Jesus the Christ

[0:00] a servant taking on humanity upon himself in order to save us. So we're going to be in a series, a mini-series, in the first two chapters of Matthew for the Advent season through Christmas Eve, and then we will resume our series in the Book of Acts.

[0:18] So please turn with me to Book of Matthew. It's the first book in the New Testament. If you guys don't have a Bible, you can also raise your hand.

[0:36] We have ushers that can bring you a Bible you can use. We're in Matthew 1. It looks like there's one there. We're looking at Matthew 1, verses 1 to 17.

[0:56] Let me pray for the reading and preaching of God's Word. Heavenly Father, it is a wonder that Jesus, your eternal Son, the perfect one, the Holy One, would take on human flesh, would take on our infirmities, would be tempted in every way just as we are.

[1:36] We pray that you would help us to marvel anew at what you have done for us in Jesus. We pray that you would exalt Jesus in our lives today.

[1:54] And we pray that you would help us to receive his grace anew as sinners in need of a Savior. Address us now from your Word.

[2:12] Speak to us. We are listening. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Matthew 1, verses 1 to 17. I'll read it out loud here.

[2:22] The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob.

[2:37] And Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. And Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. And Perez the father of Hizron, and Hizron the father of Ram. And Ram the father of Abinadab, and Aminadab the father of Nashon.

[2:51] And Nashon the father of Solomon, and Solomon the father of Boaz by Rahab. And Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth. And Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king.

[3:05] And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. And Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah. And Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat.

[3:17] And Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah. And Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz. And Ahaz the father of Hezekiah.

[3:28] And Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos. And Amos the father of Josiah. And Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

[3:41] And after the deportation to Babylon, Jeconiah was the father of Sheltiel, and Sheltiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abud, and Abud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadoc.

[3:57] Zadoc the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eliezer, and Eliezer the father of Methan, and Methan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph.

[4:08] the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. So all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ, 14 generations.

[4:30] This is God's holy and authoritative word. For generations, many people have kept track of their genealogy by using a pedigree or ancestry chart, and we commonly call that a family tree.

[4:45] And family trees can help us feel connected to our heritage and history, and because they reveal things about ourselves, people are interested in them.

[4:56] But that expression, family tree, actually is derived from the Bible. Prophesying about the coming Messiah in Isaiah 11, verse 1, is that there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

[5:13] So because of this plant metaphor used for the genealogy of the Messiah, starting as early as the 11th century, many artists have depicted Jesus' genealogy in the form of a literal tree.

[5:27] On illuminated manuscripts, salters, walls, and embroideries, and stained glass windows, you can see this tree of the Messiah, the family tree, all over the world. And here in Matthew 1, we see Jesus' family tree traced through King David and all the way to the patriarch Abraham.

[5:46] And Matthew includes it here for a specific reason, because Jesus' family tree reveals something to us about who he is. Namely, that Jesus is the promised Christ, the messianic king who restores the kingdom of God.

[6:04] So first, we're going to see how Jesus fulfills the promise to Abraham, in verses 2 to 6, and how he fulfills the promise to David, in verses 6 to 11, and how he fulfills the promise to the exiles, in verses 12 to 17.

[6:17] Verse 1 is kind of the decent statement of this passage. It says, The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. There are some phrases in the Bible that are immediately recognizable.

[6:31] So think, for example, In the beginning. Right? Immediately. Most of you are probably familiar with that phrase. When John uses that phrase in the beginning of his gospel, in the gospel of John, we immediately make the connection to Genesis 1, where it says, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

[6:49] In a similar way, the phrase used here, the book of the genealogy, would have been a phrase that was immediately recognizable for people who were familiar with their Greek Bibles.

[7:01] Because in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the book of Genesis is organized around this recurring phrase. Genesis 2, 4 begins, The book of the genealogy of the heavens and the earth.

[7:14] Genesis 5, 2 begins, The book of the genealogy of Adam. Genesis 6, 9, The book of the genealogy of Noah. Genesis 25, 19, The book of the genealogy of Isaac.

