Please turn with me in the written Word of God to the first chapter of Matthew. Our focus this morning is going to be Matthew 1, verses 1-17. I will read it here in a few minutes, but before I do, let's go ahead and pray and ask for God's blessing to be upon our time. Our Father, without the Holy Spirit, our gathering together is in vain. And so I plead with you, Father, through the merits of Christ, that your Holy Spirit would be poured out upon us with great power. that you would give illumination to the word that you've inspired, that you would give us understanding, and you give us application of the text. But Lord, I pray for those who are outside of Christ, that your spirit would reach out to them and show them the danger that their souls are in, and that the only refuge they have from danger is Jesus Christ himself. and grant grace that they might repent of their sins, forsake their confidence in their own righteousness, and embrace Jesus by faith that they might be saved before this very day is over. Do this for your glory, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Last Lord's Day, I began what I believe will be about a nine-part sermon series on effectual blessings of the new covenant. Last week, I asserted to you that the covenants themselves that God has made with men are the Bible's own connective tissue that ties all 66 books of the Bible into one story about one people written by one divine author that has one hero, and that hero is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We're using O. Palmer Robertson's definition of covenants as our basis, which is that it's a bond in blood. It is a swearing of oaths that often was ratified by the spilling of blood. And I summarized the entire Bible under seven covenants, and I'm not going to resurvey that this morning, but I am going to remind you of the first two covenants. The first covenant we talked about was the covenant of redemption. that the story doesn't begin with the coming of Jesus. The story begins in eternity past with the Father and the Son and the Spirit covenanting together concerning a chosen people whom God chose according to the good pleasure of His will And He committed those people to His chosen Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world. And everything that happens in history is the unfolding of that covenant being revealed in time. And we talked about the very first covenant that God made with men, and that is God's covenant with Adam. That when God gave His commandment to Adam, that he was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He was actually entering into a covenant of works with him. Adam was our covenant head, our covenant representative. And of course, when he transgressed the commandment, it wasn't just that the curses fell upon him. It fell upon me. It fell upon you. It plunged the whole world into sin and into misery. But Adam and Eve, when they sinned, had every right to expect that God would vaporize them at just that very moment. And yet, that's not what He did, is it? He showed them mercy. As a matter of fact, He showed them such mercy that before He cursed them, He first blessed them by preaching the gospel to them. In Genesis 3, verse 15, He promised, I will send a man who is called the seed of the woman. And though Satan will bruise his heel, the seed of the woman will crush Satan's head. He will deliver his people from sin, and from Satan, and from tyranny. And that one promise in Genesis 3.15 is the acorn that is in all the DNA of all the Bible is found in that one verse, and the rest of the Bible is like a mighty oak growing from that one seed, that one acorn. And so the rest of the Old Testament, from Genesis 3.15 onward, is really about the promise and the propagation and the preservation of the Messianic seed. The pages of the Old Testament are filled with expectation about this coming Messiah, and you pick up on that when you get into the Gospel accounts, don't you? Where the people are in expectation, waiting for the Messiah to appear. And I saw it after talking about the covenant of redemption and then the Adamic covenant to talk about how God has revealed himself progressively then through the Noahic and the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, the Davidic, and finally the new covenant. Well, I hope it's obvious that these covenants as we've gone through them, something should come clear to you if it hasn't before. And that is that the Bible is not a man-centered book. The Bible is a God-centered book, and it's a Christ-centered book. And not only that, the Bible from cover to cover is a missions-centered book. I read to you last week from a man, a Presbyterian brother named Davy Charles Gomez. He said this, quote, God's revelation in Scripture gives us a metanarrative of history as redemptive history, beginning in Trinitarian acts in the eternity past, embracing time, and culminating in a new history, the history of the new creation in Christ. Mission is not simply one aspect of theology or a sideshow in this history, but the substance of the story. The whole Bible is a missional phenomenon with the amazing grace of God as its heartbeat." He is spot on, he's exactly right. The central theme of the Bible is this, it's the glory of the triune God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. Everything is connected to that theme. And the four sub-themes of that one main theme is that it reveals itself by creation, fall, redemption, and then new creation. That's the unfolding of the Bible itself. Now, with all I've said to you about the Old Testament being the promise and the propagation and the preservation of the Messianic seed, let's read together Matthew chapter one, verses one to 17, because that has everything to do with that theme. This is how our New Testament's open. 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 Amminadab, Amminadab begot Nashon, and Nashon begot Salmon. Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab. Boaz begot Obed by Ruth. Obed begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David the king. David the king begot Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah. Solomon begot Rehoboam. Rehoboam begot Abijah, and Abijah begot Asa. Asa begot Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat begot Joram, and Joram begot Uzziah. Uzziah begot Jotham. Jotham begot Ahaz, and Ahaz begot Hezekiah. Hezekiah begot Manasseh. Manasseh begot Amon, and Amon begot Josiah. Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers about the time they were carried away to Babylon. And after that, they were brought to Babylon. Jeconiah begot Shelteel, and Shelteel begot Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel begot Abiad. Abiad begot Eliakim, and Eliakim begot Azor. Azor begot Zadok. Zadok begot Acham, and Acham begot Eliad. Eliad begot Eliezer. Eliezer begot Mathan, and Mathan begot Jacob. And Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. So all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations. From David until the captivity in Babylon are 14 generations. And from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are 14 generations. I want to preach this text to you under four headings, each of which begins with the letter G. So we're going to see, first of all, genealogy, Gentiles, grace, and generations. Genealogy, Gentiles, grace, and generations. Let's begin with genealogy. The Old Testament opens with yet another long line of genealogies that are found all throughout the pages of the Old Testament. Verse one is really a summation of verses one to 17, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Now, show of hands, how many of you, when you're reading your Bibles and reading your Old Testaments, get excited when you get to the genealogical tables? Oh joy, I'm gonna be edified this morning, right? Don't we look at this with something of dread when we get to those places? The first genealogy we ever encounter in the Bible is in Genesis 5. and they keep recurring throughout the historical books of the Old Testament. When you get to 1 and 2 Chronicles, for example, the content of those chapters is spiritually edifying and rich, at least after you get to chapter 10 and onward of 1 Chronicles, but the first nine chapters are table after table after table of genealogical tables. Let's be honest. None of us really enjoys reading those things. And in fact, don't you find that you have to fight the temptation to skip over them, but then you feel guilty because you know that this is the Word of God at the end of the day. This is given by inspiration of God. These genealogical tables, as tedious as they might be to read, they're just as inspired as John 3.16 or Romans 8. But we struggle with those things. We wrestle with them because sometimes we don't feel they're as edifying. And then there's the whole issue of family worship. Do you read these things in family worship? As a general rule, I don't, but I will summarize them to the children and move on to the next part. But isn't that the temptation when we're reading it privately? Let's just skip this and get to the better stuff. Well, let me give you some encouragement. First of all, you don't need to feel guilty because you find it tedious reading. It is tedious. All of scripture is equally inspired, and all of scripture is profitable to your soul. But it's not true that all scripture is equally profitable. That is, not all parts are equally weighty. Jesus said that about the Law of Moses. Not all parts of the Law of Moses are as important or weighty. They're all important, but they're not all equally important or weighty. I encourage you to slog through the genealogical tables in your reading. because it is an important part of what God has revealed to us. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. But don't feel guilty because they're tedious, because indeed they are. That being said, I want to set something before you, three truths, that every time you approach a genealogical table, you need to remember these things and keep them in mind, and maybe it will help you to be edified in the midst of all the tediousness. The first is this, the genealogical tables testify that God is a covenant-keeping God. Most of those genealogical records are records of the Jews, the descendants of the Jews and the records of the 12 tribes and their descendants, so-and-so begot so-and-so begot so-and-so. But here's the thing, where did all those Hebrews come from? They came from one couple. They came from an old man whose name was Abraham and an old barren wife named Sarah. This woman was barren, she was 75 years old, or 90 years old, when she gave birth to Isaac. It seemed, humanly speaking, there was no hope that they would ever have children, and yet what did God promise them? Contrary to everything that they saw with their eyes, He said, I am going to give you children. I'm going to give you seed. So many, in fact, that if you go outside and try to count the stars, or count the sands of sea on the seashore, you would be that great of a number of descendants. Well, what are these genealogical tables? They're shouting to us, God is a covenant-keeping God. He is faithful to his promise, and if he was faithful to his promise with Abraham, good news, he's going to be faithful in his promises to you. So, that's the first thing. Secondly, the genealogical tables are reminders that the people spoken of in the Bible were real people. and that God's work has been revealed in real historical events. In other words, the Bible is not a book of mythology. The men and women who are in it are not the figments of somebody's imagination. They weren't marble statues. They weren't pen and ink drawings. They were people with flesh and blood just like you who had the same kind of struggles you have. They struggled to put food on the table for their families. They wrestled with their own sins. They needed a Savior, the same Savior that you and I need, because they were all fallen. History really is His story, if you'll excuse the pun. It really is God's story. He's unfolding all of what He's doing in time. And when you think about that, and if you're one of God's people, you realize that these genealogical tables are the story of God moving heaven and earth in His pursuit to redeem your soul for the glory of His own name. So this is Him doing all those things, and that leads me to the third and most important point. The genealogies are the historical record of the promise, propagation, and preservation of the Messianic seed. If you've read through your Old Testament and then you open up to Matthew chapter one and the parallel account in Luke chapter three, both of which have the genealogy of Jesus himself, suddenly you come to an enlightenment, an understanding of why all those genealogical tables were put there in the first place. This was all about God's promise, I will send the seed of the woman. And then you realize, this is culminated in Jesus Himself. When you read Matthew 1, your thoughts should say, this is the seed of the woman. This is the seed God preserved on Noah's ark. This is the seed promised to Abraham, and this is the seed promised to David. The message of Matthew 1, verse 1 is, the promised seed of the woman has finally arrived, and his name is Jesus Christ. That's the culmination of it all. So when you're reading those genealogical tables, remember that ultimately this is all about Jesus. This is about God fulfilling his promise and bringing his Messiah into the world. Well, look again at Matthew 1, verse 1. