The Long Awaited King

Introduction

“Hark the herald angels sing; ‘Glory to the newborn King!’”

What does it mean that Jesus is the “newborn King”?

Polycarp, a disciple of the Apostle John was martyred in the second century

“I have wild animals here,” the Proconsul said. “I will throw you to them if you do not repent.” “Call them,” Polycarp replied. “It is unthinkable for me to repent from what is good to turn to what is evil. I will be glad though to be changed from evil to righteousness.” “If you despise the animals, I will have you burned.” “You threaten me with fire which burns for an hour, and is then extinguished, but you know nothing of the fire of the coming judgment and eternal punishment, reserved for the ungodly. Why are you waiting? Bring on whatever you want.”

What was Polycarp asked to repent of?

“Swear,” urged the Proconsul, “reproach Christ, and I will set you free.” “86 years have I have served him,” Polycarp declared, “and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?”

Believers throughout the centuries have been willing to give up their lives because they understood that the birth of Jesus on Christmas morning was the birth of the King of kings who they owed complete devotion to

Jesus, the Messiah

Matthew 1:1 CSB

1 An account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham:

Matthew opens his Gospel with a genealogy to show that Jesus Christ is the Son of David and Abraham

In the OT, the genealogy would always be identified with the father first and move on to the sons so that it would be labeled as “the genealogy of Abraham” or “the genealogy of David”

This reason for this is that in the OT, the father is always viewed as greater than his sons since he came before them

Yet, Matthew does not put the emphasis on David or Abraham in this genealogy, but identifies Jesus as the one who is greater than David and Abraham by labeling it an “account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ”

Matthew identifies Jesus as “Christ”

Is this Jesus’ last name?

No, it is a title that means “Messiah”

Messiah means “Anointed One” and refers back to the kings of Israel who were anointed with oil to symbolize the presence of God’s Spirit upon them

Saul, the first king of Israel, was anointed with the Spirit but because he disobeyed the Lord, his Spirit departed from him

The Spirit was then given to David as the Lord’s chosen one to be King over Israel

A “messiah” could also be someone who was “anointed” or chosen by God to deliver his people

King Cyrus is called God’s anointed because God used Cyrus to sent the Israelites out of exile and back into the Promised Land

To sum up, when we say Jesus is the Messiah, we are saying that he is God’s chosen one who would deliver and save God’s people

What does Jesus save us from?

Matthew tells us in 1:21: “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins”

Jesus, the Son of David

In Hebrew, a person’s name can be assigned a numerical value based on the letters in his name

The numerical value of the name “David” in Hebrew is 14

This is significant because it shows that the genealogy that Matthew gives is meant to emphasize that Jesus is the Son of David

If you look at verse 17, you see that there are three sets of generations in the genealogy broken up into 14 generations for each set