The King Who Saves - Introduction to Matthew

Well, as we have mentioned this morning, our series, our journey, our expedition, if you will, through the book of Matthew will begin.

And this morning, a little differently than I typically do without having a lot of introduction, we are going to actually jump right into the text that we are going to read today.

And so we are gonna read from a couple of different places in the book of Matthew. First of all, we are going to read in Matthew chapter one.

And then we're also going to read a little bit from Matthew chapter 28. So what

I need you to do is go ahead and flip over to 28, put your finger there, flip back to chapter one, and just kind of hold your place.

So what we're gonna do this morning is we're gonna read in chapter one, verses one through 17.

Now our focus for today is only verse one. We'll deal with two through 17 next week.

And then we're also gonna flip back over to the end at chapter 28 and look at verses 18 through 20, a very familiar set of verses.

And then as we move forward this morning, I think it will become clear why we are approaching it in the manner that we are.

And so by this time, I have talked enough so that you have found both places, marked them, and you can join me in standing in reverence for the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, sufficient, complete, and certain word.

In Matthew's gospel beginning in the first verse and following through the 17th, we read these words.

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac was the father of Jacob. And Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers.

And Judah was the father of Perez and Zerubbi Tamar, and Perez was the father of Hezron, and Hezron was the father of Ram.

And Ram was the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab was the father of Nehishon, and Nehishon was the father of Salmon.

And Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab. And Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed was the father of Jesse.

And Jesse was the father of David, the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah.

And Solomon was the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam was the father of Abijah.

And Abijah was the father of Asa. And Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat was the father of Joram, and Joram was the father of Uzziah.

And Uzziah was the father of Jotham, and Jotham was the father of Ahaz. and Ahaz was the father of Hezekiah.

And Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh. And Manasseh was the father of Ammon.

And Ammon was the father of Josiah. And Josiah was the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

Jeconiah was the father of Sheleteel. And Sheleteel was the father of Zerubbabel.

And Zerubbabel was the father of Abiud. And Abiud was the father of Eliakim.

And Eliakim was the father of Azor. And Azor was the father of Zadok. And Zadok was the father of Achim.

And Achim was the father of Eliud. And Eliud was the father of Eleazar.

And Eleazar was the father of Mathan. and Mathan was the father of Jacob, and Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, by whom

Jesus was born, who is called Christ. Therefore all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the

Christ fourteen generations. And then, if you will, flip over to the 28th chapter and we will read verses 18 through verse 20.

And Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

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 keep all that I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Father, as we begin this time by listening to the record of the historical lineage of Christ, of the line that continued uninterrupted from Abraham through David to Christ, and as we heard the declaration of the authority of Christ over heaven and earth, we ask that you would grant that our beholding of your redeeming love in every part of your work.

Father, that we would see that love in your incarnation, that we would see it in your agony, that we would see that love displayed on Calvary's cross, and that we would know that that love is still present with you even as you reign from on high, interceding on our behalf as our great high priest.

Father, in light of this knowledge, in light of the truth that Christ is who he says he is, in light of the understanding of this redemptive work, we pray that you make us bold in our faith, that we are steadfast in our obedience, and we do so because we know that all authority belongs to Christ.

That authority enables us to stand firm against the adversary, to resist temptation, to renounce the empty promises of this world, and to be a people who are valiant for the truth as those claimed by the

King whose kingdom has no end. Lord, we pray that you deepen within us the reality of our covenant union with you, that Christ as our bridegroom, our mediator, our righteousness, and our friend, and as we consider these things in your glory and our unworthiness, remind us that in Christ you have loved us with an everlasting love, a love that gave itself for us and now causes us to live for you.

Father, we pray that we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, covered according to grace by faith, and that we are sent out to proclaim the truth of Christ, the one who is all and in all.

We ask all of these things in the precious name of King Jesus.

Amen. You may be seated. So as we begin to take this journey to walk through the gospel of Matthew, we need to take a few minutes to understand what it is that we are stepping into.

And so as we do this, we need to have the understanding and not just a mental acknowledgment of, but a wholehearted belief in the truth that these writings, that what we are going to read as we work through the gospel of Matthew, is not just this collection of familiar stories.

If we sat down and we talked about the book of Matthew, many of us would recall specific things.

We know that Matthew is the only one that records the visit of the wise men from the

East at the birth of Christ. We know that Matthew records the birth of Jesus a little differently because he records things occurring more from the perspective of Joseph.

And we see all of these things. We know the Sermon on the Mount is contained within the book of Matthew.

