 Matthew chapter 4 verses 23 through 25 we're going to be looking at three elements of the ministry of Christ and we'll see that disclosed to us as we begin our our reading here in Matthew chapter 4 beginning at verse 23 reading to verse 25 Matthew writes now Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people then his fame went throughout all Syria and they brought to him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments and those who were demon-possessed epileptics paralytics and he healed them and great multitudes followed him from Galilee from Decapolis Jerusalem Judea and beyond the Jordan so in the previous verses leading up to verse 23 Jesus had just called four of his disciples into full time service and as we saw he called Simon Peter and he called his brother Andrew he called James and he called John and all four of these men were fishermen and according to Luke chapter 5 verse 10 they were business partners now as we were looking at this together when Jesus called him he used an image that would be understandable to them Jesus would use illustrations as he taught that would make a connection with the life of the people and so Jesus here uses an image that would be understandable to these men and so he told them they are going to become fishers of men in other words you're going to begin to cast out your net but the net will be the gospel and you're going to cast out the net of the gospel into the sea of humanity and so he was calling them to become fishers of men as he called James and his brother John they were busy according to verse 21 mending their nets and so they're also going to be fishers of men but in this gospel message that they're going to be communicating they're going to be bringing something that is a transforming quality they're going to be bringing a message of transformation they need to be transformed themselves and as they bring this message of transformation they will be through that message mending broken lives I mentioned to you that when the word mending was used there it speaks of repairing that which has been broken or that which has been torn when you use the word mend in an ethical sense it speaks of strengthening or completing it speaks of making a person what that person ought to be and so that's the message of the gospel the gospel is intended to heal broken lives and to make people what God intended them to be so they're going to be involved in being fishers of men and the message of the gospel will be used to repair the crushed and broken lives in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 9 through 11 Paul said this he said don't you know that those who do wrong will have no share in the kingdom of God don't fool yourselves those who indulge in sexual sin who are idle worshipers adulterers male prostitutes homosexuals thieves greedy people drunkards abusers and swindlers that sounds like my board and none of these will have a share in the kingdom of God there was a time when some of you were just like that but now your sins have been washed away and you have been set apart for God you have been made right with God because of what the Lord Jesus Christ and the spirit of our God have done for you you see that's what you were but that's not what you are the gospel of Jesus Christ will heal and transform he men's broken lives and that's why the gospel needs to be preached so these men the men that he's calling needed to learn what a follower of Jesus looks like and they needed to know what they were to be like and they had much to learn about what they were one day going to be they were going to be mature believers in the Lord Jesus Christ Luke chapter 6 verse 40 says a disciples not above his teacher but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher and so they are intended by Christ to become like him now as we're looking at this I mentioned this to you these men were in large part ordinary people they had natural skills they had natural jobs regular jobs but in a large part they were not necessarily ministerial kinds of people they more than likely had a very basic education experience and they had some rudimentary teachings concerning the word of God but they were not necessarily the most outstanding people and so when you begin to examine their lives even after Christ called them it gives you hope because when you look at some of the things they do through the Gospels that are recorded for us to read and learn from it encourages me because even though they're spending time with Christ and even though they're being taught personally by God himself on earth they still have so much to learn so that gives me hope I think of several things that that you can look at and you can see that in how that Jesus had such patience with these people when we get to Matthew chapter 14 you're gonna see that that Jesus is going to be feeding a multitude of people he's gonna feed 5,000 men and that doesn't include the women and the children and so when these 5,000 people assemble and they're in need of food the solution that comes from the disciples the apostles is going to be send them away or the time that this woman of Canaan asked Jesus to please deliver my daughter she severely demonized she's demon possessed and the disciples response to her saying please deliver her is simple send her away they come up to Jesus they speak to him they say someone is casting out demons but he's not part of our group and we forbade him there's a Samaritan village that doesn't welcome Jesus as he's making his way from the north to the south his face is set to go into Jerusalem they will not welcome him and so James and John come up with the idea shall we call fire from heaven and consume them all can we burn them can we annihilate them there are people who are bringing their children to Jesus that he might touch them and bless them the disciples tell them don't be bothering the master even into the end of his ministry James and John are speaking to the Lord they say we want you to give us whatever we asked for and Jesus is what