Lord and Savior Matthew 4:12-23

Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Matt Johnson, January 25, 2026 at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Albia.

In today’s Scripture reading, it says “Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (NRSVue). 

Then at the end it says:  Jesus went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. (NRSVue)

And by doing all that, tons of people started showing up to seek healing. 

In the preceding verses and chapter, Jesus had been baptized and then was immediately tempted by Satan to give up his call to ministry. Instead, Jesus resisted Satan at every turn by quoting the Bible. 

So what does that mean…repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near? How does one proclaim that good news? How is it good and how does it heal people?  Why should I tell others? 

I believe all of this is a blueprint for us as Christians. 

You believe and are baptized. You proclaim yourself as a Christian and you become a full fledged member of the church by getting baptized. It is a very public thing. 

Jesus does this and what happens? Right away, Satan starts messing with him. I can relate to that. I had given up on Christianity for years and when I came back to it and talked about it, immediately, some of my friends started mocking me. They would send me nasty little texts poking fun at it. And then when I announced on Facebook I was going to be preaching here, again, with the jokes and nasty comments about ministers and churches. Some even to my face.

When I was attacked like this, I would complain in private to my wife, who is my best friend and very supportive, but I settled on the words of Jesus: forgive them for they know not what they do. (Luke 23:34, NRSVue). Those words from the Bible were my defense. They helped me. 

Then I began to preach here. And I preached from my heart and gave you what I had found on my journey as someone who had been a Christian, stepped away from Christianity and then came back. I did it in this church to the people of God. That’s you all. I said, here is how a lot of people have understood things, but here is how I understand things and I believe it is very, very good news. 

And for me, that good news has been tremendously healing. Also, finding this Disciples church was, too. As a group we teach, no creed but Christ. That is the rule. I can’t make you agree to understand the Bible the same way I do and vice versa. That gives us a lot of freedom to be ourselves, have our own relationship with God that we define. And because of that, we have a wide variety of folks here who all come together because we follow Jesus. 

So back to our blueprint. Jesus was baptized, tempted, resisted temptation by using the Bible and then began to proclaim repentance. We do that every Sunday with the Lord’s prayer. “Forgive my debts as I forgive my debtors”. That is us saying, God, I have done or thought some wrong things and I am sorry. Please forgive me. I also will forgive others. That is HUGE in this day and age when our typical response to someone who has done or said something wrong is to fight back and fight hard. Jesus is asking us to do something different here. Recognize the sin in yourself and forgive it in others. Soften your heart toward all. Drop the case you have made against them as best you can. As my dad used to say when he was a cop, there but for the grace of God go I. Forgive them for they know not what they do. 

Then what is this good news Jesus is talking about? And how does it heal? And what is with this prophecy? Let me break it down the way I understand it. Some of this will be familiar if you have listened to me before and some it might be new. 

I grew up taking the Bible very literally. I was told it had errors in it by my friends, but I never believed them. I also hung my hat on the prophecies about Jesus. Then, in my late thirties, I decided to see if my friends were right. At first glance, I thought, oh man, they are right. This prophecy quoted here, if you flip back and read it in context, was never meant to be a prophecy about Jesus or the Messiah. This is about Hezekiak! I looked at all the prophecies in Matthew and I found the same thing over and over. They just seemed like cherry picked phrases. I was crushed. And, for me, that was the end of it for many years. I stopped going to church. I felt duped. 

I am here to tell you I was wrong. Especially you young people. I was wrong about the Bible. Yes, these are cherry picked phrases, but I was not understanding them properly. I did not understand what prophecy actually is. Sometimes, yes, it absolutely is about the future, but rarely. Most of the time, prophecy is about truth telling. The prophets, who were women and men, told the children of God, hey, you are messing up and there will be consequences. Get it together before it is too late. And when the Gospels say Jesus is fulfilling a prophecy, what it means is he is rewalking the entire Hebrew Bible, what is referred to among us Christians as the Old Testament. Everything, from him going down to Egypt as a baby then coming back and everything else in his life, he is rewalking the entire Hebrew Bible to show us what its true meaning actually is. Some people will say, and I used to say this too, they don’t even bother with the Old Testament. It's Old. It does not apply to us and it is full of all kinds of crazy rules we do not have to follow. That is why Christians have called it the Old Testament instead of the Hebrew Bible. Jesus says something different. Jesus gives us the key to understanding the Hebrew Bible, which was the only Bible he had and the early church had for a long time, is the Golden Rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That is the key to understanding the entire Bible. He says this in Matthew 7:12, that all the Law and the Prophets, the whole Hebrew Bible, Old Testament or whatever you want to call it, is summed up by the Golden Rule and THAT is how you read it correctly. You do NOT take it literally, but you do take it seriously and the whole thing opens up and makes sense when you read it through the lens of love and as a parable. 

