The Gospel of Matthew is a comprehensive and detailed account of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, written by Matthew, a converted tax collector. It is written primarily for a Jewish audience to prove that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah and to instruct them in reading the Old Testament properly. The Gospel emphasizes the kingdom of God, the authority of Jesus, his compassion towards sinners, the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, the transforming power of faith, the use and interpretation of the law, and the consequences of rejecting Christ as King. The Gospel is structured geographically, with significant themes and sets of twos, threes, and sevens throughout.

The text that I'll be reading this morning is Matthew 9, verses 9 through 13. So he arose and followed him. Now what happened is Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, They said to his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? When Jesus heard that he said to them Those who were well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick But go and learn what this means.

I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Dear Heavenly Father, Dear God, I pray to Your Lord as Scott comes and preaches, Dear Lord, as we begin a study of the earthly ministry of Your Son, that You would help us to understand Him, that You would take those of us here who have a heart of stone, dear Lord, and give us a heart of flesh, that we would see in Jesus Christ the fulfillment of all things, and that we would know what He has come to do, and that we would look at Him as your anointed, as our Lord and as our Savior. It's a very special joy to open up the book of Matthew and begin a journey that will take us many, many months. And it is a very special joy, especially when you consider what happens when the Word of God is taken seriously and how people change as a result of paying attention to the words of God.

God always leads His people by His Word. That's how God desires to lead this church. That's how God always leads His flock is through His Word, through the work of the Holy Spirit. And I know many of us are so aware of the changes that happen in our thinking and our living as we have engaged this last study in the book of Deuteronomy, and there was so much happiness to experience transformation, repentance, to realize that we were so wrong in so many areas, but yet God was so kind to bring us to greater health and repentance. But that all happened because people took the Word of God as the Word of God, seriously.

And If you look back in all of biblical history, you'll see that that's the way that God has always led His people. That's the way God led Adam. He told him not to eat. That's the way He led Noah when He told him to go build an ark. That's the way He led Abraham where He said, leave your country.

That's the way He led Moses when He spoke to him on the mountain. That's the way He led the prophets and His people. And that's the way He will lead us through this book of Matthew. God always leads His people through His Word. And so as we enter into this, let's be so ready to listen, let's be so ready to change, let's be so ready to have God pierce us to the heart, to show us our sins, which are so many.

We've not arrived yet. I think that's clear enough to all of us. We know one another well enough, hopefully, to know that there's room for more sanctification in this room. And so, here we come to the Gospel of Matthew that will penetrate us in ways that we don't know yet. So we're at the beginning of a journey.

We don't know the end of it. We're like Abraham. We don't know exactly where we're going, but we do know this. God's Word will be what will guide us there. Now, the Gospel of Matthew, it's the longest Gospel.

It's absolutely the most complete, most systematic, and it's the most detailed account of the life of Jesus that exists in Scripture in an individual writing. It was probably the first Gospel that was written, I believe, around 50 A.D. The book is full of wonder. On every page, you see Jesus Christ, the person that the world cannot forget. It's impossible for the world to ever forget Jesus Christ.

The Apostle John says that if everything were written down, all the books in the world couldn't contain what would be written down there. He is so vast. He is so good. He's so wonderful. And this Gospel opens Him up to us.

So, with this Gospel, we give you Jesus. And what a joy it is to see Him. We've moved from so many of the shadows that have connected us to Jesus in the Old Testament. And we've had so much health in seeing Jesus from shadow to reality. Now we spend our time focusing here on the life of Jesus, His message, and His mission.

Now, This is such a supremely practical book. And this is why J.C. Ryle, who by the way, has a very wonderful, short devotional commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. And He wrote this, but he said that he hoped that his commentary would prove an aid to those who visit the sick and the poor. That the people who visit hospitals and sick rooms and cottages and businesses would somehow be helped by his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew.

The reason he could write that is because the Gospel of Matthew penetrates everywhere. It shows us how the life of Jesus is expressed everywhere. In a mountain, in a city square, in a home, on a lake. Everywhere. Everywhere you might go.

