Tag: Gospel of Matthew

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Limited by his humanity, Jesus was still able to expand the kingdom of God

Read: Matthew 8

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.”

Reflect:

Jesus “was amazed.” I read those words and I’m a bit amazed myself. The word “amazed” has connotations of surprise or even shock. How can Jesus Christ, who is the Creator of all the universe, be surprised? How can He who knows all things be shocked?

The ESV says Jesus “marvelled,” which implies he felt a combination of admiration and astonishment. How can the Sovereign God be astonished? What has the Almighty LORD to admire?

I think the key to understanding this statement is to realise that Jesus was both divine and human. His humanity brought limitations upon his divinity. As Philippians 2:7 says of Christ Jesus, “he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” Jesus’ human brain, with its finite number of neutrons, was unable to know all things. This was a temporary limitation due to his incarnation.

Crucially, it was the limitation of his divinity brought on by his incarnation that also ultimately enabled Jesus, the God-Man, to die.

Jesus was unable to know the centurion’s thoughts, and so Jesus was capable of being amazed by his faith. Yet Jesus still knew the plan of God to bring other Gentiles (as well as this one) from the east and the west into his kingdom, into the family of Abraham, and declared it in advance.

crux:

Limited by his humanity, Jesus was still able to expand the kingdom of God.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

You are Almighty, all-powerful, Sovereign, omniscient. Yet your Son chose to humble himself, submitting to the limitations of human life in order to expand the bounds of his kingdom to all who have faith in him.

Thank you for the centurion’s faith in Jesus. May he continue to glorify your Name to all who read his story in Scripture.

Thank you for my faith in Jesus, for my husband’s faith in Jesus. Thank you for enabling us to hear the gospel at that long ago Alpha course, for removing the veil from our eyes so we would believe in Jesus as our Saviour. Thank you for bidding us come from the east into Jesus’ kingdom, to take our place at the banqueting table with the patriarchs of our faith.

Please grant this same amazing faith to our children, to our parents, and to the rest of our relatives. Please grant this marvellous faith to the adults and children who attend our church and to all in our local community. Reveal yourself to them that they may come from east and west to your celebratory feast. LORD, I pray especially for the people of the townships of T to our east and F to our west. Please grant that they may come and hear the good news of Jesus Christ, Lord and Saviour, and they will be welcomed into your kingdom. May our church be faithful in proclaiming his Name. May our faith in Jesus amaze all who witness it.

Make them come, LORD.

Amen.

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Discern

It is wrong to be judgemental, but discernment is right

Read: Matthew 7

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” (Matthew 7:1)

“You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:5)

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognise them.” (Matthew 7:15-16a)

Reflect:

Jesus’ words hold a conundrum. He tells the crowd not to judge. Yet he follows this up with a series of instructions for godly discernment.

Jesus says we need to judge ourselves, examine our own faults and failings before eradicating them. Only when we judge ourselves may we judge others in ways that help them. Jesus says we should judge others enough to determine if they are “dogs” and “swine” (words which may possibly have been cultural slurs for Gentiles and religiously unclean people). Then when we’ve judged we can decide whether the sacred would be wasted on them. Jesus says we should judge prophets, people who claim to speak God’s message. We are to judge them by their “fruit”, the results of their life and ministry. When we have judged them, we’ll know whether to listen to their words or reject their message.

All this judging is perhaps more correctly described as discernment – distinguishing between right and wrong, righteous and unrighteous. In all this discernment, we must be careful, because God will judge us just as harshly and strictly as we judge others.

crux:

It is wrong to be judgemental, but discernment is right.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

You have set a plumb line in the heavens. Your Son said, “No one comes to the Father, except by me.” You say through the apostles, “No other name is given to men by which they must be saved.”

Your Son spoke of ferocious wolves, of weeds planted among wheat, of rootless plants that flourish briefly before falling away. Not all who claim to know you and say they speak truth do so. Please make me faithful, honest and righteous in all I say and do to glorify your name.

Please grant me discernment to know when to listen and when to block my ears.
Please grant me discernment to know when to agree and when to disagree.
Please grant me discernment to identify the planks in my own eye as well as any false prophets in my own denomination.
Please enable my discernment to be godly and wise.

Amen.

More

Devotion to God in all his glory means despising wealth with all its worries

Read: Matthew 6

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?” (Matthew 6:24-25)

Reflect:

A crowd has come to hear Jesus teach on a mountain, just as Moses once gathered the Israelites to hear God’s voice thundering from Mount Sinai.

