If I were to ask you who you were, you'd likely at some point tell me who your father or mother is. There's a classic joke for those who are from Cape Breton, what's your father's name? For mainlanders, I don't know if there is an equivalent, but I'm sure there is. It's a classic question to place who we are. Whether it's Tamil culture, Dutch culture, or simply Canadian culture, we are people who have surnames or last names, and those names place us and tell us who we're related to. It gives us a sense of place in this world. When we ask this question of what's your father's name or who you're related to, we're usually trying to base our identity on the accomplishments of our predecessors, meaning whatever your father did or your mother did, it affects who you are. But for Jesus, this genealogy is pointing out what he will accomplish as it relates to his forefathers. It's a little bit different. One commentator says that this list of names is like a parade. You see the different floats that are coming before, you enjoy them, you see that they're good, but you're really waiting for the person that comes at the end, all that the parade is really leading up to. The genealogy of Jesus presented here is telling us more than who Jesus is related to. The genealogy picks up, or this genealogy picks up on Jewish tradition, trying to figure out who is the snake crusher, who is going to be the Messiah, the anointed king of Israel. In the opening line of verse 1, we are told by Matthew that Jesus is the Christ, and he is seeking to prove that as he presents Jesus' lineage, showing his Jewish and Gentile audience that Jesus has the credentials for the crown. This is the text that tells us that Jesus has the legal right to rule God's people and the world. Unlike Luke's genealogy, that's more on, that majors on biology, Matthew here majors on the promise and the legality of the Messiah, that there's legitimacy to his Messiahship. The promised Messiah was to come from the line of David and Abraham as presented here, and that's what we're to see with clarity, that we would know him and believe in him. Matthew's argument is that we are to believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah, and he presents this by giving us three truths. That Jesus is the promised blessing, that Jesus is the promised king, and that Jesus is the promised savior. This will serve as our outline this morning if you want to look at this outline, it's printed in your bulletin for you, so you can follow along with the scripture tasks. Let's look at our first point, the promised blessing. To the Jewish reader or hearer, they are presented now with this rap sheet of greatness, that they would receive these names not as just good information, they saw it as authenticating and proving an identity. For about 500 years, there had not been a king over Israel. They had been in captivity and exile, and this genealogy tells us that they are waiting on the Messiah. The king that they have at the time, he is half Jewish, Herod the Great, we will see him in a few weeks, but he is more of a Roman puppet king, one that has been put for political purposes, not for righteous rule. So the Jews in the first century would have read this genealogy and seen much convergence, that this genealogy points to a true king, one who can trace his ancestry from the exile to David and from David to Abraham. To us as readers, we might not see this as great significance, but to them it was huge. This genealogy is comprised of three sets of 14, or another way to say this, six sets of seven. And Jesus is the seventh, the final one. In Jewish tradition, seven was this number of completion, and in this sense, what we see is that Jesus is the seventh, bearing the significance that we would see that he is the one that completes this genealogy, the one that is waited for. Of these names, the most significant that are mentioned apart from Jesus Christ is David and Abraham, as we see in verse 1. And the first set of 14 that is mentioned for us is in verse 2. It begins with Abraham, the progenitor. If you look at me at verse 2, you'll see this callback to Abraham. This callback is to God's covenant made with Abram in Genesis 16. In Genesis 16, we see that God makes a promise that through Abram, who then becomes Abraham, he will make his family great, and that through his family line, he will bless the world. Remember, Abraham and Sarah, his wife, were barren. They were a couple that was promised that God would give them a child. And so what does God do? He does what only he can do. He gives this couple a son. The Scriptures tell us that when he gave them the son, they were as good as dead. To fulfill this promise, he gave them Isaac, as you see in verse 2. And from Isaac comes Jacob and his 12 sons. And the foremost in that line, because of the line of kings, is Judah. And from Judah's line, we are given David. God's promise to bless the world through Abraham is seen here, that he brings about Gentiles into the genealogy. That's not his most explicit point. Ultimately, we know that God's blessing to the world is the epitome of Jesus Christ, but what we see is that God knits Gentiles into his plan. His plan includes things that we ourselves wouldn't bake into it. As we reflect on it this morning, you'll see a lot of sin and brokenness. But as we consider it this morning, it is a story that screams of God's redemption. This family tree is messy. It includes stories of adultery, of murder, of prostitution. But God uses these people and their sin to bring about blessing to the