Sunday Sermon: Introduction to Matthew (Matthew 28:18-20)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday, we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe. Remain standing if you would and open your

Bible to Matthew chapter 28. We're going to the very end. I'm fast forwarding to the end.

That was a very quick study in the longest book of the New Testament. Matthew 28, beginning in verse 18, from the gospel of Matthew, we read what we have come to know as the great commission.

And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the

Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, as we come to your word today and we start a brand new study in the gospel of Matthew, I pray that we rejoice to hear the gospel proclaimed to us.

For that is what Jesus came proclaiming, the good news of the kingdom of God.

And we come to understand what it means to live as kingdom people in this world and preach this message of the kingdom to others in accordance with the commission that was given by our

Lord Christ and also in following his example for us. It is in the name of our great

Lord and Savior Jesus, in whom we pray and all God's people said, amen. Thank you.

You may be seated. There are a few things in most modern evangelical churches that you will not hear preached.

And they are the things that I would tell you to look for whenever you go from here to another church.

I've come to accept as a pastor of a Baptist church in a military town, this is going to be a very transient congregation.

And it's about something like every three years, half this congregation turns over. So I'm going to have you for a little bit of time and I'm going to continue to preach the word to you that you might store it up in your heart and be prepared as a

Christian to live in this world and also to stand before the throne of God on that day of glory.

But I also want to keep in mind that some of you who will not be here for the rest of your lives, who may go on to another place, what might you be looking for in another church?

Because not all churches are the same. Not all Southern Baptist churches are the same. In fact,

I've shared with many who have gone from here to other places, I've said to them, do not automatically assume that the

Southern Baptist church in the community where you will be placed is the same as ours. Not every

Southern Baptist church is even committed to expository preaching like we are, which is the verse -by -verse teaching of the scriptures going through entire books at a time.

Now, there's nothing wrong with topical sermons and usually when we get to a place in between like we are, like we would otherwise be hitting this

Sunday, we're in between our study of Ephesians and now starting a new study in Matthew, sometimes I take that in -between period to do something topical.

Given the time of year that it is, given the season that we are in, I might want to do a series of Christmas sermons.

But it just so happened to work out that since I wanted to go into Matthew next and we start by reading the birth of Christ, I went ahead and dismissed the topical series that I otherwise would have done and we just jumped straight into the book of Matthew.

So there's nothing wrong with doing those topical sermons every once in a while, but a church's regular diet should be expository preaching, going through the

Bible, because the Bible is our authority. It sits in authority over us as a church.

So we come to understand it in context, the word of Christ that has been given to us.

So most churches that you'll walk into won't even be expository preaching, but I'll also tell you things like look for a church that is proclaiming the gospel and a church that is calling out sin, a church that will correct false teaching and raise you up in sound doctrine.

But if there's one thing, if I could narrow it down to one thing that you will rarely find in most evangelical churches that you will walk into, it would be this, an appeal.

We might also refer to this as exhortation. That's what the word exhortation means.

It means to give an instruction, to appeal to someone, to do something. And that's rarely what you will find being done in most pulpits in America today.

You will not hear an appeal. What you might hear instead is, like I said, a bunch of topical things hitting subjects that might appeal to most people, but not appealing in the sense that exhortation or command or instruction is being given.

Most people want to hear their ears tickled, and there are many churches that are more than willing to oblige.

So what kind of things should we be listening for when we're listening for an appeal? First of all, we should be listening for an appeal to follow

Jesus. That should be the first and foremost thing that a church should be telling people to do, follow

Jesus. Well, aren't most churches doing that? No, on the contrary, most churches are not doing that.

In fact, you take one of the largest churches in America and one of the most published Christian authors in the world today,

Rick Warren, and what does he say about following Jesus? Rick Warren says things like, give

Jesus a try. He doesn't tell you to follow Jesus. He says, try

Jesus. See if it doesn't change your life. Is there a money back guarantee with that?

If it doesn't change your life, you can go do what you were doing before and everything will be fine.

There are plenty of people who try Jesus and they don't find anything in it.

