The Line of Promise

[0:00] All right. Well, as I said, we're going to be going through the Gospel of Matthew. It'll take some time. Don't worry. We'll break it up with some other books and other things that we'll do along the way.

[0:12] But I'm excited for this. I'm excited for this Gospel. And I want to tell you a little bit about the Gospel of Matthew before we get into the text that we're looking at today. There's a few things to note. One is that Matthew's Gospel is fairly unique. It's the longest by chapters, not by verses. That actually goes to Luke's Gospel.

[0:31] But by chapters, there's 28 chapters in the Gospel of Matthew. And you should know this because every Sunday we end our service with Matthew 28, 18 through 20.

[0:42] The Great Commission. So it's a long book. And there's a lot in here. Like the other Synoptic Gospels, Matthew focuses on the northern ministry of Jesus in Galilee, the region of Galilee.

[0:56] And then makes his way down to, of course, the Passion in Jerusalem. And there's reasons for that. We'll get into all of those types of things as we go.

[1:07] But it's also, Matthew's Gospel is written primarily for a Jewish, presumably Christian audience. And there's a few reasons that we know that. First of all, he uses the most Old Testament quotations of any other Gospel writer.

[1:25] He uses 60 Old Testament quotations. And he also is really focused on this idea of fulfillment. How Jesus has fulfilled the Old Testament. Not only the Old Testament prophecies, but how Jesus is actually the fulfillment of everything that's been explained up to this point.

[1:46] So he's focused on fulfillment. He's focused on the Old Testament. For the Christian Jews, he was giving them a kind of a roadmap to prove that Jesus truly is the Messiah.

[2:00] And for the non-Christian Jews, those who had not yet turned to Christ, he was explaining to them why they should. Right? This is an evangelistic Gospel. Matthew is explaining the importance of believing and following Jesus Christ.

[2:14] He also talks a lot about the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven. More than any other Gospel writer, Matthew focuses on the Kingdom. And he focuses also on the King of her Kingdom.

[2:26] The King of the Kingdom, which is Jesus Himself. And so Jesus is presented at the beginning of Matthew's Gospel as the King who has come. Remember the wise men? We'll talk about this in a couple weeks.

[2:38] But the wise men come and see Herod and they ask, where is he who has been born King of the Jews? Right? At the beginning of Matthew's Gospel. And then at the end of Matthew's Gospel, in the crucifixion narrative, what sign does Pilate have put over Jesus' head?

[2:53] Does anybody remember? This is Jesus, King of the Jews. So Matthew explicitly describes or explains that Jesus is the King, not only of the Jews, but of the entire world.

[3:06] So he talks about the Kingdom of God. And then we have the Sermon on the Mount, which explains Kingdom living and parables that explain Kingdom living and those types of things. And the Kingdom has come.

[3:17] It has been inaugurated by Jesus. And this is how you live as a part of the Kingdom of God. That's one of Matthew's focuses here. Again, very Jewish in nature, right?

[3:29] The Jews were hoping for a ruling Messiah, a conquering Messiah. And Matthew says he is a ruling Messiah. He is a conquering Messiah, but not in the way that you were expecting.

[3:41] Right? So Jesus is still the King of the world. Now the authorship, we call it Matthew. And that's probably who wrote it. Okay? We don't know. None of the Gospels actually have an author listed.

[3:53] Did you know this? None of the Gospels. So Matthew is the earliest attributed author from the early 200s. Like right at the end of the first century, people were naming Matthew as the author of this Gospel.

[4:08] And so for that reason, and there's a lot of reasons inside the text that we can point to as we go, it's presumably, it's safe to say that Matthew truly is the author of this Gospel. And he wrote it to a people who were beginning to face some persecution and needed this proof as to why Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament, why he is the Messiah, so that they would stay true to the faith and that they would remain faithful through whatever persecution might come.

