July 22, 2025 • 20 mins
The Gospel of Matthew opens with a bold declaration that would have immediately captured the attention of its Jewish audience: Jesus Christ is the rightful King of Israel. Through a meticulously documented genealogy, Matthew establishes Jesus' legitimate claim to David's throne and connection to Abraham's covenant promises—essentially presenting the "smoking gun" evidence for Christ's messianic identity from the very first verses.
Pastor Brandon takes us deep into the cultural significance of Matthew's approach, explaining how family lineage was crucial in ancient Israel for establishing property rights, tribal identity, and royal succession. By tracing Jesus' ancestry through both David (the royal line) and Abraham (the promise line), Matthew leaves no doubt about Jesus' credentials as the long-awaited Messiah. Even more fascinating is the unexpected inclusion of five women—most likely Gentiles—suggesting from the beginning that Jesus' kingship extends beyond Israel to embrace all nations.
As we explore the narrative of Jesus' birth, we discover Joseph's extraordinary character, the supernatural divine intervention through the Holy Spirit, and the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy about "Emmanuel" (God with us). This theme of divine presence becomes the foundation for Matthew's entire gospel narrative, culminating in the Great Commission where Jesus promises to be with his followers "always, to the end of the age." The profound implications are clear: the King of Kings desires intimate fellowship with his followers and invites us to participate in his mission of bringing God's kingdom to earth.
Whether you're new to Bible study or have been exploring Scripture for years, this fresh look at Matthew's Gospel will deepen your understanding of Jesus' identity and purpose. Join us as we journey through this remarkable account of Christ's life, teachings, and kingdom ministry—and discover how the rightful King still calls us to follow him today.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 0 (00:00):
Well, hello everybody .
Welcome back to the BibleBreakdown Podcast with your host
, pastor Brandon, today.
Matthew, chapter 1.
And today's title is King Jesus, king Jesus.
I'm going to go ahead and tellyou I have been looking forward
to the book of Matthew for areally long time, so I cannot
wait to get into this.
So, if you have your Bibles, Iwant to open up with me to
(00:21):
Matthew, chapter 1.
It's the first chapter in yourNew Testament.
While you're doing that, ifyou're your Bibles, I want to
open up with me to Matthew,chapter 1.
It's the first chapter in yourNew Testament.
While you're doing that, ifyou're new around here, as
always, I want to take just asecond and remind you to like,
share and subscribe to theYouTube channel and the podcast.
Make sure you leave us afive-star review on the podcast
and leave us a review of how youare interacting with God's Word
and what blessing it is to readthrough God's Word.
(00:43):
Here's the reason why First ofall, it doesn't cost you
anything, but then also, itreally gives us an opportunity
to show other people how theycan interact with this podcast.
When I go and I'm looking for anew podcast to listen to, one
of the things I do is I goimmediately down to the reviews
and I want to hear what peopleare saying about the podcast,
and so when you do that, you'rehelping people know how they can
(01:05):
interact.
Also, make sure you go into theBible Breakdown Discussion on
Facebook.
There's an amazing group ofpeople doing a wonderful job
there every day, and, as always,the more we dig, the more we
find.
Well, as I was telling youearlier, I am really looking
forward to the Gospel of Matthew, and if you are part of Real
Life Church in Bowling Green,kentucky, or if you've ever
looked at any of our content,you know that we went through
(01:27):
the book of Matthew a couple ofyears ago and it took us like
two years to go through it, and,man, what a wonderful journey
it was, and so I'm lookingforward to jumping into this.
And so, as always, chapter oneis a little bit longer because
we're going to give you a lot ofbackground before we jump into
the chapter.
So here we go.
First things first.
The overall theme of the Gospelof Matthew is King Jesus, and
(01:50):
the reason why that is willbecome, hopefully, evident in a
little while, but the goal ofMatthew was to talk about the
kingship of the Messiah, jesusChrist.
So let me give you somebackground.
First of all, who wrote the bookof Matthew?
It was unanimous in the earlychurch that, even though it
doesn't say his name within theactual gospel, that it was
(02:12):
written by Matthew, also knownas Levi.
Levi would have been his Jewishname, matthew would have been
his Roman name and he waspreviously a tax collector.
And you can read about hisstory in the Gospels that he was
a tax collector, which wouldhave meant he was hated by all
the Jewish people.
And you know what's reallymind-blowing is it's possible
(02:36):
that, as a tax collector fromthe area, he might have been
Peter James and John's taxcollector, so they would have
hated him.
They would have saw him as asellout because he was working
with the occupying government,the Romans, and taking taxes
away from them.
And tax collectors werenotorious for also being
cheaters, where they wouldcollect more money than they
(02:59):
were supposed to, and Romedidn't care as long as they got
their money.
They turned a blind eye and sothey could say you owed $10 when
you really only owed five andthey'd pocket the other five.
So they were hated.
