Advent 2020
Advent 2020: God's Wisdom Revealed
December 13, 2020 • Andy Hoot • Matthew 2:1–12
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning. My name is Andy. Welcome to all of you who are here in person and those of you who are online. I'm just thrilled to be here. I'm one of the pastors here at Mosaic, along with pastor Jan and pastor Shane. I just want to plug it as we always do. If you just arrived and you're new, or you're just chiming in online, you can fill out a connection card. This is the best way for us to get to know you and for you to get more information about us. You can fill that out in person, put it in the white collection box in the back here, or fill it out online, or on our connection card on our app. Today, we are continuing our Advent series. This is a time of the year where we spend extra time meditating on what Christ's first coming means for us: his birth, his life, his death, his resurrection, and ascension, and how it gives us hope in him as we await his second coming. We're going to continue in the book of Matthew and I'm going to be reading from Matthew 2:1-12 12 today. Matthew 2:1-12. And I just want to start off by jumping right into the text. And then I'll jump into my message today. Please follow along as I read the word of God. Matthew 2:1-12. "Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the King, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem saying, 'Where is he who has been born, King of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him." "When Herod the King heard this, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet. And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people, Israel." "Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem saying, 'Go and search diligently for the child. And when you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him.' After listening the King, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was." "When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then opening their treasures, they offered him gifts: gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way." This is the word of God. Please join me in prayer. Heavenly father, we just praise you that we live in a day where we are less prone to turn to follow signs, to seek stars, to seek messages from you that are given to us by nature, by the whims of the world. Lord, we come in a day where we have seen that Jesus Christ has come into this world. He has revealed your true nature. He was the exact imprint of your nature in this life. He was the man, the God man to whom all the scriptures pointed and in whom all of them are fulfilled. Lord, we praise you that we get to be in this day where we get to look back. The victory is secured. We're just waiting till you come and you consummate your kingdom. You establish it in its entirety in our bodies, in our souls, in the world. And Lord, we pray right now, meet us in the way that you came and met us in the form of the baby, Jesus. Lord, meet us right now. Give us wisdom to be able to discern the ways that the world wants to deceive us and give us wisdom to walk forward in a way that's faithful you. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. I shouldn't have closed my Bible after I read it. Number one rule to break, according to my seminary preaching professor. I will be preaching from the Bible this whole sermon. So for all those who were forced to be in Christmas pageants with the three wise men as children and loathed it, this one's for you. I've waited for this day my whole life. I was the shyest kid. I hated those things. To all those who loved the pageants, I'm sorry not sorry to give you this message. To all those who don't know what I'm talking about, it's okay. You didn't miss out on much. I'm joking. Those dramatic displays of the birth of Christ can be beneficial, especially for a child. This is a passage that's really well-known. Christians and even non-Christians, people outside of the church will have a lot of familiarity with it. And it has a lot of details that are just really important to cover. I think many of you probably know a lot less about this passage than you think. For example, I want to begin with a question, how many wise are mentioned in the text? It's three, right? No. The text mentions three gifts given by the wise man, but it does not say that there were three of them present. Next, were the wise men kings? What does the text say? It calls them wise men. They're not called kings. Baltazar, Melchor, Gaspar. The song We Three Kings, I love it. One of my favorites to sing in this season. It's crushed. These are wise men. What is meant by wise men? The Greek word could be magi. These men were astrologers. They were magicians, diviners. They're interpreters of the sky, interpreters of dreams, most likely from Persia. And they were doing exactly what God told the Jews not to do that. They were trying to find a way, find guidance through life on just the whims of their thoughts, the whims of their flesh, apart from him. Next question, were are these men believers? Some people insert into this text that these men at the beginning of the story are believers. They know who this King of the Jews is, what he represents. They kind of have an understanding of the theology of the Messiah that they are going to see. The text says they come and they're looking for the king, the one who has been born King of the Jews. There's something right about that. He was born king. The text says that they want to worship him, but that doesn't mean that they're believers coming to worship their savior and Lord with a humble and contrite heart. The word used for worship might better be translated here as pay homage, pay honor to this king in the same way that they would show reverence to a man of honor. You have to think, it was literally the business of the magi to try to get to know the kings, the rulers, get their foot in the door of the courts of the troyal and ruling classes, find a source of income, get that per diem. And one can only imagine just the extra favor you might get when you stumble upon and you find a ruler and are the first to pay homage to a king. We can't really insert into the text that these guys were believers of Jesus as the Christ. So at this point, many people might begin to ask, so why can we trust this account? Why would scriptures mention pegging men from the East coming to pay homage to the King of the Jews? And why does Matthew present them in such a positive light. Old Testament scriptures, New Testament scriptures, they would have blatantly condemned the magi for their practices, for their beliefs, probably for some of their cultic ceremonies that were immoral. So why is this a part of the revelation of God? These are reasonable questions to ask. And I just want to speed through some of the details that tap into the details of the text. There's a lot of reasons to make it plausible that this is actual history that Matthew is chronicling. First, no Christian writer could have made this up. This story would have triggered a negative response to the Jewish or a Christian reader of Matthew's day. And if Matthew is really trying to convince this Jewish audiences, as we touched on primarily in the past couple of weeks. Pastor Jan's first sermon in the series. Matthew is writing to Jews. Why would he put it in the text unless it actually happened? If he were trying to fabricate a story to try to convince Jews to believe, why would he incorporate these guys into the story and put them in a positive light over Jews? Second, just the star stuff. I just want to tap into it. In many places of the ancient world, the intellectuals were astrologers. They believed astrology. Did you know that in history, it's preserved that in 44 BC during the funeral Julius Caesar, there was actually a supernova that appeared in the sky, some form of sudden star-like brightness that appeared. And this was great for the business of astrology. For a long time it lead to a belief that the birth and death of great kings, great leaders were marked by appearances of stars in the sky. Also history has preserved and modern science has confirmed that a conjunction of planets Jupiter and Saturn, they aligned in the sky at three different times to the naked eye, given the appearance of a really bright, single light in the year leading up to Christ's birth. We mark the year of Christ's birth and tie that to King Herod's death. That's preserved throughout history. And the 5 BC, beginning of 4 BC. There are a couple of dates, the specific dates that are thrown around, but May 29th, October 3rd, December 4th, and the year leading up to Christ's birth are the most popular dates. This could explain why the magi had to make the final call for where to go once they entered Israel. They might've had this natural phenomena in the sky that triggered them. There's this unique light in the sky. There's these rumors of a king born that would come out of Judea. And just to elaborate, there was a widespread rumor and first century BC in the Mediterranean region that a great ruler would come out of the region of Judea. Tacitus, Suetonius, Roman historians, Josephus, a Jewish Roman historian, all of the first century AD, they mentioned that these were common rumors. These were common expectations. This rumor was proven influential when Vespasian, a Roman who actually put down a rebellion in Judea in AD 66, part of his platform for his campaign while running for the office of Roman emperor, and he won, was his claim that he was the great leader that was anticipated in this day. And so you have these phenomena in the sky. The non-believing world has these expectations for a leader that would come out of Judea. Perhaps the astrologers of the day, they would have been studying different ancient texts, different ancient scriptures as part of their vocation. Perhaps they had exposure to Numbers 24:7. Remember, Israel was exiled to Babylon, who then came on control of Persia. The prophet Daniel was alive and very influential in Babylon and Persia. During the exile, it's likely that the magi, the astrologers, the intellectual elites of that day would have been talking, had exposure to multiple scriptures. Number 24:7 says, "A star shall come out of Jacob, and a Scepter shall rise out of Israel." Just this kind of randomly placed prophecy in the Old Testament, spoken under the spirit of God by a Gentile prophet, Balam. There's a chance that these astrologers of the day were influenced by this text. So you have all the rumors flying around amongst the astrologers. You have actual phenomenon in the sky, maybe some influence from this Numbers text. And there's a lot of reason to believe that this actually happened. That magi guy from the East, a caravan of them showed up saying, 'Where is the King? Where's the King of the Jews? Where is he?" With assurance that he was born or that he was about to be born. There's a lot of reason to believe the credibility of Matthew's texts from the scripture, from outside of it. All of this information is really intriguing. You can just get lost in this text and in the history, the resources that come out. But in order to get something from this text, we have to stay focused. Matthew is not a true historian. He's a pastor. Scripture talks about there's not enough space to talk about the miraculous, the amazing things that Jesus Christ came and did in his life. So why does Matthew, most likely writing with a pastoral perspective to engage his Jewish audience, primarily Jewish audience, why does he include this specific story of the magi traveling, saying, "Where is he? Where is this king born of the Jews?" And today, by focusing on these actions, the story of the magi, I want to suggest that Matthew is making a comment to his audience about the wisdom of that age. Taken further, Matthew is making a comment about the wisdom of any age. So why is that? The wise men were the intellectuals. They're the leading thinkers. The intelligence here. Thank you AP European History for giving me a chance to use that for the first time in 15 years. The wise men were the lead thinkers of their day. They would have been appointed to presidential councils, overseeing the life and worship of their respective countries and kingdoms. These are people who would have been writing the textbooks while having tenured positions at the top universities. These are the people who would give the most stimulating Ted Talks as well. And Matthew, in this episode, during the events leading up to Christ, he puts their knowledge, their wisdom to the test. It's in their pursuit of the poor baby King of the Jews that their wisdom is turned upside down. The apostle Paul once said in 1st Corinthians 20 and 21, "Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world, for since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom. It please God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe." This text from Matthew has that same message. Paul's question to the philosophers, the learned, the top thinkers of the day. Remember he goes into the talk of the logos, how the Greeks looked for the principle that guided everything and