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Do you hear the covenantal language in that verse? Because before giving us this long list of these various genealogies and these various ancestors of Jesus, he focuses in on two specific ancestors and he puts them in reverse historical order. He first mentions the fact that he's the son of David and then he goes back more than a thousand years before David was even born and says he was the son of Abraham. What comes to your mind when you hear that? He's the son of David. That is, what did God covenant with David to do? A child of yours, a son of yours shall not fail to rule upon the throne. This is the king of kings, and this is the Lord of lords, the heir of his father's throne. That's the very first thing you should think of. And then he goes back and says, the son of Abraham. And that makes you think about to the Abrahamic covenant, and immediately what should come to your mind is world missions. Because what did God promise? In your seed, I'll bless the 12 tribes of Israel. Is that what he said? He said, in your seed, all families of all nations will be blessed. Not just the Jews, but also the Gentiles. He's saying the promised seed of Abraham has finally come, and he's gonna be the heir of David's throne. So the very first heading is genealogy. The second one is Gentiles. Gentiles the book of Matthew is not the first book in the New Testament that was ever written, chronologically speaking. It's believed that the Gospel of Mark was actually written first before the Gospel of Matthew. But that being said, it's fitting that Matthew should open our New Testaments, chronologically speaking, because it makes a wonderful transition book from the Old to the New Testament. There's a study Bible I have on my shelf that says this, Matthew is a book written by a Jew, about a Jew, for the Jews. It is the most Jewish of all the gospel accounts. And yet, for it being as Jewish as it is, this book is absolutely filled to the brim with the anticipation that the Gentiles are going to be included. It's all over this book. Now, certainly, we all know it's in Matthew 28, right? Matthew 28 is the Great Commission. There's four different versions of the Great Commission found in our New Testaments, but this is probably the most popular one. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. teaching and reserve all things I've commanded you, and lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age." So here we have the end, the climax of the book says, go and preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified to all nations. But that is not just tacked on at the end. It starts literally with chapter 1, verse 1 of Matthew. And I want to show you this, and it's even found here in the genealogies. Now, before we do, remember something I told you last week. I quoted to you from Ephesians 2 verses 11 to 13. There Paul says, therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh. Show of hands, how many of you in this room are Gentiles? Just curious. We're all Gentiles, right? You who are Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands. That at that time, you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise. Plural covenants, singular promise. Having no hope, and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Now, we saw it last week. God's covenant with Adam, were we affected as Gentiles by that? Absolutely, we were included in that, Jew and Gentile alike. What about God's covenant with Noah? That was Jew and Gentile alike. He made that covenant with all of creation. Literally, he made that covenant, and I'm not being irreverent, he made that covenant with the cockroaches. No kidding, all of creation, everything that creeps on the ground, he made his covenant with Noah. So we were not excluded as Gentiles from either the Adamic or the Noahic covenant. But what about God's covenant with Abraham? That was specifically to the Jews. What about God's old covenant through Moses? That was specifically with the Jews. And what about his covenant with David? Again, a distinctively Jewish covenant. Those are the three covenants of the promise that we as Gentiles were once excluded from. But God's intention from the beginning was that our exclusion as Gentiles was only to be temporary until the Messiah came. You see, in the old covenant, God raised a wall of division that separated Jew from Gentile. It was a kosher wall. It was made up of such things as circumcision, kosher diets, kosher days, and those were meant to preserve God's people and protect them from the surrounding Gentile world. But it was only a temporary wall. Jesus tore that wall down. to make one new people out of the two, so that all Jews and all Gentiles who believe in Christ are now together as one people of God. We have been now brought near and we are heirs of the covenant blessings that were peculiar to Israel." Matter of fact, think about the Old Testament. David at the end of Psalm 147 says this, God declares his words to Jacob, his statutes and his judgments to Israel. He is not dealt thus with any nation. And as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise the Lord. In other words, God gave his word to Israel alone and not to the surrounding Gentile nations. You don't read in your Old Testament, go and make disciples of me out of the surrounding nations. There are a few exceptions to that. Jonah was sent as a very reluctant prophet to go preach to the Assyrians. He hated his job, didn't want to do it. But nonetheless, that's the exception, not the rule. Usually, when God sends Israel into the surrounding nations, it's sharpen your swords and slaughter them and leave none of them alive, show them no mercy. That's usually what's being said there. And yet, that being said, have you also noticed that literally hundreds of times throughout the Old Testament, The scriptures anticipate the day will come when