Christ in Matthew

Have you ever been on an epic adventure? I'm looking at the Hoddinetts, they've been on a bit of an adventure. Tony and Julie have been on one.

An epic adventure, they're fun to do, aren't they? When Leanne and I were first married, we went to Guatemala. And that was an epic adventure.

It really was. We were there for three months. And we had an interesting trip home.

Tony and Julie have just come from the airport this morning, so this is very fresh. We had our longest flight home ever. It was 38 hours of flying back in the early 90s and 54 hours of travel.

Anyone come close to that? That's a young couple buying the cheapest tickets you could buy to go to Guatemala.

So where we went out of interest was, we went to Guatemala, Mexico City, Mexico City, Los Angeles, and then to Taipei and then Kuala Lumpur. And we couldn't make it straight home to Sydney. We went to Melbourne and then Sydney.

So that was an interesting trip. We're about to set off on an epic adventure through the Bible. Lord willing, it will take us about 100 weeks.

And we're going to go from The Gospels to The Pentateuch, to Philemon, Hebrews, and James, to Old Testament history books, then back to Paul's epistles, to Kings and Chronicles, then the Minor Prophets, and Acts through 2 Corinthians, then 2027, Lord

willing, the Wisdom Literature, the Pastoral Epistles, Old Testament history books, Major Prophets, 1 Peter to 3 John, Minor Prophets, and coming home to Sydney with Jude and Revelation. And we've called this two-year series Christ in Scripture.

If I was to ask you, what is the Bible about? You might give me a whole bunch of answers. One would be, it's about learning how to live the way God wants us to live.

And of course, that is so true. But did you know that Jesus explains what the Bible is all about?

After his resurrection, he's walking with two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and he explains to them, Luke's Gospel tells us that beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning

himself. And then later on it says that Jesus said plainly, these are the Scriptures that testify about me. Isn't that wonderful? The Old Testament is about Jesus.

It's about his glory. From Genesis to Revelation, the Scriptures tell one unified story, the story of God's determination to rescue, restore, and reign through his son. They are not just disconnected books.

They are one grand narrative with Jesus at the centre. He is the promised seed, the true Israel, the greater prophet, the faithful priest, the righteous king, the suffering servant, and the victorious son of man. Hallelujah.

This is not a long and winding trip home from Guatemala to Sydney. This is an epic adventure from Genesis to Revelation. And we trust the logo says it all.

I think the logo is a great idea that Ben came up with. It's that winding road that leads to the cross. Christ in Scripture is a wonderful idea.

Some of us have done a version of this in the, what do we call them? The Daily Sevens. And we've turned this into a big series.

So today we begin the first mini-series in The Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, we were, Lord willing, look at throughout January. And so in your book, there's a Bible study that looks at one main passage from each book.

And so that's the passage that we'll be looking at today. And we're also going to try each week to give some very short overview of the book itself. So have you noticed that movies are normally begun with a context-setting bunch of footage?

Often it might be an aerial footage, aerial scene, or if it's maybe in Chicago and it's about the busyness and the cut-and-thrust of life, you might have busy sounds of a city landscape. Well, that's what Matthew does.

He grounds us immediately in the canvas of history by starting with a genealogy. He wants the people of Israel to know that Jesus is the promised Messiah.

The Book of Matthew is the first clearly of the New Testament and it's one of the earliest accounts of Jesus of Nazareth. It is anonymous. Did you remember that?

It doesn't actually say anywhere that I've written this, but certainly the earliest traditions have always understood that Matthew, the tax collector, one of the twelve apostles, is the one who wrote the book himself.

For about 30 to 40 years after Jesus rose again and ascended to heaven, the church, the disciples, spoke of what he had done, and are you aware it was from memory? So it's an oral tradition for 30 to 40 years. Stop and think about that.

It's a little bit confronting. It's not two years, 30 to 40 years. There were the disciples that were sharing what the stories were that they had memorized from their time with Jesus.

And then Matthew takes all these stories and he collates them and puts them together in a particular way.

When I was at Bible College many years ago, I found that confronting because I thought that it was like a newspaper and Matthew just went, he did this and then he did this and then he did this and it was all just completely chronological.

And for some of us, we might find that a little startling to think, what are you telling me that that didn't happen after that? Well, no, it happened in history. It's all true.

But Matthew put it together for a reason, for a purpose. Are you okay with that? Matthew wanted to show that Jesus is the continuation and fulfilment of the whole biblical story.

So he emphasises that Jesus is the Messiah from the line of David, that he is the new authoritative teacher like Moses. These are all figures that the Jews that he's writing to will know about Jesus is God with us, the Hebrew idea, Emmanuel.

The Book of Matthew, did you know, has a clearly designed structure like an essay. There's an introduction and then there are five main points and then there is a conclusion.

