I'd like to thank the session of the church here for inviting me to come bring the word to you this morning. I want you to turn to Matthew chapter one, Matthew chapter one. And as I begin this, this section on the geology of Jesus, I want to say just a couple of words about why I do this. When I was in seminary, I had a seminary professor named Paul Korstra. I don't know if y'all know that name. Paul Korstra was the president of Covenant Seminary for a while and also the coordinator for our Mission to the World Committee. But back in those days, he was a lowly homiletics professor at RTS in Jackson. And one of the things he encouraged us to do, he said, gentlemen, you need to preach the whole counsel of God. That includes the genealogies. And at that time, we sort of looked at him, smiled, and said, are you out of your mind? But he wasn't, because there are such rich things that you can gather from these genealogies. And this morning, especially this genealogy that I'm about to read this morning is the genealogy of Jesus, the kingly genealogy. So listen here, for this is God's holy and inerrant word. Matthew 1, 1, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac and Isaac, the father of Jacob and Jacob, the father of Judah, his brothers and. his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amenadab, and Amenadab the father of Nation, and Nation the father of Simon, Simon the father of Boaz by Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, by Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. Solomon was the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat. and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jorath, and Jorath the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jeconiah, and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon. And after deportation to Babylon, Jeconiah was the father of Shittiel, and Shittiel was the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel was the father of Abihud, and Abihud the father of Elohim, and Elohim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Archon, and Archon the father of Elud, and Elud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Mathan, and Mathan the father of Jacob, and Jacob, the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, whom Jesus was born, who is called the Christ. Let's pray. Almighty God, we thank you for this word that's before us. We pray that you will teach us from this word, Lord. Lord, history tells us things. History teaches us things. And Father, as we look at this genealogy, help us understand the word you would have for us this morning. For it's in Christ's name we pray, amen. About seven or eight years ago, I was preaching in my church in southwest Georgia, and wasn't preaching this particular section, but for some reason I was talking about your ancestry. And I told the people in my congregation, my mother's side of the family, we know everything about. There's a book. But my father's side, the Smith side, we only knew back to my great-grandfather. And so, as I said that, after the service, one of my members, who was a member of the Daughter of the American Revolution, walked up to me. And she said, what was your great-grandfather's name, and where is he buried? I said, I knew his name, I knew where my grandfather was buried, but I didn't know where my great-grandfather was buried. And so she said, well, give me their names. And so during the week she would call me. She would call me about every day or so and say, listen, have your ancestors ever been here? I said, I don't know. They're Smiths. They could be anywhere. You know, when I moved to Atlanta for my first pastorate, I looked in the Atlanta phone book and there were 165 Richard Smiths in Atlanta. You know, providentially, I was the only reverend. But I didn't know anything about that. But finally, she began to come up with some things. The next Sunday, after church, she walked up to me and handed me a folder. She said, this is your ancestry. And I looked at it and I said, the first thing I thought is that please don't let us be German. Because I really wanted to be Scott Irish somehow, for my Presbyterian roots. And of course, The first ancestor coming over from Europe was named Heinrich Schnitt. We were German as German could be. He came over in 1740, settled in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In 1860, he took the trail down to North Carolina and settled in North Carolina. The reason we know a lot about him is because he was a colonel in the Revolutionary Army in about nine, ten battles or so. One battle was the Battle of Cowpens. I was able to go and stand on the spot where my ancestors stood, on that battleground in South Carolina. But also, ancestry opens up some other details that maybe you didn't want to know. Like my great-grandfather. My great-grandfather We have this death certificate, and the death certificate said this, died of cirrhosis of the liver, cause alcoholism. Something that you just, with the good, there was the bad. This morning as we open up this scripture, what I'm gonna look at is the history of the ancestors of Jesus. and how in that history that we can find hope, as they found hope. This is a geology of hope. It's