do you want well grant us that one might be seated at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom even on the night that Christ was betrayed they resurrected an old argument amongst themselves which of us will be the greatest these are the men that the Lord Jesus Christ called these are the men that he intended to do work through these were the men that God would use to turn the world upside down you see God has a way of seeing something we don't see it's like when Gideon was in the threshing floor and he was hiding for fear of the Midianites and the angel of the Lord appears to him and the angel of the Lord speaks to Gideon and says hail the almighty man of valor well he's there hiding for fear of the Midianites and yet the way the angel speaks to him he's saying you are a mighty man of valor and that's because God sees something in Gideon that Gideon had yet to see in himself God is a master painter he has a blank canvas and it's your life and he knows what he can make you into he knows what he can do with you if you yield yourself to him and these four fishermen didn't have a clue what God wanted to do and these men took a long time to learn Jesus walked with them for over three years and even to the end they still had so many lessons to learn but that gives to me so much hope he was going to fashion them into fishes of men and then he was going to send them out to mend broken lives and as he was calling them they immediately responded they left everything behind and they followed him and so now they're going to learn ministry from the Lord and so it says in verse 23 Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues preaching the gospel of the kingdom healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people so they're now going to learn ministry 101 he had told them you're going to become fishers of men and now he shows them how they're going to minister in such a way and they're going to do it by teaching by preaching and yes even through healing and those activities are going to establish Jesus's ministry credentials now at this time notice with me Matthew is restricting Jesus's ministry to the region of Galilee he says Jesus went about all Galilee when it says he went about all Galilee it speaks of his continuous action so he was continuously doing something so what was he doing well one he's pretty he's teaching he's teaching in their synagogues now we hear the word synagogue the word synagogue speaks concerning an assembly of people and the synagogue had become very important in the nation of Israel during the time of Christ it was more than likely established in the Babylonian captivity around 600 years or so before Christ and it had become the center of activity over time the temple remained the center of Jewish life but there were many Jews who lived hundreds even thousands of miles away from the temple and so synagogue became a place of worship it became place of study it became a place of the community fellowship it even became a legal court the synagogue was very important because it was the the center of daily religious activities and and they would gather in synagogue every Sabbath and while they were there in synagogue sections of the law and prophets would be read various prayers songs responses would occur the scripture would be expounded sometimes by a visiting rabbi or a dignitary it served as a public school for boys they studied something that was called the Talmud which is the oral tradition of the law of Moses as well as writing and reading and they learned arithmetic there for men it became the center of advanced theological training when you went to synagogue they had a certain style to teaching let me talk to you about it for a moment because it's important because as it says here in verse 23 Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues we have to ask ourselves what did he teach about how did Jesus go about teaching what was it what kind of methodology what was the manner that Jesus taught if you were to go into synagogue and Jesus or there was their teaching how would he be teaching well during that time people were taught in what was called expository fashion which is the explanatory fashion of teaching and this teaching was intended to be appealing to the intellect and so they would communicate information about God they were taught scripture and in the expository fashion you are taught scripture verse by verse and the reason you were taught scripture verse by verse is so that you could get an entire view of scripture yet there today there are many who say they teach the Bible what they're teaching is out of the Bible but it's not necessarily true that they're teaching the Bible because if you teach in the Bible what you're doing is you're starting at the point we'll say Matthew at verse one and you go all the way to chapter 28 and you're teaching through it that's called expositional or explanatory teaching that is the methodology Christ used he would use the explanatory way because that was the way you would be taught in synagogue it was adopted by the church in Acts chapter 20 verse 27 when Paul was speaking on one occasion to the elders of Ephesus he said I have not shunned to declare into you all the counsel of God I've taught you from the Alpha to the Omega from the beginning to the end from the A to the Z I've taught you all the counsel of God systematically expositionally and that's what it do they would teach the word of God in that fashion that's how Jesus taught now the Greeks on the other hand had an approach to teaching that actually welcomed discussion and even argument the Greeks had this attitude that we may know something now but something greater may be revealed later on and so their teaching did not have the air of authority they would just speak from what they thought or believed at that moment because perhaps there's a new thing that we can learn from in Acts chapter 17 you see an example of that when Paul was in the city of Athens they were there the Paul was there is his heart was