Matthew 4:23-25 - Jesus is attractive to people

What was Jesus like, do you think? Almost everybody in the world has at least heard of a man named Jesus who lived 2007 years ago. And for as many people who have heard of Jesus, there are just as many opinions as to what He was like when He lived on this earth. And I would suspect that each of us has a mental picture of what He was like.

And I'm not talking about what His face looked like, or the length and color of His hair, and whether He was tall or short or thin or chubby. That’s not what’s really important. That’s not what we’re looking at. But what was He like, how did He talk, how did He move? Was He quick and fast, was He slow and meditative? Did He talk with a sharp tone, direct, maybe a little harsh sometimes? Did He talk softly, gently, meekly? What was His character? Can we even know this?

Actually, yes, we can know Jesus. Actually, yes, that’s the most important thing there is, is to know Jesus. And we get to know Jesus by reading the Bible. And no, the Bible doesn’t describe His character. It doesn’t say whether He spoke with a soft or a loud voice. But we start to get to know Him, we start to understand Him, we start to see Him as we see Him move and we hear His words and we see the reaction of the people around Him. And we see that sometimes He was harsh and loud and even accusing, especially when He was talking to the Pharisees. And sometimes He was commanding and authoritative, especially when casting out demons. And sometimes He was gentle and soft, especially when talking to women who had been accused and cast away.

And in our text this morning, we get to know Jesus a little better, too. We don’t know how He is talking or acting, but we know that He was full of compassion, that He wanted to heal people, that if there was a need in front of Him, He couldn’t turn away. And we know that the people loved to be with Him. He attracted people. As He came looking for people, they came looking for Him.

This is why Jesus came, verse 23:

Moving from town to town in the region of Galilee, He would go to the people who went to church, who heard about God, but who hadn’t met God yet. They were still living in the old covenant, where they were required to fulfill the law themselves. These were the people who were living under the burden of the demands of the law, with the constant threat of condemnation hanging over them.

Which is why Jesus comes to them, preaching the good news of the kingdom. He didn’t come piling on more expectations and demands, He didn’t come threatening them with what might happen if they didn’t do everything exactly right. He came with the good news.

This is what that sounded like. One day, Jesus was preaching in the synagogue and He sounded like this:

Freedom. Recovery. Release. The Lord’s favor. These are great sermon topics, aren’t they? Jesus isn’t focusing on the problem, He’s focusing on the solution. He’s not spending all His time on how poor they are, how imprisoned they’ve made themselves, how blind they are to the truth. The problems are acknowledged, but He holds out the hope. There is freedom and healing and restoration.

That’s the good news of the kingdom. Jesus told the people about a place where hope was the norm, where peace was the air that was breathed, where burdens were lightened and heads were lifted. In the middle of a world where wars covered the front page news, where the government seemed to go out of it’s way to avoid acknowledging the one true God, here was some news worth listening to. News about a new kingdom. Good news about a new kingdom, the kingdom of God. No wonder Jesus was so eager to go out to seek and to save those who were lost. This wasn’t a chore. It was a privilege. He got to talk about hope and help and healing.

In fact, He actually got to do the healing. What a joy it must of been to go to people with disease wracking their bodies, who had been to the doctor and seen them shake their head and heard them say those words "There is no cure". And then He reaches out His hand, and He touches them on their skin, places His hand on their head, holds their hand, and suddenly their body is healed. He can see it in their eyes. He can see their hopelessness and sadness turn to bewilderment and question turn to shock and surprise and joy. You know He was smiling as they went through that transformation. You know He enjoyed His work.

And that joy and that power, that hope attracted people to Jesus. Verse 24:

People wanted to be with Him. They saw that He had the answer to their problems. And they had a lot of problems. They came:

What a mess, huh? People bent over in sever pain, people shaking, people not being able to move at all, people screaming because of the demons inside them. What a mess. The results of the curse that sin brought on this world.

And there Jesus is, in the middle of it all, reaching out and touching and healing. And there are the people, thronging to Him, desperately wanting to be near Him. Verse 25:

He liked people and people liked Him. He came to the people and the people came to Him. That’s what our Jesus was like.

