The King and the Kingdom--Matthew 1-4

I'll be taking some time in my next few blogs to examine The Sermon on the Mount in greater detail, but before I jump into it I want to explore some background so we have the frame of mind to understand who Jesus was talking to, what He was talking about, and why was He talking about this now.  I also hope by the end of this blog that it's apparent why I'm starting here on my series on discipleship.  If it's not readily apparent Jesus is going to equate being His disciples and being a member of the kingdom.  It may be subtle at first, but I think you'll pick up on it as we go through the text.  In this way, we can look at this not only as a blueprint for "the kingdom," but also as blueprint for our lives if we are to be genuine disciples and to claim that we are members or citizens of the kingdom of God and that Jesus is our king.

At this point, I'd like to invite you to read Matthew chapters 1-7.   If you prefer to listen, here's a link for that:  https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/niv/Matt.1-Matt.7 Chapters 1-4 lay the groundwork to show who Jesus was, the anticipation and excitement of His coming, and the understandable expectation of the people that this "kingdom" was imminent and that they expected a political leader that was the successor to the throne of King David.  I encourage you to read or listen and put yourself as best you can in that place and time with the perspective of that people.  There have been promises they have been waiting for God to fulfill.  God has apparently been silent for over 400 years and the people are desperate to hear from the LORD.  Suddenly someone who seems to be the harbinger comes forth to say "the kingdom of heaven is at hand."  (Read this as "The King is coming, the King is coming."  "Get ready because the King is coming.").  This was the message they had been so desperate to hear, and yet probably struck fear in their hearts.  "He's coming and I'm not ready."  Imagine all the conversations that might have taken place as people tried to figure out who this King was and what was all this talk about "the kingdom of heaven."

Chapters 5-7 then begin to answer some of these questions.  The people were expecting Jesus to establish His government, name His cabinet members and lieutenants, and give His "marching orders" and possibly what most of the people might be interested in--"How will I be rewarded for my loyalty to you?"

Now let's look at this with a slightly different twist, as we have the benefit of hindsight.  Let's now go back and re-read it knowing that Jesus is not establishing His earthly kingdom so much as He's establishing what the worldview of His followers are and laying the foundation for the Church.  This is a radically new belief system like nothing that the Jews or their Gentile neighbors were familiar with.  It wold call into question everything that they thought they knew and what "true believers" were to look like and act like.  It may even cause them to question how they could know truth and to ask the same questions Pilate would ask later, "What is truth?"

Some, but not all, may be able to read this passage with that kind of "hindsight," but it is important for us to realize that many people today are still like those people who had their own expectations of what the Messiah needed to be, what He needed to do for them, and what He had to deliver to them if they were going to even think about signing up for this life-or-death mission that would not end up so well for them if they chose the wrong team.  It is important that we understand this and clearly communicate to people what they are signing up for like Jesus did.  It is also essential that we who are citizens of His kingdom know our role as His ambassadors and that we proclaim and live out that kingdom in a place where these ideas are foreign and counter-cultural.

Now let's put the two ideas together.  Knowing everything that we know now from where we sit in history, how are we like the people in this story as we await the imminent return of our King?  Are we aware of the prophecies and the signs?  Do we know for sure which side we're on and that we've made the right choice? What motivates our choice?  What motivates us to be loyal to our King?

I hope we can examine at least some of these items more closely as we take a closer look at The Sermon on the Mount and the book of Matthew as a whole.