1 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:41,840 Lord, we are doing this morning and for the probably next couple of years we will be in 2 00:00:41,840 --> 00:00:47,820 the Gospel of Matthew taking breaks periodically but there are 28 chapters and we will spend 3 00:00:47,820 --> 00:00:48,820 our time. 4 00:00:48,820 --> 00:00:51,760 There are some intensely doctrinal chapters and others narrative. 5 00:00:51,760 --> 00:00:56,160 But we are going to begin this morning and really with the section that a lot of people 6 00:00:56,160 --> 00:01:00,840 would just assume skip over that we assume is not that important. 7 00:01:00,840 --> 00:01:03,360 And this is genealogy that you find here in Matthew 1. 8 00:01:03,360 --> 00:01:08,020 Luke also records I think in Luke 3 another genealogy. 9 00:01:08,020 --> 00:01:12,000 And so out of respect for the Word of God I'm going to ask if you would stand as we read 10 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:14,400 the text. 11 00:01:14,400 --> 00:01:19,880 I did not put this on the wall behind me, I just put verse 1. 12 00:01:19,880 --> 00:01:25,680 Matthew writes the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son 13 00:01:25,680 --> 00:01:26,680 of Abraham. 14 00:01:26,680 --> 00:01:33,360 Abraham begat Isaac and Isaac begat Jacob, Jacob begat Judah and his brothers, Judah 15 00:01:33,360 --> 00:01:40,600 begat Pharez and Sarah of Tamar, and Pharez begat Ezra and Ezra begat Aram and Aram begat 16 00:01:40,600 --> 00:01:48,720 Amenadab and Amenadab begat Nesson and Nesson begat Sammon and Sammon begat Boaz of Rahab 17 00:01:48,720 --> 00:01:52,960 and Boaz begat Obed of Ruth and Obed begat Jesse. 18 00:01:52,960 --> 00:01:58,840 Jesse begat David the king and David the king begat Solomon of her who had been the wife 19 00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:06,360 of Uriah and Solomon begat Rehoboam and Rehoboam begat Abia and Abia begat Asa. 20 00:02:06,360 --> 00:02:11,480 Asa begat Jehoshaphat and Jehoshaphat begat Joram and Joram begat Uzziah and Uzziah 21 00:02:11,480 --> 00:02:17,200 begat Jotham and Jotham begat Achaz and Achaz begat Ezekias and Ezekias got Manasseh 22 00:02:17,200 --> 00:02:22,400 and Manasseh begat Ammon and Ammon begat Josiah and Josiah begat Jeconiah and his brother 23 00:02:22,400 --> 00:02:25,320 about the time they were carried away to Babylon. 24 00:02:25,320 --> 00:02:30,480 And after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconiah begat Silatio and Silatio begat Zerubbabel, 25 00:02:30,480 --> 00:02:36,880 Zerubbabel begat Abiod and Abiod begat Eliakim, Eliakim begat Esor, Esor begat Sadak 26 00:02:36,880 --> 00:02:43,680 and Sadak begat Akeem and Akeem begat Eliud, Eliud begat Eliezer, Eliezer begat Mathan, 27 00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:52,000 Mathan begat Jacob and Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary of whom was born Jesus 28 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:54,400 who is called Christ. 29 00:02:54,400 --> 00:02:58,520 Saw the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations. 30 00:02:58,520 --> 00:03:02,520 From David into the carrying away into Babylon are 14 generations. 31 00:03:02,520 --> 00:03:07,160 And from the carrying away into Babylon into Christ are 14 generations. 32 00:03:07,160 --> 00:03:08,560 Let's pray. 33 00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:13,080 Father, help us this morning to see your Son. 34 00:03:13,080 --> 00:03:16,120 This is the gospel, the good news of Christ. 35 00:03:16,120 --> 00:03:22,480 Lord, the one you have sent not to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through 36 00:03:22,480 --> 00:03:23,480 him. 37 00:03:23,480 --> 00:03:27,880 Oh, Father, open our hearts this morning by your spirit we pray in Jesus' name. 38 00:03:27,880 --> 00:03:28,880 Amen. 39 00:03:28,880 --> 00:03:33,840 You may be seated. 40 00:03:33,840 --> 00:03:39,920 For me personally, one of the hardest things I find to do in life is to wait. 41 00:03:39,920 --> 00:03:43,880 I've said this the 20 years I've been at Mamrie, this is no surprise. 42 00:03:43,880 --> 00:03:47,600 I've told you all I am by nature an impatient person. 43 00:03:47,600 --> 00:03:49,560 I wish I weren't, but I am. 44 00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:54,600 I will go if I'm at Chick-fil-A, I will look for the shortest line and try to nudge my 45 00:03:54,600 --> 00:03:56,800 way in to make sure I get there faster. 46 00:03:56,800 --> 00:04:00,980 If I'm at a self-checkout line, I'm going to make sure that I'm not going to get behind 47 00:04:00,980 --> 00:04:03,240 the person who I think would be the slowest. 48 00:04:03,240 --> 00:04:04,400 I'm wired that way. 49 00:04:04,400 --> 00:04:05,600 It's not something I like. 50 00:04:05,600 --> 00:04:07,600 It's something I battle against. 51 00:04:07,600 --> 00:04:11,040 But I'm just impatient and that is a character flaw. 52 00:04:11,040 --> 00:04:15,480 Waiting the Lord is always working on me in that area. 53 00:04:15,480 --> 00:04:20,000 And because of that, really one of the verses that the Lord has brought to my attention 54 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:24,440 time and time again, it's one of the verses the Lord has used most often in my life as 55 00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:25,440 well. 56 00:04:25,440 --> 00:04:31,440 It's Psalm 27 verse 14 where David says, wait on the Lord. 57 00:04:31,440 --> 00:04:34,960 Be of good courage and he shall strengthen your heart. 58 00:04:34,960 --> 00:04:38,440 Wait, I say, on the Lord. 59 00:04:38,440 --> 00:04:40,680 But it's hard to wait. 60 00:04:40,680 --> 00:04:46,320 I mean, and I was thinking about this, I wonder why do we find it so hard to wait? 61 00:04:46,320 --> 00:04:48,280 It's unpleasant. 62 00:04:48,280 --> 00:04:52,880 But it's unpleasant many times because it's uncertain. 63 00:04:52,880 --> 00:04:57,600 While you're waiting, you are left wondering, is the desired outcome, is what I'm hoping 64 00:04:57,600 --> 00:04:59,920 for, is this ever going to happen? 65 00:04:59,920 --> 00:05:04,640 I mean, sometimes you're left waiting for test results and some of you have been there. 66 00:05:04,640 --> 00:05:06,640 And it seems like it's just forever. 67 00:05:06,640 --> 00:05:08,560 You're just waiting for that test result. 68 00:05:08,560 --> 00:05:11,600 What is it going to reveal? 69 00:05:11,600 --> 00:05:13,980 Other times you're waiting for relationships. 70 00:05:13,980 --> 00:05:17,400 You may be single and you're like, am I ever going to get married? 71 00:05:17,400 --> 00:05:20,200 You're waiting for children. 72 00:05:20,200 --> 00:05:24,440 There's conflict and you just want that conflict to pass. 73 00:05:24,440 --> 00:05:30,600 So in each of those scenarios, we are left to wonder, is what I'm hoping for, is it 74 00:05:30,600 --> 00:05:32,440 going to come? 75 00:05:32,440 --> 00:05:35,320 Is that test going to reveal anything that I'd rather not know? 76 00:05:35,320 --> 00:05:38,920 Will I ever be married? 77 00:05:38,920 --> 00:05:41,640 Will we ever have children? 78 00:05:41,640 --> 00:05:45,800 Is this relationship that is fractured, is it ever going to be restored and be like it 79 00:05:45,800 --> 00:05:46,800 was? 80 00:05:46,800 --> 00:05:49,960 I mean, will we ever have peace? 81 00:05:49,960 --> 00:05:55,880 And when we open the Gospel of Matthew, we find what was happening in Israel was exactly 82 00:05:55,880 --> 00:05:57,680 the same thing. 83 00:05:57,680 --> 00:06:00,200 Israel as a nation had been waiting. 84 00:06:00,200 --> 00:06:03,320 I mean, waiting for a very, very long time. 85 00:06:03,320 --> 00:06:08,000 They had been in the dark, if you will, for about 400 years. 86 00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:11,000 Four centuries of silence from heaven. 87 00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:16,040 I mean, during that time, there were no prophetic visions. 88 00:06:16,040 --> 00:06:17,040 None. 89 00:06:17,040 --> 00:06:19,040 No prophet on the scene. 90 00:06:19,040 --> 00:06:21,020 There was no new word from the Lord. 91 00:06:21,020 --> 00:06:25,640 You didn't have anyone coming and proclaiming afresh, thus saith the Lord. 92 00:06:25,640 --> 00:06:27,480 It wasn't there. 93 00:06:27,480 --> 00:06:32,360 So people were left to wonder, as you and I would have been, I mean, had God forgotten 94 00:06:32,360 --> 00:06:33,720 his people. 95 00:06:33,720 --> 00:06:36,440 We've heard the stories of yesteryear. 96 00:06:36,440 --> 00:06:42,840 We've heard how God did valiant things, but had he abandoned us? 97 00:06:42,840 --> 00:06:45,360 I mean, how much longer are we going to be forced to wait? 98 00:06:45,360 --> 00:06:47,140 We've been waiting 400 years. 