It is a joy to worship together. And I'm grateful that we are here to be able to worship together, our family. I want to thank. God is faithful. And you are a moving company. And we didn't even pay you. But you outshone the people like the three people that the people who were paid barely sent the night in Thank you And it is a joy to be able to come before the Lord together in prayer. And for those who have mentioned that it might be a little difficult to hear from this microphone, we are working on this. But I hope that my loudness will help mitigate whatever's going on with this. But hopefully, Lord willing, everybody will be able to hear this morning. And I would invite you to join me as we come before the Lord, asking for his blessing on the ministry of the word and his blessing on his church. Let's pray together. Our gracious God and Father, through Jesus Christ your Son and in the power of the Holy Spirit, we are overjoyed to be gathered together as your church this morning. We are grateful to be the people of the new covenant. which was ratified in the blood of Jesus, that we might be renewed, that we might be cleansed, that we might be saved from the condemnation that we so justly deserve for our sins. And it is in the hope of this gospel that we come with great expectation this morning, knowing that you delight to renew us in the proclamation of this gospel week by week, that you delight to renew us in the ministry of your word as your Holy Spirit works among us. We are grateful to be not only the church at Sylvania, but part of the church gathered faithful in Tyler. And to be part of the faithful church in Texas, in the United States, and throughout the world. And as we were so beautifully reminded this morning, we are but one church among the countless churches that make up this global body of Christ. And it is such a joy to be able to be used by you to help encourage, minister to, and uplift your persecuted believers throughout the world. We think of the great privileges that we enjoy in this nation, and especially in this state, as we worship you. And as we gather this morning, we do not do so under the fear that we will be shut down or arrested. And yet we know that so many of our brothers and sisters throughout this world do gather under the shadow of that threat. And we pray that you would lift them up, that you would protect and guard them from the eyes and schemes of the evil one and those who would seek to do them harm. And that you would bring your people who are under the bonds of persecution out of prison and into safety, that you would give them strength day by day and renew their hope. Lord, we pray that you would use their labors and efforts, that that great commission that you have been advancing ever since it was given, that that would be brought to completion. And that those nations which today are the great enemies of Christ would be brought into subservient worship and joy in Jesus. You are able and you will surely do it. As we open your word together this morning, We pray that our hearts would be ready and our minds would be sharp, and that your spirit would be working mightily among us. Grant that the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart would be faithful in your sight, O Lord. You are our rock and our redeemer, and it's in the great name of Jesus that we pray, amen. If you would please stand with me and hold your copy of the word of God. We're gonna open to a few places this morning to set the stage for what we're going to see in Matthew 1, and all of these will be in Genesis. And so if you'd please start by going to Genesis 12. We'll be reading the first three verses, Genesis 12. Now the Lord had said to Abram, get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And then if you would turn a few pages to Genesis 15. Verses 1 through 21. After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward. But Abram said, Lord God, what will you give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus? Then Abram said, Look, you have given me no offspring. Indeed, One born in my house is to be my heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, this one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir. Then he brought him outside and said, look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them. And he said to him, so shall your descendants be. And he believed in the Lord, and he accounted it to him for righteousness. Then he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to inherit it. And he said, Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it? And he said to him, bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. Then he brought all these to him and cut them in two down the middle and placed each piece opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds in two. And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. Then he said to Abram, know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them 400 years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge. Afterward, they shall come out with great possessions. Now, as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried at a good old age, and in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that, behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. On the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, to your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites. And finally, if you would turn to Genesis 49, we will read just a few verses. Verses 1 through 2, and Jacob called his sons and said, gather together that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days. Gather together and hear you sons of Jacob, and listen to Israel your father. And then verses 8 through 12, and we'll end here. Judah. You are he whom your brothers shall praise. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's children shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion's whelp from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down, he lies down as a lion, and as a lion, who shall rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes. And to him shall be the obedience of the people, binding his donkey to the vine and his colt's donkey to the choice vine. He washed his garments in wine and his clothes in the blood of grapes. His eyes are darker than wine and his teeth whiter than milk. And I would say this is the word of the Lord to which I would ask you to reply, thanks be to God. This is the word of the, yes. Let's do that. And you may be seated. All right. As Christians, we believe that the Bible is one great story. The Bible is one book in 66 books that together make up the Word of God, which is inspired in every part and united in its message, which is saying something, right? Try to get 66 books to say one thing, that's pretty good, and God pulls it off. But it's a big book, isn't it? Especially if you've got a study Bible, it's big and it can be pretty daunting to think that this huge volume makes up the faith that we confess. Many Christians, loving the Lord, yet have never read every word that he has written. And yet, I don't know any Christian who would say that any part of it is unimportant. Or who would say that this or that part of it really is not worth searching out, right? We treasure the Bible, and rightly so, it is the word of God. And so as a person of the Bible, as a follower of Jesus, what would you feel or think if somebody asked you to summarize the whole thing in just a few minutes? One, would you be able to do it? And two, would you feel very comfortable? I mean, that's a daunting task, right? Summarize 66 books in a few minutes. I mean, how do you keep that straight? Is there a way to boil that much writing down into helpful books, or into helpful hooks, rather, that we can hang our faith on? I think there is. I think there is, and thankfully, The beginning of Matthew ropes in the whole Bible story in order to tell the story of Jesus, who is the point of all 66 of those books. And so if you would open with me to Matthew 1. This morning, we're gonna be considering the very beginning of Matthew's gospel, verses 1 through 6. And even though this is genealogy, I think we need to understand and we will be able to understand how the story of the whole Bible demands that Matthew starts where he does. And so our text this morning is the second half of verse 1 through the first half of verse 6. And so beginning in verse 1, Matthew writes, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, Abraham begot Isaac. Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers. Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar. Perez begot Hezron, and Hezron begot Ram. Ram begot Aminadab. Aminadab begot Nashun, and Nashun begot Salmon. Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab. Boaz begot Obed by Ruth. Obed begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David the King. It's time for a new generation of baby names to circle back. We've got the kids, right? Let's get something going. If we're going to understand the gospel of Matthew, we need to understand everything that's come before. I know, it's a tall order. It's a tall order. But thankfully, there's a key to doing that. A key designed and locksmithed by God himself. A key that unlocks the whole book and shows us the main point, which is Christ. And that key is covenant. It's covenant. So to start Matthew well, I want to start by looking at the covenants and Christ. And to do that, we need to understand the Bible covenantally. We need to understand the Bible covenantally. So to understand the Bible through the lens of covenant, we need to first know what a covenant is. It's a word we use, especially in the church, but oftentimes we take it for granted. And I wouldn't blame any of the kids growing up here if they couldn't answer the question, what is a covenant? And thankfully, the most helpful and concise definition of a covenant is found in what's called the children's catechism. It's an old summary or an introduction of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, which was written for very young children. And in question 22 of that catechism for young children, it's asked, what is a covenant? To which the answer is, it's an agreement between two or more persons. A covenant is an agreement between two or more persons. And so we see in marriage, two people, a man and a woman, join together in covenant before God and witnesses. And they make an agreement to be faithful, to give themselves for one another, and Lord willing, to glorify God. Now, when we're talking about the biblical covenants, we're talking about something very specific. It's very specific agreements that have certain things in common, okay? The biblical covenants, first, are initiated by God. Second, they're given to specific people. Third, they're establishing the nature of the relationship between those people and God. Fourth, God makes promises in the covenants. And then he gives blessings if the people would obey in the covenant. And then he gives sanctions for disobedience. Those are the main features of the biblical covenants. They're initiated by God to certain people, promises are made, blessings are given for obedience, sanctions are given for disobedience. And we see in these things the relationship, the nature of the relationship between God and these people. And the storyline of the Bible unfolds along