The genre of dystopian fiction has been and continues to be popular in society with cult classics like The Matrix, books like 1984, or TV shows like The Handmaid's Tale or Severance. We are people obsessed with stories that tell us about a fate that has gone from bad to worse. For those of you who aren't unfamiliar with the term dystopian, think of utopia as a perfect world and think of the opposite. It is a place of distortion, destruction, and extreme evil. It's difficult to say whether we as a society like these stories as a form of horror or if we think that they feel prophetic or if they rightly share the truth of the world that it isn't right and that it needs to be changed. The temptation we face is that we think of our generation as far worse than the last, as if the fall didn't spiral the world into decay, but it was some other factor. The story of the Bible is one that tells us of a dystopian world, one of our own making, one that we live in today where paradise was lost and God is on a mission to make it right. The person of Jesus, the one who makes this world right, we see that he is recovering this world from its bleak borders and bringing about his kingdom on earth. In this text this morning, we see Jesus beginning this recovery mission, seeing that the kingdom of heaven is brought near. We see this in this passage in his announcement of the kingdom, his call for apprentices of the kingdom and his administration of the kingdom. This will serve as our outline this morning. You can follow along in your bulletins, but Matthew is showing us this, that the kingdom of heaven brings about life and we will see that to be true in our three points. Please look at me at our first point, the announcement of the kingdom, looking at verses 12 to 17. The passage opens up by telling us that John the Baptist has been arrested. It sounds as though Jesus is trying to hide as a result, thinking that this word withdraws Jesus hiding. The historian Josephus says that John was likely prisoned for political reasons, that Herod and to pass, the ruler of the region believed that John was going to build a rebellion against his rule. If this is true, Jesus doesn't actually move out of Herod's region. Instead, he moves into the center of it, he moves to Galilee. So Jesus is, the term withdraw makes it seem like he is hiding, but the text tells us otherwise. He's moving into the center of Herod's region. Others think that Jesus left Nazareth because he had been rejected by the people of Nazareth. This is what Luke's gospel tells us. But Matthew doesn't record this for us. Instead, according to Matthew, the reason that Jesus withdrew is for Jesus to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah 9, where the prophet tells us that light will dawn on the place where darkness came first. What I mean by this is that the Assyrian captivity in 732 BC began with the capture of Zebulun and Naftali, which is where Galilee is. We can read of this in 2 Kings 1529, which says that Assyria came and captured Galilee and Naftali. And so the prophet Isaiah, inspired by the spirit, pens that a day will come where the light will dawn on the place where darkness first consumed it. I want you to think of the most savage and oppressive government in your hearts and minds. As you think about that, you should maybe multiply that by two. That was the hand of the Assyrians. They were people that were known for stacking human heads as psychological warfare. They would flail human leaders alive and they would burn babies in front of their enemies. This is what the people of Israel were under. This was the darkness that loomed over them. And though Israel, the people of God had returned from exile, they are living and dwelling back in the land, they are still under a new and different oppressor. They are under the thumb of Rome. And so Jesus arrives announcing his kingdom, which is the fulfillment of this prophecy. That a new day will dawn and this day has arrived. That's what Jesus is saying here. That Israel will know the light. That Gentiles will know the light. That those who are not even Jewish will come to know the light. That the world would know that the king has come. This is what Jesus is saying about himself. What he says is, repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The word kingdom that's translated for us here in the Greek word, basileia, can also mean rain. The rain of the Messiah has arrived. Jesus is saying, I'm here, repent, turn from your kingdom, from your sin and turn to me. We know that it was the failure of Israel that brought them into their captivity. It was their failure to obey God's law, their failure to reveal God to the nations, their failure to love God and to know him and to be led to him. So Jesus presents a solution here. He says, the solution is repentance. Turn from your sin, turn from your failures and turn to me, the true king. The one who obeys, the one who brings about obedience for his subjects. Like the region of Naphtali and Zebulon, we can feel like we are those who live in the midst of grave darkness. That we are in a nation or region that is lost. But the truth is, church, the light of Christ has dawned. He is making all things new and he is doing this through me and you. In a few weeks we will see that if we are Christ's subjects, we too are his light. We are to embody Christ to the world. The light of Christ shines where his people are. For this land to be rid of its darkness, it needs Christ. It must turn from its sin and turn to the king. And so if you are a person who is yet to do that this morning, if you are unrepentant, my call to you is to turn to Christ today. The world is dark. It rejects God and his word. It rejects Jesus at king. And that rejection is what leads them to the dystopian realities that we live in. Godlessness is the problem, particularly Christlessness. It is not like you can substitute some other false God for the one true God. The people