explained everything in life. Matthews chipping into that for his audience. So I want to make the claim, this passage teaches us about the wisdom of the world. It shows us that Christmas puts to shame the wisdom of any age. From Matthew 2:1-12, we can say that the wisdom of the world is cyclical, superficial, and insufficient. Those are going to be my three main points. The wisdom of the world is cyclical, superficial and insufficient. I'll explain the big vocabulary words. Point one, the wisdom of the world as cyclical. What do I mean by cyclical? It's prone to change due to circumstances, discoveries, innovations, needs, trends. Many times it repeats itself. I get this simply from the text by meditating on the fact that the wise men, the magi, the astrologers, the lead thinkers of large powerful countries for likely a couple of centuries derived their wisdom and knowledge and counsel from phenomena and the stars. That's a laughable to us. That's something that we scoff at in this day. But how many of you know your sign? How many of you when you come across a horoscope you can't help. You're tempted to look into what it says. What's on your agenda? What's coming up for you? It's laughable. It seems superstitious. And as Christians, you should not be doing that. I'm going to say that plainly. We don't have to dig into that. That is just dabbling with idolatry. But it's laughable. This is something that is rooted in beliefs of 2000 years ago. But at some point it came back. It influenced our age. It influenced our society, especially in the 20th century. I still remember seeing horoscopes in the newspaper growing up. I don't really know where people go to get it today. You can just find a million websites, I'm sure. But there's a cyclical aspect. It's the wisdom of the world is dated, it's trait. It repeats itself. Let me give you another example. In the mid 19th century, what were all the academics and elite saying was going to solve man's problems? In the fifties, sixties, seventies, the thought of Sigmund Freud reigned. People would go to cycle analysts multiple times a week, for years, spending hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars to figure out their conscience with little results. This was actually horrible for the church, just FYI. After millennia of Christians going to the scripture for wisdom, instead of talking to their brothers and sisters in Christ who are pastors, who were guided by the Holy spirit, people needed an expert to solve their problems. Freud had his day in secular society. Freud infiltrated the church. But by the 1980s, he was ruled obsolete. What do these examples suggest about other systems of thought by the elites, the academics, the thought experts of our day, supposed thought experts of our day? What does it say about the previous ages and their experts? Think about the fluctuations in what universities have said about gender and sexual identity and desire. They're once genetically not fixed. They were learned. And then a decade or so later they were fixed. Is there ever anything proposed to solve and deal with the problems of man by the world? Are any ideas ever new? Do any of them last? Just wait five, 10, 15, 20 years and our kids and grandkids will be laughing at us for many of the things that we believed in our day. My grandmother... Just a couple of practical examples of how this can happen. My grandmother went to the grave thinking that smoking was not detrimental to her health. She started smoking as a teenager, probably went 40 years or so. I think she had another health problem that caused her to drop smoking. But for the rest of her life, when she went out with her friends, she was sneaking cigarettes. We just laughed at that. She insisted. She went to the grave believing that because that's what they impressed upon her in her day. And football fans think of the option offense. It apparently rose to prominence in the 1970s. It's gone in and out of fashion. Bring in Tim Tebow, bring in Michael Vick, it rises to prominence again. That's how wisdom and philosophy of this world has fluctuated throughout history. C.S. Lewis once said, "All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." All that is not eternal is eternally out date. What does this mean? And he thought principles, ideas that are not rooted in the revelation of God and the inspired scriptures given to man are worn out. Once an idea has its day, it is immediately kicked out the door. Immediately on its way to be kicked out the door. That's how the wisdom of the world works. The reality is that every generation of elite thinkers believe that they know best. C.S. Lewis taps into this in this talk of chronological snobbery. Every generation thinks that man has ascended to greater knowledge, evolved beyond its shortcomings. We know better about the differences between men and women. We know best how to treat racial and ethic differences. We know best how to talk about sexuality and relational dynamics. We understand the self better than there rest. But where is the evidence of ascent to greater understanding? Where's the evidence of emerging consensus of thought? In 2020, do you see that evidence? The world says, "Christians, you have to get with it now." And yes, we should have a heart to learn. We should be able to admit that we just might personally have blind spots. Science is figuring out how some things work. But do we follow the philosophies, the teachings of this world and its imperatives when they contradict scripture? God's special revelation. As a church, do we follow them, as individuals? And just thinking about those answers, let me ask you what has happened in your own life when you've blended the teachings of scripture with the teachings of the world? I did that for about five years, four years of college, one year out before I found Mosaic in August 2011. It's only by the grace of God that brought me out of the darkness in which I was walking and the despair. What has happened when churches that you're a part of blended the instruction of God word and the world? Some of you come from great churches, great hometown churches that are faithful to the word. And I'm jealous of you. A lot of you come from these churches. Their intentions, they mean well, but in order to try to attract people, they've watered down the word of God. And the reality is that they're laughable. It's painful to think about it. Pulling from the world and picking and choosing from the Bible. Life apart from the word of God or life in which one blends the word of God with the wisdom of the world, it correctly leads one to confer with Ecclesiastes that all is vanity. Ecclesiastes 1:8-11 says, "All things are full of weariness. A man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done. And there's nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, 'See, this is new.' It has been already in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after." We do forget, and that's why we repeat a lot of the worldly wisdom. Christmas tells us, where is the wise man? Where is the philosopher? Where is the debater? He's already received a boot in the rear end out the door. He might be let in again for a little while, but then he'll be booted back out again. The wisdom of Christianity is different than that of the world. It is eternal. Isaiah 48 says, "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of God will stand forever." Believe this or just the abide in me, the song, the prayer. That was perfect. That's where our life is. That's where wisdom comes from, day-to-day wisdom to March forward in faithfulness. Abide in God's word. It's sufficient for your situation. It's sufficient for the church. The beauty of Christianity is you can read the Bible. You can read the greats from the past 2000 years: Agustin, Luther, Calvin. There's universal appeal because they're pulling from the word of God that appeals to all of us as image bearers of God. Adam and Eve were created not just to walk the garden and tend to it alone, they were supposed to do it with God instructing them and guiding them along the process. Point two, Christmas teaches us that the wisdom of the world is superficial. What do I mean by superficial? It's shallow. It leads one to the same path, saying that prosperity will satisfy. Prosperity, power, closeness to the nobility will heal. Go to the centers of power to find what you're looking forward, to make a difference, get access to the resources that you need. But God set up Christ's life so that he didn't have access to any of those things that worldly wisdom says we need. Verse one and two, "Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the King, behold, wiseman from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, 'Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews, for we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him." Based on the magi's own study, on their own volition, the influence of the wisdom of the world on them, of course Jerusalem is where the King of Jews will be. "Where is he?" They say when they show up with confidence. They're thinking it's superficial, it's shallow. A town like Bethlehem, any other small town, insignificant place, doesn't cross their mind. Furthermore, we get a sense that they're not really going there to truly worship him. They're going there to honor him. Their motives are questionable at this point in the text. The study and volition of the wiseman led them to Jerusalem. They were probably going in their best dress. So maybe those three wise men pictures with them in the very colorful robes and head dresses. There might be some accuracy, just there might be more than three of them. They show up only to be redirected to a birthday party. This is where the wisdom of God begins to supplant the shallowness of the wisdom of the world. "Where's the party? In the courts of the king? In an area like the Back Bay, with chef Salt Bae serving the lamb?" No, they don't land in Jerusalem. That's not where the party is. It's in Bethlehem in a barn or probably more of a crowded house at this point. At a party with who? A super poor family, shepherds. These guys where the social outcasts, the unlearned of society and sheep. Do you see the wisdom of God bringing to light and undermining the shallowness of the wisdom of man? It really should cause us to laugh. 1st Corinthians 1:25, "For the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men." That's what the Christmas story shows us. Everything about the Christmas story is wrong according to the wise men, according to the prideful Jews, who Matthew is writing to. The people are outcasts. The magi themselves were just ethnically not the right people. They shouldn't have been there. The people from the right bloodlines, social background, economic background, they're not there. Jesus' family, Joseph and Mary, are the poorest of the poor. When they go to the temple, probably after they use the money from the gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh to flee to Egypt, they go to the temple to dedicate Christ. They pay the poorest fee for the sacrificed. They offer a sacrifice allowed for the poorest of the poor. Other parts of the gospels tell us that Christ was raised in Nazareth, a place of ill repute. He went on to work as a carpenter. When he began his ministry, most of his followers were not just the leaders in the region, but an eclectic mix of misfits, rejects. Scripture talks about how there is nothing special about the appearance of Jesus Christ. As you read this, you have to really ask yourself, how would you have planned for Jesus to become what he became in the eyes of the world? I don't want to say campaign manager or hearing and say election trauma. But what if you were the campaign manager of Jesus Christ? Would you have really come up with what is in scripture to put Jesus Christ to the place of prominence, where he is in the history of the world? God's plan is radically different than what any of us could come up with. All the things of the world that the wisdom of the world tells us that we need, Christ didn't have. Power, influence riches, political authority, academic positions, Christ avoided all of them. With his Christmas presentation, the Holy spirit, through Matthew, is teaching us the shallowness, the superficial reality of all things that the wisdom of the world says we need. The king, the son of God, the promised Messiah, the fulfillment of all the scriptures is born in a stable, surrounded by a bunch of misfits with all the smells around. And that is why is worthy of our worship. He is altogether wise, wholly different, sovereign. God's power is glorified in how he can work through such a circumstance. In the context of Matthew, this is the specific point that Matthew is trying to make to his Jewish audience. Don't be like Herod, who was a professed Jew. The priests, the scribes, they missed this when the magi came into town. Those Jews, they were able to quote the scriptures about where Jesus was to be born. They were able to even say that this Jesus, this king would be a shepherd of his people. He would rule with righteousness. He would be just, gentle, kind. They're able