recognize that 2,000 years ago,

a man or seemingly a man, he's actually God in the flesh, came onto earth.

He gave us great wisdom and great teaching. and yet he also accomplished something for us. He died.

He stood in our place to take the penalty of our sin.

And so faith is me looking back at what Jesus has done in the past and saying,

I believe that was for me so that I can be rescued from this present evil age and from my sin,

not because of anything I've done, but because of his goodness and his faithfulness

and his mercy poured out and displayed on the cross.

So by faith, We come into relationship with God and we become people who are

now oriented towards the kingdom of heaven.

We are anticipating the end of all things where Jesus is gonna welcome us in

and say, good and faithful servant, welcome in, take your reward.

And it's not gonna be because of all the great things we did,

but it's because we by faith trusted ourselves to him and now we live in this

worshipful upward orientation.

Worshipful upward orientation that looks like obedience to his commandments.

It looks like loving him.

It looks like seeking the kingdom first.

It looks like looking past the darkness of this present age and anticipating

and expecting God to show up in the midst of it.

So we have this upward orientation that comes by faith.

But what's really true and what's really important, I think,

for us to understand, especially as we're getting into the rest of Matthew here,

is that something else comes along in the kingdom.

We don't just have faith leading us to worship, but we also have empowerment

coming down from the kingdom of heaven into our lives, which is leading us to

mission, to go along with Jesus proclaiming the reality of the kingdom,

and, as we're going to see in these passages,

demonstrating the reality of the kingdom, which is to say the power of the kingdom,

like it's come near and it's breaking through into this present evil age.

So that when we pray and when we lead people to seek after the Lord,

he shows up in miraculous, powerful, demonstrable ways.

And I think Christians really are very, evangelicals are universally comfortable

with the first version of this, where faith leads us to worship.

We don't love this all the time, depending on how charismatic you are.

Some of you guys only love this and you don't love the other one. That's okay, right?

But I think the reality, life in the kingdom that has come near involves both of these things.

It's faith leading me to worship and it is empowerment sending me on mission.

Those are defining characteristics of people who are in the kingdom right now

and yet in this present evil age.

And I just, you know, I know a lot of us, I really like this church because

I think that people kind of like my style, my teaching or whatever.

One, because I'm charismatic enough, but I'm not super charismatic.

I mean, I am. I really am. My theology is thoroughly charismatic,

right? But I like to read. I'm sorry. That was mean.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That was mean. That was not nice. Right.

But I but I also like want to to take like the intellectual side of things pretty

seriously, which is not always the case.

And a lot of people, I think, like my teaching because you guys were hurt in

the charismatic church. Like some of you guys have church hurt.

And so when I start to say words like spirit empowered, you might say, can we just not?

Right. Because you have some background and it's a little painful.

But I'm just saying, I want to bring this up because I don't know how you read

the Bible without recognizing spirit-empowered believers is what we're called to.

And maybe you've been hurt. Maybe you have some church hurt.

Maybe you had people who maybe abuse their spiritual authority in your life.

And I'm just saying I'm sympathetic, but don't let that hurt keep you from what

God's inviting you into because it's good.

He has good things for you. So that's number one. And number two,

maybe if you're just more of a less charismatic evangelical,

and you're really comfortable with the idea of faith and worship,

like, oh, yes, I'll obey, but you're not comfortable with the Spirit.

I think we have to just, if we read Scripture, Again, it's hard to get away from this stuff.

And I think we need to be the sorts of people who want both.

We want to be faithful and worshiping, upward oriented, but we also want to

be outward oriented, which is empowered by the Spirit for the sake of mission.

We have to do both these things. So I'm just going to call everybody to that.

And it's really important because if we look at Jesus' ministry,

as we will here in the next couple of chapters, you just can't get over it.

Matthew 4, 23, right? So even before the Sermon on the Mount,

We see the stuff that we're looking at here in Matthew 8.

In 4.23, it says, Jesus began to go all over Galilee, teaching in their synagogues,

preaching the good news of the kingdom. Not the end of the sentence.