In your office. In the time of your traveling. The Gospel of Matthew shows you the way that Jesus works in every area, every time of life. But in the Gospel of Matthew, I think we should recognize this, that the Gospel of Matthew, it breaks a 400 year silence. In the intertestamental period, which spans from the end of the speaking of the prophets to the time of John the Baptist, is broken by this gospel.

And the last prophet to speak was Malachi. Just to help get our coordinates here in terms of all of redemptive history, picking up with Abraham in 2000 B.C., and then Moses in about 1435 B.C., and then David in 1000 B.C., and then the sacking of Israel in 722 B.C. By Sennacherib, and then 586 B.C. By Nebuchadnezzar, and then the last prophets speak, and then Jesus Christ comes. And then Matthew writes after His death and resurrection.

And so, when we enter into the Gospel of Matthew, not only Are we breaking the silence of 400 years in the intertestamental period? We're also entering into the New Covenant. There's the old covenant, and there is the new covenant. And So we find ourselves moving into a disclosure of the new covenant. You know, God has always made covenants with His people.

He made a covenant with Adam, He made a covenant with Noah, He made a covenant with Abraham and David, and there's the covenant, the New Covenant in Jesus Christ. And each of these covenants are connected and they build upon one another. They roll on and then they are fulfilled and broadened and then again and again and now here in the new covenant they're broadened further, further than ever. And in the new covenant is really the revelation of the mediator. God has spoken of a mediator over and over again in the Old Testament.

In fact, Moses is called a mediator in Galatians chapter 3 verse 19. Four times Jesus is called a mediator, One time Moses is. Moses is really the prophetic symbol of being a mediator. Remember when Moses cried out for the people and their sins? And he begged God to forgive them of their sins.

And great and great was their apostasy at that time. But Moses was interceding for them in the same way that Abraham interceded for Sodom. God has sent intercessors in order to tell the story that there is intercession and that there is a mediator, an intercessor like no other, the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, covenants require certain things. Covenants require a conflict because there is an agreement and agreements are broken.

Covenants are broken by man. God keeps His covenants. Man breaks His covenants. And so, in this covenant, God provides a mediator. A mediator is like someone who comes between two parties who are in conflict or at war.

And in this case, man is at war with God out of his rebellion, and God is at war with man in his hatred of sin. But He desires to redeem man. So He sends a mediator who would reconcile the parties to one another. And Jesus Christ is that mediator who is sent to reconcile us for our sins. He reconciles us with the holy God who demands perfect holiness, perfect obedience.

And He calls man to perfect holiness and perfect obedience, and he cannot accomplish it. And so he sends a mediator. And that mediator not only pleads with the Father for mercy toward his sons, but he also satisfies the wrath of God toward those rebellious children. And he satisfies his wrath by perfect holiness and by perfect obedience. So, when we come to the Gospel of Matthew, we're coming to the New Covenant and the exposure of the Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, when you open up the Gospel of Matthew, I just want us to see we're not just opening a book that stands alone, that sits on a desk all by itself. It is the tip of an iceberg. There's something that it brings together that's greater than even its own self because it draws from Adam all the way to John the Baptist and then the coming of the Messiah. And this book is the hinge point of the New and the Old Testaments. It's where the Old Covenant comes to an end and the New Covenant opens up in Jesus Christ.

Here is the opening of it. So Matthew is transitioning between old and new covenants. There are so many connections that we can make with the Gospel of Matthew and the Old Covenant and the Old Testament and everything that is there. You know, if you don't understand what has happened in the Old Testament, then you can't understand what Matthew is saying. And that's how the book of Matthew is written, by the way.

It's really written to explain the Old Testament. And, you know, The Old Testament ends with a promise that God would send a messenger. And this is a messenger of the Covenant in Malachi 3.1. And so here we now find this connection between the old and the new. In Matthew 26, during the Last Supper, the Lord Jesus says, This is My blood of the covenant, which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

And so what Jesus is making so clear, and Matthew is here in his Gospel, if you don't understand Passover, the shadow, then you can't understand the Lord's Supper, and you can't understand His sacrifice and the shedding of His blood and His death and the symbol of Christianity, the great ordinance, standing alongside of baptism, the Lord's Supper. And so in the birth, and the life, and the miracles, and the instruction, and the death, and the resurrection of Christ, and the prophecies of the future, they really opened up in the first verse of the book of Matthew, which says, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. The phrase book of the genealogy uses the term Genesis, the book of Genesis. And Jesus is calling back to the book of beginnings and now there's a new beginning in Jesus Christ. This is the book of beginnings of Jesus Christ but there was a book of the beginnings of the Gospel of Salvation in the book of Genesis as well, as the Gospel conflict was cast forth there in the war between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent and the serpent himself.