[7:25] And Genesis 37, 2, The book of the genealogy of Jacob. So in the book of Genesis, this phrase is used to organize the history of the heavens and the earth and the origin of the patriarchs who became the fountainhead of God's people.

[7:40] So then in the book of Matthew, the phrase, The book of the genealogy introduces to us the origin of Jesus the Christ, who is the fountainhead of the new people of God.

[7:54] And Jesus' identity is here summarized by three titles in verse 1. He is the Christ, meaning he's the messianic king. He is the son of David. And finally, he is the son of Abraham.

[8:08] In the following genealogy, Matthew draws connections to each of those titles in reverse order. We'll unpack those in turn. First, he tells us that Jesus is the son of Abraham, who fulfills God's promise to Abraham.

[8:21] He writes in verses 2 to 6, Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah, and his brothers, and so on. This genealogy follows the summary genealogies found in 1 Chronicles 22, sorry, 1 Chronicles chapter 2, verses 1 to 15, and Ruth chapter 4.

[8:40] And it traces Jesus' lineage from Abraham to David. And if you remember what God promised Abraham, God said to Abraham in Genesis 17, verses 4 to 5, Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations, no longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.

[9:07] God had promised Abraham a land and a people, and he had promised to bless Abraham, and not only Abraham, God had promised in Genesis 12 that through him all the peoples, all the families of the earth would be blessed.

[9:22] He promised that Abraham would be a father of a multitude of nations. And Jesus is the ultimate heir of that promise. He's the ultimate son of Abraham.

[9:35] And it's through Jesus that not only the Jews, but also the Gentiles, indeed all the nations of the earth who put their faith in him, will receive the gift of salvation and eternal life.

[9:48] This might be the point that Matthew is driving home with the woman that he selectively includes in this genealogy. First, in verse 3, it mentions that Judah fathered Perez by Tamar.

[10:03] The Bible doesn't tell as much about Tamar's background, but Genesis 38 implies that she was a Canaanite woman. Since Judah was living among the Canaanites at the time, was married to a Canaanite woman himself, and likely took a wife for his son Ur from among the Canaanites as well.

[10:19] And since there is no mention of him going back to his homeland to find a wife for his son. And then second, verse 5, says that Solomon fathered Boaz by Rahab, the only human being named Rahab mentioned in the Bible, is the Canaanite woman who helps the Israelite spies escape Jericho in Joshua 2.

[10:38] So she too is a foreigner, a Gentile. Third, verse 5, says that Boaz fathered Obed by Ruth, who famously is known as a Moabite woman, a foreigner, a Gentile.

[10:51] Fourth, verse 6, says that David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. This is a reference to Bathsheba, whose father we know was Eliam, according to 2 Samuel 11, verse 3, also called Amiel in 1 Chronicles chapter 3.

[11:07] If he is the same Eliam mentioned in 2 Samuel 23, 34, he was a Gilanite, a subset of the Canaanites, which makes Bathsheba also a Gentile and married to a Gentile, a Hittite, Uriah.

[11:23] These are the four mothers mentioned in the entire genealogy of Jesus. And all four of them are most likely foreigners, non-Jews.

[11:33] This may well be Matthew's way of making the point that Gentiles are being grafted in. The lineage of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, suggests that the Messiah didn't have a pure, unadulterated Jewish lineage.

[11:50] Rather, he had many Gentiles in his heritage. It's a glimpse of God's plan to include the Gentiles in his salvation plan. All those who repent of their sins, all those who renounce their foreign idols and pledge allegiance to the Lord God will be saved and counted among his people.

[12:12] This is the wonderful truth that God's genealogy, the Jesus' genealogy reveals to us. For all those people who say, well, I'm not a Jew, so I can't believe in the God of the Bible.

[12:26] All those people who say, well, my parents are not Christians, so this can't be for me. For all those people who say, well, no one in my country is Christian, so I can't become one.

[12:38] Or I'm not religious, so I can't follow God. For all of those people, Jesus Christ came. That's what we remember in Advent.

