Hey everybody, I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. If you listen to this thing in real time, then I hope you had a delightful weekend. If you don't listen to this in the order that it comes out on the day that it comes out, then I hope whatever thing you just did was great. Here's what we're doing today. It is time for a hardcore reset on the book of Matthew. We're in the middle of chapter six right now, working through the book of Matthew a little bit every day on weekdays, 10-ish minutes at a time. And wow, we are so deep into Jesus' thoughts, Jesus' description of the kingdom and the king and the kingdom values in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapters five through seven, that I think it's easy to kind of forget where we are in the whole big picture. So I'm gonna take us back out like 10 layers and bring us right back to what we're working on now and try to answer some of the obvious, pregnant questions that still remain from the most recent stuff we're talking about with forgiveness and reconciliation. Did I sell you on it? I think we're gonna have fun. Here's the deal Matthew is one of the four gospels. It's written mostly to a Jewish audience. Matthew seems to assume that this audience knows stuff about the Messiah and the scriptures and the Old Testament. And in the first chunk of his description of the life of Jesus, he seems very interested in demonstrating how Jesus is the completion, the fulfillment of all of that Old Testament stuff. And the original audience didn't call it Old Testament stuff, but that's how most of us coming at it today would think of it. So he opens with a great big long genealogy. And this genealogy means a lot more to the original audience than it would to you or me, but basically this: the entire story of what the original audience would call the law of the Old Testament is tucked into this genealogy. All these names would have meant something. We talked in detail about what they meant. We see the whole birth narrative go beyond the genealogy and into a description of how Jesus was brought into the world and the threats that surrounded that in chapter two. And all of this, Matthew is consistently pointing us back to the Old Testament to be like, and there again, remember that open-ended story that was really interesting. And you were like, that was really good. And it made me think about things, but it was like one of those movies where I'm like, dang, that was deep. I'm not totally sure what all of that meant or what I'm supposed to do with it, but I know it was smart, and I know there's more there than I was getting. I think that's probably how a lot of people felt about the Old Testament. And Matthew was doing this very satisfying. That meant that. That meant that, like a YouTube-explained video almost. So then Jesus survives this treacherous beginning and the threat from Herod the Great. Joseph absolutely shines. Then Jesus grows up and we skip a whole bunch of time. And in chapter three, we see that John the Baptist has become the central theological figure of the story all of a sudden. He is like this guy that has a foot in the Old Testament and a foot in the New Testament, and he's leading this weird religious revival. And a lot of people have tried it at this point. But John the Baptist seems to be having remarkable success and that he's getting through to all different kinds of people. And John the Baptist's effectiveness is demonstrating the ineffectiveness of what's going on religiously in Israel and Galilee at this time. And so people are coming out to hang out with John the Baptist and be baptized. And we're starting to run into this language now from John the Baptist about the idea that there's a new family of faith coming. That though John the Baptist is reaching out to Jewish people, though Matthew is writing a gospel to Jewish people, there's this language indicating that just being Jewish isn't what it is to be in the family of faith that God has envisioned long term, that this is going to be something bigger. So this is much more agitating to the original audience than it is to you and me. And right in the middle of all of that agitation is John the Baptist is dunking people, and he's pushing back on the Pharisees and the Sadducees, right in the middle of all of that, Jesus shows up. And according to the Gospel of John, you know, John the Baptist's like, whoa, it's the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, which is another completion of themes in the Old Testament. Jesus as the complete and perfect sacrificial lamb that completes the sacrificial system. And he shows up and the baptism occurs and the whole trinity shows up for the affair and everybody is impressed, but still, we don't really know what to do with it. Jesus is maybe taught a little, he's maybe done some miraculous stuff that we don't know about just yet, but we don't have a clear sense of what he's doing. We just have a clear sense that he's remarkable, that he's gained a following, and that unlike a lot of the other also rans, he ticks all of the historical boxes, all of the prophetic boxes. Another thing that's really different is instead of going and trying to appoint himself king over everything, he goes out into the desert. And the text says in chapter four that it's at the leading of the Holy Spirit. And he goes out there and he has this Bible showdown with the devil himself. And the devil mutilates scripture just enough that if you didn't look close, you might think that was pretty good. Like, oh, Satan's like he's actually a pretty good Bible driller. But Jesus demonstrates what it looks like to depend on the word of God to deal with these difficult things, to deal with all the temptations that are common to humanity. He passes the test, the devil leaves him, and now we see Jesus really move toward like what we would call, I guess, his big public ministry. And so he goes and he recruits some guys, he gives them the whole speech about how we're gonna make you fishers of men. And they're like, I don't totally get that, but fine, I'll just quit my job and follow you right now. You seem credible. I don't know how Jesus pulled that off. Pretty amazing thing. And so now he has this inner circle of followers. By the time you get to five, you were like, enough already. Okay, I get it. He he ticks every prophetic box. Yes, I okay, I get it. It looks like he's the guy. He looks very important, but what do you want? Who are you? Open your mouth. What is this thing about? And that's exactly what happens in Matthew chapter five. It says, now when he saw the crowds, he went up on the mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him and he began to teach them, saying, and he goes through all the blessed R statements, the beatitudes, the descriptors of the upside-down values of this kingdom that he's apparently the king of. And this would have been very confusing. People would have been wondering, like, well, so what do we do? Where do we fit in the kingdom? And the answer would seem to be you serve as a preservative, as a representative of the values of God in a world that doesn't represent the values of