Have you ever seen a picture of someone that seemed to capture their personality?
· A grandfather playing with his grandkids and its clear that THIS is his happy place,
· A mother beaming when pictured with her family and you can just tell how deeply she loves them
· A groom grinning from ear to ear because he is SO in love with his new wife.
· Maybe a Christmas card that shows the happy family all smiling.

But then another picture of that same person might tell a different story.

· The grandfather at home alone. The smile is gone and his eyes are much dimmer. There is an air of sadness in the photo.
· The mother is now yelling at those same kids and the look in her eyes is more frustration than deep love. Who hasn’t been THERE?
· The groom’s grinning has turned to a grimace because his wife is STILL not ready and they were supposed to leave 30 minutes ago.
· One of the other 34 pictures that were taken around the Christmas tree with chaos and fighting before Dad said that everyone was grounded from their electronics unless you got a good picture.

How about one more picture

· The grandfather, who still works as a CEO, in his suit, talking at the Board of Directors meeting
· The mother, in the kitchen, baking a pie, with a big smile on her face.
· The groom, now playing pickup basketball at the Y, angry and yelling at someone that they fouled him.
· The family now laughs at that particular family photo because they remember all the fighting that isn’t captured in the picture.

Which picture is accurate? Which picture IS that person? All of them and the loads of others ‘pictures’ that could have been taken! ONE moment, ONE picture, ONE story cannot tell as much about the person or their beliefs as multiple pictures, multiple moments can. We could say it this way. All of them capture part. None can capture all. In other words:

All are correct. None are complete.

That is our bottom line for the series. We get a better picture of who Jesus IS when we look through the lens of all 4 Gospels! Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Maybe you have a good view of Jesus already, but it’s not complete. There is so much more and maybe together, we can discover a fuller portrait this month as we celebrate His arrival, His entrance, His birth. And I love CHRISTMAS. It’s the only holiday that we celebrate as a season! Not just one day, but for weeks. And when Jesus was born, God’s plan for Him was already developed. He was born a KING. He was destined to SUFFER as a SERVANT. He was born FULLY MAN and, at the same time, He pre-existed as FULLY GOD. So, ONE picture isn’t enough. We will look at 4.

One season, one picture, one encounter with us does not describe us fully either. Have you ever had a bad encounter with someone and assumed they were just that way all the time. You felt sorry for their spouse, for their kids, for their co-workers and then found out that their spouse loved them. Their kids were great. And their co-workers raved about them? Has your first impression of someone ever been wrong? How about someone’s first impression of you?

We are multi-faceted. There have been times in my life, where if someone had only experienced me in that moment, they would not have liked me. Many of those moments would have been because of my competitive nature, especially in sports.

I played basketball in high school. In one game, my junior year, I tried to draw a charge on 3 successive possessions by the other team. After the referee didn’t call the charge the third time, I jumped up and yelled “Come on Bob!” and received a technical foul, perhaps for getting Hadley’s name wrong. I followed that up with “Are you KIDDING me?” and got another one. I did not have fond feelings of Hadley, the referee. Why do I know his name? Because we ended up working together at Walmart the next year. We still didn’t see those calls the same way but we ended up liking and respecting each other.

One snapshot, one moment, didn’t define the person.

I didn’t have the full picture of Hadley. That just because he was a terrible referee…didn’t mean that he was a bad person. That one ‘picture’ of me wasn’t the whole. Now, if that is true of us, how much more true is that of Jesus? God in human flesh! That is why we have 4 PORTRAITS of Jesus, not just one. So we get a fuller picture.

All are correct. None are complete.

The Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all are telling the story of Jesus from their perspective, their angle. They have different audiences, different purposes and paint slightly different portraits of Jesus. Which one is right? ALL of them. Which one is true? ALL of them. They do not contradict one another but compliment one another. They bring out a fuller portrait of Jesus. It’s like the difference between Mono sound, STEREO sound and SURROUND sound. I can hear with Mono sound, but the quality goes up with the number of layers added. The Gospels TOGETHER are SURROUND sound. Here is what is true of the Gospels:

All are correct. None are complete.

Over the next 3 weeks, plus our Christmas Eve service, we will be looking at the 4 portraits of Christ found in the 4 Gospels. Today, I want to start with the Gospel of Matthew.

Matthew jumps right into His portrait and it tells us WHO he is writing this FOR! Who would care that Jesus was a descendant of David and Abraham? Who would care that Jesus was the MESSIAH? Who would really want or need this long list of ancestors? The JEWS! Matthew wants the Jewish people to KNOW that:
· Jesus was the MESSIAH they have been waiting for all their life.
· Jesus was fully JEWISH, as a descendant of Abraham.
· Jesus was KING, as a descendant of David.

