Hope through the Kings (Matthew 1:6b-11)

Introduction

Earlier this year, in May, the world watched as a new King was crowned in Great Britain. King Charles was crowned following his mother’s 70 year reign as Queen. King Charles was declared as the undoubted King with the present crowd shouting “God Save the King.”

Consider that reality, King Charles was declared as the undoubted King of United Kingdom. This opposed to him being crowned the doubted king. And yet there is something important to this. For there various times when a king has been crowned, but there are doubts to the claim to the throne.

This morning we are going to talk about the beginning of the line for another King, a King who would be doubted, but in the end there will be no doubt that this King is the King of Kings!

That is what we are going to talk about this morning, the son of David who was promised the throne of David.

If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn with me to Matthew 1:1. If you do not have a Bible with you this morning, please feel free to take a Red Pew Bible in front of you and follow along. You can find our passage on page #959 in that Bible.

If you are newer to the Bible, you would be helped to know that when we say Matthew 1:1, that first number is a chapter number. That is the bigger number there you see in the Bible. And the second 1, is what we call the verse number. It is marked by a smaller number. This will help you as you follow along this morning in knowing what we are talking about if I say, please look at verse 6, you now know where to look.

Last week we began our study through Matthew. As we did, we looked at the line of Jesus from Abraham right up to David. But this morning we are going to work our way thinking through Jesus being declared the Son of David and the line of kings that came from him up until the deportation, the exile from Israel.

To help us get a better jump start into our text for this morning, let’s start back at Matthew 1:1 and read up until verse 11. Here the word of the LORD then from Matthew 1:1-11.

Here is what I think is the main idea of Matthew 1:6-11, our text this morning, “Jesus is the son of David, the forever King, who heals the land.” We are going to unfold this in two points: (1) The forever king and (2) The healing king.

Point #1: The Forever King

Matthew 1:1 ESV

1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

We looked at part of this verse last week in this being the book of beginning of Jesus Christ. Again, Christ not being the last name of Jesus, but his title. Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One, the long promised Messiah.

And as we began to look at Jesus’ beginning, that is his family line, we saw that Jesus was the son of Abraham. How Jesus came from the fathers of old, that of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

For Jesus is the son of Abraham in that he fulfills the promise made to Abraham long ago, that Jesus is the one who was to bring blessing to the nations, to all the families of the earth. And even in his family line, there were those included from the nations. That of Rahab and Ruth.

But not only is Jesus identified as the Christ, the son of Abraham, he is identified as the son of David.

Further, look at the first half of Matthew 1:6 “6 and Jesse the father of David the king.”

Jesus is God’s fulfillment to the promise made to Abraham in the blessing to the nations, but Jesus is included in a long line of kings. Kings who ruled God’s people in the land of Israel, or for some, ruling only the southern half of Israel. For remember that part of Israel’s history left them with a divided kingdom, a northern and southern half. The line of Jesus includes those who ruled the southern half.

But like Jesus fulfilled promises to Abraham in being his son, in Jesus being the Son of David, he too has come to fulfill promises made to King David.

Please take your finger and hold your place here in Matthew 1 and turn with me back to 2 Sam 7:1-17. In the Red Pew Bibles it is on page #305. We want to read God’s promise to David here. 2 Samuel 7:1-17....

David desired to make the LORD a house in response to all that God had done for him. However, God did not allow David, but made David a promise. A promise that David’s son would build a house, but more importantly a promise that David’s son would have his throne established forever.

But consider here our text this morning. Consider the line that comes from David. Let us read it again.

Matthew 1:6–11 “6 and Jesse the father of David the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, 7 and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, 8 and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, 9 and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, 10 and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, 11 and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.”

Consider this line and God’s promise for a forever throne to be established. The line starts with David, then Solomon who comes through the wife of Uriah.

Solomon’s mother finds herself included here because she was obtained by David as a wife through serious sin.

The wife of Uriah here being Bathsheba who David committed adultery with. The one who found herself pregnant with child. And instead of David owning his sin, he tries to cover it up. He tries to cover it up by plotting a plan to cover up that this child was any others than Uriah’s. For David calls Uriah back from war to give a report. In this, David seeks to persuade Uriah to return to his house, to go in to his wife and lay with her. He goes as far as getting Uriah drunk and tries to encourage this.

