The Kingdom's Total Invasion Text: Matthew 4:23-25
Introduction: A Comprehensive Gospel
We live in an age of boutique Christianities. For many, the gospel is a very small and tidy thing, a private transaction between a man and his Maker that gets his soul into Heaven. It is a fire insurance policy. It has precious little to say about your body, your work, your city, or your nation. This is what we might call a pietistic gospel, and it is a truncated gospel. It is a gospel that has been domesticated, declawed, and defanged. It is a gospel that the world is perfectly happy to tolerate, because it is a gospel that stays indoors and minds its own business.
But the gospel that Jesus Christ preached and embodied was nothing of the sort. It was not a small, manageable, private affair. It was a declaration of war. It was the announcement of an invading kingdom, a kingdom that intended to claim every square inch of the cosmos for its rightful king. The gospel of the kingdom is not just about saving souls; it is about saving the world. It is not just about spiritual realities; it is about material realities. It is a gospel for bodies as well as souls, for cities as well as churches, for culture as well as cultus.
This is profoundly offensive to the modern mind, both inside and outside the church. The secularist is offended because it challenges his autonomy. He wants to be king of his own life, and the gospel announces another king, one Jesus. But many Christians are also made uncomfortable by this. They have been trained to think in dualisms, to separate the sacred from the secular. They have a theology for Sunday morning, but not for Monday morning. They have categories for prayer and Bible study, but not for politics, art, or medicine. The result is a fragmented faith that is powerless to resist the cultural onslaught of secularism.
In our text today, Matthew gives us a summary statement of Jesus' early Galilean ministry. And what we see is a three-pronged assault. Jesus is teaching, preaching, and healing. This is not a random collection of activities. This is a comprehensive, strategic invasion. He is targeting the mind through teaching, the heart through preaching, and the body through healing. He is demonstrating that the kingdom of God is not an abstract idea, but a tangible reality that brings wholeness and restoration to every part of human existence. This is the pattern for the church's ministry. We are not called to offer a partial gospel. We are called to proclaim the crown rights of King Jesus over everything.
The Text
And Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.
And the news about Him spread throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all who were ill, those suffering with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics; and He healed them.
And large crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.
(Matthew 4:23-25 LSB)
The Threefold Invasion (v. 23)
Verse 23 gives us the strategic summary of Christ's work. It is a threefold cord that cannot be easily broken.
"And Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people." (Matthew 4:23)
First, Jesus was teaching in their synagogues. Teaching is distinct from preaching. Teaching involves instruction, explanation, and the building of a doctrinal framework. It appeals to the mind. Jesus did not come to promote a vague, sentimental spirituality. He came to declare the truth. He went into the established places of instruction, the synagogues, and He laid out the truth about God, man, sin, and salvation. Christianity is a religion of the book. It is a faith grounded in propositions and doctrines that can be taught, learned, and understood. A faith that is all heart and no head will soon be no faith at all. We are commanded to love God with all our minds.
Second, He was preaching the gospel of the kingdom. Preaching, or heralding, is the authoritative proclamation of good news. It is not an invitation to a debate; it is a summons to surrender. And what is the good news? It is the gospel of the kingdom. From the very beginning, Jesus' message was this: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 4:17). This was not a message about "asking Jesus into your heart" so you can go to heaven when you die. It was the announcement that heaven's rule was breaking into earth's history. God's kingdom, His righteous reign and rule, was arriving in the person of the King Himself. This is an eschatological, political, and all-encompassing reality. The kingdom of God has to do with everything. It has a law, it has a citizenry, and it has a King who demands total allegiance.
Third, He was healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. This is crucial. The gospel of the kingdom is not just words. It is power. The healings were not a sideshow to attract a crowd for the sermon. They were the sermon in action. They were tangible, visible demonstrations that the kingdom of God was undoing the curse of the fall. Sin brought death, disease, and decay into the world. The kingdom of God brings life, health, and restoration. Jesus' miracles were foretastes of the final restoration of all things. They were signs that the King had come to reclaim His territory from the usurper, Satan, and to heal the world that sin had broken.
Notice the comprehensiveness: "every kind of disease and every kind of sickness." The kingdom leaves nothing untouched. It is a totalizing reality. This is a direct assault on any Gnostic or pietistic attempt to spiritualize the gospel. Jesus cares about bodies. He cares about physical suffering. The incarnation itself is the ultimate statement that matter matters to God. He will not abandon the physical world to decay; He intends to redeem it.