[12:50] You don't have to be a Jew in order to join the kingdom of God. You don't have to be an American in order to follow Christ. You can be Iranian, Afghan, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Cambodian, Uruguayan, Algerian, Tunisian, or whatever else, and still be a Christian and a citizen in the kingdom of God because salvation is from the Jews because Jesus was Jewish, but salvation is not exclusively for the Jews.

[13:18] Rather, it is for all nations. That's what we're commanded by Jesus, commissioned by him, to go to all the nations and make disciples of them. And then in verses 6 to 11, Matthew traces Jesus' genealogy from King David to Jeconiah to show that Jesus is the promised messianic king who fulfills God's promise to David.

[13:38] We see this in verses 6 to 11. Now, there are significant discrepancies between Matthew's genealogy of Jesus and Luke's genealogy of Jesus we find in Luke chapter 3 from King David onward.

[13:51] For example, Matthew lists 41 male heads of families while Luke lists 57. And from David to Jesus, there are in fact only two overlapping names.

[14:03] And there are several reasons for these discrepancies. First, the word father can be used narrowly to refer to one's immediate biological father or broadly to one's ancestor.

[14:14] We see examples of this in Genesis 32, 9, John 8, 39, Ezra 7, and so on. Similarly, the word son can refer narrowly to one's immediate biological son or broadly to one's descendant, which is why Matthew can say that Jesus is the son of David, many generations removed.

[14:33] And secondly, genealogies are not always exhaustive. Rather, they are often selective. For example, Matthew explicitly says in verse 17, So all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations.

[14:46] And from David to the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations. And from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ, 14 generations. He has a clear structure here, a symmetrical structure that he is working with.

[15:01] And some people say that this is related to Gematria. Gematria is a method by which Jews assigned a numerical value to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet so that someone's name can be added up, their letters can be added up to form a number.

[15:17] And according to this method, the name David has a numerical value of 14, which is likely possible. I don't think we can know for sure. Maybe why Matthew chose 14 names in each of those sections to show that Jesus is the son of David.

[15:33] And so it's not surprising that there are skipped generations in this genealogy. And thirdly, Jews practice levirate marriage as stipulated by Deuteronomy chapter 25, which meant that if a man dies without a son to carry on his name, it was his brother's duty to produce a son for him by taking his brother's surviving widow as his own wife.

[15:58] This was very important for the Israelites, for the Jews, because their inheritance of the promised land and therefore their inclusion in God's covenant community depended on them continuing to have male heirs.

[16:14] And this was directly tied to it. So because of that, if to have no son to one's name would have meant you and your progeny would all be blotted out from God's covenant people. So because of this, levirate marriage existed, but it works for that purpose, but it obviously can complicate genealogies.

[16:35] Because the son of a levirate marriage would be the legal son of the deceased man, but the physical son of his brother. So overall, the discrepancies between Matthew and Luke are numerous, but they can be accounted for best when we understand that Matthew is providing the royal genealogy, the line of people who would have been the legal heirs to the Davidic throne.

[16:59] And Luke is providing us a physical genealogy, the line of people from whom Joseph, Jesus' adoptive father, was physically descended. We can see this from the fact that Matthew's genealogy in this middle section is an abbreviated summary of the succession of Judah's kings listed in 1 Chronicles 3, verses 10 to 17.

[17:19] While Luke's genealogy lists no kings of Judah except for David. So then Matthew starts this section with David, who is the first king of the Davidic monarchy, and then he ends with Jeconiah, also called Jehoiachin, who reigned until he was taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon.

[17:39] Jehoiachin's uncle, Zedekiah, did reign as a nominal king after this Babylonian invasion, but he is omitted from the list as well as several others since Jehoiachin was still the rightful heir and ruler.

[17:51] He was living in exile in Babylon. So then Matthew's genealogy is a royal genealogy and likely implies here that even with the dissolution of the Davidic monarchy during the Babylonian exile, the royal succession has continued until the coming of the destined son of David, the Jesus Christ.

[18:13] So God had promised the king David in 2 Samuel this wonderful promise, chapter 7, 12 to 14. I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.