But this is the background ofMatthew, also known as Levi
before he came to Jesus.
He was also just to give yousome background.
Once he encountered Jesus, hebecame one of the 12 disciples.
(03:20):
He was part of the early churchand according to church history
, he was martyred in Ethiopiafor preaching the gospel.
And the way he was martyred washe was most likely stabbed to
death with a sword.
So he gave everything he hadfor the gospel.
Now where is Matthew likely atwhen he is writing this?
He is likely in Syria orAntioch or somewhere in
(03:42):
Palestine.
So Antioch isn't really talkedabout that much outside of the
book of Acts, but it was one ofthe early main cities for the
gospels.
As a matter of fact, when thepeople spread out from Jerusalem
, when a lot of persecutionstarted, antioch was one of the
first places they all kind ofcongregated, and so it's likely
(04:03):
that Matthew spent a lot of histime there.
Now here's the differencebetween Matthew and the other
Gospels.
Matthew was primarily writtento the Jewish nation, and here's
the reason why Because, as theGospel began to spread for a
while, primarily the earlychurch was trying to reach the
(04:23):
Jewish church, because they werethe ones that Jesus first came
to the Jewish people, because itwas through the Jewish people
that God was going to bless thewhole world, and so Matthew
spends a lot of time reallytalking about the gospel from
the point of view of Jewishculture.
And so we're going to see thatthroughout the book of Matthew,
including chapter one.
And when you understand the tosee that throughout the book of
(04:44):
Matthew, including chapter one,and when you understand the
background, you realize thatMatthew comes out swinging man I
mean, he is in their face.
From chapter one.
It was most likely writtenbetween 60 and 70 AD, and what's
really interesting is there'smore Old Testament connections
than any other gospel, andthat's because he's trying to
appeal to the Jewish audience.
But what's also interesting isa lot of scholars are beginning
(05:05):
to think that what Matthewactually did was at first he
would put out little, almostlike pamphlets, like little
booklets of the differentaspects of Jesus' life, and he
would have put out about five ofthem.
And eventually Matthew put allof these little pamphlets that
he would be passing around intoone gospel narrative, and that's
where we get the gospel ofMatthew.
But it's also why the gospel ofMatthew very neatly fits into
(05:29):
five different sections, and sothe big idea of Matthew once
again is that Jesus is thepromised king and Messiah who
brings the kingdom of heaven toearth.
He begins with Jesus' lineageto prove his authentic right to
rule the earthly kingdom and theheavenly kingdom, and we'll get
into that in just a second.
The reason why Matthew is soimportant is because it shows
(05:51):
how Jesus fulfills God'spromises, about how he is the
fulfillment of the Old Testament.
It teaches how faith in Jesustransforms every part of life.
He models what it is to be acitizen of God's kingdom and it
also provides the greatcommission at the very end,
which is now kind of ourmarching orders as Christians
nowadays.
(06:12):
Now what's going on during thetime of Matthew elsewhere in the
world is the Roman Empire, isthe dominant world power At the
time when Matthew was beingwritten.
Nero is Caesar and there's alsomassive persecution going on
everywhere.
Tensions are rising between theJews and Rome.
That leads actually to theJewish war that culminates with
(06:33):
the destruction of the temple in70 AD.
Christians are starting to facemassive persecution and being
pushed out of Jewish synagogues.
So one of the reasons whyMatthew is probably writing to
them is maybe because he nolonger has access to the Jewish
synagogue.
So he's writing to the Jewishpeople to try to tell them who
(06:54):
Jesus is and what he came for.
And also, this is a time when alot of people are being
martyred, so this would havebeen written about the time when
Paul and Peter are beingmartyred for their faith and all
these different things, andmany of the Jewish Christians
are struggling with theiridentity.
Are they Jewish?
Are they supposed to keep thelaw?
(07:14):
How does Jesus fulfill the law?
All those kinds of things thatMatthew's gospel answers,
because Jesus answered it duringhis public ministry.
Other facts that are interestingabout the gospel of Matthew is
Matthew is the only place thatuses the phrase kingdom of
heaven, whereas the othergospels talk about the kingdom
of God.
The Sermon on the Mount,chapter five through seven, is
the longest continuous sectionof Jesus' teaching.
(07:36):
In the Bible we see places likein the Gospel of Luke where
there is a summary of theteaching of the Sermon on the
Mount, but the Sermon on theMount in Matthew 5-7 is the
longest place.
And here's the interestingthing is, even secular
philosophers will study theSermon on the Mount, because it
is also thought to be one of thegreatest works of literature to
(07:57):
ever exist.
Another one is Mattheworganizes his Gospel into five
major teaching blocks.
We talked about that a minuteago and Matthew is the only
place to include the story ofthe Magi or the wise men
visiting Jesus.
So let me give you five wayswe're going to apply the gospel
of Matthew, and then we're goingto jump right into chapter one.