grieved by the the fact that the city was given completely over to idolatry and he began to share concerning Jesus and he began to share concerning his resurrection and there were people there who are listening to him and there were Greeks and they wanted him to go up into Mars Hill and to expound to them what he was sharing below and Luke tells us in Acts 1721 all the Athenians and the foreigners who are there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing that's how the Greeks were what is the current thought what is the latest thing that we can embrace many Americans in general have what would be called a Greek mentality when it comes to teaching they think that their opinions and novel ideas are equal to what the Word of God declares all you need to do to prove that point is go to a philosophy class in any junior college or college and sit there for the first few classes and watch out the students who think themselves to be philosophers already untrained and not thinkers but they think themselves to be philosophers already and they will debate with the teacher I've been in philosophy classes I've seen that happen where they with no experience whatsoever are willing to argue their point in their opinion as if their point in opinion is as qualified as a professor with a PhD and that is an absolute truth and Americans are very prone to that and so if they hear something even if it's declared from the Word of God many Americans will argue with that because they think their opinions are equal to God's Word Jesus would speak with authority later on they're gonna speak of him in that way he doesn't speak like the scribes he teaches with authority they're gonna see that Jesus spoke in a way that was unlike even the other teachers during his time because of the authority that you would find in his teachings and when Jesus would teach he would teach the ways of God and as he did so it was with the intent to reveal truth to those who came to hear Jesus's teaching would be focused on content because he wanted them to discover truth he taught this way because truth is found in God's Word Psalm 119 151 says you are near oh Lord and all your commandments are truth John 17 17 Jesus said sanctify them by your truth your word is truth Romans 10 17 says faith comes by hearing hearing by the Word of God so Jesus came to expand and expound on Scripture he wanted them to hear what God's Word has to say he wanted them to know that there's authority in the Word of God that there is truth in the Word of God and he wanted them to know that the Word of God revealed to him to man in John 5 39 Jesus said it like this you search the scriptures because you believe they give you eternal life but the scriptures point to me so God's Word rightly taught and received by faith will bring people salvation as well as healing and that's why Jesus would teach teaching is paramount for us if we're going to be able to live lives that glorify God in 2012 I've mentioned this on a couple of occasions recently in 2012 a George Barnett survey found found something very interesting about professing Christians this survey found that 46 percent of those surveyed said church attendance had not resulted in a changed life 61 percent said they had not gained a significant new insight while attending church and fully one-third said they had never felt God's presence well in a church service and with this knowledge what do ministers do what do pastors do what's the general response to these revelations while pastors have begun to present the gospel in watered-down terms in order to attract people who are disinterested in God's Word but the question has to ask what good is a church that has a full sanctuary that is filled with empty people what we need is the Word of God and that's what Jesus gave he didn't give his opinions on life he came and gave the Word of God and Jesus went about as it says here in verse 23 throughout all Galilee teaching in the synagogues you see the reason we're going through Matthew is because I want us to be reacquainted with the teachings of Jesus Christ and what Jesus does because there's quite a number of people who really haven't settled on that kind of information and that kind of knowledge and understood that so I thought let's go back to the gospel basics and let's start with Matthew and let's look and see what God has to say about who Jesus Christ is and so Jesus was a teacher now that brings us to the second element of his ministry and that was preaching now when you teach the Word of God you're appealing to the intellect you're encouraging people to receive information but when you're preaching it's really a call to the will so that you will make a decision teaching informs but preaching brings a sense of there's something being said that I have to make a decision about and so Jesus would preach that word preach is a word that can be translated heralded and so Jesus came to herald the gospel and he was not sidetracked by secondary issues he proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom the good news of the gospel you see preaching is not necessarily the explaining of the good news it is the proclaiming of it John had preached repentance to exhort people to prepare to meet the coming king but the coming king is here and now he's saying you need to receive what I have and so he came to preach the gospel of the kingdom when he preached he was calling people to make a decision you've heard this now what are you going to do with this information it's not enough for me to be able to fill up my Bible with notes is my heart filled up with the notes of the spirit so that my life is transformed so I hear something and I make a decision concerning those things and preaching would be given and Jesus would preach because he'd be saying it's time for you to receive what God has to offer you and then that brings us to the third part of what he did and that was healing it says he healed all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people now I want to develop this and