Quick review:  In yesterday's devotion, we saw the dawning of a new age: the long-anticipated coming of God’s kingdom had finally arrived. The event that almost all the Old Testament prophets prophesied about throughout the centuries preceding the New Testament had now come to fruition, but not in the way it had been anticipated. Jesus was the kingdom personified. So, as we look at Jesus’s life, we see the true meaning and operation of God’s kingdom. Through Jesus, we have been given the model of what the kingdom of God looks like in action.

1.      JESUS’ EARLY GALILEAN MINISTRY

• Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus began his public ministry when he was about thirty years old, sometime during the years AD 27–28. 
• Jesus left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. It was here, in Galilee of the Gentiles, that the one who was to be the light of the Gentiles (Is 11:1) began to declare that the time had come. The kingdom of God was at hand. He admonished people everywhere to repent and believe the good news.
• John the Baptist had also said that the kingdom of God was at hand (Mt 3:1), but the Greek word angiken ('near') can have the sense of almost there (like getting off the freeway exit) or actually there (pulling into the driveway).
• John's 'near' was the former and Jesus' the latter.
• This would put John and Jesus in two different eons, John in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New.
• The baton was now officially passed. Malachi’s great and terrible Day of the Lord had arrived at just the right time.
• Now, at last, Yahweh was returning to Israel. The term 'kingdom of God' was generally understood as the time when God would return to Israel as King. It would have been understood as a code word connoting a whole complex of ideas, all falling under the concept of revolution.
• For many people, the perception was that Herod was a false king, Pilate was a false king, Caesar was a false king. The cry of Israel was that there was no king but God.
• What a Jew of the first century would have understood when they heard that the kingdom of God was at hand was that:

           1.      God was returning to Zion as reigning King

           2.      The enemies of God (i.e., Rome) were being defeated

           3.      The temple would be cleansed (since Herod’s temple was defiled and under judgment)

           4.      Israel’s sins were being forgiven and that the exile was coming to an end; no longer would they be slaves in their own land