[4:35] A huge emphasis in Matthew's Gospel near the end, we'll get there eventually, is the Olivet Discourse, which talks a lot about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

[4:47] And since Matthew doesn't explicitly say that the Temple has been destroyed and Jerusalem has been conquered, we can safely assume that this was written before then.

[4:58] So probably the mid-60s AD was when Matthew wrote this Gospel. And then there's a couple of structural things about this Gospel that we'll see as we go as well.

[5:10] The first is that Matthew frames this whole Gospel message around this geographic structure where Jesus starts in the north.

[5:21] The religious leaders from the south, from Judea, they reject the northern prophet. Just so you know, the relationship between northern Israel and southern Israel at this time, at the time of Jesus, was not very good.

[5:34] But they did not think highly of, the people from the south did not think highly of the people from the north. Essentially, it's like when we go from Tennessee and, you know, visit Wisconsin, and we ask for a Coke, and we mean a Sprite, you know, and they're like, where are you from?

[5:53] But with their accent, that's how it was for people from the north in the region of Judea. When people came from the north, immediately everyone knew, you aren't from around here.

[6:04] And there was some tension there between the Galilean Jews and the Judean Jews. And so the Judean Jews, who were led by the religious leaders of the day, they did not like this idea of a prophet or especially the Messiah coming from Galilee.

[6:19] They couldn't stand it. And so Matthew works from Galilee and, again, down into Judea, where ultimately Christ is crucified and resurrected. Now, the other structural element is that Matthew focuses on the teaching of Jesus.

[6:34] In fact, he highlights the teaching of Jesus more than any other gospel writer. There's five large teaching sections in the gospel of Matthew. The most prominent is the Sermon on the Mount.

[6:46] I'm sure you're familiar with that. It takes up Matthew 5 through 7 and, again, describes kingdom living. So that's how Matthew's gospel is laid out. And as we go through, we'll touch on these things again because all of that plays into how we read the text and how we understand the message of the text, even insofar as how we understand this genealogy that we're looking at today.

[7:11] Remember, who is Matthew's audience? Jewish Christians and non-Christian Jews. So what would he try to emphasize in a genealogy?

[7:22] Any ideas? This can be interactive. We can talk. There's actually not a rule that says only I can talk. I invite you to speak. So what would he try to emphasize if he's writing to a Jewish audience?

[7:40] That he's Jewish, yes. I hear some people, but I can't really understand what you're saying. I'm going to assume Miss Nancy got it right. Amen? All right, Miss Nancy. Hey, praise the Lord.

[7:52] So what Jesus, or what Matthew, rather, what Matthew is emphasizing is that Jesus is from the promised line. Right?

[8:03] This is the line of promise, that he is a descendant of Abraham. That is, he is an Israelite. He is a Jew. But also that he is from the line of David. The promised line of David.

[8:14] That he would have the throne of David. Those things are really heavily emphasized in this genealogical record. There's also some other things that Matthew would try to emphasize. Because this wasn't written only for Jewish Christians.

[8:27] He also would emphasize that maybe Jesus is going to be the Savior of the entire world. And so there's people listed in this genealogy who were not Jews ethnically. You have also five women listed in the genealogical record.

[8:41] Which wasn't completely uncommon for a genealogy in this time. But it was pretty uncommon. It was not the norm, for sure, to list five women. And yet Matthew does that.

[8:53] So Matthew's showing us that Jesus is here to save the entire world. Men and women. Jews and Gentiles. It doesn't matter. Jesus came to save everyone. So Jesus is the son of David, the son of Abraham.

[9:06] That is what Matthew 1 says. The account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. The son of David, the son of Abraham. Let me pray for us again. And then we'll dive into the text now.

[9:19] Lord Jesus, thank you for your word. I pray that you would bless this time. That you would just give us understanding and give us wisdom. Oh God, speak through me as I speak your word today.

[9:31] And pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. So Matthew starts out with an account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. And the reason that I'm pointing that phrase out particularly.