the Gentiles will be grafted in as the people of God with Israel. And there's these calls to the surrounding Gentile nations, look unto our God, worship our God, glorify our God, may God be known among the nations, may His fame be spread among all peoples. That anticipation of what's coming is now fulfilled in the missionary enterprise that's going on even in our own day. But the Old Testament anticipates that. Well, Matthew picks up on this theme. He picks up on it in chapter 1, verse 1, starting with, he's the son of Abraham. In Jesus, all nations are going to be blessed with eternal life because Jesus Christ and Him crucified is going to be proclaimed in all these nations. But then, in the genealogy that follows, we find hints of it again. Have you ever noticed, when you've read Matthew 1, that Matthew mentions five women in the genealogy? He doesn't just say, so-and-so father begot such-and-such a son, who begot such-and-such a son, who begot such-and-such a son. Five different times he speaks of women and says their names to us. That's unusual. It's not completely uncommon, but it is by and large unusual in the genealogical table. Who are these five women? Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary. Now, I'm gonna have more to say about these women under our third heading, but for right now, I want you to notice something. Do you realize that possibly as many as four of these five women were not Jews? They were Gentiles. Think about that. Tamar was the twice-widowed daughter-in-law of Judah. She was first married to Judah's son, Er, who was a wicked man in the sight of the Lord, and so God killed him. She then married the next son down, who was Onan, and God killed him too. And Judah decided, well, if I give her to my next son, he's gonna get killed by God as well, so he didn't give her to his next son. Well, you remember what happened. She dressed like a prostitute, hit her face. Judah slept with her. She got pregnant with his child, actually had twins. But she, it is believed, was not a Jewess. She was a Canaanite. Here's a Canaanite Gentile, and yet she is put into the lineage of Jesus Christ. What about Rahab? Do you remember who Rahab was? She was a Canaanite. She lived in the wall of Jericho, and she was in Jericho, and she hid the two Jewish spies who came in and protected them. And she said, remember me when you come and when God lays waste this place, show mercy to me. And she tied a scarlet thread into her window so that they would know not to destroy her and her house. And so she was grafted in, she married into the Jewish line, and she became a part of the line of the Gentiles. I'll have more to say about her in just a moment, but her lineage is a part of the Messiah. And then there's Ruth. Ruth is a woman so important that the Holy Spirit gave us an entire book about her. But have you ever noticed something? She's not a Jewess. She's a Moabitess. She's from the people of Moab. And yet, she marries Boaz, and she becomes the great-grandmother of King David himself. But the point we're supposed to get is, she's a Gentile. And then, it's possible that Bathsheba was also not a Jewish woman. You know, we talk about her husband a lot. Her husband's name was Uriah the Hittite. A Hittite's not a Jew. Hittite's a Gentile. It's entirely possible that Bathsheba herself was also a Gentile, but nonetheless, she also becomes into the lineage of the Messiah. Now, what's my point? What am I trying to get at? Jesus is a Jewish Messiah. He came from the tribe of Judah. He was distinctively a Jewish man, and yet this Jewish man also has Gentile blood flowing through his veins. Now, why does that matter? Why is that important? It matters because remember what we saw in Isaiah 49 last week, and Pastor Matt told us two weeks ago as well? In Isaiah 49, the father looks at the son and says, it's not enough. to give you, to redeem the 12 tribes of Israel, I will give you as a light to the Gentiles, so that you will be my salvation to the very ends of the earth." We find Simeon holding baby Jesus in his arms. And you remember when he talks about this very thing, he quotes from Isaiah 49, and he says, this is the glory of Israel and the light to the Gentiles. Now, why is that important for you and me? Well, you just raised your hands and said almost all of you are Gentiles. If Jesus was not given as the light for the Gentiles, guess what? You're going to be lost. You're going to have no hope in this world. But because God included you, because He included the Gentiles, you and I have been grafted into the blessings of Israel. And Matthew doesn't end there. He's starting already in the genealogies to tell us that there's Gentile blood flowing in the Messiah's veins. But he says more about it. Let me just give you a brief survey. Matthew 8. A Roman centurion In other words, a Gentile man, an uncircumcised Gentile, says, my servant is sick and he sends to Jesus and says, please heal my servant. Do you remember what happens? Jesus is on his way to his house to heal the servant and the servant sends another messenger and says, I am not worthy for you to come under my roof. Just speak the word and my servant will be healed. Do you remember what Jesus says in response? He says, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel. I have not found a single circumcised Jew who has the faith that this uncircumcised Gentile has. And then he says this, many will come from East and West and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. That is lots and lots and multitudes of Gentiles are gonna come in fellowship with the Old Testament saints in heaven. Then he says this, but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. Many natural-born Jews will not be there, but many believing Gentiles will be. In Matthew 8, we have the story of the two Gadarene demoniacs whom Jesus restored and cast the demons out. Did you know that the two Gadarene demoniacs were not Jews? They were Gentiles. This was a region where Gentiles lived, but also when Jesus cast out the demons, what did he cast them into? Pigs. Do Jews raise pigs? They're kosher. They don't raise pigs. The reason there were pigs there is because these were Gentiles. And one of the gathering demoniacs goes into the 10 cities and he preaches and tells everybody what great things Jesus had done for him. This uncircumcised Gentile man becomes one of the greatest evangelists in all the four gospel accounts. That's not coincidental. In Matthew chapter 15, Jesus