So he goes around preaching the good news of the kingdom and doing what?

And healing every disease and sickness among the people.

Jesus proclaims, he also demonstrates the kingdom. And proclamation in the Bible,

in the book of Acts, and I think in the Pauline epistles, in the vision for

what we have, in the criteria for what we're called to as a church,

It's proclamation and demonstration.

Mission moves forward on both of those things. Okay?

So Jesus didn't just have a message. He didn't just have the good news of the kingdom.

That a message was, at least in this instance, accompanied by healing,

accompanied by miracles.

And Jesus is empowered by the Spirit, even though he's God. And we'll talk about

that in weeks going forward. Like, how does that work? He's God, but empowered by God?

The Trinity. It's fascinating. But he's empowered by the Spirit for the sake

of mission. He proclaims the kingdom. but he also demonstrates the kingdom.

And I just want to look at this in chapter 8 here, okay?

What we're going to go through is just a quick succession, and we're just kind

of starting to touch on this stuff this morning.

We're not going to go deep into it yet. We're going to have more time because,

as I'm going to show you, all throughout chapter 8, 9, and 10,

Jesus is doing this stuff over and over and over again. He's healing.

He is casting out demons. He's doing this miraculous stuff. He's demonstrating

the kingdom as much as he's proclaiming it.

So chapter eight, verse two, first of three healings that we're gonna look at this morning.

A leper came to him and bowed down before him. And he said, Lord,

if you are willing, you can make me clean.

And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him saying, I am willing, be cleansed.

And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him,

see that you tell no one, but go show yourself to the priests and present the

offering that Moses commanded as a testimony to them.

So Jesus is going around, right? Preaching the kingdom of God,

proclaiming the good news of the nearness of the kingdom.

And a man comes up to him. He's a man who has leprosy. And in ancient Israel,

this was a big problem because they had all these rules, all these laws, right?

All these regulations that came from Moses about what to do with lepers because

skin conditions and leprosy was contagious.

And so you didn't want it spreading around to everybody. So there were all these

rules. and by the standard of Jewish law, this man, this leper, was an unclean person.

And he was actually not permitted to go around mixing with people who did not have leprosy.

He'd have to walk around saying, unclean, unclean, so that everybody around

him, he could go where he wanted to go, right?

But they would have to know that, oh, we don't want to be anywhere near this guy. So he's a pariah.

He's cast out. But he comes, draws near to Jesus, bows before him, not at a distance.

I mean, it's very clear he's drawing very close to Jesus, right?

He bows before him and he says, if you're willing, you can make me clean.

And Jesus doesn't say, ew, a leper. He says, I am willing, be clean.

He draws near to this person. He says, I can have fellowship with you despite your uncleanness.

I can deal with this stuff. this is the nature of the kingdom.

I cleanse dirty people.

I forgive sinners. I take the worst. I take you on your worst day and I tell you, I love you anyway.

You don't have to clean yourself up to come before Jesus. You need to come before

Jesus and he'll clean you up.

It's the demonstration of the kingdom.

And yet it comes along with this miraculous healing.

So Jesus says he's willing. He says, be cleaned. And immediately his leprosy was gone.

This guy's skin condition is gone. And then Jesus instructs him as he says,

go and show yourself to the priests as a testimony to them.

And what Jesus is referring to there, just like there are laws about how lepers

can't be around people and they had to be isolated and stuff like that.

There's also in Leviticus 14. So if you want to do some homework,

go to Leviticus 14 and read, there's a process for when a leper is healed.

When a leper is no longer leprous. They can go before the priests and the priests will examine them.

And there's this process of offerings and then they can proclaim them clean.

And so you can come out of uncleanness, right?

And so Jesus says, go and do that and let me, because they need to know.

They need to know that something is happening in Israel.

And that as the kingdom of heaven is coming near, and as Jesus is going out

proclaiming the kingdom, the king is present and he's doing miraculous stuff.