of Israel, they did that. And that is what caused the looming cloud of darkness in the first place. So whether this looming cloud feels like it is right over you as if you are in this comic strip or if it is a storm that is raging all around you, the answer is repentance. King to Jesus and believing in him. And each place and person who lives with him and knows him as king, they know the light. They know that the clouds of Mordor are dismissed. That doom and gloom of this world, they start to dissipate because the light of Christ shines. It's like the pollutants in the air are given this amazing HEPA filter and it starts to clear the things that are choking out life around them. And true life is given. If you want to know that life today, turn to Jesus. Turn from your sin, turn from yourself being king or queen and submit yourself to the Lord. For those of you who have repented, who know Jesus as Lord, we are subjects of the kingdom. And my encouragement to you is to turn away from doomsday thoughts. Instead, we can pray in faith for the light of Christ to shine brighter, for God to change lives as he does, that he would do this in the life of officials, in the life of neighbors, in the life of family members. And that God would change lives as he only can. This light of Christ would be more than just a splitting of a cloud that acts like a spotlight. Instead, that it would shine brighter and more fully. That we would fully see the light of Christ in our homes, in our grocery stores and beyond. But this does begin with prayer. Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter 2, he tells us to pray for all people that they would come to the knowledge of God. And so may we pray that we pray that people would turn to the king. But we must know that that turning to Jesus as Lord does come at a cost. It isn't just a flip of the switch. Nothing changes in your life. We see this to be true in our next point in the life of the disciples. Look at me at verses 18 to 22, the apprenticeship of the kingdom. Look at verse 18. Jesus is now walking by the Sea of Galilee and he calls for men to follow him. These men, for those who are churched, we know their names well. We call them the disciples of Jesus. Peter, Andrew, James and John. Some commentators say that these men would have interacted with Jesus before this moment, having some knowledge of his teaching and his deeds. We don't see that in this passage. Instead, what we were told is that these men were fishermen. They were just trying to make their living in their called occupations. And Jesus calls them away from their occupations and from their families, all to follow Jesus. And so what do they do? The text tells us that both pairs of brothers immediately got up and they followed Jesus. The call of Christ for these men was to leave their livelihood and their families. For many of us to follow Jesus doesn't come at the exact same cost, but for some it does. There are some who are called out of their vocations into ministries, whether to be pastors or to be missionaries. There are others who are called out of sinful vocations to come to Christ. We are seeing this in droves where people are leaving sinful vocations like the pornography industry and repenting and coming to know the Lord Jesus. There are others in different religious traditions, which leaving that religious tradition costs them their families. This is true for those in Islam and Hinduism. I've seen it for myself. For me though, the cost of following Jesus was most drastically felt with my friends. When I came to Christ, when I came to faith, my friends were men that I loved, but they walked contrary to Christ and they blasphemed the name of God. They chose to show how opposed they were to God. As much as I spoke about Jesus, as much as I sought to love them, their hatred of me, but ultimately their hatred of God was so clear. And each text or call that I gave was met with emptiness and no replies. The cost for me was losing their companionship, but Christ was better. This radical abandonment was for the sake of radical obedience. That was true for the disciples and it should be true for us. For most of you in this room, you might not need to leave your families, you might not need to leave your friends, you might not have to leave your jobs. And Paul the Apostle actually articulates what this call would look like for you in 1 Corinthians 7. He says that you are to live as you are called. Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, that which God has called him. For many of you, God has called you to be faithful in the jobs that you have, in the city that you live in, for the people that you're surrounded by. But that doesn't mean that you're off the hook. Instead you are to call people to be on the hook. That is the call of being an apprentice, that is the call of being a disciple. You are to be a fisher of men or women in that given vocation and context. Others may leave their homes, go to be in vocational ministry, but that is for the few, not the many. My hope is that this form of apprenticeship, this call to discipleship would be the shape of our church. That there would be men and women that are raised up, called by Christ to serve him vocationally, maybe as missionaries or as pastors. And for those who are not called vocationally, you're still called to go into the harvest field to be fishers of men. The disciples here were called so that they would call others. That they would now be fishers of men. They were to be disciples that make disciples. That they were to be apprentices following Jesus and calling others to do the same. The gospel came to these men so that it wouldn't just stay with them. That they wouldn't somehow just follow Jesus and watch the world burn. No, they were called to be conduits of the gospel. That they would have the news, the good news flow through them to other people so that they would be blessed and nurtured. That they would tell