Jesus asks the crowd, “Is not life more than food?” Of course life is more than food, but you’d never know it from the dozens of wanna-be-chef shows on TV; the hundreds of cook books on bookstore shelves; the decades many women spend dieting.

Jesus also asks, “Is not the body more than clothes?” Yet so many people today believe the body is not more than clothes, at least, not more then clothes and cosmetics. That’s why we have aphorisms like, ‘The clothes make the man.’ It’s why so many countries are allowing people to surgically alter their bodies to match the clothes they want to wear, whether it be through breast enlargement, stomach staple shrinking, or so-called gender-reassignment surgery. It’s why millions, probably billions of dollars is spent worldwide on advertising that is mostly aimed at making women think their body, clothes and cosmetics are inadequate.

Many people do actually seem to believe that the end goal of life is nothing more than to acquire delicious food and delightful clothes. Jesus disagrees.

Jesus says people who follow this life are worshiping an idol. These people are worshiping Money.* Jesus says there is another choice, a better choice.

I have chosen this better choice: to be devoted to God, to serve God, to love God. I consider money, food and clothes to be rubbish in comparison to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord (just as Paul wrote in Philippians 3:8).

crux:

Devotion to God in all his glory means despising wealth with all its worries.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

It is tempting to go along with the sweeping tide of my surrounding culture, to be swept into building my life around the things money can buy, things my culture trains me to desire.

I like nice clothes. I like fine food. I appreciate living in a country where true poverty is rare. But LORD, I don’t want these things to be the foundation for my life. That isn’t a ‘good life’ at all.

I need my life to be built on the firm foundation Jesus Christ laid with his blood.

I need to find my satisfaction and enjoyment in your grace, your providential care, your loving-kindness to me.

Please help me, LORD, to love you and hate money. May I love you and not forget your benefits. May I love you and celebrate this glorious eternal life you have given me. May I love you and appreciate every spiritual blessing that you have given me in Christ. May I love you.

Amen.

 

* Rhetorical Ramble:

That’s what the ‘therefore’ is there for, to link these two verses:

“You cannot serve both God and Money. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life…”

Standard

The only way to meet Christ’s standard of righteousness is with Christ’s righteousness

Read: Matthew 5

“For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and teachers of the Law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20)

“…I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgement.” (Matthew 5:22a)

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)

Reflect:

Jesus sets the bar extremely high for entry into heaven’s kingdom.

Granted, John the Baptist declared the Pharisees to be a “brood of vipers” (3:7) which is possibly akin to calling them “sons of Satan.” But to the Jewish layman, the Pharisees must have seemed the strictest, most actively religious Jews around. Yet Jesus said even their upright behaviour was not enough to get them into the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus took a few strictures from the Law and drew them tighter still. Don’t murder: don’t even call a fellow believer a nasty name. Don’t commit adultery: don’t even think lustful thoughts; and don’t divorce your wife thinking you’ll be free to remarry, because that will bring even greater condemnation upon you.

Then Jesus expands on the positive commands of the Law. Fulfil your vows: and when you say even a simple “Yes” or “No,” keep this as an absolute promise. Just recompense may be sought lawfully: but extravagant generosity, reckless kindness and radical hospitality are even better. Love your neighbour: and love your enemy as well.

Jesus sums it all up with an impossible standard. “Be perfect” in the same way God the Father is perfect. How is this level of righteousness possible? Humanly, it isn’t.

But through his death on the cross Jesus Christ swapped his righteousness for my sin. This is called imputation. My righteousness can only surpass that of the Pharisees because God has credited me with Christ’s righteousness. I am made perfect with Christ’s perfection.

crux:

The only way to meet Christ’s standard of righteousness is with Christ’s righteousness.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

O Perfect One, you are good, you are glorious.
Holy, holy, holy is the LORD.

Your anger and wrath is always deserved, always righteous. You are never malicious or capricious in your judgement, unlike me – forgive me, please.

You are faithful, keeping your promises forever. You never leave your people, though I may turn my back on you – forgive me, please.

You are extravagantly generous, gracious and merciful. You never reject your people’s needs though in your mercy you frequently refuse to grant my sinful desires – forgive me, please.

You are loving, indeed you are love. Without you there is no real love. In you is perfect love which casts out fear and enables me to pray for the good of my enemies. Bless my enemies with love for you, LORD, please.

LORD, you are perfect and so clearly I am not. Please justify me with Christ’s righteousness. Forgive my sin. Renew me and make me a new creation in Christ my king.

Amen.

Authority

The Father has authority over the Son and both have authority over me

Read: Matthew 4

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’ ” (Matthew 4:8-10)

Reflect:

The devil is also called “the tempter” (4:3) and “Satan” which means “the accuser” (4:10) in this chapter.

