Matthew 04: The Kingdom Begins

Satan made his biggest mistake when he decided to tempt Jesus in the wilderness. After forty days without food, most people would be vulnerable to manipulation, but Jesus wasn't most people. What follows is a masterclass in spiritual warfare that gives us the perfect blueprint for handling our own battles with temptation.

Matthew's Gospel sets out to establish Jesus as the rightful King—first through his royal lineage, then through his baptism where God publicly declared him beloved. Now in chapter 4, the newly anointed King faces his first test. Rather than wielding his divine authority directly, Jesus models something revolutionary for us: he counters each temptation with Scripture, specifically from Deuteronomy. He doesn't just randomly quote Bible verses; he strategically applies God's Word to each specific attack.

When Jesus emerges victorious from this wilderness confrontation, his ministry launches with unstoppable momentum. He establishes Capernaum as his base, fulfilling ancient prophecies about light coming to Galilee. His message is clear and urgent: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." Then comes one of the most consequential moments in history—Jesus calls his first disciples. When Peter, Andrew, James and John immediately drop their fishing nets to follow him, they're not making a casual decision. In their culture, following a rabbi meant complete life transformation—living with him, watching his every move, becoming like him in every way. Their radical response challenges us to examine our own level of commitment to Jesus.

The chapter culminates with Jesus demonstrating his kingly authority through teaching, healing, and delivering people from demonic oppression. His reputation spreads like wildfire, attracting massive crowds from everywhere. The kingdom has begun, and nothing will ever be the same.

What spiritual attacks are you facing today? How might memorizing Scripture relevant to your specific temptations transform your ability to stand firm? Take a moment to identify your vulnerability points and find God's promises to counter them.

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Chapters

• 0:48 Introduction to Kingdom Begins
• 3:56 Jesus Faces the Devil's Temptations
• 8:54 Using God's Word Against Temptation
• 10:34 Jesus Begins His Ministry
• 13:55 Calling the First Disciples
• 14:55 Reflections on Discipleship and Kingdom

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:24

Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, pastor Brandon. Today, matthew, chapter 4, and today's title is the Kingdom Begins. The Kingdom Begins and it's going to begin with a bang, and I cannot wait to see or show you what's going to happen. The devil's going to get three black eyes and then Jesus is going to go and he's just going to start doing what Jesus does. It's going to be awesome.

Speaker 0: 0:47

So, if you have your Bibles, I want to open up with me to Matthew, chapter 4. While you're doing that, if you're new here, take just a moment to like, share and subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure to leave us a five-star review on the podcast and make sure you're going to the Bible Breakdown Discussion on Facebook. It's an amazing group of people doing a wonderful job and, as always, the more we dig, the more we find. Well, if you've been with us over the past few days, if you remember, the overall goal of Matthew is to talk about King Jesus, and the idea behind this is is there were four Gospels, but Matthew was primarily written to the Jewish world to show them that Jesus is the rightful King. And in chapter 1, he just starts off with just like guns blazing. He's got receipts saying that I can prove through lineage that he is at least the rightful king of our earthly kingdom. But then he spends chapter two through 28 saying but he is so much more than that Chapter two. He talked about the origin story and all the different fun things with that. And then chapter 3, yesterday talked about Johnny B, the hype man for Jesus. And I love how chapter 3 ended with the baptism of Jesus and how, before Jesus did one miracle, the Heavenly Father said ask my boy. And I love him. And it reminds us about how he feels about us. Well, today, in chapter 4, we get to see the king in action as he is going to begin his ministry, and he begins his ministry with victory. And what I love about this is, if you remember, all the way back in the book of Genesis, the Bible said that when the devil came to tempt Adam and Eve in the garden, they fell to the temptation of Satan. Well, now the devil is coming to tempt Jesus. And here's the thing the devil cannot read your mind. He does not know the plan of God. As a matter of fact, it says later on in the Bible that if the enemy had have known the plan of God, they never would have crucified the Lord of glory. They had no idea. However, the devil's not dumb. He was there when the Magi came. He's been there through the life of Jesus and so he's been watching and he also understands what Matthew would have understood with the lineage he sees. Well, this Jesus is different, and I saw him get baptized. There's something different about this guy, and so he is going to try to tempt Jesus, much like he did Adam and Eve and so many people after that. But he has no idea who he's fooling with. It's going to get real up in here. Another thing to say is, just for what it's worth, when Jesus quotes God's word against him, which, giving us a pattern, he quotes in the book of Deuteronomy, which is the law of God to the young generation, whole nother thing, whole nother day. Just go to the Bible breakdown and see more of that. Okay, you ready, here we go.