We are to love him with everything that we are. We don't try Jesus. We don't put him on like a t -shirt and when it goes out of style, we go try to find something else.

But rather, we realize that we are wearing unrighteousness before a holy God and we stand in judgment and we must put on the righteous robes of Christ in order to be justified before the

Father and in fellowship with him, not just in this life, but even for eternity. We must do more than try

Jesus. You must follow Jesus. You must love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Second thing that you must listen for when you're listening for an appeal, an appeal to remember the cross.

And this has even become an offensive symbol in a lot of our churches in that you can go into most places, you probably won't even see a cross.

There's a church here in our own community. I had pulled up a video of theirs and was watching it online and I noticed watching the preacher preaching.

There was no cross to be seen anywhere on stage. In fact, even when we had put the screen up here several years back, one of the things we were first starting to hear from folks when we put the screen up was, well, where did the cross go?

So we had to find another way to put a cross up in here so we would remember the cross. So this one was made and you'll see it move around at different places all over.

Then of course, we have a cross on the pulpit and I was sure when I built this pulpit to stick the shield on there so there would be some symbol of a cross that would be demonstrated because this is what

I'm up here to proclaim. The cross of Christ who was crucified for our sins so that when we look to the cross, we know that our sins are forgiven and we have everlasting life with God.

Jesus himself said to Nicodemus in John chapter 3 that he was going to be raised up just as Moses raised up the serpent in the wilderness so that anybody who looked upon the serpent would be healed of the venom that was coursing through their veins as a result of the judgment that God had sent upon them for their sins.

So Jesus said the Son of Man must also be lifted up so that whoever looks upon him will live.

Jesus drawing direct attention to being raised up on a cross to be crucified for our sins, giving his life for us as an atoning sacrifice.

We must remember the cross. Yes, it's gross. Yes, it's kind of difficult to communicate to our kids a

Savior who died for us, a very gruesome death on top of that. We try to shield our children from violence on television and yet we're supposed to talk about worshiping this

God who was violently killed for us. But we must preach these things.

For it is in understanding the violence that he took upon himself, even more so than the violence of man, the violence of God, the wrath that was poured out upon him for our sake.

We must teach these things to our kids so that they would know it's through the cross of Christ that we are saved.

An appeal to remember the cross. What else might we be listening for? An appeal to repent of your sins.

And this is, once again, something you will not find very often in most churches that you will walk into today.

As a matter of fact, what you will probably hear is pandering. You'll probably hear a softening of sin so that we don't offend too many people, so we bring the most number of people in that we possibly can.

Now, I understand the mission, and this is how the Southern Baptist denomination fell into the pragmatism that it's suffering with to this day.

They thought if we could just soften things a little bit on the forefront, like in our presentation we soften it so that we can get the most number of people in here, and then when the room is full, bam, then we'll hit them with it all, and they won't be able to escape it because we've locked the doors and they can't get out, right?

So that was the Southern Baptist mindset at first when it came to this pragmatism and trying to get the biggest crowds that we possibly could.

But what those preachers began to realize is that if you draw them in by carnal means, you have to keep them by carnal means.

And so we drew them in, we got our big crowds, but as soon as we started talking about sin and repentance, well, then they started leaving.

So now we have to soften the message more to keep them here, and eventually you soften the message to a place where you no longer even have the gospel.

You don't have the need for the gospel. If you're not willing to talk about sin and a call to repentance, why does anyone need the gospel?

I'm just here to do my religious duty, I'm bored on Sunday mornings, football doesn't appeal to me.

Why are people coming to church? If it's not to hear that you are a sinner who needs a savior, and that savior has not only died for your sins, he's called you to turn from those sins and follow him in righteousness.

There must be an appeal to repent of your sins if the gospel is going to mean anything at all.

Fourth thing that you might be listening for, an appeal, an appeal to forsake the world.

This goes right with an appeal to repent of your sins. There must also be an appeal to not walk in the ways of this world.

And for a preacher to call you to that, to instruct you, forsake the ways of this world, he's going to have to tell you what the ways of this world are.

And once again, that's one of those things that preachers just don't want to do because that message can get kind of abrasive, it can start to offend people.