Jesus was tempted because, led by the Spirit (4:1) he made himself vulnerable to temptation. But Jesus did not give in to the temptation because he was equipped to repudiate the tempter. Jesus knew Scripture and was able to use it as a sword (Ephesians 6:17) against the devil, remaining sinless.

In his third attempt to tempt Jesus, the devil offered all the kingdoms of the world to Jesus if only Jesus would worship the devil. There is great irony in Satan’s presumption in attempting to barter worldly kingdoms with God’s anointed king, the King of all kings. It was a bit like the tenant of a house offering to give the house to its legal owner for the price of an entire town’s worth of houses.

Satan does have power in the world today. John wrote “we know that the whole world is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). But even if the devil does have power at present, this power is temporary. He is only a tenant, not the true owner. Satan’s power and authority is limited.

But the devil has no authority at all over Jesus. Jesus knew the only entity with greater authority than himself was his Father in heaven. He deferred to the Father’s authority when he used Scripture as the basis for rejecting Satan’s scheme. In contrast to the

Satan uses this same method to tempt today, just as he also did in the time of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:1-5). He makes false promises and tricks people into thinking his way will yield power, but he only offers slavery. Like Jesus, I must “not give the devil a foothold” (Ephesians 4:27).

crux:

The Father has authority over the Son and both have authority over me.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

You are Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the Almighty.

You have power to rebuke the devil so I do not need to fear his schemes. Please continue to protect me because I belong to you; Jesus has redeemed me from the devil’s slavery.

Please help me to submit to your authority. May I know your word. May your Spirit guide me to know how Scripture applies to my situation.

Be my Rabbi, my Teacher. Show me yourself and inspire me to worship you. How could I not worship you, when you are so great? LORD, help me to surrender to your authority.

May I be willing and eager to walk in your ways, to follow Christ, to be led by the Spirit. Soften my heart to you and take my pride. Open my ears to you, and shut down the voice of the devil. Open my eyes to your glory, and blind me to the tempter’s lures. May I be wholly yours.

Amen.

Unless

Unless I hate my sin, I won’t really love my Saviour

Read: Matthew 3

“Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Matthew 3:8-10)

Reflect:

John the Baptist, or John B. as I like to call him, is firm and direct with his audience of Pharisees and Sadducees. They are “religious” people who have come to hear a “spiritual” person and the message they get is this:

“It is not enough to say you’re sorry, you need to show you are sorry.”

This is the same message James gave in his epistle: Faith without works is not real faith; practice what you preach; don’t just talk about it, go and do it.

John B. told his religious auditors that their whole identity was in question: it was not enough to claim a genetic heritage as Israelites, in Abraham. Genes aren’t enough to connect a person into a true relationship with the true and living God. Being a Jew was not enough to save them then, just as it is not enough to save anyone now.

John B. uses fiery imagery to get across the point that the unrepentant Pharisees and Sadducees were risking their lives when they refused to “prepare the way for the Lord” (3:3) in their own hearts by repenting of their sins. Repentance from sin is necessary because until we despise our sin, we will never welcome our Saviour.

crux:

Unless I hate my sin, I won’t really love my Saviour.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

Please help me to hate my sin.

Show me how utterly despicable my sin is in your sight, so I may despise it as you do.

O LORD, I am scared as I pray this prayer. What might you make me suffer so I begin to hate my sin? What have I been clinging to that I will have to give up?

I know I’m forgiven: thank you for forgiving me by Christ’s sacrifice.
I know I’m justified: thank you for justifying me by Christ’s blood.
I know I am saved: thank you for saving me by Christ’s death.

I also know I am not yet fully sanctified: thank you for your promise to complete the work you have begun in me by your Spirit’s presence and counsel.

LORD, make me love righteousness. Help me think about noble, admirable, praiseworthy and excellent things. Keep me from evil; deliver me from temptation. Help me to flee from the devil and run to you. Make me fruitful in repentance.

Thank you for raising me up, a mere stone that you have transformed into a child of Abraham.

Amen.

Details

What the LORD said through the prophets was fulfilled in Jesus Christ

Read: Matthew 2

“In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written.” (Matthew 2:5)

And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” (Matthew 2:15b)

Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled. (Matthew 2:17)

And he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene. (Matthew 2:23)

Reflect:

It can be hard to re-read such a familiar passage in the Bible carefully, without my attention drifting. But when I think of the author of this gospel, Matthew (the disciple also known as Levi, who had once been a tax collector), I realise that this was a man who paid very close attention to his Rabbi’s story.

