Exploring My Strange Bible - What Is the Kingdom of Heaven?

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

After his baptism and testing in the wilderness, Jesus leaves Nazareth for Capernaum. There, he begins his public ministry, inviting fishermen to follow him and calling on people to “repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.” So what is the “Kingdom of Heaven,” and what does it mean that it has come near? In this message, Tim teaches from Matthew 4:12-25 on Jesus’ beginning proclamation, the call of the first disciples, and his pattern of Kingdom teaching and healing, which still challenges how we order our lives and values today.OFFICIAL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTView this episode’s official transcript.REFERENCED RESOURCESCheck out Tim’s extensive collection of recommended books here.SHOW MUSIC“Nob Hill Instrumental” by DrexlerSHOW CREDITSProduction of today's episode is by Lindsey Ponder, producer, and Cooper Peltz, managing producer. Aaron Olsen edited and remastered today's episode. JB Witty does our show notes. Powered and distributed by Simplecast. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody. I'm Tim Mackey, and this is my podcast, exploring my strange Bible. I am a card-carrying Bible history and language nerd who thinks that Jesus of Nazareth is utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 20 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 all be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called the Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts and classes about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find all those resources at Bibleproject.com. With all that said,

let's dive into the episode for this week. So I invite you to grab a Bible and turn one on or open it up, whichever one of those that you do, and open up to Matthew Chapter 4, the Gospel of Matthew chapter 4. You have, you did the spiritual practice series that John Mark just talked about, and then before that you've been with baby Jesus for a while. And then you got to adult Jesus, who faced his arch enemy in the wilderness

and tonight we're exploring Jesus comes on to the scene he goes public for the first time in the gospel of Matthew so I just want to read it's about the second half of Matthew chapter 4 I just want to read it the whole thing it won't take very long and it's really cool

and that's our mission to explore the second half of Matthew chapter 4 how guys doing? Great, good to start in verse 12, Matthew 4, verse 12. So when Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee. Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Copernium,

which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naftali, to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah, land of Zevulun and land of Nostali, the way of the sea beyond, the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people living in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned. From that time on, Jesus began to preach, repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. Now, Jesus was walking beside the sea of Galilee, and he saw two brothers, Simon, who's called Peter, and he

his brother Andrew. And they were casting a net into the lakes. They were fishermen. Jesus said, come, follow me, and I will send you out to fish for people. At once, they left their nets, and they followed him. Now going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee and his brother John, and they were in the boat with their dad, Zebedee, preparing their nets. And Jesus called them. And immediately, they left the boat and their dad and followed him. Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues,

proclaiming the good news about the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people were brought to him who were ill with various diseases, people suffering severe pain, people who were demonized, people who had seizures and the paralyzed, and Jesus healed them. Large crowds from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea

in the region across the Jordan, and they followed him. Second half of Matthew chapter four, you could summarize by saying Jesus is a boss. That's essentially what's happening here. Okay, so let's name something in the room that was happening. There's a whole bunch of you who have grown up or raised in, or maybe you didn't grow up, but you are very familiar with through years of connection to what I call churchianity, it's the Western cultural form of the Christian faith in all its diversity.

But these are very familiar. stories. Jesus, you know, calling, some of you have songs about this before when you were little kids, like Fishers of Men, there's one about that. Yeah? Anybody? You know that one up here? There you go. I didn't learn as a kid, but I know some people did. So, right, and calling people to follow him and sick people. I mean, there you go. That's like, well-known stories about Jesus. So the challenge there is when you come to a part of the Bible that you're already familiar with, you're in danger because you think you already know what's happening. And so you're less likely to be expecting to hear anything new.

And then there's a whole bunch of you because it's Portland and because whatever people invite friends and there's all people all over the map here in Portland. Some of you who are brand new to following Jesus or you're rediscovering what it might mean for you to follow Jesus right now in the season of your life. And you don't know these stories and you've kind of like that phrase. I'll make you fish for people.

You're like, that's catchy. Somebody should write a song about that. But you've never, you're right, you've never, like, heard that before. Right? So, and so you don't know what to expect, because this is all new to you. And everyone in between. Welcome. Welcome. So this is what we do. As a community of Jesus, right? You come together and we try to surrender all of our preloaded assumptions, and we just come expecting something new, a new word, a new insight, or for Jesus to be new to us all over again. And this story, I think, has the capacity for that in a way that's really, really powerful. So here's what I'd like you to do, at least try and hear this story with new years and read it with new eyes. I want you to use your imagination. I have a four- and a six-year-old. I think they're asleep.