And so Jesus is played out in the very first verse as the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise that the just shall live by faith. Here in the first verse, Matthew is linking Jesus Christ with the promise of Abraham that in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Now he's saying in you Jesus all the families of the earth shall be blessed. There's this continuity that's spoken of here. People speak about continuity and discontinuity of the Old and New Testament.

Well, here in verse 1, there's a very, very clear statement of the continuity between the Old and the New Testament. The very first verse of the New Testament brings this continuity together and clarifies it. This is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. Now, if you go to Luke, Luke traces his genealogy all the way back to Adam. Here, Matthew goes back to Abraham.

And Matthew is very intentionally connecting justification by faith, which was the faith of Abraham, with the justification by faith that would be characteristic of salvation in Jesus Christ. So I want us to see here, and we're not finished yet, by the way, the connection between the Old and the New Testament, the continuity of the covenants, and the hinge point that Matthew 1-1 brings us to. Even the name of Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew Joshua, Joshua in the Old Testament. And what we find is that this is intentional, that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Joshua of the Old Testament. And what you find in the first half of the first chapter of Matthew, in the infancy text here, is built around five Old Testament texts.

At the very beginning, Matthew connects Jesus Christ in continuity, in harmony, in continuation with the Old Testament. He uses Isaiah 7. He uses Genesis 16, Genesis 17, Genesis 21, Genesis 30, and 1 Samuel 1, verse 20 in the infancy text to verify and to prove that Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah from the Old Testament. So Matthew is taking great pains from the very first verse and in the very first chapter to make it very clear that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And so, this is a New Covenant is distinct from the Old Covenant, but it's not disconnected from it at all.

That there is continuity, and that one proves the other, and that the other builds on the one. So, you see this in many ways. For example, there's a very clear connection with Moses and Jesus in the Gospels. In John 5, verse 46, Jesus says this, if you believe Moses, you would believe Me, for He wrote about Me. John does the same thing in connecting Moses with Jesus and the message that if you believe Moses, you'll believe Jesus.

If you don't believe Moses, you do not believe in the real Jesus. And that should be a terrifying thought for us in modern evangelicalism where so many people have totally rejected Moses. But Jesus said if you Believe Him, you will believe Me. So there's this connection. When Philip found Nathanael, it's recorded in John 145, he said to him, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Joseph.

Philip understood that. In Acts 7, verse 37, Stephen, before he was stoned, said in his sermon that this is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren, him you shall hear." When Stephen stood before his enemies, he was hearkening unto Moses' prophecy and connecting Moses' prophecy with Jesus Christ. That's exactly what Matthew is doing in his Gospel. When God is speaking to Moses in Deuteronomy 18, verse 15, He says, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. In him you shall hear.

Him you shall hear. And so, we find this very dramatic continuity that exists in the very first verse in Matthew, and it continues on through the book, and we'll speak a little bit more about that in a later part of our time this morning. But we also notice that Paul does something very distinct in his explanation of his gospel preaching. And he says that He actually states, and don't miss this, Paul actually states that he limits his Gospel presentation, his evangelistic message to Old Testament themes. In Acts chapter 26 verse 22, he is saying nothing except what Moses and the prophets said concerning Christ.

And then he says that he would suffer, that he would be the first to rise from the dead and proclaim light to the Jewish people and the Gentiles. Paul actually states that he's only keeping to the Old Testament vision of Jesus. On the road to Emmaus, after the crucifixion of Jesus, the disciples were heartbroken. And two disciples were walking the seven-mile journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus. And someone joined them.