not one of hopelessness, but of hope. And when we go through difficult times, we have to remember that God works with messy people. And we are the messiest. I would tell my congregation, I said, if you know some of the things I go through during the week, of the things I think about, I'm a messy person. But that's who God works with. And so this morning as we open the scriptures, what I'd like to do is to go through the three sections that we have here and talk a little bit about the hope we find there and the hope that we have in Jesus and the hope that extends in the gospel starting in the beginning to the end. So let's look at our scripture this morning. First of all, let's look, in this particular genealogy, it begins with Abraham. So we have the secession of the king, hope through Abraham to David. The promise of hope of King Jesus came from Abraham and his descendants. The world will be blessed through Abraham's descendants. It was always said through those people. Both Genesis 15, where God cut the covenant with Abraham, through Isaac, through his son, who was born in a miraculous way, through Judah, who was a mess of himself, through Jesse, the father of David. We have these names throughout history. This is the lineage of hope of the Lord Jesus Christ. And because we have Abraham, we knew that Abraham was believed and it was counted upon him as righteousness. And we have that hope in Romans four with ourselves, that we believe it is counted us to righteousness. The righteousness of Jesus is put to our account, put to our account. It is faith in him, trust in him that we have this hope. And throughout this line, we see that there are all sorts of people. We see in the line of the king, it begins with a supernatural birth, the birth of Isaac. Imagine this, being born of a mother that's 90 years old, a father that's 100. How would you like to explain that at the baseball game when you're growing up? Huh? These old people. You know, I looked up this morning before I came here. The oldest known natural birth is a lady that's 59 years old. The rest of the births have been done by in vitro fertilization and stuff like that. Older people than that have had children. But the earliest, the oldest natural birth is 59. And here, Sarah, you know, 30 years later as a child. But get this, with this supernatural birth, it links us with another supernatural birth. And who is that? With Jesus. Jesus was born of a virgin, Mary. You see, Jesus was born through the promise of the scriptures to a virgin, which means that the Lord brings hope through his promises. You know, when we had the promise from Isaiah that Jesus would be born of a virgin, that is a promise, that is a prophecy that was fulfilled. And he came and fulfilled that prophecy. So first of all, we know that our hope is through promise. And the promise is that there would be a Messiah that would come, and he would pay the sins of his people. That's the hope we have, that we can hold on to. It's God that we can trust. Not only that, as you look at this section of Jesus's keenly lined, you find something that's real interesting. A bunch of Gentile women. And it's interesting to me that he opens up, especially the Gentile women that are here, two of them have pretty bad reputations, okay? along with some of the men there too. But first we see Tamar there. Tamar is an example of how God brings hope through our messy sin. You know, she induced her father-in-law to have incest with her, have sex with her. And yet this is part of the line of Jesus. Now, if you read that section of scripture, it is a messy affair because there are certain things that happened there that almost forced her to do this. But it was something that was unheard of. And yet, she's named in the line of Jesus. Rahab was a Gentile prostitute, someone that was in Jericho that hid the spies. Again, an example of hope for the Gentiles. And we find Ruth, the Moabitess, an example of how God will provide hope in any difficult situation. She was without a husband. She and her mother-in-law were laying the fields just to live. And she found the kinsman redeemer. And through that, had a child. So this sort of precursors for us the fact that Jesus was going to bless the nations. That part of his lineage said out loud, I'm going to bless the nations, even the nations I have cursed. Because let me remind you that Moab was under the curse of God. Even those nations, even through messy people, the Messiah was going to bless, bring forgiveness, bring hope. through all those people, through all these people. It's hope for the nations. And of course, through this first section of Scripture, there was no king in Israel. And of course, the people were clamoring for the king. They clamored for the king because they wanted to be just like anybody else around them. They weren't satisfied. They wanted the earthly king. And God said, listen, if I give you an earthly king, he's going to tax you. He's going to take your young men for war. He's going to take your your young women for servants." And they said, no, we want a king. And he said, okay, you can have him. And so we see here that in this part of the genealogy that he brings David, the father brings David. The line of