Sermon Tone Analysis

The Unexpected Mathew Chapters 1-3

Starting on a series on the Gospel of Mathew

Starting on a series on the Gospel of Mathew

Matthew’s primary audience was Jewish, and his main goal is to show them through the Old Testament that Jesus is the Messiah that God has promised them all along.

These messages examine the broader themes in Matthew like God’s character,

Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament’s promises for a Messiah,

The importance of internal integrity over external behavior.

(sermon on the Mount)

Laying out practical application points like the need for:

Salvation,

Baptism, and

Repentance,

This sermon series provides the groundwork for a clear explanation of the Gospel.

Matthew

Chapter 1 and 2 we covered during Christmas ----- Lets review

Big Idea Chapter 1: Jesus is the Messiah promised to us in the Old Testament.

Big Idea of the Message: Jesus is the Messiah promised to us in the Old Testament.

Chapter 1 - Unexpected Fulfilment

We can trust God to be faithful to fulfill his promises to deliver us.

“Matthew looks back and refers to Hebrew prophecies about sixty times (‘was fulfilled’ and ‘might be fulfilled’).

Look at

Could that not be clearer .......

He also looks forward by dealing not only with Messiah's coming and His ministry, but also His future plan for the kingdom, and for the building of his church.

Matthew is therefore an essential link between the Old and New Testaments.

Without Matthew, neither testament can be easily or fully understood” (Stuart K. Weber, “Matthew,” Holman New Testament Commentary [Nashville, TN: 2005], 4).

What God promises he delivers .....

Illustration - dad that disappoints - Thom Rainer son going to McDonald's got call from married couple … disappointed child

The religious leaders of Jesus’s day completely missed it when their long-awaited Messiah walked among them.

They wanted a king who would deliver them politically from their governmental oppression.

They didn’t realize they needed deliverance from their own sin.

Their understanding of the prophecies was too narrow.

Have you ever missed seeing God’s activity because your understanding or expectation of how he would act was too narrow?

God did not acts the way we thought .....

Matthew relied heavily on Old Testament prophecies to show his readers that Jesus was God’s promised Messiah, and, in fact, God himself.

Matthew’s first quotation of Isaiah, written over seven hundred years before Jesus was born, points to the virgin birth and the Messiah’s name, Immanuel (“God with us”), emphasizing the divine conception and divine nature of Jesus: Jesus is God’s Son.

Chapter 2 - Unexpected Results

This chapter points out an interesting fact.

There were three different prophecies of where the Messiah would come from.

They might have seemed contradictory or mistaken when they were given: how could one person be from three different places?

Bethlehem

matt 2.6

Egypt

matt 2.13

Nazareth

matt

It wasn’t until God carried out his marvelous and mysterious plan that the truth was made plain.

It wasn’t until God carried out his marvelous and mysterious plan that the truth was made plain.

The Christ was born in Bethlehem, came out of Egypt after a respite there, and resided in Nazareth.

Only God could have connected all those dots!

In the same way, we can’t throw out a promise from God’s Word just because it doesn’t seem to make sense at the time.

When we wait for his perfect plan to unfold, we will be in awe of how he carries out everything he has said in faithfulness.

Christ was born in Bethlehem, came out of Egypt , and resided in Nazareth.

It wasn’t until God carried out his marvelous and mysterious plan that the truth was made plain.

The Christ was born in Bethlehem, came out of Egypt after a respite there, and resided in Nazareth.

Only God could have connected all those dots!

In the same way, we can’t throw out a promise from God’s Word just because it doesn’t seem to make sense at the time.

When we wait for his perfect plan to unfold, we will be in awe of how he carries out everything he has said in faithfulness.

Only God could have connected all those dots!

I

In the same way, we can’t throw out a promise from God’s Word just because it doesn’t seem to make sense at the time.

When we wait for his perfect plan to unfold, we will be in awe of how he carries out everything he has said in faithfulness.

Illustration here -----

We can trust God’s bigger plan, even when we can’t see it yet.

To illustrate this point, get a beautiful piece of needlework or embroidery, but don’t show the design on the front until after you have shown the back.

We can trust God’s bigger plan, even when we can’t see it yet.

To illustrate this point, get a beautiful piece of needlework or embroidery, but don’t show the design on the front until after you have shown the back.

The back of the piece of art is a mess and doesn’t make any sense; you probably can’t tell what the artist was trying to make.

That is what our lives sometimes look like from our perspective.

But God sees what he is making of our lives.

Show your congregation the front

Illustration of Gods ways are not our ways ------ do we understand them

Chapter 3 - Unexpected Message

An Unexpected Message -

Just Like Chapter 1 and 2 the message from God was not what they expected!

The Coming of John (3:1–12)

1.

The Period (3:1a) - Unexpected

The silence between Christ’s birth and baptism, broken only once, was absolute.

During those thirty years a new generation arose.

On August 17, a.d.

14, Caesar Augustus died and Tiberius, having shared the power with his royal stepfather for two years, became sole ruler of the empire.

Tiberius was born 42 b.c. and died March 16, a.d.

37.

He distinguished himself when a private citizen as an able orator, soldier, and civil servant; when he was the caesar, he showed himself to be lazy, licentious, malicious, cruel, and a master of deceit.

In Palestine the cities of Caesarea Philippi and Tiberius were named after him.

In Scripture this period was marked by the coming of John the Baptist, a cousin of the Lord Jesus.

2. The Place (3:1b) –unexpected

John appeared in the wilderness of Judea, an uninhabitable region running the entire length of the Dead Sea.

We would have thought that such a wild place was an unlikely area in which to conduct an evangelistic campaign.

3. The Plan (3:2) – unexpected

The first word of John that Matthew recorded was “Repent”!

Like an Old Testament prophet, John burst upon the national consciousness.

With that one word all distinctions were destroyed.

Priest and publican, rich and poor, Pharisee and Sadducee, learned rabbi and ordinary soldier—all were placed on common ground.

As sinners, they had

The Jewish leaders were thunderstruck by John’s demand that they repent.

They certainly were not prepared for the essentially spiritual nature of the new order.

Matthew, writing from the other side of the cross and close to the impending destruction of Jerusalem and age-long dissolution of Jewish national life, could clearly see what John and Jesus had been driving at with their devastating word “Repent.”

4. The Person (3:4) unexpected

When the people arrived they saw an ascetic, a man clothed in camel’s hair.

The coarse hair of the camel was usually used for making tents and rough mantles.

Elijah wore such clothing as a protest against the Phoenician luxury that in his day was sapping Israel’s character.