spend a moment with you about this looking at this because you need to note that teaching and preaching came first God's word comes first before miracles there's a reason for that it's because you can believe in miracles but still be lost God's word directs you to the one who performs the miracles there are all kinds of people who believe in supernatural things you can turn on cable TV and find all kinds of shows where people are ghost hunters and they go in and they have shows of all kinds of spiritual things because Americans are very spiritual people so you can believe in something and still be wrong about it and so you can believe in a miracle but you need to know that God's word directs you to the God who performs the miracles and men aren't saved by believing in miracles we are saved by place in our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Jesus even went so far as to say that seeking for signs is an evidence of a lack of faith not a real faith and a Luke in Luke 1129 it says when the people were gathered thick together he began to say this is an evil generation they seek a sign and so what we really need is the word of God now I do believe that God performs miracles I do and I do believe that God performs healings but does he heal every person because we prayed and believed and the answer would be no God is always the healer all we can do is ask for him to intervene and to do the work and I prayed for a lot of people over the years for healing a lot of people have approached me after church services over the years that I've ministered in and they've asked me could you pray for me and I will confess openly and honestly before you that that the majority of them have have not been healed so if you have a need for healing you don't want me to pray for you I was sitting in that dental chair the other day oh God in Jesus name you know he didn't heal me I prayed for my mom to be healed for years my mom first got ill when I was about five years old or so 1955 my mom was ill from 1955 until she died year and a half ago my mom was ill and I prayed for her over and over again many times for many years mama wasn't healed but does that mean we should not pray no we do pray because God does heal and there are times in his sovereign will he chooses to do so few months ago now I was in my office work day I got a phone call there's a couple of people here would like to see you can you come out for a moment and I said of course and I came out of my office and I went up to the front and there were two ladies waiting there one of them I've known for 25 years or so and she was with her mama and I I smiled at him and known a long time and smiled and and I said to the young woman I said you know I was just thinking of you this week I was wondering how you are are things going because she had brought her mama to me in a church service about six months before their mama I could see her when her mama walked up there were she was going through some kind of a treatment for cancer I could see it her body that this woman was suffering and she didn't even have to tell me that she had cancer and so they came and they said could you pray for me here in the front after a service and I said of course and we anointed her with oil and we prayed and I said make me God touch your body and heal you and so I had been thinking of them and wondering how they were and so I get this this call from the front can you come up here to the foyer and I said of course and I come walking up and I give him a hug hi how are you and I've been thinking of you and the young lady turns to her mother and says mama tell him and she looks at me the mama looks at me with this big smile she says I went to the doctor last week and he didn't want to use the word miracle but he was looking at me did all the tests and looked at me and then said I don't really know what to say but you're cancer-free there's no cancer in you anymore and I looked at her and I said bless the name of the Lord God is our healer God has the ability to heal he does and sometimes he does it as a testimony and Jesus came and he performed these miracles and there are reasons why he did it Jesus's healings were a source of divine verification of his credentials now of course they should follow him because of his words and many were already doing so but he would perform miracles as an evidence that he was sent from God in John when you read the Gospel of John chapter 20 verses 30 and 31 John writes Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples which are not recorded in this book but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name and he had divine credentials established by the works and it proved that he wasn't simply an ordinary man in John 14 11 he was speaking to Philip and he said this he said believe me when I say that I am in the father and the father's in me or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves miracles also demonstrate the incredible compassion of God always know this the God that we worship is a compassionate merciful God and Jesus Christ showed the compassion of God to have compassion is to suffer alongside of somebody to share their pain with them and that's what Jesus would do he had this and has this incredible compassion and when you would see the need God's compassion would be revealed there are people who don't understand a God of compassion they don't worship a God of compassion that's why they can go into various places in and kill people in the name of their God the God they worship quote unquote God that they worship has no compassion though they speak of him as being merciful they show no mercy but the mercy that we have from our God motivated our God to take upon himself human flesh and he was touched by the feelings of our infirmity the Bible tells us in Matthew 14 verse 14 when Jesus went out he saw a great multitude and he was moved with compassion for them and healed their sick if you're going to be used by the Lord here's a very practical thing it's very practical if you want to be