Please remain standing. We have one additional passage from the book of Genesis this morning, found in chapter 3, verse 14. So the Lord said to the serpent, because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field. And on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman. and between your seed and her seed. And he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we have heard this morning the Word of the Lord. We ask, Lord, that You might endue us with Your Holy Spirit this morning to rightly divide and to rightly hear Your Word. And most importantly, Lord, that we might rightly apply the truths of your word to our lives. We ask and pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. As we continue our series of sermons on the Gospel of Luke, with this week we sort of begin to transition from Luke's prologue, where we've been for several weeks, his prologue to his orderly account, as he told Theophilus, the orderly account of what had happened in the life of Jesus. And we will move into the actual ministry of Christ. through the next five or six chapters before Jesus begins His journey to Jerusalem. Next week, we're going to see Satan attack both John and Jesus, as we've seen them in this prologue. And we're going to see him doing everything that he can, as he does again at the end of Jesus' ministry, to disrupt the plan of God. But this week, we come to the genealogy given to us at the end of chapter 3 and read wonderfully this morning by Mike. It is something that I hope would raise in our minds the simple question again. Why does Luke include all of those names? Now there's another important and a little bit more complicated question that we can ask, and that's why is Luke's genealogy, for those that have read the Gospels, different, quite different in some parts, from that given by Matthew in his Gospel. Hopefully today, as we have in weeks past, we're going to see, as we study this passage, Jesus presented as the Son of God and as the Son of Man. Jesus, who came to save His people from their sins, as the angels proclaim. We will, Lord willing, see that His ministry is grounded in history and very relevant to our lives. In these genealogies, we see Jesus again identified with His people in His humanity. We saw this as we studied His circumcision. We saw it last week as we studied His baptism. And Luke again reminds us of the humanity of Christ. Christ is the Son of Man with this genealogy. But I hope we will also see that it shows God's faithfulness again, and really a fulfillment of the same promises that we looked at last week as we studied baptism, that Peter gave the convicted saints after the sermon there at Pentecost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. So, as we begin to unravel all of that, let me begin and deal briefly with the differences in the genealogies, because that's almost always what comes up when people discuss the genealogies. If you're familiar with the two genealogies, and I didn't make Mike read both of them, I would have really had him studying all week if I had done that. But the genealogy in Matthew moves forward. He starts with Abraham, and Abraham is the father of Isaac, and right down the line until you come to Jacob as the father of Joseph. Luke moves backwards and goes all the way past Abraham and back to Adam, saying that so-and-so is the son of so-and-so who is the son of so-and-so. Luke gives all of the details. It is probably the most comprehensive genealogy that is given in all of the Scriptures. Matthew is a summary. of the genealogies. It is divided into three groups of fourteen, which was probably good for memorization, and it was a good witness to the nation of Israel that God had been faithful down through the ministries of Abraham and David and the Restoration. Matthew traces the line through King Solomon. Again, where the promises had been made to the nation of Israel. Luke traces the line through David's son, Nathan. and appears to show us more of the humanity and the lineage of humanity down through Christ. Matthew, in other words, is a kingly line. Luke's is a human line. One is the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham that he would have as his descendants people that would reach out to all of the nations. The other is the fulfillment of the promise we read this morning to Adam. going all the way back to the early days or years of creation. But what we need to understand with all of these distinctions is that in both accounts, what is clearly being communicated by the Gospel writers is that God is faithful down through the ages. It is God who keeps His promises. It is God who is faithful. But now, we can't move on really without dealing at least tangentially this morning with some of the discrepancies, because if you talk to people outside of the church, they probably will have read or have people read to them the attacks that are made on God's Word. And it will always be these kinds of lists or details that they will focus on. The first thing, as we've talked about often when we went through the books of Ezra and Nehemiah and dealt with some of these subjects, is that we need to recognize and believe that God has providentially protected His Word down through the ages. And even if we don't fully understand something at a particular moment in time, God does. And He is the one that is proclaiming and revealing His truth to us. Let me give you an example right out of this genealogy. We have two fathers for Joseph. Matthew says that Jacob was Joseph's father. Luke says that Heli was Luke's father. So who was Luke's father? And the skeptics would point to that. Well, there's not one, but several explanations for that. Some other explanations have been posited that just don't make any sense. You know, everybody in Luke's list had two names. You know, and the different gospel writers picked different ones. Now, that is plausible sometimes, because Hebrews