to say that while under the reign of Herod the great, a powerful tyrant who sucked the money in life out of the people, yet they missed it. Matthew's audience, they're Jews. They're looking for Christ, for God to reveal himself in a profound worldly way. And Matthew is saying don't miss it. He came. He was born in a manger. And that is why he is more worthy to worship than any other king you can think of. We have to shed our earthly expectations. For us, the command is to be aware of the grip of the world's wisdom on our hearts. Now, we don't realize it when we come to Christianity just how strong it is. It took me to go to seminary to just see the influence of the thinking of the world on my heart. You don't have to do that. You can just abide and every step of life appeal to God's word, fend it off with prayer. When you start thinking about the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of the way of God, the wisdom of God working through these broken hopeless circumstances, just simply believing in a God who works like this. You might think you'll be laughed at or mocked in pursuing faithfulness to him. The reality of this text is that it's not might. You will be laughed at and mocked by the world in following God's wisdom and not the worlds. But we have to heed the wisdom that Matthew used to expound upon these teachings in chapter two. Chapter five, we're going to continue in Matthew. After the admin season, the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, a teaching of Christ that blatantly turned the wisdom of the world upside down, says, "Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." "Blessed are those who mourn so they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets before you." We have to trust the Lord's wisdom, his ways, his commands. And that is the means to blessedness and fullness in this life. Point three, Christmas teaches us the wisdom of the world is not just cyclical, superficial, but it's also insufficient. What are the wise men of the world supposed to do? They tell us how life works in its entirety. They're the ones who are supposed to find things and explain things for us, find that principle, that thing that explains everything. But scripture in this story from Matthew, it tells us that the wisdom of the world can only take us part of the way. How is that shown? The magi can't quite make it to the destination that they seek, the location of the King of the Jews. By their own knowledge and volition, they make it pretty far. They get to Jerusalem, but they don't quite make it. The wisdom of the world is insufficient. We have longings for something that cannot be found in this world, longings for a sovereign, righteous, glorious king on our hearts. But the wisdom of the world can't take us there. Romans one. Romans is called Paul's gospel. He begins his gospel with... It's really an epistle. But he begins, what's perceived as his gospel, with unaided reason, we know that God exists. We can look at the world. We can look within ourselves and know that there is a creator. But without special revelation to us from God through his word, through the preaching of the gospel primarily. The gospel is the power an through righteousness to the Jew first. The power of God and through righteousness to the Jew first and also the agree that we can't gain access to God apart from the preaching of the gospel, apart from special revelation from God. Science captures this. A Harvard School of Public Health professor, Tyler VanderWeele, and a journalist John Siniff, they wrote a USA Today op-ed entitled Religion May Be a Miracle Drug. They outline mental and physical benefits correlated with religious participation for most Americans who go to church. Just some of the benefits. Mortality rates are reduced by 20% to 30% over a 15 year period for those who go to church. Those who regularly attend services are more optimistic. They have lower rates of depression. They're less likely to commit suicide, have greater purpose in life, are less likely to divorce, and more self-controlled. Science and research in our day, they can quantify the value of religion, quantify the value of Christianity, but they can't take us to the Lord Jesus Christ, who brings us those benefits. The peace of heart, the experience of the love of God, the peace with the father that we get through Christ. Man by his wisdom could not find God. That's the point of Christmas. God comes to us. How do the wise men find Jesus in the story? It's not until God gives them the specific paths through the reading of the scripture, by the scribes know. To begin their journey, maybe they had this background where they heard Numbers 24:7-17, this text that a star and Sceptre shall come from Israel. And that would be the special revelation from God given to them. But we can't really discern where they just fall in the suspicions of the magi of their day. We can't discern that. But in this text, it's the quoting of the scriptures that redirects the magi from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. It's what gets them to their destination, where the king, whom they desire to see and to meet wise. This is in Matthew 2:3-6. Furthermore, in verse nine, we get the sense that the final appearance of a star was of a different sort of appearance. It says that the star appeared for a short time. It came and stood over the house. Is this a supernatural star, a special star, or just a special act of providence arranged by God for them in that moment? We don't know. But verse 10 talks about how they felt at that moment. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. There is no elation about them because they know that they're being guided by God himself. They've been looking for wisdom their whole lives, and they know that they have found it. It's coming from the source of all wisdom of true wisdom. They haven't seen Christ in physical form yet, but they know that they're being guided by the right spirit because God has spoken to them. The scripture that this brings to mind is 1st Peter 1:8-9. It says, "Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls." This is Peter writing to people walking with assurance that wonder is under the care, the guidance of God who has sealed their salvation even though they can't see him. And the magi have that. Before they see Jesus Christ, you get this through the language, through their response. When they go to Christ, they worship him. They lay down. They bow. They worship him. They offer him gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh that would have been gifts fit for a king. And the word offer is used primarily in a sacrificial way. This is what Matthew is trying to tell his audience. You, first century Jew, you might not see him. In your circumstances, you might not see God at work in your day to day life and your toils and your troubles dealing with the vines, the thorns and thistles of life. You might not see him. But in order to get there, read his word. You have it, just like the scribes, the priests. He's speaking to you directly. You have the source of wisdom and you can rejoice. He has spoken to you through his word in the person of Jesus Christ. There's assurance that God is with us, that God is guiding us, that he will always be with us, regardless of our circumstances. There's a knowledge that we have that separates us from non-believers. It's the source of our hope that we will persevere to the end of our journey as the magi I did. This knowledge, it's only given to us God. True faith that God loves one, is guiding one, is what drives us to true and sacrificial worship of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's what gives us the ability to endure the hardship. Do you want to worship God? Do you want this assurance that is the Holy Spirit who is guiding you instead of the whims of the wisdom of the world? Do you see the cyclical nature of the wisdom of the world, the shallowness of it, the insufficiency of it? If this is your position, the apostle Paul instructs you look to the cross of Jesus Christ. For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles. But those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. It's at the cross that a holy God wisely retains perfect justice by shedding his wrath for man's sin on his own son, while also exhibiting infinite mercy and love to those who are saved by such an act. It's there that you'll find the nuanced, glorious wisdom that will satisfy your heart. It's there where you'll stop clinging to the shallow wisdom of the world. You'll lose the rigidity of mind that comes with it. It's where your sins will be forgiven. It's where you'll truly know God and yourself. Let bow in prayer. Lord, we praise you that we are not people who have just seek desperately for you. It is by your grace that you have called us your children. It's by your grace that you have revealed yourself to us while we are wandering; not just wandering, we're enemies against you. We did not desire a relationship with you, but you called us, you spoke to us, you showed us your holiness. You gave us a taste of your spirit. We know it's different than the wisdom of the world, the spirit of the world. And Lord, I pray, give us faith that we may trust you going forward. That your word is sufficient to guide us. That we don't have to look for the church to rise to earthly prominence. We don't have to rise to earthly prominence ourselves, but we can be made complete and whole in you. I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Advent 2020: Jesus Christ is Born
December 6, 2020 • Shane Sikkema • Matthew 1:18–25
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston in our neighborhood, churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Welcome. My name is Shane, I'm one of the pastors here at Mosaic, and we're so glad to have you with us today. We would love to connect with you, and if you would like to connect with us, we do that through the little connection card. You probably grabbed one of those on the way in, you can just fill that out and drop it in the little white box at the back of the room on your way out this morning. You can also do that online. There's a link to that on our homepage. And if you fill that out for us, we would like to just follow up with you this week and also just send a small gift to you in the mail, to thank you for being with us today. One quick announcement before we get started. Tonight, we're having our final prayer service. It's going to be here at 5:00 PM. You're all welcome back for that. And then next Sunday afternoon at 3:00 PM, we're going to be having our final members meeting of the year. So if you're a member of Mosaic, or if you're becoming a member at that meeting, look forward to seeing you there. Advent is here, Christmas is coming. We are spending Advent this year in the gospel of Matthew, taking a look at his account of Jesus' birth. And so last week, Pastor Jan took us through the first half of chapter one. We looked at Jesus' family tree, his genealogy. Next week, we're going to be looking at that famous story of the wise men who followed the star to Bethlehem to worship the newborn King. This week, we are looking at the birth of Jesus itself, and it's, it's an amazing story .for those of you who have children, you probably have a birth story, especially with the first child. That experience is so crazy and surreal that it gets seared into your memory. We had that with our oldest son Owen. With our daughter, Nora, Nora was born just a few minutes before Valentine's day. And I tried and I tried it and tried to talk to my wife, Kelly to just told out for a few more minutes, but she was being totally unreasonable. And so Nora was supposed to be born on Saturday the 14th, which was Valentine's Day. Instead, she was born on Friday the 13th, which explains a lot, if you know Nora. And so she's born on Friday the 13th. The next day, I go home to stay with our older son, Owen and overnight Boston gets hit with the most massive snowstorm that we have seen in all the years that we lived here. Everything, the next day was shut down, there was a travel ban. We were snowed in. And Kelly and Nora were stranded at the hospital, ended up having to stay there an extra day. Finally, the next day, we're able to dig the car out. The roads are somewhat cleared and we're able to go to the hospital and bring them home. And if you've ever driven a newborn home from the hospital, it's one of the most terrifying experiences in your life. For some reason, you get them down to the car. You triple check every buckle, every strap of their car seat. And as you're pulling out of your parking spot, it feels like you've never driven a car before in your entire life. And so here you are. You've just been given this massive responsibility. You've got to take this tiny, fragile, little human being, who's only like two days old, and get them home safe and sound. But to do that, you have to drive through the minefield of Boston drivers. And so things are going well. We're about two blocks away from home. We're in the home stretch. We're coming down Beacon Street. And all of a sudden the guy in the lane next