But Uriah, the Hittite is more honorable than David, the King of Israel. Uriah refuses to go home while others are fighting. And so, David furthers his attempt to cover up his adultery by sending Uriah back to the fight, and in going, to take a letter to the commanding officer. And in the note that Uriah himself delivers, were instructions to send Uriah to the most intense area of fighting and then have the rest of the army to pull back, ensuring that Uriah is killed in battle.

This line that is supposed to include a forever King does not start pretty and it only gets worse. And just a side application here friends, cleaned up is much better than covered up. David learned the hard way that it was better to confess his sin to God instead of trying to cover it up and hide it from God.

But it is through Solomon the temple of the LORD is built. But Solomon would only prove to be a partial fulfillment to God’s promise. For yes, Solomon built the temple, but Solomon was not the forever king. For Solomon would stray from the LORD, his heart proved to not truly be with the LORD, his God.

The throne would then pass from Solomon to his son, Rehoboam. Rehoboam abandoned God’s law and did not walk as David who believed God. And the throne would pass from Rehoboam on.

Following Rehoboam came Abijah who would war against Jeroboam and the northern kingdom of Israel. He trusted the LORD, but he was not God’s forever king. For the kingdom would move from Abijah to Asaph. Asaph did not seek refuge in the LORD, the God of Israel. Instead he sought refuge in a foreign king, the King of Syria.

The throne would go from Asaph then to Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat walked in the ways of David. He sought the LORD and to walk in all his commandments. Jehoshaphat would struggle in straying and then reform multiple times, and the throne would move on from Jehoshaphat, showing he was not God’s forever king.

Following Jehoshaphat would come Joram who was wicked, he killed his brothers, built high places for false worship to false gods. Joram established wicked allegiances with foreign kings. Joram was not God’s forever king.

Uzziah came next. Uzziah did what was right in the eyes of the LORD like his father Amaziah had done. But then he grew proud and exposed on the treasures of the kingdom and the kingdom would be taken from his line after his death. Uzziah was not God’s forever king.

Next came Manasseh who did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. And though Manasseh in the end would humble himself and restore the altars of the LORD, he was not God’s forever king.

Amos followed and was no better, but he failed to humble himself. Then came Josiah. Josiah did what was right in the eyes of the LORD. He walked in the ways of David, he did not turn aside from God’s law. He found the book of the Law, restored the Passover meal and kept it. But Josiah was not God’s forever king. Josiah would not believe that a king was not coming against Israel, and it cost him his life.

Following Josiah was Jechoniah and his brothers. And they did what was evil, and this led to the captivity of Jerusalem and the exile of the people from their homeland.

From David to the deportation, God’s forever king had not come. And yet, there was hope. There was hope in what God had promised to David. And there is a greater hope now, for this Jesus is the Messiah King. He is the long promised son of David who has come to fulfill God’s promise to David of a son to sit on the throne forever.

For Jesus was born to die, but he died to rise again to defeat the curse of sin and death. Jesus lived a righteous and sinless life. He was the greater David. And though he would be nailed to a cross and put to death on that cross as a lamb lead to slaughter, this was part of God’s eternal plan to establish a forever throne. For Jesus died and was buried, but he did not remain dead. On the third day, Jesus rose from the grave leaving an empty tomb. This resurrection proving that this Jesus is the Son of David, God’s forever King!

The resurrection of Jesus is best explained as the fulfilment of specific promises made by God through King David. And they show that the one who has been raised from the dead is the true son and heir of David. He, in other words, is the rightful king of Israel.

N. T. Wright

God’s Forever King is verified not by his birth, but by his death and resurrection. Jesus came and defied the curse of sin and death. For his innocence was proven in his rising. And in his rising, he ascended to be seated next to his Father in heaven on his forever throne.

Jesus is the forever king who is reigning now. And though his kingdom has not yet been fully established, his rule, his kingdom is advancing.

It is advancing as disciples, as followers of the King are made. As sinners are freed from the hands of the enemy and brought from death to life, as followers of Jesus are taught to obey their king in all that he has commanded.

God’s forever king comes not to conquer with the sword in cutting down enemies of the state. Jesus did not come to deliver Israel from Rome, but Israel from themselves.

God’s forever king came to be the forever king of his people by using the sword of the word to cut to the heart of sinful man and work in it to put his law and his commands.

God’s forever king came not to do political work, but heart work. A work that we are called to enter into as Christians.

We first enter this heart work by submitting our own lives to the rule of God’s forever king. Part of the commission the King gives to us, the church is to make disciples of all nations which includes teaching them to observe all that he has commanded.