And you guys need to stop focusing in on all these laws and all these ways of

managing God and understand that God is coming and approaching you with mercy

and grace and kindness, that the testimony needs to go out of what's happening there.

And so Jesus heals and he sends him out to testify to the priests.

Then there's another healing right after this.

And when it's picking up, what am I at? Verse five, I think. Yeah, verse five.

When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, imploring him and saying,

Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented.

And Jesus said to him, well, I will come and heal him.

But the centurion said, Lord, I am not worthy for you to come under my roof,

but just say the word and my servant will be healed.

For I also am a man under authority with soldiers under me. And I say to this

one, go. and he goes and another come and he comes.

And to my slave, do this. And he does it.

Now, when Jesus heard this, he marveled. And he said to those who were following,

truly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel.

I say to you that many will come from the east and the west and recline at the

table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness in that

place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And Jesus said to the centurion, go, it shall be done for you as you have believed.

And the servant was healed that very moment.

So we see a second example of Jesus's healing here.

And there's a few more in this chapter, but we're only looking at three this

morning. This first man came with leprosy.

He has this great confident faith. He bows before he breaks through the social distancing, right?

And he bows before Jesus and Jesus heals him. And then the next man comes and

he's just got crazy confidence.

But just like in the first instance, the leper had no business being there.

This man has no business being around Jesus because he is a Roman centurion. He's not Jewish.

So why is he following a Jewish itinerant preacher who's preaching about to

Jews really in this instance, right?

So he comes to Jesus and not only is he like have no, he's not Jewish, right?

He's actually like the enemy of the Jews.

He is literally prime representative of the oppressive power of Rome over Israel.

And so he comes in and he bows before Jesus and he asks him,

he implores him, asking him to heal his servant who's at home.

And so he would have been hated by the Jews and the people around Jesus totally hate him.

But Jesus says, oh, here's a guy.

He's coming to me in faith. He's coming to me in this recognition that I have

something, that the nearness of the kingdom that I'm proclaiming is actually

for him. And Jesus loves this.

And he actually commends his faith because this man knows that Jesus doesn't

even need to go and travel to where the servant is.

Jesus can command the servant to just be healed. And he knows he has this great confidence.

And Jesus is amazed by his faith. He's amazed by his faith.

And I mean, it really is amazing because if repentance, right,

is responding to a proclamation and getting my life in order to it,

I mean, this centurion is demonstrating some massive repentance, right?

Because he is seeped in a false religion, pagan Roman religion,

where they're just worshiping all kinds of gods, right?

And it would have actually been beneath a Roman's dignity to come and submit

to these Israelite gods, these local gods who don't respect the other Roman gods.

So he's coming before Jesus, accepting his authority, which is a double indignity

as a Roman soldier, right? And the Romans were really high and mighty.

They were really into their cultural supremacy. For him to come to this Jewish

itinerant man, the backwoods, and say, hey, I actually think you have authority, is a big deal.

He is recontextualizing his life according to faith in what Jesus has said,

according to faith in what Jesus says is true about himself and his ministry.

It's a very good example of repentance. Is it a total moral transformation?

No, but it's coming in and responding in faith to what Jesus is proclaiming,

that he's a healer, that he's able, that he's powerful.

And the man just takes it on faith. And he comes before him and he asks him

to heal. And Jesus is amazed by it.

And then this third healing, when Jesus came into Peter's home,

he saw his mother-in-law lying sick in bed with a fever and he touched her hand

and the fever left her and she got up and waited on him.

And when evening came, they brought to him many who were demon-possessed and

he cast out the spirits with a word and he healed all who were ill.

This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet.

He himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases.

I'm not going to comment too much on this one. We're actually going to pick

up and say some more about this here because he's referencing this prophecy

in Isaiah that's really important when it comes to talking about and thinking about healing.

But here we see this over and over again.

If you didn't get it the first time with the leper or the second time with the

centurion, maybe you get it the third time that Jesus is able to heal.