Number one is we can apply thegospel of Matthew by living
(08:20):
kingdom-minded as disciples.
Number two is we can practiceauthentic faith that is not just
outward but is about aninternal fellowship with God.
We can trust Jesus as Lord,savior and King, not just as a
good teacher, and we arecommissioned by the end of
Matthew Matthew 28, to makedisciples and then to pray and
(08:42):
live with the expectation ofJesus' return as king.
So let's dive into chapter one.
Let me give you a little bit ofbackground before we do this.
So when the nation of Israelsettled into what was called the
Promised Land during the timeof Joshua and they separated out
the land, that was God keepinghis promise to the nation of
(09:03):
Israel, and so family lineagewas extremely important because
it proved that you are part ofthe Jewish nation, it proved
that you had a right to the land, and then afterward, when they
started having kings.
It also would track the lineageof royalty and so family and
all of that was very, veryimportant to the Jewish people.
That is how they would makeclaims on all kinds of different
(09:29):
things, and so one of the waysyou would prove who you were was
by being able to have a recordof your family history.
And so the reason why chapterone starts the way it does is
because, right out of the gate,matthew is saying I'm going to
tell you exactly who Jesus is.
Now, let's be honest Chapterone we normally skip, don't we?
If you just want to be honestwith me, I'll be honest with you
(09:50):
.
Most of the time, when I used toread through the book of
Matthew, I started with chaptertwo, and here's the reason why,
because there is a bunch of veryhard names and, to be honest
with you as well, many times Ijust didn't get it.
I was like, okay, great, he hada family, that's fine.
But here's the thing whensomeone would want to claim to
(10:11):
be a status of a leader orsomething like that, the first
thing they would say is well,what's your family?
Because you had to be able toprove lineage.
And so immediately what happensis.
Matthew is coming right out ofthe gate and he is saying Jesus
is the king and I got the proof.
It literally is the smoking gun.
If you were to be in a capitalmurder trial and people are like
(10:35):
, well, I don't know if he didit, I don't know if, whatever,
and let's say you come out witha literal picture of somebody
holding the gun, like you go,here's your proof, like I can
prove he did it.
Right, that's what Matthew isdoing.
Is he is saying I can promiseyou that he is the rightful king
of Israel because I've got thenames to prove it.
So actually, he is putting itin their face right away and he
(10:59):
is making no distinction at thevery beginning Jesus is the king
.
Okay, so here we go.
Matthew, chapter 1, verse 1.
Let's read this is a record ofthe ancestors of Jesus the
Messiah, the descendant of Davidand of Abraham.
Now pause.
You notice that right there heis saying he is the Messiah
because he is a descendant ofDavid, which is the line of
(11:21):
royalty, and the descendant ofAbraham.
That's the descendant of David,which is the line of royalty,
and the descendant of Abraham,that's the descendant of the
promise.
So he's saying he is therightful king.
Here we go.
Abraham was the father of Isaac,isaac the father of Jacob,
jacob the father of Judah andhis brothers.
Judah was the father of Perezand Zerah, whose mother was
Tamar.
We'll come back to that in asecond.
(11:41):
Perez was the father of Hezron.
Hezron was the father of Ram,ram was the father of Abinadab,
and Abinadab was the father ofNahashon.
Nahashon was the father ofSolomon, and Solomon was the
father of Boaz, whose mother wasRahab, and Boaz was the father
of Obed, whose mother was Ruth.
Obed was the father of Jesse.
(12:02):
Jesse was the father of KingDavid.
So there's the lineage straightthrough and then all the way
down to Jesus.
David was the father of Solomon,whose mother was Bathsheba, the
widow of Uriah.
Solomon was the father ofRehoboam.
Rehoboam was the father ofAbijah.
Abijah was the father of Asa,asa, the father of Abijah.
Abijah was the father of Asa,asa, the father of Jehoshaphat,
jehoshaphat, the father ofJehoram, jehoram, the father of
(12:26):
Uzziah.
Uzziah was the father of Jotham, jotham, the father of Ahaz,
ahaz, the father of Hezekiah,hezekiah, the father of Manasseh
, manasseh, the father of Ammon.
Ammon was the father of Josiah.
Josiah was the father ofJehoashin and his brothers born
about the time of the exile toBabylon, after the Babylonian
(12:47):
exile.
Jehoashin was the father ofShehiltil.
Shehiltil was the father ofZerubbabel.
Zerubbabel was the father ofEbuid.
Ebuid was the father of Alekhim.
Alekhim was the father of Azor.
Azor was the father of Zadok.
Zadok was the father of Achim.
Achim was the father of Eluid.
Eluid was the father of Eleazar.
(13:07):
Eleazar was the father of Matan.
Matan was the father of Jacob.
Jacob was the father of Joseph,the husband of Mary, and Mary
gave birth to Jesus, who iscalled the Messiah.