• Thus clearly, Jesus saw a whole different side to what it meant for the kingdom of God to be upon them.
• This meant that he now had to begin redefining the kingdom of God, because the kingdom would not look like what most of the Jews expected.
•  When the Pharisees noted the discrepancy, Jesus said, 'The kingdom of God is within you' or 'among you.'
• The sense of 'among you' is best explained in this context. The kingdom of God was breaking in all around them, but because they were locked into their worldview, they failed to recognize the hour of God’s visitation and would experience Malachi’s Day of the Lord not as a great day but as a terrible day.
• Jesus began his redefinition exercises by reiterating John’s answer to the question of what Israel must do to receive the kingdom: she had to turn from the old way of being Israel. She had to repent by putting away their fleshly, human attempts at being the people of God, as well as their tendencies toward nationalistic violence, which made them like the other nations of the earth rather than torchbearers.
•  Interestingly, Jesus’ way forward would involve neither the temple nor the law. What way would this be? At the very least, a way that would be scandalous and which could get a man killed.
• In the Synoptic Gospels, we see Jesus making his first steps to gather the new Israel when he called some fishermen from Galilee—brothers named Andrew and Cephas, James and John—to leave their nets to follow him.
• In Luke’s account of this story, Jesus told the brothers, who had fished all night and had caught nothing, to go back out into the deep water to let down their nets for a catch. Deferring to the new rabbi, even though he was a landlubber, the men did as Jesus asked.
• They caught so many fish their nets began to break. In their utter joy and exhaustion, Jesus announced to them that from that moment on they would be catching 'men.'
• Luke combines the normal word for 'catch' with a verb that means 'to live.' The import was that Jesus was going to show his followers how to catch men and women to show them how to be fully alive.
• Jesus said, John 10:10 'I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.' Only the followers of Jesus, then, would experience the release into what it means to be truly human.
• Mark shows Jesus taking these men and going into the synagogue on the Sabbath for an inaugural lesson on what it meant that the kingdom of God was 'at hand.'
• He had begun to multiply himself. It was now time to teach these men what it meant to rule—and it began with a lesson on who, or what, the real enemy was.
• Mark 1:21–28: They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out, 'What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!' 'Be quiet!' said Jesus sternly. 'Come out of him!' The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, 'What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him.' News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.
•  A group of demons manifested in a man in the synagogue because of the light of Jesus’ presence, and they cried out, 'What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?'
• Jesus took authority over the lead demon, rebuking it and commanding it to be silent. He then cast the whole lot of them out with a word.
• The language of 'rebuke' and 'silence' is intended to call to mind Yahweh’s 'war' against the Ancient Near East powers that is so easily won that it might again be called the unbattle.
• The demons knew exactly who he was and what he had come to do. The lead demon asked him straight up, 'Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God!'
• In Jesus’ command to 'be silent' we see something else of significance. From this point on, until the confession of the disciples later in the story, the only ones who really know who Jesus is are the demons, and Jesus here forbids them to make his identity known. His strategy was that his followers would get it for themselves. The future of the gospel mission would depend on it.
• The people were amazed. They had never heard teaching like this—with authority and power. Mark begins his gospel this way to make a point. In the ministry of Jesus, the devil was being defeated. This incident was but a mere prelude to the symphony.
•  An almost dizzying series of healings and deliverances followed this early encounter with Satan, showing the presence and power of the kingdom. After healing Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever, it says the whole town gathered at the door as he healed many with various diseases and cast out many demons.
•  Matthew sums up Jesus’ meteoric rise to fame, saying: Matt 4:23–24 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them.
• In Mark’s gospel, these signs and wonders are reminiscent of the defeat of the gods of Egypt in the first exodus and are part of Isaiah’s new exodus expectations.
• In the first exodus, Yahweh rose up as the Warrior to defeat his enemies, forgive his people’s sins, and walk with them on 'the way' to the Promised Land.
• In Isaiah’s prophecies to Israel in exile, he likens their deliverance to a new exodus as well.
• Yahweh will once again appear as the Warrior, bringing healing and deliverance, and will then journey with them as their Shepherd on 'the way' back to the Promised Land.
• The key to this journey will be the work of Isaiah’s Servant, who will have God’s Spirit on him and will bring healing and release to Israel, defeat God’s enemies, and bring justice to the nations.
• Mark sees their fulfillment in Jesus.
• Glossing over the events above, Luke chose to begin his rendition of Jesus’ public ministry by recounting a story that occurred in his hometown of Nazareth, sometime within his first year of ministry.
• Luke 4:14–21 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 'The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.' Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, 'Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.'
• In summary, he was declaring that he was the Anointed One, the very one of whom Isaiah had prophesied.
• And that the evidence of this was seen in the power of the Spirit that he was now filled with.
• And because of this, a new era of exodus was upon them.
• The Greek word for salvation is “sozo” and is used to describe healing and deliverance as well as forgiveness of sins. Jesus had come to bring salvation for the whole person.
• It meant Jesus came not just to save a person’s spirit, but his soul and body as well.
• It means Jesus came to deliver them from demons, care for the poor, bring social justice to the oppressed, provide for those who are destitute, and even raise the dead.
• New Testament salvation is holistic and, as such, is tied to the Old Testament’s concept of shalom, peace.
• When the angels declared at Jesus’ birth, 'Peace on earth,' this was what they were referring to—the long-awaited salvation from the enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. 

