God (Still) With Us

Introduction

September 19, 2021 was the day we first opened the Gospel of Matthew together. Now, almost 4 years later, we finally bring it to a close. I have spent a majourity of my time in this church preaching through this book...

Today, I want to take this last sentence from this Gospel which we have spent four years looking at in such depth, and use it as an opportunity to look back on what Matthew has shown us in his recollection of the life of his Rabbi, Master, and God. This epic story of all stories leads us to a proposition which we must choose to embrace in faith: that God dwells with his people through their faith in Jesus Christ. He did this through showing us that Jesus is the Messiah, the Jesus is the King of God’s Kingdom, and that Jesus is with us always.

Matthew Showed Us That Jesus is the Messiah of the Old Testament

Matthew doesn’t shy away from calling Jesus the Christ from the very first verse.

Christ and Messiah both mean Anointed One.

Anointing in the OT signified consecration and separation of something for a specific use by God. People or objects could be anointed for holy use. Priests, for example, were anointed as part of the ritual of making the priests holy for service in the Tabernacle or the Temple.

Kings were anointed by the prophet Samual with a similar purpose. Kings were not just political rulers, they were seen by ancient peoples as a link between humans and divine power and authority. It was God who would call kings and set them apart for their work.

Saul, the first king of Israel, failed to live up to this holy calling. Even David did not live in it perfectly. Yet, God anointed David and because David walked by faith after God’s own heart, God made a covenant with David.

1 Chronicles 17:11–14 ESV

When your days are fulfilled to walk with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from him who was before you, but I will confirm him in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever.’ ”

Since then, the Scriptures hinted at this Son of David, this anointed king who would come and deliver God’s people from their enemies and establish the kingdom of God forever. Sometimes it was more than a hint:

Ezekiel 34:15 ESV

I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God.

Ezekiel 34:23–24 ESV

And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the Lord; I have spoken.

So we see that when Matthew calls Jesus Christ, he is not just saying that Jesus has been anointed for holy service in the same way that many others, like the priests, were anointed. Christ or Messiah refer specifically to this promised King and shepherd of God’s people. In the days following the Babylonian exile when Judah would find itself under the thumb of one empire after another. First the Babylon, than the Medes and Persians, then the Greeks, than the Selucids, and finally the Romans. The promise of a king like David who would establish the Kingdom forever was a dream for them.

The whole point of the Gospels, the NT, and the Christian faith as a whole, is the belief that Jesus is the Christ. That God’s promises of a Davidic King had come. This is why Matthew opened his gospel with a genealogy which included David. He has come to establish the Kingdom of God as the fully God, and yet fully human, Davidic King who has been anointed by the Father with the Holy Spirit for such a purpose.

Matthew Showed Us That Jesus Came to Bring Us the Kingdom

This leads to the next thing that Matthew showed us in his Gospel; that Jesus the Anointed came to bring the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

This is found everywhere you look in the Gospel, whether it is Herod trying to kill him as a rival king, or the Lord’s Prayer which includes the words “your Kingdom Come, your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven”. This is hardly a surprise for the Jews, who had long expected the Messiah to establish the Kingdom of God by ridding them of Roman occupation and unholiness.

However, as Matthew shows Jesus bringing the Kingdom of Heaven, it is noticably different from what most people expected. Jesus comes with no army, no sword, no stratigic takeover or coup. Jesus says nothing about driving out the Romans, in fact he credited one with having great faith. As the shadows of the OT gave way to spiritual reality, it becomes clear that Jesus is a totally different kind of King than his father David was, and that the Kingdom of Heaven is not what they think.

The Sermon on the Mount showed us how the citezens of the Kingdom are to live, in ways so contrary to the world and yet in ways the clearly fulfill the law by keeping its principles in the heart. This is a Kingdom where each is concerned, not for their own material welfare, but for the advance of the Kingdom in faith that the Lord of that Kingdom, God the Father, will provide for his people. It is a Kingdom where the guilty are forgiven, but those who do not repent or do not forgive are cast out of the Kingdom.