All those listed above included14 generations, from Abraham to
David, and 14 generations fromDavid to the Babylonian exile,
(13:29):
and 14 generations from theBabylonian exile to the Messiah.
Now pause.
So once again, the point is,matthew is saying that he is the
rightful king because he is theheir of Abraham, which is the
promise, but because he is theheir of Abraham, which is the
promise, but he's also the heirof David, which is the royalty,
and so he has.
So, before he even establisheshim as God, he establishes him
(13:51):
as the rightful king of Israel.
It's also interesting to notice, if you did, there were five
names of women that were there,which would have also been very
interesting because in lineagesit was the male firstborn son
that was in the lineage, andevery one of those has an
amazing story.
And also all of those womenother than Mary were most likely
(14:14):
Gentiles.
And so right away he is alsogiving a little bit of a hint to
say he's not just the rightfulking of the Jewish nation, but
he's a rightful king of allpeople, including the Gentiles.
They have a right to thekingship of Jesus.
All right, let's keep going.
Verse 18.
This is how Jesus, the Messiah,was born.
His mother, mary, was engagedto be married to Joseph, but
(14:38):
before the marriage took place,while she was still a virgin,
she became pregnant through thepower of the Holy Spirit.
Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did
not want to disgrace herpublicly, so he decided to break
the engagement quietly andpause.
It's important to realize thatin Jewish culture, the moment
(14:59):
you became engaged, it wasbasically like you were married.
You couldn't just break off anengagement for no reason.
It was a really big deal tobreak off an engagement, and
many times if you broke off anengagement because of infidelity
like this, in some of the moreextreme cases the woman could be
put to death or the man.
I mean, it was a really, reallybig deal.
(15:19):
And so you can see the amazingheart of Joseph, because he did
not want that to happen to Mary,and you imagine how his heart
was probably broken, because hedoesn't know yet that the Holy
Spirit has done this.
So, even though his heart islikely broken and he feels like
she has been unfaithful, he'ssuch an amazing man of integrity
he doesn't want her to bekilled, so he is wanting to try
(15:41):
to find a quiet way to dissolvethe relationship.
But look at this, verse 21.
Excuse me, verse 20.
As he considered this, theangel of the Lord appeared to
him in a dream, joseph, son ofDavid.
The angel said do not be afraidto take Mary as your wife, for
(16:06):
the child within her wasconceived by the Holy Spirit.
Look, all of this occurred tofulfill the Lord's message
through the prophet.
Look, the virgin will conceivea child, she will give birth to
a son and you will call himEmmanuel, which means God with
us.
When Joseph woke up, he did asthe angel of the Lord commanded
(16:27):
and took Mary as his wife, andhe did not have sexual relations
with her until her son was born, and Joseph named him Jesus.
Wow.
Well, there's so much there tounpack, but the main thing I
want to lean on is two things.
First of all, some people getconfused when it says you're
going to give him the nameEmmanuel, but yet they named him
(16:50):
Jesus.
And so basically, what thescripture is saying is you're
going to give him the nameEmmanuel.
Emmanuel means God with us, soit was almost like a nickname,
it's like how he would be known,and so I want to make sure you
kind of understand.
It's not saying that Jesus hadmultiple names.
It was just saying he willrepresent God being with us, and
(17:11):
that is the point that Matthewis going to spend the rest of
his gospel sharing with all ofus.
And you can see that fromchapter one, that, when you
understand the background,matthew is not messing around.
He is literally waving thepapers in front of the audience
and he is saying I can provethat Jesus is the Messiah.
(17:32):
So it's almost like in chapterone he says okay, that's settled
, he has a right to claim theearthly throne.
I'm gonna spend the next 27chapters showing you that he is
more than just an earthlyMessiah, that he's also God with
us and we're going to see as itcontinues to unfold.
The kingdom is coming to earth,and so what do we do with this
(17:54):
today?
And that is this Can I tell youthat your king, if you're a
Christ follower, your king, kingJesus, wants to have fellowship
with you.
If you think about it, jesuscame and died on the cross for
you.
If he did that, what would henot do to be close to you?
As we're going to look atthrough the gospel of Matthew,
(18:16):
jesus walked among the people.
We're going to look at, maybe,a different way to see what
happens when he's debating withthe Pharisees people.
We're going to look at, maybe adifferent way to see what
happens when he's debating withthe Pharisees, and we're going
to look at some different thingsthat maybe you've never heard
before.
But the one thing I hope youhave heard before and I want to
double down on it one more timeand that is this your king, king
Jesus, wants to walk with you,and here's the great news he
(18:40):
doesn't just want to walk withyou, but he wants for you to be
able to be part of his mission,to be part of the kingdom of God
.
He's going to end all of thiswith saying the thing that I've
done in you.
Go do it in other people'slives.
Go make disciples of allnations.
God's got a big idea for us,and he's also got a big idea
that we get to share in to therest of the world, and I can't
(19:00):
wait for us to get further intoit in the Gospel of Matthew.