God. You do that as a city on a hill, a light on a hill, you do that as the salt of the earth, a preservative, a flavoring. And then no doubt everybody's like, that almost sounds like a whole new religion, but with the same God, uh, what about the religion we have? And that's where Jesus gets into this very important stuff. Starting in Matthew 5, 17, he says, Don't think that I've come to abolish the law of the prophets. I ain't come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. And he says, you know, the law is going to stand. And if you really want to enter the kingdom of heaven, you would have to be greater in righteousness than even the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And now the whole audience is like, okay, you tick all the boxes. You're terribly interesting. You can recruit people from their jobs with a simple snap of your fingers, and you describe this beautiful kingdom that I want to be a part of, but now nobody can be in it because nobody is better than professional religious people. And then he's like, well, let's talk more about this fulfillment of the law concept. And he talks about murder, adultery, divorce, oaths. He talks about loving your enemy. And in talking about all of these things, he moves the conversation beyond a cursory outward obedience to a prohibitive or negative aspect of the law, that is, you can't do this bad thing. And he flips it to this proactive, if you embrace the values of the kingdom, you will not only not do bad thing, but you will proactively, in the spirit of the values of the kingdom, do good and redemptive thing without anybody telling you to, because you are salt and light, you're a city on a hill, you're an ambassador, you're a representative, you're a child, a son, a daughter, an heir of this kingdom. So you can't help but be a part of it. Well, then no doubt as we get into chapter six, people are like, well, that raises even more questions like, what about all the religious activities we do? What about the drills and the exercises that religious people do, like praying and making donations and going to church and fasting? And Jesus begins to answer that, starting in chapter six, talking about, hey, so he says, be careful not to do your air quotes acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them, as if you do, you'll have no reward from your father in heaven. So then he goes on to say, so when you give, don't let everybody know. Don't go make a big to-do about it. In fact, don't even let your other hand know what the giving hand is doing. Then he goes into this teaching on prayer, which is where I think we've really gone down the rabbit hole into some challenging places. And I think it could be a little bit disorienting while we're down here in the rabbit hole, but the rabbit hole is real and we needed to go down it. And let me just reset this again. So he talks about the religious drill of giving and how to do it right, that God wants your heart. Here is what obedience to the king and living out kingdom values looks like in terms of donating to religious things or to charity or to poor people. On the prayer side, he breaks this teaching down into three parts. When you pray, just like the giving. Don't go make a big to-do about it and try to impress everybody. If you want to impress people, it's all you're gonna get out of it. They'll be dazzled, I'm sure they'll be very, very impressed at how good you are at praying. La di-da. But instead, this is what it looks like to pray, part two of the prayer thing. This is what it looks like to pray as an ambassador, a child, a son, a daughter, an heir, a citizen of the kingdom. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. An oath of loyalty, an oath of fealty to a king that says, You provide justice, you provide nourishment, you provide protection. Everything that's going to happen in this kingdom is at your provision. But I also want to participate in this thing. I want to imitate you in your impulse to forgive, and I want to depend on you and count on you as the king, and I will be your servant. So then in this third part on prayer, as we talked about last week, he rounds it out saying, if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you don't forgive men their sins, your father will not forgive your sins. Jesus effectively highlights that line from the Lord's Prayer and reminds his audience, his disciples, and you and I who are trying to figure out what he means by all this, that forgiveness is the initiating act of God to make access to the kingdom possible. And therefore, forgiveness has got to be the calling card, the trademark, the state of being, the essence in the DNA of anyone who is a citizen of the kingdom, a child, a daughter, an heir, a representative, a city on a hill, salt and light, any kind of participant who is genuinely a part of the kingdom will have this calling card of forgiveness. Now I had ambitions that we were going to roll off of that into a few concluding thoughts before we get into the fasting thing because I've got some questions on that. But it took a little bit longer to reset it than I figured. So consider yourself, my friends, reset. And now that we are reset and everything is fresh and clear and crispy, and we have this beautiful mental map of the Gospel of Matthew so far. Now that we are at this place, we're like, all right, we reviewed it. And now I feel like I have got Matthew up to chapter six and a half, right there in my hip pocket. That's what that sounds like on me. Now we're ready to finish out the last little bits of the prayer rabbit hole. And then, I promise, and then we're gonna get on to the fasting thing. But I thought it would be important for us to reorient ourselves to the bigger picture of the text to make sure we are getting as much out of this as possible. I really don't want this to become a thing where it just sort of flows over you like water downstream. And you're like, yeah, yeah, there's some Bible in there. I heard a lot of verses and Jesus got said a lot. Like I really want us both to be up to speed and grappling with this and getting it and sharp on it all the way through. It's one of those things that kind of builds on the previous stuff. And if it starts to get a little bit loose or starts to speed wobble a little bit, maybe we don't get as much out of it. Or worse yet, maybe you just start thinking whatever I said because it gets overwhelming. And you gotta understand, I really don't want that to happen. The reason we're doing this the way we're doing it is first and foremost, because I think there's truth and value. I think this is the truest, realist thing to it. But also, we're doing it this way so you can own it. And if at any point in this whole thing, you're like, you're just totally wrong. You're reading it wrong, Whitman. Fine! That's not weird. That's totally cool. But it's hard to be able to do that and push back on the guy who has the microphone in your own mind if we're not really up to speed. So thanks for humoring my reset. We'll keep charging forward, Man Yana. I appreciate you. I'm Matt, this is a 10 minute Bible hour, and we're gonna do it again soon.