Yeah, they're asleep by now, which is great news for my wife. And so there you go. But they, man, their imaginations are so active. then we grow up and become grumpy and we stop using them. So let's stop that right now. I want you to engage your imagination, and I'll at least try and engage it by showing you a picture of a map. Okay, so I want you to pretend,

want you to make-believe that you're a Jewish fisherman or fisherwoman, and you love your people, I mean your family, but your people, the family of Abraham, and you love your land that you live on. You live on your ancestral land. This is a map. When the family of Abraham received their inheritance in the lands, modern day, Israel, Palestine, Israel and the West Bank.

But this is the tribal boundary lines of the family of Abraham. And so you're a Jewish fisherman or fisherwoman, and you have a love for your people. You grew up on the stories and the poetry of the Psalms and the prophets and the stories about Moses and Joshua and Gideon and all the stories take place in this land. And your whole imagination is filled with the stories of your past and of the God of Israel who rescued his people and so on.

Now, if you're a fisherman or fisherman, you only live in one place. And it's up in that region up in the... There's Jerusalem, the tiny circle down below. The Jordan River, where John the Baptist was doing his thing. That's the circle in the middle. And the way up north is the region of Naftali, In Zevalon, do you recognize those names from the story that we read? Yeah, yeah. So those are tribal regions around the Sea of Galilee. So, let's, oh, a little bit better. Okay, so this is

your zone. Let's say you live in the town of Copernum, and you're a fisher person, Fisherman or fishwoman. And you love everything about your land, but you are very aware, you're very aware that all is not well in the world or with your people whom you love. And it's very clear why things are not well in the world. It's because you live in a militarized zone. You live in a region that even though your ancestors have been living here as far back as you can remember, you're living under a military occupation of the Roman Empire, and they've been here about 70 years, not that long.

long in terms of the history of your people. And you're reminded of their presence daily when the troops make their security rounds on the borders around the Sea of Galilee. There's a lot of ancient towns of your people up in these hills in the region of Galilee. But there's also a town like Tiberius, right on the coast, or Siphoris right up there in the hills. And these are pretty new cities. These are cities that the Romans colonized. It's mostly ex-Roman soldiers, lots of Greeks and Romans. None of them care about the history of this land or your people or the God that you give your devotion to every day. When you wake up and you say, here, oh, Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one. And so you're aware that taxes keep going up. You know that your uncle, who used

to farm a piece of land near Nain, he had to recently sell his land. He actually couldn't afford to keep it anymore because the taxes keep going up. And so here's your uncle. He's now a debt slave working in the olive orchards that his great, great, great, grandfather owned. Things are not well. But you hear a report, because you live in Copernium, that there's a Jewish prophet who's from Nazareth, and he's making the rounds of all of these towns around Galilee with this really electric message that has everybody talking and everybody's in anticipation about this Yeshua Manat Serat, Jesus who is from Nazareth. And he's gone and he's made Copernium as home base. Did you catch that in the story? And then he made Copernium as home base and he's touring

around. And you hear that he's going to be in your synagogue, this coming Sabbath, he's going to be teaching. And so you arrive at synagogue on Friday night and Jesus is there and you didn't get there early enough because there's like 300 people there only 50 can fit in the room and so you're outside the crowds and you're but you're making out what he's teaching inside and how am i doing okay i'm trying i'm not of you know i'm not a fiction author or anything like that but i'm trying okay so um what to what do you you're the you're the fisher woman what do you hear what do you hear jesus talking about it's just an average day he's touring around teaching saying his thing what do you hear him talking about so so thank you it's very eager i love it

to your responding yes so how you answer that question it's worth asking the question and it's worth paying attention to your answer to the question even though most of you didn't say it because how you answer that question tells you a lot about how you view jesus in the present. It actually tells you, sometimes very little about what Jesus actually said or did. It tells you more about how you perceive Jesus or how you've been raised or conditioned to perceive what Jesus was about. Because many people would answer that question and be like, well, okay, what is Jesus known for? He's known for the Golden Rule. That's the famous one. He was a very memorable teacher, you know what I'm saying? So, like, what's that one? The Golden Rule?