And the stranger was Jesus. And in Luke 24-27, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. And then their hearts were burning within them as they talked about it because because Jesus explained how? Moses spoke of him and Revealed what what would happen so there are these connections between Jesus and Moses? It's interesting if you compare the end of the book of Deuteronomy and the end of Matthew.

There are actually some similarities. They both end the same way. They both end on a mountain. They both end commissioning. Moses ends his life commissioning Joshua.

And Jesus ends up ending his life commissioning his disciples. And Jesus commands his disciples to teach everything he's commanded, everything. That's what Moses did before he died. He commanded his disciples to obey everything that he had commanded him. And so there's this parallel.

Craig Blomberg and his commentary on the New Testament use of the Old Testament says this, the Messiah who Matthew introduces as the son of Abraham and David is also the new Moses. So, there are so many prophecies that are fulfilled in Christ revealed in Matthew. Christ's forerunner, which was prophesied in Isaiah, is explicitly fulfilled in Matthew 11, 13. The slaughter of the innocents, Christ's parables, Christ's betrayal for 30 pieces of silver, Christ's forsaken by God, the division of the garments, all of these things were prophesied and fulfilled in Christ, and explicitly identified so in the Gospel of Matthew. So, This first point here, that Matthew is the hinge point of the Old and New Testament, makes this really clear.

You cannot understand the New Testament if you do not understand the Old Testament, but Matthew is going to make sure that you do before we leave this book. So it forms as a critical point of continuity between the Old and the New Testament. That's the first point that I wanted us to understand in this whole introduction to the Gospel of Matthew, that there was actually a reason that we moved from Deuteronomy to Matthew. Do you see it now? Do you see why we would have done that?

This was something that we seemed would be right quite some time ago. In order to move through to somehow bring a sense of how the Old and the New Testament operate together. We spent such a remarkable amount of time doing that with Deuteronomy. Now, we're going to see the connections here over the next couple of years in Matthew. Let's talk about the author of the Gospel of Matthew.

Please open your Bibles to Matthew 9. This wonderful text. I love this section. It is such a helpful section. Well, the Gospel of Matthew is written by a converted tax collector who became a follower of Jesus and immediately upon his conversion he turns his household into a center of evangelism, a discipleship.

He follows Jesus and he becomes an eyewitness and then writes this Gospel. That's Matthew. It's interesting, you know, the Gospel writers have different backgrounds and different purposes, actually. You know, John is the disciple whom Jesus loved and He shows forth the beauty and the love and the power and the superiority, the supremacy of Jesus Christ. You have Mark, who is a friend of Peter.

You have Luke, who is the companion of Paul, and Matthew is the converted tax gatherer. And here we find in this passage, in Matthew 9, beginning of verse 9, there's a man who's in the middle of an ordinary day. As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew Sitting in the tax office nothing unusual. He was collecting taxes. He went down to the office He was not seeking Jesus, but Jesus was seeking him and he saw him He saw him and he went to him You know what you You think of the time when Jesus saw you.

You know when that was. You know where you were. Maybe it was a season of time, but you know when Jesus saw you. Here, the text says, He saw. In the same way that God saw, Jesus saw Matthew.

He saw you sitting in your office, driving in your car, sitting in your house, wherever He came and saw you, and you knew His gaze was upon you, and that you were a sinner, and that you were totally bankrupt, that you had ruined your life, that only Jesus Christ could put you back together again, He saw you. In the same way that like Nathaniel, He saw him sitting under a fig tree. He was passing by. He was on his way doing something. He was living out.

When you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up, he was fulfilling the pattern of discipleship that Scripture speaks of. And then the Lord called him and said, Follow Me. So he arose and followed him. He was obedient and he followed Jesus as one who had authority. And then He spreads the joy in His household.

Verse 10. Now it happened as Jesus sat at the table in the house that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples." So, Matthew with joy, he's found the pearl of great price, the treasure in the field is his, and he goes home and he invites His friends into His house and Jesus. And there they are sitting together in His house. And He puts discipleship into practice in His house. And it should form the pattern for all disciples of Jesus Christ, for what you do with your home.