So I want to very quickly just go through this and it'll just take a few minutes. If you had your Bible open, and that's why it's great to have a physical Bible because it's moving through a fair bit of content.

And I would suggest if you wanted to do the Bible reading plan, try to read most of the book before the sermon because then it'll just be familiar to you when we do the overview.

Chapters one to three, set the stage for Jesus as the Messiah and Emmanuel. So he starts off immediately with the genealogy. So that's very important for the Jewish people.

Where did Jesus come from? And he makes some really clear points. He's the Messiah in the line of David because he had to be in the royal line.

But it also says in Matthew's genealogy that he comes from Abraham. Why would that be important? That Jesus comes from Abraham.

Because Abraham is the one man that God gave that big promise to in Genesis 12. He said, Abram, I'm going to bless you with kids. From your wife, where you do not expect to be able to have kids, but I'm going to give you children.

And from your generations that will follow, I'm going to bless the whole world. The blessed to be a blessing promise went to Abraham. So it's really important that that continuity moves all the way down to Jesus.

And then in these first three chapters, you have the amazing birth of Christ, born of a virgin. Matthew wants to show how Jesus is the new Moses. Are you familiar with that?

Think about Moses, his life, and think about the life of Jesus. They both come out of Egypt. Jesus wasn't born there, but he was taken there, wasn't he?

They both passed through the waters of baptism. For Moses, it was the Red Sea. Jesus, it was his baptism.

What do they do next after the baptism that links them together? In the wilderness, the 40 year wandering in the 40 days for Jesus. And then Moses went up on a mountain and came back down and gave the Torah, the teaching of the law.

What does Jesus do? He goes and gives the sermon on the mount. So for Matthew, Jesus is the greater than Moses figure who will deliver Israel from slavery and give them this new divine teaching and initiate a new covenant.

So then we move into these five parts of the main structure. And can you think of why it's important that there's five if Jesus is the new Moses? So the book of the Torah, the five books of Moses.

So this is why Matthew has put it together. He's saying, don't miss. Of course, we don't see this stuff.

But for a Jew, they're saying, ah, Moses has the five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. And so Jesus has these five main sections. The first main section.

Jesus steps on the scene, chapters four to seven. And he announces the arrival of God's kingdom. And he has come to confront evil, especially spiritual evil and the legacy of demonization, disease and death.

Three D's that really wrap up what Jesus was confronting. Hey, demonization, disease and death. And so Matthew is explaining that God has come in Christ to restore the world.

And so he starts healing people and sets off forming a movement in Matthew's space of this, the part of his story.

There's not a lot given to the calling of the disciples, but he starts to pull together some people and then he takes them for that first big block of teaching, the Sermon on the Mount, chapters five to seven of Matthew.

And that's an amazing portion of this book.

Then after concluding this epic teaching about life in the kingdom, the next section, chapters eight to 10, Jesus is talking about what it looks like when the kingdom of God comes in reality in the day-to-day lives of people and has anyone ever

noticed that there are nine stories of healing and transformation in clusters of three? Anyone notice that? So that's what he does in chapters eight to ten. There are three stories of powerful transformation and healing.

And then at the end of every three, chapters eight to ten, there is a radical call to follow-ship, to discipleship, that we have another three with a radical call, another three in a radical call. What is Matthew trying to say there?

Well, he's saying that Jesus has come to transform people's lives, but it's not without cost. He's asking them to follow as disciples. So then we come to the third section, which is chapters 11 to 13.

And Matthew collects a group of stories about people responding to his message. And he starts to unpack the fact that not everyone is taking it on. There are people that are positive.

There are people that are neutral. John the Baptist is one of the people that are neutral. He's like, I'm not sure that he's Messiah or not.

And then you've got Israel's leaders who are negative. And Jesus isn't concerned about this. He starts telling parables.

And some of the parables indicate what he's expecting. And so, the parable of the sower is a classic one, isn't it? Where he says, well, I'm going to be sowing seed about the kingdom of God and not everyone's going to accept it.

And so, that's chapters 11 to 13. And then the fourth part, chapter 14 to 20, Matthew explores the different perspectives people had about what it means for Jesus to be Messiah. He keeps healing sick people.

In fact, he does two miraculous food provision miracles, one for the Gentiles, one for the Jews. He's mirroring Exodus 16, where Moses is part of the manna coming to feed the people.

And this section has the part where Peter is asked by Jesus to respond, who do you say that I am? So this section is coming to the paunian of who is he? What are we going to expect from him?

And the religious leaders at this point get pretty upset with him, and they start to plan to kill him.