encounters a Gentile woman, a Canaanite, whose daughter is demon-possessed. And he tests her faith and says, go away. And she keeps persisting and saying, please heal my daughter. And Jesus finally says to her, oh woman, great is your faith. He underscores the greatness of this Gentile's faith and heals her daughter and delivers her from demons. Jesus fed the 5,000, but he also fed the The 5,000, did you know this, were 5,000 Jewish people, did you know that the 4,000 were 4,000 Gentiles? Sure were. He was in the same region where he had been almost a year before where the gathering demoniac had been healed. And it says specifically that the people, when they were being healed and when they were fed by the 4,000, that they glorified the God of Israel. Why does it speak in that language? These Gentiles glorified the God of Israel because the Jewish Messiah came among them and fed them in the same way He had these Jewish people. Why did He feed the 4,000 the same way He did the 5,000? Because He's the glory of His people, Israel, and He's the light of the Gentiles. When Jesus cleansed the temple, Matthew 21, do you know which part of the temple he cleansed? The outer court, which was called the court of the Gentiles. In other words, he gave the Gentiles back their place to worship the Hebrew God. One more thing here. When Jesus dies on the cross, it's Matthew who tells us that the one who saw him die, one of the people who saw him die, was a Roman centurion. And the Roman centurion says, truly, this was the Son of God. Do you hear that? An uncircumcised Gentile is making the same exact confession that the Apostle Peter makes in Matthew chapter 16. Is it any wonder then that when you get to Matthew 28, it says, go and make disciples out of all nations. Proclaim me among them. In other words, what I want you to see is, it's like this is an underground current running through the Old Testament. It comes right into Matthew's gospel, and it's building in intensity until finally it just can't be contained, and it bursts. But again, don't look at the Great Commission as tacked on. This is rather what God's purposes have been from all of eternity, going through the Old Testament and then exploding in the New Testament as well. So brothers and sisters, as we pray for our missionaries, we are seeing the fulfillment of what God has decreed from all eternity being fulfilled before our own eyes in time. Again, if you're a Gentile and you've believed on Christ, without all of God's work among the Gentiles, you and I would be lost. But because He is the light of the Gentiles, we can be saved. So, we have a genealogy, we have Gentiles, and the next thing we have is grace. Grace. Let's return to these five women in the lineage of Christ. At least three. maybe even four, were Gentiles, but there's something else about them. Of the five women mentioned, three of them had very sordid reputations. Tamar deliberately disguised herself as a prostitute. She did so because she obviously knew something about the character of her father-in-law. If he passes by and sees a woman dressed like a prostitute, he'll sleep with her. And so he sleeps with her. This is an incestuous act. He doesn't know it is, but she does. Remember what happens when she gets pregnant. He finds out about it. You remember his reaction? Very hypocritically says, burn her at the stake. Until she sends proofs to him, oh, you're the father. And suddenly he changes his tune and doesn't want to burn her at the stake. But what happens as a result, Hezron is born, she actually has two sons, but Hezron is added to the lineage of Christ. But isn't it noteworthy that the Holy Spirit wants you to remember that? He wants you to understand this incestuous union produced some of his ancestors, some of the ancestors of the Messiah. Why? Let's move on to Rahab. Who was Rahab? Yes, she was a Canaanite. She was a Canaanite prostitute. She's a woman who had known many men. She's a woman who had rented out her body to others. She was a sexually promiscuous woman, and yet she gets added in to the lineage of the Messiah, and again, the Holy Spirit mentions her by name. And then in verse 6, we're told that Jesus descended from King David, but it wasn't through his wife Michal, or his wife Abigail, or any of the other wives he had. Rather, it was her who had been the wife of Uriah. The Holy Spirit wants to remind you, oh yeah, you remember Uriah, the one that David arranged to kill in order to cover up his sin with Bathsheba? Because he stole another man's wife, committed adultery with her. And you remember what happened? The first child that was born to her, God killed him, took his life in judgment of David, and then she conceived a second time and she gave birth to Solomon. But God wants to remind us of this sordid past. He calls special attention to it and drives it home to us. Why? Because the family tree of the Messiah had some incredibly seedy people in it. Whores and whoremongers, adulterers and adulteresses, idolaters and thieves and murderers. The case of Judah and Tamar even had some incest in it. The family tree didn't branch as widely as we might have hoped it would have. And some of these sinful atrocities were committed by people who had otherwise godly reputations. Now, why is the Holy Spirit telling us this in this genealogical table about Jesus? Two primary things stand out to me. Number one, Nothing can thwart God's purposes. God intended to send the Messiah, and not all the sinfulness of man can stop it from happening. God works through means. He works in spite of our sinfulness, and sometimes He works even through our sinfulness. And even the friends of God throughout redemptive history sometimes despised His blessings and turned a deaf ear to His law. So think about it, we talked about all these covenants, right? Well, Adam fell, we know that, right? Well, what about Noah? God certainly worked a great deliverance through Noah, but then after the flood, after his deliverance, what did he do? He got stone drunk. Abraham's called the friend of God and his faith is commended as an example to us. And yet the same Abraham, not once, but twice almost sold his wife to pagan Kings and said, okay, you can marry her. Just think she's my sister. As long as I'm safe, as long as my neck is secure, honey, it's been fun. I mean, here's the man willing to sell his wife to two pagan Kings. Jacob, oh my word, Jacob was a piece of work, a devious man who did not attain to the heights of his father