to us just decides he wants to be in our lane and just smashes into us. It was like, "This can't be real. This can't be really happening. We're getting in a car accident on the way home from the hospital with my newborn daughter." Everybody was fine. She was fine. She was new to the whole driving thing, so she didn't know any better. This was normal for all that she knew, but things didn't go the way we planned. And at times, they were stressful. But now we look back on this as a fond memory, a story to tell. And oftentimes, the things that are most memorable in life are those times where things didn't go as planned, where they didn't go the way that we expected, or maybe hoped that they would. And the Christmas story, the story of Jesus' birth, it's a lot like that. You read through the accounts and it's such a almost shocking and unusual story. It's very unexpected, but it's also very memorable. And what Matthew, I think one of the things that he wants us to do, as we read through his account of Jesus' birth, is to understand that while yes, these things are unusual and they were maybe unexpected to us and maybe were even unexpected to Mary and Joseph, that they really shouldn't have been unexpected. Because actually all of these details, the circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth, had been prophesied hundreds of years before and were recorded in scripture. And they were put there to prove, and to show us that this truly was the Messiah. That all of these details that were outside of Mary and Joseph's control, they were not outside of God's control. And actually God was sovereignly orchestrating these things to answer clearly that question that we sing at Christmas time, What Child is This? And the answer is that this is no ordinary child. That Jesus is the child of the promise, the child of the prophecy, the Messiah. That he was the son of Mary, and yet he is also the Son of God, Emmanuel. Fully human, fully divine. And so our text today, we're going to be looking at the second half of chapter one, Matthew, beginning of verse 18. If you have your Bibles, you can follow along. The passage is also going to be up here on the screen. And the three points that we're going to be looking at today is first of all, Jesus Christ is born. Second, we see that Jesus Christ is loved. And third, we see that Jesus Christ is named. And so I'm going to read our text verse. This is Matthew chapter one, beginning in verse 18. "Now, the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband, Joseph being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, "Joseph son of David do not fear to take Mary as your wife. For that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All of this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us." When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but he knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name, Jesus." Would you please pray with me for today's sermon? Father, we thank you for speaking to us today and we thank you for your written word. Your word is powerful. It is authoritative for our lives. And we also thank you for sending us your living word, your son, Jesus Christ. And as we examine the accounts of his birth today, I pray Holy Spirit, that you would impress these words upon our hearts. To know them, to love them, to learn, and to obey them, to walk in them. And as we do, to become more and more like your son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It's in His name we pray. Amen. So point number one today, Jesus Christ is born. This is verse 18. Now, the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. Christmas is a good time to slow down and to reflect on life. And I think one of the most important things we need to slow down and reflect on this time of year is this very simple, and yet profound statement, that Jesus Christ was born. And think about what that means. That the almighty, eternal, creator of the universe was born. We can't fully appreciate even that title, Almighty Creator, because we can't even begin to appreciate the scope and the power of the universe that this creator created. I'm not an astronomer, but I have watched the entire, How the Universe Works docuseries on Amazon prime. So I'm basically an expert. So I'm going to take you on, on just a little drive through our universe. We started off with home sweet home, planet Earth. And do you remember the first time that you flew in an airplane? It's easy to become jaded by air travel when you do it a lot, but that first time when it was still awesome, when it still caused you to wonder. As you're lifting higher and higher into the air and you see everything below is just getting smaller and smaller, small, you realize just how tiny and insignificant you are compared to just the vast magnitude of the planet that we live on. And we live in an age where, with the help of modern telescopes and in satellites, we're just beginning to understand that as big, as huge as our planet seems, it's relatively tiny and insignificant compared to the magnitude of the universe that it's found in. And so you look even to our own solar system, the planet, Jupiter, this is earth next to the planet. Jupiter, the great gas giant of our solar system. Jupiter is so large that the planet Earth could fit inside it's great red spot. It's a massive storm that has been raging across the surface of the planet for over 300 years. You could fit 1300 Earths, inside Jupiter. If you zoom out even farther to the largest object in our solar system, the sun could fit 1 million Earths inside. And yet we know that the sun is a a relatively small star compared to most. And so even within our galaxy, you have stars like what was for a long time, the reigning champion. I think it's been dethroned and this is maybe the seventh or eighth largest star in our galaxy, VY Canis Majoris. If you look at the picture there, you may not be even able to see, there's a little blue circle down there. That circle represents the orbit of Earth around the sun. And the sun itself is just like a speck of dust compared to this massive, massive star. You zoom out farther, and at the center of most galaxies are believed to be these things, we call some of them super massive black holes, are something like 40 billion times the mass of our sun. And a small percentage of these super massive black holes developed things around them called quasars ,where incredible amounts of energy are swirling inward, with tremendous speed. And then for some reason, are violently ejected outward at near light speed, reaching temperatures in the billions of degrees. Powerful enough to eclipse the entire combined brightness of all the billions of stars within its own galaxy. The jets from these quasars can fire particles out beyond border of their galaxies, into intergalactic space. They're trillions of times brighter than our own sun. And we've discovered thousands of these quasars among the billions upon billions of galaxies in the universe. The size and the complexity and the terrifying power of the forces within our universe, they boggled the minds of physicists. Not like armchair physicists like me, but those are the ones who actually spend their lives studying these things. They appear to be completely paradoxical. They far exceed our ability to perceive and understand. And yet the almighty creator of the universe, for whom, and through whom all things were made, simply spoke them into existence. The God who did that chose to come down and visit a tiny town, on a tiny planet, orbiting a tiny star, and the way he chose to visit us was to be born a tiny, defenseless, dependent baby. Entrusting himself to two terrified teenagers. We mustn't underestimate how profound a statement Matthew makes when he tells us that Jesus Christ was born. The hopes and fears of all the years were met in him that night. Now, the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. "When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit." Verse 22. "All of this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us." Jesus' birth was prophesied. Jesus' birth was miraculous, and Jesus' birth was proof that the Messiah had truly come at last. That this son of Mary was in fact, the Son of God, fully human, fully divine, and he'd come to save his people from their sins. So we see that Jesus Christ is born. Secondly, we see that Jesus Christ is loved. Verse 19 says, "And her husband, Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your way for that, which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. For she will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. And all of this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us." And when Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but he knew her not until she'd given birth to a son. And he called his name, Jesus." If you're familiar with Luke's gospel, Luke gives us a little bit more information about Mary and Matthew gives us a little bit more information about Joseph. And we see when we read this, that Jesus was loved by Joseph. And you might ask, "Well, how do we see Joseph loving Jesus in this passage?" And to answer that, we really need to set the context. We're told that Mary was betrothed to Joseph. That in that culture, marriage was a year long process. It usually began when the parents would actually arrange the marriage and it would begin with the betrothal. And then after a 12 month waiting period, there would be the wedding and the consummation. And so for those 12 months, the betrothed were legally married. It was binding, but they didn't live together. They couldn't sleep together. The wife would remain in her father's household and the husband would go to prepare a place for them, to prepare a home for he and his wife, so that at the end of the 12 months, they would have the wedding ceremony, and then the wife would be brought to her husband's home, to consummate the marriage. Jesus actually alludes to this, when he's talking to his disciples in John 14. He tells them in verse one, :Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself. That where I am, you may also be." That we, as the church, are in a sense, betrothed to Christ. We are legally united to him by grace, through faith. But now he is also gone to prepare a place for us, and that we are awaiting the advent of his return when he comes, with the new creation, to bring us home to himself. And so, put yourself in Joseph's shoes for a moment. You're a young, godly man. You have done your best to live a holy life, according to the law, according to the word of the Lord, you've remained pure to the Lord. You've remained faithful to your wife. You are making moves. You're making sacrifices. You are working hard to prepare, to spend the rest of your life with this woman. You are so excited as you're anticipating your wedding day. And then one day shows up and says, "Hey, Joseph, buddy, we got to talk. I've been thinking. Maybe I'll weave some curtains for that house that you're working on. We can put one of those live, laugh, love things up above the mantle. And oh, speaking of laughter, funny thing happened, funny thing, you're going to find this hilarious. I've found to be with child." And Joseph's like, "What does that mean?" It's like, "I'm pregnant, Joseph. I'm pregnant. But don't worry. I didn't cheat on you. There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. It's God's baby. And this angel came and he told me that I'm favored. And that you me are going to raise the son of God together right Joseph?" But that's not in the text. You can read between the lines. In all seriousness though, this would not have been funny. Joseph would have been heartbroken, humiliated, devastated, betrayed. And so what is Joseph going to do? According to the law, this was adultery. According to the law, Joseph would have had every legal right to put Mary to public shame, even to have her stoned for what she had done, or what she seemed to have done. And so what is Joseph going to do? Scripture, It doesn't tell us a whole lot about Joseph. Joseph likely died when Jesus was young. We see him when Jesus is 12 years old and we never see him again. He probably died when Jesus was maybe in his late teens. We never really hear Joseph speak in scripture, but his actions speak. And his actions say a lot about his character and about the kind of man that he was. And we see that Joseph was a man who loved God, who loved Mary. And because of this, he had the faith to love Jesus and to take him as his own son. Verse 19 says that, "Joseph being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, "Joseph son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit." And when he woke, he obeyed, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded. And so how was Jesus loved by Joseph? We see that Jesus was loved by Joseph in three really important ways. First of all, we see that Joseph loved Jesus, by loving Mary. It's easy to gloss over this, but even before the angel appears, even when Joseph is utterly heartbroken, humiliated, we can see that he still clearly loved Mary. He didn't want to do her harm. He didn't even want to put her