Do unto others? Yeah, as you would have them do unto you. Now, he's a very memorable teacher. not the only religious teacher who said that, but he's kind of the one who's most well known with that phrase. You might think, I might hear him say something like love your neighbor is yourself, or the more radical version of that, which was love your enemy, and bless people who hate you. You might think that you would hear him saying, he told stories, right? Brilliant short storyteller. You might tell a story about mustard seeds or birds or sheep or something like that, right? So, so, but it's worth asking the question, what do you hear him talking about? If you had to summarize everything Jesus ever said or did, this is an even greater challenge.

If you had to summarize Jesus' whole deal in one sentence, how would you do it? And, like, our eager beavers here, I love it, right? They, like, you know, you guys know, you guys know, because we just read the story. You know that Matthews already done the hard work for you. You're off the hook. You don't have to try and come up with a sentence because we've already read it. Matthew's already given us the summary of everything Jesus said or did and what he was about. It was in verse 17 right here of chapter 4. Repent. Repent, which means stop, stop. Everybody stop. Something is happening that is going to force you to make a decision, and it's going to force you to re-evaluate everything that you thought you knew

about the world and about yourself and about God, and it's going to involve this radical reorganization of your priorities and values. Repent, right? I could just say repent, but that's what it means, right? And what is happening? What is Jesus bringing into reality that forces me to stop, look and listen like that. And it's right here. The kingdom of heaven has come near. The kingdom of heaven has come near. In this Bible that I have here in front of me, the Gospel of Matthew takes up 30 pages. And if you read through looking for the thing Jesus talks about most, it will become crystal clear to you. Because the kingdom, Jesus talks about the kingdom 1.5 times per page on the 30 pages of the gospel of Matthew, that is nearly 50 times in these 30 pages, just get out of a calculator, you can do

the math. So, if you actually read, like, what he talked about all of the time, it's very clear, like, this is what he was about. And his one-off teachings have actually become the things that he's most well known for. It's kind of ironic, because, like, is loving people who hate you, is loving your enemy, and saying a blessing on people who persecute you, this is actually fairly poor advice if some other things aren't also true at the same time are you with me that's actually a ridiculous way to behave unless something has happened in the world that makes that the only logical response and what is the that that that is happening that makes loving your enemy a sensible thing to do and that's that the kingdom of heaven is here so let me just stop for all kinds of

different reasons. The kingdom of God arriving isn't the first thing that comes to our minds when we think of Jesus. And so let's just stop that right now. This is silliness, that we would not think this. Silliness that it's not the first thing that comes to our mind. So, you guys with me? When you think of Jesus, be very potentic. I'll be. When you think of Jesus, think of, when you think of the kingdom of God, this is the thing that Jesus lived and breathed. It's the thing he talked about more than anything else, and it's the main heartbeat of his mission and his message, and everything else flows out from the fact that he believed and believed that he was bringing into reality, the kingdom, the kingdom, the kingdom, which just begs the question,

what on earth is the kingdom? Like, what does it mean for a Jewish prophet to go around that region of Galilee, 2,000 years ago, saying, the kingdom of God. God is here or the kingdom of heaven and you're going to see variations as you go throughout the gospel of Matthew over the next two years you're welcome so all right and you're going to see a variation so the kingdom of heaven is a way it's two sides of the same coin heaven is talking about God in his transcendent royal position as author and king of all of creation and so to say the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God it's basically saying the same thing but when you say heaven Jesus isn't talking about somewhere you go

he's talking about somewhere that's coming here do you see that it's something that's happening here and that it's going to force everyone that comes into have an encounter with Jesus is going to force you to stop look and listen so what does it mean what on earth does that mean

and because if you're this Jewish fisherwoman or fishermen all kinds of things are firing in your heart and in your mind when you hear Jesus say something like this all these triggers are firing and it's because your brain wasn't melted on Twitter and YouTube if you're a Jewish measurement or vision woman, right? So your media was the Hebrew scriptures.

And you grew up on the poetry of the prophets and of the Psalms and the stories of the Hebrew Bible. And this phrase is extremely meaningful to you. It has everything to do with your life and those Romans marching around the lake and your uncle who went into slavery on his own land. So to ask what the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven is about what it means for it to come is really to kick ourselves up

out of the storyline of Jesus into the bigger overarching biblical drama the whole storyline of the whole Bible which is claiming to be the story of our world and so what is that story? Here's what we're going to do we're going to be like a tour guide we're going to do a quick pit stop at like three key moments in the storyline of the Hebrew scriptures and then we're going to come back and read Matthew 4 and my gosh, this is amazing, that kind of thing. All right? It goes with me? Okay.