often did go by two different names. But it's not really plausible that Luke would have picked a different name for the whole list. But what is plausible is that Luke is, because he begins his genealogy by saying, as was supposed the father of Jacob, he could be pointing, as I think he did, to the human lineage of Christ coming down through his mother, Mary. It's also possible that Eli was the stepfather of Jesus, that Mary remarried, I'm sorry, that Joseph's mother remarried. and that he had two fathers. And it's also possible that Eli is simply Joseph's mother's father. Again, tracing a different human line that comes down through Nathan and showing that all of the details fit together when we get to Jesus. Now, we can spend an awful lot of time talking about all of those different options, but at the end of the day, much like the question we addressed last week about how much water should we use in baptism, We are simply not told. Luke gives us what was read this morning, and we have to decide for now what we think is the most plausible, and we will know in heaven For sure, how Luke put together his genealogy. But you see, it's not that kind of broad discussion, because the unbeliever doesn't want to hear that kind of stuff, because that would actually make them think about what's in the Bible. It will usually be just the minor details that will be the focus of the attacks that come from the Bible. And we need to listen carefully to the attacks that are made against the Scriptures, because as the old saying goes, we have to make sure that they don't try to have their cake and eat it at the same time. Because you see, what they will do is they'll take something like this, or one of the names that Luke adds to a genealogy that we may not find in the Old Testament, and they'll say, look at that! You want to stake your life on that book? It's full of mistakes! Look at that! But you see, the other thing that they'll turn right around, if you tell them that you came to church, oh, you can't trust those people. They have secret societies and clubs and the Catholics and all the other church fathers, they just rewrote the Bible and they made up most of that stuff. It's just a man-made book. Can both of those things be true? You see, if the Bible is a man-made book. If it's just like every other book that you can go down and buy at the bookstore, then they're absolutely right. It would have major problems. I mean, think about it. It's tough to get two authors today to write two different books on a single major issue and get them to be in agreement. That's a real chore. It's a real challenge to find anything like that in the Bible. And yet, the book that God says is His revelation to us was authored by some 40 different people writing 66 different books over 1600 years dealing with all of the major issues of life. And in 2,000 years, there's not been a skeptic that's been able to point to the Scriptures and say, here's where the Bible disagrees with itself on many of those major issues. That is the biggest evidence that we have that the canon is before us and that God providentially protects His Word. But, the other thing to remember is that if it is a man-made book, if priests sat around and just made things up or changed things as they pleased, because they were in control of the Word of God, they would have fixed the simple mistakes. They would have had an explanation as to why we have two fathers for Joseph, or they would have changed one of the names to the other. Those are simple fixes, if I'm the one that's making the next copy. Where we have numbers that might look like they're different, or events that look like they're different. How simple to change those, and yet, in thousands of years, they have not been changed. And faithful people of God will not change them, because this is God's revelation to us. And as I said, we can see plausible explanations now, and we will know for certain when we're in heaven. So, that still leaves us with the question of what do we do with Luke's genealogy? Why, when we're doing our morning devotions or as we're coming along with the Scripture readings for a series of sermons, do we run into this passage that has not one, not ten, not two dozen, but seventy-five different names? So-and-so, the son of so-and-so, the son of so-and-so. And Luke doesn't even give us any little side rabbit trails or details. It's just one name right after the other. You see, what Luke is doing is he wants us to make sure that we continue to see, and as we've seen in the chart that I've got again in the bulletin this morning, or the order of worship, Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is the eternal Son of God, but Jesus is also the Son of Man. He has come as the Incarnate One to save His people from their sins. That's why I believe Luke begins his genealogy as was supposed the Son of Joseph. That is an affirmation of the virgin birth that had been given in the Gospel accounts. It goes all the way back to Adam where he reminds us again, all of humanity is dependent. on the fatherhood of God, referring to Adam as the Son of God. We are human sons of God, obedient to the Son of God, is the picture that we see over and over again. The other thing that the genealogy does is tie into what Luke has in his passages here in the prologue of grounding this in real history. These are real people who bore real people and raised them in real families. And just if you look at the chart, there are two time stamps where Luke gives, again, incredible detail. Why did he go through Tiberius and all the tetrarchs and all of the details? as He shows where we're at in history, because He wants us to know that we are in history, as He gives the orderly account. Jesus is identified with His people. He came at a particular time in history, and He came from a line of people that were prominent in this genealogy. It is a reminder of all the genealogies