and his grandfather, Isaac and Abraham. Moses is regarded as one of the greatest leaders of the Old Testament, and yet this same Moses, he's even set forth as a type of Christ, a foreshadowing of Christ, and yet you remember in a moment of anger and intemperance, he struck the rock instead of spoke to the rock, and what happened? He was forbidden to enter into the promised land. The very deliverer God had raised up was not allowed to go and live in the land of Canaan. We're told David was a man after God's own heart, but the same man was not above adultery, he wasn't above murder, stealing, and deceit. In other words, we're being shown that these men were fallen. None of them saved themselves, and yet God's purposes were carried on despite it. The second thing we're supposed to see is this. The Messiah did not come to represent the righteous, but sinners. There's a Presbyterian minister named Brian Chappell and he said this, have you ever noticed that the Bible deliberately throws mud on all its heroes except for one? It's true. To show us Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, all these men are set forth as heroes of the faith, but not one of them was saved by their own righteousness. Not one of them was saved by their own works. Every last one of them needed to be delivered by the Messiah himself. They needed Jesus to die for their sins. They needed his righteousness credited to their account. Otherwise they never would have gone to heaven. They needed a savior just like you and I do. And here's the good news. And if you miss everything else I say today, if you're asleep, wake up right now and hear what I'm saying. Jesus did not die for the righteous. Jesus came to die for guilty sinners just like you. He came for people who are guilty. He came for people who are wicked and fallen and have a horrible record of sins on their account. But Jesus came to represent Jew and Gentile, but he also came to represent sinners. That's why it's appropriate that his own lineage should be full of sinners like this, to say, that's exactly whom I've come to rescue and to deliver. So we've seen genealogy, Gentiles, and we've seen grace. Now, and final thing, let's see generations. Look again at verse 17. So all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations. From David until the captivity in Babylon are 14 generations. From the captivity in Babylon until Christ are 14 generations. Now, Bible scholars and commentators have puzzled over the genealogy of Matthew 1 and Luke 3 for centuries. They've wrestled with all kinds of questions and issues. I'm not gonna indulge all those things or go there. If you're curious about such things and want to find some helpful answers, I encourage you to look at William Hendrickson's commentary or James Montgomery Boyce's commentary is also helpful. Part of the difficulty, though, is that Matthew is not giving us an exhaustive list in the genealogical table. William Hendrickson suggests it's not an exhaustive genealogy. Rather, he's giving us a theological commentary on Jesus' genealogy. And I want to make simply two remarks about this. First, Matthew organizes Jesus' human lineage in six sets of seven. Six sets of seven. Matthew speaks of 14 generations between Abraham and David, then 14 more generations between David and the captivity in Babylon, and the 14 generations from Babylon to Christ. That is six sets of seven generations each. In the Jewish mind, the number seven is the number of completion. It's the number of perfection. The earth was created in six days and God rested on the seventh because the earth was complete and perfect. Well, even so, the birth of Jesus as framed by Matthew is a culmination of six complete sets of generations with Jesus himself being the seventh and final iteration in the cycle. The one who's perfect has finally come. And it's another way of saying that Jesus, though born late in time, was born in the fullness of time. He came in exactly the time that God had appointed for him to be born. And then the second point is this. and this is William Hendrickson's point as well, this is where I got it from. Matthew arranges Jesus' lineage with David as the central focus. In other words, we go from Abraham to David, we see the origin of David's house. From David to Babylon, we see the rise and the decline of David's house. From Babylon until Jesus, we see the eclipse of David's house. And with the birth of Jesus, what do you see? You see the restoration of David's house. God rebuilds the tabernacle of David through Jesus Christ. Think about it. In the Old Testament, David is set forth as the litmus test by which every other king is measured. Every king that comes after David, either it says he walked in the footsteps of his father David, or he did not walk in the footsteps of his father David. David is set forth as the golden standard of what a king should be. But when Jesus comes, it's not just that he walks in the footsteps of his father, David. He is far superior, far greater than David. He's not only David's son, he's also David's Lord. And he's the far greater than David that comes to us, and the far greater than Solomon, and the far greater than Moses, and the far greater than Adam. When we speak of types and antitypes, a type is a foreshadowing of something that's coming in the future, and the antitype is the fulfillment of all that. When you look at Jesus, He far exceeds all of the types of the Old Testament. The anti-type is far greater than anything you could have ever imagined. Michael Card has a song when he talks about how this messianic expectation was known by the prophets. And he says, for a thousand years, the dreamers dreamt and hoped to see His love. They longed to see the day Messiah came. But then it says this, the promise showed that their wildest dreams had simply not been wild enough. That when Jesus came, he far exceeded every expectation anyone would ever have. Now, I have two applications this morning. The first is this, the first coming of Jesus seemed like it would never come. But in the fullness of time, he came. Likewise, the second coming of Jesus now seems like it will never come, but in the fullness of time, He will. God took His own time, His own sweet time, preparing the way for the Messiah to come. He foretold His coming through the preaching of the prophets, through the covenants he made with men, through the types and shadows of the Passover and the entire sacrificial system. He wrote it down with pen and ink and