2.     JESUS GETS IN TROUBLE

• The first gauntlet in the war having been thrown down, one would expect that Satan would quickly begin his counterattack. Beginning in chapter two, Mark presents his readers with a series of encounters with Jewish religious authorities who were trying to catch Jesus doing something 'wrong'—and it didn’t take long.
• Remember the wonderful story of Jesus’ healing of a paralytic lowered down through the roof of a house by four friends; Jesus was caught 'blaspheming' by claiming that he could forgive sins.
• This is significant, because forgiveness could only be obtained at the temple, but Jesus was now functioning as the new, living temple and was offering forgiveness on his own accord as the true sanctuary of God. This act alone was subversive enough to trigger Jesus’ demise.
• Then Jesus met and called Levi, the disciple that would be called Matthew, which led to Jesus being seen eating with those who were ritually unclean such as tax collectors, 'sinners,' and the like.
• When challenged, Jesus said,
• Mk 2:17 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.'
• In making such a statement, Jesus was reserving the right to define the members of the new Israel. The real offense was that he was offering a return from exile outside of the existing religious structures to all the wrong people on his own authority.
• Add to that, Jesus and his disciples were next caught ignoring one of the fast days prescribed by the oral law of the rabbis. Jesus explained that while the bridegroom was here it was time to celebrate, not fast. In so doing, Jesus was demonstrating his authority over the law. This too was nothing short of blasphemy in the minds of the religious leaders.
• The final straw came from Jesus’ failure to comply with the oral laws defining how to avoid working on the Sabbath, which was forbidden in the law of Moses. When Jesus and his disciples picked the heads of grain on the Sabbath because they were hungry, Jesus used as his justification the precedent set by David, who had acted like a priest by eating the sacred bread from the altar of sacrifice. In doing so, David had reenacted the ministry of Adam, the first king-priest, and anticipated the ministry of Jesus, the last King-Priest.
• Jesus then made a shocking statement to the Jewish officials. He informed them that he was the Lord of the Sabbath. This was a clear deistic statement.
• Crispin Fletcher-Louis, a noted scholar, clarifies the meaning here by pointing out that in the temple the priests were able to work on the Sabbath because when they were in the temple they existed outside of time and space. They were doing God’s work in an Adam-like way in an Eden-like environment outside of the realm of sin that imposed labor laws.
• Jesus’ seemingly blasphemous words, that he was the Lord of the Sabbath, revealed that Jesus was redefining the temple to be where he was. Thus, the Galilean cornfield now had the legal status of a temple!
• It is interesting to note here that of all the terms that Jesus could have used for himself (Messiah, Lord, Son of God, etc.), the name he selected was son of man.
• This term in the Old Testament is used in every case to mean a human being, except for Daniel’s high priestly figure who received an eternal kingdom from the Ancient of Days.
• This made it the perfect self-designation. People would have assumed that by the term he was using, he meant it in a general sense, but as we will see, he will refer to himself as Daniel’s son of man at his trial.
• In another incident, Jesus was accused of working when he healed a man with a withered hand in the midst of synagogue worship. Mark tells us that from that time on, the Pharisees and the Herodians plotted to kill Jesus (Mk 3:6).
• What is amazing is that the Pharisees and the Herodians are two groups that hated each other. Only a common threat jeopardizing both of their political agendas could have joined these strange bedfellows.
• As a result of all these infractions, the Jews in power began to make their case against Jesus.
• Scot McKnight (McKnight 2005) lists seven accusations that spanned Jesus’ life and ministry that were attempts to lower his social status and erode his credibility at the popular level. Any one of these could have led to his death.

1.   Jesus was a lawbreaker, at odds with the Pharisaical oral law in such areas as the Sabbath and table fellowship (he ate with 'tax collectors and sinners').
2. Jesus was accused of being in league with the devil (Beelzebub). Because he did miracles and was a lawbreaker, the only logical explanation was that he did miracles by the power of the devil.
3. Jesus was accused of being a 'glutton and drunkard.' The technical category of someone being a 'rebellious son' was spelled out in Deuteronomy 21:18–21. This was the legal category behind the phrase 'friend of tax collectors and sinners,' a 'crime' which Jesus was alleged to have committed throughout his ministry.
4. Jesus was accused of being a blasphemer. The criteria for being declared a blasphemer are not entirely clear, but the language Jesus used and the claims he made were outside the accepted boundaries for what was considered reverent Jewish behavior.
5. Jesus was accused of being a false prophet, which meant he was to be judged much like a rebellious son (according to Deuteronomy 13:2–6 and 18:15–22) and put to death by stoning.
6. Jesus was accused of asserting that he was the King of the Jews, the crime for which he was crucified that was listed in the sign placed on the cross.
7. Jesus was accused of being an illegitimate son when he was referred to as 'Mary’s son'—a reference to his birth out of wedlock. People knew that he was not Joseph’s son. The question was, who had Mary slept with? A query that the family and Jesus would never shake. Such a man could never be the Messiah, even if he was in the line of David. This stigma in an honor/shame society cannot be underestimated in the overall picture of why Jesus was crucified.