to shame, though he may have had every reason to do so. Instead, he resolves to divorce her quietly, to not make a big spectacle out of this. And then when he learns the truth, he follows through. He takes Mary as his wife. He takes responsibility for caring for her and for the child. He adopts Jesus as his own son. And then we'll see in the stories to come that really, he shepherds and he leads his wife and his family with incredible courage and compassion. And fathers, one of the best ways that we can love our kids, is by loving their mom. And mother's, one of the best ways that you can love your kids is by honoring their father. Everyone wants to have a mom who is cherished and a father who is honored, who's honorable. And just as Christ is the head of his body, the Church, Ephesians five tells us that husbands are the head of their wife and they need to, just as Christ did, they need to cherish her, nourish her, lay down their life for her, just as Christ did for the church. And that's what Joseph does, even at incredible cost to himself. And as a result, Jesus grew up with the security of having a mom and a dad who not only loved him, but that clearly and sacrificially loved one another as well. So Joseph loved Jesus by loving Mary. Secondly, Joseph loved Jesus by submitting to God. Then Matthew tells us that Joseph was a just man. He was a devout, godly man. He also seems to be a very humble man. Even when he was faced with extreme disappointment, he doesn't respond in anger, or rage. And when he learns that Mary is pregnant. He's not vengeful. Instead, he seems thoughtful. Scripture tells us that he spent time, and considered how to respond. He wasn't hardened or bitter, he was humble. He was meek. And this meant that he was teachable enough to receive God's messenger and to submit to God's message when it came to him, even though it was going to cost him dearly, Joseph loved God, and the proof that he loved God was found in his willingness to obey God. Now, Jesus told his disciples in John 14:15, that, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And as fathers, we can not love our children. As Christians, we cannot love our neighbors if we do not first love and obey God, the father. The command to love our neighbor as ourselves, is the fulfillment of the entire law, because the entire law is instruction on how to love God and love our neighbor. And so Joseph loves Jesus through his obedience to God. And as Jesus' earthly father, he understands that he was merely a steward serving under the authority of Jesus' Heavenly father. Third, we see that Joseph loved Jesus by leaving a legacy of faith. Kids are very good at sensing hypocrisy. And so is everyone else around you. Jesus got to grow up with a father who clearly believed what he said that he believed. And he held to his convictions, even when it was costly. And as a Christian, if you really believe what you say you believe, if you live by faith, not by what is seen, but by what is unseen, some people are going to look your life and they're going to look at your decisions, and they're going to think that you're crazy. "You give how much money to church? You read your Bible and you pray every day? You intentionally deny yourself, earthly pleasures, and seek to live a holy life?" Some people are going to look at you and they're going to think that you're nuts. They might even despise you for it. Others, however, are going to look at you and they're going to see maybe there's something to this that your witness is going to be compelling. And now without faith, Joseph would have divorced Mary and gotten on with his life. Instead, his faith leads him down a difficult path. In a culture of honor and shame, Joseph for the rest of his life is going to bear the reproach of those who accused him of marrying an unfaithful woman and fathering an illegitimate child. And this was going to follow him for the rest of his life. We see hints of this in the gospels. The Pharisees in John 8, accused Jesus of being born out of sexual immorality. The people in Jesus' hometown referred to him as the son of Mary, because clearly he was not the son of Joseph, let alone the son of David. And no one certainly didn't believe any of this nonsense about him being the son of God. Why was Joseph willing to do this? Why was he willing to bear this humiliation and this shame? It's because he had faith. Joseph had faith that God would one day vindicate his name and the reputation of his family. He had faith that the truth would one day be exposed. He had faith that no matter what anyone else said about him, or his wife, or his son, that God was pleased with them. And he had faith that even if he was to be scorned by all the men on earth for all of his days on earth, that he was going to be honored by God for all of eternity. Matthew 5, one of the first things that Jesus taught his disciples was that their witness in their faithfulness to him, it was going to have this dual effect on people, where some people were going to reject them and hate them for it, while others would glorify God because of them. This is Matthew 5:11. Jesus says, "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you, falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. You are on the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It's no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people lay a lamp and put it under a basket, but on its stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father, who's in heaven." Joseph loved Jesus by being a good husband to Mary, by being an obedient servant to God, and by living a life of faith. Trusting God and doing what was right, even when it was hard and sacrificial. Third, we see that Jesus Christ is named. Verse 20 says, "As Joseph considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, "Joseph son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. And she will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." And all of this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they should call it his name, Emmanuel, which means God with us." And when Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but knew her not until she'd given birth to son. And he called his name, Jesus." The name Jesus simply means the Lord, Yahweh saves. It was not merely his name, it was his purpose, and his identity. That Jesus was born, a messianic savior king. He's not a king who would come to kill for his people, as many in Israel had hoped, but a king who was going to die for his people. He was not a king who had come to deliver them from Roman occupancy, he had come, instead, to save them from their sins. Jesus was born to save. Jesus was born to die, to offer his life as an atoning sacrifice for sin. And he lived up to this name perfectly. And as a result of this, God, the Father raises him up and gives him a new name. This is Philippians 2:5-11. It says, "Having this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ, Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, by being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." Joseph gave Jesus a great name, and then God, the Father bestows on him, a greater name, the name that is above all names. But then we see that Jesus also gives Joseph and Jesus also gives us a new name as well. We see this from the prophet Isaiah and in the book of Revelation. Isaiah 62:2 says, "that the nation shall see your righteousness and all the kings, your glory, and you shall be called by a new name, that the mouth of the Lord will give. Revelation 2:18. "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. "To the one who conquers. I will give some of the hidden manna and I will give him a white stone with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it."" God promises in Isaiah 56, that to all who serve him, he says, "I will give in my house and within my walls, a monument, and a name better than sons and daughters. And I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off." Revelation 3:12. "To the one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out from it. And I will write on him, the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven and my own new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." There's a lot in a name. Names are important. Our parents name us when we're born. Our friends, maybe give us nicknames, maybe people who have names, terms of affection for us. Some names are good. Other names are painful. I'm sure that Mary and Joseph were called a lot of names throughout their life. And many of us have been called a lot of names. We've been given labels, labels that have left deep wounds on our souls. And as followers of Jesus, Jesus tells us that we should expect to be called a lot of things. A lot of names, a lot of slander, and some of it will hurt, some of it will cut, but there's only one name that truly matters. And God looks at Joseph. This lowly, scared, heartbroken teenager. And I love how he addresses him, through the angel. He says, "Joseph son of David, remember who you are." God looks at us. He calls us his own, his saints, his people. He calls us a royal priesthood. He calls us beloved children. He calls us a treasured possession. He knows us by name. He calls us by name and he will give us a new name. More than that, we're told that he will give us his own name, a name that will eclipse the pain and the shame and the reproach of every slanderous name that we've ever been called here on earth. A name that will leave us glorified and vindicated and redeemed. And we experience this blessing in part right now, as we bear the name of Jesus and what an honor it is to be called Christian. You think about that. And we must be careful to walk in a manner worthy of the name of Jesus, and so not to take the name of our Lord in vain. A day is coming what we now experience in part, we will then and, and whole, as the children of God. Romans 8:13 says, "For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God, are sons of God For you to not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. But you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba Father." The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit, children of God. And if children then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing, for the revealing of the sons of God." Advent is a season of suffering and celebration. On the one hand we suffer. We live in a dark and a fallen and a sinful world. And on the other hand, we celebrate that the light of Christ has broken into this darkness and that the darkness will not overcome it. And we celebrate that through God's Messiah, we have been justified by grace through faith that Emanuel has come, fully God, fully man, and that his sacrifice was fully acceptable and sufficient to save us from our sins. And we celebrate that Emmanuel is still with us, that the Holy Spirit has been poured into our hearts and he is sanctifying us. He is keeping us, he is holding us fast and he's preparing us for that day when our justification and our sanctification are consummated in our glorification. And so Advent is a time when we celebrate what has been accomplished. It's also a time when we anticipate the future. And this is why we sing, "Joy to the world, the Lord is come." Not just that he has come, and he has come, but he is with us now, and he is coming yet again. And we eagerly long the day of his return. Today, we're not sure only celebrating Advent, we're also celebrating communion. And in the same way, communion is a time for us to remember Christ's sacrifice. It's also a time for us to anticipate his return. This is 1st Corinthians 11. Paul writes that, "I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you. That the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it. And he said, "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way. He also took the cup after supper saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."" And then he says, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." And so we do this in remembrance of Christ. And we also do this in proclamation that he has died. He has risen. He is seated at the right hand of God, the Father, and he will return again in glory. And so, as we transition into communion, if you are here today and you are a Christian and you have examined yourself before the Lord, and you are walking in repentance, then you are welcome to participate in communion with us today. If you're not a Christian, we are so glad that you're here with us. We do ask that you would just respectfully refrain from participating in this part of the service. It's not going to do anything for you. There's nothing magical about this. Communion is a sign of the covenant between Christ and his people. Now, if you've made that decision to become a Christian today, if you're ready to repent and put your faith in Jesus Christ, you're welcome to join us in this celebration as well. And then finally, if you are a Christian, but you are living in unrepentant sin, scripture warns us about taking communion in an unworthy manner. And the very next thing that Paul says in Corinthians 11, verse 27, he says