In Matthew, Jesus is the Sovereign King, the Lord prophesied through the Old Testament prophets. Matthew emphasizes the fact that Jesus is the Messianic Savior and has come to earth to lead His kingdom.

Here is the key verse for Matthew in my opinion. JESUS was speaking:

Remembering WHO Matthew was writing to, why was this so important? The Jews were VERY committed to the OT. That was GODS WORD! They would not listen to anyone who would have abolished the law of Moses. But Jesus makes it clear that He wasn’t abolishing but fulfilling!

And Matthew takes pains to establish the link between the OT and the NT. He quotes the OT some 53 times and alludes to it 76 more times. Matthew presents Jesus as the ONE who unifies OT hope and NT fulfillment, who brings UNITY, in His eternal KINGSHIP!

The OT was the promise, Jesus was the fulfillment. Each prophecy was like another brush stroke painting the portrait of what Messiah would look like. But the Pharisees stopped short. They didn’t put it all together. They picked the pieces of the portrait that they liked and ignored others. They thought he would be GREAT, but He was actually BETTER than that in SO many ways. He was the BETTER… David

· Jesus had some similarities with King David, one of the heroes of all JEWS!
· This verse was first in the OT, in 2 Samuel 5:2, it pointed to David being shepherd over Israel and in Micah 5:2 it pointed to the birth of the future Messiah. Here in Matthew 2, it applies that prophecy to Jesus. He was the BETTER DAVID.
· David was born in Bethlehem. Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
· David was a shepherd. Jesus was the GREAT Shepherd.
· David defeated Goliath with a sling and a stone. Jesus defeated Satan with 3 Nails and a CROSS.
· David became known as the best king in Israels history. Jesus would be known as the KING of ALL KINGS in ALL of history!
· David was known as a man after God’s own heart. Jesus was GOD AND MAN and was after MANS HEART.
· JESUS was the BETTER David!

He was the better Moses
· Matthew 2:13-18 shows that Jesus also had some similarities with Moses. Another hero of the JEWS!
· Moses was saved miraculously as a baby when the ruler put out a decree for all Jewish baby boys to be killed. Jesus was saved miraculously as a baby when the ruler put out a decree for all Jewish baby boys under 2 years old to be killed.
· Moses fled Egypt to avoid murder charges. Jesus fled TO Egypt with his parents to avoid a murderer.
· Moses was known as the deliverer. He delivered the people of God from Egypt to the promised land. Jesus IS the GREAT DELIVERER, freeing all people who BELIEVE from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light!
· Jesus was the better MOSES!

Now, let’s look at just a few of the OT references or prophecies found in Matthew that Jesus fulfilled.

His unique birth pointed to a prophecy from Isaiah 7:14, a prophecy that was some 700 years old but fulfilled in ONE person only…JESUS!

Chapter 2 includes prophecies that He would be born in Bethlehem, that there would be a great tragedy around Israel’s babies, that the Messiah would flee to Egpyt and would live in Nazareth. ALL fulfilled in Jesus and His entrance to the world.

In chapter 4, Jesus went to Galilee and when he did, it fulfilled Isaiah 9:1-2, which Matthew quotes in:

This was saying that Galilee of the GENTILES was going to see the MESSIAH, was going to see JESUS! And they did! Jesus spent a lot of time ministering in Galilee!

Matthew 8:17 points out that Jesus healing ministry that day fulfilled Isaiah 53:4.

After healing more sick people, Matthew says that Jesus fulfilled another prophecy in Isaiah.

Matthew quoted Isaiah 42:1-4 and said that Jesus fulfilled it. What incredible character qualities it listed in the Messiah!

In writing about an event we know as the triumphant entry,

This fulfilled Zechariah 9:9 when it described the Messiah riding into Jerusalem on a donkey in this way over 500 years before Jesus did it.

Have you ever got to meet a hero of yours or someone you really looked up to? Often when that happens, the encounter doesn’t live up to the expectation. We paint a picture of what that encounter is going to look like and we are disappointed when the reality is very different from the expected or hoped for.

On June 18, 1977 I went to see one of my heroes, Elvis Presley, in concert. I grew up with a mom that LOVED Elvis, so I heard all of his music and watched most of his movies from birth. My favorite song was “Hound Dog”. I really looked forward to that concert at Kemper Arena in Kansas City. Then I went. It was terrible. Let’s just say that Elvis was stretching his sequenced baby blue jumpsuit in ways it wasn’t designed for and was clearly under the influence of something. He was having to read the lyrics of the songs. I slept through “Hound Dog”. The reality did not live up to the picture.