The kingdom parables primarily are contained within the book of Matthew. The occurrences, the miracles that we see work throughout the book of Matthew.

It's easy sometimes to think, oh well this is just another story, another tale, another epic adventure for us to read.

But what we need to recall is that these are not just this collection of familiar stories.

They are, number one, truth. And number two, it's not random at all.

In fact, as we work through, you will see that the book of Matthew, just like other books, all of the books of scripture are carefully constructed proclamations revealing to us

God's redemptive plan. And so what we come away with is the fact that this is not just a book of religious trivia.

Matthew's intent is to proclaim to us a king when writer was helpfully compared each one of the different Gospels to music.

And that how each has their own baseline and each has their own distinct melody.

But that even with their own different baseline and their own distinct melody, they all declare the same

Christ. They all declare the same cross. They all declare the same resurrection.

But what they do is they approach that proclamation in different ways.

And so what we see in the book of Matthew, something that is distinct in the very beginning, and that flows throughout the entire book, and is literally part of the focus, is, as I said, to introduce us to a king, and not just any king, the king of kings and Lord of lords,

King Jesus. That's Matthew's purpose. The introduction that he gives us here, that we're going to deal with this morning, literally flows all the way through to the end.

This is why we read the beginning and we read the end, because what you see in the beginning is a declaration of Matthew regarding the authority of Jesus.

And at the end, you see Jesus himself walk in, proclaim that authority, send out to the nations, and demand allegiance from all the earth.

What you might have missed is that all of that is literally contained in the first verse of the book of Matthew.

And so as we work through this, we will see that there are three lines of melody that are played out throughout the book of Matthew.

Douglas O'Donnell does a good job of summarizing these three melodic lines as all authority, all nations, and all allegiance.

This is the spine of the book. This is the thing that holds the book of Matthew together.

This is the thing that drives us from Matthew 1 -1 all the way through 28 -20.

And so this morning, we are going to literally serve two specific functions in this message.

The first of those is to introduce you to the book of Matthew. One of the things that's important when you study the

Word of God is to understand the book that you're reading, not just from a sense of, well, this is

Matthew's gospel, he was one of the disciples, he wrote it, and move on, but from a sense of the time that he wrote, the best that we can tell, the authorship of the

Word, why we think, what we believe, where it was written, to whom it was written, why it exists.

So this is what we will do to begin with this morning. But then we're not just going to look at this introduction to Matthew, not just this high -level academic overview of the book of Matthew.

We're also going to dig into this first and last verse and see how this gospel begins and ends with the sovereign authority of Christ, an authority that reaches every person, in every place, in every time, for all eternity.

And so as we walk through this, I would suggest, as we go through the course, not just today, but over the next three to five years, as we work through this book, that you make the reading of the book of Matthew a habit.

It doesn't take very long, but I would caution you against reading it too quickly.

Because I don't know about you, but what tends to happen with me is when I come to a passage that I'm very familiar with, I tend to kind of read through it quickly.

And the danger there is that you miss something you've never seen before, or that you're reminded of something that you've seen a thousand times, but just not paid enough attention to.

So make it a habit to read through this book once a week, once a month, whatever is comfortable for you, whatever is your pace, but do it repetitively as we work through this.

So when we look at the book of Matthew, and we begin to ask the questions, why this book?

Why did this gospel get written? Obviously, the easy answer is because the

Holy Spirit moved in Matthew, commanded him to write these things down, and so Matthew was obedient and wrote these things down.

We know that from scripture. That's how we receive the Word of God. But when we look at this specific book, we do want to take into account the details around it.

And so we want to understand that when we look at the Gospels, all of the Gospels, it's not just merely a means of conveying information.

For example, if you need to look up some information, for those of you who are young enough, you're not going to know what

I'm talking about, but used to, back in the day, we would go to the bookshelf and pull out what was called an encyclopedia, right?

And you had to know how to spell what you were looking up, kind of like the dictionary. Didn't have these fancy phones and spellcheck and all that quick stuff.

Now, everybody goes to Google and whatever Google says is the Gospel, although I would caution you against making it the

Gospel. But we would look up and we would get information regarding a topic.

So if you needed to write a paper for school, the first thing you did was you went to the encyclopedia, you read all about whatever the topic was, and then you begin to take the information there and put it into your own words and regurgitate it back to the teacher.

An encyclopedia is a book of information. The Word of God is not just a book of information.

The Word of God is a living, breathing document. It is a covenant document.