The Pharisees are disgusted with Him and they say why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? They're trying to peel off disciples. They're trying to dissuade people from following Jesus. And then the Lord Jesus explains what it's all about to everyone there. He says, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

I love that line. But go and learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

That there are so many sick in the world. And that's who we are. We are so sick. And we have no hope without the converting power of Jesus Christ. Without His sanctifying work, we have no hope in this world.

So that is the author of the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew himself, who was sitting in his tax office and Jesus saw him. Now the audience, the audience is the Jews. It was written to Jews. That's why you see an enormous number of Old Testament quotations here in this Gospel.

Some say there are 62 direct quotations and 262 other allusions and verbal parallels from the Old Testament He uses the phrase Kingdom of Heaven, which is a Jewish expression It's the only gospel where Jerusalem was called the Holy City. It was written to two Jews and Then it's the purpose There are a number of purposes number one it's written to prove that Jesus is the Messiah. And he begins this case in the first verse, just like we already explained, where he connects Jesus with the son of Abraham, the son of David. And he's establishing that Jesus is the Messiah. And he's also instructing the Jews how to read their Old Testament properly.

And so Matthew actually quotes from almost every Old Testament book. There are 39 Old Testament books, 27 New Testament books, and he quotes from a majority of those books. One scholar says this, virtually every major theological emphasis of Matthew is reinforced with Old Testament support. And so this Gospel is written for the purpose of winning Jews to Jesus Christ. And To gain those who are still hardened.

He is he is he is the Messiah but but they but he has been rejected by his own people and so We find this pattern in Matthew that you find later on to the Jew first and also to the Greek. You know, you shall be my witnesses, first in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth. By the way, the Gospels are laid out in that same format. Matthew begins in Jerusalem and the Gospels actually seem to have a logical sequence. In fact, while Matthew is a Jew, Mark is a Jew, but he composes it for the Romans.

Luke is not a Jew, and he directs it to the Greeks as the savior of the world. But here, Matthew is preaching Christ from the Old Testament. And the revelation of the Gospel, the Cross, the Resurrection, the Kingdom of God is all rolled up in it, connected with Old Testament Scripture. When the Apostle Paul, the Apostle Paul also went to the Jews first and then to the Gentiles. In Acts 13, verse 46, then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said, It was necessary that the Word of God should be spoken to you first, the Jews, but since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles." You find the same thing with Jesus.

He starts his ministry out there in his hometown, and then he goes to Galilee of the Gentiles. And then he goes to Jerusalem and is crucified there. There's an evangelistic and missionary purpose of this Gospel as well. And as we engage the Gospel of Matthew, I pray that we are so affected by this missionary, evangelistic heartbeat in this Gospel that will never be the same again. You know, Matthew reaches back to foreigners, Tamar and Rahab and Ruth, non-Jews, to prove that salvation is for the Gentiles.

And the Gospel should be preached in all the world. Jesus says, "...and I say to you that many will come from east and west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. What he's saying is that salvation reaches far beyond the boundaries of Jerusalem and of the people of Israel.

So, and the Gospel ends with this, it's a world embracing command to go into all the nations and to make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the things that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." So the Gospel itself ends with this world transforming, dominating Gospel that should be taken by His people. So that for us, would it be that we would be such a Gospel-centered people? And that this would be the driving thought in our minds? The Gospel, the lost, the commandments of Jesus, preached everywhere. How easy it is to send someone to preach somewhere, but not to preach here.

And so, Matthew is a gospel with a purpose to fuel evangelism. Now there are some themes that I'd like you to look for in the gospel of Matthew. Point number five, themes. And I'm going to give you a list of themes. Number one, the kingdom.

The kingdom. Matthew mentions the kingdom of God four times in the Gospel. He mentions the kingdom of heaven 33 times. And he uses the term kingdom 17 times in other kinds of contexts. It's a big deal in the Gospel of Matthew.

So when you read a book of the Bible, one of the questions you should always ask is what are the highly used words here? What is God saying? What is He repeating over and over again? Well, the term kingdom is repeated dozens of times, and we should pay attention to that. In 18 verse 3, we understand that the kingdom Has come Assuredly I say to you unless you are converted and can be and come become as little children You will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven Jesus said repent for the kingdom or john said Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

The kingdom of heaven is at hand. It's here. The kingdom of heaven is here and it also exists in heaven. It's both temporal and eternal. It's wherever the rule of Jesus Christ exists, but there's a lot to say about that.