through the scriptures over hundreds and hundreds of years. He even had the Old Testament saints singing about it. You know, right in the middle of your Bible is an inspired and infallible hymn book, the book of Psalms, and it is full of Jesus Christ. Psalm 2, Psalm 22, both of them foretell the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Psalm 16 foretells his resurrection from the dead. The 45th Psalm celebrates his kingship and anticipates he's going to have a bride, the church. Psalm 89 is a song of praise given to God for the Davidic covenant. Psalm 110 says not only is he going to be a king, he's also going to be a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Psalm 96, Psalm 98 both anticipate the future second coming of Christ. Do you realize the Old Testament saints were singing about the second coming of Jesus before He even come the first time? Matter of fact, I got to say this, Pastor Matt reminded me of this the other day, we're going to be singing joy to the world soon. You know joy to the world has nothing to do with the first coming of Jesus? It's based on Psalm 98. It's about the second coming of Christ. Look at the words sometime. It's the second coming of Jesus. So it's fitting that we should sing it during this season, but it's also fitting to sing it all throughout the year because it's about the second coming of Jesus. And Peter tells us that the prophets anticipated and longed to see the appearing of the Messiah. They wondered, when is this going to happen? The Spirit of Christ within them was testifying that the Messiah was going to come, but he showed them that it wasn't going to be fulfilled in their lifetime. It'll be fulfilled in the lifetime of a different generation. And so Jesus, when he's with his apostles, says many saints of old long to see the days that you're seeing and did not see them. So blessed are your eyes because they're seeing the fulfillment of what has been foretold. But as we've seen from Matthew one, yes, Jesus was born late in time, but he was also born in just the perfect time. He came exactly when the father determined that he would. Now you and me, we're living in what the Bible calls the last ages, the last days. We are those upon whom the end of the ages have come. We are living in the last era of this present age, waiting for Jesus Christ to come back. To again quote Michael Card, he describes us as belonging to eternity, but we're stranded in time. You ever feel that? You ever feel that you're stranded in time? As your body gets older, gets weaker, things hurt a little bit more, your memory's not quite as good as it used to be, your vision isn't what it used to be. You go through the struggles of putting food on the table for your family, as we all do. You go through the difficulties of having to see loved ones get sick, to attend the funerals of friends and people you love and care about. Sometimes we get so bogged down with it, with all the stresses and the corruption of the world around us, and sometimes the compromises of the church and all those things that just grieve our hearts and weigh upon us, that sometimes we fear for tomorrow. We get anxious about what's going to happen next week or next year. And that's common to our condition, isn't it? Because we know that there's more bad things to come before Jesus comes back. And yet, aren't these things meant to gradually cut the strings that hold us to this world? And we're also meant to look and hope and to remember this is not all there is. Paul says that this is momentary light affliction when you compare it with a greater weight of glory that will be revealed when Jesus comes. Because when Jesus comes back, our future as God's people is full of infinite optimism. and never-ending joy. That's what we have to look forward to. When Jesus comes back, there's no more death, and there's no more sin, and there's no more doctors, and there's no more cancers, and there's no more Alzheimer's, and there's no more any of the things we struggle with and suffer with, and there's no more funerals, and there's no more funeral homes, because Jesus takes all that away, and there's no more sin inside my own heart anymore. and there's pure worship and pure praise, and there's the enjoyment of God's presence 24-7, always. That's our future. And even in the meantime, while we're here, while we are going through the valley of the shadow of death, and the Lord takes us to that valley many, many times, doesn't he, in this present age. We don't go through that valley alone. He is with us as our shepherd, being faithful to be with us and never to abandon us in this present age. And then what's in our future? I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. So brothers and sisters, yes, it seems like Jesus will never come again. To the Old Testament prophets, he never seemed like he was gonna come the first time, but he did, just as he promised. Even so, he's promised to come a second time. Is he gonna be true to his promise? Absolutely, and every single tick of the clock brings you that much closer to his second coming. But let me say a word to you who are here and do not know the Lord. who are yet in your sins. Every tick of the clock is bringing his second coming closer to you as well. And that should not fill you with joy. That should fill you with terror. That should cause you to fear. Because when Jesus came the first time, he came as the savior of the world. When he comes a second time, he's coming as the judge of the whole earth. and you're gonna stand and give an account to his life for every deed you've done in the body, whether it be evil or good, every thought you've ever entertained, every motive that's governed your heart, every word you've ever spoken, every action you've ever done, whether it's good or bad, all those things you're gonna give an account to him, and all of it's gonna be laid naked and bare before him, and you're not gonna be able to hide or cover it up. You can't bribe this judge, you can't deceive him, because he knows it all. and He's a God who judges by truth. Today is a day of mercy. Today, forgiveness is available to every last one of you. Today, the righteousness of Christ and eternal life is yours for the taking. It is offered as an absolutely free gift to be received freely by faith in Jesus alone. But once Jesus arrives to this earth, the day of mercy is over. It's too late to cry out for mercy. It's too late to repent of your sins. It's too late to forsake your own