It is the testament, the testimony, the truth of Christ's life.

And it is a truth that is made sure by His death.

Hebrews chapter 9, verses 16 through 17, for where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it.

For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never enforced while the one who made it lives.

So this is the covenant that was made certain by the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of King Jesus.

It's the covenant. It's His Word. It's this New Testament document that's a legal instrument by which it is conveyed to and settled upon all believers.

That's what the covenant document contains and does for each of us.

In other words, it's not a suggestion box. It is the

King's published will sealed by His blood, heralded by His people to the world.

This is what we have in front of us. That's the seriousness of which we approach

His Word. Matthew Henry says that something must be pressed into our conscience regarding not just the

Gospel of Matthew, but all of the Gospels. But what must be pressed into our conscience is that unless we consent to Him or submit to Him as Lord, we cannot expect to benefit from Him as Savior.

Now there's a big debate going on right now that deals with Lordship salvation. What I want to make you very clear is that that's a different idea and a misconstruing of an idea that is going on.

When we talk about submitting to Christ as Lord, we do so in obedience to Him because we are saved.

The Holy Spirit has moved upon our lives. We have by faith received grace. We are saved to the uttermost and we are enabled to submit to Him as Lord.

This sentence, this idea, this truth that we have to know

Him as our Lord or as our King and that we cannot truly expect any benefit from Him as a

Savior without that literally harmonizes

Matthew's aim in the book of Matthew. You see, Matthew will not allow us to admire

Christ while we refuse to submit to His authority. We can't walk through the

Gospel of Matthew without coming to a point where we are confronted with this either we have faith and believe in Christ and who

He says He is according to His revealed Word and thereby are saved to the uttermost or we don't and we face eternal damnation.

This is the point. We cannot be confronted by this information without grasping with it.

As we look at this book, one of the things that I mentioned in Sunday school class is that typically none of us really begin to think about how we know that this is

Matthew's Gospel. If you read through the Gospel of Matthew, you'll never find a place where it says that, hey, I, Matthew, penned this work.

How do we know that the authorship is what we say it is? Now, one of the things that will happen in modern society is if you go out and you begin to ask this question, you're going to find that there are people who fight against the genuine authorship of Matthew of this

Gospel. They say, well, you know, it's not actually written. We can't prove it was written by Matthew. Matthew didn't sign it. It truly is an anonymous

Gospel. But what we see that's been noted by many different theologians and many different experts,

John MacArthur being one of them, is that one of the reasons that we attribute the Gospel of Matthew authorship to Matthew is because all of the earliest translations or recordings of the

Gospel of Matthew that we have begin with the header, the Gospel of Matthew. And so the earliest church traditions, the earliest church fathers unanimously attested the book to Matthew.

But on the flip side of that, what we also need to ask ourselves is why would it matter if he wasn't?

The truth is, it wouldn't. You see, the authorship of this book is not the big deal.

The big deal is the proclamation of the King. And so when we get tied up in things like who wrote it, sometimes we can take them to a place where it is a little beyond what it should be.

We also have external sources that quote and show and are unanimous in attributing the

Gospel of Matthew to Matthew. Matthew, as we know, was also named

Levi, and Levi was also a tax gatherer. We see in Matthew 9, and as Jesus went on from there, he saw a man called

Matthew sitting in the tax office, and he said to him, follow me. And he stood up and followed him.

Now why does it matter that Matthew was a tax collector? Well, one of the reasons that it matters that Matthew was a tax collector is when you begin to attribute

Gospels to individuals and you want to claim who wrote something, let me just help you understand, a tax collector to a

Jew in that time and place would not have been the individual you would have chosen.

Because literally, he was the lowest of the low. He was hated by his countrymen.

He was used as a traitor and an extortioner and was ranked right along with sinners, prostitutes, and get this,

Gentiles. That's how bad tax collectors were to the Jewish people. So the

Jewish people are not going to attribute a Gospel to someone in that rank unless the reality is he wrote it.

But what we also see is that even with Matthew being that person, even with him being numbered amongst the lowest of the low in the views of his fellow

Jews, Jesus still called him. Jesus still used him.

And that matters because what we see portrayed through us in the

Gospel of Matthew is a king who has every right to reject the sinners, instead summons sinners to himself, to his kingdom.

The time frame of the writing of Book of Matthew is debated.

Somewhere between 70 and 90 AD is the prevailing theory. However, there are a few who push it as early as the 50s and 60s, not 1950, like 50 -50.

Again, the timing is only important to the level that we understand that it was written this close to the life of Christ.

