The Kingdom of God Series: Matthew 1:1

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Be Thou my vision, O Lord, of my heart.

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Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.

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Matthew, chapter 1. Open to Matthew, chapter 1. As you guys get there,

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I'm going to pray. If you're new to the Bible, if you're new to the faith, Matthew is the first of the

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Gospels. Matthew, chapter 1. So pray with me.

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Father, I pray, Lord, that you bless this right now, Lord, as we come before you. We present,

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Lord, ourselves before you, God, humbly before your word, Lord. We recognize,

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God, that this is your word that we're handling. God, we recognize that,

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Lord, you have preserved it. It is the anustos. It is God -breathed.

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It is from your mouth. We recognize, God, it comes with your authority and your power. And, Lord, we come underneath that authority and power now,

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Lord, and we ask, God, that you would speak to us through this series, God, that you would guide me as a shepherd of these people,

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Lord. You would guard my mind, my heart, my mouth, Lord. Let the words be from you,

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God. I pray that you would guide us in this series, God, as we get into your word, that you would teach us, that you would correct us, that you would encourage us, that you would inspire us, that you'd transform us,

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God. Bless this, Lord, as we come before you, Lord. We submit ourselves before your word to be transformed, to be renewed, and I pray you bless this series to your glory and the exaltation of Christ in the world.

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And I pray that in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay. So the verse, why even open to it, right?

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We're doing one verse today, because you're gonna need your Bibles. Matthew opens up with some pretty stunning words.

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I'm gonna read them to you, and I'm gonna try to put it into perspective. Matthew 1, verse 1.

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The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

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Now those words to us, post -cross, post -resurrection, post -ascension,

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I think at times we become jaded to them. We hear the title Christ. We hear the title

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Messiah. We know the name Jesus Christ. It's used by us in praise and awe and worship.

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It's used by others as a curse word on a regular basis. But the name Jesus Christ is commonplace, and it's becoming more and more commonplace as the gospel call goes throughout the entire world, and it will continue to do so.

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But Jesus the Messiah, the fact that he's son of David, son of Abraham, again,

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I think we become jaded to it. We're so used to having our Bibles in our homes, and many of us have numerous translations on the shelves, and some of you guys are reading it right now on your smartphones and your iPhones.

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But these words, the record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, son of David, son of Abraham, are shocking.

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They're world -transforming. They're earth -shattering. And in order to understand why that is, when you open up the first gospel,

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Matthew, and you read the record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham, in order to understand just how earth -shattering that is, you have to go back for a second and put it in perspective.

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Listen for a second to the story. Your Bible is 66 different books and letters.

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We've talked a lot about this, about 40 different authors. Over 1 ,500 years or so of composition just in writing, different geographical locations, time periods.

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I mean, these people aren't even connected to each other at times in history, in location, in culture even is changed.

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And the amazing thing about the Bible is that it's one story. It's a unified story.

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It's really a symphony, I've called it. It's a symphony with different parts and different players.

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But the amazing thing is is it all holds together. And what makes this statement, the first part of Matthew, chapter 1, verse 1, so earth -shattering is that there was a time when right before Matthew wrote this, before Jesus came to the earth and walked among us and died and was buried and rose again and ascended, there was a time where it seemed like the story stopped.

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It was stunted. As a matter of fact, when you look at the last book of your Old Testament, Revelation, the 39 books and letters, when you look at the last one, there's about 400 years of silence.

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Okay, so imagine for a second the story is just chugging along. It's just happening. It's going. God is performing miracles.

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He's keeping his promises. He's changing lives. He's giving prophecy. There's times where he says, okay, you're going to go into exile for 70 years.

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It's going to be a 70 -year time period, and then you're going to come out. And, like, these things keep happening. God says, this is going to happen, and then it happens.

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He makes promises of deliverance, and then they're delivered. The Red Sea crossing, the time in the desert and the wilderness, all the amazing things

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God has done where he condescends at Sinai, and he gives the law of God to the people of Israel.

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He's just continuously showing his faithfulness. He would make promises and keep them.

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They would break covenant with him, and he would come right in and bring discipline and then he would redeem them again.

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And the story is chugging along, chugging along, chugging along. And in the midst or the background of the story, you've got this sort of this sunrise you're waiting for.