the news of the king and his kingdom. That it has come and that others should follow him just as they have. In the Reformed tradition, we are often content with making disciples of our children and our family members. And that is true and good and we want to do that. But the apprenticeship that we see in this scripture goes beyond that. If you are a follower of Jesus, the question is, are you inviting others to follow him also? Or have you fallen to a solo gospel? Maybe just for you and for your family. There are many who live with a cloud of ignorance over them. Of doom and gloom and they need hope. They have no clue that the king has come. They don't have any knowledge of it. They've put Jesus in the category of myths and fairy tales. And church, you have the opportunity to address those misconceptions. The ethos of Bedford Presbyterian Church should be apprentices making apprentices. Even if you have much knowledge or if you feel lacking in your knowledge, share it with those who God has placed around you. Whether it's here in this church or in the surrounding regions, God has given you a unique group of people to share the truth of the king with. The dystopian fiction that we read about is some people's realities. And we as Christians have the words of eternal life. So would you follow our king and call others to do the same? That is the positive question for you today. This is not just the job of pastors to call people to believe in Jesus. This is the call of every Christian. If you have never discipled someone in the faith, I encourage you to pray that God would bring somebody to you. Pray for the opportunity and then when the opportunity comes because I trust it will, then act on it. And if you feel stuck in that process at any point, come talk to me or one of our elders, we'd be happy to help you with resources and other things to equip you to do this work. But I trust as you do this work of an apprentice, God will give you the means. He will be teaching you, equipping you so that you would serve him as he has called us to. The great commission which comes at the end of Matthew's gospel tells us that Jesus will be with us until the end of the age. Jesus says he was with his disciples here. He promises to be with us now. So Jesus called these men to apprentice the King, giving them access to his kingdom that they get to see in miniature. This is what we'll look at in our last point, the administration of the kingdom. Look at me at verses 23 to 25. We see here the kingdom of God in word and deed that the hopeless have been given hope. Jesus goes throughout Galilee, teaching, preaching and healing. The kingdom of Christ comes on earth in these actions. The King is now gathering people to himself. Like the great commission which comes at the end of Matthew's gospel as I said, we see here that different nations are coming to Jesus. It's not the disciples going out, it's the nations coming in. The surrounding areas of Jerusalem, Judea, the Decapolis, they're coming to see the King and his kingdom. The healings that Jesus presents here shows his authority over the physical world and the spiritual world. That he truly is King over heaven and earth. As he exercises demons and he heals the sick, he is making what is wrong right. Previously I have said, if you remember a sermon I preached last summer, maybe some of you weren't here, but what I said there is that healing is the foretaste of the kingdom. It is not the whole but is the beginning of the world being made right. It is the reversal of the curse of sin and death. That disease is removed and that people are made new. The kingdom of heaven brings about new life. Life that is people turning from sin. Life of now following the King. Life that is looking towards the restoration of creation. The kingdom of Christ is where the dead and dying find life. Where the sinner is made righteous. Where the nations are made glad. In these verses we see that the nations come to Jesus, not just Jews but even Gentiles from different parts of the region all to come to follow him. It is hard to say whether these people stayed believing in Jesus until his death and resurrection, but we do see that they come to him here. That there is hope for the Gentiles. That they would be called God's people. The kingdom of heaven is a kingdom for all peoples, tribes, tongues and nations. We see this in the life of Jesus and beyond. Like Judaism which was race based, Christianity broke that cultural form and God called all people to himself. Not just one ethnic group but all. Showing that his kingdom is hope for the world. The system of this world is one of doom and gloom of tyrants. Where disease runs rampant. But our king comes to rule over and to heal. We unlike the disciples here know that this is what feels like and what we see is a temporal advancement of the kingdom of Christ on earth. And that the fullness of the kingdom of God is yet to come. The fullness where Christ will be our light. Where we will not have need to tell one another about Jesus because they know him. That they've seen him face to face. Where death and spiritual powers have no grip on us. Because we will know a paradise that is greater than Eden. Where dystopia of this life is but a distant memory. Because we will be with our God living with him perfectly and fully. In this text we are given a glimpse of the administration of the kingdom. But I tell you church it will come in full. But till that day we are to partake in the announcement and the apprenticeship and the administration of his kingdom on earth. Theologians call this the living and the already but not yet. This kingdom has come and we the church now live in it now. But till it comes in full may we commit ourselves to our king. And that we would see the change of this world as he sees it. Partaking in this life changing world both inside and outside the church as he calls us. May we do this we pray. Let's turn to our God in prayer now.