Author: KingdomLink

By the time we get to Matthew chapter 14, Jesus has been ministering for some period of time. He’s called His disciples, trained them and sent them out on their first short term experience. He’s healed many, delivered many and taught a great number of people. He is becoming famous – at least on a regional scale. So it ought not to surprise us that eventually, the political powers would hear about Him. Matthew duly records, “At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus.”

Of course, Matthew has already written of Jesus catching the attention of a certain Herod back in chapter 2, “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.” But this isn’t the same matter. In the past it was the Magi that alerted the king, not Jesus’ activity. And this isn’t even the same Herod; “On the death of the Herod of the infancy materials the realm was divided and the present Herod, Antipas (one of the previous Herod’s sons), became ruler over Galilee and Perea. […] None of the rulers of the divided territory was allowed by Rome to term himself king. Instead the title ‘tetrarch’ was used. This is literally ‘ruler of a quarter’, but it was used in the NT period more generally for the role of minor princes.”

Getting noticed by King Herod almost cost Jesus His life. It may be that Herod the tetrarch was a lessor force (being a tetrarch instead of a king) and perhaps a more stable personality mental-health wise, but getting noticed by Herod Antipas was still problematic for Jesus. Every political figure who can have people arbitrarily imprisoned and executed is someone you want to avoid interactions with, especially when they’ve already imprisoned your cousin! (see v3). But Herod represented a more unique problem, because Herod was superstitious and prone to jump to his own conclusions: “At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus, and he said to his attendants, “This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him.””  

Herod’s superstitious beliefs could have taken Jesus’ ministry in a wildly different direction. He could have spread word that Jesus was not who He said He was, but rather was John the Baptist, resurrected. That might actually be popular with the uneducated crowd, and with the civic ruler’s respect would’ve gone far in allowing Jesus certain freedoms in movement and speech. However, Jesus did not value notoriety at all, He only valued the work His Father assigned to Him. 

To that point, Jesus was not about to risk the confusion, “When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place.”

It is always better to follow God’s leading than to pursue prominence! 

Alas! Men burn away their lives for the approbation of fellow-creatures.

W. Harvey Jellie

APPLICATION: Intentionality

God’s good and gracious direction is always more profitable to us than the easy path forward. 

For most people, faith is like a long- atrophied muscle. It lies dormant, and on account of its weakness is not used at all, or very rarely used to very limited extent. But our faith is not something we should ignore. It is   something we should feed and something we should practice because faith is the key to the kingdom of God. 

Faith is what allows us to enter His kingdom to start with. As Romans 3 says, “…righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe,” and as Ephesians notes, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith.” In fact, no one can even approach God apart from faith, for the Word says, “…without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”  

Faith is the doorway to God and the path to His kingdom. Faith is the means by which we live the abundant life, and the means by which we acquire all the eternal things God means to for us to have. Faith is the means by which we glorify God, and the one thing God seeks for us have more than anything else. As Peter would later testify to the struggling and persecuted churches, “These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” 

To that end Jesus always started making disciples by encouraging their faith. If He found some faith already there, He would fan it into flame by healing or a miracle work. He did this with the woman who was subject to bleeding, “Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed from that moment,” and He did this with the one leper who came back to say thanks, “Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.””

If He did not find faith already in the people He came across, He would speak the truth of God (the Word of God) so that it might birth faith in those who heard, for “faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”

We must do likewise. Exercise our faith in being fully obedient to Word and Spirit – as Jesus was – and speak the truth of the Word of God to those who do not yet have faith – as Jesus did. In these ways we find our own faith growing to the praise, glory and honor of our Lord, and to the very great joy of our own souls! Amen.

It is of the first and last importance that we should search ourselves whether we be in the faith, and whether, being in the faith, our graces are growing, our faith increasing, and our love deepening.

Charles Spurgeon

APPLICATION: Intentionality

How do you know when your faith is deepening? How can you cooperate with God in stretching it?

We can know that Jesus would’ve known the Word of God on account of His Jewishness  . In fact, we know He had great respect for the Word because Scripture records how He said, “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” 

We can also know that Jesus was baptized by the Spirit of God, for the Gospel says, “Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.” To have the Spirit descend upon you is to have the Spirit fill you, so we know Jesus was baptized in water and in Spirit at the same time. 

These facts tell us how Jesus came to have the wisdom and power He so obviously exercised: Being aligned with the Word and filled with the Spirit, He simply had to walk in obedience to the Word of God and obediently respond to the Spirit’s promptings (speaking or acting accordingly). 

