Jesus’ Public Ministry Begins (Mat 4.12-25)

Matthew Sermon 9 – Mat 4.12-25 – Jesus’ Public Ministry Begins

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When God led Israel out of Egypt, He steered them away from the land of the Philistines because He knew His people weren’t ready for war. (Exo 13.17.) Even so, when Jesus called together His disciples, He did not do so in Jerusalem but in out of the way Galilee. (Mat 4.12-15.) Galilee was an area of mixed Jew and Gentile, a region long considered undesirable, a land of darkness. (Mat 4.16.) That much was true. But it wasn’t Galilee but Jerusalem that spawned the plot to kill Jesus at His birth, and it wasn’t Galilee but Jerusalem that was responsible for John the Baptist’s imprisonment. (Mat 2.16; 4.12.) Israel, it was clear, had become the new Egypt, the new land of the Philistines. And Jesus would make it clear that the real divide among people, including God’s own people, was between those in darkness who knew it and those in darkness who denied it. So it was in Galilee, the land of acknowledged darkness, that Jesus began to form God’s new army – an army of fishermen who in three short years He would charge to subdue all nations under His salvation and lordship. (Mat 28.18-20.) I hope you enjoy the sermon. Thanks for listening. –Alan Burrow