One of the opinions that exist out there is that Jesus lived, and then we went on for thousands of years, and then somebody started writing this stuff down so that there was, you know, by this time things had changed, legends had grown, all of this stuff happened.

At this point in time in the writing, especially if it's as early as the 50s and 60s, you're only 20 years or so out from the death and resurrection of Christ, you have plenty of eyewitness testimony still to write, still to gather, still to recall

Matthew himself, again, being an eyewitness to these events. Again, the year is not precise because it's not the most important thing.

Matthew's goal in writing the Book of Matthew was not to satisfy our curiosity. Matthew's goal in writing it is to proclaim a king and command faith and obedience from his subjects.

MacArthur gives it to us very plainly. He says the message of the Book of Matthew centers on the theme of Jesus's kingship.

And as we walk through the book, we see Christ revealed, we see Christ rejected, we see Christ returning.

Matthew continuously paints Jesus in royal colors. This is done in the

Book of Matthew more so than it ever is in any of the other gospels.

The purpose of Matthew is to proclaim the king. Just like if you go to the

Book of John and you go to the end of the Book of John, you see clearly in John's writing, this book was written so that you may believe, so that you may know who

Jesus is and believe. Matthew is writing so that you would know who the king is and believe.

Leon Morris adds that Matthew is deeply interested in fulfillment.

When I say fulfillment, he's interested not in fulfillment of you and I, he's interested in the reality that King Jesus fulfills the writing of Scripture.

Over and over and over in Matthew, we see that it may be fulfilled. Or so that what was written was fulfilled.

Or so that the word, the prophets were fulfilled. So Matthew has this deep understanding and deep knowledge that we can understand that there is a continuity between the

Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament prophesying the coming of Christ, the

New Testament revealing this event has occurred and the truth of his life.

And doing so by connecting the dots to demonstrate that this is true, that this is real, that this is right.

Matthew is written so that you will not see Jesus as just a hopeful moral teacher.

Matthew is written not so that you would just see him, see

Christ as your spiritual life advisor, but so that you would see him as the promised king.

A little while ago we read from 2 Samuel chapter 7, God promising to David this offspring that would reign forever, this kingdom that would know no end.

This is the promised king. This is what Matthew is proclaiming. And so in such, we see that this

God who has promised all of these things. And we can go back through our entire work that we just finished in the book of Exodus and we can see how he's promising forward.

Remember, we talked all about the types and shadows of all of the things in the tabernacle and how all of these things point forward to a greater mediator, one who was to come.

And now we get to the reality of that arrival. And so as we work through that, we see that throughout the book of Matthew, you can really view it.

And if you look at different scholars, different scholars break this thing down in different ways. I break it down in eight different movements.

So chapters one through four deal with the arrival of the king.

We'll talk about his genealogy. We'll begin that next week. We'll talk about his birth. We'll talk about his worship, the threat, the flight, the return, the forerunner of John the

Baptist. We'll talk about the baptism of Jesus. All of these things, the arrival and the first proclamation that the kingdom of God is at hand.

All of these things that lead up to that. The effort here is to establish the credentials of the king, to ensure that we understand who the king is, but not just who he is in name, who he is, and what supports the truth that this is who he says he is.

Spurgeon, reflecting on Matthew chapter one, verse one says, Matthew was moved to write of our

Lord Jesus Christ as king. This genealogy that we'll study in depth next week is not a filler.

I can remember reading the Bible when I was much younger and anytime I got to so -and -so begat, so -and -so begat, so -and -so, because if you read it in the

King James, that's how it was always written, you know, so -and -so begat, so -and -so begat, so -and -so. And I was like, I don't even know what a begat is.

I'm skipping all this because I can't see any value in it. Even today as an adult, it's difficult for people to see the value in understanding the genealogy.

We'll get into that next week. One of my favorite things now is these genealogies because they demonstrate so much to us.

John Broadus said, Matthew's opening sentence strikes a key note. This gospel written by a

Jew for the Jews, declaring the king of the Jews. Now he's not just king of the

Jews, he's king of all, and we'll see that as we walk through things this morning. But he proves that the evidence is here, the proof is there that Jesus is

David's heir, that he's Abraham's seed. The promises that were given in the

Old Testament have a name, and that name is Jesus.

Then we move into chapter five through verse seven, and we'll see the kingdom revealed in teaching.

You may know just by the chapters that this is the famous Sermon on the Mount, one of the greatest teachings of all time that we find.