[9:44] Is because it's actually pretty cool. It's actually pretty cool. Now we see an account of the genealogy of Jesus. But in the Greek, what he says is a record of the origins of Jesus, the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

[9:59] And what he means by the record of the origins is that's the exact same phrase used in Genesis. In fact, the word for origins is where we get the word for Genesis.

[10:11] So what Matthew does at the beginning of the New Testament. This is the first book of the New Testament after the 400 years of silence. Matthew now begins his gospel kind of as a prologue with the origins of the Messiah.

[10:26] And that's an important thing. That for a Jewish person would have made the same amount of sense as when John started his gospel by saying, In the beginning was the word. Right?

[10:36] Also, a reference to Genesis chapter 1. In this case, Genesis chapter 2 verse 4. You see this exact phrase when it says that this is the record of the origins of the heavens and the earth.

[10:49] Genesis 2 verse 4. So Matthew is making a very specific point. He's trying to connect for the Jewish audience who Jesus is and prove it. Right? He's going to show them through this genealogy.

[11:01] And origins are an important thing. We like to know where we're from. Right? I mean, one of the most popular websites today is Ancestry.com. Has anybody ever done Ancestry.com?

[11:14] Okay. It's good that we have your hands raised because we know who has spit in a tube and mailed it away. I've done it too. I won't lie to you. I won't lie. But it's an important thing.

[11:27] Origins are an important thing. I did my Ancestry.com years back. And if you could guess it, I'm pretty European. Ethnically. Pretty Anglo.

[11:38] Right? And my family moved to the United States in the 1700s. They started in Tennessee. Then they moved to Texas. Sounds a lot like my own history, actually. I started in Tennessee and then I moved to Texas.

[11:50] And so it's pretty cool, actually. There's a Duggar family tradition of moving from Tennessee to Texas. There's also some Duggars in Indiana. And Miss Emily over here told me the other day that apparently some of the earliest, was it settlers in Tennessee?

[12:05] Possibly the first settler was a Duggar. Was a Duggar. How about that, guys? How about that? Origins are important. Now I know that I'll be the governor of Tennessee one day. Right? Now, origins are important.

[12:19] We like to know where we're from. There's also some practical reasons for knowing where we come from, right? Like health reasons. Like, for example, I make a lot of jokes about this, so Audrey, hold your ears. I like to joke about the Duggar heart, you know?

[12:31] The Duggar heart, not the best heart. I mean, physically. I mean, like, you know, I'll be around for a while. Don't worry. Right, Audrey? But it's important to know medical history, right?

[12:44] It's important to know the biological things that might be in your family line. It's important to know where you come from. Sometimes you can see, you know, even how people got where they were based on where they came from, what their family line is.

[12:57] And here, with Jesus, we see this origin story. We see his genealogy, the background. Who God providentially put in place so that the Messiah would come.

[13:08] And what you find in this genealogy is a list of people that not a single one of us would have put in here. Not a single one of us would have said, Manasseh? Yeah, let's put Manasseh in the line of Jesus, the Messiah.

[13:23] Rahab? The prostitute? Yeah, she should be in the line of Christ. But God, in his providence, in his sovereignty, has worked all things together through a group of people that none of us would choose or none of us would suspect in order to bring about his purposes in Jesus Christ.

[13:42] And not only to bring about his purposes, but to fulfill his promises in Jesus Christ. So, the genealogy is an important thing. The origins are an important thing.

[13:54] There's also a really nerdy reason why he has lists of 14, because he also leaves some people out. If you go back and read the Old Testament, you'll see he left out three kings directly. You'll see he left out some people.

[14:06] But it's too nerdy for me to get into right now. So, we're going to keep going, okay? What I want to show you is not the nerdy stuff. What I want to show you is the way that Matthew shapes this genealogical record to show us who Jesus is as the Messiah, the Son of God.

[14:22] Okay? So, there's three promises that he refers to. He starts with Abraham, the Abrahamic promise. He goes to David, the Davidic promise. And then, kind of strangely almost, instead of going to a person, he goes to an event, which is the exile to Babylon.