that we find in the Old Testament, how God keeps track of things. Seventy-five people going from Jesus all the way back to Adam. And again, we read this morning, the first promise given to us in Scripture of the Gospel. The seed of the woman coming to crush the head of Satan. Given just after the fall of man. And we should think of it in the same way that we thought of the promise that Peter proclaimed, only thinking about it from Adam's standpoint. What God is saying is, for you, Adam, for you, Adam, a Savior will come. For your seed, Adam, for your seed, 75 generations later, a Savior will come. For those afar off, a Savior will come. That part of the promise is actually made clear in Matthew's account. Because we're told there, that in the midst of this wonderful genealogy, in the midst of the wonderful history that takes us from Adam to Christ, it is not just the direct lineage, but it is often people from afar off. We see Rahab, and we see Ruth. Pagan Gentiles, not only given grace and brought into the community of God's people, but put into the very lineage of Christ Himself. The prostitute who had faith shows up not only in the hall of faith, but here in the genealogy of Christ Himself. That's how faithful God is in fulfilling His promises. So what does it mean for us today? How is this relevant to our lives? All of these names that have been read. What it means is that we have a real Savior. We have a real Savior and we can claim God's promise just as Adam did, just as Peter did, just as saints have done down through history. And as we claim that promise, we can know that Jesus, the Son of God, is a powerful Savior. Listen to John relating the words of Jesus in the 10th chapter of his Gospel, beginning at verse 17, Therefore, my Father loves me. because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me. But I lay it down myself, and I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. this command I received from My Father." That's the power of our Savior. He is the eternal Son of God. He has the power to resurrect Himself and the power to resurrect us. But here in the genealogy, Jesus also relates to us as the Son of Man. We take comfort in His humanity. The Scriptures command us to take comfort in His humanity. Hebrews 2, verse 17, we read these words, Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted. We relate to Christ in His humanity. Because He lived as a man, it helps us to understand that He understands what we're going through. In chapter 4 of the book of Hebrews, the Spirit actually stresses both the divinity of Jesus and His humanity. Chapter 4, verse 14, seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." And that's what we do here week after week. As Theron said, God calls us here to renew His covenant. We come boldly before the throne to find grace to help in time of need each and every week. What we have as we understand Jesus as the Son of God and the Son of Man is a real Savior for our real life. What Luke has done is to smash all of the modern concepts of an upper story and lower story type of life, where we have the mundane stuff of getting up and shaving and taking care of ourselves and changing dirty diapers and washing dishes and working at jobs that we're not real crazy about. All of that stuff is, you know, life. Religion. Oh, that's the glorious stuff. That's where I meditate on the sunset, and that's where I love people, and that's where everything is happy. That's how most of our modern world approaches religion. And it is absolutely antithetical to what we're presented here in Luke as the faith in Christ. Christ comes as a man. Christ comes through a line of real people. Every single one of those people that Mike read this morning had a life, have a story, have a history. And they are part of Christ's history, who came in space and time to save His people from their sins and to help us live in the real world, and to show us why raising children is important, and to show us why having a calling is important, and to show us why loving the Lord our God with all of our hearts, minds, strength, and wills, and loving our neighbors as ourselves is important. That's what the Christian faith is about. And you see, it's so easy even from within the church to theologicalize all of this stuff to the point where it's not meaningful. I've read some commentaries this week that made the point that, oh, these people were insignificant. We don't know anything about them. That shows you how fleeting human life is, and don't worry about that. Think of Jesus. That's the wrong lesson to learn from these genealogies. God the Holy Spirit gave us one book. to relate all the issues of life and all the history of not only his salvation, but the important parts of the history of the world. And he took up all those verses to give us those 72 names? Was it just filler? Was it just something he thought maybe he'd throw in to have something between chapters 3 and 4 of Luke? I don't think so. Every one of those people was important in God's plan. Every one of those people. And it's going to be one of the most exciting things when we get to heaven, is to begin to learn all of the countless stories of grace and wonder as God worked through people like that to carry out His plan. And God reminds us of that by giving us their names. He could simply have said, there were 75 generations from Adam to Joseph, and now Jesus has come as the Savior. That would have been a whole lot shorter, a whole lot easier for Mike to read. But it would have missed the point. You see, God cares about people. As Francis Schaeffer said, there are, in God's mind, no little people. You know, one of the things that I think jumps right out in terms of application is that this should remind us that we need to be a whole lot better about taking note of our histories. You know, with the passing of my mom, we had her in our home for the final year of her life, and