[18:26] He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. So in an immediate sense, this prophecy was fulfilled in the reign of David's son Solomon who was established as king and built God's temple.

[18:44] However, the Davidic monarchy did not exist forever, even though God promised here that he will establish his kingdom forever. That's how we know that this prophecy isn't ultimately fulfilled by Solomon.

[18:57] It is fulfilled by the Messiah, Jesus. He's the one who establishes God's kingdom forever. Jesus is the greater son of David, the greater Solomon.

[19:08] In fact, he is greater than David himself because he is not merely a son of man, but he is the son of God, the Father himself. We have to remember this because Jesus came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many, but we must not forget that he, even though he's graciously served us and he has saved us, Jesus is the king.

[19:34] He is the Messiah. He is the Lord to whom we owe our allegiance, our very lives. That's what his title means, the Christ. That's not a last name.

[19:46] Verse 16 says, Jesus was born who is called Christ. Christ is a title. It's a royal title that means anointed one or Messiah. The prophesied king who would come to rescue God's people.

[20:01] For centuries, the Jewish people had been suffering the consequences of their own sin and rebellion due to their idolatry and unfaithfulness to God. They were conquered and oppressed by people, foreign nations, again and again, the Assyrians, Babylonians, and the Persians, and the Greeks, and the Romans.

[20:18] And then they would return, but they returned to the Lord for brief periods of time, but they would turn back again, sin again, backslide again. And in their suffering, they were yearning and waiting for the Messiah.

[20:33] They thought to themselves, when the Messiah finally comes, he will make all things right. When Messiah comes, he will establish his kingdom forever. When the Messiah comes, he will rescue us once and for all.

[20:47] When Messiah comes, he will rule with righteousness and justice. When the Messiah comes, we won't be orphans anymore. We won't be homeless anymore. We won't be aliens and foreigners anymore.

[21:00] We will have a king, all right. We will have a kingdom, all right. And we will be citizens in that kingdom. for all of those people who are waiting, Jesus Christ came.

[21:17] He came to a sinful world governed by Satan, the one whom Jesus calls the ruler of this world in the Gospel of John, the one that Ephesians chapter 2 verse 2 calls the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

[21:32] And Jesus donned his crown, but it was a crown of thorns. He ascended to his throne, but his throne was the cross, the ancient equivalent of the execution chair.

[21:47] He died there to redeem a people for himself. And then he rose again from the dead. He ascended to the right hand of the Father. And in doing this, Jesus delivered us, his people, those who repent of their sins and put their faith in him.

[22:02] He delivered us from the domain of darkness into the domain of the kingdom. of his kingdom. This is how Jesus set his kingdom in motion. Jesus is the promised Christ who restores the kingdom of God.

[22:17] And it's for this reason that the evil one, Satan, that we were speaking of just moments ago has no claim on us. He has no claim on us. He has no authority over us because as those who have pledged allegiance to Jesus who have put their faith in Christ the King, we have a new Lord.

[22:35] We're under new regime. The church, the family of God is an outpost. It's an embassy of the kingdom of God. In this world that's in rebellion against God, we must daily endure innumerable indignities that our Lord's name and glory face.

[22:57] in this world, we have tribulations and temptations. But when we gather as a church, we get to lay aside our burdens and our distractions and worship our Lord and fix our eyes on Jesus, our King.

[23:15] It is an imperfect yet genuine foretaste of heaven. The kingdom of God is already here, but it is not yet fully here.

[23:29] And as we celebrate Advent, the coming, the first coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ, we also anticipate His second coming. So it was really appropriate that Gary had us sing Even So Come, expecting, waiting for Jesus' second coming.

[23:44] because He will return. Our King will return. In the first Advent, Jesus came to save. In the second Advent, Jesus will come to judge.

[23:56] And He will judge all the wicked and execute perfect justice. And our King will dwell with us again in the flesh. He will wipe away every tear from our eyes and we will sin no more.

[24:09] And there will no longer be any death. There will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain. That's what it means that Jesus came as the son of David, the son of Abraham, the Christ.

