Matthew Part 2

Intro:

YouVersion

Prayer

Recap from last week

Flow:

Sometimes my girls don’t stop

Other times I can’t get them to give me the details

As we study Matthew there are so many place and things that we could spend a ton of time and ton of energy and ton of words but what I want us to try to do during our time here is show us the big things. The things I believe are most pressing and Matt main goals.

That will then give you the opportunity to dig some. I’m not saying those things aren’t important but rather there are things that are more important for our time here.

So don’t get angry or upset if we breeze through some things and areas and then slow down in other areas ok?

Last week Matthew’s goal was to show us Jesus’ genealogical right to kingship

As we trace Jesus’ genealogy back to Abraham through David it shows us that He is the rightful king of Israel.

I also talked about how Matthew will show Jesus as the King revealed, rejected, and the king to one day return

so, this morning we will be in chapter 2 and like in chapter 1 of matt his goal and overarching theme is the same but he’s going to come at it at a different angle. So let’s read chapter 2 and then we will break it down a little alright?

Matthew 2:1–23 NIV

1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” 3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: 6 “ ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” 7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.” 9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route. 13 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” 14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” 16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: 18 “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” 19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.” 21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23 and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

There are roughly 330 OT predictions of Jesus

Matthew is going to use 4 of them to prove to his readers and audience that Jesus is the one they have been waiting for

Each of these predictions is directly related to a geographical location

So Matthew went from genealogical to now geographical

First prophecy fulfilled is seen in chapter 2:6 that Jesus was born in Bethlehem a prophecy foretold in Micah 5:2 repeated here

The second prophecy is we see them escape to Egypt which would have fulfilled the prophecy founded in Ho. 11:1 that we see repeated here in Matt. 2:15

The third prophecy fulfilled is Je. 31:15. Because Herod had all boys under 2 killed in the city of Bethlehem and surrounding cities, since Ramah was a surrounding city it fulfills it.

And the 4th and final prophecy we see fulfilled is seen in Matt 23:23

It’s not a direct quote from the OT but thought to be indirectly done. There’s some Greek linguistic things behind how it’s written that would probably just bore us

But Matthew uses these geographical locations to reveal Jesus as King

Another big take away in this chapter is how Jesus is received.

There are 3 major groups of people at play here in chapter 2

We see Herod, the chief priests and scribes, and then the magi

This will be a foreshadowing of not only how the people of Jesus’ day responds to Jesus kingship but also how we can respond today to his kingship

Herod

King Herod was a big deal and he was known to be savvy and cunning.

He schemed and forced his way into an undeserved title.

At this point in history Herod would have been referred to as the “king of the Jews”

So when the Magi come and begin asking where the king of Jews is and they weren’t referring to Herod than what is his response?

We think well Herod was just pure wicked, he was a baby slaughterer, and a conniving, political rat. Now some of that may be true but what was his goal? What had he done and what does he do in this text?

Herod was guilty of building his kingdom and protecting it at all costs.

Everyone loves to be the hero right? I talked about the Avengers a few weeks ago and talked about the movies that they produced and all the storylines. We love a good hero. We love to envision ourselves as them. As kids we dress up as superman and batman and Spiderman and everyone else. We love a western where the good guys win and the bad guys lose.

We even love the heroes of the Bible. We love guys like Sampson and Moses and David and we’ll say “yea, I’m like a David”

And I’m not trying to shatter your hopes and dreams but you and I are probably a lot more like a Herod than we want to believe

How often do we build our kingdom?

How hard do you work for you?

How many decisions do you make for you?

And to what lengths would go to protect your kingdom?

I’m not trying to paint us as a bunch of narcissistic egomaniacs but let’s be real for a second. Paint it however you want, tell yourself whatever you want, but what percentage of your life is about you?

Now let me flip this on it’s head

How often do we build God’s kingdom?

How hard do you work for King Jesus?

How many decisions do we make to portray and positively effect the kingdom of God?

This is Herod’s fault. And I think far more often than we want to admit, it’s our fault too. Life is about me.

And what Matthew is showing us and going to show us is that man what kind of life is that?

If life is all about the 80 years that you have on earth and how much you can acquire and you can build and you can obtain and you can protect than life will be unfulfilling, not satisfying, and meaningless.

But if life really isn’t about my kingdom but about the kingdom of God than my life is built and established in a kingdom that will last forever. A kingdom that will not falter, will not fall, and will not fail. And that is a life worth living.

Psalm 145:13 NIV

13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations. The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does.

So, let’s not be Herods.

But rather a people established under the kingdom of God, fighting for the kingdom of God

The next group of people we see are the chief priests and teachers of the law or scribes

Herod after hearing this news comes to them and says “where is the Messiah to be born?”

They reply “Bethlehem in Judea” there’s this big prophecy thing in the OT. Micah tells us about this king. They immediately report from the OT where the Messiah would be born and therefore confess to believe it to be true.

