Jesus arrival in Jerusalem is filled with irony. The king and saviour of God’s people arrives riding a donkey. The crowds are cheering … but in a few days they will be calling for him to be crucified.

Peter’s recognition that Jesus is the Christ is a turning point in Matthew. Jesus can now start to explain that he has come to die on the cross. But the disciples show they have still got a lot to learn about the nature of the Kingdom ... and how forgiveness will be achieved.

One of the amazing things about Jesus is his compassion for people. We can often gloss over it ... or just assume that he should be like that because he is God. Jesus was motivated in all that he did by compassion for people ... people who needed to be fed, healed, cared for and saved.

Matthew uses the word "kingdom" more than any of the other Gospels ... in fact more than all the others Gospel put together. But what is the "kingdom of heaven". Jesus gives us a series of parables that help us understand the kingdom he has come to bring in.

One of the surprising things as we read through Matthew's gospel is that the religious leaders, the Pharisees, seem to be blinded to the truth of who Jesus is by the religion and rules they have put in place.

Matt 1-7 provides and introduction to Jesus … culminating with the Sermon on the Mount. But in chapter 8 Jesus ministry begins in earnest. There is work to be done … but Jesus will also face opposition. But the fields are white for the harvest.

God has not only called us to be his people ... he has called us to be his ambassadors ... to take the good news about Jesus to a world that needs to hear.

God's has not only called us to be his people, he ha called us together to love one another and to serve one another. The bible has a lot to say about us serving one another.

We can sometimes thing that the church is the building, the denomination or what we do in the building on Sunday. But the church is God's people ... called by God to be his people.