Once a preacher says, you shouldn't be watching these kinds of movies or listening to this kind of music, then a person sitting there going,

I watch those kind of movies, I listen to that kind of music, and quite frankly, I like that stuff better than this, so I'm just not going to come back to church anymore.

Now I'm not against entertainment. I have streaming services like most people do.

We have to have a righteous mindset when it comes to knowing what we are filling our brains with.

If we are constantly putting ourselves in front of the world's message, we're not forsaking the world, we're trying to be like them.

And we've not been called to be of this world. We are in it, but we're not to be of it.

We are of the kingdom of God. And we must have a kingdom mindset for even

Christ himself said in the Sermon on the Mount here in Matthew chapter six, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Our mind, our gaze, our attention drawn heavenward, not in the concerns and the ways and things of this world.

And it's not just concerning the philosophies of the world or the false teachings of the world or the entertainment and the appeals of this world.

It is also the worries and the concerns of this world. Do not fear what this world fears, my brothers and sisters.

Forsaking the world also means that we're not afraid of the things that they're afraid of. We don't engage in the same conspiracies that they engage in, but we put our hope and our trust fully upon the

Lord Christ who has promised to come back and judge this world and anyone else who is with it.

So let us not be of the world. Let us instead be of Christ. And finally, what is another appeal that we should be listening for?

It is an appeal to love one another. Now you might say, well, that is a very common message in most churches.

You can even walk into the Episcopalian church and you can hear a preacher standing at the pulpit saying, love one another.

It was an Episcopalian priest, I believe it was, that was preaching at the royal wedding.

Was that last year or the year before? And that was the gist of his whole message, love one another. So even among heretics, you hear this message of love each other, but do you hear a message of love one another according to what

Jesus says love is, not according to what the world says love is? Are you listening to what

Christ says about love? And in some of the things he says about love here in the book of Matthew, sometimes love must be tough.

Sometimes you have to confront a brother or sister in their sin and tell them to repent. And not doing that would actually be the hateful thing.

To not tell your brother to repent of his sin would be to let him walk in unrighteousness potentially to the judgment of God.

If we love one another, we must be disciplined according to his word. And we must encourage and admonish and build one another up in the law of the

Lord. These are things that you will not hear regularly preached in most evangelical churches and it all comes back to that appeal.

What does this have to do with an introduction to the book of Matthew? From the very beginning, all you hear from the start to the end is an appeal.

The very words, the very first words that Christ preached in Matthew chapter 4 as he's coming out of the wilderness having been tempted by Satan and having succeeded in turning from every one of those temptations.

Jesus comes out of the wilderness preaching these words, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

The very first words he preached, constant appeals all the way through this book in the words of Christ, an appeal to follow him, an appeal to consider the cross.

He was making that appeal before he went to the cross. There's an appeal to repent of your sins.

There's an appeal to forsake the world. There's the appeal to love one another. As Christ has preached these things, so I desire as a preacher to preach these things.

That we may be presented before God on that day of judgment, holy and justified by the blood of Christ and what we will hear from him on that day is well done, good and faithful servant.

Where do we get that expression by the way, well done, good and faithful servant? It's in the book of Matthew. If a person does not hear well done, good and faithful servant, what will they hear instead?

Depart from me, you worker of lawlessness, I never knew you. Where do we get that expression from? That's also in the book of Matthew.

Many of the things that you've come to know that are famous sayings from Jesus Christ, we have here in this book.

Some of you may have a red letter edition of the Bible and as you flip through the pages casually in Matthew, the first few chapters look kind of black and white, but then you start seeing red and it's almost red the rest of the way through the book of Matthew.

Matthew really desires to capture the words and the teachings of Christ in addition to many of his miracles and of course his parables.

What are we going to be seeing as we go through this particular book? 28 chapters, this is the longest book that I've preached through, of course, because it is the longest book in the

New Testament. The book of Matthew is laid out basically like this. In the first four chapters or from chapter 1 through chapter 4 verse 11, we hear the story of how

Christ has come. Next, from chapter 4 verse 12 through chapter 16 verse 20,

Christ proclaims the kingdom of God. And it's in there that we not only read about certain miracles, but we also read some of his parables.

