Sunday, 22nd January 2023
Rev Daniel Xi An Poon
Matthew 4:17 says, ‘From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”’
Jesus never taught people how to be a carpenter, but after He was baptised and called by the Father, He went around and taught people about the Kingdom of Heaven. When we are baptised, do we also go around and share the Good News? Or do we just put the name tag of ‘Christian’ then carry on with our old life? The Kingdom of God is not a slogan, but a life we should live out!
We must believe in it, we can live out the Kingdom of God and we can show our next generation the Kingdom of God.
Matthew 4:23 says, ‘And 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.’
If we don’t know the Kingdom of God then we don’t know Jesus. Because this is what Jesus talked about when He was in the world. Jesus gave us a mission, to empty the hell and to fill the Heaven. When we start follow Jesus, the devil won’t be happy, it will try everything to stop us sharing about the Kingdom of Heaven.
Colossians 1:9-14 says, ‘For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.’
Paul was saying here that if we don’t know the Will of God, then after we are baptised and become Christians, we will still live in our old lives. Imagine if Jesus went back to become a carpenter and inherited the family business. We always want to go back to our old lives, to the ways of living that we feel most comfortable with. Jesus believe God so He lived in God’s Way, He chose the new way and this is the Gospel! When we live in a new way, people can see God from our lives. But first we must know where God wants us to go…
Jesus had to start anew when He’s 30 years old. It’s difficult for us to start something new at the age of 30, because by then we would have our career, our knowledge, our skills, our connections… if we are to give up everything we know and do something completely different, to start from zero, how would we feel? Jesus was willing to give up everything and follow God, even His own life.
Before Jesus went on the cross, He had communion with those following Him, He told them that He was willing to break His body for them. Jesus knows what we are going through in our lives, He knows all the sufferings of this world. Nobody promises us a smooth life after we believe in Jesus, but Jesus promises us that we will be healed of all the sufferings and hurts we receive.