Matthew 5:1-13

 Matthew 5:1-13

This with the rest of the Sermon on the Mount is about the life of a disciple. Blessed is a poor translation rather we should use “fortunate” or better yet “enviable”. “Your life is enviable when….” These are often eschatological statements. This is not civic or moral law for societies at large. They are rather statement of kingdom citizenship.

“Poor in spirit” meaning to humbly put their trust in God. The kingdom belongs to them because they are God’s people.

“Those who mourn” are those whose life, from this world’s perspective, is not a happy life because of their loyalty to God. They are to be envied because God will work it out in the end.

“The meek” are those who do not throw their weight around. They rely on God to give them what is their due. God gives what the world can never take. Meekness is not merely a matter of social justice or personal moral righteousness but a relationship with God that is unclouded by disobedience.

“To hunger and thirst after righteousness” is to desire to obey the Lord.

“The merciful” enjoy on the positive side of the reciprocal nature of sowing and reaping. They have been merciful or sown mercy; they will receive or reap mercy.

“Pure in heart” is more than ordinary moral purity or even sexual purity. The pure in heart has a heart undivided, where there is no alloy of disloyalty mixed in. Such a one sees God and the kingdom and its glory now.

“The peacemakers” have a distinct absence of selfish ambition. They have learned to set aside their own agenda to accomplish the agenda of peace-God’s peace.

“Persecuted for righteousness” is more than being good. It is the orientation of a life toward God and His will. These, like those mentioned in verse three inherit the kingdom. The repetition of the Kingdom of God indicates this refers to the life of the beatitudes. Persecution indicates identification with the Lord. Reward is not a just payment. They receive disproportionate grace-filled mercy. The reward in heaven has more to do with God; He is their great reward. He is enjoyed both before and after death.

The phrase “lost its taste” in verse 13 represents the Aramaic idiom “has become foolish”. A foolish disciple has no influence on the world.

Prayer thought: “Lord, help me to live as a disciple following you and you alone, Amen.”

Matthew 4:17-25

 Matthew 4:17-25

Jesus began preaching about the kingdom and immediately started calling disciples. Making disciples is apparently pretty important for Jesus and for his ministry purposes, but is apparently of little value to the contemporary American church. What does it mean to make a disciple? To be a disciple means to follow. It is certainly more than to listen of a weekly sermon. It is time together with the Master consistently in order to hear the teachings of the Master. Often the disciples had Jesus to themselves and in these times they discussed in detail his public teaching. Going out and repeating the process is a part of being a disciple. The disciples Jesus called were evidently successful in their trades. Entering into poverty for the kingdom is an excellent trade off.

Three aspects of Jesus‘ ministry are mentioned in this passage. First, teaching in the synagogues would have been the exposition of Scripture. Those who would follow Jesus must be a people who know the Word of God. Second, proclaiming the kingdom would have been the public ministry of Jesus in his teachings. It is tragic that almost all the proclamation of the church is directed at the church. Most of Jesus’ teaching occurred outside of the context of the synagogues. Third, healing ministry of Jesus-making a difference. The Lord’s presence meant that things were going to change for people. That cannot always be said for Christians or for the church today.

As disciples we must ask ourselves are we following the Lord’s pattern? Currently, the American church is spending the vast majority of its budget, time and energy on taking care of its own. The church expects the lost to come in, in order to receive. Many Christians feel that to watch or perhaps participate in the church’s function is enough. It isn’t. But serving the Lord can be difficult. But to enter into trouble, hardship, frustration or poverty while doing these three is a great trade.

Prayer thought: Lord, don’t let us waste so much as one day of our lives. Instead, let us give every day to You in order that You may do through us what You will, Amen.

Matthew 4:12-17

 Matthew 4:12-17

Jesus has returned to the Jordan valley and from the other Gospels we know that He also had a ministry of teaching and his disciples were baptizing in the river. When Jesus learns that John was arrested Jesus leaves the Jordan valley to go to Nazareth. In the same verse we learn that Jesus leaves Nazareth and goes to Capernaum.

There is an important principle in these geographic verses. That principle is that Jesus is completely subject to the Father’s timing and leading. There will come a day when Jesus will be tried in a Roman court, but that day is about three years away, it was not yet time. John’s ministry was widespread and well known and with John in prison if Jesus had continued His ministry in the Jordan River region He would have most likely picked up John’s followers and have enjoyed extreme popularity. With such popularity in that location and in the circumstances of John’s arrest an anti-Herod movement may have developed. This could have resulted in a premature arrest of Jesus. Herod rejected the message of repentance, so Jesus will move on. Jesus returns home and in Nazareth His stay, according to Luke, was short and unpleasant. Again the message of repentance is rejected and Jesus willingly walks away.