He did that. So one might think that Jesus could do all manner of miracles wherever and whenever He felt like. Yet Jesus did not always heal, and Jesus did not always perform miracles. There were times and places He did, but for much of His ministry life He only taught. This was certainly true in Nazareth, where Jesus grew up. Matthew writes, “Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked. “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor.” And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.”

You cannot create a miracle. Even Jesus – the embodiment of the Word of God and full of the Holy Spirit – did not do miracles at will. As He Himself testified, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” One could say that Jesus did not ‘do’ miracles, He just cooperated with the Spirit of God in the Father’s accomplishment of miracles. 

In His hometown, Jesus continued to operate according to Spirit and Word, but found Himself restricted to speaking instead of working miracles on account of the lack of faith He found in the villagers. For God can always work, but He purposefully chooses to work only with the faith He finds. Even then, Jesus only spoke in agreement with the Spirit and Word, for He Himself testified, “I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.” 

That truth teaches us that if our faith is too small for a great work of the Spirit, the Lord starts by merely speaking truth. 

We should not look down at that and take offence. 

It is after all, a start! Amen. 

The effective minister of the Word uses words the way a craftsman uses tools—the right word for the right job.

Warren Wiersbe

APPLICATION: Intentionality

Jesus knew when to use words and when to cooperate with the Spirit in a miracle because He was always listening to the Father’s voice. How is God guiding you today?

In a comic book series that Marvel Entertainment created, there exists a set  of ‘infinity  stones’ that afford the owner infinite power, infinite knowledge, and infinite power over natural forces like time, space, reality and life. That is an entertaining idea, but it is also childish fiction. There are no such stones. Only God exists of and by Himself, and only God possesses all ability. The very idea of the infinity stones is a childish attempt at understanding how God came to be God, and the only thing Marvel’s comic gets right is the idea that we cannot gain anything of real value without it being imparted to us from outside of ourselves. 

“Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked. “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” And they took offense at him.”

Jesus did not go to university or even college. There were no such institutions in His day to go to. So where did Jesus get the wisdom He clearly had when He taught? And where did Jesus get the miraculous powers He obviously exercised? There has never been a store you can go to buy such things, and there never will be. The question Jesus’ hometown villagers ask is very legitimate and worth thinking about. How did Jesus come to have all He had?

From all outside appearance, Jesus was an ordinary man. He was born as all men are. He grew up as all men do. He had a family and He had a dad, as all men have. Jesus did not bleed green or blue as some suppose kings do, and He did not possess super-strength or X-ray vision as comic book heroes do. Jesus was born, and He was born in human flesh. 

Of course, Jesus is more than any mere man, because He is God incarnate. But if we consider His humanity, we realize that like all who are born in human flesh, Jesus could understand the Word of God. He could learn to read and memorize it. He could know what it meant to apply it. Moreover, Jesus was also baptized of the Holy Spirit, and like all who are baptized of the Spirit, Jesus had the ability to listen to the voice of God our Father because the Spirit of God in Him would allow Him to know the difference between the Father’s voice and the other voices we all hear (like our own voice, the voice of others, the voice of our fleshly longings and the demonic promptings Satan and his minions so often whisper). Consequently, as a man Jesus could know when and what God was speaking to Him. He could therefore act in accordance with the Word and Spirit and so cooperate with all God was doing and was about to do, as any man can do. 

These things tell us that in His humanity, Jesus healed many. He delivered many. He taught many. He altered the lives of a great number of people for the better. 

We who have a living relationship with our Father through Christ can and must do likewise, and we should also expect a similar result. God works through those who are wholeheartedly His.

Mind you, the world will perceive that which does not belong to it, and will react accordingly. They scoff and deride God’s work because our enemy tells them that it nothing more than childish fantasy. 

The cross is the expression of the world’s hatred.

A.W. Pink

APPLICATION: Intentionality

The Christ follower must expect derision. How will you handle the inevitable doubt and criticism assigned to you by those who reject your message?   

One of the greatest challenges leaders face is knowing when to move on. It  is one thing  when the group you are leading is asking you to go (!), but it is quite another when all is going well. This is especially difficult when what you are doing is fulfilling and the congregation (or coworkers) seem to appreciate how you are leading. But up until God gives you your final assignment (which only ends on death), there will come a time to conclude what you are doing in one setting and move to a new setting. 

As Matthew records it, Jesus has been teaching the crowd since leaving the local synagogue (Matt 12:15). He has taught the difference between Satan’s kingdom and God’s kingdom (Matt 12:25-29) and warned their leadership about making careless accusations (Matt 12:30-37). He gave them the prophetic word about the sign of Jonah (Matt 12:38-45) and taught about the way God sees His family (Matt 12:46-50). 

