The Gift of Grace

The Gifts of Christmas  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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God gives us grace but requires us to repent of our sins.

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So far this Christmas season we have seen two marvelous gifts that God has lovingly bestowed upon us. We have received the gift of life, and learned of our responsibility to use it in obedience to God’s commands. We have also received the gift of a promise with the expectation that we put our trust in God to fulfill that promise. This morning we are going to open a third gift: the gift of grace.
Stand with me as we read in the Gospel of Matthew. We’ll read Matthew 1:1. This is God’s Word, and if you let it, it will change your life.
Matthew 1:1 ESV
1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Pray
My wife is a genealogy person. She has done background study of her family, as well as mine. I believe he has found relatives in the 1700’s on her side. My family is a bit harder because we came from eastern Europe and many of the records are difficult to find, but she has found my ancestors arriving at Ellis Island in the 1890’s.
There is something fascinating about your ancestry. Learning who came before you can give you an appreciation of who and where you are today. But for Matthew, tracing the genealogy of Jesus has a much deeper meaning - a theological one. In fact, it’s in this genealogy that we find God’s gift of grace so wonderfully wrapped. Let’s take some time this morning to look back at some ancestors and see how their lives might demonstrate God’s grace, shall we?
Matthew begins the genealogy by a brief overview. For him, Israel’s history as a people has three major divisions: Abraham to David, David to the exile, and the return from Babylon to Christ. Let’s see how the story unfolds:
Matthew 1:2 ESV
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
Genesis tells us much of these patriarchs. Abraham is called by God to leave his home and follow God to a new land. His obedience sets the example for all the faithful, and as a result he experiences God’s grace in a promise:
Genesis 15:1–6 ESV
1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” 2 But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” 5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
An old man with no hope for a future legacy - that’s what Abraham was. But God’s promise gave that hopeless elder a great promise: this genealogy proves that promise was met!
But Abraham had his problems. He lost faith in that very promise and created a mess of a situation between his wife Sarah and her servant Hagar. Yet even in the midst of sin, God’s grace still showed. God still fulfilled the promise to Abraham, still showed grace to Hagar, and still displayed his grace even to her son, Ishmael (whose name means “God hears”).
The story continues with Isaac, the son of promise. Isaac shows us more of God’s grace, though he and Rebekah divided their allegiance between their twin sons, Jacob and Esau. Talk about a family feud! But, yet, God’s grace extends to even the most tempestuous of family scenarios.
God continues to shower his grace upon Jacob and his sons - the progenitors of the Israelites. That grace saw a brother almost left for dead and sold to slave traders become the means of salvation through a difficult famine. And the brother that is named in this genealogy was the one that suggested Joseph be sold for a profit!
Even in the midst of great sin, God’s grace does not cut off his heritage, for God has made a promise and will fulfill it despite man’s best efforts to thwart his good will.
The story continues through the lineage of Judah:
Matthew 1:3–6 ESV
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,
Notice what is happening here…there are both men and women in this ancestry; some are well known, while others are obscure. But there is a vital link that brings all of these into the same story - the story of God’s grace. We don’t know much about many of these names, but God continues to work his plan.
Boaz we do know, as he is the one who fulfilled the role of kinsman redeemer for Ruth, the Moabitess who forsook her gods and people to worship the true God and align herself with his people. God’s grace took a woman who should have never been welcome within the Israelite community and grafted her into the line of Israel’s Messiah! There’s God’s grace again, turning the tragedy of widowhood into something marvelous indeed!
We’re not even to David yet, and I hope you see the pattern. Whether the stories are tragic or triumphant (and life is often both, by the way), we find God’s grace woven throughout.
Then there is David - the king. There is both a pinnacle of sorts and a turning point. Israel reaches its apex under David and Solomon, but what comes after the apex is often the decline:
Matthew 1:6 ESV
6 and Jesse the father of David the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah,
Even when it seems that all is well, our sin lurks just below the surface. David - even David - fails before God’s standard of holiness. The man after God’s own heart turns to chase after a married woman, even to the point of killing her husband to get her.
And yet, even in that terrible sequence of events, God’s grace does not let our sin be the final word. For even through the adulterous relationship we find the next link in the lineage of Christ. It would be through a son of that same woman that God’s promises to Abraham and David would be fulfilled. The royal lineage picks up from there:
Matthew 1:7–11 ESV
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.
I told you after the apex often comes the decline. From the height of Israelite prominence to the despair of Babylonian exile, king after king comes and goes. Some, like Asaph (this is King Asa) and Josiah, were good kings. Others, like Ahaz and Manasseh, were notoriously wicked. Eventually, the Kingdom of Judah, the remnant of Israel, would be banished in punishment for its sins under the oppressive thumb of Babylon.
Yet even there, thousands of miles from the land of promise, do we find God’s grace at work among his people. Jeremiah, lamenting over Jerusalem, finds hope in the darkest of days in the Lord:
Lamentations 3:21–24 ESV
21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: 22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”
Ezekiel, that prophet in exile by the River Chebar in Babylon, writes of revival and renewal in Israel, such that the river flows from the Temple into the Dead Sea, making the water so fresh that it teems with life! Even in exile there is grace!
Matthew then moves beyond the exile, and in a way back toward a higher apex than before:
Matthew 1:12–16 ESV
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.
Matthew is trying to teach us something. This genealogy was there to show that Jesus Christ is the rightful heir to David’s throne, yes. But more than that, Matthew shows us this constant grace of God, working in the midst of our human frailty and depravity.
You see, every person in this lineage (except for Jesus) has something in common: all of them are sinners. The human race - every one of us - has sin. We have all defied God. We have all made a royal mess of our lives. Whether we see ourselves as decent and respectable, or whether we are ashamed to show our faces in public, every single one of us is a sinner.
That’s what makes this a story of grace. We deserve punishment. We deserve suffering. We deserve death. But God shows us grace even when we don’t deserve it. That’s what makes it grace! Even when we are completely opposed to him - his enemies - God still shows his grace.
It is as though God is weaving a great tapestry of grace, carefully working in the threads of many different colors to create the pattern that pleases his eye. Oh, so often those threads appear to be so dark, with colors so off-putting that we balk at the thought that he should choose that thread or work it in that place. But the tapestry of grace is perfect in his design, and he will bring it all together in stunning array if we are just patient enough to let him weave.
You might be saying to yourself, “Okay, I get it - God gives us grace. But what’s the catch? I mean, a gift this good has to have some sort of catch, right?

God Gives Us Grace, But Requires Us to Repent of Our Sins

To be fair, Matthew doesn’t bring this point out in this genealogy. But Paul makes the connection between grace and repentance:
Romans 6:12–14 ESV
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
In other words, when God gives us grace, we should respond to that grace by living in it, not by exploiting it do continue in our sin. Just like the gifts of life and the promise of restoration, the gift of grace comes with a requirement: to use that grace in accordance with God’s will.
God gives us his grace so that we can have the opportunity to repent of sin and be restored in relationship with him. That grace is available today though his Son, Jesus Christ. That same Christ who is the culmination of God’s promises to Abraham and David is also the culmination of God’s plan for you. If you’re ready to trust him for your salvation, or even if you need help making that decision, I’ll be here at the front to help you any way I can. If you have already trusted Christ, but need to repent of sin and experienced a renewed sense of God’s grace, the altar is open. If God in his grace is prompting you to become part of this church, now is the time to come while we sing this verse of invitation.
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