the contours of God's covenants. And that's central to Matthew's presentation of who Jesus is as the Christ. In my first sermon on Matthew a month ago, I said that Matthew's main aim is to present Jesus as the promised Messiah. And Matthew draws deeply on the biblical covenants. from the very first verse to show his largely Jewish readers that this is the guy. This is the culmination of all their hopes. This is the one they've been looking for. Sometimes I would take walks in my neighborhood back in Washington, and there was sometimes in the spring or in the summer, one garage that was open, and I would always chuckle when I would see inside, there was a neon sign at the back of the garage that said, this is the sign you're looking for. And beginning in verse one, Matthew shows of Jesus, this is the one you're looking for. And the reason that for Matthew's readers, his message is in neon, as it were, is because they know their covenants. When we understand the Bible covenantally, we understand that the Bible is one continuous story whose main character is God and whose main point is Christ and how he glorifies the Father in the redemption of sinners. And as God gave his word over time, he furthered the revelation of himself bit by bit as those covenants progress, culminating in Jesus. And so one of the most helpful things we can do in understanding the overarching story of scripture, and the story that Matthew tells in particular, is to understand the flow of those covenants. Because those are the hooks on which you can hang your faith and keep the details of a very large story straight in your mind. And so I think that the labor we do with these covenants this morning is going to be helpful for us for the rest of our lives. And we'll be able to understand why Matthew begins his gospel with a genealogy, which is way more than a list of names. And by the way, this genealogy doesn't require you to submit your DNA to any company that is probably feeding into the government. I'm just kidding. I'm mostly kidding. So let's go on a short and high-level flyby of the covenants of scripture, okay? And that'll put us in a good place to understand the sections of Matthew's genealogy, the first section of which we will consider at the end of this morning. The first covenant that we see, the covenant that precedes all others, in fact, the covenant without which none of the others make sense. It's what's oftentimes called by theologians the Covenant of Redemption. The Covenant of Redemption. The Covenant of Redemption is the eternal commitment of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit with each other to save the people that Jesus came to save. We, my friends, are in view in the Covenant of Redemption. Now Paul begins his letter to Titus by referring to this eternal covenant of redemption. He says, Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledgement of the truth, which accords with godliness in the hope of eternal life. Here we go, right? The hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began. but has in due time manifested in his word through preaching. So God promised eternal life for his chosen people before time began, which raises the question, who made the promise and to whom was the promise given? Well, it was a promise made before time began, which greatly narrows our pool of candidates. Because the only eternal being who existed before creation is God himself. The one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so scripture teaches that the father commissioned the son to be the savior, the prophet, the priest, and the king of his people in the power of the spirit. And that he would forever receive glory and honor and exaltation in the redemption of sinners. Which, once time began, that's the story that comes to pass. A true story, and thanks be to God, because that means that our time this morning means something. This is the covenant that gives rise to all the covenants, beginning with the first covenant in time, which is called oftentimes the covenant of creation, the covenant of creation. Now, while the Bible doesn't specifically use the word covenant in the first few pages of Genesis, the elements of the covenant are very evident at creation. And so God commissions Adam as the representative head of humanity to keep God's command perfectly, to steward God's creation in righteousness, and to then spread God's glory throughout creation as he does that work. Which is why Adam, as the representative of mankind, that's why Paul says in Romans, in Adam all die, but in Christ all are made alive, because Adam is the representative head of that covenant. Now this set of promises that God gives, when he promises Adam life for obedience, when he sanctions him with death if he disobeys. The stipulations of this covenant that define man's relationship to God as his worshippers is most commonly referred to as, sometimes you'll hear it as the covenant of works. It's that covenant that's given at creation. But now, in case we, as Bible-believing, gospel-centered Christians, sometimes we're allergic to that word works. It's like, what are you talking about works? Especially on your first Sunday after we just ordained you. Works. Time for a stand-up elder meeting. No, friends, it's not as though Adam could earn eternal life by his works. He could not. But rather, God's gracious promise of life required obedience by God's design. But Adam broke the covenant. And so in Hosea 6, 7, and I'll read this from the ESV, God charges Israel with being faithless to him, and he looks back to Adam to make the charge. He says, like Adam, they transgressed the covenant. There, they dealt faithlessly with me. Adam broke the covenant