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You're waiting for it. You can kind of see it there. And the reason you know it's there and you kind of see it coming is that God has told you.

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So the revelation opens up, and God is telling you when the fall occurs that, look, there's going to be this seed who's coming, and he's going to crush the head of the serpent.

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But he's going to be bruising the process. And you get the picture of this Messiah's coming. He's a descendant of Abraham.

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He's going to come through this specific line. The whole world's going to be blessed through him. And then Moses is making promises that this one

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Shiloh is coming and the obedience of the nations is going to be his. And you get all the more promises.

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When you get deeper and more layered, the specificity of the Messiah is named. Isaiah 9 talks about God himself as coming as a son.

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God is coming to bring a kingdom. Isaiah 53 tells you the whole entire life of the

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Messiah in vivid detail about 700 years before he comes. And so the people of God are just waiting in eager anticipation.

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They know the wreckage. It's broken all around them. There's tears, there's sadness, there's disease, there's ugliness.

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I mean, there's beauty everywhere, but it is just marred by the honesty of our sin. They know their sin.

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They can see the effects of it around in their own communities. They know their breaking of covenant with God. They know his holiness because he's revealed himself.

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They see it. They feel it. And in the background the whole time is this kind of level promise that, look, the

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Messiah is coming. He's going to put an end to this. All the nations are going to be God's. He's bringing a kingdom.

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He's going to die. He's going to rise from the dead. He's going to bring redemption. Isaiah 53 says he's going to be pierced through for our transgressions.

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I mean, you get this picture of this victorious Messiah that's going to bring all the nations to God.

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Not just Jews, but Gentiles also. Everybody's coming to God. The Messiah is going to bring salvation.

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He's going to put an end to the curse that was brought in the garden. So picture it. You're there in the first century.

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You're raised in synagogue. You're saying what I just told you. Hear, O Israel, the

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Lord our God, the Lord is one. There's one God. And you know that in the background of all these truths about one

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God is this one God is going to reconcile the world to himself. Somehow he's going to do it.

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And there's a Messiah. And here's the amazing thing is we don't really know his name. Now we can look in hindsight now and we go,

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Emmanuel, God with us. Right, but that's not his name, name. His name. What's his name?

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And so the Jews are waiting. Who's the Messiah? When's he coming? And they knew actually they could pinpoint the

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Messiah was coming at that time. Daniel 9, if you didn't know this, about 600 years before Jesus comes,

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Daniel 9 tells you with specificity, count down to the days of the

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Messiah. They knew it was a time. That's why they're all kind of like waiting. Like, are you the Messiah? Who's the Messiah?

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Are you the Messiah? Are you the Messiah? John the Baptist comes in and like, he's the Messiah. He's the Messiah. You've got to be the Messiah. This is the time of the

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Messiah. Where is he? And so thinking about the perspective is that we read these words now, is now we're reading it as if it's already been done.

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They were waiting for it. And so when you talk about the record of the genealogy of Yeshua, Jesus, the

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Messiah, that's like earth shattering. Everything's over. The climax has come.

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It's all finished. The Messiah has come. And what's his name? What's his name? Jesus.

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I mean, the fact that you can actually name him now, put your chest up, put your chin up. Before they were saying, who's the

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Messiah? Where's the Messiah? Are you the Messiah? When's the Messiah coming? And these Christians early on, these

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Jewish Christians were like, his name is Jesus. His name is Yeshua, which means

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God who saves. The one who saves. God saves. That Jesus is the one who saves.

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And it's Yeshua Mashiach, Jesus the Messiah. It's not we hope he is, we think he is.

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We're saying, look, you want to see who he is? Here's his genealogy. Here's the record of God's faithfulness.

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And it lands on him. He's got the royal right to the throne of David. It's a big deal.

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It's really, it's earth shattering. To think about the fact that the story seemed to have just stopped.

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It's over. Imagine the naysayers for a moment. Imagine it.

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Living in that time, 400 years of silence, no Messiah. And that's what we're waiting for.

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We're waiting for that moment where this king's going to arise, and he's going to bring a kingdom that the whole world is now going to come to God.

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It's going to be progressive. It's going to happen over time, but it's going to happen. Imagine the naysayers saying, where's your

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God? Where's your God? Where's your Messiah? I thought you were waiting for Messiah. Where's your Messiah?