Let's pray together right now.
God, thank you so much for today.
Thank you for the Gospel ofMatthew, because it reminds us
that, jesus, you're not just agood teacher, you weren't just a
good man, you're king.
You're the king over all,you're the king of our lives,
and I pray that, as we dig intothe gospel of Matthew, we'll
(19:22):
come to know you more, we'llcome to love you more and we
will long to serve you more.
In Jesus' name, we pray Amenand amen.
Well, the theme verse ofMatthew is going to be Matthew
28, verse 19, when it says allauthority in heaven and on earth
has been given to me.
Go, therefore, and makedisciples of all nations.
(19:43):
My prayer is that you fall inlove with Jesus and then you
fall in love with the ability tomake him known into all the
world.
I love you.
I'll see you tomorrow forMatthew, chapter two.
Well, hello everybody .
Welcome back to the BibleBreakdown Podcast with your host
, pastor Brandon, today.
Matthew, chapter 1.
And today's title is King Jesus, king Jesus.
I'm going to go ahead and tellyou I have been looking forward
to the book of Matthew for areally long time, so I cannot
wait to get into this.
So, if you have your Bibles, Iwant to open up with me to
(00:21):
Matthew, chapter 1.
It's the first chapter in yourNew Testament.
While you're doing that, ifyou're your Bibles, I want to
open up with me to Matthew,chapter 1.
It's the first chapter in yourNew Testament.
While you're doing that, ifyou're new around here, as
always, I want to take just asecond and remind you to like,
share and subscribe to theYouTube channel and the podcast.
Make sure you leave us afive-star review on the podcast
and leave us a review of how youare interacting with God's Word
and what blessing it is to readthrough God's Word.
(00:43):
Here's the reason why First ofall, it doesn't cost you
anything, but then also, itreally gives us an opportunity
to show other people how theycan interact with this podcast.
When I go and I'm looking for anew podcast to listen to, one
of the things I do is I goimmediately down to the reviews
and I want to hear what peopleare saying about the podcast,
and so when you do that, you'rehelping people know how they can
(01:05):
interact.
Also, make sure you go into theBible Breakdown Discussion on
Facebook.
There's an amazing group ofpeople doing a wonderful job
there every day, and, as always,the more we dig, the more we
find.
Well, as I was telling youearlier, I am really looking
forward to the Gospel of Matthew, and if you are part of Real
Life Church in Bowling Green,kentucky, or if you've ever
looked at any of our content,you know that we went through
(01:27):
the book of Matthew a couple ofyears ago and it took us like
two years to go through it, and,man, what a wonderful journey
it was, and so I'm lookingforward to jumping into this.
And so, as always, chapter oneis a little bit longer because
we're going to give you a lot ofbackground before we jump into
the chapter.
So here we go.
First things first.
The overall theme of the Gospelof Matthew is King Jesus, and
(01:50):
the reason why that is willbecome, hopefully, evident in a
little while, but the goal ofMatthew was to talk about the
kingship of the Messiah, jesusChrist.
So let me give you somebackground.
First of all, who wrote the bookof Matthew?
It was unanimous in the earlychurch that, even though it
doesn't say his name within theactual gospel, that it was
(02:12):
written by Matthew, also knownas Levi.
Levi would have been his Jewishname, matthew would have been
his Roman name and he waspreviously a tax collector.
And you can read about hisstory in the Gospels that he was
a tax collector, which wouldhave meant he was hated by all
the Jewish people.
And you know what's reallymind-blowing is it's possible
(02:36):
that, as a tax collector fromthe area, he might have been
Peter James and John's taxcollector, so they would have
hated him.
They would have saw him as asellout because he was working
with the occupying government,the Romans, and taking taxes
away from them.
And tax collectors werenotorious for also being
cheaters, where they wouldcollect more money than they
(02:59):
were supposed to, and Romedidn't care as long as they got
their money.
They turned a blind eye and sothey could say you owed $10 when
you really only owed five andthey'd pocket the other five.
So they were hated.
But this is the background ofMatthew, also known as Levi
before he came to Jesus.
He was also just to give yousome background.
Once he encountered Jesus, hebecame one of the 12 disciples.
(03:20):
He was part of the early churchand according to church history
, he was martyred in Ethiopiafor preaching the gospel.
And the way he was martyred washe was most likely stabbed to
death with a sword.
So he gave everything he hadfor the gospel.
Now where is Matthew likely atwhen he is writing this?
He is likely in Syria orAntioch or somewhere in
(03:42):
Palestine.
So Antioch isn't really talkedabout that much outside of the
book of Acts, but it was one ofthe early main cities for the
gospels.
As a matter of fact, when thepeople spread out from Jerusalem
, when a lot of persecutionstarted, antioch was one of the
first places they all kind ofcongregated, and so it's likely
(04:03):
that Matthew spent a lot of histime there.