He's been given authority over people's health.

He's been given authority over demonic oppression, spirits, evil spirits.

And anybody who comes to him who's ill, anyone who comes to him who's demon-possessed,

Jesus just has the authority to heal them and to take away whatever their difficulty

is. I mean, this is the message.

And as if you didn't just get it after these three times, we just keep going

along here and it just keeps being hammered.

Jesus has authority. He has spiritual authority. He has authority over all things.

The nature of the kingdom, the nature of his kingship means that he has authority

to effect and change this darkness in the present age and to transform things.

So he does a ton of healing. And actually, the only other thing he does throughout

the next couple of chapters, He heals a bunch of people, and he gathers a bunch of disciples.

That's the synopsis of the next three chapters. He heals a bunch of people,

and he gathers a bunch of disciples.

And I wanted to point that out because here's the thing.

Sometimes, I'm just addressing the skepticism we have. We can be a little bit

skeptical of things like healing and demon possession.

It's actually really funny. The worship team before this TV, we have a TV up here.

It's kind of like a prompt so that I can read the slides. it was like glitching

out and being all weird and then and it's like i think justin said well it's

either a tech problem or a demon and someone said well i think i'd rather the tech problem,

right wouldn't we all just rather everything be materialistic like like problems

right like we're really uncomfortable with this language of demons and the whole spiritual realm and,

we're kind of like yeah we're a little bit past that nowadays right but i mean.

The Bible, the proclamation of the kingdom that Jesus makes here,

I think it's also a revelation of what is ultimately true.

And we have gotten to an age where we think just materialism is the only reality.

But we step into the gospel and we also step into the reality that there is

a spiritual battle going on here. I mean, it's just in the Bible.

Jesus knew plenty about the world. He created it.

And so he would be able to tell us if this whole spiritual battle was just an

illusion and we could just ignore it.

He actually seems to lean into it.

He leans into it. And so I'm just not sure we have the permission to just be

like people who are like, eh, let's just choose materialistic problems and we'll

just fix those things. Because there's spiritual problems in the world.

Yeah. So some of you guys are a little bit skeptical though.

You're a little bit skeptical of Jesus. And then maybe you're asking this question.

You're saying, well, sure. I mean, I get that Jesus did all this healing.

But I mean, how does that? I'm not Jesus. And that's good. You are not.

You are not Jesus. Let's make that super clear. You're not Jesus, right?

But interestingly enough, as he's going around healing, what is Jesus also doing?

He's gathering around together his disciples.

And here's how the end of chapter 9 looks, okay?

Into the beginning of chapter 10, right? So he's healing. He's gathering his disciples.

People are following him. He's collected them together And this is how it ends

He says Then he said to his disciples The harvest is abundant The workers are

few Therefore pray to the Lord of the harvest To send out workers into this harvest.

And then summoning the 12 disciples, he gave them authority over unclean spirits

to drive them out and to heal every disease and sickness. So you get this ministry of Jesus.

He's doing this healing. He's doing this empowered supernatural kind of thing,

right? And we might say, well, that's Jesus.

But then Jesus throws a little wrench into our excuse, and he gives that same

authority and calls the disciples to that same kind of ministry.

And then if you read Acts, you might say, well, that's the disciples.

But then if you read Acts 2 and you see all this crazy supernatural stuff going

on, Acts 2 is, you know, we've gone through the book of Acts before.

Like the early church was full of just normal people who are coming into the

kingdom and they're experiencing God doing things as they pray.

And they're experiencing this spiritual empowerment. And it makes us a little

uncomfortable and we're sort of weirded out by it.

But I don't know how you can read scripture and get away from the reality that

we are called to be a part of God's mission.

And part of God's mission is proclamation of the gospel.

Yes, super important, but also just demonstration.

Demonstration of the power of the kingdom. And so we're going to talk a lot more.

We're going to go through these texts a little bit more and we're going to do

some theology and think through these things.

But I just wanted to just leave you with that thought of an encouragement.