The Kingdom's Irresistible Reputation (v. 24)
The result of this comprehensive ministry was that it could not be contained. True power cannot be hidden under a bushel.
"And the news about Him spread throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all who were ill, those suffering with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics; and He healed them." (Matthew 4:24 LSB)
The fame of Jesus spreads beyond the borders of Galilee into Gentile territory, into Syria. This is an early hint that the gospel of the kingdom is not just for the Jews, but for all nations. The kingdom is an international, expansionist enterprise. And what is the news that spreads? It is the news of His power to heal and restore.
Look at the catalog of human misery they brought to Him. Various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics. This is a picture of a world groaning under the curse. It is a world of physical torment, spiritual bondage, and neurological disorder. This is the world as it is, east of Eden. And into this brokenness, Jesus speaks a word of power: "and He healed them." The verb is simple, declarative, and absolute. There are no failures, no partial cures, no "maybe it will work" attempts. The King has absolute authority over sickness, demons, and every consequence of the fall.
The healing of demoniacs is particularly significant. It shows that Jesus' ministry is a direct confrontation with the kingdom of darkness. He is not just mopping up the consequences of sin; He is binding the strong man and plundering his house (Matt. 12:29). Sickness and demonic oppression are manifestations of Satan's temporary, usurped dominion. Jesus' healings are acts of liberation, reclaiming human beings for the kingdom of God. Every healing was a D-Day landing on an enemy-occupied beach.
The Kingdom's Magnetic Attraction (v. 25)
The inevitable result of this display of truth, authority, and power is that Jesus attracts a massive following.
"And large crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan." (Matthew 4:25 LSB)
People came from everywhere. They came from the Jewish heartlands of Galilee and Judea, and they came from the Hellenistic, Gentile regions of the Decapolis and the area beyond the Jordan. This is a picture of the nations being gathered to the King. This is the magnetic power of a robust, full-orbed gospel. When the church is faithfully teaching the whole counsel of God, preaching the crown and covenant of Christ the King, and demonstrating the power of that kingdom in tangible acts of mercy, healing, and restoration, the world will take notice.
Now, we must be careful here. Not everyone in these crowds was a true disciple. Many were coming for the spectacle, for the free lunch, for the healing. Jesus Himself knew what was in man. But the point is that a powerful gospel creates a cultural disruption. It cannot be ignored. A pietistic, introverted faith can be easily dismissed by the world. But a faith that claims every sphere of life for Christ, that speaks with authority to the mind, that heralds a rival king for the heart, and that brings healing and order to broken lives and communities, such a faith will inevitably draw a crowd. Some will come to worship, others to mock, and still others to crucify. But no one will be able to remain neutral.
Conclusion: The Whole Gospel for the Whole World
So what is the takeaway for us? The ministry of Jesus provides the unalterable template for the ministry of the church. We are the body of Christ, and we are to continue His work in the world. This means we must recover a comprehensive vision of the gospel of the kingdom.
We must be a teaching church. We must be doctrinally robust, equipping our people to think Christianly about everything, from biology to economics. We must build a comprehensive Christian worldview that is capable of challenging the intellectual idols of our age.
We must be a preaching church. We must herald the good news that Jesus is King, not just of our hearts, but of the nations. This is a political statement. It is a declaration of allegiance that sets us at odds with every secular state that claims ultimate authority for itself. We must call all men everywhere to repent and bow the knee to Christ.
And we must be a healing church. While we do not have the miraculous apostolic gifts in the same way, the principle remains. We are to be agents of restoration in a broken world. This means we build hospitals. We start schools. We care for the poor. We fight injustice. We create beautiful art. We build strong families and orderly communities. We demonstrate, in tangible ways, what the kingdom of God looks like. We are to be a city on a hill, a working model of a society under the blessing of God.
This is our task. Not to retreat into a spiritual ghetto, waiting for the rapture, but to advance the kingdom of God on all fronts. Jesus began His ministry by teaching, preaching, and healing. He brought the whole gospel to the whole person. And by His Spirit, He has commissioned us to take that same whole gospel to the whole world, until the knowledge of the glory of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea. That is a kingdom worth giving your life for.