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Matthew  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented
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Before being called by Christ to be one of His disciples, Matthew had been a publican ( tax collector) a member of a caste utterly despised by all patriotic Jews.
Upon his call, Matthew had thrown a great feast to which he had invited all his former colleagues and to which he also invited Jesus and His disciples. This was a great way to begin a life dedicated to the Christ of God. Being a Jew himself, Matthew fully understood the Jewish Messianic hope, and His Gospel is designed to convince his nation that the long-awaited Messiah is none other than Jesus of Nazareth.
There are about thirty sections in Matthew that are peculiar to his Gospel, and most of these sections have some bearing on Matthew's central theme -the King and His kingdom.
Words and expressions peculiar to Matthew have the same purpose, such as "the kingdom of heaven" (an expression occurring thirty-two times and not once in any of the other Gospels), "Father in heaven" (Fifteen times in Matthew and only twice in Mark), "son of David" (ten times in Matthew), "that It might be fulfilled which was spoken" (nine times In Matthew and none of the other Gospels), and "that which was spoken" or "It was spoken" (fourteen times in Matthew and nowhere else), Matthew's Gospel is saturated with Old Testament quotations, containing some sixty references to that portion of the Bible.
Matthew never lost sight of his audience:
Jews were trained to believe that when the Messiah came, He would conquer all of Israel's foes and make Jerusalem the capital of a Jewish world empire. Such people believed in Christ but did not believe Jesus was the Christ.
Matthew's material is not always in chronological sequence. He tends to group his material to produce a cumulative effect for the point that Jesus is the Messiah of the Jews.
For example, beginning in chapter five, we have the Sermon on the Mount—what Jesus taught. This is followed by a series of miracles in chapters eight to nine, by no means in the order of occurrence, but which show what Jesus wrought.
These miracles are followed, in turn, by a series of reactions to Jesus, illustrating what people thought. Matthew's material seems to be arranged so that it can be easily remembered, and indeed, the contents of his gospel are more easily remembered than those of the other Synoptics.
Introducing the King
The genealogy of Christ, as Matthew gave, is not the same as that of Luke.
Matthew gave the regal line ending in Joseph, Jesus’ foster father, and showed Christ as the Son of David and the Son of Solomon.
Luke gave the legal line through Nathan, Solomon’s elder brother (2 Samuel 5:14), ending in Mary, the Lord's mother.
The prophet Isaiah, speaking of the death of Jesus long years before, challenged the people with the words, "Who shall declare his generation?" (Isaiah 53:8). Matthew proved that Jesus had every right to the throne of David, for He was indeed "the king of the Jews."
At His birth, Gentile wise men paid Him this tribute, and at His death, the Gentile Pilate, in the superscription over the cross, acknowledged the same thing.
Jesus was introduced to the nation by John the Baptist, His cousin according to the flesh and the appointed forerunner spoken of in Malachi. John baptized Jesus in the River Jordan and was immediately led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. The resounding victory the King won over man's ancient foe was but the opening campaign in that bitter struggle, which climaxed at Calvary. Returning from this victory, the King selected certain disciples and manifested His power over demons and disease.
Matthew tended to group his material to produce a cumulative effect.
There are five major sections to his Gospel (Matt 4:12-7:29; 8:1-11:1; 11:2-13:53; 13:54-19:2; 19:3-26:2), all ending with the phrase "and it came to pass when Jesus had finished..."
Each section ends with a discourse reflecting the Jewish manner of teaching in ancient days. The Sermon on the Mount is one of the most revolutionary passages in the Bible. In sweeping statements, the King revealed His concept of the kingdom as spiritual, otherworldly, and yet intensely practical. He boldly lifted the law of Moses to a higher plane and, brushing aside all cumbersome traditions and evasive interpretations, laced men with laws of behavior that, humanly speaking, are Impossible to obey. Yet He practiced the life He preached, living it out day by day, moment by moment, for thirty-three and a half magnificent years.
The King Resisted
It was not long before the impact of Christ's message produced adverse results. This was not the kind of king the people wanted or the kingdom they expected. Resistance began to stiffen despite the marvelous proofs and credentials Jesus gave in His mighty miracles.
The leaders moved with jealousy, began to attack both the Person and Christ’s work, and were even fiercer in their opposition by the Lord's withering denunciations of their hypocrisy. Again and again, the Lord warned the disciples that His enemies would triumph temporarily and that they would succeed in having Him crucified.
He calmly announced His death and His inevitable resurrection. After His unveiling on the Mount of Transfiguration, He spoke more frequently about these events.
In private discourses, public disputes, and prophetic declarations, the Lord showed a clear grasp of future events both near and far. The Olivet Discourse, for example (chapters 24-25), is one of the Bible’s most concise yet comprehensive prophetic utterances. At last, Judas defected to the enemy camp and betrayed the Lord to His foes.
A mock trial ensued before both the Jews and the Gentiles, and God's King was crowned with thorns and nailed upon a Roman cross. Three days later, He rose triumphantly from the tomb, and none of the enemy's lies have been able to halt the spread of the spiritual empire of the risen Christ of God around the globe.
Happy are they who, faced with such a risen, living, reigning, returning King, bow the knee to Him and crown Him Lord of their lives.
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