The last teaching section is chapters 21 to 25, and this is the clash of kingdoms, the clash of the powerful religious leaders and Jesus, his kingdom. The Messiah does something very strange at this time. What do you reckon it might be?

What does he do that's an example of power in an upside down kingdom? He comes in on his white stallion, doesn't he? No, he comes in on the fall of a donkey.

What triumphant entry happens in this section? And the leaders are offended, and everybody is concerned thinking, what sort of Messiah is this? Well, it's the Messiah that would die on a cross for the sin of the world.

And so, Jesus delivers his final block of teaching in chapters 23 to 25, and the end of Matthew leads to the cross and the resurrection, and finally, the Great Commission. So, that's a quick flyover.

Hopefully, that's somewhat helpful for many that will be hard to follow. I get it. But maybe have a look back on this sermon, maybe look back on the video and see how that fits.

We've set ourselves the task of not just doing a flyover of the book, because that's so important, to see Christ in Scripture. But we've also said, what if we tried to choose a verse, a couple of verses, that wrap up what the whole book is about.

So the verses we've chosen are the ones that Serene read out for us. The Virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. What do you reckon?

Think about the Book of Matthew. There's lots of things we could choose. But that is an amazing verse in Chapter 1.

The Virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. In this tiny yet poignant verse, we learn three incredible truths about the God of Israel. God is close, God is humble, and God is able.

God is close, God is humble, God is able. Matthew 1, 23 is a sentence spoken by an angel. I found that interesting just reading it again, that angels would quote Scripture.

The angel turns up and quotes Isaiah 7, verse 14. And this is the quote, Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign, the Virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Emmanuel.

Is anyone familiar with Isaiah 7, where this came from? Not too familiar, looking around the room, but there's a few nods. King Ahaz is facing a military threat from two neighbouring kingdoms.

And God wants him to trust that Yahweh is with them, but he's not in a good headspace, he's not doing that well in his heart, and they don't trust the Lord. But God gives Ahaz a sign anyway, and this is from the prophet Isaiah.

The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. Now we know that from Christmas, don't we? It's just such a beautiful, incredible verse.

But the Bible's a bit weird. When you go back and you try to work out, what did that mean for Ahaz in chapter seven? You will find it's not that clear.

The idea is that there will be a baby, a child born, and during the life span of this child, Israel will know that their God, Yahweh, is with them. I'm sorry, that's not more clear than that.

But we got from it in this ancient setting of a prophet giving these words, this incredible prophecy that points towards a very unique boy that will be born. And chapter 9, 11, 40 to 66 of Isaiah unpacks a lot more of this idea of waiting.

So along comes the beginning of the first century, and word has it that a virgin has conceived and given birth to a son.

Matthew wants people to start getting excited that the promise God gave to Israel, that he would be with them, in a very special way is starting to come to pass.

So Matthew's Gospel tells us clearly that God who has walked with Israel is not a distant God. He has come close. In the first century, religion was very much about appeasing the gods, managing and impressing the gods.

What do we learn about God and his closeness from Matthew's Gospel? There's a baby born in a manger. God has come near.

Of course, this is what we see all the way through the Old Testament Scriptures, this idea of God wanting to be with his people. Amen? So Adam and Eve, they lost this closeness in the garden, but it was always what God wanted.

When Israel wandered in the desert, God was like, I will be with you by fire by night and smoke by day. When the exile happened, it was terrible.

Ezekiel said, God's going to leave the temple, but then it's prophesied in Chapter 34 of Ezekiel that he's going to come back after the exile because God always wants to be with his people. So the Gospel of Matthew shouts, God is here.

God is here as Jesus, both human and divine. God has come close. The Gospel of Matthew tells a story of God going camping with his people, doesn't it?

God is close. God is close and touching lepers. God is close.

The immortal clothed in the mortal. During World War II, Queen Elizabeth, who was a princess at the time in 1940 and 41, lived, chose to live in London during the Blitz rather than fleeing. She could have fled, but she chose to stay.

And she visited bombed neighborhoods and hospitals, sharing the risk that the people had by not moving away. She walked among those who she led. Is it any wonder that she really became this very much loved queen, because she was with her people?

This is the Gospel, amen. The God we know who created everything has truly come close and vulnerable in coming close. God is close and God is humble.

The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and we'll call him Immanuel. We learn that God is close and God is humble. Who is used to hearing that?

God is humble. Yeah, we're used to it, aren't we? But it's bizarre.

God humble. God is obviously the most powerful being in the universe. And this is why certain groups of people who are cults, like the Jehovah's Witness, they cannot believe that Jesus could be God.

Because they can't believe that God could become a baby. We've had been blessed by seeing a few grandchildren born recently, and we're reminded again of just how vulnerable little people are.

It's amazing to see that they're not doing anything by themselves, are they? Like, they are just vulnerable and needy and dependent.

