Round One

INTRODUCTION

One of the things I have been harping on in the past few sermons is the necessity to see the BIG PICTURE in Matthew’s narrative and the BIG PICTURE is that Matthew wrote his gospel to prove that Jesus is the PROMISED Davidic King, Messiah and Savior of the world.

This is seen in how he has structured the book. Consider the following:

CHAPTER ONE – Genealogy – Jesus’ LEGAL QUALIFICATION

CHAPTER TWO – Jesus’ fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecies – Jesus’ PROPHETIC QUALIFICATION

CHAPTER THREE – The witness of God the Father, God the Spirit and John the Baptist – Jesus’ WITNESS QUALIFICATION

CHAPTER FOUR – Jesus’ SPIRITUAL QUALIFICATION

For Jesus to QUALIFY SPIRITUALLY, He had to be tested and proven SPOTLESS and SINLESS. The first four verses speak about the FIRST TEST or ROUND ONE if you will. Here’s our sermon outline

BODY SERMON

I. The Testing, the Tester, and the Time vv. 1 – 2

II. The First Test (Round One) – v. 3

III. The First Fight-back – v. 4

CONCLUSION

So there you go, Round One is done and Jesus wins this round, but Satan is RELENTLESS and He still has a few tricks in his bag.

What is important is that in this INITIAL ENCOUNTER Jesus passes the TEST with FLYING COLORS, thereby proving that He indeed is SPIRITUALLY QUALIFIED to be MESSIAH and SAVIOR.