I am a Jesus pusher!!! Matthew is an author who writes with a fundamental goal in view, an evangelist writing with an evangelistic fervor. He wants to win the Israelite nation to Jesus. They must be convinced of who Jesus is. The hopes and dreams of Jewish history are focused on the Messiah. Their Messiah appears, only to be rejected and crucified by His own. It is the greatest of tragedies. Matthew plays the role of a lawyer, piling evidence upon evidence, building a strong case for Jesus. Jesus is the Kingly Messiah.
Obviously this places the Kingdom of Heaven at the heart of his presentation. It was the core of the forerunner’s message, John the Baptist. John preached, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:2). Jesus followed up with the identical message (Matthew 4:17). The heart of the devil’s temptation of Jesus focused on the Kingdom. The last of the recorded forty-day temptations deals directly with the Kingdom. The devil took Jesus to an elevation where He could see all the kingdoms of the earth (Matthew 4:8). They were already established and could be His. Why construct something already in existence?
Now Jesus presents a three-chapter discourse giving the “Manifesto of the Kingdom of Heaven!” Here are the fundamental principles of Kingdom living and the core heartbeat of that Kingdom. It is significant that the first statement of the Sermon on the Mount contains the Kingdom’s declaration. In other words, the Beatitudes begin with the reality of the Kingdom’s presence. Now as we come to the end of the Beatitudes, the closing is a statement of the Kingdom’s reality. The reality of the Beatitudes is the reality of the Kingdom. The Kingdom is the merger between your helplessness and His Person. Jesus in you is the Kingdom. I am a Jesus pusher!!!