The Gospel of Matthew Remembered

Turn to the Gospel of Matthew.

It's the first book of the New Testament, Matthew chapter 2.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

A little sad to be saying turn to the Gospel of Matthew for the last time in two years now.

And we're not going to be limiting ourselves to Matthew 2, but I want to start by reading from Scripture.

Matthew 2, verses 1 through 11.

Matthew 2:1–11

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, wise men from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?

For we saw his star at its rising and have come to worship him.

When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.

So he assembled all the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them where the Messiah would be born.

In Bethlehem of Judea, they told him, Because this is what was written by the prophet, and you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, because out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.

Then Herod secretly summoned the wise men and asked them the exact time the star appeared.

He said to Bethlehem and said, Go and search carefully for the child.

When you find him, report back to me so that I too can go and worship him.

After hearing the king, they went on their way, and there it was the star they had seen at its rising, it led them until it came and stopped above the place where the child was.

When they saw the star, they were overwhelmed with joy.

Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and falling to their knees, they worshipped him.

Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Let's see, God again.

What precious words you allow us to sing, Lord, that the King there in his beauty without a veil is seen.

And we pray that we would indeed desire the King in His beauty, that we desire to know our Lord Jesus personally, as fully as possible in this life, that our hearts would be craving Him and worshiping Him with everything that we have.

Make us ready, disciples, eager to listen to your word today, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

This is probably one of the most challenging sermons I've had to preach.

The title is Remembering Matthew.

We've been going through this book for two years.

It's one thing to preach an overview message on a book of the Bible.

That's challenging.

We've been doing that on Sunday nights.

I'd encourage you if you haven't had a chance to come out on Sunday night, come out, listen as various men take one book of the Bible at a time and teach through it.

But in this occasion, it's not merely an overview message, it's a remembering message.

How do you look back over two plus years of sermons and pick out the choicest and best nuggets?

That's a very hard task.

No doubt some of you might come up to me afterwards and say, Micah, why didn't you mention this?

Or I can't believe you didn't say this.

And I'll probably have to say, you know what, guilty as charged.

You're right, I didn't.

But but do come to me afterwards.

Do tell me what you've learned and how you've enjoyed the gospel of Matthew so that I can rejoice with you in the Lord.

When Pastor Doug started off this study through Matthew, he gave the illustration of flying in a plane over an area versus walking along the ground.

Flying in a plane, you get the big highlights.

You see the contours and features from a bird's eye view.

And then you walk along the ground.

It takes a lot longer, but you see all the nooks and crannies.

And so going through a book at one shot is kind of like that overview flight.

Or if you want to think about it a different way, if you take an overview, we're gonna set up some big, important building blocks, some big themes that Matthew seeks to build what he's doing on.

And if you haven't been with us for the last two years, and I know some of you started coming within the last two years, that's okay.

If today is your very first Sunday with us, that's okay.

Listen in and enjoy what we've experienced as we go through this book together.

So, how do you summarize Matthew?

You're probably thinking, well, Jesus has got to be in there somewhere, right?

And you're exactly right.

The main character of the gospel of Matthew is Jesus Christ.

There are four gospels devoted to him.

Matthew is one of them specifically.

So, yes, Jesus is central.

And Matthew helps us to see that the promised king has come to save his people.

Matthew helps us see that the promised king has come to save his people.

And we're gonna seek to build that as we go through some different building blocks.

So let's start with first building block.

Jesus is king.

Jesus is king.

I read Matthew chapter 2, verses 1 to 11 at the outset.

Matthew 2:1–11

Hopefully you're still there.

From Jesus' birth, from the very start of his life, he's associated with kings.

So Matthew points out Jesus was born in the days of King Herod.

King Herod is jealous and tries to kill Jesus.

The verse in verse two of chapter two, the wise men are asking, Where is this one who has been born?

King of the Jews.

They travel a long way.

Verse 4 speaks of Jesus as a great ruler who's going to come.

And then that's chapter 2.

But back in chapter 1, if you just turn back to chapter 1, as Matthew opens his gospel, he starts with connecting Jesus to David.

And let me say also while we're here, I'm going to be offering you a lot of verses from Matthew as we go.

Some of them I'll ask you to turn to specifically, some of them I won't ask you to turn to.

If you want to try to turn, you can.

If you want to just listen in and wait for me to ask you to turn there, that's fine too.

Whatever's helpful for you.

But in chapter one, when Matthew opens the gospel, he connects Jesus to David.