[14:38] And I think the reason that Matthew did this, why he went to these people, not only because of their importance in the history of Israel, but also because these three moments throughout the history, the moment that God called Abraham, the moment that God promised a kingdom to David, and the moment that God let his people be taken off and ripped out of the land, these three moments also provided for us three great promises that pointed to the Messiah, that pointed ahead to Jesus Christ.

[15:11] And so, we'll look at the three promises that God made and his providence in working all things together. So, the first one, again, is the promise to Abraham.

[15:22] Genesis 12, 1-3 says, What a promise.

[15:49] What a promise. What a promise if someone already has children. But God made that promise to a 75-year-old man who was childless. That he would make him into a great nation.

[16:00] That through his offspring, through his descendant, the entire earth, every person on earth would be blessed. That's a big promise. But God made it.

[16:10] God made it. And then God fulfilled that promise by giving Abraham and Sarah Isaac. Not when they were 75 and 65, but when they were 190. God worked a miracle to give Abraham the son of promise.

[16:24] Then he had, Isaac had Jacob. And Jacob had the 12 sons. And so on and so forth. All the way through to Jesus. But I want to show you that not only did God make a promise.

[16:35] A big promise. And not only did he fulfill it by sending the Messiah. But God also acted sovereignly to preserve this line through the mistakes of the people he chose to use.

[16:50] Abraham was a liar. Two different times we see Abram. At the time his name was Abram. Abram lie to cover his own tail. Right?

[17:00] He went to Egypt and he told Pharaoh that Sarah was not his wife. She was his sister. And that was because he was scared that he would die. Then he went to the king of Elimelech or Abimelech.

[17:12] And he told him the same thing. She's not my wife. She's my sister. Because he was scared for his life. Abraham was a liar. You skip down to Jacob. His name tells us who he is.

[17:24] Jacob's a deceiver. He deceived his brother for the birthright. He deceived his dad for the blessing. He deceived his father-in-law by swindling him with the sheep. He was a deceiver.

[17:34] And yet God used him. Eventually God wrestled with him. Jacob contended with the Lord. And he survived. And so God actually changed his name from Jacob to Israel.

[17:46] Right? Which is the name of the very people that Jesus would come from. So Jacob, a deceiver, is used by God anyways. Then you go to Judah. And you're like, okay, finally we got a good one, right?

[17:58] Because Judah is a popular name, right? Like we name our kids Judah these days. Like that's what we do. We love Judah. Judah's great. The line of Judah. Judah, not a good dude. Judah not only helped develop the plan to sell Joseph into slavery, but eventually Judah became a fornicator.

[18:19] When Judah's wife, this is Genesis 38. This is a story you probably don't read too much in Sunday school material. When, when, sorry John Marks, you threw me off.

[18:34] Judah's son died without providing an heir, without having a son. And so Judah told his other son, Onan, to do the brotherly right, the kinsman redeemer, and provide an heir for his brother by sleeping with his sister-in-law, Tamar.

[18:54] Well, his brother, Onan, slept with her, but he did not conceive a child intentionally. And so God struck him dead. So Judah told Tamar, Wait, I have another son.

[19:07] Wait till he's old enough, you know. But then eventually Judah forgot. And Tamar grew impatient. And so after Judah's wife had died, Judah went to another place. He walked into the city gate, and he saw what he thought was a temple prostitute.

[19:20] And he went and slept with her and impregnated her. He gave her his signet ring and I think his staff also. Well, then eventually you find out that that was Tamar who had disguised herself and worn a veil.

[19:31] She had covered her face. And so she slept with Judah intentionally to become pregnant because Judah had not kept up his word. Well, then when Judah finds out that Tamar's pregnant, he's like, Put her to death.

[19:44] She's an evil woman. Put her to death. And then she says, I'm pregnant by the man whose signet ring this is and whose staff this is. And Judah says, Never mind. She is more righteous in this situation than I am.

[19:59] And so because of that, you see Tamar listed in the line of Christ. A broken, what should have been a beautiful example of the kinsman relationship, instead is a broken situation filled with lust and sin.