3. THE TRAINING OF THE TWELVE

•  As the conflict with the religious leaders intensified, Jesus abandoned the synagogues of Galilee, never to return.
• He now began the life of an itinerant teacher, traveling throughout the region preaching the good news of the kingdom, healing the sick, and freeing the demonized.
• It is at this point in his ministry that he chose from among his followers twelve who would now travel with him. Yoked as apprentices, they watched and listened intently because Jesus’ goal was to send them forth to do the same things he was doing in the same way he was doing them.
• Jesus chose twelve to be with him, representing the new Israel of God, who had twelve tribes. The disciples were now being groomed to be a kingdom of priests, to be sent out to fulfill Israel’s vocation as priests to the nations and a holy nation.
• The symbolism here is telling: Jesus is the new tabernacle filled with the glory of God, and the twelve 'tribes' of the new Israel are encamped around him, moving when he moves, stopping when he stops, worshipping God at all times as the one who had come to dwell among them. Through Jesus, God was reconstituting Israel and restoring Israel’s mission to the nations.
• In Matthew’s account, as I said earlier, he portrays Jesus as the next Moses and deliberately structures his book by the opening story of Moses. Baptized in the Jordan (the parting of the Red Sea), off to the wilderness to be tempted (forty years in the wilderness), then coming to Mount Sinai to receive the law (Sermon on the Mount now becomes the new Torah).
• When the twelve were ready, Jesus sent them out two by two to announce the coming of God’s kingdom and to demonstrate God’s rule by healing the sick and casting out demons in preparation for the coming of Jesus to those towns. Jesus’ disciples would henceforth be designated apostles — 'sent ones!'
• They were to symbolize the missionary people of God. After the transfiguration, Luke’s Jesus would also send out seventy others with the same commission.
• This number, seventy, is also symbolic, like the number twelve. Seventy points back to the number of elders who shared in the Spirit-filled ministry of Moses (Num 11).
• Like those elders who operated under Moses’ anointing, Jesus’ seventy operated under his.
• As they healed and delivered, Luke tells us that Jesus saw Satan falling from heaven like lightning in defeat.
• Through all the Spirit-filled followers down through the ages, God would continue to set things right through them by winning, healing, delivering, liberating, judging, teaching, and imparting.
• And one day the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
• Paul would reflect this same theological thinking when he exhorted the church in Rome through his writing in Rom 16:20 'May the God of peace soon crush Satan under your feet.'

4. LEARNING TO PRAY

• In light of Jesus’ understanding of the kingdom, he taught his disciples how to pray the prayer that he most likely prayed. This is significant because it gave them the tools they needed as his disciples to fulfill the mission Jesus had given them.
• Matt 6:9-13 'This, then, is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'

A.   Our Father

• In light of the insights pointed out earlier, Jesus was teaching his apprentices to address God directly as their Papa. They were being invited into the same intimacy and oneness with Papa that Jesus had. The vertical relationship lost in the Garden was now being restored.
• The use of 'our' indicates that Israel had truly been reconstituted, as the prophets had said, and that the people of God were welcomed collectively into his presence to pray the same prayer, thereby aligning with God’s vocational call on them and all who would join them.
• Because Israel was to be the people of God for the world, as seen when Jesus cleared the temple of money changers both at the beginning and end of his ministry:
• Mark 11:15-17 On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, 'Is it not written: My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of robbers.'
• Israel was always meant to be God’s instrument to reach the entire world, which included the Gentiles as well.

B.    Who is in heaven

• This phrase recognizes that there is an unseen realm all around us.

C.  Sanctify your name

• The traditional rendering 'hallowed' as a description of the heavenly Father’s name does not render the Greek accurately. This word, meaning 'to make holy', is not only a verb but is in the imperative form, thus rendering it as a command.
• It should be translated, therefore, 'sanctify!' meaning 'make holy'.
• Jesus was inviting his disciples to join him in petitioning God to work on the earth in such a way that people’s eyes would be opened to God so that fear, awe, and reverence of the Lord would return to the land.
• So, in a sense, it’s a call to worship God in preparation for the end of exile that Jesus was initiating.