Now here's the differencebetween Matthew and the other
Gospels.
Matthew was primarily writtento the Jewish nation, and here's
the reason why Because, as theGospel began to spread for a
while, primarily the earlychurch was trying to reach the
(04:23):
Jewish church, because they werethe ones that Jesus first came
to the Jewish people, because itwas through the Jewish people
that God was going to bless thewhole world, and so Matthew
spends a lot of time reallytalking about the gospel from
the point of view of Jewishculture.
And so we're going to see thatthroughout the book of Matthew,
including chapter one.
And when you understand the tosee that throughout the book of
(04:44):
Matthew, including chapter one,and when you understand the
background, you realize thatMatthew comes out swinging man I
mean, he is in their face.
From chapter one.
It was most likely writtenbetween 60 and 70 AD, and what's
really interesting is there'smore Old Testament connections
than any other gospel, andthat's because he's trying to
appeal to the Jewish audience.
But what's also interesting isa lot of scholars are beginning
(05:05):
to think that what Matthewactually did was at first he
would put out little, almostlike pamphlets, like little
booklets of the differentaspects of Jesus' life, and he
would have put out about five ofthem.
And eventually Matthew put allof these little pamphlets that
he would be passing around intoone gospel narrative, and that's
where we get the gospel ofMatthew.
But it's also why the gospel ofMatthew very neatly fits into
(05:29):
five different sections, and sothe big idea of Matthew once
again is that Jesus is thepromised king and Messiah who
brings the kingdom of heaven toearth.
He begins with Jesus' lineageto prove his authentic right to
rule the earthly kingdom and theheavenly kingdom, and we'll get
into that in just a second.
The reason why Matthew is soimportant is because it shows
(05:51):
how Jesus fulfills God'spromises, about how he is the
fulfillment of the Old Testament.
It teaches how faith in Jesustransforms every part of life.
He models what it is to be acitizen of God's kingdom and it
also provides the greatcommission at the very end,
which is now kind of ourmarching orders as Christians
nowadays.
(06:12):
Now what's going on during thetime of Matthew elsewhere in the
world is the Roman Empire, isthe dominant world power At the
time when Matthew was beingwritten.
Nero is Caesar and there's alsomassive persecution going on
everywhere.
Tensions are rising between theJews and Rome.
That leads actually to theJewish war that culminates with
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the destruction of the temple in70 AD.
Christians are starting to facemassive persecution and being
pushed out of Jewish synagogues.
So one of the reasons whyMatthew is probably writing to
them is maybe because he nolonger has access to the Jewish
synagogue.
So he's writing to the Jewishpeople to try to tell them who
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Jesus is and what he came for.
And also, this is a time when alot of people are being
martyred, so this would havebeen written about the time when
Paul and Peter are beingmartyred for their faith and all
these different things, andmany of the Jewish Christians
are struggling with theiridentity.
Are they Jewish?
Are they supposed to keep thelaw?
(07:14):
How does Jesus fulfill the law?
All those kinds of things thatMatthew's gospel answers,
because Jesus answered it duringhis public ministry.
Other facts that are interestingabout the gospel of Matthew is
Matthew is the only place thatuses the phrase kingdom of
heaven, whereas the othergospels talk about the kingdom
of God.
The Sermon on the Mount,chapter five through seven, is
the longest continuous sectionof Jesus' teaching.
(07:36):
In the Bible we see places likein the Gospel of Luke where
there is a summary of theteaching of the Sermon on the
Mount, but the Sermon on theMount in Matthew 5-7 is the
longest place.
And here's the interestingthing is, even secular
philosophers will study theSermon on the Mount, because it
is also thought to be one of thegreatest works of literature to
(07:57):
ever exist.
Another one is Mattheworganizes his Gospel into five
major teaching blocks.
We talked about that a minuteago and Matthew is the only
place to include the story ofthe Magi or the wise men
visiting Jesus.
So let me give you five wayswe're going to apply the gospel
of Matthew, and then we're goingto jump right into chapter one.
Number one is we can apply thegospel of Matthew by living
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kingdom-minded as disciples.
Number two is we can practiceauthentic faith that is not just
outward but is about aninternal fellowship with God.
We can trust Jesus as Lord,savior and King, not just as a
good teacher, and we arecommissioned by the end of
Matthew Matthew 28, to makedisciples and then to pray and
(08:42):
live with the expectation ofJesus' return as king.
So let's dive into chapter one.
Let me give you a little bit ofbackground before we do this.
So when the nation of Israelsettled into what was called the
Promised Land during the timeof Joshua and they separated out
the land, that was God keepinghis promise to the nation of
(09:03):
Israel, and so family lineagewas extremely important because
it proved that you are part ofthe Jewish nation, it proved
that you had a right to the land, and then afterward, when they
started having kings.