The other theme that you'll see is the authority of Jesus Christ. Jesus sets Himself above all other authorities. And He sets Himself as having authority over the weather, over all disease, over all demonic powers, and He gives the keys to the kingdom. Only one in authority can give keys, as one of the men in our Bible study on Tuesday pointed out. But it's a book about authority.

It's a book about the absolute authority of Jesus Christ. And anyone who does not bow in submission by faith will be cast into outer darkness. Well, every knee shall bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. But they won't do it all the same way. Some will do it out of reverence and love, and Some will do it out of reverence and love, and some will do it out of weeping and gnashing teeth.

But this is a book about authority, and it's the authority of Jesus Christ over absolutely everything. Thirdly, You can't read this Gospel without seeing the compassion of Jesus Christ. How merciful He is towards sinners. How he's healing the sick, he's raising the dead, he's casting out demons, he is turning stones into bread. He is so merciful to His people.

And Jesus Christ is so full of mercy and compassion. And this really should be sort of a reality check for us as a church. I think that we should really check ourselves on this matter about compassion and mercy. Do we have the mercy of Jesus Christ? No.

The answer is no we don't. That's the answer. And we so fall short compared to His compassion. And we will be confronted with His mercies that are so astonishing. Number four, prophecies are fulfilled.

And in these prophecies that will be exposed as fulfilled in Christ, what we learn is that God always keeps His promises from the beginning to the end. There's not a promise that He leaves on the table unfulfilled. I don't know how many promises you or I have made, or boasts that have been made, or intentions that have been gathered up in our hearts that we've not fulfilled. But, that's not true of God. He keeps all of His promises.

And There are at least 12 times where Old Testament prophecies are stated to be fulfilled in Jesus. So you find this statement. I'll just give you a couple of them because there's so many. So this was done, this is in 1 22 of Matthew, so this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet saying. In chapter 12 verse 17, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet.

So this phrase shows up over and over. You'll see it in your reading of the Gospel of Matthew. That it was fulfilled according to what was spoken by a prophet. And then there's also the devastating consequences of rejecting Christ as King. The Lord Jesus, you know, cries out, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her.

How long to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you are not willing. See, your house is left to you desolate. The consequences of rejecting the Messiah are so enormous. And I hope that this lives in us. It burns in our souls.

That when we pass someone on the street, when we sit next to someone, that it burns in our souls that it is devastating to reject Jesus Christ. It's the only truly devastating thing. Lots of hard things can happen to you in this world, but there is nothing that compares to the devastation of rejecting Jesus Christ. You can lose all of your money. You can lose all of your family.

It's nothing compared to eternal fire and damnation. So, this would live in us, the devastating consequences of rejecting Christ, and how important it is that we are not silent. Number six, His transforming power. In the Gospel of Matthew, you see enormous transformations in people's lives like Matthew himself who understands that he's a sinner. In 4.19, "...follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.

That's a transformation. 5 16, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. 5 44, love your enemies and bless those who curse you, and do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you, and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. I mean, these are life-transforming, paradigm-smashing changes that happen to those who love Jesus Christ and who are called according to His purpose. 619, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.

7, 5, first remove the plank from your own eye. How transforming is that? 7, 24, whoever hears these words of mine, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon a rock. How transforming is that? To go from shifting sand to rock.

Number seven, the blessedness of faith. The term faith is used all over the Gospel of Matthew and look for it and be blessed. Matthew 6.30, Now if God so clothes the grass of the field which is gone today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 8.5, Now when Jesus entered Capernaum, the centurion came to Him, pleading with Him. And when he heard it, He marveled and said to those who followed, assuredly I say to you, I have not found such great faith even in all Israel.

9.22, But Jesus turned around and when He saw her, He said, Be of good cheer, daughter, your faith has made you well. And the woman was made well from that hour. In 929, then He touched their eyes, saying, According to your faith, let it be to you. Matthew 13, 58, now he did not do any mighty works there because of their unbelief, which is lack of faith. 14, 31, and immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and said to him, O you of little faith, why do you doubt?