99 00:06:47,140 --> 00:06:49,120 Something ought to be taking place. 100 00:06:49,120 --> 00:06:55,000 And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you have this man dressed crazy. 101 00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:56,600 John the Baptist is his name. 102 00:06:56,600 --> 00:07:02,320 He arrives on the scene and he preaches this fiery message of repentance, not to the outside 103 00:07:02,320 --> 00:07:04,440 fighters, but to Israel. 104 00:07:04,440 --> 00:07:05,640 And he's announcing something. 105 00:07:05,640 --> 00:07:09,960 He says, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. 106 00:07:09,960 --> 00:07:13,920 The king is about to arrive and you need to get ready. 107 00:07:13,920 --> 00:07:19,320 And Matthew, in this gospel, is going to chronicle all of that. 108 00:07:19,320 --> 00:07:23,320 Now if we were to summarize the entire Old Testament, many ways you could do so, but 109 00:07:23,320 --> 00:07:29,280 the Old Testament prophesies of a coming great king who was going to crush the head of the 110 00:07:29,280 --> 00:07:34,520 serpent and bring in God's eternal kingdom. 111 00:07:34,520 --> 00:07:36,520 Now there are four gospels. 112 00:07:36,520 --> 00:07:41,240 And each of these gospels essentially tells the same story, but they do so from a different 113 00:07:41,240 --> 00:07:44,560 perspective, a different vantage point, if you will. 114 00:07:44,560 --> 00:07:49,600 So you're chronicling the same story, but giving emphasis to different parts. 115 00:07:49,600 --> 00:07:57,000 So when we see Matthew, the first gospel, he is presenting Jesus as the great king. 116 00:07:57,000 --> 00:08:00,560 But if you read through Mark, you get a different feeling altogether. 117 00:08:00,560 --> 00:08:04,400 He shows Jesus to be the suffering servant. 118 00:08:04,400 --> 00:08:08,980 You read Luke, Jesus is the son of man. 119 00:08:08,980 --> 00:08:14,960 And then you come to that kind of outlier gospel of John, and Jesus is there, the divine 120 00:08:14,960 --> 00:08:16,600 son of God. 121 00:08:16,600 --> 00:08:22,360 But we have Matthew here, and it's the gospel of the kingdom, the gospel of the king. 122 00:08:22,360 --> 00:08:28,700 But his kingdom and his gospel is presented, Matthew's gospel is presented with a very 123 00:08:28,700 --> 00:08:31,680 Jewish flavor, if you will. 124 00:08:31,680 --> 00:08:38,000 It's really, it has a lot of Jewish customs and allusions. 125 00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:41,360 In fact, it's written primarily to a Jewish audience. 126 00:08:41,360 --> 00:08:47,400 And he's doing so because he wants to show Israel that this man, Jesus, truly is the 127 00:08:47,400 --> 00:08:49,080 Christ. 128 00:08:49,080 --> 00:08:52,240 Now why do I say that it was written primarily to a Jewish audience? 129 00:08:52,240 --> 00:08:53,240 There's many reasons. 130 00:08:53,240 --> 00:08:57,920 First of all, there are several Aramaic terms, which is what the Jews would have spoken 131 00:08:57,920 --> 00:08:58,920 at that time. 132 00:08:58,920 --> 00:09:01,780 And Matthew does not translate the Aramaic terms. 133 00:09:01,780 --> 00:09:06,120 He just assumes that his readers will know what they mean, because he's assuming they're 134 00:09:06,120 --> 00:09:07,120 Jews. 135 00:09:07,120 --> 00:09:11,480 Matthew refers to Jewish customs and practices, but he never stops to explain them. 136 00:09:11,480 --> 00:09:17,200 But again, he takes for granted, you know what these are, because they're Jews. 137 00:09:17,200 --> 00:09:21,160 He starts the genealogy with Abraham. 138 00:09:21,160 --> 00:09:26,480 If you were writing to a Gentile audience, Abraham does not show any particular relevance 139 00:09:26,480 --> 00:09:28,320 to Gentiles. 140 00:09:28,320 --> 00:09:33,280 He refers to Jesus often as the son of David. 141 00:09:33,280 --> 00:09:37,680 Now again, that would be a particular interest to Jewish readers, but Gentile readers would 142 00:09:37,680 --> 00:09:42,200 probably not really understand, Gentile at that time, who is David and who is the son 143 00:09:42,200 --> 00:09:44,380 of David. 144 00:09:44,380 --> 00:09:51,440 Matthew also, instead of using the term kingdom of God, he uses this phrase, kingdom of heaven. 145 00:09:51,440 --> 00:09:57,160 Many quotations, around 60 in the Old Testament are found in Matthew, and at least 75 Old 146 00:09:57,160 --> 00:09:58,160 Testament allusions. 147 00:09:58,160 --> 00:10:03,480 In fact, I would suggest to you, it is impossible to understand Matthew unless you have some 148 00:10:03,480 --> 00:10:06,120 basic understanding of the Old Testament. 149 00:10:06,120 --> 00:10:07,960 You're not going to understand it. 150 00:10:07,960 --> 00:10:09,760 He just kind of picks it up. 151 00:10:09,760 --> 00:10:13,400 Now as we're starting the series, it's important we understand a little bit of the background 152 00:10:13,400 --> 00:10:15,800 so we'll get into the content. 153 00:10:15,800 --> 00:10:17,100 When was Matthew written? 154 00:10:17,100 --> 00:10:18,100 Is it an early book? 155 00:10:18,100 --> 00:10:19,100 Is it a late book? 156 00:10:19,100 --> 00:10:21,640 Well, it happens to be very early. 157 00:10:21,640 --> 00:10:26,160 Almost all scholars mention an early date, possibly as early as 50 AD. 158 00:10:26,160 --> 00:10:33,400 If we understand Jesus was crucified and rose again in 33, so just 15, 17 years later. 159 00:10:33,400 --> 00:10:38,680 So we don't know if it's 50, but there's no reason to believe it would be after 70 AD. 160 00:10:38,680 --> 00:10:43,560 Now why would we say it has to be somewhere between 50 and 70? 161 00:10:43,560 --> 00:10:48,680 Matthew writing to Jews never mentions the destruction of the temple. 162 00:10:48,680 --> 00:10:51,640 The temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. 163 00:10:51,640 --> 00:10:57,240 And by the way, that would have been of monumental importance to the Jews. 164 00:10:57,240 --> 00:11:00,360 So almost everyone believes it was written prior to that. 165 00:11:00,360 --> 00:11:01,880 So it's a very early book. 166 00:11:01,880 --> 00:11:03,200 Well, who wrote it? 167 00:11:03,200 --> 00:11:05,720 Now it says gospel Matthew, right? 168 00:11:05,720 --> 00:11:09,560 If you're in the New Testament, you're at the top of the page, we'll say Matthew across 169 00:11:09,560 --> 00:11:10,560 there. 170 00:11:10,560 --> 00:11:13,360 Well, it's Matthew, but who's Matthew? 171 00:11:13,360 --> 00:11:15,000 Do you know a man named Levi? 172 00:11:15,000 --> 00:11:17,680 Well, this is Matthew. 173 00:11:17,680 --> 00:11:18,680 Matthew was also Levi. 174 00:11:18,680 --> 00:11:20,400 Well, who was Levi? 175 00:11:20,400 --> 00:11:24,240 Oh yeah, he was a tax collector. 176 00:11:24,240 --> 00:11:27,680 Now again, today to be a tax collector, we don't particularly love the IRS, but that 177 00:11:27,680 --> 00:11:31,240 doesn't hold any significance for us. 178 00:11:31,240 --> 00:11:38,880 But the fact that a tax collector was called to be a disciple of Christ was a big deal. 179 00:11:38,880 --> 00:11:40,400 It was all of grace. 180 00:11:40,400 --> 00:11:41,440 Why? 181 00:11:41,440 --> 00:11:46,600 Because if you understand, the tax collectors were among the most hated people in Israel. 182 00:11:46,600 --> 00:11:48,200 They were looked down upon. 183 00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:49,200 Because why? 184 00:11:49,200 --> 00:11:52,640 At that time, Israel was under Roman occupation. 185 00:11:52,640 --> 00:11:53,840 Romans ruled them. 186 00:11:53,840 --> 00:11:56,640 And so with the Roman rule came Roman taxes. 187 00:11:56,640 --> 00:12:04,280 So you had these Jewish men like Levi, who would tax his fellow Jews and give that money 188 00:12:04,280 --> 00:12:05,960 to Rome. 189 00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:09,000 So they just hated them. 190 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:13,600 But also most of these tax collectors were crooks. 191 00:12:13,600 --> 00:12:16,040 And they would line their own pockets as well. 192 00:12:16,040 --> 00:12:18,820 See, the Romans had two taxes for Israel. 193 00:12:18,820 --> 00:12:21,840 You had a toll tax, kind of like an income tax. 194 00:12:21,840 --> 00:12:26,160 And then you also had a ground tax, kind of like our property tax. 195 00:12:26,160 --> 00:12:27,160 So this is interesting. 196 00:12:27,160 --> 00:12:30,320 I did not know this until studying this custom. 197 00:12:30,320 --> 00:12:37,960 At public auctions, high ranking Roman officials or even Roman senators would bid and they would 198 00:12:37,960 --> 00:12:44,040 buy from Rome, the central government, the right to collect taxes from certain regions 199 00:12:44,040 --> 00:12:46,760 like Israel, occupied territories. 