So an account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David.

Then he gives this long genealogy and it's structured around 14 generations, 14 generations, also a reference to David as the fulcrum of that genealogy.

In verse 20, when the angel appears to Joseph, the angel refers to Joseph as a son of David.

Who is David?

David's a famous king.

Do you hear that link and connection again?

Now let's fast forward.

When we come all the way to Matthew 21, the triumphal entry.

Jesus is a grown man.

He comes into Jerusalem for one of his final appearances.

And the crowds are shouting out, Hosanna to the son of David, the son of the great king.

And then Matthew quotes a verse from Zachariah: See, your king is coming to you.

In Matthew 27, Jesus is on trial before Pilate.

And Pilate asks him if he's king of the Jews.

They put a placard above his head as he's crucified.

This was the king of the Jews.

One of the thieves cries out on the cross, He's the king of Israel.

Let him come down from the cross.

So at key points in Matthew's gospel, opening genealogy, birth of Christ, triumphal entry, crucifixion, at all of these points, the idea of Jesus as king is swirling around.

On top of that, Matthew speaks of the kingdom of heaven.

So part of what we covered was in Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

You may remember the Beatitude, that's going back a ways now, but we took time to slow down and go through each beatitude with one sermon at a time.

Well, in Matthew 5, those beatitudes, those blessings begin with a blessing for those who will have the kingdom of heaven.

And then at the end again, they will receive the kingdom of heaven.

In Matthew chapter 13, Jesus tells a number of parables explaining and illustrating the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

Now, track with me though, usually when you have a kingdom, there's also got to be a king.

Jesus is the king.

But what kind of king is he?

How does Matthew reveal Jesus as the king?

When we think about a king, we often think of someone who rules, who has authority.

And that's true, Jesus does rule, he does have authority.

But that's not the full and complete picture of Jesus.

And this is where many people in Matthew's gospel, oh, they wanted a king.

But they wanted a king on their terms, not on his terms.

They wanted a king of their own devising for their own purposes rather than receiving Jesus as he revealed himself to be.

How else could you explain that the crowds could be shouting out one day, Hosanna to the Son of David?

And then shortly after that, seemingly many of those same people are shouting out, crucify him.

He didn't meet the kind of kingly expectations that they were looking for.

The Jewish people in particular were looking for a knight to kind of ride in in shining armor and overthrow the Roman rulers.

And Jesus does come again on a horse.

He does come again in regal splendor, but his first coming was different in many ways.

He's going to be a conquering king, but Matthew reveals him first as a suffering king.

So what do we make of Jesus?

Are we willing to accept him as he reveals himself to be, as the suffering king?

Yes, the Almighty, all-ruling one.

He wasn't impotent in that sense or weak in any way, but he allowed himself to be killed.

And even in that demonstration, it was a demonstration of laying down his life voluntarily.

What strength, and yet at the same time, what gentleness.

And doesn't that speak to our own lives today?

We want a king who is not weak, or a king who is not brash, or a king who is not deceptive, or a king who doesn't run over people, or Jesus again was courageous.

He was determined.

And yet he didn't break a bruised reed or quench a smoking flax till he put out judgment to victory.

He's gentle and lowly in heart, and he invites people to come and find rest for their souls, first and foremost.

So we'll come to that mission of Christ a little bit later on in the sermon.

But before we do that, first building block, Jesus is king.

He's the king.

Next building block, Jesus is the promised king.

Over and over in Matthew's gospel, we've seen this idea of fulfillment, that Jesus comes as the long-awaited fulfillment of all that was promised in the Old Testament scriptures.

He doesn't pop onto the scene suddenly out of the blue like E.T.

He's he's there, he's been slated to come all along, and he comes in fulfillment of all that the prophets spoke about.

I reference that passage in Matthew 21, where Matthew says, Your king is coming to you.

He says that because he's quoting Zachariah and says it was necessary for the scripture to be fulfilled.

Jesus rides in on a donkey, your king is coming to you, gentle and lowly in heart.

If you're not still there, turn to Matthew 2, turn back to Matthew 2.

I started there because again, with those that have ears to hear, they shouldn't have misunderstood the kind of king they needed.

If they really had ears to hear, if they were grabbing hold of the Old Testament scriptures, they would have known better what kind of a king to look for.

And I mentioned Matthew chapter 2 because three different times in Matthew 2, it speaks of Christ fulfilling, fulfilling.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

Verse 15.

He stayed there until Herod's death, so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled.