Friends, if we are to submit to King Jesus, we must then learn to obey the King! We must subject ourselves to his rule, to his teachings. We cannot remain like Adam, seeking to define what is good and right in our own eyes. We must submit to what the King calls good and right, what the King calls us to do.

This means that we must regularly be submitting ourselves to the pages of the Bible and following its teachings and seeking to rightly apply those teachings in our lives today.

If we cannot submit to the King, we have yet to understand who Jesus is and we have not yet come to the point of following him. It is one thing to want a Savior to deliver us from sin and death without obedience. But Jesus has not come to bring blessing alone, he has come to call us to obedience by doing heart work in us.

As Christians then, we must understand that we are not our own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ (HC Catechism #1).

Another part of recognizing Jesus as our forever king is to then submit to his mission plan as King and not our own.

One of the great stumbling block to the Jews in the day of Jesus was that they knew God’s promise to David. However, they believed that in that promise, God’s forever king was one who would come and deliver them from the power of Rome over them.

But this was not Jesus’ mission then, nor is it now.

Church, over the last fifteen years, there has been a massive shift in the American Evangelical Church and the political world. We have tied the two so tightly together in a very sinful way.

God’s forever king has not come to twine himself into political systems and advance his rule by these political systems. God’s forever king has come to advance his kingdom through the Great Commission. Christian, this means instead of spending so much energy and strategy in the political sphere, we need to focus on what the King has, a strategy for kingdom advancement through the means of discipleship.

Discipleship is how we advance the rule of God! To borrow from Mark Dever, this is “shorthand for helping others follow Jesus by doing deliberate spiritual good in their lives.” [1}

This is our mission, a mission in which we are to engage as obedient followers of the true and forever King of Israel, the Son of David, the Son of God, King Jesus himself.

This was Jesus’ plan 2,000 years ago, a plan that we are to still follow today. For it is not through force and willpower the world will be healed, it is through the King himself. This is where we now turn in point #2.

Point #2: The Healing King

Jesus is the Son of David, God’s promised forever king. But there is something else to Jesus being the Son of David. The expectation for the Son of David was not only would he sit on the throne forever, but that he would heal the land.

Doriani, Daniel M. Matthew, Volumes 1 & 2 (The Son of David, the Hope of Israel)

the people expected the king to heal the land, when he removed the Romans and other pagans who defiled it......They believed, to use J. R. R. Tolkein’s words, “The hands of the king are the hands of a healer.”

The Son of David was expected to be this kind of healer. This is why it is not uncommon when Jesus performs healing miracles, the crowd ask, could this be the Son of David? For example:

Matthew 12:22–23 ESV

22 Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw. 23 And all the people were amazed, and said, “Can this be the Son of David?”

But as Daniel Doriani points out in his excellent commentary on Matthew, it is the outsiders of Jewish society and the occasional Gentile that appeal to Jesus in this way. The crowds generally respond to the healings of Jesus with doubt.

Even John the Baptist would come back and struggle with wondering if Jesus was indeed the Christ.

Matthew 11:2–6 ESV

2 Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” 4 And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Jesus the King came to heal the people, primarily in meeting them in their sin and preaching the kingdom of heaven, the gospel, the good news that he had come to take away the sin of the world in his death and resurrection.

This was Jesus primary purpose as we will continue to see as Matthew unfolds. Our biggest need is healing from the curse of sin and death.

Consider here in the genealogy of Jesus with the kings, what was their biggest need? A need to be healed and restored, to be brought back from rebellion against God to submission under God.

For in this line of kings from David until the deportation, there are those kings who are said to have done right in the eyes of the LORD, Jehoshaphat, Uzziah, Jotham, Hezekiah, and Josiah. The majority of these had their sins and flaws, make no mistake about it, but they walked in the ways of the LORD in seeking to be submissive to the LORD.

But that did not mean there weren’t plenty of kings in the line who did evil. Even though David was a man after God’s own heart and Solomon was the wisest king, Rehoboam, Solomon’s son abandoned the law of God. And so did that of Abijah and Asaph after.

Jehoshaphat goes and walks in the ways of David, he sought God, but then right after Joram returns to the high places and false gods, leading the people into whoredom yet again.

Then the most notable king in this entire line of Josiah, following him is Jechoniah who along with his brothers leads Israel to exile because of their evil.

Ups and downs between generations. All of David, yet not all submit to God.

Faithfulness in our family, nor tradition, nor even royalty is able to guarantee salvation for the next generation.