200 00:12:46,760 --> 00:12:53,000 Now why would Roman senators want to be able to collect the tax from places like Israel? 201 00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:56,000 Because they knew they could get rich in the process. 202 00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:59,520 So what happens, these Roman senators would contract with Rome and they had to pay them 203 00:12:59,520 --> 00:13:04,280 a certain amount of money that came from Israel that whatever they took in excess, they would 204 00:13:04,280 --> 00:13:05,280 keep. 205 00:13:05,280 --> 00:13:10,620 So you had these corrupt officials, these corrupt Roman senators, they would hire local 206 00:13:10,620 --> 00:13:15,400 tax collectors, Levi or Matthew. 207 00:13:15,400 --> 00:13:16,920 And he essentially did the same thing. 208 00:13:16,920 --> 00:13:22,080 See, these tax collectors had to pay the Roman senators who had to pay Rome. 209 00:13:22,080 --> 00:13:28,440 But these local collectors then would charge more than what was actually due and they would 210 00:13:28,440 --> 00:13:30,960 pocket the extra as well. 211 00:13:30,960 --> 00:13:34,680 They were getting rich off the back of God's people. 212 00:13:34,680 --> 00:13:36,060 And people knew it. 213 00:13:36,060 --> 00:13:41,080 So the fellow Jews looked at men like Levi as some of the worst people, just the scourge 214 00:13:41,080 --> 00:13:42,760 of society. 215 00:13:42,760 --> 00:13:44,440 No one liked them. 216 00:13:44,440 --> 00:13:49,560 They were extortioners and they were traitors to their own people, working for that evil 217 00:13:49,560 --> 00:13:50,840 room. 218 00:13:50,840 --> 00:13:54,440 And so they viewed them on the same plane as prostitutes. 219 00:13:54,440 --> 00:14:00,120 You see that in Matthew 21, Jesus saying to the religious leaders, assuredly, I say to 220 00:14:00,120 --> 00:14:07,400 you, this gives you more insight here, tax collectors and prostitutes will enter the 221 00:14:07,400 --> 00:14:09,480 kingdom of God before you do. 222 00:14:09,480 --> 00:14:12,140 And he's talking to religious leaders. 223 00:14:12,140 --> 00:14:19,400 So Matthew, or Levi, the tax collector, he was called, called by our Lord to be one of 224 00:14:19,400 --> 00:14:21,120 his disciples. 225 00:14:21,120 --> 00:14:22,120 Can you imagine? 226 00:14:22,120 --> 00:14:23,120 I mean, this is grace. 227 00:14:23,120 --> 00:14:25,400 I mean, he's hated. 228 00:14:25,400 --> 00:14:30,280 And this famed, popular rabbi says, come, follow me. 229 00:14:30,280 --> 00:14:35,960 So Matthew then, Levi, throws a big party where he invited all his friends. 230 00:14:35,960 --> 00:14:39,620 And we read about that in Luke chapter five. 231 00:14:39,620 --> 00:14:44,260 After these things, he, that is Jesus, went out and he saw a tax collector named Levi 232 00:14:44,260 --> 00:14:46,920 sitting at the tax office. 233 00:14:46,920 --> 00:14:49,940 And he said to him, follow me. 234 00:14:49,940 --> 00:14:54,680 So he left all, rose up and followed him. 235 00:14:54,680 --> 00:14:58,920 Levi, I'm sure if we're reading between the lines, I was such a great joy. 236 00:14:58,920 --> 00:15:05,740 Levi gave him, that is Jesus, a great feast, a big party in his own house. 237 00:15:05,740 --> 00:15:10,720 And there were a great number, well, who was the guest list? 238 00:15:10,720 --> 00:15:13,400 A big number of tax collectors and others. 239 00:15:13,400 --> 00:15:17,320 Well, the other gospel fills in the blank, tax collectors and notorious sinners. 240 00:15:17,320 --> 00:15:18,320 Why? 241 00:15:18,320 --> 00:15:21,560 That's something that people Levi could associate with. 242 00:15:21,560 --> 00:15:24,080 No respectable member of society was going to be with him. 243 00:15:24,080 --> 00:15:28,600 So you have this big party and it's full of notorious sinners and they sat down with 244 00:15:28,600 --> 00:15:29,600 Jesus. 245 00:15:29,600 --> 00:15:32,400 Now look at verse 30. 246 00:15:32,400 --> 00:15:39,160 And the scribes and Pharisees complained, of course they did, against Jesus and his disciples 247 00:15:39,160 --> 00:15:44,120 saying why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? 248 00:15:44,120 --> 00:15:48,000 I mean, don't you know what these people are like? 249 00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:50,160 And notice the answer of our Lord. 250 00:15:50,160 --> 00:15:57,920 Jesus answered and said to them, basically those who are well, now you're healthy, you 251 00:15:57,920 --> 00:15:59,880 don't need the doctor. 252 00:15:59,880 --> 00:16:01,800 Who needs the doctor? 253 00:16:01,800 --> 00:16:03,080 Those who are sick. 254 00:16:03,080 --> 00:16:05,520 He's basically saying you don't think you have need of me. 255 00:16:05,520 --> 00:16:08,200 These people understand their need. 256 00:16:08,200 --> 00:16:13,800 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners repentance. 257 00:16:13,800 --> 00:16:16,040 Now that last part looks a little ambiguous. 258 00:16:16,040 --> 00:16:20,800 So does that mean there are righteous people who don't need to be called? 259 00:16:20,800 --> 00:16:25,320 He's like those people who think they're righteous are not going to be called. 260 00:16:25,320 --> 00:16:27,200 There isn't anyone righteous. 261 00:16:27,200 --> 00:16:32,480 And Levi, Matthew and his friends all understand that. 262 00:16:32,480 --> 00:16:36,760 Now Matthew experienced great grace. 263 00:16:36,760 --> 00:16:41,800 And when you do so, he so badly wanted others to experience the same grace, which is why 264 00:16:41,800 --> 00:16:46,200 he threw a big party to invite his friends to meet Jesus because he assumed Jesus is 265 00:16:46,200 --> 00:16:48,280 one of them going to talk to him, if you will. 266 00:16:48,280 --> 00:16:50,520 Now here's an unlikely convert. 267 00:16:50,520 --> 00:16:51,520 That's the author here. 268 00:16:51,520 --> 00:16:55,240 And it's an unlikely convert who's been called by Christ. 269 00:16:55,240 --> 00:17:01,840 Jesus our Lord calls a deeply sinful outcast to be one of his disciples. 270 00:17:01,840 --> 00:17:04,120 And it gives us a hint about something. 271 00:17:04,120 --> 00:17:07,760 The nature of his kingdom is not going to be like what we thought. 272 00:17:07,760 --> 00:17:11,760 The nature of his kingdom is going to be really different than what we might expect. 273 00:17:11,760 --> 00:17:15,480 So you have Matthew, he goes from being one of the most hated men in all of Israel to 274 00:17:15,480 --> 00:17:20,200 being one of the 12 disciples who would later lay the foundation for the church of the Lord 275 00:17:20,200 --> 00:17:21,200 Jesus Christ. 276 00:17:21,200 --> 00:17:23,120 I mean, isn't that grace? 277 00:17:23,120 --> 00:17:28,560 I mean, you have a notorious sinner, crook, who's going to come and help lay the foundation 278 00:17:28,560 --> 00:17:30,320 of Christ's church. 279 00:17:30,320 --> 00:17:36,360 Now it is interesting to me that Matthew's genealogy includes some names of people that 280 00:17:36,360 --> 00:17:40,800 we might be surprised to find their name in Jesus' genealogy. 281 00:17:40,800 --> 00:17:44,280 There are some outcasts even here in the name list. 282 00:17:44,280 --> 00:17:45,840 First of all, Matthew includes women. 283 00:17:45,840 --> 00:17:47,560 Luke doesn't include any of them. 284 00:17:47,560 --> 00:17:51,440 Again, women were not really viewed highly at that time. 285 00:17:51,440 --> 00:17:56,200 But you have not just any women, he includes four women. 286 00:17:56,200 --> 00:18:03,920 And not just any four women, four non-Jewish women, four Gentiles. 287 00:18:03,920 --> 00:18:09,640 You have Tamar, you have Rahab, you have Ruth, and you have Bathsheba. 288 00:18:09,640 --> 00:18:10,640 So let's talk for a moment. 289 00:18:10,640 --> 00:18:12,760 Tamar, we know she's a Canaanite. 290 00:18:12,760 --> 00:18:17,340 She was a Canaanite, and I don't have time to really get into her story, but she pretended 291 00:18:17,340 --> 00:18:23,000 to be a prostitute to trick her father-in-law, and she actually had an incestuous relationship 292 00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:25,440 with her father-in-law who was Judah. 293 00:18:25,440 --> 00:18:27,920 You know the lion from the tribe of Judah? 294 00:18:27,920 --> 00:18:29,920 That's that guy. 295 00:18:29,920 --> 00:18:32,440 Rahab, you know her. 296 00:18:32,440 --> 00:18:34,720 She's Rahab the harlot. 297 00:18:34,720 --> 00:18:37,800 She is a Canaanite prostitute. 298 00:18:37,800 --> 00:18:43,920 Several times when you read her name in scriptures, several times it will say, Rahab the harlot. 