He’s now spent some period of time teaching a set of seven parables (Matt 13:1-50). 

Then Jesus asked, “Have you understood all these things?” Matthew writes down the response for us to ensure his readers see the successful conclusion of Christ’s teaching, “”Yes,” they replied.” With the concluding comment about how the application of what He taught is like bringing treasure out of a storeroom, Jesus moves on. “When Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there.”

All Jesus did was to model what making disciples was supposed to look like. From the moment He began to preach (Matt 4:17), He began calling people into discipleship (Matt 4:18-20). All His teaching and demonstrations of power were toward this objective; To bring people to the kingdom of heaven as disciples of God Most High. When He reaches that objective, He moves on. This was how Jesus lived out His calling.

First Jesus did that with individuals, later with groups. When He finished teaching on the Sermon Mount (Matt 5-7), He came down and demonstrated God’s power (Matt 8:1-17) before seeing who was at least mature enough to follow Him (Matt 8:18-23). Later, Jesus again heals (Matt 9:1-8), calls to discipleship (Matt 9:9), teaches (Matt 9:10-17), demonstrates God’s power (Matt 9:18-34), teaches and heals (Matt 9:35-38) and then calls (Matt 10:1-4), finally resulting in sending out His first group of fully mature disciples (Matt 10:5-42). While they are out ministering, Jesus starts the cycle all over again – teaching (Matt 11:1-12:8) demonstrating power (Matt 12:9-24), teaching (Matt 12:25-49) and calling (Matt 12:50). From chapter 13:1 to v50, He is again teaching. With the call and conclusion of Matt 13:51-52, Jesus again moves on. 

Jesus recognized when the time had come for Him to move to another place when those He was leading affirmed that they understood His message. 

Jesus was a missionary, making disciples of God the Father. His role, like all our roles, had a set purpose. When that purpose was fulfilled, Jesus moved on. He did not change or adapt His purpose to suit the new occasion of working with those He had discipled, because to do that would be to change His calling, and Jesus recognized that calling comes from the Father, not from oneself. 

That is a powerful reminder to us that our calling determines the opportunity, not the other way around. 

Usually leaders overestimate rather than underestimate the value of their presence.

Terry Muck

APPLICATION: Thankfulness

God gives us seasons to partner in His work in a particular place with a particular group of people. Seasons change. Be thankful for what He has given you, and look forward to the next season.  

“Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked. “Yes,” they replied. He  said to  them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.” 

World over, societies create art galleries and museums to put on display priceless treasures. People come to those galleries and museums to see them because there is something wonderful about being able to stand close to a treasure. Though we do not touch them, we connect with the art and artifact on some level. They bring a little more joy and a little more wonder into our lives as we muse on their meaning and reflect on the inherent value they have – value that has preserved them from the garbage heap that claims the exceedingly vast majority of art and artifact alike.

Putting into practice what we know of the kingdom of heaven is like bringing a priceless treasure out of a storeroom and putting it on display for all to see. 

Living life as a child of heaven demonstrates something of the glory of God and something of the value of His kingdom. People look on at those who are practicing what it means to know the kingdom and they find a kind of awe welling up within themselves. It matters when someone lives as Jesus lived. When they sacrifice for the sake of the other. When they go out of their way to bless the other. When they model what being a child of God means. 

These things are appreciated, just as treasure is appreciated. So much so that we even have a propensity to tell others when we see the kingdom of heaven being practiced, just as we would tell others about a wonderful treasure that someone brought out of storage. It is so fulfilling to our souls that we cannot help but speak of those who reflect God in some way. We were made to do that just as we were made for fellowship with God. It brings meaning to our lives and fulfillment to our souls to reflect Him and His ways in our actions, to talk of Him and His ways with our words and to see and hear Him and His ways being modelled by others. 

The truth is that everyone wants the kingdom of heaven. Everyone wants wisdom. Everyone wants healing. Everyone wants peace. Everyone wants blessing. Everyone wants everything that the kingdom of heaven represents, because people were made for that exact purpose. Therefore, to see and hear of that which reflects it is a glimpse of the fulfillment of our purpose – it is a glimpse of the home we’ve always knew we were supposed to get to. To see and hear of it is to awaken our truest hope. 

When we live out the kingdom of heaven, we demonstrate the peace of God, the power of God and the presence of God. It is a sight that is irresistible to those around us, because it is displays something of Him. More than than, when we live out the kingdom of heaven, we become a divine treasure that is unlike anything the unredeemed could find in any gallery or museum, and best of all, we fulfill God’s purpose for us. For as God told Moses, so very long ago: “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.” 