So, this is good. This is good. It's be helpful for you. Some of you are going to be at a get-together tomorrow night, or maybe this coming Friday night, and you need some conversation starters. Let me help you with that. Bible trivia. Bible trivia, it's a great way to ostracize yourself in a room.

But nonetheless, this is a fun fact to know, and just pull it out this Friday night, see what happens. So if you're reading through the story of the story of the story, Bible and you are looking for where does the the concept of kingdom where does the concept of ruling or reigning appear for the first time is reading through the Bible where do you find such an idea oh Genesis Genesis these Bible nerds among us is wonderful right and what page exactly but not quite serious what page It's page one.

Page one, depending on the size of the letter formatting in your Bible. So I have medium-sized letter formatting, which means that it's at the top of page two, but in a smaller format it would be on page one. But it's in chapter one. That's the first story of the Bible. And the first story of the Bible depicts God. It's a portrait of God as a royal artist.

as a creative, wise being who's powerful enough to breathe and speak a world of order and beauty in a garden into existence out of the dark, watery, chaotic desert that the story begins with. And so the chaotic desert becomes a garden. And then what God wants to do fundamentally through his act of creation is to share. This is a very important story for my four and six-year-old. Right? That God is first and foremost somebody who loves to share. And that is something that you should absolutely take away.

Clear takeaway from the story on page one of the Bible. And because it's God orders this incredible, incredible world full of so much potential. But then what God does is something surprising. He's clearly the author and king of the whole. thing. But what he wants to do is share ownership of this incredibly beautiful complex world that he's designed. And who are the unique creatures that get installed as the co-rulers over this? Now, I know somebody, there's a certain pastor here who wrote a book about this. And so maybe some of you

have heard this before, but whatever, you're going to hear it again. So here it is. On page one of the Bible or two, depending on the size of your letters. Here's the famous passage right here. So God created a humanity in his own image. In the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them. And God blessed them and said, be fruitful and increase and number and fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. You know, at the beginning of the gathering, right? So one of the first things you did together, you all read a poem from the Hebrew Bible.

What poem was it? It was Saul made. And what was Saul made about? Salmeet is a poetic reflection on this paragraph right here from page one of the Bible. It's on the unique calling, the unique capacity of the human species among all the other creatures here on earth, there's something unique about the human role in the story of our world. And that humans have this responsibility to steward or oversee the world on God's behalf. And when they do that, when they do that, they image and represent God to the creation.

Now, ruling is kind of an odd way to talk about that. But that's the language of kings and queens. This kingdom language, rule. Are you with me? Just like if you're in English, you would say, if you're, if you run, we would call you a runner, right? So it's tricky because in English, if you're a king, what's the thing that you do? We have a different word.

But it's not in the language of these authors. If you're a king, then you king. If you're a king, then what you do is you king. And that's what this word, you're a ruler. and we don't use i mean you rule the birds how many of you after the gathering tonight are going to go out and say to the crows outside like i rule you you know like it's quite a silly that's silly so what are we talking about we're talking about how human beings in in a god-like capacity we don't just inhabit this world of awesome potential and resources we actually remake it everywhere we go like chimpanzees use

primitive tools, yes, I understand that, but humans don't just live in the jungle. We like make a city. Are you with me? It's a very unique capacity of the human species that comes with great responsibility and a divine calling, a divine vocation, we're told, is connected to being those divine images here in the world. Royal stewards of God's good world. Now, here's the thing is that we don't, If you're like a manager, if you work at one of the zillion coffee shops here in Portland as like a shift manager or manager or something like that, you would never say, I rule this place. You might think you do, right? And your co-workers might think that you think you do, but you don't actually.

So, right, because there's someone else who actually owns it, and you rule it on their behalf. And that's precisely the storyline right here. And so the story of the Bible begins, it's a story about kingdoms. It's a story about God as the king, but then he has. installs humans as these rulers who will rule the world on God's behalf. They'll take all of its raw potential and take the world in directions it wouldn't go otherwise. But that calling, that vocation is going to require humanity to make decisions, really, really significant decisions about what is good and what is not good, about good and evil. And so this is the whole thing,