Out of Egypt I called my son.

Verse 17 That what was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled.

A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping in great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and she refused to be consoled because they are no more.

And then verse 23, then he went and settled into a town called Nazareth to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

So early on in the gospel, it's like Matthew, it's like he has this megaphone out and he's announcing, He's here, the king is here, the king who's been promised, the king who comes in fulfillment of all that's been said.

It's fulfilled, it's fulfilled, it's filled, it's fulfilled, he's here, he's here, he's here.

When we think of fulfillment, we often think of direct verbal prediction.

And we do have that in scripture.

You can see verse 5 of chapter 2.

Look back at that.

I read that earlier.

In Bethlehem of Judea, they told him, Because this is what was written by the prophet.

And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, because out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.

So the Old Testament said, a ruler's coming from Bethlehem.

Here's Jesus, he's from Bethlehem, boom, there it is.

Direct verbal prediction, and Jesus fulfills that.

But what we've seen in Matthew as we've gone through is that there's another kind of fulfillment, and this fulfillment arguably happens even more often than direct verbal prediction.

And that's the fulfillment of historical patterns.

There are events and people and places from the Old Testament, and often there's repeating events and repeating kinds of people and repeated references to places.

And those historical objects, people, events form a pattern that creates an expectation for something greater to fulfill the final installment of that pattern.

And Jesus, in so many ways, fulfills those patterns.

Let me give you one example of that just in general.

This is a little easier to track.

In the Old Testament, they slaughtered animals all the time.

Animal sacrifice after animal sacrifice after animal sacrifice, lamb killed after lamb killed after lamb killed.

It's like that kept happening.

There was a pattern there because there's a greater lamb who is coming.

So John the Baptist can say, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

But that wouldn't really make sense what John said without that repeated pattern.

If you just had John saying that, how would you know why is Jesus a lamb and what what's the but the pattern helps set up for Jesus to fulfill that?

So there's patterns like that.

There's one here in Matthew 2, more than one, but look again at verse 15.

The the technical word for that sort of what I'm calling pattern prophecy is typology.

Now it's kind of a fancy word.

If that word makes you think of Times New Roman and Ariel, then forget about it.

Don't worry about it.

But if you're reading other places, they might use the word typology, but just pattern prophecy or picture prophecy.

Look at verse 15.

This is a little more complicated example, and we'll just we'll just sketch it here.

But it's an example of this kind of pattern fulfillment.

He stayed there until Herod's death, so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophets might be fulfilled.

There's our key word fulfilled.

Out of Egypt I called my son.

What's going on in Matthew 2?

Again, Joseph and Mary flee with baby Jesus into Egypt in order to escape from Herod, who's trying to have Jesus killed.

So you think, okay, well, I get it.

Out of Egypt, I called my son.

They go to Egypt, baby Jesus is with them.

At some point they got to come back from Egypt.

So he's gonna kind of fulfill that.

It kind of makes sense.

Except, when you go back to Hosea chapter 11, and Matthew here is quoting from Hosea chapter 11.

Hosea 11 · chapter mention Hosea 11 · chapter mention

You go back and read where he quotes from Hosea chapter 11, it doesn't sound like a prediction.

Hosea 11 · chapter mention

Hosea 11 doesn't say, Oh you of Egypt, out of you will come the Messiah one day in the last days.

When you read Hosea 11, it sounds like the Lord is describing a past historical event through the prophet Hosea.

Israel is referred to as God's son.

The nation is called God's son.

And it seems like in Hosea 11, the prophet is saying, Remember, Israel, out of Egypt I called my son.

Remember when you were in Egypt and you were enslaved to the Egyptians, and I brought you out?

So he's just saying what happened.

So how is baby Jesus in Egypt, how is that a fulfillment of an event that took place in the past?

Because it's an example of this kind of pattern fulfillment.

God's son Israel was in Egypt and God brought them out.

But there's a greater son coming, a greater Israel coming, and God's gonna bring him out of Egypt.

He fulfills the pattern of what happened in Israel's history.

The book of Matthew presents Jesus as the true fulfillment of the nation of Israel.

Their very existence and the things that happened to them were a kind of anticipation of Or expectation or promise looking forward that Matthew says, King Jesus is here.

He's the promised one who fulfills these things.

So Israel comes out of Egypt and then they go through the waters and they go into the wilderness and they're tempted by God and they fail.

Jesus comes out of Egypt.

Then Matthew moves to his baptism scene where he passes through the waters.