299 00:18:43,920 --> 00:18:46,600 This is in the ancestry of Christ. 300 00:18:46,600 --> 00:18:48,400 You have Ruth. 301 00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:50,840 Ruth was a Moabite. 302 00:18:50,840 --> 00:18:53,560 She like the first two, she's an outcast. 303 00:18:53,560 --> 00:18:55,320 She's an outsider. 304 00:18:55,320 --> 00:18:56,880 She's a Gentile. 305 00:18:56,880 --> 00:18:59,800 This is not a Jewish lady. 306 00:18:59,800 --> 00:19:02,160 And then we, Matthew doesn't even mention her name. 307 00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:04,200 He just simply says the wife of Uriah the Hittite. 308 00:19:04,200 --> 00:19:06,280 Well, he's talking about Bathsheba there. 309 00:19:06,280 --> 00:19:11,160 Bathsheba, only mentioned as the wife of Uriah, was the one with whom King David committed 310 00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:12,160 adultery. 311 00:19:12,160 --> 00:19:14,680 Now, why do we say that she was an outsider? 312 00:19:14,680 --> 00:19:20,000 Because Uriah was a Hittite, presumably, so also with Bathsheba. 313 00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:24,880 All four women, all four Gentiles, all four outsiders. 314 00:19:24,880 --> 00:19:31,280 The message we get from chapter one, just looking at the ancestry, is there is a foreshadowing 315 00:19:31,280 --> 00:19:37,080 that our Lord is going to welcome sinners and outcasts into his kingdom. 316 00:19:37,080 --> 00:19:41,920 That's really good news for us today, because none of us would have been on this list. 317 00:19:41,920 --> 00:19:45,400 So Matthew, he begins his genealogy, and he does so in a very unique way. 318 00:19:45,400 --> 00:19:46,400 Look at verse one. 319 00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:53,440 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. 320 00:19:53,440 --> 00:19:58,600 In the Old Testament, genealogies are consistently named after the earliest person or ancestor 321 00:19:58,600 --> 00:19:59,600 in the lineage. 322 00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:00,600 Why? 323 00:20:00,600 --> 00:20:04,840 Because the Jews considered the earliest ancestor to be the most significant, because everyone 324 00:20:04,840 --> 00:20:07,800 else derived from them. 325 00:20:07,800 --> 00:20:13,400 But notice how Matthew, he begins his genealogy with the Lord Jesus, who is the final descendant 326 00:20:13,400 --> 00:20:14,400 in the lineage. 327 00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:17,520 Well, why would he do that? 328 00:20:17,520 --> 00:20:22,480 Because he's highlighting to show that Jesus is more important than everyone who preceded 329 00:20:22,480 --> 00:20:24,040 him. 330 00:20:24,040 --> 00:20:27,680 That's significant, because there are some pretty impressive names from Jewish history 331 00:20:27,680 --> 00:20:29,280 that make that list. 332 00:20:29,280 --> 00:20:31,000 Abraham, yep. 333 00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:34,880 Isaac, Jacob, you know, they've got the patriarchs there. 334 00:20:34,880 --> 00:20:43,960 Boaz, David, Solomon, and Matthew in just the way he words his genealogy is saying, 335 00:20:43,960 --> 00:20:48,360 Jesus far surpasses them all. 336 00:20:48,360 --> 00:20:49,360 Matthew is writing. 337 00:20:49,360 --> 00:20:54,040 He's wanting to know his Jewish countrymen who's going to read this gospel. 338 00:20:54,040 --> 00:20:59,760 Hey, the one you've been waiting for, that long awaited king and savior of the world, 339 00:20:59,760 --> 00:21:01,360 it is here. 340 00:21:01,360 --> 00:21:02,360 And he is here. 341 00:21:02,360 --> 00:21:05,360 And he offers two pieces of evidence in verse one. 342 00:21:05,360 --> 00:21:09,120 Jesus, our Lord, he's son of David, he's son of Abraham. 343 00:21:09,120 --> 00:21:11,360 So we know all Jews descended from Abraham. 344 00:21:11,360 --> 00:21:13,120 Of course he did. 345 00:21:13,120 --> 00:21:16,560 Abraham is the father, the progenitor of the Jewish people. 346 00:21:16,560 --> 00:21:20,840 But our Lord is also a descendant of David, not all Jews descend from David. 347 00:21:20,840 --> 00:21:25,400 Jesus is a descendant of Israel's greatest king. 348 00:21:25,400 --> 00:21:27,520 Matthew is the gospel of the kingdom. 349 00:21:27,520 --> 00:21:34,280 So from the very first verse, Matthew is wanting to try to prove that our Lord Jesus is Israel's 350 00:21:34,280 --> 00:21:36,760 great king who would come. 351 00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:40,480 Now he mentions Abraham, he mentions David. 352 00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:44,360 It's interesting there because God made a covenant with both of those men, the Abrahamic 353 00:21:44,360 --> 00:21:47,200 covenant and the Davidic covenant. 354 00:21:47,200 --> 00:21:53,320 God promised in a covenant that the entire world is going to be blessed through Abraham 355 00:21:53,320 --> 00:21:55,140 or his seed, his descendant. 356 00:21:55,140 --> 00:21:57,280 And you read about it in Genesis 12. 357 00:21:57,280 --> 00:22:01,240 God speaking, I will bless those who bless you, I will curse him who curses you, that's 358 00:22:01,240 --> 00:22:06,080 Abraham, end in you and later on we know it's the seed, all the families of the earth shall 359 00:22:06,080 --> 00:22:07,720 be blessed. 360 00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:13,000 So a worldwide blessing is going to come through one of the descendants of Abraham. 361 00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:17,400 The whole entire world through the seed of Abraham is going to be blessed. 362 00:22:17,400 --> 00:22:21,640 Well God made a promise to David, 2 Samuel 7. 363 00:22:21,640 --> 00:22:26,480 God speaking, when your days David are fulfilled and you rest or you die, you rest with your 364 00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:32,360 fathers, I will set up your seed after you, another descendant here, who will come from 365 00:22:32,360 --> 00:22:38,360 your body, has to be in the line of David, and I will establish his kingdom. 366 00:22:38,360 --> 00:22:44,720 He shall build a house for my name and I will establish a throne of his kingdom forever. 367 00:22:44,720 --> 00:22:49,760 So you got a coming seed of Abraham and David who's going to bring both of those promises 368 00:22:49,760 --> 00:22:52,360 together in fulfillment. 369 00:22:52,360 --> 00:23:00,280 So the Messiah is going to bring blessing to the entire world through his kingdom. 370 00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:04,960 Martin Luther said that Jesus is the son of David, is the one who will restore the kingdom 371 00:23:04,960 --> 00:23:08,880 to Israel and as the son of Abraham he's going to bring the kingdom of God to the entire 372 00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:09,880 world. 373 00:23:09,880 --> 00:23:11,720 I love that. 374 00:23:11,720 --> 00:23:17,580 This is not going to be simply relevant for those living in Israel or Palestine. 375 00:23:17,580 --> 00:23:20,560 So he's now, Matthew, he's a scholar. 376 00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:24,360 One thing about tax collectors, they had to be very meticulous bookkeepers. 377 00:23:24,360 --> 00:23:28,220 They had to be very detailed and he is here. 378 00:23:28,220 --> 00:23:33,460 So the Jews were meticulous in keeping genealogical records because many of the prophecies concerning 379 00:23:33,460 --> 00:23:35,720 the Messiah were very specific. 380 00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:40,760 For example, 2 Samuel 7, one who will come from your own body, speaking to David. 381 00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:44,720 So the promised Messiah is going to be the seed of Abraham. 382 00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:46,880 It's going to come through Isaac, not Ishmael. 383 00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:49,300 It's going to come through Jacob, not Esau. 384 00:23:49,300 --> 00:23:53,920 He will actually come from the tribe of Judah, not the other 11, and he will be through the 385 00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:56,720 family of David. 386 00:23:56,720 --> 00:23:58,800 So what does that mean? 387 00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:02,720 Imagine you're in first century before the destruction of the temple and some man comes 388 00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:05,440 on the scene and he claims that he's the Messiah. 389 00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:10,520 Well, the very first thing he's going to have to do, he's going to have to prove his pedigree 390 00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:12,720 to lay claim to the title. 