SERMON | Matthew 4:12-23 | "The Kingdom Among Us" by Rev. Joseph Sanford at Grace United Methodist Church in Franklin, Indiana

SERMON | Matthew 4:12-23 | "The Kingdom Among Us" by Rev. Joseph Sanford at Grace United Methodist Church in Franklin, IndianaThe whole story of the Bible is about putting things back together as God had intended. All of Creation is meant to be connected and a giant collective where we all gain something EXTRA…a quality that is more than the sum of its parts.There’s a phrase for this:Kingdom of God.Reign of God.Heaven.When things are connected as they should be and living into their intended purpose…they are in paradise…delight…heaven.For centuries God had been trying to get the world back together as it should be through a family coming from Abraham and Sarah.For years God’s people had been longing for this great promise of wholeness for all creation to be fulfilled.And then Jesus shows up and announces, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.”The Kingdom of God is among us.The great collective of humans and all creation is now among us, Jesus says.Living here and now as things should be is accessible.He’ll then spend the rest of this Gospel Account helping people to understand how to access it…how to live into it…how to embrace the way, the truth, and the life as God defines them.All we need to do is repent and follow him.Repent—we must reorient our lives away from what we think it’s all about right now and direct our steps toward the path of Jesus as he reveals the truth.This doesn’t mean you need to leave your home, work, family, or whatever else.The kingdom isn’t a place.The kingdom isn’t even a particular point in time.The kingdom is a reality of a particular quality and complexity into which we can live our every moment alongside of God and others.We don’t have to fully understand it or know the rules or live into it perfectly right now because there’s no way we can.Instead, we say “yes” to it.We say “yes” to following Jesus as he shows us what the Kingdom is all about right here and now.We say “yes” to the body of Christ, the church, where can explore this good news together with the very presence of God’s Holy Spirit who continues to speak to us and draw us into this wonderful reality already among us…The Spirit connects us to the community and to God in such a way that we experience the quality of what the Kingdom brings us that is beyond the sum of the parts.When we truly repent—when we reorient ourselves in God’s direction and choose to live beyond just ourselves—we can experience the reality of God’s presence in every aspect of our lives together.Miracles happen all around us…if we but just lift our eyes from our every day worries and pinings…If we but just drop the nets we are so focused on and have become so accustomed to that we’ve stopped considering something bigger.What you have to offer your church family in this new season of ministry together is NEEDED by us all.What each person in this congregation has to offer is EXACTLY what you need.We are not here by accident.We are here for such a time as this.We are here to do what God has for us to do in this season.We are here to follow Jesus, experience the Kingdom, and be the very vessel through which God can continue to bring the promise of all Creation and people being, once again, back into right relationship with one another…That we can shine the light of the reality of the Kingdom into a world that is so fixated on all of the wrong things we have ceased to be connected and we have ceased to experience Life as it can be with God.The Kingdom is here…Now…Among us.