THAT is what happened to the Pharisees and religious leaders. They had painted a portrait of what the Messiah would look like. They were expecting a strong, military leader who would lead them in victory over Rome and deliver them from Roman oppression. He would then become KING and rule them on earth. But…

Jesus was WAY BETTER than what they were looking for.

· They wanted freedom from Roman oppression. Jesus brought freedom from the devil’s oppression.
· They wanted a king who could bring victory. Jesus was THE KING who won ETERNAL VICTORY!
· They wanted a king who would lead them here on earth into a time of peace and lower taxes. Jesus was THE KING who could lead them into peace for all eternity where there are NO TAXES.

Jesus was the WAY BETTER KING!

How does this apply to YOU today? Many people have their own picture of what Jesus is like. Some say things like, “I like to think of Jesus as…” Their version of Jesus usually agrees with their sin, their politics, their opinions. Tim Keller said, “If your god never disagrees with you, you might just be worshipping an idealized version of yourself.” In some way, YOU have a picture of Jesus, of what you THINK He was like, of what you THINK He would be like today. But, here is the TRUTH.

JESUS is WAY better than your picture!

The reality is BETTER! Jesus is MORE loving, more forgiving, more gracious than you can possibly fathom. But He also hates sin more than you think! The REALITY, the fully realized version of Christ is WAY BETTER than your polaroid photo.

I’ve been to some beautiful places and captured some fantastic photos but I have never captured a photo that was better than the reality of that place. Modern day cameras are awesome, but the reality of the place is better.
If you could just experience the reality of Jesus, of His love for you, His grace for you, His plan for you, what He thinks about you, for a moment, it would change your life.

JESUS is WAY better!

And perhaps you have a picture of what your life SHOULD look like at this point? You have a dream that you aspire to. You have some goals that you would like to attain. You have a direction that you want to head. But as the king of your own life, how has that worked for you?

JESUS is WAY better

And Jesus makes a promise to those of us who will put Him first in our lives, will make Him King of our lives. He makes that promise in Matthew.

Who is in charge of a kingdom? The KING! If we will surrender to Jesus AS our King, follow Him as our King, obey Him as our King then He will give us what we NEED. Not what we want, but NEED.

Politicians tend to make speeches when they are trying to get elected to appeal to what people WANT, but Jesus doesn’t make promises He won’t keep. He isn’t trying a sales job that results in a bait and switch. His promise is to meet your NEEDS. That is SO MUCH better than what the world offers BECAUSE…

JESUS is WAY better

· In Matthew, He is the Messiah, the Promised One.
· He is the Healer
· He is the Deliverer
· He is the Hope
· He is the ROCK on which His church would be built
· He is the One who invited us to come to Him when we are weary and He would give us rest.
· He is the Son of Man prophesied about in the OT
· He is the Son of David that would be king
· He is the Son of GOD that was the KING OF KINGS!

JESUS is WAY better

If you are the king of your life, the portrait you are painting is like throwing paint on a canvas and hoping it makes sense. Or like a toddler with a paint brush. But if you make JESUS the KING of your life, He can make something BEAUTIFUL out of the mess.

And if you surrender to THIS KING, you receive PURPOSE! LOVE! PEACE! JOY! LIFE!!!
If you FOLLOW this KING, He will meet your NEEDS!
If you obey this KING, your life will be BETTER…because

JESUS is WAY better

Jesus is king and every king needs a throne. Part of Christmas time is to take a look at that throne and determine if it’s fit for a king.
Christmas is a season, and this season serves a purpose: to prepare our hearts and homes for the king who traded heaven to chase the human heart.

House guests cause us to prepare our homes. There are parts of our house that don’t get regularly cleaned because they don’t get regularly used. But when we have guests coming to stay for a few days, we prepare those rooms, those areas. When Jesus was born, His parents wanted to be guests with a prepared room at an inn.

Can you imagine being the inn keeper and the Roman emperor was coming through town or a foreign king? Would you have made room? Would you have prepared your BEST place? ONE GREATER was present and he had no room. Do you have room? Is the throne of your heart prepared for the KING to dwell? There is one big difference in this analogy. We can’t clean the room ENOUGH for this KING. We invite this KING into our lives and HE does the cleaning! And He does a much better job than we can because…

JESUS is WAY better