Anytime a miracle is done, it is always something to illustrate a point about the message that Christ is preaching.

So miracles are not done simply for the sake of doing them, but Christ has done those miracles to affirm that he is who he says he is, the

Son of God who has come to take away the sin of the world. The fourth portion of Matthew we see in chapter 16 verse 21 through chapter 25 through 46, and that is

Christ revealing his suffering. We also have some end times teaching in there in chapters 24 and 25.

And the final section of Matthew's gospel is chapters 26, 27, and 28, where, of course, we read about Christ's death and his resurrection and his final commission, which we have started with this morning.

What are some of the key words that we're going to be seeing in the book of Matthew? Perhaps the most common phrase that is unique to this book that you find nowhere else in the

Bible with the frequency that you find it in the book of Matthew. That is this term, kingdom of heaven.

In fact, if you take all the rest of the books of the New Testament combined, you will not total the number of times you see that term come up in the book of Matthew, kingdom of heaven.

You pair it with kingdom of God, and you also find that expression more often in Matthew than in any other gospel.

Some other terms that we will find in Matthew include the Son of Man. This is the title that Jesus most commonly ascribes to himself, as we read here in Matthew.

And, of course, it was given by the prophet Daniel, and Jesus shows that he is the fulfillment of this prophecy that was made by Daniel when he calls himself the

Son of Man. Son of God is also used with more frequency in Matthew than in the other gospels.

A third term that you will find frequently in Matthew and more so than in the rest of the

New Testament is the word righteousness or righteous. Jesus talks about righteousness here more than you will see even the apostles talk about it later on in the epistles.

Now what does that word mean? It's important for us to know this, and I ask this question of my children often so that they do not forget it.

What does righteousness mean? When my kids need a hint, I always point to the very beginning of the word.

What is the first word that you see there in this word righteousness? You see the word right. Being righteous means doing what is right, but not doing what you think is right.

It's doing what God says is right. What does he say is right and holy and pure?

We'll see that come up over and over again as Jesus preaches on righteousness over the course of the book of Matthew.

Who is Matthew anyway, and why do we have a book named after him? Well, Matthew was one of the 12 apostles, so this is one of two of the gospels that was written by one of Christ's actual apostles.

Matthew being one of them, also known as Levi, the son of Alphaeus. He was Levi, the tax collector.

The other gospel that was written by one of the apostles was John. Mark and Luke were not apostles, though what they wrote was the testimony of the apostles.

Mark was writing essentially what Peter preached, and Luke was writing what Paul preached, though they themselves were not direct eyewitnesses to those things, although Mark probably was.

He may have been the young man who fled naked from the Garden of Gethsemane that we read about there in that gospel.

That could have been him. He mentions this guy, nobody else mentions him, and mentions him anonymously, so it was probably like, by the way,

I was this guy. That's me. This was the shameful thing I did when Jesus was arrested. So he was eyewitness to those things, but he was not actually one of the apostles.

Luke writes down an eyewitness testimony from those who did see and hear, but he himself was not one of the apostles that followed

Christ around. So Matthew was one of those 12 whom Jesus originally called.

Now, how do we know that? Because Matthew doesn't introduce himself at the beginning of this gospel.

In fact, all four gospels are written anonymously. We think of it as being just common knowledge that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written by those guys because it says that somewhere, right?

Doesn't it say John writing the apostle or writing the gospel of John? No, he never identifies himself.

So how do we come to know that Matthew was the one who actually wrote this gospel? We actually get this from church history.

We get this from the church fathers who preserved the apostolic tradition as it was being handed down.

And from guys like Irenaeus and others who lived in the late 1st, early 2nd century, we know that in antiquity, it was understood that Matthew, the son of Alphaeus, was the writer of the gospel of Matthew.

The apostles were not out for any fame for themselves. So Matthew is not starting his gospel by saying,

I am Matthew and listen to what I have to say. For he has no credibility in and of himself that he wants any acclaim for, but rather his intention for writing is to point to Jesus.