this. "Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks, the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself." And so before we begin, I'm just going to give us a moment for you to just sit in silence and spend some time in prayer, examine yourself, discern the body, discern what we are about to participate in, as we take communion together. If you didn't grab one of these on your way in, feel free to go grab one, or just raise your hand, and I think one of the ushers can bring one to you where you're at. We'll just spend some time in silent prayer, and then I will pray for us. And then we'll all take communion together. So let's pray, Father, we thank you for Jesus. We thank you for sending us, your son, Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus, we thank you for saving us from our sins. We thank you for your sacrifice. You were willing to leave the glory of heaven. You were mocked, mistreated, you were abused and murdered. You came in love and we responded in hate. And God, only you can save us from our sins. There is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. And so we thank you for the gospel. We thank you for laying down your life, for taking up our cross, for bearing the punishment that we deserve, so that we could share in your glory. And so Father, as we examine our hearts, we see so much sin and we repent and we ask your forgiveness. We pray Holy spirit, that you would sanctify us, that you would empower us to live lives worthy of the name of Jesus Christ, worthy of the gospel. And we thank you for this time of communion when we can be reminded that while we are great sinners, that you are a much greater savior and that your grace is sufficient for us. There's nothing that we can do to be saved on our own merit, but that we are justified freely by grace, through faith in our Lord, Jesus Christ. God help us to grow in our love and our obedience to you and our love for our neighbor, that our lives would leave a legacy of faith, that shows the world that you are our God and that we are your people. And we pray all this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Advent 2020: Welcome King Jesus
November 29, 2020 • Matthew 1:1–17
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning. Welcome to Mosaic Church. My name is Jan, I'm one of the pastors here at Mosaic. If you're new, if you're visiting, welcome. We're so glad you're here. We'd love to connect with you either through the physical connection card in the worship guide or the one on our website or in the app. With that said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's holy Word. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are king. We thank you that you the great king of the universe came down in humility and took on flesh in the incarnation that you were born a baby, you were born a child. We thank you, Jesus, that you were fully God, fully man, lived a perfect life, the life that we should have lived, but wouldn't because of our rebellious nature. And then you went to a cross, you hung on a tree, absorbing the curse that we deserve for our rebellion and also presenting a perfect sacrifice on behalf of us, absorbing the wrath of God that we deserved to be poured out on us. We thank you, Jesus, that you died, that you were buried, that you rose. And because of the gospel, by grace, through faith, through repentance, we can turn to you, ask for forgiveness, accept your grace, accept the reconciliation and be drawn into a brand new family, a family of God redeemed through the blood of Christ. We thank you for that. We thank you, Lord, that you died for rebels in order to change our hearts. As we see you the God of the universe dying for our sins, it melts our hearts, when we turn and we realize that you did that for us, to make us yours, to make us your children, to save us from your wrath. We pray, Lord, that you today remind us that you are king, that you can tell us what to do, and that we are called to accept your sacrifice as a Savior but also to follow you in obedience since you are our king. Jesus, we thank you for your First Coming and we long for that Second Coming. In the meantime, let us do by your Holy Spirit the things you've called us to do, which is go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. We pray all these things in Christ's holy name. Amen. Well, Happy Advent. Advent, we celebrate every year at Mosaic. It's the four Sundays prior to Christmas. We do it every year, but it feels more special this year, to take four Sundays and meditate on Christmas. Why? Because Christmas is amazing, and it should be longer. So for the next month, I'm going to be telling everybody, "Merry Christmas," anytime I see you. The reason why we celebrate Advent is because the church has historically celebrated it during this season. As Lent is to Easter, Advent is to Christmas. The word Advent comes from the Latin Adventus, which means coming. It's the coming of Jesus Christ. We remember the First Coming of Christ, and we anticipate the Second Coming of Christ. We are to remember that He's come and that He will come. Jesus with communion said, "Do this in remembrance of me." It's a reminder to remember Christ. Today, we're going to look at Matthew 1:1-17, which is the genealogy of Jesus Christ. We're remembering Jesus by remembering those who brought Jesus into the world. Here is an important question that every single one of us needs to ask is, "How will you be remembered? After you pass, what will you remembered for?" Then to clarify the question you got to ask yourself, "Remembered by whom? By people or by God?" Well, not many people have such a profound impact on world history that they're remembered for generations. Many of us won't even be remembered 100 years from now even by our own family. Case in point, what is the name of your great grandfather? John. That's really good. Chicken wing. I think many of us struggle. For me, I had to ask my dad, it's Ilya Vezikov, that was my great grandfather. Hardly many of us will be remembered by our family generations from now, how many of us will be remembered by others? That's not even that important of a question because, honestly, we're dead, we're gone, and who cares if someone remembers us? What really matters is, how will God remember us? What will God remember us for, describe our life impact? Here, today, we have a list of people, we have a genealogy. It's a family tree of Jesus Christ, people who are remembered for bringing Christ into the world. Genealogy seem pretty boring, most of us probably skip this page in scripture, "Okay, what happens next?" Not many of us are fans of genealogies or family trees unless you have ever done the http://ancestry.com test or 23andMe. Over 30 million people in the United States have. Congratulations, now the FBI and the NSA, they have your information. Genealogy is boring, but this genealogy is different. It's important. This genealogy binds together the Old and the New Testaments. Why? Because this is a genealogy of a king, of a promised king. Here we have His lineage, that He has legal, regal right to the throne. Obviously, this genealogy is true, it's not fabricated, because no one would fabricate a genealogy like this one. If you were presenting a Messiah, a king to the world, you wouldn't include some of the more scandalous people. Examples, it's a family tree, but it's a very naughty family tree. In this family tree, we have adulterers and murderers. We have examples of incest and prostitution. Oddly for Jewish genealogy, we have five women, three to four of them were gentiles. So this is actually a story of Jesus' ancestors who were sinners. It's a family, but it's a dysfunctional family. It's actually good news for us because many of us come from less-than-perfect families. Many of our families do have skeletons in the closet. The good news of Jesus is that He is from a dysfunctional family, and He redeems that family and He offers us a place in the new redeemed family. He welcomes us into it. Today we're in Matthew 1:1-17, the Words of the Lord given to his people after 400 years of silence. Would you look at the text with me, Matthew 1:1-17? "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 and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and 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, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon." "And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, Abiud the father of Eliakim, Eliakim the father of Azor, Azor the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Achim, Achim the father of Eliud, Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. So all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon 14 generations, and from the deportation of Babylon to the Christ 14 generations." This is the reading of God's holy and infallible authoritative word. May He write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Six classes in Hebrew produced that. Praise God. Advent theology, three points we're going to cover today; point number one, you will die, point number two, you are a sinner, and point number three, you need a Savior. It's very jolly, merry Christmas message today, we're starting with death. Why? Because you will die. This is a list that we just read of dead people. That's how the New Testament starts. All of us will die. All these people lived for a short time and they died. It doesn't matter how many vegetables you eat or how organic they are, it doesn't matter how much you exercise, it doesn't matter how pure your water is, it doesn't matter how many precautions you take, they all died, we will all die. The recent statistics say that 10 out of 10 people die. We all die. Ancient philosophers had this idea called the memento mori, to remind themselves that I need to remember that I will die. It's inevitable, we are mortal. It's good and healthy to meditate on this fact. We live in a culture that's very death adverse, adverse to talking about death, but it's good to think about it. It's good to visit cemeteries. It's good to visit the graves of your loved ones or friends who have passed. Second century Christian writer, Tertullian, he writes that the ancient Roman generals coming back from victory, as they proceeded into the town to the city, they had a servant stand behind them, holding the crown over their head whispering, "Respice post te. Hominem te memento.” Look after you and remember you're only a man. Look after the time that you pass, remember that you are mortal. Life is short and shortly it will end. You will die. I will die." But we weren't meant to die, that's why we have such a problem. We have such a hard time accepting this reality. It's natural but it isn't, because we have an eternal soul. The most important question before us every single day is, "Where will my eternal soul, where will I, the real me, my essence, where will it spend eternity?" We're conditioned to always prepare for the next season. We see that with sports. We see that with education. We see that with careers. What's the next season? What's the next season? We see that with retirement. What about the most important season that is coming, and that's eternity? You will die. Why do you die? Because you're a sinner, and that's point two. Why are you going to die? Because of sin. We're all infected with sin. The infection fatality ratio of sin is 100%. Sin came into the world and through one man and death through sin. What is sin? We talk about sin often in church. We talk about it often in community groups. It's in scripture, all over the place, what is it? Not being or doing what God requires, doing what God forbids. Not doing what you're supposed to do and doing what you're not supposed to do. As defined by whom? As defined by God. Not by people, not by government, by God in His law, in His commandments. It's rebellion against God to get rid of His commandments, to say His commandments don't matter. It's like saying, "God I have my own rules. You don't get to tell me what to do. My life is my own." But God created everything. He created you. Every single heartbeat right now is a gift from God. Every breath is a gift from God. You, your body, your essence, your soul, everything about you is a gift. You are not your own. God created everything, so He's sovereign over all. He gets to make the rules. He gets to decide what He permits and what He prohibits. There are lines that are not to be crossed. I remember when I was younger, I had to always know why God said something. "Why is this good and this is evil? Why?" It always had to make sense to me. If it did not make sense to me, then I didn't have to follow it. I didn't have to submit to it. If you do that, you make your mind god over God. It's the same rebellion as Adam and Eve saying, "It doesn't make sense to me that we can't eat from this tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it's a forbidden fruit. But it's just an apple." It's not even an apple, it was a fruit. I don't know, I think it was pomegranate, who knows? "It doesn't make sense to us, so we don't have to obey." If you look at the Old Testament, there's ceremonial laws about dietary stuff. We don't have to do