David would rule over God's people. In fact, God made a promise to David that his line would never cease. It would be a line that would be forever. Of course, David at that point did not know necessarily that that meant the Messiah was through his line, but that line would rule God's kingdom forever. The line would endure forever. It's later understood that the succession of David would include the Messiah in Isaiah 9, 11, Jeremiah 33, that he would be on the throne of David, on the throne itself. And yet, David was a murderer, an adulterer. He and Bathsheba had a child, and in the midst of that sin, God killed that child. But you see, one of the things we see in that story, and we often preach it, and we do emphasize the fact that David was a murderer, and that he was an adulterer, but we also see God's grace in that story. Because what happens at the end of that story? Bathsheba has who? Solomon. That's why God worked with messy people. That's why he works with you and me. It's because we need that kind of forgiveness. It is only by God's grace we have that forgiveness. You know, a lot of people would read that story and they would wonder first, why didn't God just kill David? Because God works with messy people. I have a friend of mine who is with the Lord now. And he came to our church several years ago and became a friend of mine, mainly because we were from the same famed state. And we used to go, during the same era, we went down to a place called Myrtle Beach. I don't know if y'all know where that is, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. And we used to go to a place down there called The Attic and go dancing. We used to do what they call the South Carolina Shag, which I'm sure none of y'all know what that is, through beach music. And we actually became friends over that before he started coming to our church. And he began to tell me about his life before he came to our church. And it was a mess. He was divorced. He had a lot of things that happened to him in his life. And he said to me one time, Richard, he said, it is but by the grace of God I live. And that was so true of his story. And it's so true of all our stories. When I've been a Christian a few years, I thought at one point I have arrived. I don't know if any of y'all have ever thought that before in your early years. Like, oh, you know, I really have my act together. I know what I need to know. And I'm pretty good. You know, I still work. You struggle with some things. And then what God does, he takes that curtain and rips it open and says, listen, there's a bunch of other things you got to deal with. And then when you think you've dealt with all those, guess what? He opens another curtain. And I mean, I remember distinctly saying to God one night in prayer, How much of more are you gonna reveal? And he said, until you come see me. Because we're messy people. And we have to learn that God's grace is for messy people. And that's what David and Bathsheba knew here. The reality of Solomon. Solomon would build the temple. Now David would make a lot of preparations for it, but he would build the temple of God that the people would worship him. The temple would be the point that would continue to, what, point to the hope of the Messiah that would come. And as you look through all these other earthly kings here we have in this section, let me remind you that the kingdom after Solomon was split in two. Rehoboam and Jeroboam. And Rehoboam was left with two tribes and Jeroboam had 10. And in Judah and Israel, they were split into those two. And we understand that in Judah, there were good kings, and there were not so good kings. But in Israel, there were all bad kings. There were some that were really, really bad, and there were some that were bad, but they were all bad. And so you have all these evil kings, but they started, believe it or not, with Solomon himself. Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. You know, my dear wife is at home sick this morning. And I often think, you know, if we were living in those days, I'd be dead by now because I can only handle one wife. That's all. And I don't see how he can deal with all these wives. Of course, what they did, a lot of them were foreign wives, and they drew him away. A man that was given great wisdom by God, by the end of his life, wasn't using any of it. And he was drawn away by all these wives, and also the concubines he had. And so, even the good kings had problems. But let's look at some of the evil kings. Here, let's look at Rehoboam. Rehoboam was Solomon's son. He lost the 10 tribes of Israel by his arrogance. If you know the story, Rehoboam's young men that were around him, and this is a case to learn too. Two people were giving him advice, the older wise men and the younger men just like he was. The old man said, listen, take the burden off the people. And the young man said, no, no, you have to announce yourself. You have to put more burden on the people. So let that be a lesson, young men. When wise men speak, listen. When your peers speak, take it with a grain of salt, okay? Because he lost a kingdom's worth over this. Because the 10 tribes, they fled, they went, and they found their own king. And you were left