It also would track the lineageof royalty and so family and
all of that was very, veryimportant to the Jewish people.
That is how they would makeclaims on all kinds of different
(09:29):
things, and so one of the waysyou would prove who you were was
by being able to have a recordof your family history.
And so the reason why chapterone starts the way it does is
because, right out of the gate,matthew is saying I'm going to
tell you exactly who Jesus is.
Now, let's be honest Chapterone we normally skip, don't we?
If you just want to be honestwith me, I'll be honest with you
(09:50):
.
Most of the time, when I used toread through the book of
Matthew, I started with chaptertwo, and here's the reason why,
because there is a bunch of veryhard names and, to be honest
with you as well, many times Ijust didn't get it.
I was like, okay, great, he hada family, that's fine.
But here's the thing whensomeone would want to claim to
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be a status of a leader orsomething like that, the first
thing they would say is well,what's your family?
Because you had to be able toprove lineage.
And so immediately what happensis.
Matthew is coming right out ofthe gate and he is saying Jesus
is the king and I got the proof.
It literally is the smoking gun.
If you were to be in a capitalmurder trial and people are like
(10:35):
, well, I don't know if he didit, I don't know if, whatever,
and let's say you come out witha literal picture of somebody
holding the gun, like you go,here's your proof, like I can
prove he did it.
Right, that's what Matthew isdoing.
Is he is saying I can promiseyou that he is the rightful king
of Israel because I've got thenames to prove it.
So actually, he is putting itin their face right away and he
(10:59):
is making no distinction at thevery beginning Jesus is the king
.
Okay, so here we go.
Matthew, chapter 1, verse 1.
Let's read this is a record ofthe ancestors of Jesus the
Messiah, the descendant of Davidand of Abraham.
Now pause.
You notice that right there heis saying he is the Messiah
because he is a descendant ofDavid, which is the line of
(11:21):
royalty, and the descendant ofAbraham.
That's the descendant of David,which is the line of royalty,
and the descendant of Abraham,that's the descendant of the
promise.
So he's saying he is therightful king.
Here we go.
Abraham was the father of Isaac,isaac the father of Jacob,
jacob the father of Judah andhis brothers.
Judah was the father of Perezand Zerah, whose mother was
Tamar.
We'll come back to that in asecond.
(11:41):
Perez was the father of Hezron.
Hezron was the father of Ram,ram was the father of Abinadab,
and Abinadab was the father ofNahashon.
Nahashon was the father ofSolomon, and Solomon was the
father of Boaz, whose mother wasRahab, and Boaz was the father
of Obed, whose mother was Ruth.
Obed was the father of Jesse.
(12:02):
Jesse was the father of KingDavid.
So there's the lineage straightthrough and then all the way
down to Jesus.
David was the father of Solomon,whose mother was Bathsheba, the
widow of Uriah.
Solomon was the father ofRehoboam.
Rehoboam was the father ofAbijah.
Abijah was the father of Asa,asa, the father of Abijah.
Abijah was the father of Asa,asa, the father of Jehoshaphat,
jehoshaphat, the father ofJehoram, jehoram, the father of
(12:26):
Uzziah.
Uzziah was the father of Jotham, jotham, the father of Ahaz,
ahaz, the father of Hezekiah,hezekiah, the father of Manasseh
, manasseh, the father of Ammon.
Ammon was the father of Josiah.
Josiah was the father ofJehoashin and his brothers born
about the time of the exile toBabylon, after the Babylonian
(12:47):
exile.
Jehoashin was the father ofShehiltil.
Shehiltil was the father ofZerubbabel.
Zerubbabel was the father ofEbuid.
Ebuid was the father of Alekhim.
Alekhim was the father of Azor.
Azor was the father of Zadok.
Zadok was the father of Achim.
Achim was the father of Eluid.
Eluid was the father of Eleazar.
(13:07):
Eleazar was the father of Matan.
Matan was the father of Jacob.
Jacob was the father of Joseph,the husband of Mary, and Mary
gave birth to Jesus, who iscalled the Messiah.
All those listed above included14 generations, from Abraham to
David, and 14 generations fromDavid to the Babylonian exile,
(13:29):
and 14 generations from theBabylonian exile to the Messiah.
Now pause.
So once again, the point is,matthew is saying that he is the
rightful king because he is theheir of Abraham, which is the
promise, but because he is theheir of Abraham, which is the
promise, but he's also the heirof David, which is the royalty,
and so he has.
So, before he even establisheshim as God, he establishes him
(13:51):
as the rightful king of Israel.
It's also interesting to notice, if you did, there were five
names of women that were there,which would have also been very
interesting because in lineagesit was the male firstborn son
that was in the lineage, andevery one of those has an
amazing story.
And also all of those womenother than Mary were most likely
(14:14):
Gentiles.
And so right away he is alsogiving a little bit of a hint to
say he's not just the rightfulking of the Jewish nation, but
he's a rightful king of allpeople, including the Gentiles.
