📰 The KNGDOM Newsletter – Sept 7th, 2024

Lesson Title: He didn’t just preach a Kingdom — He embodied it.

Passage: Matthew 8:10–15

📺 Want to watch the full teaching? Click here to view the Sept 7th, 2024 Lesson.

Introduction to Today’s Lesson

Hey Everyone, 

Thanks for pausing with us today to open the Word — not just to read it, but to feel the weight of it.

This week, we journey into a moment just after the Sermon on the Mount — Jesus’ first public teaching, where He outlines what life in the Kingdom looks like.

But now, He steps off the mountain and starts living it.

And what’s the first thing He does?

Not speak to the powerful.

Not perform for a crowd.

He moves toward the margins — to the leper, the outsider, and the overlooked.

Each interaction in this passage breaks a cultural rule:

• A leper is touched.
  

• A Roman oppressor is praised.
  

• A woman with a fever is healed.
  

• A bleeding outcast is called “Daughter.”
  

Jesus isn’t just performing miracles — He’s revealing a new Kingdom culture where the dismissed are seen, the untouchable are touched, and the overlooked are honored.

The question that rises from today’s reading is this:

👉 Who do we overlook?

👉 What social norms have shaped who we see as worthy?

If Jesus rewrote the rules of dignity and belonging — maybe we should, too.

Let’s dive in.

📖 Matthew 8:10–15 (ESV)

10 When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith.

11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven,

12 while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

13 And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment.

14 And when Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever.

15 He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she rose and began to serve him.

1️⃣ Jesus Redefines Authority Through Proximity

After delivering what many consider the most transformative public message in human history — the Sermon on the Mount — Jesus doesn’t bask in acclaim or retreat to exclusivity. He descends the mountain and moves straight into the mess of real life.

And His first interactions are not with influencers or insiders. They’re with people society had discarded:

• A leper, ceremonially unclean and socially untouchable
  

• A Roman centurion, a symbol of oppression and a sworn enemy of Israel
  

• A woman with a fever, overlooked and unimportant in that cultural moment
  

Each one tells a story — not just of healing, but of how Jesus chooses to redefine authority by drawing near.

In the first-century world, authority operated on distance. The more powerful you were, the less accessible you became. Kings stayed in palaces. Rabbis sat in lofty courts. Religious leaders guarded their purity by avoiding the impure.

But Jesus flips the model entirely.

He steps toward the sick. He enters their homes. He touches what others avoid.

He shows that in the Kingdom, authority isn’t about separation — it’s about incarnation. Not pulling away from pain, but entering into it.

Real Kingdom power doesn’t posture or protect.

It leans in.

It lowers itself.

It loves up close.

So what does that mean for us?

If Jesus’ authority looks like proximity — maybe ours should, too.

It’s not about how many people listen to you.

It’s about who you’re willing to sit with.

Who you’re willing to touch.

Who you’re willing to see.

Because true leadership in the Kingdom isn’t measured by who follows you — but by who feels seen because of you.

2️⃣ The Marginalized Are Centered in the Kingdom

Lepers were quarantined.

Romans were feared.

Women were silenced and treated as property.

Yet Jesus moves toward each one.

And perhaps most radically—He acknowledges women.

In a culture where women were discouraged from learning, barred from legal testimony, and often reduced to their relationship with men, Jesus honors them.

He heals Peter’s mother-in-law with a touch.

He calls a bleeding woman “Daughter.”

He converses with a Samaritan woman—making her the first evangelist.

He reveals Himself to women first after the resurrection.

In every act, Jesus confronts the deep cultural bias of His day.

He doesn’t just make room for women.

He amplifies their dignity.

He names their faith.

He centers them in His redemptive story.

This isn’t symbolic. It’s revolutionary.

And in doing so, Jesus sets a precedent for His followers:

If the Kingdom includes them, then so must we.

🔥 Challenge for the Week

This week, take inventory of the margins in your life.

• Who are the people or groups you’ve unconsciously overlooked?
  

• What internalized narratives or cultural norms have shaped who you move toward — and who you avoid?
  

• Where do you still draw lines between “worthy” and “unworthy,” “clean” and “unclean,” “inside” and “outside”?
  

Jesus didn’t just break the rules — He redefined the map.

He walked straight toward the leper, the Roman soldier, and the woman in bed. Not out of obligation, but because that’s what the Kingdom looks like: a movement toward the margins.

So this week, ask:

👉 Who is Jesus calling me to move toward?

👉 What boundary might love ask me to cross?

Be brave enough to follow Him there.

✨ Final Word

Jesus didn’t just preach a Kingdom — He embodied it.

And the first acts after His most famous sermon weren’t staged performances. They were small, sacred choices to dignify the very people society discarded.

A hand on the leper.

A word of affirmation to the oppressor.

A healing touch for a sick woman.

A whisper of love to a bleeding outcast.

These were not just miracles — they were declarations:

The untouchable is worthy of touch.

The outsider is worthy of honor.

The silenced are worthy of voice.

And if this is how Jesus moved through the world, maybe we should pay attention — not just to what He said, but who He stopped for.

This week, don’t just carry His words. Mirror His movement.

Because the Kingdom doesn’t rise on platforms.

It begins in proximity.

— Michael