Gospel Challenge: Matthew
The first in our gospels in a year challenge. Jocelyn talks about how the gospel of Matthew has been a blessing for her to study and reminds us of the next book to study for the second quarter of the year.
Visit the Joyful Journey website to sign up for our newsletter, view a transcript, and search previous episodes.
Emails us with questions or comments at joyfuljourneyquestions@outlook.com
Donate to Joyful Journey Podcast
Joyful Journey Podcast is a ministry of Faith Bible Seminary. All proceeds go to offset costs of this podcast and toward scholarships for women to receive their MABC through Faith Bible Seminary.
Resources
Handout
2025 Scripture Reading Challenge
Transcript:
Jocelyn: We hope you're enjoying this year's annual challenge looking at Jesus in the gospels. During our first quarter, we looked at Jesus in Matthew. I've enjoyed thinking through Jesus as seen in the gospel of Matthew. I absolutely love thinking about Jesus as King. One of my favorite Jesus as king verses is even the signature on my email, it says, Jeremiah 23, 5 and six "for the time is coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up a righteous descendant from King David's line, he will be a king who rules with wisdom. He will do what is just and w right throughout the land, and this will be his name. The Lord is our righteousness." Well, Matthew's theme is to demonstrate that Christ is the king and the long awaited Messiah of Israel. Old Testament prophetic passages are quoted more than 60 times, showing how Christ is the fulfillment of those passages. This would've made a significant impact on Matthew's primarily Jewish audience, who had been looking forward to the coming of the Messiah for so long. In the book of Matthew, Jesus is constantly referred to as the Son of David, and one of the themes of the book is Jesus himself teaching about his kingdom and all he planned for it to be. The readers are invited to join Jesus's kingdom and begin functioning as its redeemed citizens. Jesus is the king of the Jews, the Messiah, and the book starts by showing how Christ is the Messiah by lineage of the kingly line. It traces him all the way back. He's the fulfillment of so many prophecies that Old Testament writers had predicted. About the future king, and then the book outlines Christ Kingly Prerogatives. Jesus teaches the standards and conduct of his kingdom in the Sermon on the Mount. Then he commissions his apostles to carry out his kingdom work. He teaches a bunch of parables about how his kingdom is going to work, including how upside down his kingdom is compared to all of the success of worldly kingdoms. Matthew illustrates over and over that our understanding of him and his kingdom needs to be straightened out. He's not who we think he is, and he asks us to stop domesticating him into our image, and instead let Christ transform us into his image. As humans, we're tempted to think what is the least I can do to follow Christ, which really exposes our idolatry and our selfishness and our self-focus. We might be tempted to treat discipleship as a financial transaction. I pay the least amount necessary to get the greatest benefit, but Jesus doesn't want us to want what he gives us. He wants us to want him. Jesus says that the one thing that qualifies us for life in his kingdom is knowing that you don't qualify. And the one thing that disqualifies us is thinking that we do. We tend to assume that in order for God to approve of us, we need to qualify. Really, Jesus the king tells us that all we need to know is our need and that we have nothing to offer. Christianity is an un religion because it is the one faith whose founder tells us to not bring our doing, but instead to bring our need. Jesus didn't come to start a new religion. He did not come to offer the best religion of all. He came to end all religion, all forms of getting blessed by being good enough as proved by our doing deeds that show that. Jesus died on the cross. The one person who ever truly qualified allowed himself to be disqualified so that you and I naturally disqualified, can qualify for God's kingdom free of charge. Jesus died and therefore all the bad we can do, can never lose God's love, yet all the good we can, can never gain God's love. Jesus Christ is the only person to walk on this earth who truly deserve to be first, but he made himself last so that those who do nothing more than acknowledge they are last can be first. That is the Jesus we find in Matthew, the king of an upside down kingdom. Our disqualification to qualify for his kingdom makes us qualified to receive citizenship. Our king says your greatest attempt at righteousness can do you no good, but his righteousness can fix our greatest problems. Usher us into his blessings both now and later where we'll get to enjoy his presence forever. Jesus is the king who is righteous and just the Messiah. The Jews waited for so long. The sovereign who died to let us live in and through him, and who is molding his citizens into his very image. From April to June, we're gonna be looking at Jesus in Mark. We hope you love looking at this action packed narrative of Jesus' time on earth.