with two tribes. So Rehoboam, with his pride and arrogance, lost these tribes. Joram married a daughter of Ahab. Ahab, when we look in the scriptures through the kings, is considered one of the worst. And his wife certainly was one of the worst queens. And he married the daughter of this man. And followed the ways and the kings of Israel. Followed the ways and the kings of Israel. Ahaz sacrificed his own son to a false god. His own son. And we get to this guy, Manasseh. Manasseh's an interesting guy. Because he did more evil than any other kings before him. And he was someone that everything that had been done away with before, he brought back. He did evil in the sight of God to the point where God judged him and sent the Assyrians there to take him off into slavery. Now, if you read in 2 Kings about him, you see that he was taken off in slavery and that's where it's left. Excuse me. That's where it's left. But if you go to 2 Chronicles 33, what you find is this, that during this time, what happens to Manasseh? Somebody that knows this story, what happens to him? He repents. Well, this is another thing you can learn from the Chronicles. In the Chronicles, everybody is good. Everybody comes out okay. Okay? It was written for a time that Israel needed to be encouraged. But Manasseh, they brought him back. He was put back on the throne and he changed his ways. Again, an example of hope that we have through the genealogies. The example of hope. And also what this part teaches us is something we need to learn today. Earthly kings will always fall short. Whether it be a president, a pastor, someone that you admire, never admire the pastor, because he falls short. You can listen to him, but always be careful. Always be careful. Because there are many churches in today's world where pastors have become personalities, and they become personality cults in the church. Often when a long-term pastor leaves a church, it takes a few years for the church to get over him. I have a friend of mine that he was at his church 41 years. And when he left, the church took two years to find a new guy because they had to undo a lot of stuff. Because there was nothing bad that was being done, but the last thing they wanted to do for the new pastor to come in, so that's not how Pastor So-and-so did it. They wanted a chance to change some things. And the next guy came and he stayed a long time. So we have to remember that earthly kings always fall short. That's why, in fact, all this section, all it screams to you, or should scream to you is this. We need a king that's not an earthly king. This whole section, you ought to look at it and see failure after failure after failure after failure, sin after sin after sin after sin. Now God was gracious to those people. But what it should tell us is this, we need King Jesus. More than anything else, we need to follow King Jesus. And we are never to let the idols of this world take his place. Not a man, not a woman, not a thing. But we should follow King Jesus. Because it's only through King Jesus that we have true hope. You know, it's easy to follow men, you can see them, you can hear them. But men always disappoint. They always disappoint. Earthly kings always disappoint, all fall short. But Jesus never falls short. He never falls short of what you need. He never falls short of covering the sin that we do. He never falls short in showing the love that we need to continue on and give us hope in this world. Again, this section should scream that at you. Earthly kings fall short, but King Jesus never does. Never does. Finally, in our last section here, I'll take not as much known about these guys here, but there is one that we know of from Haggai, Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel fully restored. He is sort of the governor and fully restores the temple to its glory. He was the governor of Judea. during the return from the exile. And God blessed him. In fact, God arranged for him to have what's called a signet ring. A signet ring is a ring of authority. A ring of authority. He receives God's blessing in returning temple worship to Jerusalem. And finally, we get to Joseph. Joseph, look with me in that passage, verse 16. Jacob, the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, in whom Jesus was born, who was called Christ. Joseph would be the husband of Mary. Joseph is an amazing man if you look at the birth story, the birth narratives. He's a man of faith. He's a man that listens to the word. But he is also not the father of Jesus, because Jesus was born through a virgin, Mary. Which means this, is that Joseph was the adopted father of Jesus. Joseph adopted Jesus. What does that remind you of? We are the sons and the adopted daughters of Jesus. And I never had thought that until it dawned on me one day as I was studying this passage. That Joseph's adopted Jesus. Everybody thought that Jesus was Joseph's son. But Joseph knew better. And Mary knew better. And so he took Jesus as his own. just like Jesus takes us as his own. This is a precursor to what Jesus would do. It's a precursor for the fact that he would come and die and rise again, and he would provide the righteousness that we need to be whole, and he would, what, adopt