DECEMBER 17 THE JESUS QUESTIONS SUMMARY 03: JQ#1-33 The Gospel of Matthew: A Study of the Life, Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ

 

DECEMBER 17  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  SUMMARY 03: JQ#1-33

  The Gospel of Matthew: A Study of the Life,

 Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ 

LIVING FOR JESUS - Daily Prayer   

JESUS, as each new day unfolds Lord we ask for Your Light

 to shine in our day-to-day world and we thank You that like the

 consistent sunrise that brings light to the physical world Your Light

 will rise each day in our spiritual lives and bring with it the blessing

 of Your renewed Mercies and Grace! 

Thank You Jesus for Your coming to the earth and taking on flesh

 and being tempted in all ways such as we but yet You were without sin,

 and Your Victory over the world is the foundation of our Hope!!!

 Lord forgive me of all my worldly shortcomings and my daily iniquities

 and give me the self discipline to forgive others as freely as You forgive us!    

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus spoke His first words in Matthew’s Gospel 

and stated that the event unfolding between Himself 

and John the Baptist (the forerunner to the Messiah), as 

“Fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15) 

which established Jesus as the “Chosen One” 

and that John was the “one crying in the wilderness, 

‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight’” (Matthew 3:3)

 thereby Matthew documents that the “Coming One” had arrived! 

Only the Jewish community that had been reading the Talmud

 would understand the significance of Matthew being able to trace

 the genealogy of Jesus back to Abraham through David

 so the Gospel of Jesus according to Matthew points to the

 fulfilling of God’s prophecies for the nation Israel and establishes

 through God’s Covenant Promises with Israel’s forefathers that Jesus

 was the rightful Heir to the throne of David. 

I believe that the nation was blinded to the Kingship of Jesus

 because of His Humble beginnings and the fact that Jesus 

was more like John the Baptist who had no earthly wealth 

or possessions therefore Jesus could not be the “soon coming King”

 like Israel’s previous great king, King David who possessed

 the entire kingdom of Israel and David had great warrior strength 

and all the resources that King Solomon used to build the 

Great Temple of Solomon — John the Baptist had no strength except

 the Spirit of God and was calling Israel to 

“repent, for the kingdom of heaven was at hand”! 

The nation Israel and many people today simply cannot see how

 a cruel death on a cross at the hands of Israel’s religious rulers 

who had sentenced Jesus  to death as a criminal by the laws

 of the Jews could actually be the Messiah and that this “prophet”

 that did not possess any earthly treasures, and that this 

Jesus of Nazareth simply by His Death, Burial, 

and Resurrection would “fulfill all righteousness”!?!?!? 

Matthew started his documentation of Jesus fulfilling the Holy Scriptures

 by establishing in Chapter 1 that through His genealogy 

Jesus was the “rightful heir” to the throne of His father David! 

Any one of the events that Matthew records in his 28 Chapters about

 the life of Jesus could be considered significant but by recording

 all the events into a single Gospel we have a record of fulfilling 

of prophecies by a single man Jesus that defies all logic and odds 

and that if the odds of one man fulfilling all prophecies could be calculated

 that it would fit into the category of 

“counting [all] the stars if [we were] able” (Genesis 15:5)

 or imagining the number of descendants God promised

 a childless 90 year old man “I will bless you, and multiplying I will 

multiply your descendants as the stars of  the sky 

and as the sand which is on the seashore”

 {{have you ever tried counting stars or grains of sand??}} 

(Genesis 22:17) .

 These great numbers that are far beyond our counting or imagining 

the total sum of them point to God the Father for King David wrote:

 “How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! 

How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, 

they would be more in number than the sand!” 

(Psalm 139:18). 

Therefore by collecting all the events of Jesus that point to His being the

 “Son of God, God’s Chosen One, the Messiah”,  

Matthew establishes beyond a shadow of a doubt that it would be

 IMPOSSIBLE for any one other person to fulfill EVERY Prophecy as Jesus did!!!

 Matthew established in the first part of Chapter 1 that Jesus is 

the rightful heir by birthright and in the last part of Chapter 1 Matthew

 records the fulfilling of early prophecies of the Messiah as Matthew writes: 

“the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows…Mary was betrothed 

to Joseph [and] before they came together, she was found 

with the child of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 1:18) 

Matthew explains: 

“So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was 

spoken by the Lord through the prophet {{Isaiah 7:14}}, 

saying, ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, 

and they shall call His name ‘Immanuel’ which is translated,

 ‘God with us.’” (Matthew 1:22-23) 

Matthew started at “the beginning” which leaves no room for anyone

 other than Jesus to claim the title of “God’s Son” and as the

 Apostle John (whom Jesus loved) wrote about Jesus: 

“The WORD became flesh and dwelt among us, 

and we beheld His glory, 

the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, 

full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) 

The Jewish community had been reading the prophecies of 

the Coming Messiah therefore they would be the first ones to recognize

 that Jesus was the earthly embodiment of “Immanuel” and 

truly God had sent His only begotten Son 

and by observing the Life of Jesus, we observe GOD HIMSELF!!!  

— and the really GOOD NEWS is that now that Jesus has come, the

 Promise of God 

to Joshua becomes  His Promise to us 

for God assures us:

 “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 

(Deuteronomy 31:6) and (Hebrews 13:5)