This isn’t me talking. I did not learn this in seminary. I learned it from Jesus simply by reading my Bible. Jesus doubles down even harder throughout the Gospels when he is challenged for allowing the disciples to crush wheat so they can eat on the Sabbath or when he heals people on the Sabbath. Or when he talks about rescuing a lost sheep on the Sabbath. He is saying these rules are stuff you all made up, but the real rule is love. Then he proceeds to teach in parables over and over. 

The idea of taking the Bible literally goes against a major, major teaching of Jesus. He also only affirms five of the ten commandments and they all relate to how we treat people: do not murder, do not cheat on your spouse, don’t steal, don’t lie and honor your parents. Then he adds a sixth one with love your neighbor as yourself. He is asked in Matthew chapter 19 by a rich young ruler how to get into Heaven when he dies, and Jesus doesn’t say believe in me or any of the things Paul says. He says do these six things and you will go to Heaven. Then he says in Luke chapter 10 when asked the same question that you must love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Then he is asked, well, who is my neighbor. Jesus then tells the Parable of the Good Samaritan where a man is beaten and robbed and left for dead and two men of the socalled “right” religion don’t help him, but a man of the socalled “wrong” religion does help him. Jesus is clearly teaching the way to love God is to love your neighbor as yourself and the way to Heaven is love. And everyone on Earth is your neighbor, even the ones you don’t like. 

And you see this universal message from the beginning in Matthew with the story of the Magi, who were wizards from another religion! They know more about what is going on and what to do about it than the people living in Israel at the time, including all the religious leaders. Have you ever thought about that? Why are they there in the story? It’s a powerful statement. They are there to say there is truth in all religions and that truth, like Jesus says in Matthew 7:12, is the Golden Rule which is found in all religions. You can peel everything else away that does not fit with the Golden Rule and there you will find God in all places, times and cultures. These wizards know why Jesus is there and they proceed to save Jesus, Mary and Joseph. It’s a powerful statement. They have studied everything in the world and are highly educated in all things mystical and it not only brings them to Jesus, they are the ones to save Jesus. I relate to this big time. I studied everything, all religions and afterlife studies and it brought my right back to Jesus. Karl Rahner has said “the Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all.”1 I’ve quoted that before, but I stand by it. We must look at this book through the lens of love or we will never understand it and miss out on all it has to offer. Many have lost the Bible by taking it literally and becoming atheists or they become fanatics and those fanatics drive people away from the Bible. If that has happened to you, I am here to give it back to you. 

The first three Gospels have Jesus teaching this way of love and then the Gospel of John is very different at first glance. It seems to be saying you must believe in Jesus specifically to get into Heaven. When I first saw this difference between the first three Gospels and John, I thought as many do, well, that is a major contradiction. Then I looked again after reading 1 John where the same writer who clearly tells us that Jesus is God also says God is love. 1 John is the key to understanding the Gospel of John and once you understand that, it flows perfectly with the message of the other three Gospels where Jesus teaches love is the way to eternal life. Jesus is literally love and love is the only name by which you may be saved. Jesus is the Word and that Word is love. 