[24:24] And finally, verses 12 to 17, Matthew traces Jesus' genealogy from Jequaniah to Christ to show that Jesus is the promised Messiah who fulfills God's promise to the exiles.

[24:36] Even though none of Jequaniah's seven sons would sit on Judah's throne, the Davidic line continued through his eldest son, Shealtiel. And Shealtiel fathered Zerubbabel.

[24:48] Interestingly, 1 Chronicles 3.19 says that Zerubbabel was a son of Pediah, Shealtiel's brother, which makes Shealtiel Zerubbabel's uncle, not father. But everywhere else in Scripture, in Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, it says that Shealtiel was the father of Zerubbabel.

[25:05] This may be an instance of Levirate marriage where Shealtiel dies without a male heir and then his brother Padiah continues his name so the royal line continues through Shealtiel's son even though he was deceased.

[25:22] And Zerubbabel played a significant role among the Jewish exiles. In Ezra and Nehemiah, the two books of the Bible in the Old Testament, they recount how Zerubbabel became the governor of Judah.

[25:35] He was the first to lead a band of Jews back from the Babylonian exiles back to Jerusalem. And it says in Haggai chapter 2 verse 21 to 23, God says to Zerubbabel, I am going to shake the heavens and the earth and I will overthrow the thrones of kingdoms and destroy the power of the kingdoms of the nations.

[25:53] And I will overthrow the chariots and their riders and their horses and their riders will go down, every one by the sword of another. On that day declares the Lord, the Lord of armies. I will take you, Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, my servant, declares the Lord.

[26:09] And I will make you like a signet ring for I have chosen you, declares the Lord of armies. God's choice of Zerubbabel as a signet ring, which is a royal symbol, as well as Zerubbabel's role as the governor of Judah, suggests that even though the Davidic monarchy had officially ceased to exist, the royal succession continued in God's sight.

[26:33] His king, His line, His royal line has continued. Unlike the preceding sections of this genealogy, the rest of this genealogy has no Old Testament precedent. So we don't know what source Matthew used.

[26:46] And since Jews were very interested in preserving genealogical records, and the Davidic line in particular, the royal line, was of special interest, so it's highly likely that a tradition of royal succession was preserved outside of Scripture.

[26:58] Unfortunately, we no longer have access to those genealogical records because according to second century historian Julius Africanus, Herod the Great destroyed all the Jewish genealogical records that were preserved in the public archives.

[27:15] He was, Herod was particularly embarrassed about his lineage, his Edomian heritage, because he was descended not from Jacob, the line of promise, but from Esau.

[27:25] And so he feared that someone from an actual royal lineage would lay claim on his throne. So Herod carried favor with Rome to get the title of King of the Jews, and he rebuilt the temple to style himself as the Savior, Messiah of the Jews.

[27:44] But he was only a pretender. Jesus is the real Messiah. Verse 16 notes, he is the promised Christ.

[27:56] Jesus fulfills the promises that God had made to the exiles. In Jeremiah 33, God promised, verses 14 to 17, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

[28:12] In those days and at that time, I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days, Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely.

[28:24] And this is the name by which it will be called, the Lord is our righteousness. For thus says the Lord, David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel.

[28:37] That's what God promised to the exiles. And Jesus is the final and greatest son of David who sits on the throne forever.

[28:48] He is the righteous branch who through his death and resurrection ransoms a people for himself. And we, God's people, Jews and Gentiles, have now been grafted in as branches onto Jesus' family tree so that we too dwell securely in Christ as the new Israel, as the new Jerusalem.

[29:11] For those struggling sinners, maybe there's some of you here who think that they have straight, far beyond restoration, like these exiles that Jesus came.

[29:24] For those exiles who have forgotten what their fatherland is like. For those who think that they are damaged goods, good for nothing. for all of those people, Jesus Christ came to redeem them, to reclaim them for himself.

[29:44] Hebrews 2, 11-18 tells us that Christ is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters. It says that since we are made of flesh and blood, that Jesus himself took on flesh and blood so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

[30:07] This is the wonder of the incarnation. The creator took on human flesh, the flesh and blood of creatures. The son of God became a son of man.