And yet they apparently did nothing about the report that the Magi brought.

Their fault was not protection but rather in being passive.

Imagine. These guys have spent their lives studying the OT. Most of them probably had a majority of it memorized. They were some of the brightest and best of the Jews.

Everything they had been studying all of their lives is leading them to this Messiah that would be born in Bethlehem. These guys roll up one day and say “hey where’s the king of the Jews that’s just been born. We’ve been guided here by a star and something’s different about this one.” Then Herod huddles you up and says “hey where is the Messiah supposed to be born?”

They’re just gonna go oh you mean the Messiah we’ve spent our whole lives studying? The Messiah who will come through the line of David and be the rightful king of Israel?

Oh you mean the savior of the world? Yea he’s gonna be born in Bethlehem and then just go back to whatever the heck they were doing? Like are you crazy? You’re not gonna at least go and check it out.

I’d be packing a bag, throwing it in the car, pulling up google maps and asking for the quickest route to Bethlehem but these dude just go back to whatever they were doing.

This week we had the Governor visit Perry. Governor Desantis and I was sitting in Backdoor Bistro and we had some people come in and they said “Someone really important is over at the Bakery. There’s men in suits and there’s people out the door waiting in line and it was like a madhouse. I saw a hundred pictures of people posted up with him in the bakery. All to get a picture with the Governor of Florida.

Now take the excitement and hype and anticipation of the governor coming to Perry and multiply it by a thousand. This is the king of the world we are talking about and you’re telling me these guys aren’t going to do anything?

But how often do we play passive with Jesus?

How often do we treat Him like just another box to check, just another figure to know some information about, just another person to take our picture with

Maybe you were one who got your picture with the governor this week. That’s awesome! You know what you have, a picture, a cool story, and way to act like you know him.

You know what we do with Jesus? We try to just get a little picture of him, be able to tell some cool stories about Him and then act like we know Him.

That doesn’t mean you know Jesus anymore than taking a picture with the Governor means that you know him. The kingdom of God doesn’t work that way.

If we are going to be true believers of Jesus we don’t get to treat Jesus passively. And even if we could why would we want to?

We have access to the King of king and Lord of Lords.

John 17:3 NIV

3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

We get to know God why would we choose anything else? Why would we be passive or indifferent about Him?

We then see the Magi

Now there are lots of Myths about the Magi and there are probably things you believe about them because of Christmas and the Nativity scene but there’s really not a ton of information about them in this text.

We know they were astronomers and Gentiles. There wasn’t necessarily just 3 of them and we don’t know exactly where they are from

We do know that the star they saw and were following had to have been a phenomenon and a miraculous doing.

We also know that they must have known somehow that this king was set apart from just any other king.

The phrase they use when referring to Jesus is “born king” not “born to be king” which would signify that they are talking about what he is, not what he will one day be.

They explain what they are doing and who they are searching for. But what do they say their objective is? To worship him.

They may or may not have understand in its entirety who this king was but they knew he was a king unlike any other and they also knew they only proper response was worship.

So the current “king of the Jews” decides to be protective.

Protective of what’s his, his kingdom

The scribes and teachers decide to be passive

All they had been waiting for was here and they did nothing about it or with it

But the Gentiles the ones who didn’t know exactly what it meant, didn’t understand the full significance of it, probably didn’t fully understand that this was God in the flesh. Simply knew that this was a King unlike any other. What was their response? WORSHIP!!!

They said, “man we’ve got to see Him! We have to be with Him! We have to worship him!!!!”

This is the only proper response to King Jesus.

What King Jesus should do in our hearts and souls and minds is create in us this attitude of worship.

Listen you may not get it all. You may not even understand the full significance of it. But when you grasp the idea that the creator of the universe, the King of the world, went to the cross on your behalf to die a death that you deserved to pay the price you could not pay to give you a royal pardon for all of your sins to establish a kingdom that you can be a part of and create a pathway to then know Him. Our response should be Worship!

Philippians 2:6–11 NIV

6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

What Matthew is showing us and going to show us is that this is the King we have long been awaiting and

with Jesus’ kingship comes a kingdom that we get to be a part of

The question is pretty simple. What is our response?

Do we become so protective of our kingdom that we get no part of His?

Do we become so passive that we miss out?

Or do we enter His kingdom with thanksgiving and praise and Worship Him?

It’s what we are created to do and there’s coming a day that whether you like it or not that every knee is going to bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord, that He is King. Will fight against it? Will we do nothing with it? Will we wait until it is too late? Or will we choose this day to Worship the one deserving of everything?

So that’s how we are going to respond this morning. We are going to respond in worship

And as we sing and join together in worship I want you to evaluate your heart.

First, are you in God’s kingdom? Have you confessed Him as Lord and King of your life?

Second, is your response to Him proper? Is your life a track of worship to King of kings?