Introduction

1. The sermon of the mount was delivered in a mountain in Galilee (4:23).
2. Large crowds were following Jesus (4:25), but the sermon of the mount (chapter 5 to 7) was delivered only the few small group of people, His disciples (5:1).
3. Sermon of the mount is not laws we need to follow in order to get saved. Men are saved by grace through faith (Eph 2:8).
4. When we believed in Jesus as our savior, God has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of His Son (Col 1:13). The sermon of the mount is a description of how the citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven ought to live their life on this earth.
5. When the disciples live out the life as citizens of the kingdom of heaven, the crowds would be attracted to want to be part of the kingdom.
6. When you read these teachings, you will surely find that these are not how natural men live. These are teachings are not from men, but from the King of the Kingdom of Heaven. These teachings are taught to the citizens of the kingdom of heaven. The citizens’s role on this earth is to be the ambassador of the King of the Kingdom of Heaven (2 Cor 5:20).
7. No believers can obey these teachings, unless they truly submit themselves completely to the Lord Jesus as their King.
8. The disciples must be puzzled when they first heard these teachings from the Lord. They heard Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of heaven is hear (4:17). The Jews’ image of a kingdom is an strong earthly kingdom that is independence from the Rome.
9. These teachings of the kingdom of heaven are all about the characters of the citizens of the kingdom. The disciples might be thinking about how they can be a strong kingdom if they live according to the sermon of the mount because these teachings seem to show sign of weakness instead of strength in a person. But that is exactly how God’s works. He opposes the pround but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5). God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him. (1 Cor 1:27-28).

The Beatitudes (v3-12)

1. Christians who live according to the sermon of the mount received special blessing from the Lord, these are His promises. Nine blessings are mentioned in the beatitudes. This is the same king of blessing John mentioned in Revelation 1:3 “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near”
2. “Blessed” (G3 Makarios) in greek means happy! It is God’s will for us to be happy, to be joyful!
3. Our worldly idea of being happy is to “do” things, and to “possess” things. But in the Kingdom of Heaven, to be happy is to “be”. Blessed “are” the poor in spirit, blessed “are” those who mourn, blessed “are” the meek.
4. Happiness has its root, not in outward circumstances, but in inward condition of characters. True happiness comes from having the characters of the Kingdom of Heaven, not from possessing material things in our life. How much happiness do you get from owning the latest gadget? A new car? A big house? Only temporal and shallow happiness. The Lord does not creates happiness in us by new surroundings. Instead He creates new surroundings by happiness.
5. There are 9 blesseds in the beatitudes. The first seven are regarding the characters, the last two are regarding the process. The first 4 of the characters are passive (poor, mourn, meek, hunger and thirst). The last three of the characters are active (merciful, pure in heart, peace makers).

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

“Poor” means lack. It is a recognition of a lack, but also a recognition of the abundance God who can supply our lack. To be happy, we must first recognize that we cannot be happy by our own means. True happiness starts from the realization of we are poor in spirit, which means we realized our own incompetence and unworthiness. And then truly happiness is fulfilled when we come before the Lord to trust that He is the only One who can satisfy our poor spirit.

The man who is poor in spirit is the man who is willing to be governed. It means willingness to wholly surrender to the King. When are believe in the Lord as Savior, we have the position as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. But it is only when we completely submit ourselves to the King that we would truely experience the beauty, the power, the blessing of the Kingdom.

Blessed are those who mourn

When we mourn over own own sins and failures, the Lord promised we will be comforted. The Lord Jesus is our Comforter, and He has sent another Comforter, the Holy Spirit to live in us and to comfort us (John 14:16). Who can truly comfort our sorrow? Only God Himself can give us true and eternal comfort.

Blessed are the meek

The meek are those who are obedient to the rule of the King. Meekness means gentleness (Matt 11:29; 21:5; 1 Peter 3:4). Gentleness is the character of the King in the Kingdom of Heaven. Being meek is to be like the King. The King has omnipotent, but He willingly control His power. Meekness is the opposite of out of control. In the world’s kingdom treasures strong army to conquer land. In the Kingdom of Heaven, the meeks are the one who truly inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness

It means discontent with everything unlike God. It means the desire to live a righteous life. When we desire, our spirit will be filled, and will experience ultimate satisfaction.

Blessed are the merciful

We have received mercy from God, and we ought to demonstrate God’s mercy by extending mercy to others. We will be shown mercy by God on the judgement seat of Christ.

Blessed are the pure in heart

The double-minded heart (James 4:8) cannot see God. In order to see God with our spiritual eyes, our heart needs to be pure for God.

Blessed are the peacemakers

We are in the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:17-18). We are called to bring peace between men and God. When we accepted Jesus as our Savior, we became the sons of God. But in order for others to recognize us as sons of God, we need to live our life as peace makers.

Blessed are those who are persecuted

When are live as Kingdom life, we would naturally stand out in the crowd and would not be understood other the world. We would be persecuted in the same way the prophets were, others would speak evil against us. But the Lord promised us reward in heaven, so rejoice and be glad!