Sally took good advantage of that. She visited, and she got the old photo albums out, and she had my mom talk about some of the relatives and point out some of the dates, and Sally's made copies of pictures and started a wall in her house for Sam, so that he will understand some of the history of his family. We got a photograph that we think goes back seven generations, which is exciting. to think about Sam showing that to his grandchildren. So that we understand that history is important. We need to do more of that as families. We should be keeping journals and telling stories and relating even to our own kids. I'm amazed sometimes where Lynn and I forget what we've done and how we've not related it to the kids. We just assume they know. But sometimes they weren't around and often they were too young to remember. We need to continue to tell those stories. As a church, we certainly need to be focused not only on our local history, which we can do more of, but church history in general. How has God worked down through the ages with His church? And to give you an idea how hard thousands of years are, we're not even three years old yet, and I'll bet there's things we're forgetting. We already wish we had a picture of those kids in the closet the second week that we had worship services. Those are little things that pass by that we'd love to be telling our grandkids about. So we need to be careful as we take note of history. And of course, we could even go into national history where those that have studied it know that our founders took very seriously the history of the world and history of governments and worked hard to give us something that would work and has worked for hundreds of years. And yet we have sadly forgotten the lessons that they have learned. And we need to get back to that if we're going to maintain the freedoms here in our country. But you see, there's Something else that should jump out at us here, actually it shouldn't jump out, it's something we have to think about. What jumps out are the, oh, I've got to remember to take more pictures, and I've got to put the albums together, and I've got to remember, you know, that sort of stuff we can pretty easy pick up. If God keeps track of genealogies, we probably should. But there's another aspect. it actually should impact our view of the future. And that's why I read the promise that was given to Adam. See, it's easy to look at these genealogies backwards, to say, that's giving the history. But you see, from God's perspective, when He gave the promise to Adam, He was looking forward. When He took Abraham out at that night and showed him the stars in the sky and said, or how you should number your descendants. God is looking forward. God moves forward with his plan in history. And that is something that we have sorely neglected in the American church today. Now part of it is our eschatological problems of thinking that Jesus is coming back next week, you know, and why plan for the future if we're in the last generation? Luther had the answer to that. He told people that thought of that sort of stuff, well, if I know that God comes back tomorrow, if that's the day that Jesus is going to return, tomorrow, then today, I'll plant a tree. In other words, it was his way of saying, it doesn't matter when Jesus is coming back. Whether He's coming back tomorrow or 10,000 years from now, what He wants me to do is live today as though there's a future. He wants me to remember the past so it impacts the future. That's the Christian perspective that we should have. And the modern church feels guilty at times. We have these mega programs to make up for the fact that we think the world isn't worth saving. You know, we go out with huge evangelistic programs. We get involved in politics. We do all sorts of things that run counter to our own belief that Jesus is coming back next week. And the reason they do that, I would posit, is because that's not where the Bible is. And they're still faithful and read the Bible. And the Bible demands that we think about history. And when we look at... I'm sorry, the Bible demands we think about the future. When we do that, it's kind of a different future too. What is the biblical vision of God's faithfulness? It's sort of like asking the question, how is He going to disciple the nations? How did we go from 120 scared guys in an upper room to most of the world under the domain of Christendom in a thousand years? Well, I decided the best way to illustrate it, and Jacob and Isaiah inspired it a little bit. We had a movie night this week and we got talking about math a little bit, so I figured out a way to put some math in the sermon. God has blessed our little church, this was kind of astounding to me, with 47 covenant children. 47 covenant children. So let's say that we leave the rest of the world out of it for just a few minutes. Let's talk about faithfulness just here at Church of the King. Let's talk about being faithful with the blessings that God has brought into our midst. And let's look at it in the context of Peter's promise. Peter's promise was to you. So we pray and we claim that promise so that these covenant children will rise up and live lives where they are faithful to the covenant and they will marry in the Lord. That would be goal number one. Goal number two would be that they have small quivers. Nobody knows exactly what the Bible means when it says you're to have a quiver full, so we'll go on the small end and say five. It's probably average. But I want us to think about just five. We certainly have demonstrated in this church that raising five children can be done with average families. Okay? So it's not an outlandish goal. And then, you know, we've got to have an evangelistic program, and we see even with Rahab and Ruth that God does extend the promise to those that are far off. So I'm going to posit that their responsibility, if we raise them properly, will