391 00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:15,600 You can't just say it, you got to prove it. 392 00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:22,320 However, when the Romans came in and ransacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple in 8070, 393 00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:26,320 almost all of the genealogical records were destroyed at that time. 394 00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:28,440 They no longer exist. 395 00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:34,160 What that means is today there would be no way for a man who is living today to prove 396 00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:37,840 his ancestry from Abraham through David. 397 00:24:37,840 --> 00:24:40,240 He can't give you his tribal ancestry. 398 00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:42,080 That's very important. 399 00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:44,040 Ray Pritchard says this. 400 00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:46,840 He said, we routinely skip genealogies. 401 00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:50,080 If you're reading your Bible, how many of you all kind of skip over Matthew 1 verses 402 00:24:50,080 --> 00:24:51,080 1 through 17? 403 00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:55,320 We all kind of, the begats get a little tedious. 404 00:24:55,320 --> 00:24:57,320 So let me go down to verse 17. 405 00:24:57,320 --> 00:24:59,600 He says, so we want to get to the good stuff. 406 00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:04,320 But the Jews of the first century would be quite surprised by our attitude. 407 00:25:04,320 --> 00:25:09,880 To them, the genealogy would have been absolutely essential as a setting for the story of Jesus' 408 00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:10,880 birth. 409 00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:14,820 They, the Jews, routinely paid close attention to questions of genealogy. 410 00:25:14,820 --> 00:25:19,680 For example, whenever land was bought or sold, genealogical records were consulted to ensure 411 00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:23,840 the land belonging to one tribe was not being sold to members of another tribe. 412 00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:25,440 Land had to stay within their tribe. 413 00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:29,080 Thus, destroying the integrity of the ancient tribal boundaries. 414 00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:31,440 You could not just put money down and take the deed. 415 00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:36,240 You had to prove that your ancestors came from that same tribe. 416 00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:38,960 Genealogy was also crucial in determining the priesthood. 417 00:25:38,960 --> 00:25:39,960 Why? 418 00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:45,240 Because all the priests, all the temple workers had to come from the tribe of Levi. 419 00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:47,820 You had to prove that. 420 00:25:47,820 --> 00:25:51,800 Genealogy also helped determine the line of airship to the throne. 421 00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:53,500 That you had some claim in it. 422 00:25:53,500 --> 00:25:55,200 You had to be able to prove that. 423 00:25:55,200 --> 00:26:00,160 So to say that genealogy mattered to the Jews, well, I mean, that's quite an understatement. 424 00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:06,280 So what Matthew is doing in the opening verses of his gospels is critical because he's proving 425 00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:12,120 that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ of God. 426 00:26:12,120 --> 00:26:16,300 So now we can read through these genealogy, and I have this past week, and it was actually 427 00:26:16,300 --> 00:26:17,300 very fun to do. 428 00:26:17,300 --> 00:26:18,920 It was interesting. 429 00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:20,900 Many things you can learn. 430 00:26:20,900 --> 00:26:25,640 First of all, the thing that just stands out is that the Son of God did not come through 431 00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:28,400 a pristine family line. 432 00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:31,360 His line was a mixed bag like ours. 433 00:26:31,360 --> 00:26:36,100 One man said, family trees are a lot like fudge, mostly sweet. 434 00:26:36,100 --> 00:26:37,640 They all have a few nuts in them. 435 00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:38,640 And that's true, right? 436 00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:41,000 I mean, we all have crazy members. 437 00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:42,000 You may be that. 438 00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:46,320 But as we look closely, that's true in Jesus' line too. 439 00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:53,000 As we look closely at this list, God in his wisdom has preserved for us a list of people. 440 00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:55,120 Some are faithful. 441 00:26:55,120 --> 00:26:59,320 Some are deeply flawed, and some have been forgotten. 442 00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:00,440 And God's the only use of them all. 443 00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:01,940 So let's use the very first thing. 444 00:27:01,940 --> 00:27:04,280 God does use the faithful. 445 00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:06,360 Men like Abraham, that's the first one. 446 00:27:06,360 --> 00:27:08,580 Here we have the progenitor of the Jewish people. 447 00:27:08,580 --> 00:27:11,720 He's a man of faith, the father of the faithful even. 448 00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:15,520 Here's a man who when God called him, he leaves his father, he leaves his own country, and 449 00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:20,160 he goes out to seek that city whose builder and maker is God. 450 00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:26,920 By faith, we know that he was willing, even willing to offer up his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice, 451 00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:29,800 as a sign of his obedience to God. 452 00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:34,960 James tells us that he was called, Abraham was called the friend of God. 453 00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:35,960 And that's incredible. 454 00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:38,800 Abraham's a faithful man, right? 455 00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:41,440 You move on to David. 456 00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:44,900 Here's Israel's illustrious king, the great one. 457 00:27:44,900 --> 00:27:50,000 He was also a great songwriter, the sweet psalmist of Israel. 458 00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:54,360 Great military leader, strategic, great political leader. 459 00:27:54,360 --> 00:28:01,360 And we are told in 1 Samuel 13 that David was a man who's after God's own heart. 460 00:28:01,360 --> 00:28:03,560 He's a faithful man. 461 00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:04,840 You may not know some of these. 462 00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:06,480 Asa, down in verse eight. 463 00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:07,480 Who's Asa? 464 00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:08,520 The king. 465 00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:12,320 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did his father David. 466 00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:14,480 He banished the perverted persons from the land. 467 00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:17,120 He removed all the idols his fathers had made. 468 00:28:17,120 --> 00:28:19,760 Asa was a righteous man. 469 00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:22,760 Jehoshaphat, many of us know about him. 470 00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:23,760 There in the Chronicles. 471 00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:28,360 He says, now the Lord was with Jehoshaphat because he walked in the former ways of his 472 00:28:28,360 --> 00:28:29,520 father David. 