this is page two. Now, right, the tree, right, that tree about good and evil. And so it's this choice. Are human beings going to allow God to be the one who defines good and evil? And he has the knowledge and wisdom about good and evil and we'll rely on that as we rule the world. Or are the humans going to seize the opportunity, seize autonomy, to define the knowledge of good and evil on their own terms and redefine good and evil in a way that's best for me and my group, which might mean that it's at the expense of you. in your group, but so be it. And so how does the story go? Of course you know, right? Human, the humans are depicted as starting an alternate kingdom, where they've seized autonomy. It's a hostile takeover, right? So God's the king, but then he appoints these rulers and then they take it's like the shift manager thinks they become the owner, right? And then they take over and they begin this alternate kingdom. And this is the basic plot conflict of the Bible, is of the age of human kingdoms that have redefined good and evil on their own terms. So Jesus, his term for this age of

the human corrupt kingdoms, he calls it this age, or the age of the world. Paul calls it the age of sin and death. It goes by all these different names in the Bible, but it's the realm after the hostile takeover. And so the whole plot conflict of the Bible is, what is God going to do about this hostile takeover? And what he does, and he sets in motion a plan to reassure. To reassure assert his kingdom, to reassert his rule over the kingdoms of the world. And the first way God does this in the biblical stories, he singled out one family, and he's going to form them as a new people and as like an alternate, a contrast kingdom, a contrast community, and reveal to them what it means to truly become human in a way that

doesn't redefine good and evil on our own terms, but does it according to God's wisdom. and who's the key head, patriarch and matriarch, of this new family? Abraham and Sarah, Abraham and Sarah. And they're to train their family in the way of the Lord, to do justice and righteousness, this alternate kingdom. And so, God begins to form this family, this alternate kingdom. But then here's what happens. The family gets really big, and they end up,

this is the second key moment on our tour of the Old Testament, taking longer the 10 minutes, but that's okay. So the second key moment is the family grows, and then they end up in slavery to one of the biggest, baddest kingdoms of this world that you've ever seen in the story so far. What's the kingdom and what's the king? Egypt and Pharaoh.

Right? And so, and Pharaoh's larger than life in this story. He represents everything that's wrong with the collective human kingdom. And so he's a power-hungry, murderous king. He's redefining good and evil so that killing babies in the name of building huge storehouses

is good instead of evil. And so he's grinding the family of Abraham into the dust through slavery. And so what does God do? God reasserts his kingdom over Pharaoh. He raises up a deliverer Moses. And he confronts Pharaoh, and he says, you can't do this in God's world.

You need to humble yourself and you need to set these people free. And Pharaoh's like, you don't know me. Right? You don't. Well, actually, what he says is, I don't know you. I don't know the God of Israel. Why should I care? I call the shots around here. And so he takes off the boxing gloves, and so does God. And the story is really, really intense.

And it's intense because it's the conflict of the divine and human hostile takeover kingdoms. And who wins this conflict? Okay, so Pharaoh ends up on a road of no return. He's so intoxicated by his own power and prestige, he destroys himself in his effort to win. And so he's crushed in the waters of the sea and the slaves are liberated and freed. And here we're at a moment in the story of the Bible. If you haven't been ostracized at this get-together on Friday

from throwing out the first Bible trivia, then try this one because this one will be good, right? And so this is when, in the storyline of the Bible, is God called a king for the first time. where is God depicted as a ruling king and called the ruling king for the first time? And is right at this moment in the story. After the Israelite slaves have been freed,

they pass through the sea on dry land, and they sing the first worship song of the Bible. It's called the Song of the Sea in Jewish tradition. And here are the opening lines and then the very last line of this poem from Exodus chapter 15. And then Moses and the Israelites sang the song to Yahweh. I will sing to Yahweh.

He's highly exalted. Both horse and driver, he's hurled into the sea. Yahweh is my strength. He's my defense. He has become my salvation. He's my God, and I will praise him. He's my father's God. And I will exalt him.

That's the opening paragraph of the poem. And the last line of the poem is, Yahweh reigns as king forever and ever. Now, okay, that's interesting as a general truth. about God. But the whole point is, how has God proved his royal authority? In the story that you just read, that the king of this world has reasserted his reign by forming alternate people and confronting evil and its destructive effects on people, liberating these people and inviting them to live under his reign and his rule. This is what it looks like when God asserts his kingdom. What does it

mean that God's kingdom has come near. It means the king is forming a new people liberating them from the kingdoms of this world confronting. Are you with me? This is just, this is the story. This is what it means for God to become king. When God becomes king, people are rescued and evil is named and confronted and dealt with. This is, this is, if you're the Jewish Fisherwoman or Fisherperson, this is that you live and breathe these poems and these stories. Now, last stop on the tour. God invites the Israelites to come to a mountain where they get married to God. They enter a covenant relationship.