[20:14] And still God used those people in this genealogy, the very line of Christ. Tamar is the first of five women who are listed. You have Tamar who pretended to be a prostitute.

[20:27] All right. She was more righteous than Judah in that situation, but that doesn't mean that what she did was right. Okay. Then you go down to verse five and you have Rahab. Again, Rahab, the prostitute.

[20:40] Right. Rahab was a prostitute. She owned a brothel in Jericho. And God changed her life completely. She understood that God was going to bring victory for his people in the land and submitted to the will of God.

[20:53] And so Rahab, the prostitute, is reformed and now becomes a part of Israel. Not only a part of Israel, but she's in the very line of Christ. What a blessing. Then you go to Boaz who fathered Obed by Ruth.

[21:06] If you read the book of Ruth and you understand the kinsman-redeemer relationship, we actually should see that Elimelech fathered Obed by Naomi. Because that's how the kinsman-redeemer relationship worked.

[21:20] And yet, God preserved the man Boaz for his courage and for his faithfulness. And also Ruth, who, by the way, was a Moabite, not an Israelite.

[21:31] I mean, God used people that we would never use. He included women that we wouldn't think to include. And he did this all because it shows us that God uses people in spite of their sin.

[21:44] And that should be an encouragement to you and me today. If you ever think that I'm not good enough for God to use, I couldn't go on that mission trip, I can't go into ministry, I can't serve the Lord publicly, I can't be vocal about my faith and share the gospel because people know what type of person I am, guess what?

[22:01] You're right. And God can still use you. Most often, God uses people who we wouldn't expect. My past is not perfect.

[22:13] Your past is not perfect. And still, God will use you, God will use me in spite of our sin. Why? Because of his grace. So you go from the promise of Abraham to the promise of David.

[22:28] That's found in 2 Samuel chapter 7. Start in verse 11b, the second half of verse 11. It says, The Lord declares to you, the Lord himself will make a house for you.

[22:38] When your time comes and you rest with your ancestors, I will rise up after you, your descendant, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

[22:54] I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will discipline him with the rod of men and blows from mortals. But my faithful love will never leave him as it did when I removed it from Saul, whom I removed from before you.

[23:06] Your house and your kingdom will endure before me forever, and your throne will be established forever. So the thing about proving that Jesus is the Messiah is it's not enough to only be an Israelite.

[23:22] It's not enough to only be the prophet like Moses that Moses told about in Deuteronomy. It also has to be a person who comes from the line of David, because God has made this messianic promise about an enduring eternal kingdom to David.

[23:39] So the Jews were looking for a son of Abraham, absolutely, but also they were looking for the son of David, someone from the promised line of David. And of course, we see the fulfillment in Christ.

[23:51] Now, within this genealogical record between David and the time of exile, there's some other examples that God worked despite the failure of the men that he had called.

[24:05] So you see it right at the very beginning here at the second half of verse 6. It says, David fathered Solomon by Uriah's wife. You see what Matthew is emphasizing there?

[24:15] He didn't tell us that it was Bathsheba. He didn't give us her name. He said that David fathered Solomon by Uriah's wife. That was an intentional decision, I think.

[24:27] Matthew is emphasizing or highlighting David's sinfulness. David committed adultery. That adultery led to murder. Of course, Bathsheba's not innocent in this, but David was the one who was king.

[24:41] David was the one who called for her. David was the one who lusted after her. David was the one that sent her husband off with the orders of his own execution. David was the one who just was given this promise.

[24:53] 2 Samuel 7, he has this beautiful promise of an enduring kingdom. 2 Samuel 11, he commits the most heinous act of adultery and murder that you see. And still, God used him.

[25:07] And God used Bathsheba. I want to read you a quote from Alistair Begg. He's preaching a sermon on this text. He said, wow, what a sorry messed up family tree. What a sorry spectacle.

[25:20] What a triumph of grace. If Jesus had such individuals as his forebearers, we ought not to be surprised that he has such individuals as his followers.