They have a right to thekingship of Jesus.
All right, let's keep going.
Verse 18.
This is how Jesus, the Messiah,was born.
His mother, mary, was engagedto be married to Joseph, but
(14:38):
before the marriage took place,while she was still a virgin,
she became pregnant through thepower of the Holy Spirit.
Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did
not want to disgrace herpublicly, so he decided to break
the engagement quietly andpause.
It's important to realize thatin Jewish culture, the moment
(14:59):
you became engaged, it wasbasically like you were married.
You couldn't just break off anengagement for no reason.
It was a really big deal tobreak off an engagement, and
many times if you broke off anengagement because of infidelity
like this, in some of the moreextreme cases the woman could be
put to death or the man.
I mean, it was a really, reallybig deal.
(15:19):
And so you can see the amazingheart of Joseph, because he did
not want that to happen to Mary,and you imagine how his heart
was probably broken, because hedoesn't know yet that the Holy
Spirit has done this.
So, even though his heart islikely broken and he feels like
she has been unfaithful, he'ssuch an amazing man of integrity
he doesn't want her to bekilled, so he is wanting to try
(15:41):
to find a quiet way to dissolvethe relationship.
But look at this, verse 21.
Excuse me, verse 20.
As he considered this, theangel of the Lord appeared to
him in a dream, joseph, son ofDavid.
The angel said do not be afraidto take Mary as your wife, for
(16:06):
the child within her wasconceived by the Holy Spirit.
Look, all of this occurred tofulfill the Lord's message
through the prophet.
Look, the virgin will conceivea child, she will give birth to
a son and you will call himEmmanuel, which means God with
us.
When Joseph woke up, he did asthe angel of the Lord commanded
(16:27):
and took Mary as his wife, andhe did not have sexual relations
with her until her son was born, and Joseph named him Jesus.
Wow.
Well, there's so much there tounpack, but the main thing I
want to lean on is two things.
First of all, some people getconfused when it says you're
going to give him the nameEmmanuel, but yet they named him
(16:50):
Jesus.
And so basically, what thescripture is saying is you're
going to give him the nameEmmanuel.
Emmanuel means God with us, soit was almost like a nickname,
it's like how he would be known,and so I want to make sure you
kind of understand.
It's not saying that Jesus hadmultiple names.
It was just saying he willrepresent God being with us, and
(17:11):
that is the point that Matthewis going to spend the rest of
his gospel sharing with all ofus.
And you can see that fromchapter one, that, when you
understand the background,matthew is not messing around.
He is literally waving thepapers in front of the audience
and he is saying I can provethat Jesus is the Messiah.
(17:32):
So it's almost like in chapterone he says okay, that's settled
, he has a right to claim theearthly throne.
I'm gonna spend the next 27chapters showing you that he is
more than just an earthlyMessiah, that he's also God with
us and we're going to see as itcontinues to unfold.
The kingdom is coming to earth,and so what do we do with this
(17:54):
today?
And that is this Can I tell youthat your king, if you're a
Christ follower, your king, kingJesus, wants to have fellowship
with you.
If you think about it, jesuscame and died on the cross for
you.
If he did that, what would henot do to be close to you?
As we're going to look atthrough the gospel of Matthew,
(18:16):
jesus walked among the people.
We're going to look at, maybe,a different way to see what
happens when he's debating withthe Pharisees people.
We're going to look at, maybe adifferent way to see what
happens when he's debating withthe Pharisees, and we're going
to look at some different thingsthat maybe you've never heard
before.
But the one thing I hope youhave heard before and I want to
double down on it one more timeand that is this your king, king
Jesus, wants to walk with you,and here's the great news he
(18:40):
doesn't just want to walk withyou, but he wants for you to be
able to be part of his mission,to be part of the kingdom of God
.
He's going to end all of thiswith saying the thing that I've
done in you.
Go do it in other people'slives.
Go make disciples of allnations.
God's got a big idea for us,and he's also got a big idea
that we get to share in to therest of the world, and I can't
(19:00):
wait for us to get further intoit in the Gospel of Matthew.
Let's pray together right now.
God, thank you so much for today.
Thank you for the Gospel ofMatthew, because it reminds us
that, jesus, you're not just agood teacher, you weren't just a
good man, you're king.
You're the king over all,you're the king of our lives,
and I pray that, as we dig intothe gospel of Matthew, we'll
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come to know you more, we'llcome to love you more and we
will long to serve you more.
In Jesus' name, we pray Amenand amen.
Well, the theme verse ofMatthew is going to be Matthew
28, verse 19, when it says allauthority in heaven and on earth
has been given to me.
Go, therefore, and makedisciples of all nations.
(19:43):
My prayer is that you fall inlove with Jesus and then you
fall in love with the ability tomake him known into all the
world.
I love you.
I'll see you tomorrow forMatthew, chapter two.
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