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And that's why it is stunning for us to look at the end of the Old Testament, flip a page over, and come into Matthew's gospel.

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And in Matthew's gospel, for Matthew to be saying, look, here is the genealogy of Yeshua, the

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Messiah, the son of David and the son of Abraham. It is spectacular. It is stunning.

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And here's what I want you to capture from this, is that this isn't sort of like a house that was dropped out of the sky.

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Imagine for a second you're looking at an empty field, right, and all of a sudden, kablam, this house comes falling out of the sky, sort of like in Wizard of Oz or something, right, just falls out of the sky intact and hits the ground, right?

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The story of Jesus as Messiah is not like that. It's not something that just came out of the sky and hit the ground, and everyone goes, oh, look, look at this.

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Isn't this neat? The story of Jesus is much different. It's really something that was under construction for a long time, and you're driving past it every single day, and you're seeing the foundation laid, and then you're seeing the walls come up, then you're seeing the roof, and you're seeing windows being put in.

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You're seeing all these different things happening. The story of Jesus is very much like that. It's something that was promised through the

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Old Testament, and it's amazing because now when you get to Matthew, the house is no longer under construction.

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You can actually get in it, and it wasn't just plopped down out of the sky, suspended on nothing.

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It was something that was built over time. God was showing, here it comes. Here's another layer, and here's another layer, and here's another layer, and then finally, booyah, the house is set up, and you can get in, and so I want you to think about the perspective and think about how much joy you should have when you read that first verse, the first verse.

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I'll read it again. The record of the genealogy of Jesus, the

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Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham. Now, what I want you to do is

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I want you to just get a couple neat kind of facts about the book of Matthew, and so we'll go to the first thing here on our study of the kingdom of God.

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The first thing I want you to see is, there you go. The gospel according to Matthew. Now, this is part of what we call the synoptic gospels, synoptic gospels, and so what the synoptic gospels are are

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Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John is unique and very different than the other gospels.

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His perspective, his eyewitness perspective of Jesus is different than the synoptic.

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Now listen, synoptic means seeing together, okay? It literally means able to see together, and so when you look at Matthew and Mark and Luke, you'll notice parallels between Matthew and Mark and Luke, right?

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And it's interesting because as you read Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you'll notice there's times where, like, say, Luke is recording the same thing that Matthew does, and Matthew's using very

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Jewish language, and Luke will do sort of the appropriate things. He knows he's writing to a different audience, largely, and he'll actually explain what

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Matthew is talking about. Like Matthew in Matthew 24 says, the abomination that causes desolation as spoken of through Daniel the prophet.

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Let the reader understand, and the Gentiles are going like today. Say what? Huh? Like, I don't know what you're talking about.

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What was that? And Luke actually interprets and actually explains it. Oh, when you see

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Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you know that his desolation is near, and the Gentile Christian goes, oh, okay, got it, thank you.

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Now I understand. And so it's amazing, the synoptic gospels, you'll see a lot of the same stories, but where Mark maybe will give sort of a snapshot,

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Luke maybe fills a little more detail in, or Matthew does, depending on the audience. And so it's synoptic gospel,

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Matthew, Mark, and Luke. You can see them together. You can read them side by side. The next thing

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I want you to know about Matthew is that Matthew was always first in the Christian lists of the gospels.

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So think about it for a second. Early Christians, no matter where they were, no matter what they had of the

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New Testament documents as of yet, whenever they had the eyewitness testimonies and gospels, they always, always put

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Matthew first. Interesting. They might've flipped the other ones around a bit, like they might've had

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Matthew and say Luke, John, Mark, or Matthew, John, Mark, Luke, something like that.

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They would've flipped the other ones around. But for some reason, the early Christians in their lists, they always had

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Matthew first. And I think we can sort of speculate as to why, I think appropriately.

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And if you consider for a moment what I just said a moment ago, that it seems like the story stopped.

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What happened to the story? It's stunted now. It's over, right? Well, now you have

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Christians saying, no, he's come, he's risen from the dead. We ate with him. I walked with him. The Messiah has come.

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He's brought his kingdom. He is king. And they would wanna demonstrate that first and foremost.

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They would say, look, here is the presentation and proof, Matthew. Here's his genealogy.