Speaker 0: 3:35

Matthew, chapter four, verse one, says this Then that's right after the baptism, jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. Wilderness, to be tempted there by the devil. For 40 days and 40 nights he fasted and became very hungry. Now pause. The reason why Matthew would have said 40 days and 40 nights is because fasting in Jewish culture was very normal, especially the Pharisees. They actually said you should fast twice a week. The difference is they would fast from sunup to sundown, so almost like today we would call intermittent fasting. That's kind of what they would do all the time. But what Matthew was making sure to tell everybody is he didn't just fast during the day, he fasted day and night. So this was a legit 40-day, 40-night fast. So the most like, maybe the most like Captain Obvious statement ever is. Afterward he became very hungry. I get hungry when I fast for like two hours. So 40 days, absolutely.

Speaker 0: 4:33

Here we go, verse three. During that time the devil came and said to him if you are the son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread. So once again he's poking at Jesus. He doesn't know. He knows the prophecies like everybody else does. So he's trying to get Jesus off his game. But look what happens. Jesus said no, the scriptures say people live. Do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. In other words, I'm going to obey God's word, not what you tell me to do, verse five.

Speaker 0: 5:06

Then the devil took him to the holy city, jerusalem, to the highest point of the temple, and said if you are the son of God, jump off. For the scriptures say he will order his angels to protect you and they will hold you up with their hands so you won't even hurt your foot on a stone. Now we see the devil taking the scripture, trying to play Jesus game. But he takes his scripture out of context. This is actually not supposed to say you're supposed to tempt God. It's supposed to say that when you are being chased by the enemy, god will protect you. So kind of ironic right Verse 7,. Jesus responded the scriptures say you must not test the Lord, your God. Next, the devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. I will give. Get out of here, satan. Jesus told him, for the scriptures say you must worship the Lord, your God, and serve only him. Now pause Now, three things I want to show you on this that I think are really interesting.

Speaker 0: 6:10

Number one is Jesus showed us exactly what to do when we are tempted by the devil, and that is we don't fight him with our own authority, we fight him with the word of God. Now, jesus is Jesus. He could have just told the devil to go away. He could have said in my name, be gone. But instead he sets a pattern for us and he says when you are tempted, when you are being tested by the enemy, don't speak in your own authority, speak the word of God. Which means number two. We need to realize where our temptation points are and then memorize the promises of God so that when those temptation points come, we will know what to do.

Speaker 0: 6:51

It doesn't help you to memorize a scripture that has nothing to do with what you're tempted with. For instance, let's say that you are tempted to feel inferior, that God does not have a plan for your life. Well, what good does it for you to memorize Genesis 1.1? You're feeling inferior, you're feeling like God doesn't have a plan for your life. Well, what good does it for you to memorize Genesis 1.1? You're feeling inferior, you're feeling like God doesn't have a plan for your life. And yet the only verse you know is in the beginning, god created the heavens and the earth. Okay, that's great, that's God's word. It's powerful, but how much more powerful would it be for you to have memorized Romans 8.28?.

Speaker 0: 7:21

I know that all things work together to the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose. God has a purpose for my life. He has a plan for my life. So if I don't understand, that's okay. See, that's so. That's number two. Number three is just something. That's that's funny.

Speaker 0: 7:35

Think about this for a moment. Let's say you owned a very nice car and one day somebody comes up to you and says hey, if you'll give me a hundred bucks, I'll let you drive your car. I mean, I wouldn't want. I don't know if I want to laugh at them or just feel sorry for them. Dude, it's my car, I have the keys to this car. I mean, what exactly? And that's what I think about when I think about the last temptation the Bible says that the devil showed Jesus the kingdoms of the world and says I'll give them to you if you'll worship me. I wonder if Jesus was like dude, these are mine, this is all mine. I created all of this. You can't create that mountain. I made that mountain. I was there when that mountain was there, shut up and go away. So it's kind of the same thing, but the enemy is going to try to attack you in ways that are so stupid and so subtle that we fall for them. But thank goodness for Jesus right. Well, after he beat the devil up and sent him away, look what happens now.