Then Matthew brings us to Jesus in the wilderness being tempted, tested by the Lord.

But now we see the contrast.

Unlike Israel, who complained and griped and had to be there 40 years because of all their moaning and groaning, Jesus, tempted by Satan himself, perfectly passes the test.

God says that he was displeased with Israel in the wilderness.

He says of Jesus, this is my beloved son with whom I'm well pleased.

Pattern fulfillment.

He's the promised king.

Jesus' first great rule, uh, not Jesus, sorry, Israel's first great ruler was Moses.

Matthew shows many ways that Jesus fulfills the pattern of a Moses-like ruler.

So Moses is a great prophet who teaches the people.

A lot of what we've seen in Matthew is Jesus teaching as a prophet of God.

And this may be a stretch, but there's five big blocks of teaching in Matthew.

Moses wrote five books.

Some people said, that's kind of interesting.

But there's other ways that are even more clear.

For example, in Matthew 5 through 7, Jesus gives what we sometimes refer to as the Sermon on the Mount.

Why do we call it that?

Well, it's because Scripture tells us Jesus went up on the mountain and began to teach.

Okay.

That exact phrase went up on the mountain.

In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, it's only used three times.

It's always used of when Moses went up on the mountain of Sinai and received God's law and gave it to the people.

And now Jesus goes up in fulfillment of that pattern and gives God's teaching to the people, but he does it in a way that has even more authority than Moses.

Moses receives the law, the hands of angels and the Lord.

Jesus is himself, the Lord of glory, God himself giving his law.

Jesus is not only a king, he's the promised king.

We've already talked about how he's presented as David's son, David's son, fulfillment, fulfillment.

David's own son, Solomon.

Well, wasn't Solomon even greater than David?

Yes.

And in Matthew chapter 12, verse 42, Jesus says that the queen of the south came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, but something greater than Solomon is here.

Matthew 12:42

Those earthly kings and rulers, whether Moses or even later David, who's greater, or Solomon's even greater, Jesus is even greater than them.

And when we see what Matthew's doing with all of these pattern fulfillments, it should just massively affect the way that we read Scripture.

So I hope and we pray that this series in Matthew has helped us together not only to hear God's word as it's taught, but even in our own reading, to read scripture carefully with a view to finding Jesus Christ.

So it sounds great.

We want to look for Christ in all of Scripture.

If I were to ask you, where do you find Christ in the Old Testament?

How would you answer?

Well, Isaiah 53, he was pierced for our transgressions, he was wounded for our iniquities.

That is great.

Amen.

Wonderful.

Where else?

Uh there's a virgin will conceive in Barasan, not sure where that is.

That's somewhere there, too.

Amen.

Yes.

What Matthew is showing us, there's not just a verse here or a verse there, but there's whole sweeps of historical events and people and places that bring us to Christ.

And it's not because we have a great imagination, it's because we're reading carefully and we're looking for these patterns, these God-intended patterns, as one commentator calls them pattern-shaped promises.

Another thing about this understanding of Jesus as the promised king, when we read the Bible the way that Matthew, under inspiration from God, so we can't fault him in any way, the way he read his Bible, the details of our own individual lives become less significant.

And it's actually a good thing.

It's not a bad thing.

Sometimes when people talk about, you know, making Jesus the center of their lives, it can sound a little bit like this.

You know, I was really just distressed.

I didn't know if I should get the granite countertops or the or the walnut countertops.

And I was walking through my neighborhood, and then I saw this stone.

And then I was remembering, Jesus says, You gotta build on the rock.

And I I knew Jesus was calling me to get the granite countertops.

I'm just, if if he wasn't the center of my life, I don't know what I would do.

Couple of things.

First, I hate to break it to you.

No one cares what kind of countertops you get.

Just pick some.

That was kind of me, but uh I'm sure people love home decor.

If you love that, that's great, and we'll I'll celebrate with you and you get your your countertops.

But and this is this is the more important thing, then.

This is the more important thing.

We we trust that, and I pray this is not the case.

It it when we talk that way, it doesn't sound like Jesus is the center of our lives.

It sounds like the home that home decor is the center of our lives.

Making Jesus center of our lives is not just we've got him like our dear Abbey columnist.

He can always give us some good advice for our events and the people that we know and the objects that we love.

We've got a scripture that brings us and shows us how all of history is orchestrated by God to point to the Savior.

And the events of the past, the events of people's lives when we weren't even existing, were designed by God to highlight the beauty of this king and the glory of his redemption.