473 00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:33,480 He did not seek the Baals, those false gods. 474 00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:35,800 But he sought the God of his father. 475 00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:39,800 And he walked in his commandments, not according to the Acts of Israel. 476 00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:42,440 Jehoshaphat was not like the others. 477 00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:44,960 There's a man who's devout and pious and faithful. 478 00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:47,920 You have Hezekiah. 479 00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:50,800 Down in verses nine and ten, he's mentioned. 480 00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:53,160 And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord. 481 00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:58,300 According to all that his father David had done, he trusted in the Lord God of Israel. 482 00:28:58,300 --> 00:29:03,040 So much so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were 483 00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:04,360 before him. 484 00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:06,480 Hezekiah, again a righteous man. 485 00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:09,920 We know he had some flaws, but he's a faithful man. 486 00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:12,000 Josiah. 487 00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:17,400 Now before him, there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart, 488 00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:19,760 with all his soul, and with all his might. 489 00:29:19,760 --> 00:29:22,480 That's a great testimony, isn't it? 490 00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:24,800 According to all the law of Moses, here's a man who loved the Lord his God with all 491 00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:30,440 his heart, all his soul, all his might, nor after him did any rise like him. 492 00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:35,680 These men that we just are sampling here, they're faithful and they sought to be obedient 493 00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:37,760 to the Lord. 494 00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:42,760 But if you look carefully, guys, if you look carefully at these men, what you notice that 495 00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:48,840 none of them was perfect, and all of them had their flaws. 496 00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:53,640 Which is why Paul, writing in Romans 3, he said, for we have previously charged both 497 00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:58,960 Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin. 498 00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:04,960 As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one. 499 00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:11,360 So in this genealogy, we see there are faithful men, but even the faithful men have their 500 00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:12,360 flaws. 501 00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:15,280 And you see, God's going to use the flawed. 502 00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:19,080 So let's go back to Abraham, a man of faith, right? 503 00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:21,720 Yeah, he was. 504 00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:25,400 And on at least two occasions, he was a coward. 505 00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:30,080 On two different occasions, you have this man, Abraham, lying about Sarah, his wife, 506 00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:33,000 saying she was his sister because he was so afraid. 507 00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:34,000 Here's what he did. 508 00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:40,160 He offered his wife Sarah to Pharaoh to be a part of his hara. 509 00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:41,960 Go in and sleep with her, Pharaoh. 510 00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:43,960 It's not my wife, it's my sister. 511 00:30:43,960 --> 00:30:46,340 That's what he said. 512 00:30:46,340 --> 00:30:52,360 And by the way, he did essentially the same thing again in Genesis 20 when King Abimelech 513 00:30:52,360 --> 00:30:53,360 saw her. 514 00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:55,440 Sarah must have been a striking beauty. 515 00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:57,920 And Abraham's like, oh, she's not my wife, she's my sister. 516 00:30:57,920 --> 00:30:59,440 Here, marry her. 517 00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:00,440 Take her as your wife. 518 00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:04,600 Now, of course, God wouldn't let Abimelech touch her. 519 00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:06,400 And then Abimelech's mad at Abraham. 520 00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:12,920 But out of fear, you have this man of faith, Abraham, who is willing to give his wife to 521 00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:18,160 other men to be their wife, and they would just leave him alone. 522 00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:19,760 Can you imagine? 523 00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:21,480 Poor Sarah. 524 00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:24,360 So Abraham, he's not always a man of great faith. 525 00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:27,240 David, yes, he's a sweet psalmist. 526 00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:28,320 He could write like no other. 527 00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:30,040 He's the great king of Israel. 528 00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:34,080 He's a great political leader, and he's an adulterer, and he's a murderer. 529 00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:38,000 He took Bathsheba, that lady we mentioned earlier, in lust. 530 00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:39,000 He saw her bathing. 531 00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:40,440 He liked what he saw. 532 00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:44,400 He goes, he has a one-night stand with her, and he gets her pregnant. 533 00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:46,160 Finds out she's pregnant. 534 00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:48,840 He's trying to cover it up, and he's trying to get Uriah to go home and sleep with his 535 00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:51,440 wife so that Lisa Uriah thinks it's his baby. 536 00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:54,960 Uriah is such a devout soldier, he's like, he didn't even go down to his house. 537 00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:58,160 So David said, I have no choice, kill the man. 538 00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:00,020 Killed him, murdered him. 539 00:32:00,020 --> 00:32:01,020 That's David. 540 00:32:01,020 --> 00:32:04,040 Then you have Judah. 541 00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:06,560 Remember the lion of the tribe of Judah is the Messiah. 542 00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:11,320 The Judah is going to be the tribe that brings in the Messiah, but to make a long story short, 543 00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:16,600 Judah, he thought he was going in to visit a prostitute who had veiled herself. 544 00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:17,600 That's what he thought. 545 00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:19,640 He's going to go in and visit a prostitute. 546 00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:23,460 This lady who was veiled actually turned out to be his daughter-in-law who was tricking 547 00:32:23,460 --> 00:32:26,160 him and Tamar. 548 00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:33,120 And in the process, Judah gets Tamar pregnant, and she has birth, she gets birth to twins, 549 00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:35,520 Perez and Sarah. 550 00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:43,040 Our Lord, the Lord Jesus came through the line of the fruit of this incestuous relationship. 551 00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:46,280 Christ was a descendant of Perez. 