So, His home becomes Capernaum. Galilee of the Gentiles was the land of outcasts. The people of Jerusalem and Judea generally regarded Galilean Jews as tainted, the hick rubes of the family tree. They lived and co-existed with a large Gentile population. This was a land closer to the pagan and heathen influences. This was the land of the political, educational, economic, religious and social underdogs. Into the land of a troupe of castaways, untouchables, undesirables, has-beens that never really were, the Lord finds His people. Verse 16 is poetic and beautiful; in the dark, in the land of the dead, Light and Life have come. Lovingly and offering hope, Jesus begins letting people in on the secret that the Kingdom of Heaven has arrived.

Because our faith so mimics our society we often want our place in the Lord’s service to be a place of upward mobility. Think for a moment of how the church works toward bigger, better, wealthier and more publicized ministry. Jesus was unconcerned with upward mobility. He was concerned with speaking the Kingdom’s news to those who would listen.

Prayer challenge: Ask the Lord to move you toward meaningful service and ministry with eyes that are blind to the trappings of success, power or prestige. And with eyes open to see where you can serve Him with those open to the Good News of the Kingdom.

Matthew 4:1-11

 Matthew 4.1-11

It is better to call this episode the “Testing of Christ” because ultimately it is the Spirit that led Jesus into the desert for the purpose of His testing using the enemy. Matthew is going to contrast the failure of Israel in the wilderness with the obedience of the Son.

In the first test Jesus is asked by the enemy to use His power to meet his own needs. After 40 days with no food Jesus is beginning to starve. The temptation is to look at His own needs and the incredible resources at His disposal. But Jesus will not take His eyes off the Father and be distracted from obedience to the Father? Not even by something so vital as bread.

The second test also reflects back to Israel’s failure in the wilderness. A consistent theme for Israel in the wilderness wanderings was, “Is God with us or not?” Constant worry over “is God with me” reflects a doubt about God’s faithfulness. The temptation is to take the focus off the Father and direct toward the circumstance. To create a crisis to force God’s intervention reverses the roles in which we are testing God to discover what is in His character and thus indicating serious doubt on our part. God’s faithfulness and character are so intertwined that to doubt one is to question the other.

The third test is the offer of a short cut. The enemy offers world-wide dominion without the cross. Jesus can have it all and do so without the agony. What great good could come from the loving magnanimous reign of Jesus as world king? All this good can be accomplished with one compromise in the process. There are two problems. First, it is an invitation for Jesus to focus on the needs of the world and not the will of the Father. Second, the process matters! There are no short cuts. To attempt to accomplish the right ends via the wrong means indicates that we are starting in the wrong place.

When Jesus had passed the last test the Father sent relief. We should not miss the point that what the Lord would not do for Himself the Father did for Him, when the time was right.

• Let nothing distract me from obeying the One who has called me.
• Living in faith and asking for God’s provision is appropriate; questioning His character by challenging His faithfulness is not.
• Achieving great things in the wrong way by the wrong means is still wrong.

“Lord, save me from the hour of testing, but if I must face testing let me always keep my focus on You, Amen”

Matthew 3:13-17

 Matthew 3.13-17

Jesus comes to John for baptism but John is resistant. Jesus is going to do something greater than John’s ministry and so John feels that he should be baptized by Jesus to be a part of this greater reality. Jesus says that John should permit the baptism at this “time” for “us” to fulfill all righteousness.

Notice that Jesus has a profound sense of the Father’s timing. How often we get into a mess by not being in the Father’s timing. For some things we want we act as if now is the only time. If we are less interested, we act as if the only time is another time. Jesus was in the Father’s time. Timing has less to do with chronology than it has to do with opportunity. May the Lord help us to read the time properly.

Don’t miss that Jesus says “us” to fulfill righteousness. Jesus and John together will accomplish the will of the Father. Jesus’ condescension is not just to man but also to accepting man’s leadership to accomplish the Father’s will. Jesus put Himself in such a position so that He could not accomplish God’s will alone. Jewish proselyte baptism was self-administered but in this case Jesus needed another person. If the God-Man needed another person, how much more so do we need the community of faith, the body of Christ; the church?

