Fourteen Generations

SERMON: 2003-06-25--mt01b13--fourteen-generations SOURCE DURATION: 00:32:10.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: Candidate 6 is the final segment of expository speech (theological exposition) concluding the main point of the sermon. Candidate 7 marks a clear transition into musical/hymnal material ('Humbly to the earth you came...'), indicating the end of the spoken sermon. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:29:24.700-00:32:09.540 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- I want to pick up this morning where we left off two weeks ago, which was looking at the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew chapter one. As I said two weeks ago, genealogies don't do a lot for us, but I also pointed out that genealogies are important and they're important for three reasons. Number one, they tell you who you are. Number two, they tell you whose you are. And number three, they tell you what your inheritance is. And if you want to capture why that is so important, think of the many adopted children who once they come of age often begin this desperate search for their parents because they want to know who they are, they want to know to whom do they belong, and they want to know what their inheritance is spiritually, emotionally, and certainly physically. And so in scripture, genealogies really matter. The genealogy of Jesus really matters so much so that both Matthew and Luke spend extensive parts of their introductions in the gospel to the genealogy of Jesus. And so far in looking at Matthew's genealogy, we have noted two things. Let me very quickly review those. The first is that the purpose of the genealogy is to establish the credibility of Jesus as the promised Messiah. Every believing Israelite familiar with the Old Testament knew that if the Messiah came, he was to be a descendant of David. And so Matthew and Luke go out of their way to prove by way of their genealogies that Jesus is the legitimate heir of the promises made to David. That's why Matthew begins the way that he does in verse 1 of this particular chapter, a record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. The second thing we saw two weeks ago is that the gospel is for sinners. The gospel is for sinners. We saw together that in Matthew's genealogy, there are the names of four women, all of whom have a history. There is Tamar, daughter-in-law of Judah, committed adultery with Judah in order to conceive an heir. Out of that union came twins, one of whom becomes the ancestor of Jesus. A very sordid tale. Then there is Rahab. Rahab, we call her an innkeeper, but it's very likely that she shared more than her rooms with visitors. She likely also shared her bed, and that would make her a lady of the night. And then there's Ruth, Ruth the Moabiteess, and you will recall that God placed a curse upon the Moabites to the 10th generation, which was God's way of saying there is not a Moabite that's ever going to be part of my people. And yet Ruth, bless her, becomes one of the ancestors of Jesus. So then, of course, the wife of Uriah, her name is Bathsheba. She had a little fling with King David, ultimately ended up costing her husband Uriah's life. He was murdered through the instrumentality of David, one of his most sordid chapters. And out of that union between her and David eventually was Warren Solomon. And Matthew names those names very intentionally to show not only his commitment to the Great Commission, but to show that from Jesus's point of view, he is not ashamed to be associated with sinners because it is sinners that he came to seek and to save. As Luke puts it in Luke chapter 5, these are the words of Jesus, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. And that brings us then this morning to still a third observation that I want to make about the genealogy of Matthew, and that is this. Matthew imposes a literary structure on the genealogy. Matthew imposes a literary structure on Matthew's genealogy. You have the scripture in your bullet, and take it out again a moment, and I'll show you once again how the genealogy divides into three sections. The first section runs from Abraham in verse 2 to King David at the end of verse 6. The second section runs from David in the second part of verse 6 all the way to the exile in Babylon, the end of verse 11. And then from verse 12 to the end of verse 15, you have the return from the exile and the rest of the genealogy. Three sections very clearly divided. That's interesting enough, but what's really interesting is what Matthew does with that because he goes on to make the very interesting observation that each of these sections consists exactly of how many generations? Fourteen generations. He sums it up in verse 17. Thus, there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and then fourteen from the exile to the Christ. Fourteen, fourteen, and fourteen. Pretty neat package, isn't it? Problem is if you've ever tried to count, then you'll discover that Matthew is way out to lunch. First of all, it's not forty-two, but it's forty-one. Not only that, but he's had to skip at least three generations of kings in his first section, and he's had to double up some other names in order to make it fit this particular structure. And so you can well imagine that over the years the skeptics have looked at that and they've