Genealogy (v1-17)

14 generations

1. 1st 14 generation: Abraham to David (1000 years)
2. 2nd 14 generation: David to Josiah (400 years)
3. 3rd 14 generation: Joconiah (Jehoiachin) to Jesus (600 years)

The genealogy in Matthew is abridged. Some names are omitted, as was frequently done in genealogies, without invalidating the line of descent. For example three kings are missing between Uzziah and Jotham. The more complete genealogy is in 1 Chronicle 1-9.

Matthew wanted to establish the Lord Jesus has the correct qualifications to be the Messiah, and the King of the Kingdom of Heaven. He gave the genealogy to prove that the Lord Jesus is the descendent of  David and Abraham in v1-17, that is the Lord Jesus’s human heredity. He gave the birth story of the Lord Jesus to prove that the Lord Jesus is the Son of God, that is the Lord Jesus’s divine heredity.

Take note that David is mentioned first, before Abraham in the Genealogy, it is probably done in purpose to emphasize Jesus is the descendent of King David whom fulfill the promise from God to King David.

There are two major promises from God to the Jews in OT. The first is the promise to Abraham after Abraham has passed the test from God in the incident of offering Isaac as the sacrifice. God promised Abraham through his offspring all nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed me (Gen 22:18). The offspring, or seed is singular, it is a prophesy of the Lord Jesus.

The other promise is from God to King David, when King David was thinking about building a temple for the ark of God. God promised to King David his offspring will build a house for God’s Name, and God will establish the throne of his kingdom forever (2 Sam 7:13). God elaborate: “You house and your kingdom will endure forever before you, your throne will be established forever.” (2 sam 7:16).

Only The Lord Jesus is qualified and able to fulfill both promises.

Father

The greek word for the word “father” of someone use throughout the genealogy is “gennao” (G1080), it is the same word used on v16 for Mary to give birth to Jesus. “and Jacob the father (gennao) of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born (gennao) Jesus, who is called Christ. Jesus is different from the rest of the men in the genealogy because Jesus was “gennao” of a woman, where else the rest of the men were “gennao” of a man. It is because Jesus is the “seed”, the offspring of woman promised by God to crush the head of Satan (Gen 3:15).

Why did Matthew start the gospel with a genealogy?

Although all the books in the bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and is God’s word to all humanity. Each individual book has a specific human writer and a specific group of audiences. Matthew was mainly writing to Jews to tell them Jesus is the King of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Messiah they have been waiting for centuries. He wants to establish to the readers that Jesus is the descendant of David and Abraham. It is because God has made a covenant with both of them. In Luke 2:32, angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her the Lord God will give the child the throne of his father David.

In Genesis chapter 5, there is a genealogy of the descendants of Adam. The phase “and then he died” followed each of the name in the genealogy. In contrast, in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus in Matthew, the word “father” or “give birth” followed each person. “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive!” (1 Corinthians 15:22).

Why is the genealogy in Luke different?

Matthew recorded the genealogy in a chronological order, starting from Abraham and ended with Jesus. The purpose is to show that Jesus is the One who fulfilled the promises of God to David and Abraham.

Luke recorded the genealogy in reverse chronological order, starting from Jesus and ended with God.

Both genealogy are the same from Abraham to David. They deviate from David onwards. Matthew was tracing the genealogy of Joseph, the adopted father of the Lord Jesus. Joseph was the descendent of Solomon, son of David. Luke was tracing the genealogy of Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus. Mary was the descendent of Nathan, son of David.

Five Women in Genealogy

There are five women in the Lord’s genealogy:

1. Tamar (v3): A Canaanite. She is the daughter in-law for Judah. Judah is the 4th son of Jacob (Gen 29:35), his name means “Praise”. Her story is recorded in Gen 38. When two of her husband died, Tamar disguise as a prostitute and sleep with Judah and had a twins: Perez and Zerah. Perez became the ancestor of the Lord Jesus.
2. Rahab (v5): She was a gentile. Her story was recorded in Joshua 2. She was a prostitute who saved the live of the men that was spying on Jericho, as a result her own life was spared when the Israelites conquered Jericho. Although she was a gentile, she heard about God and believed in Him (Josh 2). Her name is recorded in the list of faithful men and women in Hebrew 11 (Heb 11:31) as well as in James 2:25. We are informed in this genealogy that she became the mother of Boaz, the ancestor of the Lord Jesus.
3. Ruth (v5): Ruth was a Moabite who married into a Jews family and later became a widow. She remarried to Boaz and became the ancestor of the Lord Jesus. She story was recorded in a book with her name as the title
4. Bathsheba (v6): Her story is recorded in 2 Sam 10.
5. Mary (v16). She bore the perceived stigma of pregnancy outside of married. Her story is recorded in (Matt chapter 1 and 2, Luke chapter 1 and 2, John 2:1-11, Matt 12:46, Mark 3:31, Luke 8:19, Matt 13:55-56, John 19:25-27, Acts 1:14)

Each of these women had various degrees disgraceful background, at least from human perspective, but by the grace of God, they became ancestor of the Lord Jesus, as partakers in the eternal plan of God.