Who would have thought that in the grand story of God's salvation for humanity, He would choose to reveal His humility in the Incarnation? I was thinking about this, and I thought it could so easily have been a script that looked more like this.

And I say this with great respect to the Lord.

Why couldn't an angel have come down and said, Ladies and gentlemen, from the halls of heaven, undefeated, never challenged, the eternal, almighty, all-powerful One, creator of galaxies, commander of angel armies, standing six foot infinity, weighing

glory itself, the reigning, defending, undisputed Lord of all? That's what people do, isn't it? It's just, it's not that. He didn't come at the top of a power structure, but he could have.

But he didn't, and this is the Gospel. A virgin conceives, a child is born, God enters the world, small, fragile, dependent, humble. And this is the type of kingdom that Jesus explains we are invited to enter.

We often call it the upside down kingdom, but it's the downside right kingdom, as Ben said the other day. It's the way it's meant to be. God is close in the Gospel, in Matthew's Gospel, in that text.

God is humble and God is able. He's able because he was born of a virgin. He could start sinless.

Romans 6 says, Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and in this way, death came to all people. Human beings are born sinful.

It's a real problem for someone to be a sinless, Messiah, Saviour, if they are born into the Romans 6 world. This is often called original sin. Isn't it a wondrous thing that the Virgin was found with child?

That's what this text tells us. Jesus was not born in the same way as every other human being under the curse of sin that Romans 6 talks about. He was born of the Spirit of God and avoided being stained by sin.

The Virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. Jesus was immaculately conceived, born utterly mysteriously, both God and man.

I remember preaching when I first started at Caringbar, and there was another guy who was much older than me, that I'd been to college with. I got up and I was saying, Jesus is half God and half man.

He came up to me and said, brother, you need to stop saying that. That's heresy. He is not half God, half man.

I went, you're right. He's fully God, fully man. But how that is possible, that's a mystery.

That's a wondrous mystery. But because he is perfect, born of the Virgin, he is able. Amen.

He is able to save his people from their sin. He's able to open the gates of new creation, to make a way for humans to pass by faith from death to life and life eternal.

God is able by his humble presence to break every chain, to restore hearts and renew minds. He's able in Matthew 11 to give us rest.

And God was able to raise his son Jesus from the dead, to make a way for all who would put their faith in him, to also rise from the dead.

So, this idea of God is with us is profound, isn't it? He is close, he is humble, he is able. And this starts in Matthew chapter 1 verse 23.

How do we end Matthew's Gospel? Chapter 28, and what does Jesus say about the closeness? He says, lo, I am with you always, even till the end of the age.

I'll never stop being with you. This is how it works. We wanna go camping with you, God the Father is saying, with the Son and the Spirit.

We wanna be with you, and we will. We will come inside and make our home in you. So, as we think about closing our first message in Matthew, what does it mean that God is close for us when we step out on mission?

Because that's what Matthew 28 says, go into all the world and tell them everything that you just learned from my Gospel. Tell the world what Jesus has done. God is close means that when we're on mission, proximity is super important, isn't it?

Proximity to people, we need to have proximity. We need to go camping like Jesus, share our lives over food and work and rest. God is close.

Who are you close to for the sake of the Gospel? Gospel work is up close work. Amen.

It's up close work. And God is humble. As we step out in 2026 on mission and we follow the pattern given to us by Jesus.

We don't come at the top of a power hierarchy. We embrace downward mobility and we let the spirit guide us to places that only humble people would go. And God is able.

As we live on mission, we embrace proximity because God is close, humility because God is humble, and I would say audacity. God is able and he fills us with his spirit, gives us a sheriff's badge that says the name of Jesus.

He says, go out and do the works I've been doing and do it with shameless audacity because God is able. Amen. God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.

So as Mike said before, what is God saying to you and I for 2026? What does he want to do with your life as you shine your light, your little light of your testimony, of your witness, of what Christ has done in your life?

Audacious faith, God is able. The woman praying in Jesus' little story was described as the example that we should pray with, shameless audacity. The virgin gave birth to Messiah.

He is close, humble and able. In the name of Jesus, may we live with proximity, humility and audacity to the glory of God. Christ in Scripture, that's Matthew Dunn.

Sixty-five to go. Let's pray as the band comes up. Lord God, thank you for what we see in the Gospel of Matthew about the unique and perfect Lord of all, Jesus Christ, our Saviour.

We know Lord, it's not hard to see you in Matthew. It's all about you.

We pray that as we continue moving through the books of the Bible, we pray for a very deep and profound and helpful insight from your spirit to see your presence all the way through, Lord Jesus. It's always about you.

Help us to be a people who love you with all of our heart. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

‍