There's eternal significance there.

And if we belong to King Jesus, then that's that's meaningful.

That's that's something that's really important.

That that brings an eternal reality to our lives that's far more grand and glorious than those little details that sometimes occupy us so much.

One final building block for this morning.

I didn't say the sermon was almost over, I just said one final building block.

Jesus is king, he's the promised king.

He's the promised king who's come to save his people.

Turn back to Matthew chapter one.

We already heard this read this morning, but look again at verse 21.

She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.

That's the fundamental problem with humanity.

That's the fundamental reason why Jesus came.

According to verse 23, he's also called Emmanuel, God with us.

We as humans were made to know and enjoy God.

But that communion's broken.

God can't rightly in his righteousness dwell and live with people who are rebels, who are sinners, and that's all of us.

So that problem has to be resolved.

And that's what Jesus came to do to save his people from their sins, so that we might again receive Emmanuel, God, with us and know him in that fellowship and personal communion.

Jesus didn't come first and foremost to be a political advisor in the earthly sphere.

He didn't come first and foremost to give wise advice to people.

He didn't come first and foremost to be a doctor that could that could help people get their health together.

Yes, the Bible speaks to all of those areas, and Jesus will affect all of those things.

But without that foundation of forgiveness of sins, those those good things can never take place.

So we have to keep that central purpose in mind.

If we don't, we're going to be in danger of treating Jesus like the Jewish people did, or even like the Rome people did, as a mere human who can help them in the here and now.

But but what about God?

What about eternity?

What about all those things?

The fact that the Lord of the Ages took on a human nature and allowed himself to be slaughtered, that wasn't a failure.

Matthew shows us that was a radical success.

Because that's what was needed.

And this same king invites us to receive him.

That we who should have been sacrificed and slaughtered, like Herod wanted to do with those babies, we who should have experienced not just human judgment, but actually God's judgment for our rebellion, we can come to Christ and find life.

And Jesus extends with all of his kingly authority that warm welcome.

Come to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.

You won't find it anywhere else, but you'll find it in Christ.

When we're truly saved, so Jesus came as the promised king to save his people.

When we truly find that salvation from God, our sins are forgiven, when we become disciples of Jesus Christ, he's saved us, not just so that we can have kind of a ticket in our pocket that when we get to heaven after we die, we can, oh, where's this ticket?

Yeah, I can get in.

The salvation of Jesus leads to us being his followers.

I mean, how could we not follow someone who has sacrificed himself?

He's really brought us a restoration with God.

I want to follow that person.

I want to lay down my life.

I want, I want to pick up my cross.

So we don't live that life of a disciple in order to earn God's favor, but out of thankfulness for what Christ has accomplished.

And we see the call to Matthew throughout as a call to discipleship.

Lest someone be confused and think, once again, I'll take Jesus on my terms.

I'll take some forgiveness and then I'll live how I want.

That shows you probably don't really know and understand who Jesus is.

You haven't actually really seen your sin for the horrible thing that it is.

The call to be a saved disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ is a radical call.

It doesn't mean you have to go live on a commune in Oklahoma somewhere.

But when I say radical, I mean it's total.

It affects, it should affect every dimension of our lives.

How we talk, how we think, how we act, how we work, how we play, how we worship.

It's it's total.

Turn to Matthew 16.

Turn over to Matthew 16.

There's a lot of places we can go when we speak to this salvation that Jesus brought for those who know, for those who've turned from their sins and embraced his substitutionary sacrifice and trust in him alone.

We could go in a lot of places, but let me get how do you go to Matthew 16?

Those who have been saved by King Jesus, they confess Jesus as Messiah and Lord.

And we find this in chapter 16.

Look at verse 16.

Simon Peter answered, You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.

There's the confession.

So we don't we don't work and work and work and hope.

We confess, we trust, but then there's the fruit of following him with our lives.

Now look down to verse 18.

And I also say to you that this is Christ still speaking, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

The very first institution that Jesus our King mentions after this central confession from Peter is the church.

So at this critical point of Matthew's gospel, Jesus shows us that his true confessors, his true disciples who have been saved, they're going to assemble together.

It's the Lord's doing, he builds his church, but that institution is going to be a foundational piece of the kind of life God calls his saved disciples to live.

Might have told the story before, but I was with a group of youth workers one day, good folks who are trying to love teens, especially.

And someone had mentioned, you know, surveys suggest that young people they they want to follow Jesus, they just don't want to be part of the church.