used by the Lord pray daily fervently God break my heart for the things that break yours may I have compassion in my heart for others because sometimes we can be harsh when there should be gentleness God help me to have compassion help me to love help me to care I began to learn compassion and I'll say this quickly it's not about me but I want to use it as an illustration I began to learn compassion from my wife because I don't naturally have it I've been praying for compassion for many years I'm ministering one time Marie and I were dating many years ago now we were just dating at that time my cousins two cousins from Culver City area Culver City has changed over the last 40 years 40 years ago there was a lot of gangs probably still are but it was pretty bad there's a pretty bad area Culver City in Venice that's where my family some of my family's from I have said this before there was a time that I could go into Venice or Culver City and and possibly be shot by my own cousins I mean they were there were just they were bad people they were just bad and so my cousins are at my house and Marie and I are seated at the kitchen table Marie is meeting my cousins these two two women and one of them is talking to me and she's saying to me yeah my husband's in prison but he didn't kill that guy that's what she's telling me he didn't kill him he's in prison for for murder but he didn't kill him and I'm smiling at her and nodding my head like yeah they're all innocent in prison and I'm sure that he is too but these are my cousins and and and and I am telling you I am telling you they're really from the rough side of town and I'm but I'm thinking here's Marie seated next to me and I'm saying welcome to the family these are my cousins and so as they're time I'm saying they're saying a lot of things like that and I I finally I'm listening and nodding my head because that's family stuff and I turn and I look at this young girl I'm dating and she's crying she's crying for strangers she didn't even know my cousins what I've heard over my lifetime was new for her and as she heard that she started to cry and I see these tears in the corner of her eye as they were coming down she was not just tearing up she teared over tears and I'm looking at her and the Spirit of the Lord said this is why I have you with her you need come you need compassion there many times when Marie and I have ministered as a couple to people I'll listen and try and give a biblical help and she just cries because she has a heart like that that's ministry it's more than just given the solution it's climbing next to them suffering alongside of them it's like when my daughter Corinne was a very small baby just a few months old and she had a very high temperature and we took her to the emergency and and they said she had like a hundred and four hundred and five they said listen this baby if this you got to put this baby in an ice bath you have to put her in a nice bath and bring her body body temperature down it's very serious for this little girl to be this this warm with fever and so if her temperature goes up you put her in an ice bath and we take her home and and as we take her home my baby is just crying and she's uncomfortable and we take her temp and 104 and and Marie says we got to get her into the ice bath so we turn the cold water on in that tub all you parents have done this at one time turn the turn the tub off the water on fill the tub up with ice water cold water and I start to drop the baby in to the tub and as I'm holding her in the tub she begins to scream because she's in such pain because it's so cold and it's bothering her body and I climbed in the tub with her and I held her and I went through the cold with her and I'm an evil father I'm an evil man but I couldn't stand seeing that baby hurt like that compassion that's what God uses in our life to reach the hurt and Jesus had it and he has it and he wants his children to have it too compassion and he would show it he saw the multitudes and as he saw them his heart broke for them as a shepherd would see the sheep yeah I get worked up I have a friend who came and saw me my friend Bill and he was laughing at me just this Thursday he's my oldest friend we've been friends since we're five years old he listens to me on the radio and he says yeah I listened to you blubber he was teasing me just Thursday he says you cry so much Dave boo I said yeah I do I said that's true I said but the fact is that's who I am I feel those things deeply and I share them for my heart because that's what God wants for his body for Christ's body to have compassion Jesus had it and I have been praying for years that God would break my heart and finally the miracles demonstrated the nearness of the kingdom of God because in heaven there is no sickness there is no suffering in Revelation 21 verses 2 through 4 it reads I John saw the holy city knew Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband and I heard a loud voice from heaven saying behold the tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his people God himself will be with them and be their God God will wipe away every tear from their eyes there shall be no more death nor sorrow nor crying there shall be no more pain for the former things have passed away in the kingdom of God there is no pain there is no illness there is no sickness there's only joy and when Jesus came he was saying this is a a prelude to a foretaste of the kingdom and he came and he healed because there is no sickness in the kingdom of God the result multitudes verse 25 followed him from Galilee from Decapolis which is just east of the Jordan there 10 cities Jerusalem Judea and beyond the Jordan he healed whatever affliction he encountered he ministered because he loved them it's been said this world is the land of the dying but the next is the land of the living and Jesus came to bring life so he was teaching his men you need to teach you need to preach I'll go with you as you heal so that these people may know the kingdom of God is with them