world through his Messiah. We see this first with the inclusion of Tamar. A woman who's dressed as a prostitute, tricking her father-in-law to fulfill levered rites, because he did not see that he wanted to fulfill that by giving her another one of his sons. Or Rahab, who was a prostitute, but she feared God. She feared the God of Israel, and she provides refuge to two spies before the fall of Jericho. Or the inclusion of Rahab, a Moabite woman, whose people were known for sin and the rejection of God. God's inclusion and utilization of these individuals who are far off in their sin and in their ethnicity, God brings them near. He redeems and brings about good from evil. The inclusion of Gentiles, specifically Rahab and Ruth, highlight for us that God's heart is for the nations. And this heart didn't begin at the Great Commission. He began in the sending of the sun. It began even in this genealogy. God was working out his plan to bless the world through the line of Abraham from the beginning. And this blessing, as I said, the epitome of that is the coming of Jesus Christ. It is in his person and work that the whole world is blessed that through him, you no longer need to be a Jew. You can be a Gentile, and you can be brought near to God. If you've believed in Jesus, if you believe that he is the Christ, we are blessed as we are included in God's family. Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise of Abraham, not because of his broken family tree, but because he takes that brokenness and makes it whole. He redeems these situations and these people, reminding us that throughout human history, if left to our own devices, we will be corrupt. But God sent his son to redeem us from this corruption, to take those who are far off from God and bring them near, to purify for himself a people, to bless them not just with identification with their situations, but redeem them from it, to give them a new identity, one that is wholly justified, pure and blameless. We see the redemption of God, not just in the person and work of Jesus Christ, but also in this genealogy, that God takes the unrighteous and makes them holy, that he associates them to himself. There are some of you here this morning that feel like your sin is too great, that if God knew the real you, that if he knew who your parents were, he wouldn't accept you. If you see Jesus family tree here, you see that that's not true, that he takes what is sinful and far off and brings it near, that you would not need to continue in your sin, that you instead would be changed, being blessed that you would in turn be a blessing. For you today, I hope you see that you see Jesus Christ as the blessing of God, the one in whom and by whom the whole world is made whole. For the believer in this room, would you see this afresh, the promise blessing of Jesus Christ, that our God was on a mission and is on a mission to bless the whole world through the person of Jesus Christ, so that we would all be made whole. Jesus is God's promised blessing. Okay, so we've seen that in point one, let us move to point two and see how Jesus is God's promised King. King David was the closest thing in the Old Testament that the Old Testament saints would have seen as a Messiah, but the promises of Messiah was never truly fulfilled in himself. There was no way that it could have been. There were promises made to David in 2 Samuel 7, that there would come a day from his line that this individual, this Messiah would come and sit on the throne and God would establish his kingdom forever. There's no way that David could come from his own line again. Or even think of Psalm 110, where David says, my Lord says to my Lord. There's no individual that can fall in this category. There's somebody greater on the way that they're waiting for. Even the kings that come after David, they aren't very Messiah-like. Some are good. Most are not great. Even David himself in this genealogy is reminded of his own sin with the reference to Bathsheba. But the reference is not the word, the name Bathsheba is not used here for Solomon's mother. Look at me. You'll see it says, the wife of Uriah, making plain the reference to his sin of adultery and murder. For those of you who do not know the story about King David, it's not really a great one. The best king of Israel is seen as still as a man at best. In no way me making that statement, am I making an excuse for him? Instead, I want us to see how corrupt and even frail David is. When all the other men were supposed, all the other kings were supposed to be at war, David's at home. While neglecting his responsibility, he goes on the rooftop and he gazes at the nakedness of his neighbor. Instead of looking away and repenting, he lusts. He even calls for this woman to be brought to him who was bathing. This wasn't an innocent call. This was the sinful, coercive call of adultery. In all this, David knew that this was the wife of one of his warriors. As I say this, this story should be sickening to us because it is twisted. Instead of David putting his sin to death, he puts to death Uriah to cover up that he ever did any of these things. And so we see the birth of Solomon. In some sense, that is redemption. But it's very plain that his sin was apparent to God and apparent to God's people. From this instance, in the book of 2 Samuel, we know that David is not the savior that we began to think he was. In the rest of the list of kings here, they're just as anticlimactic. From going from one to the other, they go, some being better, some being worse. Solomon is often