And the terms of the covenant, this relationship, are very clear. They start with 10. They're quite famous, called the 10 commandments, and then come 603 more, which is many more terms. But again, what God, he's trying to make very clear what it means for this ancient, Israelite, tribal farming community, right? to live as an alternate kingdom among the ancient Near Eastern kingdoms. And so that's what all of these laws, ancient laws in the Bible, are designed to do for Israel.

And if they do this, they will be faithful to the covenant, and they'll be like the city on the hill, as the prophet Isaiah said. And how did Israel do at this? Right? So essentially, the people that God rescued out from under Pharaoh's slavery become like Pharaoh. Right? The kings of Israel just become lesser versions of Pharaoh. Pharaoh, little mini pharaohs. And they drive the family that God has formed right into the

ground and they're taken off into exile in Babylon. And so that's where the story of the Bible kind of comes to its climax and its open-ended closure, which is, what is God going to do now? The people that he rescued to form the new people who would live under his reign, they don't want to live under his rain either. And so who wants to live under God's reign? And how is God going to assert his reign over this doubly rebellious human. Are you with me? So this is why the Old Testament is so long and complicated, by the way. So you end with the hope of Israel's prophets that one day God's going to come and fix this. He's going to bring his kingdom. He's going to reassert his rule over Israel, over all of the nations, and he's going to fix this. And so you have a poem like this in the book

of the prophet Isaiah, and you'll just watch how all the pieces come together. It's a little little, the poem tells a little story. It's like there's a night watchman on the walls of a city, and the city's been defeated by its enemies, Babylon, and we're looking for any sign of good news or hope, and then the watchman sees a messenger running over the hills, and the messenger's coming, and here's how the poem begins. How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news. They're proclaiming peace. They bring good news. They proclaim salvation, and they say to Zion, that's the city of Jerusalem, what do they say? Your God reigns as king.

Listen, your watchmen lift up their voices. Together, they shout for joy. When Yahweh returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes. Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, Yahweh's comforted his people, he's redeemed Jerusalem's a great image. It's like Yahweh has rolled up his sleeves, he's bearing his holy arm in the side of the nations and all the ends of the earth

will see the salvation of our God. So you live by this hope if you are a fisher person. And the moment you come to that crowded synagogue in Galilee, all of this lights up. All of this lights up. And there's a new pharaoh, right? There's actually many of them.

There's been many of them through history since that pharaoh over Egypt. And the newest manifestation of it is in those Roman soldiers that you see marching around, and the king to which they give their allegiance who lives in Rome, his name is Caesar Augustus. And you hear Jesus start talking about the kingdom of God is here.

And this is electric. Jesus certainly didn't get crucified for telling people to love each other. Like, do good to others, and as you want them to do to you, kill the man. You know what I'm saying? so obviously

Jesus didn't get publicly executed by the Romans for being a moral teacher which is how our culture insists on reducing Jesus to simply being an important moral teacher in the history of religions but this is not how Jesus presented himself or talked about himself for what he was doing he presented himself as being the one

who was reasserting God's rule over the nation and over the people, over the people of Israel. That is what Jesus gets crucified for, for claiming to be the king of his people and the king of the nations. And that's exactly what Jesus is doing. This is a loaded, it's loaded politically, it's loaded sociologically, it's loaded in every way you can imagine. And Jesus is just touring around the towns of Galilee.

Are you with me? And it's just like, what on earth? so if the story of the kingdom of god is about a king who's the king in matthew so if the first thing a king does is form a people what does jesus do next he takes a walk around a lake like you do if you're a king i guess right it's such a wonderful this perfect biblical storytelling style where it's like this cosmic drama right of the nations and will lay bare his holy arm before the nation. I think I'll take a walk around the lake today, you know.

And he's going to start forming a people, yeah? And so who did, does he go to Jerusalem and start brokering, right, with the leaders and the chief priest and all that? Does that how he brings his kingdom? No, he takes a walk along a lake and he runs into some fishermen. And how does he present himself to them? I mean it lacks tact you could say

he just walks up to them and just says you guys follow me now if I were in one of the Zillion coffee shops here in Portland if you were like tomorrow morning and just like somebody barges in the door and just like everyone follow me

right and you would what would you think you would think there's like there's a fire there's an emergency there's somebody right um or you would think they're a religious nut and like no i'm not going to do that i don't know who you are i'm not going to follow you are you are you with me like this this has the this has the feel of presumption and it's precisely right i mean this is a story about jesus walking around like he owns the place and just summoning i'm the king i'm bringing the kingdom of god hey you follow me and what does it