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Here's the fulfillment of prophecies. Here is where everything was leading to, Yeshua, the

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Messiah, Jesus, the Messiah. And so they would put Matthew first sort of as an apologetic, as a way to defend the faith.

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You wanna know the story of Jesus? Well, put Matthew first. Get to know Jesus. He's the fulfillment of all that was promised in the

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Old Testament. And so Matthew was always first in the Christian lists of gospels. Number three,

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Matthew was quoted more than any other gospel in the second century. Consider it for a second.

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If you think about timelines here, okay? First century is when Jesus comes, right? First century AD. He dies, he's buried, he's risen again, he's ascended.

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Not long after he's ascended, within a generation later, the Jewish temple was destroyed. Christianity now explodes and is growing throughout the world.

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The Roman Empire, it's amazing growth. And in the second century, that's 100 to 200

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AD, you've got Christians quoting from Matthew more than any other gospel.

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Think about it. So I want us to pause there for a second. Listen. You got in your hands right now words, words from God that Christians for 2 ,000 years have been feeding on and growing in for 2 ,000 years.

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Many Christians maybe had only access to the gospel according to Matthew. But I want you to think about for a second what you're holding in your hands is ancient.

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I said it right, didn't I? Ancient. It's ancient.

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These words preserved by God have been transforming the world for 2 ,000 years. And I want you to imagine for a second as we dig into the text here, we're looking into Matthew.

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I want you to imagine for a second Christians in the second century trying very, very desperately to let people hear the message of a

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Messiah who had very recently risen from the dead. Think for a second. If you were in the second century and you had the gospel of Matthew and somebody said,

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I don't buy it. I don't buy it. You're like, no, no, here's his genealogy. Look at the fulfillment of prophecies.

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You're like, I don't buy it. You could say, well, come with me for a second. Come with you where? I want to introduce you to Polycarp who was

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John's disciple. And John is the one who actually saw Jesus alive from the dead. Imagine for a second early

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Christians hanging on to Matthew and saying, well, look what it says. Somebody says, I don't buy it. You go, let's go talk to Polycarp.

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He actually hung out with John. Like these words have been preserved since then. And the gospel we're going to be unpacking was the gospel quoted from the most in the second century.

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The next point. The church historian, Papias, attributes the gospel to Matthew the tax collector.

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You can read about it in Matthew 9 .9. So here's the deal. It doesn't really matter who wrote the gospel according to Matthew, but history and tradition has shown us that it was in fact

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Matthew the tax collector who actually wrote this gospel. That's how he has the eyewitness details that he has, all the accounts, how they work together with Mark and Luke is a question we can answer later.

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But it's amazing to see that history and tradition shows that the Christian church had

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Matthew, accepted Matthew, quoted from Matthew and was being changed by Matthew from the very beginning.

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And Papias, early church historian, says that it was in fact Matthew the tax collector who gave us this gospel.

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Next, Matthew is interesting because Matthew clearly wrote for memorization.

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So when you look at Matthew and you see the structure of Matthew, it has a unique structure to it that clearly was used in the early church for memorization.

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So watch this. Here's the difficulty for us to even capture this. I got this ridiculous thing right here, paper, and I'm like, whatever,

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I'm done with this one and we got another one, right? We got paper everywhere, write stuff down. We can record it on our iPads.

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We can do all kinds of things to get a message out today. In the first century, to have a document written up in full for the benefit of others was an expensive process.

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You either wrote on papyrus or vellum, animal skins, or there was different processes, but you had to always, every time, have a difficult process of somebody that could actually write it, somebody that could actually read it, and somebody that actually can transport it and move it.

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And so to have something written down in the first century was a big deal. To get a copy of Matthew in the first century was a big deal.

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And so when Matthew writes Matthew, it's clear that he's actually writing it in a systematic way so you can memorize it.

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Early Christians are not like us today, and we need to get back to something, is they were very disciplined in their ability to memorize.

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You had some Christians that it was their job to memorize the entire book of Luke, the entire book of Ephesians.

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Whatever it may be, early Christians knew that they could lose these texts at any moment and they did many times. There were times where the

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Romans would come in and they would actually set fire to their books, to their manuscripts. What do you do if you lose all the copies of Romans?

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Is it gone from history? Not with a sovereign God, because the book was in someone's head or another person's head, and they had the text somewhere else.