That was to Peter. And then when Jesus went out there in Matthew 15, 21, He speaks of the faith of a woman and He says, O woman, great is your faith. Let it be to you as you desire. And her daughter was healed that very hour. Let's don't underestimate the importance of faith, childlike faith.

Over and over again, Jesus uses this term faith. And then number eight, in terms of themes, the use of the law, the use and the interpretation of the Law. We see this especially in the Sermon on the Mount, but elsewhere as well. The longest sermon is an exposition of the law in Matthew. And then structure and organization.

Let's talk about how the Gospel is structured. There are different ways that you can look at the Gospel of Matthew. I'm not exactly sure how you should outline it, but there are different ways that you can see it. In chapter 1 through the end of chapter 2, there's sort of the prologue. And then, sort of the body of Matthew's message is from 3.1 to 28.15.

And then 28.16 to the end is the Great Commission. So you have sort of an introduction, and then the works and the teaching of Jesus, and then His commissioning. That's one way you can look at the Gospel of Matthew. There are five discourses in the Gospel of Matthew, and you can break it up that way. I would just suggest that we break it up in terms of geography.

And like this, there's the genealogy and the birth of Jesus Christ, Bethlehem and Egypt and Nazareth. That's the first part. Bethlehem, Egypt, and Nazareth. Then Jesus goes to Galilee in 4.12. And then in chapter 19, he's moving toward Jerusalem.

19 to the end of Matthew. So geographically is another way. Jesus is born, he goes to Egypt, he comes back. Then he goes to Galilee and then back to Jerusalem in general. That's a little bit over simplified, I know.

But There's a very clear geographical element in the Gospel of Matthew that we see there. And then things to look for. There are a number of really interesting things in this book. Look for Sets of twos. There are two brothers.

There are two masters. There are two fish. There are two sons. There are two disciples. There are two great commandments.

There are two men in a field and two women at a mill. There are two thieves. There are all these couplets in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew is juxtaposing in the same way that John does, light and darkness. He does the same thing with different imagery in the Gospel of Matthew.

There are also sets of threes. There are three 14s, three sets of 14 generations. There are 3 angelic appearances, there are three gifts, there are three temptations, there are sets of three miracles, There are three woes against three cities. There are three classes of eunuchs. There are three punishments.

There are three questions from Jesus. There are three odes. There are three spices and vegetables. There are three denials of Peter. And there are three women.

What's that? Well, it's just a very prominent... You just can't miss it. It's all throughout the book. There are sets of sevens.

There are seven spirits in chapter 12, verse 45. Beginning, there are seven loaves. There are seven times. How many times should I forgive my brother? Seven?

Well, there are seven woes. Woe to you, woe to you, woe to you, woe to you, woe to you seven times. So this is the Gospel of Matthew. It's so rich, it's so wonderful, And I'm so grateful that we're embarking on this mission. And what we find here is that Jesus is the promised Messiah, that Jesus is the King, that He fulfills the whole law, that He takes away the sins of the world, and He commissions His disciples.

That's the Gospel of Matthew in a nutshell. And He will return in the clouds. And as it is revealed in the very first chapter, that there's a Son, and His name shall be called Jesus, and He will save His people from their sins. And it doesn't get any better than that. Brothers and sisters, that's our greatest problem.

Our sins. And Jesus Christ comes to us in the place where we need help the most. And He deals with our sins so graciously, and then He teaches us how to live, that we might be sons of the kingdom. Would you pray with me? Lord, we thank You for this beautiful Gospel, so rich, so broad, so convicting.

Oh Lord, we pray that You would come and teach us the way in which we should go, that You would remove all hardness of our hearts. Oh Lord, that You would humble us under Your mighty hand, that we might exalt You, that we might glorify You, that we might be sons, faithful sons. And now, Lord, I pray that you would diminish everything in this world compared to the gospel of Jesus Christ. As we move through this time, that you would not leave us alone. Oh Lord, that you would hold, that You would take hold of us and move us and help us and not leave us to ourselves.

Oh Lord, that You would fulfill this prayer. Amen.