[25:31] Matthew is actually getting ready to introduce us to the one who was a friend of sinners. Matthew is introducing us to the one who did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

[25:45] Matthew is encouraging us to realize that God's purposes are fulfilled in ways that we would never imagine and that God's plans include events that we would never design and include people that we would by nature exclude.

[25:58] So the excluded are included. Only God does this. I just found that to be powerful. Only God does this. Only God, by his grace, God redeems such broken, heinous, sinful situations.

[26:14] Again, that should be an encouragement to you and me, that even in our brokenness, even in our sin, God redeems. You go through David's line, and you have Solomon, who was the wisest man on earth.

[26:25] Solomon's the wisest man on earth, and still chose to follow his own wisdom, and had all of the wives and concubines and all those things, and also followed pagan gods.

[26:37] Like Solomon did not stay pure in his worship of the Lord like David did. I mean, you go down, you have Rehoboam. Rehoboam, Solomon's son, his pride led to the split of the nation.

[26:49] You keep going, and I already mentioned Manasseh. Manasseh was the most wicked king in the kingdom of Judah's history. Manasseh was so enthralled, by the pagan worship of Molech and Baal, and all these different things, that he actually sacrificed his child in the fires of worship to a false god.

[27:10] Killed his own kid to worship a false god. Manasseh was a messed up dude. There's a passage in 2 Chronicles that actually tells us that Manasseh, at the end of his life, repented and turned and worshipped the Lord.

[27:21] And what an act of grace that is, that God could turn around such a broken man. But not only did God turn around such a broken man, God included him in the line of Christ. God uses broken people.

[27:34] Even the royal line, the kingly line, was filled with brokenness. But God's plan remained the same. Here's the beautiful thing. Yes, God uses people we wouldn't expect.

[27:45] Yes, God can use you and me, even though we're broken and sinful. But he can do that because he is sovereign. Because he's in control. Because he is God. God is not, his plans are not thwarted by our sinfulness.

[27:59] God's plans are not messed up because of our brokenness. God's plan will come to fruition. Now the final promise that we have is found in the promise to the exiles.

[28:11] The promise to the exiles. These people who were carried off to Babylon, who couldn't even sing songs of praise to the Lord anymore. God gave them a promise.

[28:25] Jeremiah 29. You know Jeremiah 29 11. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Football players love that verse, right? I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Here's the thing.

[28:35] God is telling the people that he has plans for them, right after he told them, you're going off to Babylon. You guys are being deported. You guys are becoming exiles. You're losing your homes.

[28:47] You're losing your identity. You're losing your temple. But I know the plans I have for you. Jeremiah 29 10 through 14 says, For this is what the Lord says. When 70 years for Babylon are complete, I will attend to you and will confirm my promise concerning you to restore you to this place.

[29:04] For I know the plans I have for you. This is the Lord's declaration. Declaration's plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. You will call to me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

[29:17] You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. I will be found by you. This is the Lord's declaration. And I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and places where I banished you.

[29:29] This is the Lord's declaration. I will restore you to the place from which I deported you. So this people who had their hope stripped away from them when they were carried off into captivity now have this promise of a return.

[29:42] They have a promise that God isn't actually, you know, his plan is not broken. His promise to David has not been severed. His promise to Abraham has not been shut off.

[29:53] But that God has a plan even in their exile. Sometimes we need to hear that, right? When we are in those times of exile where we are deep down in dark places, the promise that God is still in control.

[30:07] God's not surprised by the struggles that we go through. God's not surprised by the pain that we endure. God's not surprised by these things. God is working all things together for his glory and for the good of those who love him.

[30:19] But listen to this other promise from Jeremiah chapter 31, verses 31 through 34. Look, the days are coming. This is the Lord's declaration. When I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

[30:32] This one will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant that they broke, even though I am their master, the Lord's declaration.

[30:43] Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, the Lord's declaration, I will put my teaching within them and right on their hearts, I will be their God and they will be my people.