said, "Matthew, either you don't know how to count or you're trying to pull the wool over everybody's eyes." Neither of which I believe to be true, because if the Matthew who wrote the gospel is the Matthew who was the disciple of Jesus and subsequently his apostle, which I happen to believe is the case, do you remember his profession? He was a tax collector. Now, do you think tax collectors would know how to count? You bet your bottom dollar, nor does it do justice to a high view of the inspiration of scripture to say, "Well, he was just trying to pull the wool over our eyes and he was playing trickery on us." So what's the answer? Well, the answer is this. Matthew imposes deliberately a literary structure on the genealogy of Jesus. See, we come to this sort of thing with our Western minds, and our Western minds are best described as digital. It's either on or off. It's either right or wrong. Well, the mid-Eastern mind doesn't function that way. The mid-Eastern mind isn't just concerned about the actual historicity of the facts, and that sounds funny. They're more interested in the spiritual interpretation or the theological underpinnings of the fact. Let me show you what I mean. Again, notice how the genealogy begins. A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Now, would you say with our Western mindset that Jesus is the son of David and that David is the son of Abraham? And the answer is no. That's not how we think. We might use the word descendant, but when we think of sons, we think of the next generation, isn't that true? But the Bible isn't interested in picturing the next generation. The Bible is interested in picturing where goes the flow of the inheritance. And so, yes, Jesus inherits the promises made to David, and that's why he is David's son. And David inherits the promises made to Abraham because, you see, that is why he is called Abraham's son. So back now to the number 14. Why does Matthew impose this literary structure of 14 on his genealogy? Well, numbers in the Bible, you'll know, are often used in a symbolic fashion, and it's very easy to get carried away with all kinds of speculation in that regard, but the fact remains that numerology in scripture is a solidly established fact. And so the number one represents the unity of God. Number two represents the duality of witness. Jesus sends out his disciples two by two. In the book of Revelation, there are two witnesses in the end day. The number three represents what? The triunity or the perfection of God. Number four represents, what do you think, creation, the four corners of the earth. Again, you can't take that literally, obviously, and the four ends of the earth. Number five represents grace. Number six represents what? The totality of humanity. That's why the antichrist in the book of Revelation, what's his number? Six, six, six. The number seven represents perfection because it is on the seventh day that God rested. God has seven years of Sabbaths and so on. Number eight, number eight is a new beginning. It represents the start of a new week. Noah had eight people in the ark. It was on the eighth day that children, boys, would be circumcised under the old covenant. Number nine, not as well known, represents judgment. Number 10 represents divine perfection, and number 12 represents governmental perfection. You have 12 tribes of Israel, you have 12 disciples or apostles, and you have 144,000 saints in the book of Revelation, again a multiple of 12. You can go on like that for quite a while. The number 40 represents triumph through trial, and so you have Jesus in the wilderness, fasting 40 days and 40 nights, and you have Israel's journey in the Old Testament lasting 40 years. So it brings us back to number 14. Well, number 14 is a double of seven. And if seven is the number of perfection, then 14 is the total perfection that Jesus Christ has come to bring, and so Matthew's theme here appears to be that Jesus comes to usher in the ultimate perfection. He is heir not only to the promises made to Abraham, but also made to David, and I'm going to give you two reasons for that just very quickly. First of all, the numerical value of David's name is 14. I'll talk about that in just a moment if you're familiar with Old Testament languages or New Testament ancient languages such as Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. You may recall they don't have numbers for numbers the way that we do. They use letters for numbers. And the easiest way to demonstrate that is to think of Roman numerals. If we can get that number up, let's see how good you are. M-M-X-I-I-I is 2013. I hardly see Roman numerals anymore. It's at the end of movie credits. You ever notice that? The end of movie credits tend to list the year of the production in Roman numerals. Well, David's name adds up to 14, and it looks like this. The D has a value of 4. The V or the wow, it's a combination of V and W, has a value of 6. And again, D has the value of 4 for a total of 14, and some of you are saying, "What about the vowels?" Hebrew historically did not use vowels. In fact, they had to be added by the reader. And so it's the consonants that have a value ascribed to them. And what Matthew appears to be doing is he is again underscoring the reality that Jesus is the legitimate heir of all the promises that God has made to David and back through David to Abraham, God's kingdom is coming