of works. And as our representative, we're included in that covenant still as condemned sinners, which is a problem for people who don't like to be condemned, including me. But thankfully, there's more covenants. And those covenants progressively answer our problem, culminating in Jesus. And so as the story continues, we see that the effects of sin are very grave. Things get so bad so quickly that in Genesis 6, God regrets that he made mankind and decides, I'm going to wipe them out. Except for one family and the animals, representatives of the animals, who are preserved through an ark. One ark of salvation through the waters of judgment, which is a type of Jesus who is the one ark of safety for our salvation through the waters of God's judgment. And we know about this arc and how God saved the life of the human race. And after God hits reset on the human race through Noah, he makes a covenant with Noah, promising that he would never again wipe out humanity by a flood. And so in Genesis 9, we see this covenant come into view and he says, thus I will establish my covenant with you. Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood. Never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. And so with the Noahic covenant, God promises a stable world, more or less. And we live in unstable times, but that's not what he's talking about. He promises a stable world, a firm stage on which the drama of redemption would play out. And the next covenant that plays out on that stage is the Abrahamic covenant. The Abrahamic covenant was a lion's share of our scripture reading this morning. And beginning with Genesis 12, and adding on different layers to it in later chapters, God makes a covenant with Abraham that creates a people, a chosen people, Israel, who would be the people of the Messiah. The promise made in Genesis 3 requires the promise made to Abraham specifically because through his line would come the Messiah. And we're going to look at this a little more in depth in just a moment as we get into Matthew's genealogy. So I'll leave it there and then simply go into the next covenant, which is the Mosaic covenant. And so if the Abrahamic covenant establishes a people, Israel, then the Mosaic covenant governs that people as they enter into the land that their promise in the Abrahamic covenant. And so beginning with the Ten Commandments and then widening to include the 600 plus laws that we find through the end of Deuteronomy, the Mosaic covenant is central to Israel's life as God's chosen people. And everything that happens from Exodus 20 all through the rest of the Old Testament hinges on that covenant. The prophets, as sometimes crazy as things get there, What they're doing is they're looking back to the Mosaic Covenant and calling Israel back into faithful covenant with God based on that. And in that covenant, they're promised blessing for obedience and cursing and exile for disobedience. And then they fail time and time and time again, ultimately leading to exile. And so the Old Testament scriptures, the Jewish scriptures, end with a disastrous exile and a very anticlimactic return. And yet there's hope. Because right in the middle of that story, another covenant is made, this time with David. And in the Davidic covenant, Made by God in 2 Samuel 7, God promises David that one of his descendants would sit on his throne forever, that his reign would be glorious, which is precisely what Matthew aims to show Jesus has come to be and do. So we have to understand this in order to get what Matthew's doing. And we're going to look at that covenant in depth next week. But just know that Matthew's genealogy takes the Abrahamic covenant and the Davidic covenant together, and he sets the stage for the gospel of Jesus that he tells. And he traces Jesus' rule, his right to the throne from Abraham through David to Joseph, Jesus' adopted father, because the legal right to rule had to come through dad. And so both by natural descent in Luke's genealogy and by legal right in Matthew's genealogy, Jesus is the son of David who would rule on his throne forever, which leads to the final covenant in the Bible, the one that all the others lead to, the one that is the crowning glory of all these covenants, without which these covenants fall flat, and that is the new covenant, the new covenant. Oftentimes, specifically in Reformed Baptist theology, known as the covenant of grace. So if the covenant of works with Adam was broken, the covenant of grace in Jesus is the new covenant. It was the promise in seed form in Genesis 3 when God said that the woman's seed would crush the head of the serpent. Its expectation crescendos throughout the rest of scripture as new covenants are given, making it more and more expected. And then finally, Jeremiah and Ezekiel promised that one day this final covenant, the new covenant, would take the place of the old covenant and be the governing covenant over God's people forever. Which is why we, friends, are the people of the new covenant. Now what exactly goes into this covenant? Well, according to Jeremiah 31, it says, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke. Though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. Now get this, this is really good. I will put my law in their hearts. