Advent 1: Who is Jesus ... The Son of David

WHO IS JESUS? AN ADVENT/CHRISTMAS SERMON SERIES ON

ADVENT 1: JESUS IS THE SON OF DAVID (, , )

ADVENT 2: JESUS IS THE SON OF ABRAHAM ()

ADVENT 3: JESUS IS THE SON OF SOLOMON ()

ADVENT 4: JESUS IS THE SON OF MARY ()

CHRISTMAS: JESUS IS THE SON OF SINNERS ()

1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3 and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, 4 and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5 and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 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. 12 And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, 13 and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, 14 and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, 15 and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, 16 and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. 17 So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.

Goal: For the Hearer to Understand Who Jesus really Is, and where he came from in order to save us.

Good Morning Sons & Daughters of St. Paul’s … May the Grace & Peace of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ be with you all … Let Us Pray.

The First Part in the Series Who is Jesus? “Jesus is the Son of David” (, , ) (ESV)

1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham … 6 and Jesse the father of David the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah …17 So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.

Today begins a 5 Part Advent/Christmas sermon series called Who is Jesus? We will be Exploring the lineage of Jesus and His impact throughout he course of Time. Today we learn that Jesus is the Son of David. Christ is our King!

Since the dawn of time, about 60 billion people have walked on Planet Earth. Of those 60 billion people, only a handful have made any real, lasting impression. In that handful of people, one stands far above all of the others. His name is Jesus. Think about that for a second … 60 billion people and only one was perfect. As we will learn over the course of these 5 weeks is that Jesus was much than just a man.

Jesus never wrote a book, and yet millions of books have been written about him. Jesus never painted a picture, and yet the world’s greatest art has Jesus as its source for inspiration. Jesus never raised an army, and yet millions of his followers have fought and died for him as soldiers of the life-saving Gospel that he preached and taught. Jesus never traveled very far from his birthplace, and yet his testimony has gone around the world. Jesus only had a handful of followers, and yet today over 30 percent of the world’s population follows him.

To ignore Jesus is disastrous. To reject Jesus is fatal. But to know Jesus is to love him; to love him is to trust him; to trust Jesus is to be radically, dramatically, and eternally changed by him. The most important question, then, that we can ever ask is this—Who is Jesus?

Who is Jesus? Is the name of our sermon series for Advent and Christmas.

Who is Jesus? Matthew wants us to know the answer to that question! That’s what Matthew’s genealogy is all about—he writes it so we can know Jesus.

Today we begin with this truth—Jesus is the Son of David. “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David ... and Jesse the father of King David ... Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ” (, , ). Jesus is the Son of David and David is a king. That makes Jesus the King. When we confess that Jesus is the King, we dare not confuse him with American politicians. While both are rulers, both are very different!

American politicians make big, crazy promises—don’t they? Here are some of the more recent ones … In 2004 John Edwards said, “We will stop Diabetes, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s!” In 2012 Newt Gingrich said, “We will put a colony on the moon by 2020!” In 2012, Michelle Bachman said, “I will pull American troops out of Libya and Africa!” Politicians will say almost anything to get elected—won’t they? And I didn’t even mention anything from our last election cycle! In America we’re accustomed to leaders who say what the public wants them to say. No one’s campaign slogan is, “Slow, arduous change” or

“Realistic compromises.” No. We want leaders who promise the moon—or at least a colony on the moon!

However, when we look at Jesus, we see a completely different kind of leader—a different kind of king. Jesus is the promised King. “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ” (). When we hear the term “Jesus Christ,” we sometimes misunderstand it. “Christ” is not Jesus’s last name. When Jesus went in for a physical, the doctor didn’t say, “Ok, let’s see here. Last Name: Christ. First Name: Jesus.” No. “Christ,” is a title. It’s the Greek translation of the Hebrew word “Messiah,” which means “anointed one.”

The Old Testament foretells of a coming Messiah—a King who would be anointed with the Holy Spirit to accomplish God’s mission. The Messiah would come from the line of David. He’d be born in David’s city and sit on David’s throne. Matthew labors to demonstrate that Jesus is this king—the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of David! When Matthew writes his gospel, Israel had been without a legitimate king for hundreds of years. Now, Matthew declares, “a king has finally come to sit on David’s throne … and It’s Jesus!” Matthew hammers this truth home by citing ten specific Old Testament promises—writing, “that what was spoken might be fulfilled.” Matthew cites the Old Testament ten times and alludes to it over 250 times!