be to impact in their lifetime one other couple. Is that an evangelistic goal that any of us can handle? They have to impact with their lives, they bring along one Rahab or Ruth that then creates a new covenant couple that starts a new family line. Now, any part of that outrageous, we as parents all pray and work and strive that our children might be covenantally faithful and marry in the Lord. We know that's a goal. Average of five kids? Probably not a problem. I mean, we ought to be able to at least share the Gospel with one person effectively in our whole life. That's not a worldwide program, is it? That's probably not something that we have to design massive programs to carry out, is it? Certainly not something that would require millions of dollars in a big fundraising campaign. It probably wouldn't require too many doctorate degrees, which is maybe why it doesn't get a whole lot of attention. And it is really something, when you think about it, that the Bible, the revealed Word of God, does give us everything that we need to do that. Is there anything in that list of goals that we'd have to go outside the Bible to figure out? Now, with just that kind of simplicity, I ran the numbers, and I've got the sheet so you can all come up and dispute it with me at lunch if you want. But if we were that faithful, If we took on those modest goals, and God in His grace allowed us to accomplish it, by the third generation, Sam's grandchildren, by the third generation, there would be 15,228 faithful covenant members. That is bigger than any megachurch in Sacramento, probably California, today. 15,228. By the fifth generation, still within the time frame that we have pictures of, by the fifth generation there would be over 548,000 covenant members. That's 100,000 people more than live today in the city of Sacramento. Five generations keeping our kids faithful, marrying in the Lord, having five children, and winning one couple to Christ in a lifetime. By the eighth generation, you would have over 125 million covenant members. That's about four times the population of California today. If we take it to the 10th generation, which is often talked about in Scripture, you're all sitting down. Four and a half billion. covenant members. Four and a half billion! Almost the population of the world today. And if we figure the normal generation is 35 years, it would take less time to live out those ten generations than has elapsed since those faithful Christians signed the Mayflower Covenant in 1620. Think about that. Less time elapsed. Such is the power of covenant faithfulness. That's the power of covenant faithfulness. Such is the result of simple obedience. Believing God's promises and living out God's promises. Simple. Simple. Obedience. Such is probably the case, and I'll challenge some of our younger historians to maybe work on this, I suspect that such was probably the case in the church's first millennium. How did we go from that small band of disciples to dominance over the then civilized world? This kind of faithfulness played, I'm sure, a big part in that. It reminds us that we need to know our church history a little bit better. And we've had some Sunday evening discussions on this. I suspect it may be what the Spirit of God is beginning to do for the next millennium in our southern hemisphere. The kinds of things that are going on and being reported to church, if those people are faithful, can see the kind of results that's been outlined here. So again, what's the bottom line for us? God remembers His people. God remembers His promise to His people. It is to you, your children, and to those who are far off. As we claim this promise, we will not only see the kingdom advance in obviously some very staggering ways, but we as individuals will know the comfort and blessings that Paul highlights in Romans chapter 8. Now, I did all the math, so you don't get any math homework this week, but I do want you to think seriously about taking a little extra time with this 8th chapter of Romans. I don't have enough time this morning to go through that whole chapter, though it would fit very nicely here. It is a powerful chapter, and I want you to listen carefully as I close with just a few of the verses, thinking about God's covenant faithfulness down through history, and God's covenant faithfulness as we move on into the future. Beginning at verse 14, Paul says this, For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs. Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. If indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. The picture of God's faithfulness bringing us in as His sons and daughters. and looking to the future. Verse 26, Likewise, the Spirit also helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what we should pray for, or how we should pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession with us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now, he who searches the heart knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints. according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." The next time you enjoy reading that verse, and we all do, I want those 75 families to come to Mine." That's what that verse means. All things working together for good to those who are called according to God's purpose. God's faithfulness down through the ages. And then claim that promise as covenant faithfulness going forward. And finally, verse 29, For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom He predestined, these He also called. Whom He called, He also justified. and whom He justified, these He also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? We see in the gospel genealogies God's faithfulness from Adam right down to the coming of His Son, the seed of the woman, the Son of God, coming as the Son of Man to save we His people from our sins. Let us live and serve Him in that confidence this week. Let's pray.