With there being many ways in which the Kingdom of Heaven differs from the kingdoms and nations of the earth, one majour area of different is that the Heavenly Kingdom is not yet seen with human eyes, but rather seen by faith until that faith becomes sight. A few of the disciples did get to see the King in his glory on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt 17) but this was only after Peter had confessed that Jesus was the Christ when God revealed that to him. To those on the outside looking in, and even to the disciples, this didn’t look like a Kingdom and this is the very paradoxical nature of it. It is the tiny mustard seed which grows into a great tree. It is the small amount of leaven kneaded through the whole dough. It is the wheat among the weeds in the field of the world. For those who see it with the eyes of faith, they are able to see it more clearly as they venture forward in faith. Those that refuse to see it because of their own ideas of what God’s Kingdom should look like will remain willfully blind.

This makes it possible, even inevitable, for the faithful Christian to see the world in an optamistic light despite the evil, hardship, and corruption we see around us. In human eyes, the beast wins by overcoming the saints. In the eyes of faith, which will be seen visibly on the last day, the saints overcome the beast by their faithful testimony to the Kingdom of Heaven.

The keys of this Kingdom were given to Peter as the first among the Apostles to believe, and then later to the rest of the Apostles and to the church as a whole. It isn’t correct to say that the church is the Kingdom of God, that would be like saying that the US Consolate on 360 University Ave is the United States of America. The Church is a representation of the Kingdom of Earth. She proclaims and effects the victory of Christ in the world through a spiritual takeover, a conquoring of the hearts of men and women from every nation, language, and region on earth. Since this is a spiritual and heavenly Kingdom, it does not come with the military or political force that the nations of this world do when they conquor one another, and yet it is clear from Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 24 that after an age of wars, famines, persecutions, and apostate attacks on the church, this invisible heavenly Kingdom will become sight when He returns with his angels in glory. In this way, the Kingdom goes foward in the power of the Spirit, not by human strength, and is received by faith and one day vindicated by sight.

Matthew Showed Us That Jesus is God With Us

In the Messiah’s mission to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth, he suffered and died to defeat death and the forces of evil which have held the reigns over every person and earthly Kingdom since the Fall. He rose from the dead, defeating death, paying that penalty of our sin against God, and bringing resurrection life to all who trust in him.

After his resurrection, however, he did not take up an earthly Throne. Instead, he went back to heaven to sit on the only throne that matters, the throne of Heaven which has now begun to bring earth into its dominion. Though he is physically not present, and his body does not remain with us, the Gospel of Matthew ends on this final and most empowering promise: “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” The presence of Christ remains with his church as they carry out the work of the Kingdom into all the earth by making disciples everywhere out of anyone.

How does the presence of Christ remain with us?

By the indwelling and powerful work of the third person in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. John 14:25-27 tells us that the Holy Spirit would teach us all things, those being the will of Christ, and bring peace to us. In this way, even though Christ is going away, his presence remains spiritually through the Spirit’s very real work in the lives of believers in the Church.

What does the presence of Christ accomplish in us?

It makes all the commandments of Christ possible to do, since it is not we who live but Christ who lives in us (Gal 2:20). Our faith unifies us with Christ, meaning we are able to accomplish his work through his power at work in us. This is why the Great Commission ought to give us such boldness, knowing that it is Christ at work, and his work cannot fail.

Without him we can do nothing.” But with Christ we can do all things. Christ’s presence confers success.

Charles Spurgeon

It comforts us, not only because of this promise of successful Kingdom advancement, but also because that presence is indeed personal. It is not merely power given to us, but a peace that the world cannot give because it comes only from the hand of Jesus himself. His personal presence with, in, and among us is the greatest comfort, for he is the risen Lord who loves us and is merciful to us.

It shows Christ to the world through our work and witness. Because of our union with Christ, the world witnesses him in us as he remains with us.

Conclusion: God is Still With Us

When is Christ with us?

When Jesus was born, he was called God with us.

The Gospel ends with the promise that God remains with us because Christ remains with his church.

The centre of the Gospel is that God has come to dwell with human being, long astranged by sin, through Jesus Christ. These final words tell us that the entire plan of God from Genesis 3 until now has been accomplished in Christ. God it with us.

Now, 2000 years later, God is still with us. He is still with his Church and his people, jsut as we are still called to bring the Kingdom of God to all the nations through disciple making.

So this is what we take away from the Gospel of Matthew after 4 years. Jesus, the Anointed King of promise, has come to establish the Kingdom of God. He did so by his death and resurrection, so that God may once again dwell with mankind. Our resonse to this truth: bring the Gospel to the world and make disciples so that God may dwell with them as well. In this age of uncertainty, war, disastor, and falsehoods, the truth that Matthew has shown us is indeed the good news the world is waiting for.