Righteousness in the book of Matthew is not merely good behavior, although that would certainly be a part. Righteousness is not even a legal position in regard to right and wrong. Righteousness is the relationship with God that focuses on obedience and as a disciple the motivation of that obedience is love.

Why was Jesus baptized? He was baptized because He loved the Father and in loving the Father He wanted to please Him. Unloving conformity is never enough.

"Lord grant me the humility to graciously submit to those around me, as You direct me. AMEN"

Matthew 3:1-12

 Matthew 3.1-12

Between the end of Matthew 2 and the beginning of Matthew 3 thirty years transpire. Matthew gives us important themes in this introduction featuring John the Baptist. These themes will be repeated from time to time during the whole story that Matthew shares. The first theme is that of repentance. Repentance is more that remorse over evil done; it is even more than a change of mind about the nature of right and wrong. Repentance is a call to abandon rebellion against God and return to the covenant-obedience as one of God’s people. Feeling guilty and saying a half-hearted or even a heart felt “Sorry” is not repentance.

The repentance John calls for is expressed as “fruit’ as he responds to the Pharisees and Sadducees. Verse 7 is translated into English that they came “for baptism”. This misses the mark, it is better understood they came “to baptism”. This was not a group of sincere individuals returning to God, rather a delegation of the authorities coming to see whom this character was and if he represented a threat to their power structure. John welcomes them with the designation of “brood of vipers”. Sounding archaic we may not recognized the insulting nature of John’s verbal volley. Vipers were unclean animals, they were a deadly threat and they would have been associated with the tempter in the garden. To call someone a child of a viper would be at least as insulting as calling him a son of a bitch. Their destruction is at hand and John tells them the way out in verse 8. This theme of “fruit” is another theme that will be repeated often in Matthew. For John, Jesus-and indeed in the whole New Testament-the life of a disciple is not one of outward rituals and forms, but of a life that produces godliness in behavior and character.

The third theme that John presents that will weave its way through the whole book is “The Kingdom of Heaven”. Matthew uses this phrase more often than the other Gospel writers, while Mark and Luke use “Kingdom of God”. The Kingdom of Heaven is the realm where the King of Heaven rules and now that Heavenly Kingdom has come. Our English doesn’t adequately express the near proximity with the translation “is at hand”. The time of decision has come. If there was ever a time of neutrality that time has passed because the King of Heaven has brought His rule and is now here.

Each day the Kingdom of God comes on earth as we submit by repentance and obedience to His rule. That submission is evidenced by the fruit of our lives and marks the choice we make either to be followers of Christ or to be a bunch of sons of vipers.

“Father, flood over me with Your Holy Spirit’s conviction of any place where I have not repented and committed myself to loving obedience to you. In the Name of my Lord Jesus, Amen.”

Matthew 2:13-23

 Matthew 2.13-23

We have no idea what Joseph expected from life. Most likely it was to live the quiet life of a builder/construction worker in the small community of Nazareth. Having a larger gentile population Nazareth was possibly less of a threat to Rome and would have been an unlikely place to face Roman hostility. He would marry the girl he loved have children and Lord willing, see the second generation before he was gathered to his ancestors.

Joseph had no way of expecting what was to come. Without expecting or wanting it he is thrown into the middle of the greatest drama in the history of the universe. Rather than the quiet life he expected, angels visit Joseph in his dreams, so real, so powerful, so vivid that he cannot deny them and he can do nothing other than obey. In a place far from his home Joseph’s stepson is born. First come the shepherds with their own angel stories. Next come the Magi, the mysterious visitors from the East with stories of celestial movements. Another dream, a warning this time to get out of town. They escape the murderous rage of a mad man, but perhaps it was close. However, their escape did not take them home but to Egypt to live with an expat community. Finally, another message-did Joseph ever get used to super natural communications? This was the call to go home.

This is quite the detour from the life Joseph may have expected to the life that he lived. It was a long way from what he expected to what he experienced. Remember Joseph never asked for this. Perhaps the best thing to be said about Joseph was near the beginning of this story. Matthew 1:24: “And Joseph arose from his sleep, and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.” He was living his life trying to do what was right and when he was confronted with the unexpected he did what the Lord wanted done. We can’t say much about Joseph except that as far as we know he was obedient to God.

That is all I can want.

“Lord, let my faith be simple and my obedience to You complete. It need not be complicated; give me simple faith and simple obedience.” Amen.