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They would hide it in different ways. And so Matthew, listen, couple things. He's got three messages for Joseph from the angel, three denials of Peter, three questions of Pilate, seven parables of the kingdom in chapter 13, seven woes to the scribes and to the

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Pharisees, and there's more and more and more. But it's clear that Matthew wants to write for the church to memorize.

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He wants you to memorize this. And also Matthew is home to what? Jesus' most famous sermon.

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What is it? The Sermon on the Mount. It's amazing to me that Jesus' Sermon on the

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Mount is the most famous sermon in history, and it's even quoted from by unbelievers.

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It's so popular, and it is so meaty, and it is so juicy and delicious that even unbelievers will quote from it at times.

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It's an amazing thing. But Matthew is a phenomenal book to get started in as you begin to study the

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New Testament. So next one here. Now, the gospel according to Matthew is unique, and here's what

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I want to point out. This isn't all. By the way, I would do damage to this if I began to actually say that this is it.

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Please don't assume that. This is just a summary statement, but don't assume that that is all there is in the book of Matthew.

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It is delightful, and it is majestic, and it is life -transforming, and it is beautiful.

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And if you read it, I believe with all my heart, if God opens your eyes, you will fall in love with Jesus deeply as you read this letter.

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But the gospel according to Matthew is unique because the focus of the book is upon the fulfillment of the promises to the

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Jews to present Jesus as the promised Messiah and King and to proclaim the inauguration of the kingdom of God in the world.

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And so there's sort of a summary of the book, and you're gonna get a lot of it unpacked, and it is truly exciting.

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But a couple things I wanted to point out. When I said the fulfillment of the promises to the Jews, I want you to see how

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Matthew writes this. If you look in Matthew 1, Matthew 1, go ahead and go to it if you're out of there.

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Just look right down. Matthew 1, a couple examples as to how Matthew is already into the debate.

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Matthew 1, what does he do first? He says, here's the genealogy. And why is that? Because if you were gonna say you were the

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Mashiach, the Messiah, you had to prove it, baby. You couldn't just say, I'm the Messiah and come rolling out of the

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Hollywood Hills. I'm the Messiah, right? Or like David Koresh, he's like, I'm the son of God. Sorry, there's a little more to it than that.

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You had to show that you had the pedigree. You can go back to King David and to Abraham.

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You had to provide proof. You had to have evidence. And so Messiah, sorry, Matthew is in it already.

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He opens up with this. Here's a genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, son of David, son of Abraham, just so you know.

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And he moves through the history of the genealogy of the Messiah and shows you, look, Jesus has a right to the throne.

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And by the way, next week, hang on tight, next week, I'm gonna show you something utterly astonishing between the two different genealogies of Matthew and Luke that shows that only

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God, only God could be in control of Yeshua, Jesus, the Messiah, because here's the deal.

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Unless you have a virgin birth, you can't be the Messiah and you're gonna see why next week. So that's a little teaser for you, okay?

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Okay, all right. So now chapter one, just to show you the structure of how he writes.

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Matthew chapter one, look at how Matthew presents Jesus if you look in verse 22, look at what's said on a number of occasions.

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He says, now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophets.

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And then what does he do? He grabs a verse from the Old Testament and he brings it into his gospel.

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And then again, chapter two, verse five. In Bethlehem of Judea, they told him, because this is what was written by the prophet.

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And then a quotation now from Micah chapter five. And again, move down a little further. Look, we're on the same page now, verse 17.

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Then what was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled. And then a quotation comes in. And then again, verse 23, chapter two.

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Then he went and settled in a town called Nazareth to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets that he will be called a

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Nazarene. And again, chapter three, verse three. For he is the one spoken of through the prophet

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Isaiah who said, and you see this over and over and over again, that Matthew is clearly writing in a way to demonstrate that this is not a house that has dropped out of the sky.

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We are now witnessing the final edges being put on. The paint has been put on.

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It's all done now. He's come. The Messiah is here. And so Matthew is writing in a way to prove that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the

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Old Testament prophecies. It's an amazing thing. So next thing I wanna point out to you is something that is really astonishing.

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And that is the point here. He's the promised Messiah and King and to proclaim the inauguration of the kingdom of God.

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I'm gonna challenge you with something. Do this, do this. I want you to get a concordance. If you have one, you can look them up online.