That’s what our Jesus is like, still. How do we understand Him? What do we think He’s like? Is He the kind of Person who makes unceasing demands, always pushing us harder, like an eternal drill sergeant in the boot camp of life? Is He dangling a carrot in front of us, promising us a good life if we’ll just behave better? Is He frustrated more often then not at how much we mess things up, how often we fall short of His expectations? Does He like us? We know He loves us, but, I mean, does He, does He LIKE us?

Just look at Him, here in Matthew 4. This is not a Man who rolls His eyes at the pain and sickness and seizures. This is not a God who needed to be convinced to go throughout Galilee healing every disease. This is a God who loves people because He made us and He made us in His image and He wants to be with people. He wants to spend eternity with human beings. This is why He came healing and this is why He came dying and this is why He came back out of that grave.

That’s the God in your life. If we are seeing God, through Jesus, as a demanding, frustrated, intolerant God, why would we speak to Him? I suppose sometimes it’s because we don’t really have any other choice. Who else is going to help us? Who else could do anything about the problem? But if that’s why we pray, there’s not much comfort in that. And why would we serve Him? I suppose it’s because we have to, we’re in trouble if we don’t. But if that’s why we serve, there’s not a lot of joy in that.

But if we know Jesus and we see Him as He really is, if we like Him and we know that He likes us, won’t that lead us to pray more? Isn’t it easier to talk to someone who likes you, who wants to talk to you, too? And don’t we like to do things with Him, working together, spending time together? Isn’t it good to be with Him?

And as we spend the time with this Person that we like so much, that we love so much, we start to become like Him. His values and priorities start to become our values and priorities. We start to like the things He likes. We’re bothered by the same things He’s bothered by. In fact, the idea is that we become like Him so much that we stop being ourselves and we start being Him. Who He is and who we are isn’t so distinct anymore. We start sounding like Him. We talk about freedom from sin, rather than the burden of obeying. We talk about healing and restoration, rather than judgment against the mistakes someone has made in their life. We talk about the goodness of the kingdom. Is this what we sound like when we talk about church? Is this how we sound when, if we talk about Jesus? Are we sounding like Jesus?

If we are, and if others see this, when they see Jesus having this affect on us, they will want this. They will want to know Jesus. Something happened at some point to make us think that people don’t want to know Jesus. They sure wanted to be around him there in Matthew 4. What happened? What changed? Could it be that the Jesus’ disciples didn’t portray Jesus as He really is? Did the body of Christ stop looking like Christ Himself? Did the church become demanding, frustrated, and intolerant because that’s what we thought Jesus was like?

We need to get back to Jesus, the real Jesus, as He really was, as He really is. We need to be like Jesus, the real Jesus, as He really was, as He really is. We don’t need to figure out how to have a church that attracts people. We don’t need to create new programs and classes so that people will come to our church.

What we need is to know Jesus, because that’s the most important, remember? And as we know Him, we’ll be the kind of church that reflects Him, that shows Him to our neighbors. And we’ll be like Him and we’ll be in this town for the people of this town. And yes, there will be messes, big messes, huge effects of the fall. There will be actual physical diseases. There will be broken families. There will be poverty that has lasted for generations. There will be drug and alcohol abuse. There will be shame. There’s a lot of mess out there.

But it’s okay, because Jesus didn’t go anywhere. He was there in Galilee in Matthew 4, and He’s here in Hollandale in 2007 and working through us and for us and beside us. Some of the problems Jesus and we will be able to fix, through the work of the deacons, through benevolence, through the service committee, through our own being available to help. Some of them we’ll be able to do something with, but we won’t be able to fix it. But we’ll try. We’ll show up. There won’t be any mess too big that we’ll run away from it.

And people will know Jesus through us. And they’ll love Jesus, because of who He is. We know. We love Him too. We come to Him now, in communion with Him. We are drawn to Him. Look at Him. He wants to be with us, and we want to be with Him. And we come, just like the people in Matthew 4, with our messes, our diseases, the results of the sin in our lives. We come to Him, and He gives us healing. He forgives us our sins and heals our diseases. Do you know Him? Do you like Him? Do you want to spend time with Him? It’s Jesus! Come.