Say, if that's weird to you, if you don't like that, I get it.

No, I super get it Because there's so many things in the world of charismata

that I'm like, yeah, I'm good.

There's a lot of cultural stuff that's tied up in American charismatic stuff,

but I can't get past the scriptures.

And I can't get past the fact that Jesus healed, and then he gives his disciples authority to heal.

And then those disciples create a church, commission a church by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And that church is going out empowered into the world, proclaiming the gospel,

but also demonstrating the kingdom.

And so then I just left sitting here. Well, what does that mean for my very

Western, very 2025 worldview, right?

And how does my worldview need to make way for what Jesus says is true?

The nearness of the kingdom.

This weekend, yesterday, a group of us went down to Pioneer Square,

which is a great part of town, as you know, right? In Seattle.

And we have some pictures, I think. It was great. And we partnered with Reach Ministry.

Reach Ministry is, they have a church right there in Pioneer Square,

our little church, right?

But then they also just like church partnerships where they're doing street

outreach, mostly to homeless people, right?

And so a group of us got together and they do like so many things.

Every Saturday morning, they do this.

A group of us got together and, you know, we feed the homeless.

We meet their needs, give them a hot meal.

But then also we're doing this other thing. We're doing this proclamation.

There's some street preaching.

Yes, someone handed me a microphone. And yes, I did give a sermon.

I was not prepared for it. I was like, in my very much like,

oh, I would have liked 15 minutes. Thank you very much. Right.

I didn't get 15 minutes. Right. And so just do that thing.

Right. So there's, there's, there's, there's caring for people's needs,

physical needs, give them food.

There's gospel proclamation, important part.

And then there's also just like praying for people, praying for people,

because here's, here's the thing.

I've got a couple more. Becca, you can just cycle through the other pictures

too. Here's the thing. Okay.

Have you ever like looked at the problem of homelessness and thought,

who could possibly do anything about this?

Right. Because, I mean, people who are in homeless, like have so many layers of problems. Right.

There's economic problems and economic disparities.

There's, you know, mental health issues that come along with that.

There's spiritual issues. There's addiction.

There's depression. It's layer upon layer upon layer upon layer of complexity.

And in the Western world, we've all just kind of thrown up our hands.

We say, I don't know how to help these people.

You can't really give them money because then they go use drugs.

You can't, and I'm just generalizing. I'm generalizing, please.

Of course, I understand there are exceptions, right?

But this is the challenge, the rub of the problem of homelessness.

If you give someone a place to live, then they might just spend all their days

just getting high and eventually OD.

And so is that really helping somebody?

If you try to have someone start to get some employment, some job training,

in the end, you have to show up.

And if you're so stuck in the midst of depression and so hopeless,

then what can you do for a person?

In the end, just providing a meal is a great thing, like a physical care thing.

But the reality is that we go out and you go and talk to homeless people.

Those are people who know that we live in an evil age.

Those are people who you don't take any convincing or persuasion.

When you said the Bible says this world is an evil age and they say, I know it.

I am so stuck. I am so incapable. I can't get myself out of bed in the morning.

I sleep outside and it's freezing.

I just can't get enough sleep to be okay.

I don't have like the means to provide for myself. And even if I did,

I don't have probably the personal wherewithal because of any number of issues

to sustain a new kind of life.

And so if I just go along there and I just kind of like want to say,

oh, well, Jesus loves you.

And that's good. Like we proclaim the kingdom. We proclaim the nearness of God.

But if I don't really understand that Jesus has freedom from spiritual oppression

for those people, then I'm not offering them all that Jesus has.

If I don't understand that Jesus can take their addiction and yes,

like there's going to be work and participation on their part in order to come

out of addiction, but also empowering by the spirit, if I'm not preaching that to them,

then what hope am I giving to a person who's stuck in mental health and spiritual

oppression and all of these complex issues going on here?

Do you understand? I think sometimes the gospel has become anemic to our culture

because we don't really take seriously the reality and complexity of the spiritual

life and the spiritual challenges that come along with it.