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they shall be my people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me. From the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more. Friends, this is why as Christians we do not linger with our sins. It's not that we don't take sin seriously, it's that we don't get bogged down there. Why? Because in the new covenant, God has made an end of all our sins, and he says, I will remember them no more. What business do we have remembering what God does not? And what business do we have reminding one another of what God is not accusing of? Friends, the new covenant is a gracious covenant. It is a covenant that brings salvation. It is what Jesus inaugurated in his blood, which is why when we come to this table, it is the covenant that we declare. Jesus said, this is the blood of the new covenant. And so Jesus came as the fulfillment of all the covenants. And in his perfect life and atoning death, he ratified the new covenant and all God's chosen people now have a personal relationship with him in everlasting life by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ alone. So Matthew tells the story. Picking up with the New Covenant, of how the New Covenant is established in Jesus. That's what he's doing. He brings these other covenants into view to then tell the story of how the New Covenant is established. And so Matthew looks back, especially beginning with the covenant to Abraham. So we're in Matthew 1, okay? We're in Matthew 1, and we'll see how the covenant with Abraham is in focus in this first section of Matthew's genealogy of Jesus, which we just read. Tracing Jesus' right to the throne from Abraham to David. Now, remember, what is Matthew's main theme? Well, his main theme is that Jesus is the Messiah and King. The promise of Abraham, the son of David, the hope of Israel, the savior of the world. And all of this is in fulfillment of the covenantal promises of God. And Matthew begins in these verses by showing that Jesus is the God-man whose royal lineage traces back to Israel's founding father, Abraham. Because if that weren't the case, Jesus could not be accepted as the king of Israel. And in our scripture reading this morning, we saw that there are three overarching elements to the covenant with Abraham, which is the backdrop of this section of 14 generations of Jesus's genealogy. Three elements to the Abrahamic covenant, all of which, all of which Jesus fulfills. The first element being land, the first element being land. The Lord says in Genesis 12, get out of your country and from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you. And a few verses later, he says, to your descendants, I will give this land. I'll admit, this came to my mind, albeit I'm not heisting the scriptures and misapplying them, when we got into Texas. This last week, we've made it to the land. Because there's something special about Texas, right? It's like that's the state to be in. Well, friends, Israel would be given a land by God in which they would be called to serve, worship, and testify of him. And it was to be the most blessed of all the lands, because this is the land in which God would put his special presence. And Israel, if they were living according to the rules and regulations of the Mosaic covenant, would be blessed in that land in more ways than they could possibly imagine. And they would be a testimony to the world that this God, Yahweh, he is good. He is a God unlike any other. The promised land would serve, though, not as the final installment, but as a type, as a type that pointed forward to the time when Jesus, Israel's king, would come, and then his kingdom would spread throughout the whole world, not just a strip of land in Palestine, which is what Paul comes right out and says in Romans 4.13. He says, for the promise, and he's speaking of Abraham, that he would be the heir of the world, The heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. And so the promise of land in the Abrahamic covenant was a gospel promise that would ultimately be fulfilled in Jesus, who gathers to himself his chosen ones from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation. And as he comes, his kingdom spreads, ultimately to fill the earth from one end to the other. And it is a perfect kingdom that is promised. So that is what the land in the Abrahamic covenant ultimately demands and ultimately points to. Which leads to the second element of the promise, which is offspring, which is offspring. The Lord continues in Genesis 12 and he says to Abram, I will make you a great nation. And later, in Genesis 15, the Lord says that Abraham's descendants would be more numerous than the stars. And if you've ever been out backpacking and looking up, you know that that is quite a promise, especially to a guy whose ability to even father children was seriously in question. Which is kind of the point, right? Because this is from God. We know that God brought this promise to pass in giving Isaac and then Jacob and then Jacob's 12 sons who would multiply with their families and then fill out this great nation of Israel. But all of that was not an end in itself. It was to prepare the way for Jesus, who is the ultimate offspring promised in the Abrahamic covenant. In other words, the thing that Israel lost sight of is that Israel was never the point. Jesus is the point. Israel was always about Jesus, the true Israelite who would come. And so Paul hones in on the Abrahamic covenant in Galatians 3, and he says in verse 16, now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. And we're just like, yeah, we know. We've read the story. He goes, listen, he does not say, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to your seed, who is Christ." In other words, grammar matters. And the way that God wrote his inerrant word, the grammar at this point is, there's one, and it's Jesus. And because of that one, we all who are in Christ are sons of Abraham. Through the seed comes the seed. Through the seed comes the blessing. God promised Abraham the offspring who would save the world, and Matthew begins Jesus' genealogy