[30:19] Jesus, the word of God that embraces the entire cosmos and upholds them, became a babbling infant held up in Mary's arms.

[30:29] His feet got caked with dust. He had dirt under his fingernails. He got hungry and fatigued.

[30:40] He laughed. He cried. He was tempted in every way just as we are yet without sin. We see the paradox of Jesus' incarnation in verse 16.

[30:52] It says, Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. Note that it doesn't follow the standard formula here up to this point in saying, Joseph the father of Jesus.

[31:06] It doesn't say that. It says, Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born. This sets the scene for the following passage which confirms that Jesus was conceived by Mary while she was a virgin by the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit.

[31:24] So Joseph, though he was the legal father of Jesus, the adoptive father, he wasn't actually his biological father. Jesus' only real father is God the father.

[31:40] This has two very important theological implications. One, the original sin that entered the world through Adam's sin and contaminated all of humanity, as Romans 5.12 tells us, is cut off at this unique point at Jesus' birth.

[31:56] Jesus is the first and only human being to be born without sin. 1 John 3.5 tells us this, you know that Jesus appeared in order to take away sins and in him there is no sin.

[32:09] And this is because he who knew no sin is the only person who can bear the sins of his people so that we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus is the one man who never deserved to die because death is a consequence, a punishment for sin.

[32:25] But Jesus died nonetheless because he was dying in our place so that we might have eternal life. That's the first important implication of this.

[32:35] The second important theological implication of this is that by being born of Mary, though Jesus was sinless, the blameless one, he carried all of the sin and shame and blame of his people upon himself on the cross.

[32:49] Jesus was fully God and fully man but he was a real human. He was born of a virgin and so there was a suspicion of illegitimacy.

[33:02] In John 8, the Jews falsely accused Jesus of being a Samaritan, a Jew of mixed heritage, mingled with Gentiles and presumptuously they say this to him in John 8, 41, we were not born of sexual immorality.

[33:18] We have one Father, even God. But Jesus carried all that baggage with him to save us. He experienced all of our temptations.

[33:31] He became one of us. He came to save broken people. And we can see this in Jesus' checkered genealogy. Some of these names are not names you would like to see in your genealogy.

[33:47] Verse 7 tells us that one of Jesus' ancestors was Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. It was Rehoboam whose folly and unnecessary cruelty split the kingdom of Israel in half.

[34:01] It was Rehoboam, according to 1 Kings 12. And according to 1 Kings 14, under Rehoboam's reign, Judah was led into all kinds of idolatry called prostitution and abominations.

[34:13] It was under his watch that Jerusalem was invaded by Shishak, the king of Egypt, and the treasures of the temple of God ransacked. Rehoboam had found his way into the history books for all the wrong reasons.

[34:27] Abijah and Joram were no better kings. Ahaz, who succeeded, Joram, quote, even burned his son as an offering according to the despicable practices of the nation whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.

[34:43] And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree. This is 2 Kings 16, 3-4. Manasseh was even worse.

[34:55] Can you believe it? It can get worse than that. Even though his father, Hezekiah, sought to reform Israel and get rid of the idols, Manasseh rebuilt those idols. He desecrated the temple of God by building pagan altars inside it.

[35:11] In fact, it says in 2 Kings 21, verse 9, that Manasseh led Judah astray to do more evil than the pagan nations that the Lord himself had destroyed and driven out before Israel.

[35:21] And Manasseh's son Amos, more commonly known as Amon, followed in the footsteps of his wicked father. And of course, the infamous Jeconiah under whose reign who continued in the evil ways and under whose reign Judah was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar and sent into exile in Babylon.

[35:43] Jesus' ancestors. In Genesis 38, Judah sleeps with the woman that he thinks is a prostitute. Another one of Jesus' ancestors.

[35:55] He does this only to discover that the woman that he thought was a prostitute was actually Tamar, his daughter-in-law. Daughter-in-law who had disguised herself in order to get impregnated by him since Judah had unjustly withheld his son from her even though he owed her his son in accordance with the principles of levirate marriage.