mean to follow the king and become a part of this new people. I mean, so it means this radical reorientation of their lives, but look at the, there's the first two, they just leave, and Jesus says, I'm going to send you to fish for people, but then look at the second pair. Who are they with in the boat? They're with their dad. Right? This is like, this is the family business in the family boat. And King Jesus waltzes on to the scene and says, follow me. And he forced, them, right, to this decision, there's something in the moment happening that forces them to have a radical reorganization of all their priorities, of everything they thought they knew about their identity and the story that they were living in and their values and what's most

important in life, all of it gets challenged by Jesus and he summons them. How do you guys doing? I mean, this just is very powerful how the story presents. He's a boss. As I said, okay, so let's pause and let's come to the last movement here. In our culture right now to tell stories about religious leaders who walk around like they own the place and who walk up to people and say, follow me and demand that your whole life gets totally reorganized around that person,

how do we feel about these individuals in our culture? Are you with me? Like, we have extreme suspicion, especially if there are credit card numbers involved. You know what I mean? Like, we have extreme suspicion. We get allergic, right, to religious people claiming that somehow in their thing, they're taking over the world. Are you with me? Can you think of any political religious groups on the world scene right now who claim that their God is reasserting his reign over the world?

and everyone must submit. These are dangerous, dangerous words, aren't they? But then again, it depends on the kind of kingdom. If what it means to submit is if you don't submit, we're going to kill you, right? We're going to chop your head off or something like that. That's one thing. But it forces you to ask, okay, so,

but what does it mean for this man to go around saying that he's king and to summon everybody to follow him? If he's forming a people, what does it actually mean to live under this king's reign? And this is the whole thing right here. This is all of it. The kingdom that Jesus came announcing and the kingdom that he embodied in this radical reorganization of our value system is so unlike any other human organization in the history of the human race. It just doesn't have any categories whatsoever. Because what does it look like when Jesus takes over the world. That's what this story is going to be about, the gospel of Matthew.

What does it look like when Jesus takes over the world? And in the next paragraph that jumps into all of the next chapters of the book, he's given it to you in a nutshell, and then he's going to tell you the nutshell's right here, and then he's going to unpack the nutshell and open it up over the next few chapters. And here it is. What does it look like? Let's just put it in one nice sentence because Matthew's done it for us. What does it look like when Jesus starts taking back the world? It looks like Jesus going around teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. Teaching and proclaiming. So the kingdom that Jesus brings is so opposite of what anybody believes or how anybody lives that it requires an enormous amount of explanation and teaching.

Right? If I have AK-47 and I say, I'm bringing the kingdom of God, submit, it's very clear what I mean. You know what I'm saying? But for Jesus, half of his mission was constantly having to explain that his kingdom doesn't operate like any other kingdom you've ever inhabited or been introduced to before. And so look what Matthew's done to us here. Jesus goes around teaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. Now, I wonder where in the gospel of Matthew, I can find just like many, many chapters of Jesus teaching about what it means to live under his reign in the kingdom of God. Oh, right, exactly. It's called the next three chapters of the Gospel of Matthew. Are you with me? He's raised the question, well, what does it mean to live under the

reign of this king? And what does it mean for Jesus to take over the world? Oh, here's what it looks like. If you have a Bible that treats the words of Jesus in red, you're going to notice lots of red after this very paragraph right here. And there's a reason why. And everything Jesus is going to say about this kingdom is going to be totally counterintuitive to you. He's going to say things like, here's how power works in my kingdom.

Those who think that they're important and who think that they have the most to offer in serving Jesus, you're actually definitely the least important and the most ignorant. And my bunch, I still love you, though. And those of you who have the least to offer and who are the least important and the most shamed among you,

these are the people that I'm most proud of. He calls them the poor, or the poor in spirit. Jesus says, in my kingdom, what it looks like to assert your reign and rule over someone is to serve them and to constantly be looking out for their best interests, even if it's at the expense of your own best interests. This is how it's the first or last, and the last, are you with me? is just this complete upending of our views

of power, of status, of value, and of significance. And he doesn't just stop there. What Jesus is going, he's going for the root issue of what it means to define good and evil. And Jesus, you're just going to read it as you, welcome to the next three months of your Sundays is crawling through, all right? Matthew chapters five, six, and seven.