Matthew had the skills and talents necessary for being a tax collector: he could pay attention to fine detail, he could remember facts and analyse interconnections. He must have had an analytical brain, must have thrived on minutiae, or at least so it seems from his writing.

For Matthew, the most important details of Jesus’ birth and babyhood are found in the connection between the events themselves and Old Testament prophecies. Matthew finds four occasions in Jesus’ early life, five if I count the “virgin will conceive” reference (2:22-23), where the prophets predicted what Jesus’ life fulfilled. And it is not as if Baby Jesus could exert control over any of these events from the womb or his mother’s arms. The prophets’ words all came true by the sovereign will of the Father.

Isaiah, Micah, Hosea and Jeremiah spoke as the LORD spoke through them. They spoke (unknowingly) of Jesus.

Crux:

What the LORD said through the prophets was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

You are Sovereign: You make plans, you speak promises; you bring your plans to fruition and your promises to fulfilment. You are the Omnipotent God.

Thank you for your promises through the prophets that help me to see your plan and recognise your Son. Thank you for gifting Matthew with the talents and skills necessary to chronicle Jesus’ life and ministry. Thank you for equipping him to research and record the ways and occasions Jesus fulfilled the prophets’ words. Thank you for revealing yourself in the words of the prophets, in the words of Matthew, and in your Word, Jesus Christ.

Thank you for the skills and talents you have given to me. May I be faithful in using them to proclaim your glory, the glory of your Son. May I know the truth of your word as well as the details of your word, and be confident and capable to share this truth in speech and in writing. May I be faithful in obedience to your word so you are glorified by my words.

May you bless everyone who hears or reads my words with a better knowledge of you and a deeper love for you, for your glory.

Amen.

Kin

The family history of Jesus Christ was the handiwork of God

Read: Matthew 1

Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,
Obed the father of Jesse,
and Jesse the father of King David. (Matthew 1:5-6a)

Respond:

Matthew 1 tells two stories of kinship. The second is most familiar, from the Christmas nativity stories I sing in carols and read in cards. This version – and I’m paraphrasing here – gets the headline: “Pregnant Mary in disgrace almost gets dumped by her fiancé Joseph before angelic messenger intervenes.” So the basic facts of Virgin Mary, Faithful Joseph and Baby Jesus/Immanuel are well known.

The earlier kinship story in Matthew 1 is actually a multitude of stories. These stories are less well known, but they still interest me, especially the verses I’ve quoted above. Matthew edits and crops Jesus’ genealogy here, truncating roughly 300 years of history into two lines. (So Rahab and Naomi were not contemporaries.)

Boaz married Ruth, acting as kinsman-redeemer to Naomi’s foreign daughter-in-law, and they had a bouncing baby boy, Obed. This is the story from the book of Ruth in the Old Testament, just after the book of Judges. One key moment in this story occurs when widowed Ruth tells her bitter, also-widowed mother-in-law Naomi, “Your God will be my God.” By herself, Naomi has nothing to offer Ruth; but Naomi’s God is the Lord of All.

The previous line, however, tells a rather different story, which has to be pieced together from events in the beginning of the book of Joshua: It stars Salmon, valiant man of Judah, one of the invading, immigrating swarm of Israelites led by General Joshua. In a surprise move, Salmon marries Rahab of Jericho, a woman whose murky past life is now buried in the rubble that is all that remains of her city’s wall. Was Salmon one of the spies, who earlier hid on Rahab’s roof at the top of that wall? How did they deal with a cross-cultural marriage as Israel grew more and more powerful within the promised land and overthrew other cities and cultures? I don’t know, but I wonder. One thing of which I am sure: it was God who made a way for these two people to meet and marry across a cultural and religious divide, by opening Rahab’s eyes to his glory.

Crux:

The family history of Jesus Christ was no accident; it was the handiwork of God.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

Father in heaven, you are sovereign over births, deaths and marriages.

You intervened when Rahab needed your help to begin a new life with the people of Israel, when she placed her trust in the God she had only heard about through gossip of plagues and miracles.

You interceded when Ruth needed your help, when she was living as a destitute widow among her mother-in-law’s people, determined to surrender to her mother-in-law’s God.

You involved yourself in Mary and Joseph’s lives when their relationship was on the rocks as they both struggled to live faithfully to you and your plans.

LORD, intervene in my life too. Mould me into a woman whose faith in you is unshakable  even in terrible times, because I have witnessed your work in my life, in my family, in my church, in my community, in the pages of my Bible. Build me up in Christ, I pray.

Amen.