D.  Let your kingdom come, your will be done

• This was the way Jesus phrased his petition that his Father, Yahweh, would return to Zion as King and all that represented.
• It was a petition for shalom, the salvation of God to come to Israel for the sake of the world.
• And later it would be prayed by the Gentiles who had been grafted into the vine of God’s people, to use Paul’s metaphor (Rom 11:17).
• Through this prayer, Jesus reveals the most important value of his heart: that God would once more rule this world and set right all that had gone wrong.
• The kingdom’s coming would certainly involve the forgiveness of sins and salvation for those whose hearts would become circumcised through faith in Christ.
• It would also mean the prophetic crushing of the serpent’s head through healing, deliverance, and the fixing of whatever else Satan had corrupted.
• To pray the kingdom in means having a clear picture of what God wants, what is wrong, and what needs to be done.
• It is important to know that the kingdom’s coming is God’s will. God doesn’t will the world to look as it does. The world as it is, is not shalom.
• But, as we shall learn, we must be willing to let the Father’s will prevail in bringing the kingdom, because it is easy to assume that shalom should look one way, while God’s will is that it should come in another. Thus, in praying this dangerous prayer, one must settle it forever that as King, God reserves the right to define the good.

E.    On earth as it is in heaven

• This is an important focal point for the mental vision of what we are praying for, so that we will be in alignment with the will of God in inviting the kingdom.
•  The Bible doesn’t tell us a lot about what heaven is like, but we can see it clearly in what Jesus reveals about the Father and the Father’s will in how he lived his life.
• In order to have a clear mental picture of what we are asking, it is best to read the Gospels very closely to study the prayers of Jesus and to see how Jesus set the world at rights.
• It is critical to read the book of Acts to see how the apostles describe the good news.
• It is imperative to read the epistles to see what life among God’s people is supposed to look like, as the apostles worked from their mental picture as they scratched their kingdom vision onto their parchments.
• When we are praying for the coming of the kingdom, then, let us get it into our heads that we are literally praying heaven down.
• It is the prelude to the symphony that will resound in the book of Revelation as new creation dawns into the real world in which we live.
• The fact that heaven is coming down to earth turns on its head the notion that our future hope is going up to heaven.
• Heaven is that place God’s people go to be with him before the fulfillment of the new creation. We are to pray that existence down.
• The prayer, 'Let your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven,' is the most revolutionary prayer a Christian can offer to God and is contrary to what most Christians believe about the afterlife—a belief gleaned from popular culture and not from Scripture.
• Our future hope is not heaven. Our future hope is a renewed heaven and a renewed earth brought together.

F.    Give us this day our daily bread

• As we step out to do kingdom prayer and kingdom work, we are going to need provision. Jesus was an itinerant preacher with nowhere to lay his head. He trusted the Lord daily for his provision, so it makes perfect sense that this would be one of his daily prayers.
• This petition includes more than just sustenance—it includes every good gift that comes from above that Jesus would need to advance the kingdom against the forces of darkness.
• Jesus never knew what gifts from the Spirit he would need on any given day. Would he need gifts to heal the sick, care for the poor, discernment to cast out demons, or the proper Scriptures to be brought back to mind to ward off temptation?
• One scholar, Jeremias, phrased it this way: 'Give us tomorrow’s bread today.'

G.   Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors

• Kingdom work will be fraught with attack and trouble. Very early on in his ministry, Jesus spoke to mixed crowds, some of whom wanted to kill him. He had legitimate grounds to be angry and expressed that very human emotion on more than one occasion—but he never gave in to becoming bitter or giving Satan legal access to him. This is how John’s Jesus could say, John 14:30, 'He has nothing in me.'
• While not Jesus’ experience, since he had never sinned, forgiveness of others thankfully keeps a continual flow of forgiveness coming our way from the Father.

H.   Don’t let us succumb to temptation but deliver us from the evil one

• As those who are repentant and doing kingdom work, receiving kingdom provision, and walking daily in forgiveness—thus receiving a continual flow of grace from the Father—we will join Jesus by picking up our crosses and sharing with him in his sufferings.
• The temptation that Jesus would have been praying about was that which he knew was coming upon him, since he had warded off the devil’s attacks in the wilderness.
• He knew that Satan had left him 'until an opportune time' (Lk 4:13).
• Jesus knew that this opportune time was coming, and it is possible that he believed this coming time of trouble would be the inauguration of the time of great tribulation that Daniel saw coming to the world, when the saints would be handed over to a beast of great evil for 'times, time, and half a time' (Dan 7:25).
• He saw himself absorbing the blow of this 'final ordeal' but taught his disciples to pray that if they were touched by the evil one in the time of trouble—of which all lesser trials are but a shadow—they should pray that they would not succumb in such an hour.
• It was certainly Jesus’ prayer, and thankfully, as we shall see, God answered his prayer.