Speaker 0: 8:30

Verse 12, when Jesus heard that John had been arrested because he had been arrested and we'll get to that later he left Judea and returned to Galilee. He went first to Nazareth, then left there and moved to Capernaum, beside the Sea of Galilee, in the region of Zebulon and Natale. Capernaum, by the way, became his ministry home base. This fulfilled what God had said through the prophet Isaiah. In the land of Zebulon and of Natale, beside the sea beyond the Jordan River, in Galilee, where so many Gentiles live, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who lived in the land where death casts its shadow, a light has shined. And from then on, jesus began to preach repent of your sins and turn to God, for the kingdom of heaven is near.

Speaker 0: 9:17

And one day, as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers Simon, also called Peter and Andrew throwing nets into the water, for they fished for a living. Jesus called out to them come, follow me and I will show you how to fish for people. And they left their nets at once and followed him. A little further up the shore, they saw two other brothers, james and John, sitting in a boat with their father, zebedee, repairing their nets, and he called to them to come too. And they immediately followed him, leaving the boat and their father behind. And Jesus traveled throughout the region of Galilee teaching in the synagogues and announcing the good news of the kingdom, and he healed every kind of disease and illness. News spread about him as far as Syria and people soon began bringing to him all who were sick, and whatever sicknesses or disease, or if they were demon-possessed or epileptic or paralyzed, he healed them all. Large crowds followed him wherever he went, and people from Galilee, the ten towns, jerusalem and all over Judea were sent from the east, or Judea from the east of the Jordan River. So the kingdom has begun.

Speaker 0: 10:28

I want to tell you about two things, and then we're going to pray together. First of all, when Peter and Andrew, james and John answered the call of Jesus, it's kind of lost on us over time what they were saying yes to, because back then, jesus wouldn't have been the only traveling teacher. There were rabbis who would travel and they would teach. Of course, they were none like Jesus, but what they would do is they would collect disciples. And what would happen is, when you agreed to become a disciple, you would leave your occupation and you would move in with the rabbi. You would follow him, you would eat what he ate, you would sleep where he slept, you would do everything he did, because the goal wasn't just to learn what he knew, it was to learn how he lived. And so you literally would begin to live in a fellowship relationship with this teacher, and you would act as almost a servant to the teacher, as an apprentice, with the expectation that once you had learned, you would eventually go out and do the same. And so they were leaving their fishing business, expecting. I am going to now follow this man of God wherever he goes. And that speaks so much to us that when Jesus calls us, he doesn't call us to just agree with him and go back to our old life, but he calls us to follow him and to begin our new life, spiritually, with him.

Speaker 0: 11:50

The second thing is I want to go ahead and give you kind of a disclaimer as we move forward. One of the things you're going to see throughout Matthew and the other Gospels is that Jesus is constantly dealing with evil spirits. Jesus is constantly dealing with evil spirits and that is so important because one of the marks of the Messiah was going to be that he was going to be able to teach the word, he was going to be able to heal the sick and he was going to have power over the devil. And so every time that you hear Matthew talk about evil spirits and so that's one of the reasons why you're going to hear him talk about power over evil spirits over and over and over is because every time he does, he is pointing another flag that is lost on us but have been very much noticed by the Jewish community. See, I told you he was the Messiah. Look what he can do.

Speaker 0: 12:38

Every time he was doing this, he was showing I'm the guy, I'm the man who has the thing, I'm the one who has the authority in all of this, and so the whole point of Matthew is to say Jesus is the king. I can show you in chapter one that he is at least the rightful king of our earthly kingdom, but I'm going to show you over the next 27 chapters that he is so much more than an earthly king. And so can I tell you that earthly king, the one in whom the Bible says that every knee will bow, every tongue, will have to confess that he truly is the king. That king loves you. That king has said I have come to give my life so that you could have life. And so the answer for us is to obey what he said when he said repent, turn toward me, for the kingdom of heaven is near. The kingdom of heaven is as close as we want it to be if we're willing to turn from our sin and to follow him. And if you're listening or watching this and you have turned from your sin, can I encourage you Never stop running after Jesus, never stop pursuing him. There are so many adventures waiting for you in the kingdom of God. Every step is an adventure when it's with Jesus.

Speaker 0: 13:54

Let's pray together right now. God, thank you so much for today. Thank you, god, that you are with us and that you are for us. Thank you that you have power over everything and we celebrate you today. I pray, lord, that you will remind us more every single day that you are with us. And because you are with us, nothing can stand against us. Many things will come, but all will fall to the power of our King. In Jesus' name we pray amen, amen. Well, god's word says in Matthew 28, verse 19,. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. Let that be our mandate today. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow. For Matthew, chapter 5.