And just watch, Jesus is, he had this effect on people. he would he would people would encounter him and they would find their deepest motives and fears and values exposed before him no one walked away from jesus unchanged as you're going to see in story after story after story and and jesus in these teachings he's going to force every single one of you to deal with the core issues the darkest parts of your character because jesus is convinced that the human the renewal of the human condition and the healing of the human race has to do with facing the dark, dark evil that we have all given into and the lies that we've all bought into about what's most important and our identity and what it means to be significant in the world. And he's going to, he's going to open up all

of that. And I guarantee that at least once in the next three months, as you crawl through the sermon on the Mount, he's going to make each one of you really uncomfortable and likely angry. because he's going to be talking about your bodies and about sex and about relationships and about marriage or about singleness or about your money or what you do with the people that you like the least in your life and the unreconciled relationships and the how you doing right and he's what it means is to bring all of this to Jesus and allow his mercy allow his love and his wisdom to redefine reality for me as I live under his reign.

He won't allow any part of our lives to escape the gravity, right, of his wisdom and creative love. And that's just his teachings. Notice what else, Matthew says, is what it looks like when Jesus asserts his reign and rule over the world. It looks like healing. And so right after you read all of the teachings about, life in Jesus' kingdoms, you're going to be introduced to nine stories in three triads. Nine stories of Jesus encountering someone who's extremely vulnerable, who's sick, whose body is giving out, people who are publicly shamed by what's happening with their bodies or what's

happened in their stories. And these are the people that King Jesus moves towards. This is Jesus embodying his idea that in his kingdom, it's the poor that are the most important. And so what it looks like for King Jesus to become king is to confront the effects of evil and all of the gaps, all of the people who get ostracized at your get together this Friday night because they're not cool and they're not significant. And all the people that that happens to in their communities, these are the people that Jesus finds. And they walk away from their encounters with Jesus with their hearts utterly inflamed with his love and with their bodies transformed by the encounter.

And with their heart, are you with me? Nobody walks away from their encounter with Jesus unchanged. And so this is what it means for Jesus to become king of the world. He's going to tell you this. Now this is really cool. So in Matthew 423, he's going to tell you, hey, dear reader, this is what it looks like for Jesus to become king. This total reorganization of your value system,

complete life, heart, mind, body transformation, especially for the most vulnerable among you. And then he's going to finish the whole composition by repeating the same exact sentence again at the end of chapter 9. He's going to tell you what he's going to tell you. Then he's going to tell you. Then he's going to tell you what he told you.

Welcome to Matthew chapters, chapters 5 through 9. This is like Matthews, if you want to know what Jesus was all about, in a nutshell, these are the chapters of the New Testament you want to go to. If you want to know what it looks like to live under the reign and rule of Jesus, this is where you go. How you guys doing?

So let me land the plane. These stories aren't designed to just tell you something interesting that happened 2,000 years ago. This community, along with communities of Jesus all over the planet that met together today, these stories are designed to bring you into a living encounter with the same Jesus who called those fishermen by the lake. And the same way that he waltzed, right, into their lives and just summoned them to follow him.

And that summons was actually the best news that they could have ever heard. And the same way he waltzes, he's here in our midst, like what it means for this community to be here, is we believe that Jesus has risen from the dead, and that he's alive and that he's real, and that he's still calling to people

and still inviting people. right now to live under his reign. And so you have, we have a choice. We have a choice every single day. Nature and nurture, right? We're all born with certain temperaments and dispositions. And then we're all raised with a certain set of habits about what it means to be a human and what I'm after in life and what it means for me to be important and significant. And Jesus is going to force us to bring all of that to the table and just reorganize it around his summons to us to live under his reign. And so I don't know what that means for you. That's way above my pay grade right now, right? But Jesus knows. Like, you know the decision that's in front of you right now. You know the

relationship that is unreconciled is just hanging there in your life, unresolved. You know the issue with your body or with your money. And it's a habit. It's a practice that you formed and you have become convinced that that's a normal or healthy way to be a human being. And in the kingdom of Jesus, he's going to tell you, with love and firmness, you're destroying yourself and you're destroying people around you. You need to be liberated and you need to come under the loving, grace-filled reign of King Jesus. And so it's this paradox, which is coming under the authority of this power of Jesus, is actually the best news you and I could hear. Amen. And so I don't know what that is for you. We're going to have a time right now where we can allow the spirit of Jesus to circle our midst and to speak to us and to bring to mind the ways that we need to submit to his loving rule all over again. Amen? Let me close with the word of prayer.

You know, and you know, no no No No You know,