seen as this good king. In many ways, he began well, just like his father, but he was wrapped up in sexual sin and idolatry by the end of his life. His son Rehoboam splits the kingdom in half. And the major and minor points of this genealogy, people like Hezekiah, they remove idols and altars, but then his son Manasseh restores all of them and makes the people to sin, leading to Josiah, where there's a reiteration of the law and good things are happening. But his grandson Jehkaniah leads the people into exile. In this, we see that none of these kings are the promised king who would come and rule in righteousness that his kingdom would last forever. They sinned and led the people of God to sin, bringing them to exile. There's a principle here that can so easily be overlooked, but it's this, that bad leaders lead people to sin. This doesn't mean that we aren't responsible for our own actions as subordinates. We are still responsible. There's responsibility on both sides. But this is why the Bible can say the father should not provoke their children to anger. There's a similar way, whether it's a leader at home or in the church or in politics, the people you lead, you can lead astray. And so there's a responsibility for those leaders, but also for followers that you would not be ill-formed, giving in to your sin. Instead, would you see it and repent as God has called you to, taking responsibility of where you've erred and seeking to move forward. Because there is a consequence to sin. We see that in this passage. There's exile, a life away from God, away from his promises and away from his blessing. And we do not want to be individuals or churches or nations that are far from God. Thankfully, like the people of old and even us, God does not leave us to languish in our sin. He provides a way back to himself that we would be led by this promised King today. The one who rules and leads with righteousness to life with God. And this is Jesus Christ, the true King of God's people and the world. The one if we submit to will lead us to life and life everlasting. One that will conform us to his image as we seek to follow him. And so church, if you hear his call today, would you respond in faith? And if you've maybe gone astray, look to him today and seek to follow. This King who leads his people out of exile brings them back to God, which leads us to our final point, the promised Savior. The list of names here show us that God gave the people up to their sin. They're given to the consequence of captivity to be in foreign lands. And while this is written, they're no longer in foreign lands, but they are ruled by foreign rulers. The people of God are waiting for a promised Messiah who will bring about blessing, who will bring about his rule, and who will bring about salvation. That they would be liberated from their oppression that they faced. That they would know true freedom and prosperity as they once did. I don't want to skip over these names because I don't skip over them right now because I don't think they don't matter. But what these names do show us is that there's just faint glimmers of hope. These kings existed while the nation continued in exile. Even men like Zerubbabel that led the people, a small contingent, back to Jerusalem. He still did that under the rule of the Persians. The story of exile didn't truly end for these men. The exile continued until Jesus. But Jesus was the one who was born of Mary. In this we see that Matthew makes a distinction of Jesus from the rest of the list, as he is our Savior. He was not fathered by men like every other person in this list. He was miraculously conceived by the Spirit through the Virgin Mary. Joseph would have functioned for him as a doctor parent. And in this we see that he gives them the legal right to his line. But Jesus is not like the other men listed here. He is God incarnate, truly God and truly man. And in this section we are to see that he is the blessing of the world that had not come. The true king that had not arrived. The true Savior that would lead his people out of exile. But like the good parade that I mentioned earlier, we're finally brought to Jesus. Who is this blessing to the world? Bringing about life not just for the Jews but also for Gentiles. The king who would lead his people to life and righteousness and purity. The Savior who would bring his people out of exile and bring them home. This is Jesus the Messiah. The one whom the whole world waited for. And he has come to establish his rule. Not just... Not in the ways that the Jewish people would imagine or even that we imagine. But our Savior right now is seated at the right hand of the Father interceding for us. Ruling over all of life even now. And he will come again. And he will bring us home to live life with God perfectly in the life to come. We like the people of Israel reading or hearing these words. We can often feel homesick. Knowing that this world is not really what it's cut out to be. Not that it's bad. But our hearts know that there's something better. And that's the truth. There is better. And Jesus Christ our Savior. If we believe in him saves us yes from our sins but he saves us to himself. That we would know life at home with God in part today but in fullness in the life to come. And until that day we're to believe in Jesus the Messiah. Believing that he is the blessing to the world. That he is the true and rightful king. And that he is the Savior of the world. Who will bring us home to live with him. Either when he calls us home or when he comes again. Let us pray.