The things that you see down in Pioneer Square when you're dealing with homeless

people. And it's like, oh, there's clearly some very, some very real demonic oppression.

There's a series, like a lot of mental health issues. There's a series,

there's like layer upon layer of challenges. It's so clear out there.

And then we go back to our nice neighborhoods, right?

Nothing wrong with living there with our neighbors who have jobs and who seem

to have good family lives. And we say, well, this world looks pretty good.

And so, and then we start to convince ourselves, maybe this whole spiritual

realm thing, maybe it's not that relevant.

Maybe I can just like, like, maybe, maybe there's like, maybe these people are

fine. Like these people don't really believe they live in an evil age.

They seem like things they've got it managed pretty well.

And if we spend so much time in that world, you become blind to the spiritual

challenges of the Ridge or downtown Issaquah, wherever, you know,

beautiful place that you live, which I'm not saying you shouldn't live there.

Like it will become, yeah, we can suburbanize our faith, right?

Like we can really become comfortable and just say, oh, we just have a nice

message. Take it or leave it.

We can not take into account the spiritual oppression that's in the suburbs.

Like you have people, men, maybe they have their lives together,

but they might be just as depressed.

They might be just as stuck in hurt and pain and addiction and you don't know it.

People in nice places are just good at hiding all the stuff that the homeless can't hide.

And if you don't have eyes open to the spiritual side of life and to the spiritual

side of the gospel, and the fact that the gospel is empowering for mission,

then you've got nothing to offer those people.

But if you would open your eyes, I think you would see how hurting the whole

world is. Because this whole world is broken.

This is an evil age we live in. The deception looks different in different places.

But we're called to be people who proclaim and demonstrate the kingdom.

Because the kingdom of heaven has come near and it's breaking forward.

It's breaking forth in Pioneer Square.

And it's breaking forward in the Snoqualmie Ridge. And even in the woods of North Bend.

Amongst all the bears. And here, amongst all the bears, which we have here.

So could you just open your eyes? That's my invitation to you as we set out

here and as we prepare ourselves for the rest.

This little section of Matthew is Jesus is recognizing the spiritual needs.

And would you open your eyes and would you understand that you're called to

proclaim the gospel, but also demonstrate the gospel.

And a great start is just prayer. Just praying with people.

You might not know like, oh, how do you be empowered by the spirit?

Well, understand that God uses you, that people will come into your path who

don't even know their needs,

but understand that you can have eyes to see their needs, that you can be trusting

God to make it clear what their needs are, and you can pray for people.

And like, that's good. That's a good start. But a lot of us are just afraid

to pray for people because they may not have spiritual needs.

Yeah, they do. They absolutely have spiritual needs, right?

And you can kind of go out understanding that, man, the gospel is a message of forgiveness.

Yes, a message of reconciliation, right? But it's also like a message of freedom

from all of these things, all these things that we all struggle with.

And you can be people who are willing to pray.

And so I just wanted to invite you to that. And if you want to get kind of,

you want to get your eyes open to that, join us next time we go down to Pioneer

Square because it's awesome.

And it was fine. And we had children with us and it was fine.

And if that sort of like weird you out, that's great. Wonderful. Be weirded out.

Come be weirded out together with all of us. It's going to be good.

But like the invitation is that we would start to understand, oh, there's huge needs.

There's huge needs there and there's huge needs here.

Like, let's be open to what God is doing. So I should have invited the worship team up before.

So they're going to scramble up really quick and we're going to do communion

together, we're going to recognize that the kingdom of heaven has come near

and Jesus Christ has come. He's died on a cross.

He's taken away the sin so that we might have reconciliation and he's invited

us into this life of the kingdom.

So we're going to start with worship. And again, I'm sorry, I'm pressing you.

You guys are scrambling.

We're going to start with worship and then we'll, during this song,

why don't you guys come up, grab the elements, bring them back to your seat,

and then we will take them together, okay? In just a minute.

Thank you.