all that because Jesus fulfilled all of that. But I think God threw in some random stuff just to see if people would submit. "Don't eat shrimp. I don't want you to eat shrimp. That's it." "Why not?" "I just don't want you to." Does God get to be God in your life even when it doesn't make sense to you? Because I'll tell you something, our desires, they control our sense. Our desires control our minds. That's why you bought all the stuff on Black Friday that you didn't need. "I want this thing. I want this thing. That's it, I want it." God can do whatever He wants. That's the first thing that we need... If you don't like that idea, I'm exposing to you your own sin, your own rebellious thing, "I don't like it." God could have said, "Thou shall not eat ice cream. No ice cream." And then you're like, "Okay." "No premarital ice cream. No ice cream before you get married. I define whom you have ice cream with by defining what marriage is. It's between one man and one woman for all of life. Before that, outside of that, no ice cream. No ice cream by yourself. No ice cream watching people eat ice cream. No ice cream with animals. No ice cream with children. Once you do get married to a person of the opposite gender, made a covenant commitment, you are actually commanded to have ice cream. Thou shall have a lot of ice cream. If you fast from ice cream, make sure you don't fast for too long." That's in the Bible too. Does God get to tell you how to live your life? In terms of the strongest desires, does God get to command your desires? That brings me to a more important point, sin isn't just what you do and what you don't do. Sin is deeper than that. Sin is deeper than actions, deeper than behavior. Because we do what we love and our desires control our actions. Sin is placing yourself above God. Sin is saying, "I am God, therefore I will do what I want to do." That's what Satan did. Scripture teaches that God is love, that's His essence. Therefore, when He gives us His law, the law flows out of His love. So actually, God's law is God's definition of how to love. The first commandment is, above all else love God. Love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. Only then you will be satisfied. When you love God like that, He fills your heart with joy, He fills your heart with His presence, with His fullness, and sin is any feeling, thoughts, speech, action that flows out of a heart that doesn't love God above all things. What's the penalty for that sin? Yes, the part of the penalty is consequences of sin and deep dissatisfaction, harm that we bring to ourselves and others. But ultimately, the penalty for sin is God's judgment, condemnation. Scripture talks about God's wrath. Every single person on this list, every single names that we just read, they all have something in common, they were sinners. Moments in their life, they loved something more than God, and shirked God, tried to usurp His throne. Whether these people were relatively good or notoriously bad, they were all sinners in need of a Savior. We're all sinners. We all transgress God's law. We all fall short of the glory of God. Everyone needs a Savior. Even the godly Virgin Mary needed a Savior. If she needed a Savior, how much more do we need a Savior? Luke 1:46-47, "Mary said, 'My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.'" She looked to Jesus, a child, to say, "You're my Savior." She goes on to say in Luke 1 that through the one in her womb, God has remembered His mercy to Abraham and descendants." We all need mercy. Good people don't need mercy, but there's no one who is good. Not one of us, only Jesus Christ. And that's point three, is you need a Savior. Matthew 1:1, "The book of genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." Verse one is the most important verse here. Verse 17 is the second most important. They're bookends to everything that happens in the middle. The word for genealogy in the Greek can be also translated genesis. In the Greek it says, "Βίβλος γενέσεως." It's the same word to translate genesis from the Hebrew into the Greek in the Septuagint. So Matthew is deliberately playing on words here. He's paralleling Genesis 1:1, in the beginning of the story, the genesis, with the story of Jesus. He uses the same phrase. The same phrase is used in Genesis 5:1, "This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made man in the likeness of God." The generations. so in the beginning, God spoke everything into creation by His Word. In the new beginning, that's what Matthew's saying, "In the new beginning, in the new genesis, God sends His Word to redeem that creation." It's a new beginning of God's ultimate work of redeeming a broken, bruised, groaning creation. It's a new genesis. It's a new beginning. It's a new Adam, a new head of humanity. God created Adam in the likeness of God and then God Himself comes, God incarnate in the likeness of man. What's the difference? 1 Corinthians 15:45 tells us, "Thus it is written, 'The first man, Adam, became a living being'; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit." First Adam rebelled. The second Adam obeyed God in everything. Jesus Christ lived a perfect life. Why? So that he can give us this life-giving spirit to transform us from the inside out, to take our hearts of rock and stone and numbness, the hearts desensitized to God by perversion, by sin, by pride. Jesus comes and He reigns on earth primarily now through our hearts. That's what makes the new Adam so much more powerful, it's the life-giving spirit. Matthew 1:1, "The book of genealogy of Jesus," Jesus, it's Yeshua or Joshua, which means Jehovah is salvation. Yahweh, God is salvation, that's His name. That was highlighted in the birth narrative as the angel instructed Joseph and Mary, Matthew 1:21, "She will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins." That's the purpose for Jesus coming. Jesus came not just to make our lives a little better or bring a little cheer or consult us when we need it or provide therapy for us or listen to us when we need an open ear. Jesus came to save us. 1 Timothy 1:15, "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost," says St. Paul. Matthew 1:1, "The book of genealogy of Jesus Christ." What does Christ mean? Was it Jesus' last name? A lot of people, "Yeah, Mary Christ and Joseph Christ, they got married and then there's Jesus Christ." No, that's not what it means. Christ means the anointed one, the anointed one that was promised in the Old Testament. The Old Testament prophets and kings and priests were anointed. What's important here is there's two genealogies like this in the New Testament. There's Matthew 1, and then Luke has his own and it's longer. Luke traces it back to Adam, because he's writing for a gentile audience, a Greek audience. Matthew locates Jesus firmly in the story of God's relation with the people of Israel because he's writing to Hebrew people, Jewish people. The point is that he wants to show that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the promises that God gave to the people of Israel. Jesus is the Christ. He is the Messiah, which is emphasized again in verses 16 and 17. Jesus is the culmination of God's redemptive work. Everything that came before Jesus reaches its climax, its pinnacle, its perfection in Jesus. He is the ultimate prophet. There were prophets in the Old Testament, the greatest of which was Moses. But Moses said, "God's going to send a law-giver greater than me, because I can't produce obedience. I can tell you what's right and what's wrong," but Moses could not produce it from the inside out. "There'll be a greater prophet who transforms hearts." Deuteronomy 18:15, "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me," says Moses, "from among you, from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen." He's a greater prophet than Moses. He's also a greater king than any other king, a king to whom every knee shall bow. He's also the greatest priest who offers not the blood of bulls and goats but offers His own blood at the cross of Calvary. Matthew 1:1, "The book of genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." Why are these two highlighted here when they're going to be mentioned later? The reason is that God gave very particular promises about the Messiah coming to both Abraham and David. God promised to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3, "Now the Lord said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.'" From you Abraham, I'm going to send a descendant that will offer blessing to everybody. In Genesis 22, this is where Abraham is bringing his son Isaac in sacrifice, because God was testing whether Abraham fears God and loves God. Abraham was obeying God, angel stops him, and God at that moment sends the promise again. The angel says in Genesis 22:15, "And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, 'By myself I have sworn,' declares the Lord, 'because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of the heaven, as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring,'" singular, "'shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.'" St. Paul, the great theologian that he was, inspired by the Holy Spirit points to this text in Galatians 3:16, "Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, 'And to offsprings,' referring to many, but referring to one, 'And to your offspring,' who is Christ." God promised to Abraham, "I will send a Messiah who will save all of those who turn from sin to Him. He will come from you." God made that promise to Abraham. He also made a promise to King David that on his throne he will have a descendant that will rule forever. Psalm 132:11, "The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back: "One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne." 2 Samuel 7:12-14a, "When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish His kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of His kingdom forever. I will be to Him the father, and He shall be to me a son." Forever? David died, and Solomon died, and every single one of the kings after died. How can this descendant rule forever? It has a descendant who overcomes death. The promise is expanded in Isaiah 9:6-7, "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over His kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The Zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this." So Abraham represents that Jesus Christ is part of the people of Israel, David represents the hope of the future kingdom. The line of Abraham places Jesus in the nation, the line of David puts him on the throne. Why is all of this important? It's because for centuries, in the Old Testament for centuries, the Jewish people hoped and they hoped and they longed and they longed, "God, when will you fulfill your promises?" And then there were 400 years of silence. "God, why are you so slow in keeping your promises?" Jesus finally comes, and He's a fulfillment of Israel's hopes for restoration of her kingdom. Just is ultimately the culmination of all of our hopes. It is important to note that Jesus is Jewish. My daughter, Elisabeth, I said, "Did you know Jesus was Jewish?" "I had no idea, I thought Jesus was Christian." Jesus was Jewish, this is important to know. The Old Testament was important. His lineage comes from the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through a royal line of King David. I don't know if you've studied this chapter, that's why the number 14 is so important here. He gives us three stats of 14 generations, and why does he do this? If you actually look at the history, he's omitting four kings who were cursed in the Old Testament from the second session. But Matthew presents this session because the number 14 highlights the numeric value of David. In Hebrew, they didn't have vowel points originally, and every single consonant had a numeric value. The D is four, the W is six, and D, Dawid, D, W, and then D again, four, six, four, it's 14. It's to show us, to highlight the fact that Jesus isn't just a Savior, He's a Savior who is a king. This is crucial. A lot of people want Jesus as my Savior, to save me from sins so that I can sin again. And then you just keep going back, "Okay, got dirty, okay, save me. Okay, got dirty, okay, save me." Jesus is also king who gets to tell us what to do. The reason why He's offering us salvation is because we didn't do what He said to do in the very beginning. So I'm going to save you from that condemnation, but also repent and turn into the King Jesus. I want to submit. It's hard. I struggle. I need more grace. But I do, I long to follow you, Jesus the king. Jesus is the son of David who is king. He's the might warrior king who has come to defeat our ultimate oppressors. In the first century, if you read the gospels, the first century Jews who knew the Old Testament, they couldn't believe that Jesus was the Messiah. They were expecting this great political king, this great king to come on a stallion and destroy the Roman Empire. And yet the king comes as a suffering servant of Isaiah 53. They couldn't reconcile Isaiah 9 and the promises of this king who the government will rest on His