Many of the people mentioned in the genealogy were not faithful to God. For example Rehohoam, Abijah, Ahaz, Amon and Jeconiah (Jehoiachin). Even the faith men and women had committed great sins. King David stands out on this category because Matthew called him out in the genealogy that he had adultery with someone else’s wife. This sinful men and women are in great contrast with the Lord Jesus, who lived a sinless life, but ended his life on the cross to redeem the sinners. The genealogy reminds us that no matter how great our sins are, God’s grace is sufficient.

The Birth of Jesus (v18-24)

These are the characters in the story: Jesus, Holy Spirit, the Lord, Mary, Joseph, Angel of the Lord, Isaiah. Pay attention that all three persons of the Trinity God shows up in this story. We are told the meaning of the name Jesus: to save (G4982: sozo) his people from their sins. The name of Jesus reveals to us the reason why he was born. We need to read Luke chapter 1 and 2 to have a complete view of the story of the birth of Jesus.

Joseph

Joseph means “Jehovah has added”. Matthew calls him righteous man. What is the meaning of righteous man? It does not mean he is perfect without sins. It means he is a man who fears God. Joseph was the descendent of King David and the adopted father of Jesus. The angel of the Lord spoke to him in dreams, 1st time when he first found out Mary was pregnant by the Holy Spirit with Jesus in chapter 1. The second time was when King Herod wanted to kill baby Jesus in chapter 2.

According to Deut 22:23-24, a woman should be stoned to death if she had a sexual conducts with another man who is not her future husband. Joseph didn’t want that to happen to Mary because he loved her and he is a righteous man. He chose not to expose her pregnancy by divorcing her quietly.

Author

The author is not mentioned in the gospel, however pretty much all bible teachers agree that Matthew, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus was the author. Early church teachers, for example Papias, who was discipled  by John mentioned Matthew as the author in his writings.

The meaning of Matthew is “Gift of God”. He is also called Levi (Mark 2:15), his father’s name is Alphaeus. Matthew was a tax collector. Tax collector was generally viewed by the Jews as traitor who works for the Romans. The Jews look down to tax collectors because they collects taxes and interests from the Jews, thus violated God’s law for not imposing interests on fellow Jews (Lev 25:36, Deut 23:19-20). Matthew himself recorded the incident where the Pharisees questioned the Lord Jesus for having meal together with tax collectors and sinners (Matt 9:9-13).

The calling of Matthew by the Lord Jesus is recorded in Matt 9:9, Mark 2:14-17, Luke 5:27-28. Only Luke mentioned that Matthew left everything to follow the Lord Jesus. Matthew purposely left that from his writing. Other than his calling and dinner with the Lord Jesus in chapter 9, the only other time he mentioned himself is in chapter 10 verse 3, where Matthew records the names of the twelve apostles.

The interesting thing is he is the only one in the list with profession listed. The twelves disciples are mentioned in three other places in the new testament, Mark 3:18, Luke 6:15 and Acts 1:13. Only Matthew mentioned he himself is a tax collector. In my opinion Matthew was reminding himself and the readers that he was a sinner who purposely ignored God’s law, but now is saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus. He wanted to emphasize to his readers that he is a sinner who has received the free gift of salvation from God. Since the meaning of Matthew is “Gift of God”. The other gospel writers always refer to Matthew as Levi.

Other than chapter 9 and chapter 10, Matthew hided himself in the gospel. He may have purposely omitted the parable of Pharisees and tax collector (Luke 18:9-14) because that parable puts himself in a favorable light. He has one purpose in writing this gospel, it is to proclaim to the readers the Lord Jesus is the Messiah prophesied in the ancient Old Testament scriptures. The Lord Jesus Christ is the King of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Matthew primary target readers was the Jews. He wanted to show to the Jews that the Lord Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. That is why he quoted more than 60 times from OT, more frequently than any other NT books except Paul in Romans.

Four Gospel Books

The four gospel accounts were written by different authors with different perspective, to address different people group and to portray the four natures of the Lord Jesus. The follow table gives a summary of the differences among these four gospel accounts.

When the human writer pen the text, they had specific readers in mind. However the real author of these gospels and for that matter the entire bible is the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit inspired these scriptures for humanity. That is why even though Matthew had Jews in mind when he wrote this book, the Holy Spirit had all men and women in mind when He inspired Matthew. That is why it is profitable for all people to read this book, and for the same reason every book in the bible.

Outline

Matthew can be divided into 5 teaching sections, each preceded with a narrative of Jesus life. Each section ends with a similar phase like this: “When Jesus had finished saying these things…”. After the five teaching sections, the book ends with the narrative of the passion week and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.