Jesus and his miracles

The Kingdom of God

Matthew 7 verses 1 to 17

Matthew is about the kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven, they mean the same thing. Matthew has 5 major sections. Each finishes with ‘when Jesus had finished saying these things:
Chapters 1 to 4 tells of the coming of the King
Chapters 5 to 7 is the manifesto or character of the King
Chapters 8 to 10 is the power of the King, the miracle working power. It is all about his miracles, wonder working power.
Matthew gives us a lens for priorities, Matthew 4 verse 23 shows him teaching, preaching then healing. Verse 17 shows him preaching and teaching. Chapter 5 to 7 shows powerful preaching. Chapter 8 to 10 are works of miracles. Jesus had power over all manner of illnesses.
There were 3 groups then a cluster of miracles. This is all about the king and his power. John calls miracles signs, we use signs to show us the way. Miracles are pointers to the Christ and the King. We must not park at the signs but use them to see the way. We should not seek miracles. There was a great concentration of miracles in Egypt under Moses and then when Jesus comes. The intensity of the miracles peters out so they disappear. Paul did not heal Timothy’s illness and he left some sick in Miletus. Miracles are signs, Matthew 8 verses 16 to 17 say ‘it was to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah’. They pointed to Jesus. The 3 miracles are:
a) Verses 1 to 4. Cleansing of the leper. Leprosy was varying skin disorders. The leper was a castaway, they were unclean, not allowed to go into the temple, they lived separately. He was cut off, a defiled man. There is and was no cure for it. There was no doctor who could cure it. Victims were social outcasts. There were and are wretched colonies of them. They had no part in the covenant.
b) Verses 5 to 13. The Centurion’s servant. He was a Roman citizen who had authority as a centurion. He was a gentile man who came to put his trust in Jesus., he was humble enough to call him Lord. He had great compassion for his servant who was a paralytic and hot even a member of his family. This man relied on his master’s mercy. He was a good master, compassionate despite his power.
c) Verses 14 to 15. Peter’s mother in law. A housewife who Jesus had compassion on.

Points to learn:

(i) These miracles point to the one who was prophesied about – verse 17. he was no mere prophet who arrived on the scene. Isaiah spoke 700 years before (Isaiah 53 verse 4). He said all the scriptures pointed to him including Genesis 3, he was the seed of the woman who was to come. It crops up again and again in Genesis to Micah. In the structure of the temple, its sacrifices and types. All the books predict the one who is to come over 1500 years. It is the only book to do this.
(ii) Jesus Christ came to deliver people from the sickness of death. Matthew 9 verse 12, the sick need a doctor but he talks of a spiritually sick, he came to save sinners. Social engineering cannot save or change people. The root cause of sin cannot be solved by politicians, academics or scientists. The root cause is sin and this can only be cured by Jesus. Paul and the apostles used the prophetic word as their main support for the truth of its message, we can trust it to heal our sins. The miracles point to the coming saviour. Our biggest problem is our fallen nature and the sin that wrecks our lives. We have evil hearts that are beset by total despair.
(iii) The nature of sin makes us unclean, it defiles us. Today sin is merchandised as a good thing – homosexuality, gambling, adultery etc. Believers stop being shocked by it. It compromises us and defiles us. We need to know something of our wretchedness. We are defiled people who need to go to God to be cleansed of our defilement. Isaiah was the best of men who was caught up to Heaven and he saw something of his own defilement and said ‘woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips’ – he was defiled. Isaiah said ‘all our righteousness are like a filthy rag. Sin defiles us. God needs to reveal to us the ugliness of sin. It is not the sine we hate that is the worst but the ones we love. Galatians 5 verse l7 – the flesh and the spirit war within us. We take beauty and lust after it.
(iv) Sin alienates us from God. The Centurion had no part in Israel, he was alienated from God, sin does this to us now. Paul says we worship the gift and not the giver. All creation excites us and we graft and lust after it. Jesus demonstrates his deity by touching the leper – normally a man is defiled by leprosy, but Jesus reveals his deity and shows his sonship. Jesus cleanses us. Jesus left the throne room of Heaven to seek and find his wandering sheep – he does this for all kinds of people, none are of ay real importance, they are normal average people who are touched by the Lord. Jesus is concerned for all, especially these, the least of his people. We should repent and also rejoice that we are saved. We need to have a balance between humility and rejoicing.
(v) Sin is enslavement, he frees us by taking sin up on himself – Isaiah 53 verses 4 to 6. He bore our grief and carried our transgressions. If we carried our sin the consequences would be eternal punishment and we would go to hell. Through this physician and shepherd of his people we can saved and go to Heaven. The Jews will be cast out if they do not accept Jesus. As a nation they rejected him. We must not do that. We must accept his invitation to repent in his name.