In fact, the way that Matthew's gospel begins is very similar to the way the Bible itself begins.

Now, some might say, well, I thought that was the gospel of John. It's the one that begins, in the beginning was the word, just like Genesis 1 begins, in the beginning

God created. Well, Matthew begins very similarly. Matthew 1 .1,

the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Well, that doesn't say in the beginning there anywhere. Yeah, it does.

It's the word genealogy. Literally translated, Matthew 1 .1 is the Genesis of Jesus Christ.

This is the beginning of his story and his ministry here on earth.

When John begins his gospel, he goes back even farther than Matthew did.

Matthew is just going to the beginning of Christ's earthly ministry. John goes all the way back to the beginning of time.

Before time even existed, there was the word. But that's not Matthew's intention for writing.

Who is Matthew's audience when he writes this gospel? His primary audience here is a

Jewish audience. For it was probably in a church in a heavily

Jewish area that Matthew was living and writing this gospel. By the way, the gospels as they were written were most likely written to those churches in which those apostles were ministering at that time.

Or Mark in the church that he was in, Luke in the church that he was in, or Luke specifically writing to Theophilus.

But Matthew was likely ministering in a church in a heavily Hebrew area, and it was to that particular church that he wrote this gospel, this teaching, so that they would have in writing for their purpose of study, the things concerning Christ.

The fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies that had been made about him and the other things that he taught and did and accomplished.

Even though it was to a particular church, just like we have in the epistles, Paul wrote Romans to the

Romans, he wrote Ephesians to the Ephesians. But just like we have those individual letters written to respective churches, it was always understood that those letters were going to be copied and circulated.

When Paul wrote to the Colossians, he said, when you have received this letter, take it over to Laodicea and show them this letter.

Oh, read the letter that I wrote to Laodicea while you're there. And then Peter even talks about in 2

Peter 3, how Paul's letters had been copied and distributed and passed around among all of the churches.

Paul even makes a reference to things that he had said to other churches. So it was the same with the writing of the gospels.

It's no different. When these gospel writers wrote these gospels, they wrote them to the churches that they were ministering to, but with the understanding that they were going to be copied and redistributed.

Now, this would have been a heavy copy since Matthew is the largest book of the

New Testament. But it is one of the most celebrated and one of the least contended against.

What do I mean by that? Even secular scholars acknowledge this is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

It is accurate, and we have no reason to doubt it. So if even secular scholars are willing to acknowledge that, why don't they become followers of Jesus?

Because they just don't believe what Jesus said about himself. Or they'll even try to dismiss it by saying that, well,

I mean, maybe legend perpetuated itself over a certain period of time, and things were kind of embellished and inflated and stuff, and Jesus went from being this philosopher that wandered in the deserts to a deified man who died and rose from the dead and all this other kind of thing.

Well, you just acknowledge that an eyewitness such as Matthew, the guy who actually followed him around, wrote these things down.

You acknowledge that, right? Well, yeah. So why don't you believe what he said? It's because their hearts are hard, and they suppress the truth with unrighteousness.

Men would rather follow their sin than follow Jesus. But there is no reason for us to doubt the historicity of the

Gospel of Matthew, what we read in this book, my friends, is historical fact.

They are not embellishments. They are proof. How many eyewitnesses does it take in a court of law to convict someone of a crime?

One. How many eyewitnesses do we have here in the Gospel of Matthew to the things that he proclaims?

Well, considering Matthew's voice is the one that's being given to us here in this gospel, we have one, but quite frankly, we have many others than that because Matthew wrote this in the time of other eyewitnesses who would have confirmed, yeah, what

Matthew's saying is true. I was there. I saw it. This happened. This is confirmed historical fact.

I was having a conversation with somebody yesterday. Okay, it was my atheist brother. And just yesterday, as I was talking with him about some of these things, he would contend with me about my own beliefs, which he clearly didn't understand, nor what the

Bible said. And when I would respond to him with what the Bible said, he would keep saying to me over and over again, give me something that's not the

Bible. Quit trying to prove it with the Bible. And I said to him, okay, then prove your beliefs without appealing to yourself because you are the source of your own beliefs.