552 00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:47,280 What's the message? 553 00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:52,240 Friends, God uses failures and flawed people. 554 00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:54,840 What other people are there? 555 00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:55,840 Go on. 556 00:32:55,840 --> 00:32:56,840 Manasseh. 557 00:32:56,840 --> 00:32:58,280 Manasseh is a king. 558 00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:04,400 And it says, Manasseh seduced them, that is the nation, to do more evil than the nations 559 00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:06,600 whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel. 560 00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:10,680 Manasseh was like making Israel to be more wicked than even the pagan neighbors around 561 00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:11,680 him. 562 00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:14,280 He's the most wicked king in Judah's history. 563 00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:20,360 He sacrificed his own son to the pagan god Molech as a sacrifice. 564 00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:22,740 He led his countrymen into gross idolatry. 565 00:33:22,740 --> 00:33:26,360 He would bow down to sun and stars and moon and worship them. 566 00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:33,520 And if you tried to disagree with this Manasseh, he had you killed. 567 00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:37,140 And we look at this and we're saying, thankfully, that's not the end of the story. 568 00:33:37,140 --> 00:33:39,260 This is how merciful God is. 569 00:33:39,260 --> 00:33:43,240 God judged this man, and he humbled himself. 570 00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:49,080 Therefore, the Lord brought upon them the captains of the army of the king of Assyria, 571 00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:57,560 who took Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze fetters, carried him off to Babylon. 572 00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:01,400 Now when Manasseh, he was in affliction, notice what he did. 573 00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:06,640 He implored the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers and 574 00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:08,080 prayed to him. 575 00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:13,100 And he received his entreaty, God did, heard his supplication, and God brought him back 576 00:34:13,100 --> 00:34:15,200 to Jerusalem into his kingdom. 577 00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:18,840 Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God. 578 00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:19,840 That's mercy. 579 00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:20,840 You're kidding me. 580 00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:25,440 This man is a gross idolater, leads the nation into paganism, sacrificed his own son, killed 581 00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:29,680 righteous people, and he humbles himself and God receives him? 582 00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:30,680 Yeah. 583 00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:35,760 Listen, life in this kingdom is going to be radically different than life in another kingdom. 584 00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:37,880 That's what he's, Matthew's starting to show that. 585 00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:42,160 All these men have flaws, and many of them end up as failures. 586 00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:48,560 So you see this, it's a sorted list, and you wonder how in the world could the Son of God 587 00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:52,160 be born into this wicked line? 588 00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:55,040 Don't lose sight of why Christ came. 589 00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:57,960 Matthew 1, and she will bring forth the Son, and you will call his name Jesus. 590 00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:01,320 Why Jesus, Jehovah saves. 591 00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:05,200 For he will save his people from their sins. 592 00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:07,600 He came for a sinful people. 593 00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:11,160 Paul writes in 1 Timothy, this is a faithful saying, it's worthy of all acceptance. 594 00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:14,880 Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. 595 00:35:14,880 --> 00:35:16,160 That's why he came. 596 00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:19,920 So when we're reading the ancestry of our Lord, it reminds us of the very reason he 597 00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:25,080 came to free us, his sinful people, from the tyranny of sin. 598 00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:29,420 It was our Lord who repeatedly said, I have not come to call the righteous, but rather 599 00:35:29,420 --> 00:35:31,560 sinners to repentance. 600 00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:33,600 That's who I've come for. 601 00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:35,640 So there's faithful men, yeah, but they're flawed. 602 00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:37,440 There's flawed men who end up as failures. 603 00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:39,680 But let's be honest, there's some men that none of us know. 604 00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:43,640 There's forgotten ones, and God uses them. 605 00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:45,600 Look down at verse 14. 606 00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:47,520 I don't think you know them. 607 00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:48,520 You can't. 608 00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:49,520 There's no record of them. 609 00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:53,880 Asor begat Sadok, Sadok begat Akeem, and Akeem begat Eliud. 610 00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:56,200 Do you know any of these men? 611 00:35:56,200 --> 00:35:57,200 No. 612 00:35:57,200 --> 00:35:59,920 We don't have a record of them. 613 00:35:59,920 --> 00:36:01,400 Their deeds, I don't know, were they good or bad? 614 00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:02,400 I don't know. 615 00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:03,800 They're not recorded for us. 616 00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:06,240 But God knows them. 617 00:36:06,240 --> 00:36:11,520 And God used forgotten men like this to be the ancestors in the human line in which his 618 00:36:11,520 --> 00:36:14,400 son would be born. 619 00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:15,880 These aren't celebrities. 620 00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:17,480 These aren't Jewish celebrities. 621 00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:20,800 You don't have a Moses or an Abraham or David or a Solomon. 622 00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:25,880 You have a Akeem, Sadok. 623 00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:33,960 Here you find a record, nondescript, ordinary men, whom our God used to bring his son into 624 00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:34,960 the world. 625 00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:37,920 Are you getting the picture of what Matthew's painting here? 626 00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:40,160 I mean, who's in this family tree? 627 00:36:40,160 --> 00:36:47,040 Yeah, faithful men with their falls, flawed men who became failures, and forgotten men. 628 00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:48,280 But here's the point. 629 00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:49,280 This is the point. 630 00:36:49,280 --> 00:36:52,200 None of them is the hero of the story. 631 00:36:52,200 --> 00:36:59,360 All of them are pointing away from themselves so that the spotlight shines brightly on Christ. 