with Abraham to prove the point that Jesus is that promised offspring. And the third element of that covenant shows what would happen as a result of Christ coming from Abraham's line, which is blessing. Blessing for the world. And so the Lord says to Abraham, in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. That's technically called a very wide scope, this very wide scope. What greater blessing could come to the families of the earth but that Abraham's promised heir would die for the sins of the people that Jesus came to save and bring them into covenant relationship with God as co-heirs of the world? I would say that if you have a menu of blessings, always order that option. Always order that option because it doesn't get any better than that. And the price is free to us. Cost everything for him. And that's the good news that Matthew aims to tell in his story. Matthew, a master scribe and storyteller, begins with Abraham to bring into focus for his largely Jewish readers that Jesus is the sign they've been looking for. And this really is the big idea of Matthew 1, verses 2 through 6. This is it. The big idea of this section of Matthew's genealogy is that Jesus, the promised seed of Abraham, is the hope of sinners and God's blessing for the world. Jesus, the seed of Abraham, is the hope of sinners and God's blessing to the world. And so we have here in these verses, verses 2 through 6, this covenant line that runs from Abraham down to David in 14 generations. I'm not going to get into gaps. I'm not going to deal with that right now. We'll talk about that in a couple of weeks when we finish out the genealogy. But the Abrahamic covenant is the backdrop that we needed to understand in order to get these verses. and to see why this particular set of names is so significant. And so let's take a moment to consider the people of the covenant line from Abraham to David. Let's look at its people. Now, in my haste, it was kind of a full week, and in my haste to get Brentney the outline for printing, I made the embarrassing grammatical error of putting an apostrophe where it doesn't belong in the word it's on the final two points of your bulletin outline. And I know that more than one person has sat there and already judged me for it. So, I am verbally correcting the error before an email, so don't send the email. All right, all right. Now, the covenant of people that Matthew focuses on, okay? We need to not get caught up in the trap of genealogical research, okay? I mean, we could do that, but again, it would be a trap because it's not the point. It's not the point. Matthew's making a point, okay? And the point is Jesus. Now, as a tax collector who's well-educated, whose line of work hinged on good genealogical records so that you know who to tax, Matthew's genealogical research is flawless. And by the way, it's inspired and inerrant, because God did it. And it's instructive, it is, it's instructive for us, as we're gonna see here in a moment. And in this first set of 14 generations that Matthew traces from Abraham to David, we have, just in summary, Abraham, whose significance we've already seen. Isaac, as the promised son, whose miraculous birth, really, it's miraculous, is a type of Jesus in his miraculous birth. Jacob, the second born son of Isaac, who wasn't supposed to inherit, who's surprisingly chosen by God as the one through whom the covenant line would continue, because God is the God of surprises. Matthew focuses then on Judah in particular, because in Genesis 49, which we read earlier, Judah is the tribe that would be given the scepter. It had to be from Judah's tribe that the king would come, which is why David comes from Judah, and Jesus must as well. But Judah's no Boy Scout, okay? And the next descendant in Jesus' line is Perez, one of the twin sons of Judah's incestuous liaison with his daughter-in-law, Tamar, Ik. There's an aspect to certain scriptures that is called the Ik factor, and you're just like, ew. And that's there, right there in the genealogy with Tamar, who not only was his daughter-in-law, but was also probably a Canaanite. And by the way, Israel and Canaanites, they don't party together. Now, the line is traced next through Hezron, Ram, and Amminadab, a set of three epic names. And Amminadab, we know from scripture, is Aaron the priest's father-in-law during the time of the Exodus, whose son, Nashon, is the leader of Judah when Israel's going through their wilderness wanderings. And from there, we get into the territory of the Book of Ruth, which I don't even need to talk about because Pastor Jaron so beautifully preached that book over the course of two weeks, a few weeks back. Now we need to note something really cool that Matthew does here from the last part of verse three from Perez all the way through David. He quotes the last five verses of the Book of Ruth almost word for word. Which raises the question in my mind, and probably in yours, what's going on at the end of Ruth that Matthew is trying to connect for us with the coming of Jesus? Well, Ruth bridges the lawless time of the judges with the coming of the Davidic kingdom, the peak of Israel's history, and ultimately with the Davidic covenant. So Jesus is the centerpiece of that covenant, and Matthew makes that connection for us, as we'll especially consider next week. But every name on this list is intentional by Matthew, because he's making the larger point that we've already seen. Jesus is Abraham's promise and David's greater son. Now, let's finish by looking briefly at the lessons that we see here in these names. The fact of what Matthew includes for us. The fact of who's involved in the rest of the genealogy, from Boaz's mother