If I can't appeal to the Bible, which is the source of my beliefs, then you can't appeal to yourself to affirm your beliefs.

And he would go on trying to establish certain, you know, moral principles and stuff like this, and I would simply respond to him, according to what?

He would say, this is wrong. And I would say, according to what? Like, what standard are you basing your knowledge of right and wrong upon?

My friends, we all know that there is truth. Everybody knows this. Even when they want to say something as absurd as there is no such thing as truth because they have to rely on truth in order for that statement to be true.

So, therefore, that statement contradicts itself, it is no good, and there is such thing as truth.

Furthermore, everyone believes that there is an objective truth that appeals to all people, that applies to everyone whether they acknowledge it or not.

Why does everybody know that? Because you have to rely upon that truth in order for any statement that you say to be true for anyone else.

Otherwise, you're just spouting off your own truth and it doesn't apply to anybody. So, we all know that there is a truth that exists and it applies to every person whether or not they acknowledge it.

Now, if we trace that logical argument all the way back, what we get to ultimately is the person who gives truth, and that is the one who created all things in the first place,

God, more specifically, Jesus Christ Himself. The very one who stood at the edge of time and declared, let there be and there was.

It was from the mouth and the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, we can know that what we read here is the truth.

It is binding upon every person. We must read it, we must know it, we must have it written upon our hearts.

And it is only by this word that we will live, the message of the gospel. You have sinned.

You need a Savior. Christ is that Savior. By His death on the cross, your sins have been taken away and you have everlasting life with God.

Romans 1 .16, Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

So, do you believe this? It is your salvation. Do you know that this is the only way to salvation?

Then you must know it and you must share it with others so that they too may be saved and live.

Now, over the course of this gospel, we're going to read several discourses, what are called discourses, and that's huge blocks of text in which

Jesus gives a particular teaching. The most famous discourse in the gospel of Matthew is, of course, the

Sermon on the Mount. And that will be chapters 5, 6, and 7. In our study of the gospel of Matthew, we will be on the

Sermon on the Mount longer than any other discourse, perhaps. The next discourse is in Matthew 10, and this is where Jesus calls the apostles and appoints them to go and spread the good news.

This applies not just to the apostles but even to us as we see the call to missions in this particular discourse.

The next discourse we find in Matthew 13, and this is where we read the parables of Jesus. And it begins with the parable of the sower.

The next discourse is in chapter 18, where Jesus preaches on believing. You must be like children in order to enter the kingdom of God.

And finally, the last discourse is in chapters 24 and 25. And this is a discourse that's commonly referred to as the

Olivet Discourse, for it was on the Mount of Olives that Jesus talked about these things. And here he explores the coming judgment of God.

So we're going to talk about some end times things as we get further into our study of the gospel of Matthew.

In the meantime, we begin with the story of Jesus Christ. Matthew 1, 1, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Since Matthew is writing to a primarily Jewish audience, there are many Jewish themes that are going to come up.

In the beginning, Matthew desires to establish two things. Here's the two things we need to keep in mind as we're reading about Jesus and also

Matthew pointing to the Old Testament passages that Jesus fulfills. Matthew is showing, first of all, that Jesus is the

King of kings and Lord of lords. The one who is the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant when

God said to David, on your throne, I will establish my kingdom forever.

So Matthew, in presenting this genealogy at the beginning, which is what we're going to be looking at next week, in presenting this genealogy establishes from the get -go that Jesus is from the line of Abraham, from the line of David, and the rightful heir to the throne of God.

This promised Messiah was said to be from the line of David and would sit upon his throne. And sure enough, this is that guy.

So that's the first thing that Matthew sets out to establish at the beginning of this gospel. The second thing is this,

Matthew wants to demonstrate that Jesus is faithful Israel.

Now, that won't become as apparent until we get to chapters three and four, and I'll explain what that means further when we get there.

But remember that Israel was notoriously unfaithful.

And we'll see that demonstrated even when we get to chapter two, just how far from God Israel had become.

And it's so Matthew would establish by laying that out, just how far Israel's hearts were from God, so that he could lay out,

Jesus is faithful Israel. Where Israel failed, Jesus succeeded.