632 00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:00,360 So now what? 633 00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:02,960 What do we do? 634 00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:07,520 One of the favorite and most often used titles that our Lord used for himself was Son of 635 00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:10,280 Man. 636 00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:11,280 Why? 637 00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:14,560 He completely identifies with us in his humanity. 638 00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:15,680 Completely. 639 00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:16,920 Why? 640 00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:24,800 He came born of a woman, so he took on real flesh, he's a real man, so that he might redeem 641 00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:30,880 his sinful, cursed people by bearing the curse for them. 642 00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:35,720 Our Lord Jesus came to save his people from their sin. 643 00:37:35,720 --> 00:37:40,840 The first Adam led the people into sin. 644 00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:47,000 The last Adam came and he will lead his people out of sin. 645 00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:49,200 How do you know if you're one of his people? 646 00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:50,960 That's really, I want to be led by him. 647 00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:52,720 I want out of this tyranny of sin. 648 00:37:52,720 --> 00:37:54,320 How do you know? 649 00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:55,320 John 1-12. 650 00:37:55,320 --> 00:38:02,440 But as many as received him, just received him, to them, those who received him, to them 651 00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:08,640 he gave the right, the authority to become children of God, even to those who believe 652 00:38:08,640 --> 00:38:09,640 in his name. 653 00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:12,360 Isn't that grace? 654 00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:14,280 Isn't that wonderful? 655 00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:17,560 Isn't that what Levi or Matthew experienced? 656 00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:23,000 See his people, friends, are those who see their sin and they see in Jesus, the son of 657 00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:26,680 Abraham, son of David, their rescuer. 658 00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:27,680 That's what it means. 659 00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:33,520 Years ago I read a book by Randy Alcorn and it's called The Grace and Truth Paradox. 660 00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:35,120 It's a great book. 661 00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:38,760 And in it he tells a story about a man named Wesley Allen Dodd. 662 00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:40,880 And I'll close with this. 663 00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:46,240 Wesley Allen Dodd was a man who tortured and murdered three boys in Vancouver, Washington, 664 00:38:46,240 --> 00:38:49,120 15 miles from where Alcorn lived. 665 00:38:49,120 --> 00:38:54,400 Dodd was scheduled to be hanged, it was the first U.S. hanging in three decades, shortly 666 00:38:54,400 --> 00:38:59,360 after midnight, January 4th, 1993. 667 00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:02,920 Randy says, at dinner that evening, both of our daughters, who were 11 and 13 at the 668 00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:09,240 time, prayed earnestly that Dodd would repent and place his faith in Christ Jesus before 669 00:39:09,240 --> 00:39:11,380 he died. 670 00:39:11,380 --> 00:39:16,880 He writes, I agreed with their prayer that only because I knew I should. 671 00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:24,120 He said Dodd's last words were this, quote, I had thought there was no hope and no peace. 672 00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:26,000 I was wrong. 673 00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:30,160 I have found hope and peace in the Lord Jesus Christ. 674 00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:33,400 Gasps and moans erupted from the gallery. 675 00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:35,920 He said the anger was palpable. 676 00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:41,900 How dare someone who has done anything so terrible say that he has found hope and peace 677 00:39:41,900 --> 00:39:44,320 in Jesus? 678 00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:49,760 Did he really think that God would let him into heaven after what he had done? 679 00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:52,320 Shut up and go to hell, you child killer. 680 00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:55,520 You won't get off so easy, you'll see. 681 00:39:55,520 --> 00:40:01,600 The idea that God would offer grace to Dodd was offensive to the people that day. 682 00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:08,800 And yet, didn't Jesus die for Dodd's sins as he did for mine? 683 00:40:08,800 --> 00:40:12,600 No sin is bigger than the Savior. 684 00:40:12,600 --> 00:40:16,840 Grace is literally, he writes, not of this world. 685 00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:23,200 He said I struggled with the idea of God saving Dodd only because, and get this folks, only 686 00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:27,800 because I thought too much of myself and too little of my Lord. 687 00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:33,480 I had imagined that the distance between Dodd and me was the difference between the South 688 00:40:33,480 --> 00:40:34,480 and North Pole. 689 00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:37,080 I was nothing like him. 690 00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:44,560 And yet when you consider God's viewpoint light years away, that distance is negligible. 691 00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:50,080 In my own standing before a holy God apart from Christ, I am Dodd. 692 00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:51,960 He writes, I am Dahmer. 693 00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:53,960 I am Mao. 694 00:40:53,960 --> 00:41:00,480 If God isn't big enough to save Dodd and Dahmer, he's not big enough to save me. 695 00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:04,120 The cost of redemption cannot be overstated. 696 00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:08,320 The wonders of grace cannot be overemphasized. 697 00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:12,760 Christ took the hell he did not deserve. 698 00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:16,600 So you and I can take the heaven we do not deserve. 699 00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:21,520 Friends, this is the King that Matthew is writing about. 700 00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:23,300 This is his story. 701 00:41:23,300 --> 00:41:25,080 This is his gospel. 702 00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:28,060 And we do well to approach it. 703 00:41:28,060 --> 00:41:32,600 As one writer said, to take off our feet, or take off our shoes for we are standing on 704 00:41:32,600 --> 00:41:34,160 holy ground. 705 00:41:34,160 --> 00:41:37,240 My prayer is that you understand who this King is. 706 00:41:37,240 --> 00:41:39,040 He's the Savior of the world. 707 00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:41,600 He's the one who finds fulfillment of all the prophecies. 708 00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:43,880 And he's the one who came to save sinners. 709 00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:47,800 And if you know your sinner friend, the only thing for you to do is you receive him. 710 00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:49,600 You cast yourself upon his mercy. 711 00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:50,960 You run to him. 712 00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:52,680 There's nothing you have to offer. 713 00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:54,800 You find in him your peace. 714 00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:57,720 And everyone who comes that way, Jesus receives. 715 00:41:57,720 --> 00:42:01,640 And he brings them in with authority as children of God. 716 00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:02,640 Let's pray. 717 00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:26,000 Father, thank you.