[36:21] And Perez, Jesus' ancestor, was conceived by this illicit, incestuous union according to verse 3. Similarly, verse 5 tells us that King David's great-great-grandfather Salmon, father Boaz, by Rahab, Joshua 2, 1 tells us Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute.

[36:43] And verse 6 is the kicker of them all. It says David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. Bathsheba is not even named here.

[36:56] Instead, to make his point abundantly clear, Matthew describes her as the wife of Uriah. David committed adultery with Bathsheba and impregnated her and then tried to cover it up by making Uriah sleep with her.

[37:13] And when that didn't work, when Uriah refused to do it, he had Uriah killed in the battlefield even though Uriah was a prized and valuable and honorable man and a warrior.

[37:27] And then he took her. to rub in the point that David had sinned, Matthew says, Solomon, he said David the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah.

[37:44] David should have never had Bathsheba. And yet it is through that illicit union that Solomon, one of Jesus' royal predecessors, is born. I hope this is a comfort to you all because we're all sinners with a sordid history.

[38:06] We all have checkered lives. And here is our Savior with the checkered genealogy. There are prostitutes, adulterers, murderers, in his genealogy because Jesus in himself embraces our sinful humanity because he came like a doctor who goes to heal the sick and not the healthy.

[38:39] He came to save sinners. Are you a child of adultery or fornication what besetting sins are part of your life?

[38:57] What guilt, what burden, what shame did you carry with yourself into this building this morning? What about yourself would you be hesitant to share with those people sitting next to you right now?

[39:14] Whoever you are and whatever you have done, Jesus sees you and Jesus knows you and Jesus says in John 6, 37, whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.

[39:34] This is the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ that we proclaim to all the world. Jesus is the Christ. He's the one we've been waiting for.

[39:52] 20th century American theologian Lorraine Boatner makes an astute observation when he says this in one of his books. Quote, in all the history of the world, Jesus emerges as the only expected person.

[40:09] No one was looking for such a person as Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Washington or Lincoln to appear at the time and place that they did appear. No other person has had his course foretold or his work laid out for him centuries before he was born.

[40:28] But the coming of the Messiah had been predicted for centuries. In fact, the first promise of his coming was given to Adam and Eve soon after their fault into sin. As time went on, various details concerning his person and work were revealed through the prophets.

[40:42] And at the time Jesus was born, there was a general expectation through the Jewish world that the Messiah was soon to appear, even the manner of his birth, a virgin birth, and the town in which it would occur, Bethlehem, having been clearly indicated.

[41:01] Jesus is the only expected person in human history. Isn't that remarkable? because he's the promised Christ.

[41:12] He's the only person that humanity had been waiting for, that sinful people have been waiting for. He's the only promised person that actually came and delivered on that promise.

[41:26] And so with the symmetry of three generations of 14, Matthew conveys the sense of balance and perfection that the long awaited Messiah came at the fullness of time, at the perfect opportune moment to restore the kingdom of God.

[41:43] And because the Christ has already come, there's no need for another Savior or Messiah. are you waiting for another Christ? Who do you wait for?

[41:58] Or what do you long for to fulfill you, to satisfy you, to save you? A spouse?

[42:13] A charismatic politician to come and take charge, accomplish all your agenda? A great Christian leader to bring about the third great awakening or another reformation?

[42:28] There is no other Messiah. And we are not the Messiah either. The world does not need more of you. The world does not need more of me.

[42:44] The world does not need more of anyone. It needs more of Jesus. because he is the only Christ. Christ was come. Christ will come again.

[42:57] Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you. We thank you that you came.

[43:12] Lord, what would you have done without you? you? Lord, we would still be lost in sin, slaves to death.

[43:27] We would be hopelessly in futility trying to save ourselves, but utterly unable to do so.

[43:38] Lord, what would we have done without you? Lord Jesus, thank you for coming. Heavenly Father, thank you for sending him.

[43:56] Help us to be a people who live in light of his coming and who wait expectantly for his second coming.

[44:09] In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.