us as sons and daughters of the King, King Jesus. See, Jesus came as a king of hope that filled all of God's promises and prophecies about him. And it's through this genealogy of messy people that Jesus came. He not only gave hope for those who would live, he also provided salvation for those who did live. So how do I apply all this? How do I apply it? First of all, our hope is found not in earthly leaders, but in King Jesus. You know, I have heroes. Everybody here has a hero. Yeah, I have certain heroes, but nobody, you know, I always read biography, I like to read biographies. I just finished a three-volume set of Winston Churchill. And it was a tremendous read, it really was. My wife, for about two months there, became a Winston Churchill widow. Because I would just, I'd come home, get into the book and read it. And he's a hero of mine. But he was a man of many faults. I mean, he used to dictate his letters from his bathtub. in the nude with his secretary in the room, all right? You know, that's weird. And you know, he always kept a Bible beside his bed. He always read it, but he wasn't a believer. You find stuff that, oh man, I really didn't want to know that. Didn't want to know this about him. But it tells us this, that earthly people fall short. There's only one true hero. That's Jesus. Own true king, and that's Jesus. Secondly, there are never hopeless situations to a sovereign God. Never hopeless situations. We can look around in our lives, and there have been times, when I was in seminary, I remember one time, adding up my checkbook, and I had a dollar and a half left in my account. I don't know if that's ever happened to you, but that was scary. Here I was at the seminary. It was my second year. Things were getting tight. I really needed a job. I couldn't find one. And I remember going to the chapel and praying in the chapel there, Grace Chapel at Reformed Seminary, and looking down the floor, and there was a piece of paper. And it's a sort of a little weekly magazine they put out for the students. And I looked and there was a job offering in it. And I called up and the lady said, oh, I put that in like a month ago and nobody called. Do you want the job? And so that's how I got a job with the women's dress shop. Three of them, matter of fact, ever heard of a dress shop that's out of business now called Casual Corner back in the day? Yeah, I worked for the three, I was the janitor for all three places there in Jackson. But I was in a hopeless situation. A dollar and a half don't buy a whole lot. And yet God provided. No hopeless situations. Thirdly, God works through messy people like you and me. This morning, your Sunday school class, your Sabbath class was talking about evangelism. God has chosen to work through messy people. Why? Because we bring our messes to people and say, this is what God has done for me. He can take your mess too. Okay? If you want people to come to know Jesus, if you want him to be attractive to people, Let people know about your mess and what God's done for you. Okay? Because guarantee they have a mess that needs to be worked with too. Okay? All right? Because God, he's working through messy people. Fourthly, Jesus' adoption looks forward to our own adoptions as sons and daughters. You know, the word adoption, we have some friends that recently adopted a child from India. And just a cute little guy. I mean, a cute little guy. And I look at him, and I think often, I said, one day when he finds out he was adopted, I hope he doesn't take it the wrong way. I hope he really appreciates what this family has done for him. And sometimes I think we take our adoption as sort of, oh yeah, but it's a big deal to be adopted by a king. That's a big deal, guys. Americans are always fascinated with the British royalty and all that kind of stuff. What if the Queen of England came over one day and came to your house and said, listen, they're going to allow me to adopt an American family. As my own, I will give yours. Will you not be ecstatic? Especially when you're in the will, right? We need to be ecstatic about our adoption. What Jesus has done for us. Of him calling us his own. You know, listen guys, I am a son and there are sons and daughters here of King Jesus. And you are his. That helps you live today. That helps you keep going forward. And finally, as many of these people waited for the Messiah to come, so we wait for his return. There are three things, three points of history that are very important. One is the coming of Jesus. One is his resurrection. And the third is his return. Often us in reformed circles, we don't really emphasize the return a lot, but it's a big deal because one day the adopted sons and daughters of King Jesus will go reign with him. Think about that. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the word that's before us. We pray that you would help us, Father, as we seek to be your people at this time and place in history. Lord, you have called us in our messy lives to yourself. And we pray that you would use us. Make us instruments of the king. Lord, help people see you in our lives, the mess and all. Because it's only by your grace that we do this. Thank you, Lord. For us in Christ's name we pray, amen.