You know what that reveals?

If that's true, it reveals young people have misunderstood what it means to follow Jesus.

Now it might reveal more than that.

Certainly, sadly, there are churches that don't well exhibit the glory and beauty of Christ.

We we acknowledge that.

But Jesus said he's going to build his church and he loves the church.

That's his body, that's his bride.

So if you're really saved and you're following Jesus, you you would want to love his body and bride.

And it's such an incredible thing that Jesus has saved us as individuals.

Yes, we don't become a disciple simply because our parents are, or simply because we were born in a certain country, anything like that.

He saves us as individuals, but he doesn't save us to be by ourselves.

He saves us to be part of assemblies that gather together for worship and prayer, that go out and speak and share and work and labor and give.

This is the life God has called us to.

This is what we get to do as a follower of Jesus Christ.

Last passage for this morning, Matthew 28.

Turn over there.

Pastor Doug was just here last week.

There's a attention in Matthew, as all of the gospels, that Christ has accomplished salvation.

He's brought in his kingdom, he's the king who reigns.

And yet we see people that haven't bowed the knee to him.

We experience death and suffering.

So the king has arrived, he's inaugurated his kingdom, but the final installment isn't here yet.

That's in glory.

But in the meantime, he's given us the power of worship, and he's given us a mission to share that the promised king has come to save his people.

To share with those that we know and love, the promised king has come to save his people, to share lovingly, thoughtfully, in wisdom, but to speak the promised king has come to save his people.

And in Matthew 28, that's the call that Jesus leaves to his followers.

That's the call that Matthew leaves us with.

And you might, this question might even be in your minds.

Who are his people?

It's all those who repent of their sins and trust in Jesus Christ alone.

That includes people from all places.

It's not just Jewish people, it's not just women or men or rich or poor.

It's all kinds of people from all places.

That's who Christ is calling to Himself.

He's building his church, he's establishing churches that proclaim the gospel in all kinds of places among all kinds of people.

So go and make disciples.

That's the glorious call.

The message is an exclusive message in the sense that it centers on Christ and you can find salvation only in Christ.

That's how great and glorious He is.

But it's not an exclusive message in who it goes out to.

You don't have to be a certain age.

You don't have to have a certain family status.

You don't have to have a certain ethnic identity.

No, you come as an image bearer of God and you receive Christ and you find salvation.

And that's what brings us together first and foremost to celebrate our Lord is because we found together the Savior.

This was God's plan all along.

It's not a new idea.

So at the beginning of Matthew's gospel, wise men from the east come to worship the Savior.

In Matthew 4, he goes to Galilee of the Gentiles.

In Matthew 8, he heals a centurion's son.

In Matthew 15, he receives a Canaanite woman.

And then here in Matthew 28, it's a fitting conclusion to all of Matthew's gospel.

Jesus tells his disciples, Go and multiply.

Make more.

That commission from the very beginning of multiplying now has been renewed and even heightened.

Go and make spiritual.

Spiritual disciples pray that God would give new birth.

Go armed with this message.

And friends, go and let us leave Matthew remembering as we heard last week, the promise of Christ.

He's with us.

He's with us.

With us always is our Savior.

Without us, never is our Savior.

Let's pray.

Lord God, how we celebrate what a beautiful Savior Christ is.

Lord, there are so many things about the ministry of our Lord.

We thank you for the miraculous signs that He did that accompanied all of His teaching.

How He showed authority over evil spirits and demons.

How he's bringing about a new creation.

And this is our King.

This is the one that we're loyal to.

This is the one that demands and has the loyalty of our bodies and our hearts.

So help us love him more.

As we think over the gospel of Matthew, help us to be submitting with renewed gladness and joy, that we would be bowing our knees and our hearts before the King to see the whole sweep of the plan of your history of redemption, how these things we've talked about and many, many more, point us to our Savior, draw our affections to Him, the Lord of glory.

We thank you that He's come to accomplish salvation, and He's certainly accomplished it.

Thank you that the Spirit of God is applying that saving work to our lives.

Give us an urgency to love one another.

Give us an urgency to encourage one another while it's called today.

Give us an urgency to go and share, to go to the ends of the earth, to go wherever we can, to go prayerfully, thoughtfully, to go with the humble and yet glorious message of King Jesus on our lips.

These are two great uh things for us to accomplish, but you are with us always.

So be with us this day and all of this week, we ask, in the name of Christ our King.

Amen.