This collection that's condensed down into these three chapters in the book of Matthew that is literally greater knowledge than all of the libraries in the world could ever contain when we really begin to break it apart and try and understand it.

And we see the crowds recognizing towards the end of Matthew 7 that Jesus teaches as one who had authority, not one who just merely knew, not one who merely understood the ethics, not one who merely had the law knowledge, but the one whose law it was, the law that is written on the hearts of his people, the law that drives the worship of his people, the righteousness of the kingdom that is to exist.

And then after we move out of the Sermon on the Mount in chapters eight through ten, we will see that kingdom go from a place of being revealed to us in teaching to being revealed to us in power.

We'll see the miracles, the credentialing that is done, the disease that is healed, the demons that are cast out, the winds, the waves, death that is conquered, the commissioning of his own disciples.

See, authority is not stored in Jesus like a museum artifact. It flows outward through his mission to his people.

You have authority. Why do you have authority? Because all authority has been given to him, and he grants authority to you to go and to proclaim his truth.

Then we move into verses chapters 11 through 13. Chapter 11 through 13, what we see is the revelation of the king.

Now, this is a little bit difficult for some of us in church sometimes to understand that as Matthew unfolds this, even though the whole thing is about Jesus, we want to jump to the conclusion that it's already about Jesus versus following the logical way in which

Matthew reveals this to the people of that time, in the way that Jesus' life revealed who he was to the people at that time.

And then ultimately, this revelation means that he is resisted and then eventually rejected by his own.

We see the parables in chapter 13 show the already not yet aspects of the kingdom, the fact that it is already here but hidden in many ways compared to the future certainty.

We see seed now, harvest later. We see leaven now.

We see full rising later. Then we move into chapter 14 through 17.

Chapters 14 through 17, we will see the identity and the characteristics of the king. In other words, what we will see is who the king is behind just the name, behind just the identity that has already been revealed to us.

We'll get into who he truly is, that he's not just merely powerful, that he literally is

God incarnate, that the glory that he professes is his glory.

It's not a glory like Moses that was being reflected. It is one that was generated from within who he is.

And then we see the disciples who have been following him now forced to confess him.

You see, they're brought to that point where it's not just a matter of doing what it says but believing as well.

Then we get into 18 through 20 and we deal with kingdom life, the humility of the kingdom subjects.

We talk about how we should live, how the kingdom should exist, how humility does.

We talk about reconciliation. We talk about forgiveness. We talk about care for the little ones. By the way, don't get hung up on the fact that little ones is about children here because it's also talking about those who are spiritually children and the care that we have to offer them.

Greatness here is inverted that the low are lifted and the proud are warned.

Then in chapters 21 through 25, we have the king entering into Jerusalem.

We see the events that ultimately lead up to his crucifixion.

In chapters 26 through 28, we deal with the passion. The king, before he heads to the cross, before we see the fulfillment of the plan of God in great display where Christ's blood is poured out for the remission and forgiveness of our sins.

Then we see the resurrection and the commissioning and the passion.

By the way, passion doesn't mean Valentine's Day passion here, brothers and sisters. You should go look up the definition of the word passion sometimes because it's not always what you think it is.

The passion, the passion, the sorrow, the challenge, the difficulty, the things that he endured give way to enthronement.

The rejected king is now reigning on high.

All of this begins in Matthew 1 .1. You're like, man, I don't know how you got all of that out of 1 .1.

I didn't. It's a survey of the whole chapter, but it starts in 1 .1.

What I will show you over the next few moments is between our two anchor texts,

Matthew 1 .1 and Matthew chapter 28 verses 18 through 20, is that we see the authority of Christ being total, being universal, and because it is total and because it is universal, it demands universal and total allegiance.

It begins with the authority. In Sunday school this morning, we talked about the authority of the word of God and how the authority of the word of God is not found in us.

It's not found in the people who wrote the text. It is found in God, and just as the authority there is found in God, so the authority here is found in the same manner.

We don't just get names. One of the things that we got to put aside sometimes is our thought process around names and realize that names carry with them much more.

For example, when you look at the first clause here, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, if you go out and you ask the average person on the street, what was

Jesus' last name? They're going to tell you Christ. Christ is not a name. Christ is a title.

The title Christ literally means that he is the anointed one.

The title of the anointed one is the king, but not just the title.

Christ bears the connotation of him being king. The name Jesus also bears a connotation.