[30:56] So there's this promise not only of a restored home, but there's a promise of a new covenant, a new relationship with God. How would that come to pass? Through Jesus Christ.

[31:07] I want you to understand something else about the list from the exile to Joseph, or to the Messiah, to Jesus himself. And that is, we recognize only a couple of these names from the Old Testament.

[31:18] After that, after the prophet Micah, you have the silent period, 400 years of silence. We call that the intertestamental period. In our Bibles, it's one page, right?

[31:30] That page is 400 years of time. During that time, these previous exiles were wondering, how are these promises going to be fulfilled?

[31:41] What is going to come? What is going to happen? Now we've been overtaken by Rome. We don't even have our freedom here in our own land like we would like. How is God going to do the things that he said he would do?

[31:54] And Matthew starts off with the origin of Jesus Christ and says, this is how. Jesus came to fulfill all of those promises. Jesus came to fulfill everything you've known.

[32:05] Jesus Christ, he is the Messiah. Christ isn't his last name. Christ means Messiah. That means he is the anointed one, the one who was promised. And so Matthew, coming out of 400 years of silence, shows us the way that God spoke through it all.

[32:23] And these people who were silent during those years, we don't know their names, but we know that God preserved them so that he could preserve this line. They were faithful even though they were ambiguous.

[32:36] Just so you know, your name doesn't have to be known by everyone. You don't have to do amazing things. You don't have to be a famous, you know, Christian author who is the next C.S. Lewis. You don't have to do those things to be recognized by God.

[32:48] God preserves and keeps the family. The family. And here's the thing. These people who were in the line of Christ were a part of the family of God.

[32:59] And because Jesus, the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham, because Jesus came, and we know what he did, we know the rest of the story. We know that he is the son of God. We know that he died on the cross.

[33:10] We know that three days later, he rose again victorious. And we know that he's at the right hand of the father. We also know this. He invites each and every one of us to be a part of his family.

[33:23] These people were his forebearers, but we can be a part of the family line of Christ through faith in his name.

[33:36] These people were sinful. They were messed up. They were rejects. They weren't great people. They were terrible kings. They were foreigners. God's promises still stood then, and God's promises still stand now.

[33:49] When we look at these genealogies, this record, and we think about the promises of God that he made to these people, and we see the fulfillment in Christ, this should be a great encouragement to us because in God fulfilling those promises, he shows us that the promises that he has made, which still stand today, that he will also fulfill those.

[34:13] God will fulfill his word. He will. Jesus will return. Jesus will call his church to himself. Jesus will redeem all of the brokenness, all of the pain.

[34:25] Jesus will forgive your sin if you trust in him and repent. We serve a God who's big enough to keep his word. So you see the genealogy.

[34:37] It's like, that's just a list of names. No, this is the word of God. This is God's word. It promises life. It gives us truth. And guess what?

[34:49] If you believe in Jesus, then you can be a part of his family today. So I don't know where you're at in your walk with Christ. I don't know if maybe you feel like you can't be used by God, then during this time of invitation, of response, I want you to pray silently, and I want you to submit to whatever God might be calling you to do.

[35:06] I don't know if you're here and you've never believed in Jesus and you know that you're living in sin and that without Christ, you would die separate from him. Then I want you to pray and receive Christ today.

[35:17] Repent of your sins. That means turn away from your sin. Ask for forgiveness and trust the Lord to save you because Jesus is faithful. God is faithful. He's proven it time and again.

[35:28] I'm gonna pray for us there. He's gonna play a song and we'll have this time of response. And then we'll take the Lord's Supper together. Father, but you move as God leads. Lord Jesus, we thank you for who you are.

[35:40] We thank you for your word and your truth. God, I pray that you would bless in this time right now that as we're encountering your word, absolutely move, that you would move us to respond however it is that you're calling, that we would be obedient.

[35:59] We love you, Jesus. We thank you for who you are and pray all these things in your name. Amen. Amen.