And everyone who is in Christ has become the people of God.

There is no longer two peoples of God, ladies and gentlemen. There never has been two peoples of God.

There's only been one. There was Israel whom God called out of slavery, and there is

Israel whom God calls out of slavery. That's the church. We've been called out of slavery to our sin, to be faithful followers of the

Lord Jesus Christ. He who was faithful to God when Israel was unfaithful.

So in Christ, we are called to faithfulness as well. I hope you are as excited as I am to study this book.

This is my favorite book of the New Testament. And next week, we will begin this exploration by looking at the genealogy of Jesus.

Now you might note that next week is the last Sunday before Christmas.

So am I not going to get to the birth of Christ until the Sunday after Christmas? Now if you want to hear the story of the birth of Christ in Matthew 1 verses 18 through 25, you have to come to our

Christmas Eve service, because that's where I'm going to be preaching on that particular section. And then the

Sunday after that, which would be the last Sunday in December, then we will be looking at the visit of the

Magi in Matthew chapter 2. Now you may not be aware of this, but January 6th is known as Epiphany.

And what is typically celebrated on Epiphany is the coming of the Magi to the Christ child.

So we're going to be reading in that particular section by the time we get around to Epiphany, it's by the providence of God that all of this has lined up so gloriously to go with the season that we are in.

But how wonderful to celebrate this season of light, this time when Jesus came into the world.

At the same time, we'll be reading through the Gospel of Matthew and hearing about the fulfillment of this promise that God has given to all mankind.

Even though Matthew is writing to a primarily Jewish audience, he still sets to establish that Jesus is a king who came not just for the

Jews, but for the whole world. In fulfillment of what was even said in the

Old Testament, that Christ would be a light unto the Gentiles. He is the light that has come into the world and through our

Lord Jesus Christ, we are saved. So we remember this great commission that is at the end of the book, which we started with today.

Jesus said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Therefore, he only has judgment over the Jews. No, he has judgment over the whole world.

And commissioning to us, he says, go therefore and baptize, making disciples of all nations.

Baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. For it is Jesus Christ the

Son who reveals to us the Father and gives us his Holy Spirit. Jesus goes on to say, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

What an appeal this is, that we turn from sin, we follow Jesus. We do all that he has commanded of us.

And then we have this wonderful, blessed promise, which we'll be reminded of over and over again as we go through this study.

Jesus says, lo, I am with you always, even to the very end of the age.

My friends, that's good news. That is the gospel. Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we celebrate to read these words and know the message of your kingdom that has come to us through our

Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that for none of us, this would become pedantic and boring.

It is a great joy that wells up deep inside of us. It is something that lifts our eyes to the heavens.

It is something that on a daily basis stirs in us a desire for your kingdom.

May we have a longing in our hearts for heaven, not entrapped or ensnared by the things of this world.

We don't want this world anymore. We know it doesn't satisfy us. We hate our very bodies and the presence in this world.

The aches and pains our bodies bring us. How often they can betray us and we can fall into depression or despair or hopelessness.

Some of those things plague us physiologically. And so it's not for the ways of this world that we look to for any sort of deliverance or salvation from the things that we suffer.

But it is the kingdom of God. It is the promise of your forever heaven.

That we have deliverance from sin, deliverance from worldliness, deliverance from despair and hopelessness.

It is the promise of your kingdom that lifts us up, gives us hope, and helps us to endure to the very end.

Where we need to repent of sin, let us repent of sin. Where we rejoice in righteousness, may we rejoice.

Always with our eyes fixed upon Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith.

Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

We pray and ask these things in Jesus' name and all God's people said, amen.

Let us go back once again to O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. O come, all ye faithful, and joyful in your hearts.

O come, O come, Emmanuel. O come, O come, Emmanuel.

O come all ye faithful, and joyful in your hearts. Thank you for listening to our weekly sermon presented by First Southern Baptist Church of Junction City, Kansas.

For more information about our church, visit fsbcjc .org.

On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, inviting you to join us again this week, Growing Together in Christ, when we understand the text.