I have also come to realize that the major contradictions in the Bible are taking place when humans contradict God. And Jesus is teaching this over and over and trying to get us to see it. The Bible will say one thing and then that thing will get corrected later on. For example, Ezra and Nehemiah both teach that the Jews are forbidden to have foreign wives. Later, Ruth teaches that is wrong. It is a powerful lesson not only on racism, but that sometimes the Bible has teachings in it that are from humans and not from God and we need to be able to see the difference which is exactly what Jesus teaches. And it continues as soon as Jesus is gone with the disciples. Sometimes, Paul or Peter are great and are doing or saying great things. And sometimes, they completely contradict what Jesus said or make up new rules about women, gender or alcohol that Jesus either never spoke about or said or did something completely different. John does not do this and neither does James, Jesus’ half brother. In fact, the book of James is a rebuke of Paul and an attempt to get things focused back on the teachings of Jesus which are far simpler and far more loving. Paul’s writings followed up by James are a powerful lesson for us to stay focused on Jesus when people try to muddy his message. No creed but Christ. It all belongs in the Bible for that reason. 

And when you find other things, like the family trees in Matthew and Luke or other stories in the Gospels that don’t quite line up, don’t let that mess you up. Different people are going to recall or tell the same events differently. We know that from our own lives. And that is OK. It’s normal. 

With all that said, I actually do strongly believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, warts and all. In fact, the warts are what make it amazing to me. It was written by humans, of course there is going to be some wild stuff in here. Jesus shows us how to read it through the lens of love, through the Golden Rule and through his teachings in parables. You don’t throw out the baby with the bath water and you learn to see the amazing things from God in there. When you know how to read the Bible, it opens up and it speaks to you. It guides you. There is a reason this book is the most popular book in the history of humanity. God could have allowed for any other book to have that status, but that is not the case. That honor belongs to this book and because of that, I strongly believe we should take it very seriously. 

So the good news in here is that love is the way. From Genesis to Revelation. In this book and all other books. God is extremely fair. God is not casting people into Hell for having the wrong religion or no religion or any other reason you can think of that Paul listed that Jesus never, ever said. No. Love is the way to eternal life. Jesus teaches that very plainly in all four Gospels. And Jesus continues to appear to countless people in near death experiences to this day and keeps saying the same thing. He never rejects anyone for who or what they are. He just tells them to love. Just like it says in the Gospels. And then the rest of the New Testament is the story of the early church sometimes getting that message right and sometimes getting it wrong. And that is going to happen. Christians have been doing that ever since. It all belongs in the Bible to teach us that.

Why am I teaching you all this? I am teaching you all this because sooner or later someone is going to try and take your faith away. Or you will be up googling the Bible and find all sorts of folks saying it is nonsense. It is NOT nonsense. Far from it. 

Then you might become an atheist and lose all of this power for good in the world and your own life. Or, just as bad, you might become a fanatic and use the Bible as a weapon to bludgeon people and take away the freedom that Jesus gives us or scare them into thinking that because they are women, they should not be leaders or not even speak, or because they are a different  gender that there is something wrong with them when Jesus never said any of that at all. In fact, Jesus promotes women and acknowledges eunuchs. He even says that when we are in Heaven, there is no such thing as gender. When he meets the woman at the well who has been married 5 times and is living with her boyfriend, he is kind to her. He does not condemn her. The purpose of that story is him revealing that he is the Messiah. He does this psychic reading telling her about her whole life and it blows her mind and she is excited and tells others. Again, no creed but Christ. When Jesus speaks, we listen. When Paul, Peter or anyone else speaks, if they agree with Jesus, we listen. When they don’t, we don’t. Or when they start making up extra rules, it is up to us what we do with that. No creed but Christ. They were humans just like us and they were misunderstanding Jesus all the TIME when they were with him. Why would we think they would do any better once he was gone? The history of Christianity is proof that people have misunderstood and continue to misunderstand Jesus because they don’t read the Bible or they don’t know how to read the Bible. As Jesus said to the religious authorities of his time, they know not the Scriptures or the power of God. 

I used to think the Bible was very contradictory and that is why there are so many different types of churches out there and none of them agree. I have recently come to the conclusion that is not true. I think if you read the Bible the way Jesus clearly teaches us how to read it as I have taught in this sermon, it totally starts to make sense and it totally goes along with the Jesus people keep seeing in near death experiences, which I firmly am convinced are beyond dispute at this point. God is real, the afterlife is real, Jesus is real and he is still appearing to people saying the same things in this Bible. 