through Jesus, which is why Matthew talks so much in his gospel about the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is like this. The kingdom of heaven has these values. Jesus has come as the ultimate expression of the kingdom, promised to Abraham originally, still to some degree on an earthly level in David's life, but will one day be fully realized in the coming of Jesus. That's one reason Matthew appears to use the number 14 in his genealogy. There's a second reason, though, and that has to do with the fact that he repeats this three times, because three times 14 is what? Forty-two. Forty-two months is a significant figure, as I'll show you in a moment, but it equals three and a half years, which is half of seven. And the figure 42 in scripture is particularly interesting in apocalyptic literature. It occurs in the book of Daniel, it's repeated in the book of Revelation, and it appears to represent a season of suffering for God's people that ultimately ends and comes to completion by the coming of the kingdom. And Matthew appears to be teaching here that the Messiah is going to be a suffering Messiah who will bring to an end the suffering of humanity, and he will bring God's people into their rest. Listen to this verse from Revelation, Revelation 11 verse 2, "They will trample on the holy city for forty-two months. That is, the Gentiles will persecute God's people. I will give power to my two witnesses. They will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth." Twelve hundred and sixty days is forty-two months of thirty days each, which is how it was reckoned biblically. Forty-two appears to represent a season of suffering that comes to an end with a glorious resurrection victory. One other reason I can state that with a reasonable amount of confidence is that if you add up, here's an interesting thing, all the stations of Israel, that is, their places of camping through the wilderness on their way to the promised land, how many do you think you come up with? Forty-two. So Matthew is imposing a literary structure on his genealogy, not because he wants to fudge the facts, not because he doesn't know how to add things up, but because he is one wanting to teach a deeper theological truth that Jesus is the legitimate heir to the promises made to David, which in turn originated with the promises made to Abraham. And again, the implications of that, as we bring this to a close this morning, for you and me, are utterly profound. Let me just very quickly state two practical implications of this. First of all, we can expect God to be faithful to his promises to each of us individually. Remember what we said earlier, that if this morning you are in Christ, that is to say you have repented of your sin, you know that you cannot bring about life restored by any other means but faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then the Bible says you are a son or a daughter of Abraham and a recipient of the promises made to Abraham that you will one day inherit the earth. We've quoted this verse before, Galatians 3 verse 29, if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. You are heirs according to the promise. And remember the promise was that Abraham's offspring would be blessed, they would inherit the earth and they would do so by faith. So practically speaking, that means this, if you're in Christ today, the faithfulness of God's promises through the generations apply to you. First of all, God is your covenant-keeping God. That means that he has chosen to reveal himself to you, your sins are forgiven, you have access to his throne of grace to receive, as the book of Hebrews says, mercy to help in times of need. God loves you with an everlasting love and he makes all the resources of heaven available for you. He has promised to guide you, to lead you, to protect you, to provide for you. He holds you in the palm of his hands, he describes you as being as precious as the apple of his eye. He has placed you in history and in time under certain circumstances that he has sovereignly controlled because he has a place and a calling for you in life that only you can uniquely fulfill. He has provided the presence and the power of his Holy Spirit in your life to equip you for that calling. And he has promised to walk with you until the end of the age and then upon passing into the next life will receive you into his presence without spot, wrinkle or blemish or any such thing and then at the end of history he's going to share the fullness of his glory with you. Eye hasn't seen, ear hasn't heard, the heart of man hasn't imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. All you will recall, got a glimpse of it, he was so struck speechless that he couldn't and wasn't permitted to speak of the coming glory that God has ordained for his people. And you know what's powerful about it is that God is bigger than anything, he is bigger than your sin, he is bigger than the devil, he's bigger than the world and he has said you hang on to me and I will bring you profoundly to glory. That is the covenant he made with Abraham. You can trust God that come hell or high water he'll hold on to you and he'll walk you through the generations and he will bring you into that place of glory. There's a second profound implication and that is the fact that we can expect God to be faithful to his promise to the whole world. Why did