Sermons

Either King overall or King not at all

 

Intro: Recently talking to a friend, he said one of the most influential figures who marked his Christian life and thought was Francis Shaffer. 

Schaeffer was born on January 30, 1912, in Germantown, Pennsylvania, to Franz A. Schaeffer III and Bessie Williamson.^[3] He was of German and English ancestry.^{[4][page needed]}

In 1935, Schaeffer graduated magna cum laude from Hampden–Sydney College. The same year he married Edith Seville, the daughter of missionary parents who had been with the China Inland Mission founded by Hudson Taylor.

Schaeffer then enrolled at Westminster Theological Seminary in the fall and studied under Cornelius Van Til (presuppositional apologetics) and J. Gresham Machen (doctrine of inerrancy).^[5]

In 1948, the Schaeffer family moved to Switzerland and in 1955 established the community called L’Abri (French for “the shelter”).^[1][7]

Serving as both a philosophy seminar and a spiritual community,

L’Abri attracted thousands of young people and was later expanded into Sweden, France, the Netherlands, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The apologist set up L’Abri, in Switzerland, for students hungry for God to consider the claims of Christ. 

Students willingly isolated themselves to work, study, and think about God and the world. 

Every evening, into the wee hours, students gathered in Shaeffer’s living room, to ask any question they had concerning life and the world, and he would answer it according to Scripture. 

His passion was to prove the sufficiency and authority of Scripture by answering anything anyone brought up. 

Either the Scripture answers everything or answers nothing. 

It is either all true or not true at all. 

God is either all relevant or irrelevant. 

And he staked everything on this.  

I bring this up considering our study of Matthew. 

Matthew’s aim is to prove Christ is King. 

• He is either all the way our King or not our King at all!

 

• In his Sermon on the Mount, where we have been studying verses 17-20, Jesus says “I have not come to abolish them [“the Law or the Prophets”] but to fulfill them” (v. 17).

 

• The Law, a synonym for all of God’s Word is either:

“All about Jesus” or “Not about Jesus at all.” 

 

• In this way, Christianity is binary. All or nothing.  Zero sum. 

 

A brief survey of Matthew 1-4 proves Christ as King citing:

Old Testament prophecies.

Chapter 1:17 “Abraham to David”

Chapter 1:22 “fulfill”

Chapter 2:15 “fulfill”

Chapter 2:23 “fulfilled”

Chapter 3:15 “fulfill”

Chapter 4:14 “fulfilled”

Chapter 5:17 “fulfill”

[TRANS] Jesus confronts the Pharisee’s legalism. 

• Legalism that heightens at Christmas time in Religious ceremonies.

 

• This confrontation is a clarification of the purpose of the Law.
• Someone either sees the Law as a list of rules for “Do-Gooding” or as revelation of the only One who is good.

“No one is good except God alone” Mark 10:18. Jesus. 

 

Prop: Jesus breaks the spell of Legalism by answering two questions

 

1. How Jesus relates to the Law (vv. 17-18)

     a. Jesus answers his critics (v. 17)

     b. Jesus makes his point (vv. 17-18)

 

 2. How you relate to the Law (vv. 19-20)

     a. Who you do not want to be (v. 19a)

     b. Who you want to be (v. 19b)

     c. Who you’d better be (v. 20)