Jesus is, indeed, the promised King. Jesus is also the compassionate King. Jesus doesn’t come to drive out Israel’s enemies. Jesus comes to bring in outcasts. That’s evident in Matthew’s genealogy. In the ancient world, people traced their ancestry through the father. It comes as no surprise, then, that Matthew’s

genealogy is predominantly male. However, it isn’t exclusively male. Did you notice that Matthew also mentions four women? There’s Tamar in verse 3, Rahab and Ruth in verse 5, and then Bathsheba in verse 6. Matthew doesn’t highlight Jesus’s connection to any of Israel’s matriarchs—Sarah, or Rebekah, or Rachel. We should notice however, that all four of the women in Matthew’s genealogy are outsiders to Israel. Tamar was a Canaanite. So was Rahab. Ruth was a Moabite. And Bathsheba was a Hittite like her husband—Uriah the Hittite. Each of these women were outsiders to Israel. Moreover, each of these women had a stigma attached to her. Tamar was dishonored by her brother-in-law. Later, she deceived her father-in-law into sleeping with her, so she could conceive children. Rahab was a prostitute. And Bathsheba … We talked about her last week … she committed adultery with King David. Ruth once worshiped Chemosh who was the national deity of Moab (), which was also said to be worshipped by the Ammonites ().

The Jews expected a Messiah who would come, drive out their Roman oppressors, and crush the nations to establish God’s rule. But at his first coming, Jesus doesn’t come to judge the nations. He comes to save the nations. Jesus brings outcasts home to God, and he removes the shame of marginalized people—like Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. This is a preview of the rest of Matthew’s Gospel. Who does Jesus spend most of His time with? … Outcasts. Jesus gets close to the diseased, to people who were quarantined from society. And Jesus touches them. He gets close enough to contract their diseases. His ministry was a hands-on encounter with those who were afflicted and left marginalized by society. He sought out the lost as well. How many of us even

think about the afflicted? Whether it’s by disease or by their sins. How many of us fall way short of the example set by Our Savior?

Beloved … Did you notice that three of the four women in Matthew’s genealogy were sexually exploited? According to research, one in four women, and one in six men will be sexually abused or exploited at some point in their lives. I know that some in this church and throughout our community carry deep wounds in this area of their lives. And often, those wounds are deepened by the shame others inflict upon us. Jesus welcomes and heals people who carry these wounds, even the unnecessary wounds of shame.

And that finally includes all of us. The ugly shame. The haunting shame. Jesus not only takes away our guilt … that’s sin done by us. Jesus also takes away the shame … that’s sin done to us.

· We don’t have to drink our shame away …

· We don’t have to Work our shame away …

· We don’t have to Explain our shame away …

· We don’t have to eat our shame away …

· We don’t have to cry our shame away …

· We don’t have to bury our shame away…

Jesus isn’t a King who sits on his throne and says, “Try harder.” No, Jesus is a King who descends from his throne, filled with compassion. Jesus identifies with us in the pit of shame. At our darkest point—when we feel the ugliest, most despairing—Jesus says, “I love you!” What other people said and thought and did to us doesn’t define us. We don’t have to live in shame. We aren’t worthless.

We aren’t damaged goods. We are clean. We are whole. We are his. There’s outside help. Jesus is the compassionate King.

Jesus is also the rejected King. To the Jewish elites of his day, Jesus was the wrong kind of king. He lived in the wrong place, associated with the wrong people, preached the wrong message, appointed the wrong leaders, carried out the wrong mission, and offered the wrong redemption. The whole thing came to a head on Good Friday. Matthew writes about it. “Above his head they placed the written charge against him: THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS” (). But risen on the third day Jesus says this in , “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

That’s what we would expect of a King—to have all authority. As our King Jesus makes demands of us. After all, Jesus, the King, has all authority in heaven and on earth. But before Jesus makes any demands of us, first Jesus comes for us. Jesus lives for us, dies for us, and Jesus rises for us. Jesus gives everything for us. That’s a king worth following all the days of our lives!

, “As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. ‘Follow me,’ he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.”

So … Who is Jesus? Jesus is our King that we follow all the days of our lives. Just ask Matthew! Amen?

LET US PRAY … Father help us to be open to learn this advent season who Your Son truly was. Help us to put our knowledge of Jesus into practical application in the way that we love each other and our neighbor. Let us reflect His Light for all to see. We ask this in Your Son’s precious name … AMEN