The Anglican Bishop, J.C. Ryle puts it this way:

“Grace does not run in families. It needs something more than good examples and good advice to make us children of God. Those who are born again are not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1: 13). Praying parents should pray night and day that their children may be born of the Spirit.” [2]

Parents, this is a helpful reminder for us. Our children are not guaranteed to believe because we do. We can have them in church from early childhood, we can labor to teach them the catechisms of the Christian faith, we can do regular family worship, and this is not a guarantee that our children will believe.

Therefore we need to give ourselves to pray for them without ceasing. Praying that the LORD would save them, that he would grant them to believe.

And church, whether you are a single or your children are all grown and believe, you too are to give yourselves to prayer for these little ones in our midst. Pray that God would save them, and labor to help point these little hearts to Jesus so that they may believe at a young age. Pray that they would see their need for Jesus!

Jesus is capable of saving these little ones and any who would see their need in him and come. But this is an important point. Without seeing our need in Jesus, we would never come.

To quote Daniel Doriani [3] again:

Matthew, Volumes 1 & 2 The Son of David, the Hope of Israel

Still, if anyone thinks she has no needs at all, if anyone thinks he has all the strength he needs, then the Son of David will not be very appealing. But if this offer sounds appealing—“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28 ESV)—then the strong Son of David is for you.

It is because of this point that I personally give more attention to God being our creator and our sin problem in sharing the gospel with others before finally giving the solution in Jesus.

What good is a savior to someone unless they first see their need in having offended their creator in their sin?

Dearly beloved, I want to encourage you to run to Jesus in conversations as much as you can. But do not presume we live in a world that understands their need in Jesus. We do not. People are clueless that they have rebelled against God, the Creator and King of the universe. Therefore we must tell them their offense, then run to the hope of God’s forever and healing King!

Telling them that Jesus alone has the power to save them from their sin and to heal their brokenness.

Or maybe you are here this morning, and you have yet to believe. Friend, I want you to see here this morning that you have a great need. You have rebelled, like all of us here, against the God who created the heavens and the earth, the God who created us in his own image and likeness. For we have rejected him as King, as the one who sets what is good and right. And because of this rebellion, what we deserve is exile, exile similar to that of Israel in the deportation, but even worse.

For Israel, they were deported out of Israel into foreign lands. Because of our sin, unless we are reconciled to God, we are exiled to a Christless eternity in a very real place called hell. An exile where we will be tormented day and night with the gnashing of teeth and the eternal torment of burning in the flames of hell. Feeling the burning, but never having relief, not even the relief of death itself. The flames of fire are more merciful than the flames of hell. For in the flames of a fire, the smoke will choke you out and kill you before the flames consume you. But not the flames of hell. They will consume you, but relief from them will never come.

Friends, this is the guilt and the punishment that lies before us. But in the coming of God’s forever king, King Jesus, there is hope! For Jesus comes to heal us through the laying down of his own life if we will but come to him. He alone is sufficient to heal us from the stain of sin. He alone is able to heal us from the rebellion of our own hearts. Jesus is the great healer able to heal our very soul.

Consider that of Manasseh who can be found in 2 Chr 33:1-20 and 2 Kings 21:1-18. Manasseh did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, but later was brought to humility. And in his being humbled, he prayed for relief and ended up restoring the altars of the LORD in the temple. Those who do evil in the sight of the LORD can find healing in Jesus! For that is why the gospel is called good news! For this is the message of how God heals broken and messy people!

Gregory of Nyssa. O Come O Come Emmanuel Devotional, p.123

Sin, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again. We had lost the possession of the good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us. Closed in the darkness, it was necessary to bring us the light; captives, we awaited a Savior; prisoners, help; slaves, a liberator. Are these things minor or insignificant? Did they not move God to descend to human nature and visit it, since humanity was in so miserable and unhappy a state?

See what a King that has come at Christmas! A King to reign forever on the throne who is able to heal us from the sin within that held our hearts captive. A healer to restore us from exile and bring us back to a holy God!

Let us look to Jesus, the son of David, God’s forever and healing king and have hope this Christmas!

Let’s pray....

[1] Dever, Mark. Discipling. p.45

[2] Expository Thoughts on the Gospel of Matthew [Annotated, Updated]: A Commentary by J. C. Ryle https://a.co/2R4pqF1

[3] Doriani, Daniel M. Matthew & 2. Edited by Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani. Vol. 1. Reformed Expository Commentary. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008.