shoulders with Isaiah 53. Jesus was the king, but not the king that they had expected at that time. Jesus's standing before Pilate, Pilate has asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" And Jesus says, "It is as you say." The mocking soldiers jeered at Jesus when He was on the cross, "Hail king of the Jews." Words nailed on the top of the cross, "This is Jesus, the king of the Jews." The only way that Jesus, the mighty warrior king could come and offer us ultimate salvation is to defeat our ultimate enemies. And our ultimate enemies aren't political. Our ultimate enemies are sin, Satan, and death. Jesus Christ comes, the king of the universe, and He's crucified by people. Why? What is He doing there? What's going on the cross of Jesus Christ? It's not just a Jewish rabbi getting executed in excruciating pain, capital punishment by the Roman Empire to humiliate Him. That's not just what's going on. Jesus is God and He allowed this to happen. Why did God allow this to happen? Why did God the father allow God the son to die on a cross? Because Jesus Christ was at that moment paying the penalty for our sin. He was bearing the weight of our condemnation. God's wrath was being poured out on Him. That's why He said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" God turns from Christ. God the father turns from Him. Because God is holy and Christ at that moment became our sin. He died and He was buried. He rose on the third day as proof that the sacrifice was accepted. God promised in the very beginning the seed of the woman would come crush the head of the serpent in Genesis. The promise was expanded to Abraham, that through his descendants all the nations would be blessed. The promise was then repeated to Isaac and Jacob and Judah, the promise extended to King David that one of your descendants will be enthroned forever. The promise expanded again through Isaiah to include He will come through a virgin birth. The promise expanded by Micah to describe the place of that birth, which is Bethlehem. God kept His Word, that's the point of Matthew 1. God kept His Word, sent His long-promised Messiah, who is the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, and the seed of David. Why is this good news? It's good news because we're sinners and finally a Savior has come offering us overwhelming grace. We see grace that's given to all these people in this list, Matthew 1:2-6. I won't hit all of them, but I just want to point out two things. God pours out His affection on these people through election. He chooses them. Not because of anything in themselves. You look at Abraham, Abraham was a great guy for the most part. But he also was a coward a couple of times. He goes to the land of Philistines and he's afraid. Apparently his wife was really good-looking, and he was afraid that they would kill him and marry his wife. So he said, "Baby, let's take off our wedding rings, and I'll tell everyone that you're my sister." Which is terrible. That's terrible. "Bro, take one for the team, man. If you're going to go you're going to go. Put up a good fight. You can't do that." He doesn't just do that once. I can't believe Sarah forgave him by the way. Sarah, she must have been great, but she forgives him, and then he does it again. He's a liar. His son, Isaac, does the same thing. He goes to this land, apparently his wife is really good-looking and he did this thing, "Baby, let's just tell them you're my sister." Liar. Then they have a kid, Jacob, also a liar, lies to his dad that I am Esau, the firstborn. Liar, he's a sinner. Judah, we're going to get into this guy. Okay, let's get into this guy. Judah who's connected to Tamar, and there's four women here, we'll go through this whole session. There's Tamar, there's Rahab, there's Ruth, there's Bathsheba. We know the first three are definitely gentiles, Tamar, Rahab and Ruth. Bathsheba was married to a Hittite who also was a gentile. Maybe at least by marriage she was also a gentile. So the story of Judah and Tamar, it's one of the most scandalous stories in all of scripture, and it's there because it happened. This is Genesis 38. Judah had three sons with a Canaanite woman. The first son marries Tamar, also a Canaanite woman. The first son heir was so evil that God kills him. But according to the tradition, the Torah, if there were brothers and one of your brothers died, you had to marry his wife in order to continue the family name. So the second son was supposed to marry Tamar, conceive an heir for his brother, dodges his responsibility. Was fine sleeping with Tamar, not marrying her. Just wanted to use her instead of serving her. Didn't fulfill his responsibility so God kills him as well. Judah promised Tamar that the third son would grow up, would marry her. He either forgot or he ignored the promise, and Tamar gets mad and disguises herself as a prostitute and then sleeps with Judah. And then she gets pregnant and Judah in one of the most egregious acts of hypocrisy in scripture, he says, "Oh, she sinned. We need to punish her, et cetera." She's like, "Hey, by the way, Jerry Springer surprise, let's take a paternity test, you're the dad and the grandpa." Which is very sordid. You're like, "Cue the country... I don't know what's going on here." This is in the Bible, and this is one of the ancestors of Jesus Christ. And then there's Rahab who was a prostitute. She distinguishes herself by faith and converts. There's Ruth who's a Moabite, and the Moabites were people who descended from Lot's incest with his daughters. And then there's Bathsheba who sins with King David. But those aren't even the worst sinners. The worst sinners were Judah and then the ultimate king, King David, who's a murderer and an adulterer and did a lot of other stuff too. Why is Matthew writing this to the Jewish people? Why? Why include these painful points from their genealogy, from their story? It's to humble a proud people. "You think you're so great. You think you're descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You need grace." No one, not even the greatest doesn't need the grace of Jesus Christ. No one, not even the worst can fail to receive the grace of Jesus Christ. Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future thanks to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ comes in order to redeem. One of the great lessons that we can draw from this whole story is that God is so good that He can take our greatest evil and redeem it and use it for good. By the way, the most sordid stuff here is all sexual sin. Why? Because that's one of the biggest idols of our lives. It's not just today, it's always been the case. That's why this is in the story of Jesus Christ. So have you committed sin? What kind of sin? Get specific. Have you committed premarital sex sin, fornication, adultery? Have you had children out of wedlock? These are all sins. Addiction to porn, these are all sins, sins that take... They take control of your heart, and they push God out. And also these people, they are sinners, but they testify to grace. When you turn to God, you repent of sin and you cry out to God, "Lord, you are Lord. Lead me in the ways of righteousness." God does forgive and He brings us into His family. Galatians 3:28-29, "There's neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there's no male or female, for you're all one in Christ. And if you are Christ, then you're Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise." The other thing I want to point is Matthew 1:16. The formula has been so-and-so is the father of so-and-so, so-and-so is the father of so-and-so. Why is that important? Well, because dads are important. We live in a culture that pushes against that, like, "We got to get rid of the patriarch." No, dads are important. Dads are crucial, crucial to children's development but also their spiritual lives. If you a father, well, you are called to disciple your child, to raise them up in the faith. Dads are crucial to be present, to bless their kids with words from truth and also a walk of truth. But the pattern chances. Verse 1, "Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary of whom Jesus was born, who was called Christ." So now we're not talking about Joseph, we're talking about Mary, whom is feminine, the Greek, so Joseph's not the physical father of Jesus Christ. Why is this important? Well, if Jesus had been physical descendant Joseph, then he would have been barred from the throne of David by the curse on Jechoniah. This is Jeremiah 22:30, "Thus says the Lord: 'Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not succeed in his days, for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David and ruling against Judah.'" So only because of the virgin birth, Jesus escapes the consequences of that curse. So Jesus doesn't descend physically from Jechoniah, but remains the legal heir. In this you see God's overruling sovereignty, that He takes the curse and He circumnavigates it, overrules the curse and turns it into a blessing, just like He did with the cross of Jesus Christ. Christ on the cross, the cross in the Old Testament is called the tree, "Cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree." Here we have the family tree of Jesus Christ. Jesus came to hang on a tree, bearing our curse, and that curse was flipped. God turns the ultimate curse into a blessing. It's a blessing for us because He became sin for us, so that we might become His righteousness. At the greatest moment of despair, when all seem lost, God's son dies. Well, He dies in order to come back from the dead, in order to give us the greatest blessing that there is. What are these numbers all about in Matthew 1:17, "So all the generations from Abraham to David were 14. Generations from David to the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations. And from the deportation of Babylon to the Christ 14 generations." What's going on here, three sets of 14? The first 14 is two sevens, one, two. The next 14 is two more sevens, three four. The next 14 is two more sevens, and you get five, six. And then Jesus Christ comes as the seventh seven. It's to show us that Jesus Christ is the ultimate Sabbath. God sabbathed on the seventh day. Every seven years the land of Israel is supposed to rest lifestyle so it could replenish its nutrients. The year of Jubilee was every 49 years, seventh seven year. What happens in the year of Jubilee? All debts are forgiven, all slaves are freed. Jesus Christ is our seventh seven. Then we can find our rest, our satisfaction, our blessing in Him. We can take a rest in the fact that Jesus redeems us, slaves to sin, and He pays our debts, and that we can find the deepest longings of our souls fulfilled in Him. Matthew 11:28-30, the words of Christ, "Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, I will give rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." The only thing that these people are known for other than sin, the reason why they're included in this text, they're remembered for bringing Jesus Christ into the world. Part of the marching orders that we can never forget as Christians, we have been given marching orders from our king, and the marching orders before Christ ascends to heaven after His resurrection, He gives in Matthew 28:18-20, "Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age." Let's not forget, Christians, our marching orders. Let's not forget that Jesus is king. Also, if you're not a Christian, if you're not part of the family of God or you're just not sure, Jesus welcomes you into His family. He came from this sordid, dysfunctional family to redeem it, and then He offers that redemption to us. He knows those people by name as he knows us by name. It's a list of people who are imperfect, people who have sinned, people who have rebelled, but people who have been redeemed because of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. So no matter what you've done, no matter what your family history is, no matter your sins that you've committed, come to Jesus. Join His family. We do that through repentance and faith in Christ. "Lord, forgive me, I have sinned. I am a sinner by nature and choice. Please give me your grace. Please give me your forgiveness. I want to follow you. Give me the Holy Spirit." Just asks for it, He gives it to you. After you become a Christian, we lead a daily life of following King Jesus, taking up our cross, following Him. Do we do it perfectly? Of course not. We're still sinners, we still need Jesus. Praise God for Him. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for your first Advent. We thank you for your First Coming. When we pray Lord for that Second Coming, but until we're there or until we pass from this life to the next, Lord, give us the power of the spirit to follow you on a daily basis, to follow you as faithfully as we can. And when we are faithless, you are faithful, and you give us more grace and pick us up and continue to lead us in the ways of righteousness. Lord, continue to bless each one of us and bless us in this incredible season of Advent. We thank you for it, and we thank you for the gospel, and we thank you for Christ. We pray this in His name. Amen.