Rahab, Obed's mother Ruth, the grandmother of King David, all of this contains lessons for us that I'd like to leave us with. Now, remember the point of verses three through six is that Jesus is the fulfillment of the covenant with Abraham, like God promised. But embedded in that main point are some pretty cool things for us to meditate on. Now, as with so many parts of scripture, there is way more that we could meditate on than we actually have time for, okay? But I'm gonna pick two things that I especially wanna draw your attention to. The first is that because Jesus is the promised seed of Abraham, we, who trust in him by faith, we actually can come to God. with the tenderness and affection of a child to a father, a good father, not with the fear of a slave to an overlord. That's here in the Abrahamic covenant. And that's exactly the point that Paul is making to us in Galatians 3 and 4. He says, if you are Christ's, if your faith and hope is in Jesus alone, not in your works, If you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, Father. And therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. One of the greatest traps in the Christian life is to divide God. And this is so common, it's almost like default factory settings. We think of God the Father in the Old Testament as somehow an angry judge whose wrath on us is barely restrained by the loving Jesus who comes and takes our place. But we have to keep the covenants in view. In the covenant of redemption, the father sent the son in the power of the spirit because God cannot be divided. The love that God has for you is the love of a father. And some of you need to hear that. And all of us need to remember it. And because the covenant of Abraham was made, and because Jesus came and fulfilled that covenant, we who trust in Jesus are sons of God. And for you women, don't get caught up on the word sons. That's actually like a very loaded legal theological reality, and you want to be one. Okay? We are heirs with Christ because Jesus is the promised son of Abraham, just like Matthew says. And then finally, marvel at the fact that God sovereignly appointed three Gentile women, two of whom were sexually shady, to be the far-off grandmothers of Jesus. To be the far-off grandmothers of Jesus. So we have the Canaanite Tamar who seduced her father-in-law, Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute, and Ruth was a Moabite. Her integrity is not in question, but as a Moabite, her people were forbidden from entering the presence of the Lord. And so these women, outcasts and sinners as they were, looked to God by faith and are proof positive that God loves sinners and sent his son to gather them you and me included, from all nations, from all nations. Friends, James goes so far in chapter two of his letter as to hold up next to Abraham, Rahab, as a heroine of biblical faith to show how trusting in Jesus leads to a changed life. Not only does blessing through Jesus come to the whole world, but God is blessing the whole world through us, his people, as we live by obedient faith. And Rahab is one of the chief examples of that. The most unlikely suspects, who don't belong in the royal genealogy from a human perspective, are highlighted by Matthew to show that even we have a place at the table. And not just, you know, round two of the buffet. Frontline place. Because Jesus doesn't play favorites. He didn't come from the favorites. He came from exactly who God ordained that he would. And thanks be to God, it is filled with truth for us. And the backdrop to all of it are the covenants. And so aren't you glad that in the covenant of redemption, the Father sent the Son and the Spirit to save you and to save me? I'm glad. The royal human ancestry of the Son of God is filled with people who shouldn't be there. And so these three sermons on the genealogies are all of them called a lineage of grace, because that is exactly what's going on. God's grace from beginning to end. In keeping his covenant with Abraham, God is showing that no matter how far we have wandered from God's holy standard, there is a Savior who was given to us to bring us back. And we are his vessels to go and bring back others, especially the most unlikely candidates. Because that magnifies the grace of God like nothing else. Jesus is the promised seed of Abraham, the hope of sinners, and God's blessing to the world. So don't, don't wallow in your sins. Don't wallow in your sins. Don't meditate on your failures. Don't neglect your relationship with God in lazy apathy. Be renewed in the joy of what this is. Strive for holiness. Get up from your fall. Go to Jesus and rejoice. We can both mourn sin and rejoice in Jesus because Jesus came so that we wouldn't stay down. Abraham's offspring has come for us. All that from a genealogy. Let's pray. Oh, Lord God, we marvel at your purposes in your plans, purposes that are from eternity and will echo through all eternity, that have played out perfectly in time, even in those times when things looked the most bleak and dark, the most defeated, the most hopeless. But because you are the covenant keeping God of grace, no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Thank you for the story that you have written in scripture for us. Thank you for the covenants that you've ordained and brought to pass. Thank you for bringing us into covenant with you through Jesus in the blood of the new covenant. May we marvel at these things. May we be changed by these things. May we be spurred on to deeper intimacy and love with you, special grace with one another because you are so gracious with us. And may your glory be magnified in all of this as you build your church through Jesus Christ, amen.