You'll recall from Luke's gospel when the angel visited Mary, he told her, behold, the virgin will give birth, excuse me, a little bit later in Matthew's gospel when he's talking to Joseph, they will call his name

Emmanuel, which is translated God with us.

The name Jesus, the incarnate savior, the one who is God with us is king.

Now take this king, and if you view this king in a manner that says, well, he's just some

Johnny come lately who wants to be the king, things begin to fall apart very quickly.

Remember, this is a book written by a Jew for the Jews to proclaim the king of the Jews. And so the first thing that needed to happen was not only did we proclaim who the king was entitled in a name, we also needed to, or Matthew also needed to proclaim why the king had the right to be king.

This is where the title here in the second clause, the son of David comes in. You see, the son of David is the rightful heir to the promised throne.

Go back to our call to worship this morning, 2 Samuel chapter 7. The fact that he is proclaimed as the son of David here proclaims that Jesus is the rightful heir to the throne.

Now, hopefully you'll recall that there are two genealogies in the gospels. We have two separate genealogies of Christ, and this has given a lot of people a lot of problems over the years because they're looking for problems.

It's not real difficult. If you go home today and you begin to do your genealogies, brothers and sisters, every single one of you has two.

You understand that, right? You got your mama's side and you got your daddy's side, every one of you.

So what we see here in the gospel of Matthew is Joseph's genealogy.

Now you say, well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on a minute. Joseph wasn't the father, but remember he was the earthly father in the sense that he was the adopted father.

And the adopted father, we get on into Romans. Remember when you're adopted into the kingdom, what happens?

You receive the rights and privileges. Therefore, as the adopted son of Joseph, he is subject to the lineage of Joseph.

But if you go and you study, if that gives you real heartburn, go study the other lineage that we have, by the way, which is the lineage of Mary.

And you'll also see, guess what? It goes back to the same place. The only difference is one is a male, one is a female because there's only two genders.

That's okay. I'll deal with social media fallout. It doesn't bother me. In fact, cancel culture can cancel me.

I'll be okay with it. I don't know that I would know the difference. So what we see is the proclamation that this man,

Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the anointed one, the

King who has the title or the lineage of the son of David.

But then we have this next clause here, the son of Abraham.

Now what's interesting is what that actually gives to us.

Because you see, oftentimes what we hear in our conversations is, well, this is father

Abraham. He was father of the Jews. So therefore this is talking about him being a Jew. You do understand that Abram was not a

Jew until he was, right? Abraham was not ethnically a

Jew. Hopefully I just blew your mind a little bit.

You need to think about these things just a hair. He wasn't a Jew until God gave him the commands on how to bring people into the covenant, right?

Y 'all remember how all that occurred in the book of... If not, go back, read Genesis. It's all there. Remember all of the people had to be circumcised?

You remember in Exodus, they had to repeat the process because they had quit doing it? Because they forgot that that was part of what

God had commanded them to do. Abraham wasn't a

Jew until that occurred. So when we talk about him being the son of Abraham, it's not just merely the fact that he would be

Abraham's seed. It was also the truth that from that seed,

Genesis chapter 12 verses one through three, and Yahweh said to Abram, go forth from your land.

So this is when Abram is called. So he's still living in his original spot as a nomadic person, traveling around, doing his shepherding and other things that he did.

And God calls him. And he said to Abram, Abram, get up, go take all your family, take your animals, take all this stuff.

I will tell you where you're going when you get there. And he wasn't a young man, by the way.

He was in his 40s. He was well established. It was a challenge for anybody.

And he says to him, go forth from your land and from your kin and from your father's house to the land which

I will show you. And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and I will make your name great.

And so you shall be a blessing and I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you,

I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed.

Now, when we deal with this, this is why it's imperative that we understand

Abram wasn't a Jew until he was, because he wasn't at this point.

A few weeks ago, back during Christmas, we went through a whole series about the bride and the preparation.

And one of the things that we demonstrated early on in that series is that from Genesis, from the beginning, it was to be a nation of all peoples that would be brought to the house.

All of these people were the people of God. Again, here we see this picture of Abraham and this

Abrahamic seed, this covenant that began all the way back there that all of the families would be blessed.

Matthew declares two things in this statement. One is, well, three things.

One is Jesus is king. Two, he's king of Israel. Three, he's king of the world.

In declaring all three of those things, he shows, one, that his authority extends to all.

Go to Matthew chapter 28. All authority has been given to me from the heavens and earth.

