Seek First the Kingdom: God’s Invitation to Life and Joy in the Book of MatthewSample

The King’s Inauguration

Most of us live lives of obscurity—learning, serving, and loving in unseen, uncelebrated ways. Jesus wasn’t immune to this common human experience. He grew up in obscurity in a tiny village in Galilee, far removed from the center of Jewish religious life in Jerusalem and the religious leaders of the day—the Pharisees and Sadducees.

We can only imagine Jesus’ childhood. Perhaps He learned woodworking from His carpenter father and played games with His neighborhood friends. We can imagine how He grew in stature, bypassing His mother in height, and how He took pleasure in His hobbies.

The plan wasn’t for Him to remain in obscurity, however. At the appointed time, following the direction of His heavenly Father, Jesus purposefully inched into the spotlight, taking on a public ministry.

Between Matthew 2 and Matthew 3, about twenty-five years have gone by. Matthew 3 describes the beginning of Jesus’ formal ministry. Because He leaves His obscurity behind, willingly seeking the lost for His Father, the world is changed forever.

Read Matthew 3.

The “kingdom of heaven” is an interchangeable phrase for “kingdom of God,” which you may recall from Day One is a people who enjoy God’s provision and rest under His protective power in a specific place. As we follow Jesus’ life, we will continue to uncover different aspects of this definition.

In verses 7-10, John the Baptist specifically addressed the Pharisees and Sadducees. We will see these two groups show up countless times in our study, so it’s important that we get to know them.

The Pharisees (meaning “separated ones”) studied and strictly observed Jewish law, even down to the minutest of rules they’d developed to help them avoid breaking any commandment of God. They were the strictest sect of Judaism and, therefore, often considered themselves holier than others. They gave such attention to outward minutiae that they sometimes lost sight of weightier matters.4

The Sadducees considered themselves true descendants of David’s high priest, Zadok. They had wealth, influence, and political power through cooperation with Rome.

In our reading today, we’ve observed the King’s inauguration—the formal beginning of Jesus’ ministry. John the Baptist served as the King’s herald. He called on people to prepare themselves for God’s Anointed One through repentance, a heart posture worthy of this King. Jesus could not do the work He came to do—to save people from their sins—without people recognizing their need for such a work.

The Pharisees and Sadducees were focused on external rule-keeping but not willing to acknowledge their sin and, therefore, their need for Jesus. Are there areas of your life where you’re more focused on rule-keeping than on dependence upon Jesus? How can you better cultivate reliance on God in those areas of your life?