God call Abraham out of her of the called days to the land that he was going to show him? Yes it was so that God could bless him but what was a secondary reason God wanted to bless Abraham so he could bless the nations. It was never God's intention to save you and me and bring us into this incredible covenant relationship with him where he is our God and we are his people and we can experience the presence and the power of his glory even when often we have to walk that out by faith because we can't see it or always feel it or experience it. It's reality nevertheless but it's never just about us. It's so that through us the purposes of God can be realized for the world and you've often heard me quote this next verse from Isaiah 49 verse 6. It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth. That's a Messianic passage and that's part of Matthew's passion in wanting to take the gospel beyond the Jewish nation to the Gentile people. Every one of us who is here is here today unless we are physically Jewish we're here because we have been grafted into Christ and we thereby share in the promised blessings that God has made to Abraham so many years ago. So how does God go about doing this? Well he does that in two phases. We can picture it this way. First Jesus comes into the world as a baby and by coming into the world as a baby he takes upon himself our sin. He dies on the cross and is raised so that he can put us into proper relationship with God and one of the reasons and you've often heard me talk about this before the reason those circles overlap is that's because where you and I find each other we have one foot in the kingdom of God because we have received new life on the other hand we have one foot in the world and we're still very much physically present here. And God is going to change the nations of the world not by military might not by great economic revivals or by all of the things the world seeks to adopt in order to make the world a better place. The problem with humanity is the human heart. We're estranged from God we're estranged from each other and as you've often heard me say the further that cycle progresses the more life comes to fall apart but then Jesus comes and he teaches us to love God and he teaches us to love our neighbor and God's people are like Israel of the Old Testament they are a seed of a new relationship a seed of a new life and everywhere the gospel goes God is at work changing lives little bit at a time here and there a mother who sacrifices for her children a father who sacrifices for his wife and family friends who consider their responsibility to each other to outweigh their own demands and their own needs lovers who give as opposed to take business people whose hearts are characterized by the generosity and the care of God himself. And we're little pinpoints of life and as those pinpoints grow and spread through all the nations of the world there comes a place in time when God says enough is enough. The scales will balance God will have proven his point the archangel will blow his trumpet Jesus comes in judgment and comes in redemption and then will come to pass the scripture that is written by Isaiah many years ago behold I will create new heavens and a new earth the former things will not be remembered nor will they come to mind be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy that will rejoice over Jerusalem and take the light in my people the sound of weeping and crying will be heard in it no more. We can trust God to be faithful in our own individual and personal lives but we can also trust him to be faithful in the world nation will rise against nation people will rise against people as the end of the age approaches whenever that will be things will increasingly fall apart people's hearts will fail for fear but in the midst of it can be God's people who know their God who can lift up their heads because they know their redemption draws nigh and the challenge for you and me as we come to the end of this year we launch into another year is to not grow weary in well-doing but to know that in the Lord our labor is not in vain because every little deed of righteousness that we do in the name of Jesus God remembers it gets added to the scales and it will hasten the day of the coming of the Lord God is faithful and what he has promised many generations ago he will complete and accomplish for the [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:29:24.700; remove through 00:32:10.000] glory of his name. Humbly to the earth you came Born into this world to save God with us, Emmanuel Now we adore your name Humbly to the earth you came Born into this world to save God with us, Emmanuel Now we adore your name Your name is a strong and mighty tower Your name is a shelter like no other We adore your name Your name is a strong and mighty tower Your name is a shelter like no other Jesus, in your name we pray Come and fill our hearts today Lord, give us strength to live for you And glorify your name Your name is a strong and mighty tower Your name is a shelter like no other Jesus, in your name we pray Come and fill our hearts today Lord, give us strength to live for you And glorify your name Your name is a strong and mighty tower Your name is a shelter like no other [ [CUT]BLANK_AUDIO] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:32:10.000; resume after this marked segment]