I used to be all fired up about this even recently thinking, oh man, I have to tell people about this as soon as possible! I have to write all this down now! And I am and I did and I will keep doing it. But then I thought, calm down Matt. You didn’t find some secret sauce other people can’t find. Just like you found it in the Bible, someone else can too. That being said, this is my unique ministry and one of the reasons I know I am called to preach and teach the Bible. But if I died and all my work was lost, someone somewhere with a Bible would find it again. The key to understanding this amazing, unique book is right there if we just actually listen to what Jesus said. 

Again, I tell you all these things so you will be strong as Christians. I want to prepare you for the attacks your faith will definitely face or maybe have already faced. Don’t ever let anyone tell you different. This Bible is your guide in life as a Christian. It comes from God. Read it daily if you can through the lens of love. When you wake up and before you go to bed, say the Lord’s Prayer as Jesus taught us to do. Or whenever you are having negative emotions or thoughts, pray the Lord’s Prayer over and over until you are at peace. And be sure to go to church every Sunday if you can in person or at least online to hit the reset button on your life and be with other people on the same path as yourself. 

The world needs Christians who know what they believe and why they believe it following the way of love as Jesus taught now more than ever. You believe these things not only because they were taught to you by your parents, but because they are good, they are true and they work. If more people truly follow what Jesus said to do…to love your neighbor as yourself…then a lot of our perceived differences that are causing us so much trouble would melt away. 

To recap, that is the good news. That is what heals people. Love. Forgiveness. Kindness. Going to church. Prayer. Reading your Bible through the lens of love as Jesus taught. Understanding what the Bible is and is not. Knowing that you WILL see your loved ones again and that none are lost, but we go on and on. 

I hope this helps you. I want you to be strong. I want this especially for our young people, but also for us folks who are older. Be strong in this. It’s real. All of it. And if we don’t agree 100% on what I said here, that’s OK. We are Disciples. We are free to agree to disagree. No creed but Christ. 

Oh and one more thing. Why did I call this sermon “Lord and Savior”? Well, those are Christian terms that sound strange to nonChristians. Maybe they even sound odd to Christians. I bring them up because they are an example of things we should have an answer for when someone asks. To me, Jesus is my Lord because he is the guide of my life. I am going to do what Jesus says. He has the words of eternal life: love. Jesus is my savior because his teachings save me from my former ways of anger, hatred, selfishness and all those negative traits we all possess. Whenever I am about to do or think one of those things, Jesus is there to steer me back toward the way of love. What would Jesus do? I think that to myself and then I hopefully do what Jesus would do instead of what I would do and things are better for myself and others. Amen. 

Now, before we do our Hymn of Invitation, I am pretty sure everyone here is Christian at this point, but you never know, plus, we have all kinds of folks watching online. So, just in case, I am going to lead you in a prayer right now. Because to me, it seems crazy to preach about the good news of the kingdom of heaven without giving people a chance to pray this prayer. That’s just the evangelist in me that will never go away. 

If you want to become a Christian or rededicate your life as a Christian, pray with me now: 

“God, thank you for loving me no matter what. I want to follow the way of love, the way of Jesus. I want to be a Christian. I confess I have not always lived according to your way of love. Thank you for forgiving all the things I have done that are not good and wiping the slate clean and giving me a second chance. I want to love you God and love my neighbor as myself. I understand my neighbor is everyone on planet Earth, even people I don’t like. Especially them. I believe you are real God and that Jesus is real. I know I will see my loved ones again because of your never ending, never ceasing universal love for all humans everywhere in all time, places and cultures regardless of race, creed or no creed at all. From this day forward, I declare myself to be a Christian and will follow Jesus’ way of love. I declare Jesus is my Lord and Savior. He is the Lord of my life in that he is my guide on how to live and he is my Savior because saves me from my former ways to a new way grounded in love. In Jesus Name, Amen.”

1. Karl Rahner, Concern For the Church, Vol. 20: Theological Investigations (Herder and Herder, 1981).