righteousness. It's too late to embrace Jesus by faith alone. It's just too late. I've been recently thinking about the doctrine of hell. About eternal punishment. Jesse alluded to it earlier. Fire and brimstone really is in the Bible. And when I think about hell, I'm going to be honest. I agree with John Piper. I can't meditate on it very long. Because it's too horrible a doctrine to contemplate. Jesus, once he says to you, depart from me, you workers of iniquity, into the lake of fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, he's gonna cast you, body and soul, into hell, into the lake of fire. There you'll be tormented by the flames for all of eternity. You'll burn but not be consumed. You'll long for death so that your sufferings will come to an end and it will never come. You'll suffer 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and when a thousand years have passed, it's just getting started. And there's never an end, and nothing in the Bible says you can't cry out to God for mercy upon your soul when you're in hell, but no one's going to answer you. Can you contemplate being separated from God for all eternity and suffering, never having any relief? That's what hell is. And hell doesn't exist because God's mean. Hell exists because God is just and you're guilty. That's why. And the only thing standing between you and an eternity in hell is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. There is nothing else. And that's the good news. That's the good news. Because if you're going to go to heaven, the righteous requirement of God's law has to be fulfilled and you can't keep it. But Jesus was sent to be the Savior of sinners to fulfill the law in our place by obeying all of its commands and by suffering under all of its penalties. He suffered in the place of sinners. God the Father took our sins and put them on Christ and poured out His wrath upon Him until His justice was satisfied. Remember what Jesus said on the cross? It is finished. The word means literally, it's paid in full. The debt is paid in full. Not 98% of it, 100% of sinners' debts are paid in full by Jesus Christ. Did God the Father accept His sacrifice in our place? Yes, He did. How do you know? How do you know? He raised Him from the dead, that's how you know. It's because He's risen that we know He's accepted it. So whoever you are, Jesus Christ is an all-sufficient Savior who is able to save you and just as willing as He is able. In other words, Jesus Christ died to save idolaters. He died to save people who've blasphemed the name of God. He died to pay for all of our Sabbath breakings. He died for self-willed rebels who refused to submit to anyone's authority but their own. He came to save people who have murdered their own unborn children through the atrocity called abortion. Jesus died for murderers like that. Jesus came and died for sexually immoral people who are fornicators and adulterers and homosexuals and lesbians and perverts. Jesus came to save people who are addicted to pornography. Jesus came to save thieves and robbers and kidnappers. He died to redeem liars, men and women who have no integrity. He came to die for people who are full of love of riches and material possessions and greed. He came to die for people who are addicted sinfully to alcohol and to drugs and all the rest and to set them free. That's whom Jesus came to save. He did not come for the righteous. He came for sinners. What did we see in the genealogy? A really bunch of rough folks whom Jesus came to die for. So if you're here and you're outside of Christ, mercy is offered to you today. But don't put it off. Don't say, well, I'll get serious about God tomorrow, because tomorrow may be too late. You're not promised tomorrow. You may die before this week is over. I may preach your funeral before this week is over. I hope not, but I may. Jesus may come before this week is over. Flee to Him while there's still hope of being saved. Second application, and this is what I'll end with. There's a man named Oswald J. Smith who said this, quote, we talk of the second coming, half the world has never heard of the first. We talk of the second coming, half the world's never heard of the first. If you've never seen it before, I hope you see it now. The Bible's not just a God-centered book, not just a Christ-centered book, it's a missions book, from cover to cover. God's intention is to spread his fame among all nations and in all languages. Isn't Jesus worthy of having his name proclaimed and spoken and sung in every language? And yet, there are 3,100 language groups who've never had his name preached to them. Brothers and sisters, we need to be renewed in our prayers, to pray fervently and affectionately on a daily basis. Oh Lord, the harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Raise up more laborers, biblically qualified laborers, to send out into your harvest field, that people might hear the name of Jesus and be saved. Raise them up from our midst. Raise them up from the midst of our church, from the midst of our association of churches, Lord, and send them out. Make us aware of the need and send men who are fitted for those needs to preach Jesus Christ to them. Because it is not just in the New Testament, it's prophesied in the Old, that all nations would hear Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But how can anyone preach to them unless they're sent? And so we need to pray, Lord, raise up such men from our midst Cry out to faithfulness to Him, and is it possible, I've said this several Wednesday nights in a row now, children, is it possible God may be calling some of you someday to be the ones who are sent, to go and sacrifice all you've ever known, leave behind all you've ever known, to make Christ known to a people who've never heard of Him. Be open to His call if that call is upon you. Let's pray. Lord of the harvest, we do pray that you will save sinners in our own midst, particularly, Father, we think of our children, many of whom have not yet closed with Christ. Lord, help them not to presume upon their parents' faith, Help them not to presume because they hear the gospel week in and week out that that makes them right with you. Rather, help them to experience the transforming power of the gospel for themselves. And Father, we do pray that you will raise up and send out labors into your harvest field. Be pleased to use us for the spread of your majesty among all nations. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.