Amen.

Remember that sure word of thine. God be gracious unto us and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us. Let us thus be blessed, and we shall in our turn become a blessing. All the families of the earth shall, through us, become acquainted with thy salvation.

William Binnie

APPLICATION: Worship

Praise God for the lavishness He bestows on His obedient children! 

All through Scripture there is a prophetic warning that those who are not right with God   will eventually find themselves apart from Him forever. But what is it to be separated and apart from God, who created all things and sustains all things? 

“Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  Jesus has spoken before about weeping and gnashing of teeth. As He puts it, this is a characteristic behavior of the damned. For earlier He said, “I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

The separation between the righteous and the wicked begins with Jesus Christ. Jesus is the decision point, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the knife-edge that separates between that which is for God Most High and that which is not. 

When the Gospel is preached, those who say yes to Christ are clearly on the righteous side. Scripture testifies that God gives us His righteousness, which is apart from the Law, “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” 

But those who refuse Christ find themselves without God’s righteousness. They are depending on their own, which no matter how good it is counts in God’s sight as unrighteousness, “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Therefore they are at risk of the final divide appearing (the second coming of Christ) before they can change their minds. For when that day comes, the separation will become irreversible. On that day those who refused the offer of the new covenant in Jesus will begin to realize the enormously tragic mistake they made, but it will be too late. 

Like a person who points a gun at another and pulls the trigger without calculating the cost first, the horror of finality of their own choice overwhelms them. They will weep and gnash their teeth in eternal regret. 

They will forever be in darkness of soul, being apart from the creator and sustainer of light and life. God Most High, who not only created all things but sustains all things, will no longer be their helper. What then is their end condition? God Himself testifies, it will be like being “throw[n] into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

If it were but for a time, even ten thousand years, and so end, there would be ground of comfort, and hopes of deliverance; but here is thy misery, this is thy state for ever, here thou must be for ever: when thou lookest about thee, and seest what an innumerable company of howling devils thou art amongst, thou shalt think this again, this is my portion for ever. When thou hast been in hell so many thousand years as there are stars in the firmament, or drops in the sea, or sands on the sea-shore, yet thou hast to lie there for ever. O this one word EVER, how will it torment thy soul!

John Bunyan

APPLICATION: Intentionality

How can we rest while our loved ones go off to such a place? Let us to all we can while we can to rescue them from an eternity apart from God.

Jesus continues teaching in parables. “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is  like a net  that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

The parable of the net is very similar to the parable of the weeds. Fish swim together in the same water just as plants grow together in the same field. In the case of the weeds, Jesus said that the land-owner instructed his workers, “Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’””  Both illustrations talk about an end-time sortation – a separation between the righteous and the wicked. 

But what is righteousness, and what is wickedness?

God is righteous. We all get that. But not many understand that what makes God righteous is Himself. He is right, and He is the right by which all others might be compared. To that end, what God declares as like Himself is right, and what God declares is not like Him is not right. And because God is righteous, what is not like God is unrighteous. 

When God’s Word says that stealing is wrong (Ex 20:15, “You shall not steal”), it isn’t because God is giving us an arbitrary edict. God is saying that because He does not steal – He does not take that which is not rightly His. Therefore, it is unrighteous to take what does not belong to you, and as God’s people (who bear His image) must reflect Him in character, we should not steal. 

Likewise, when He says that lying is wrong (Ex 20:16, “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor”), it is because God is truth and only speaks truth. There is nothing false in or about God, or in God’s character or in God’s ways. Therefore, it is unrighteous to un untrue. It is unrighteous to misrepresent yourself or to not speak truth when you present something to another. 

This same principle is at work when God says, “You shall not commit adultery,” and when He says, “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.”  Adultery and homosexual acts are not practices God participates in and are therefore unrighteous. God knows we are tempted by our fallen nature to participate in these things, so the Word of God includes teaching that we might not do so. 

To be God’s people, we must avoid that which is not like God and practice that which is like God. Why? Because the day comes when God draws our age to a close, and those who practice what is like Him stay with Him, and those who do not are cast out forever.

That is what it means to be holy, and that is what it means to be righteous! 

The call to right and holy living is first of all founded on the fact that God himself is holy.

Daniel C. Arichea and Eugene A. Nida

APPLICATION: Intentionality

Godliness has many benefits, but chief among them is that we might better reflect our Creator, Redeemer and Lord! What can you do to better reflect Him to others in your circle of influence?