Go into all the nations, teaching them all the things that I've taught you, baptizing them in the name of the

Father and Son and the Holy Spirit. As Lord of all, he literally is

Lord of all. Spurgeon says that a devotional response just to Matthew 1 .1,

just reading that short verse, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, should press a devotional response that demands us call out to him, my

God and my king, because we unpack what that verse says.

We understand how it relates. We cannot sit.

As we read through the book of Matthew, we're not going to be able to sit as detached critics because the gospel itself commands us to bow to the king because we're going to be seeing, see his authority over and over and over.

Remember I told you a while ago that fulfillment was a big part of what Matthew is dealing with.

He wants us to understand that the word of God is being fulfilled in Christ Jesus, that the promises of the left side of the book are fulfilled in the man proclaimed in the right side of the book.

The man who was truly man and truly God, the

Lord Jesus Christ, the king of kings. Throughout the book of Matthew, we see this as O'Donnell describes it, logic on fire.

It's not this cold proof texting where we go, here's our supposition. Here's all of the texts that support our supposition.

What Matthew does is he reaches out and he grasps who you are at the core and forces you internally to deal with it, not just in a head sense, but in a heart sense.

Because at the end of the day, you will deal with it one of two ways. You will accept or you will reject.

If you look at the teachings of Jesus and you look at the sayings of Jesus, think about who talks like Christ did.

I mean, even the verse we read this morning in verse 18 of chapter 28, all authority has been given.

If somebody came up to you tomorrow, ran them off the street, just looked at you and said, hey man, all authority has been given to me on heaven and on earth.

What would you say? Hang on a minute, brother. Let me call somebody for you. You're going to send him to the nuthouse.

Nobody talks like that. Nobody commands that authority.

Nobody brings that to the point. Again, the crowd's recognized

Jesus as one teaching them having authority, not as their scribes. Not just simple authority, but true, real authority.

You know the difference between when you speak to someone who has authority and someone who doesn't, right?

How many of you have ever been involved in a situation where you wanted to speak to a manager? You could tell when you finally got to the manager, right?

Not just to the other customer service agent next door that they handed it to so that you would think you were talking to a manager, but to the real manager.

Because everything changes. The whole tone changes. The authority conveyed changes.

And this was Christ. His claims were not egocentric.

They were clothed in humility, but they were founded and firm in his authority.

The authority is completed in the resurrection. It was not until after the resurrection that Jesus proclaimed that all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

It's the resurrected Christ speaking as the enthroned Christ, the vindicated

Son, the rejected King has become the reigning King. Matthew begins with Abraham because again, it's not provincial, it's global.

Go to Matthew 28 verse 18. Go to where? All the nations. The message is for all people.

MacArthur reminds us that Matthew repeatedly shows Gentiles included and Jews resisting.

Why do you think Matthew's gospel shows us the Magi worshiping King Jesus? These were

Gentiles. They were not Jews. He brings us to a centurion that confesses, a

Canaanite woman that pleads, nations commanded to be discipled.

All of this in the book of Matthew driving us towards this understanding that it is encompassing all of the world.

And because that authority exists and because that authority is supreme in all places and all times, it demands all allegiance.

The commission that we find in the final verses of Matthew's gospel noted now as the great commission is not a suggestion.

Go back and carefully read that sometime. He doesn't say all authority has been given to me.

If you feel like it, when you feel up to it, when you're comfortable, when you have learned enough, go into all the nations.

What he says is go into all the nations, teaching them all that I have commanded you and baptizing them in the name of the

Father and Son and the Holy Spirit. All nations are to be received the proclamation of the gospel, every hearer.

This is not a doctrine to affirm in the sense of we need to give it a mental check mark.

We need to say, oh yep, yep, absolutely. Jesus is authoritative in all things. We do that, but that forces us to move forward in obedience.

That forces us to move forward saying that we will be obedient because of who he is, because of what he has done.

From a theological perspective, if we work through the book in a

Christological mindset, focusing on Christ, we see that he is the promised Messiah King, the man who is truly man, truly

God. We see the authority of the resurrection. If we look at it from a viewpoint of what does this have to do with salvation, we see that the

King saves by blood. Whose blood? His blood. The cross is the

King's victory. From a church perspective, how do we look at the gospel of Matthew?

From a church perspective, we see that the King forms a people and commands disciple making, baptism, teaching, and obedience.

You know, three out of four of those aren't really welcome in most churches anymore. They love baptism because it allows them to put on a show, but let's not talk about actually making disciples, teaching them, or commanding obedience.

Let's just give them enough to dunk them in the water, say we did something, and move on our way. But all of those things are commanded in this gospel to the church.

From a final viewpoint perspective, eschatological wise, if you want the $5 word, we know that King Jesus is going to return to judge all and to bring about the final consummation of his kingdom.

And if we look at it from a biblical theology perspective, I know you're like, well, all of these different theologies is beyond me, but biblical theology, we take the whole word, right?

From Genesis to Revelation. When we look at it from that perspective, we see Abraham to David, David to Christ, Christ to the consummation.

And we see the redemptive arc, the reality of this truth that the promise that was given becomes a person, the person becomes a king, the king forms a people, the people are sent into the world, and then the king consummates fully his kingdom.

And so we have to ask ourselves a question. If Jesus has all authority, does he have all power?

Do we understand that that means that no part of our lives is exempt from that? If Jesus claims all nations, then your

Christianity is not between you and God. Your faith is not between just you and God.

Your faith is a matter of public record and is to be proclaimed. Otherwise, it's not faith.

If you deny me before men, I will deny you before my father who is in heaven. People say, well, yeah, hey, listen, man, that's between me and God.

No, no, it's not. You're supposed to proclaim what you believe. You're supposed to let other people know you're not supposed to hide it.

Now, you don't have to run around with a big shirt and a banner that goes, hey, I'm a Jesus freak. Just live your life according to his word.

Trust me, you'll gain enough attraction. People will look at you and go, that dude's weird. Something's wrong.

Something's different. Something's off. He doesn't look like the rest of us. And they'll want to know why. But you're also supposed to teach it.

So if he has all authority, no part of your life is exempt. If he claims all nations, then your

Christianity is not private. And if he commands all obedience, well then, my friends, selective obedience, selective discipleship is rebellion dressed in religious language.

Selective obedience is hidden disobedience.

To say that Christ is Savior while refusing that Christ is

Lord is not Christianity. I'm going to repeat that.

Just make sure everybody heard me and I'm clear. If you are more than happy to proclaim

Jesus as Savior, but do not want to acknowledge him and submit to him as Lord, then you are not a believer.

Yep, I was being all judgmental right there. According to the word of God and its standard, because guess what?

That's the same standard I'm held to. Matthew Henry warns us, and this should land with more weight now than it did when

I first read it, unless we consent to him as our Lord, we cannot expect any benefit by him as our

Savior. So welcome to Matthew, the gospel of the

King, a gospel that begins not with sentiment, but with sovereignty, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, and will end not with nostalgia, not looking back and going, didn't he live a wonderful life, but with a forward look and a commission and authority where he says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and earth.

Go make disciples, teach him all that I have commanded you, baptize them in the name of the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As we walk through this gospel, you should see revealed a

King who fulfills prophecy, who speaks with unmatched authority, who lives with unblemished holiness, who acts with divine power, who is rejected by the proud and received by the needy, whose crown is first woven with thorns and whose throne is first a cross.

Why? So that sinners might be forgiven and brought into the kingdom.

And it will show you a risen, reigning, and present with his people,

King. Lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the age.

And because of that, it means that we cannot remain spectators, because the

King has spoken, the authority has been declared, the nations have been claimed, and allegiance is required.

So as we begin our only true response, that every heart should cry out, my

God and my King, Christ is all. And because he is all, we bow at his feet, we follow his command, and we go proclaiming his truth.

Let us pray. Our sovereign and gracious Lord and King, we are so grateful for your word, for your truth, that you have not left us to wander in this world, that you've not left us with uncertainty, that you've not left us just not knowing that all that we need is proclaimed right here in your word, that has been clearly revealed to us by your authority, authority that is in heaven, that is on earth, that has been given to Christ Jesus, our

Lord. Lord, as we work through the gospel of Matthew, this writing that you have given this faithful servant,

Lord, that teaches us even now, even here, even today, all of these years later, that still contains the truth of your word, that you would remind us of the testimony of King Jesus, the son of David, the son of Abraham, the promised

King, come to bless all the nations. And Father, that this understanding would cause us to bow before Christ in humble faith.

Father, we pray that you forgive us where we have gladly received him as Savior, but resisted him as Lord, that every rival allegiance within us is subdued, that we gladly submit to all that he has commanded.

And that submission is not out of fear, but out of love and adoration for all that he has done in giving himself for us.

Lord, we pray that you strengthen us as your people to live as loyal subjects of Christ's kingdom, that we, as we are sent out, we are obedient to make disciples, to proclaim with our lives and with our lips all that you have commanded us.

And we ask all of this in the matchless name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.