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There's actually a free ability to get a free concordance online. I want you to look in Matthew. When you get home in this week,

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I want you to look at Matthew. Maybe do it on your own. Just open the book and just go through and highlight. I want you to find for me this week how many times the word kingdom is used in the gospel according to Matthew.

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I want you to go through it. Maybe a highlighter or a pencil. And I want you to just circle kingdom.

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Kingdom of heaven, kingdom. Gospel of the kingdom, gospel of the kingdom. I want you to find how many times that is said and highlighted.

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And I want you to ask yourself a question. Why is there so much emphasis being put on kingdom?

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And I wanna suggest something to you. Here's the deal. Remember I told you that story that was placed in history long before Jesus came?

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Listen, if Jesus is not now seated as king, if he did not bring his kingdom in the first century, then he in fact is not the

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Messiah. If you had a story written about somebody claiming to be Mashiach, and it was lacking the terminology of kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven, then you would have every reason to believe that he's a false messiah.

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The fact that Matthew opens up and it is immediately launching into he's the son of David, he's the son of Abraham, and his kingdom, the gospel of the kingdom.

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And then Jesus has these parables of the kingdom, the kingdom of heaven. It's all about kingdom, kingdom. And Jesus does something.

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In Matthew chapter 12, verse 27, he says the famous one, and this is the one I use to sort of hook in a lot.

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You know the scenario. Jesus is being accused of being in league with Satan himself, right?

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And so Jesus sort of responds to that. How can Satan cast out Satan? But then what he says is this. He says, if I cast out

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Satan through the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

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And if then scenario. So Jesus puts it logically. If I do A, then

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B. So he says to the Jews, he says, if I cast out demons by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

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So we can answer that question together, right? Ready? Did Jesus cast out demons by the spirit of God?

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Yes. So Jesus says, if A, then B. So if he does A, cast out demons by the spirit of God, then what?

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The kingdom of God had come upon them. And he says to the Jews, because they're like, where's your kingdom, man?

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Where's your kingdom? If you're the Messiah, show us. Because notice something very important is they didn't assume that Jesus Messiah was coming simply to bring individualistic salvation to people.

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Of course he was doing that. But they knew that the inauguration of the Messiah's work in ministry meant something greater.

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That a kingdom was coming that would bring Jew and Gentile together to God. And the

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Messiah would change the earth, would change the whole world. They knew that. They knew it.

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And that's why they come to Jesus, and they're like, are you the king or not? Are you the Messiah? Are you the king?

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Where's the kingdom? And so their vision is this. They're saying, well, where's the kingdom at? And so Jesus says things like, don't think you're gonna be able to say, see here or see there.

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For the kingdom of God is within you. But he says he brought it. And then in Matthew 16, check it out.

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In Matthew 16, he actually gives a time and date stamp. He says in Matthew 16, some of you won't die until you see the kingdom come with power.

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Some of you aren't gonna die until you see it come with power. And then you start to see the story climax now in Matthew.

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It's amazing. You start to see judgment promised, judgment promised. You know John the Baptist, right? He's hardcore, pipe hitting prophet.

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He is. John the Baptist is hardcore. He ain't playing. He didn't even pull punches.

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I mean, seriously, people are like, in our culture today, if you even begin to criticize a false teacher, people come right at you.

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Oh, he should be more loving and kind. I'm like, have you read John the Baptist? He was the most popular prophet.

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Jesus says that born of women, no one like John the Baptist has been raised up as a prophet. He's the best, right?

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And the scribes and Pharisees and religious leaders come together in Matthew 3 before John the Baptist. And he's like, brood of vipers.

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Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? The ax is already laid at the root of the trees. Repent for the kingdom.

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I mean, it's like hardcore. And so you start to see the story picking up and picking up. And Jesus is like, the kingdom is here.

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I've already brought it. It's going to be like this. And he's explaining the expansion of the kingdom. Mustard seed to large trees.

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You start to see small to large tree growth. Kingdom of heaven has come. It's in history. And then

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Jesus says in Matthew 16, some of you aren't going to die until you see it come with power, with power.

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And then you begin to see the story starts to take a turn where now Jesus starts to talk specifically to the

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Jews in parables like, hey, so there's like a landowner, a vineyard owner. He's got a vineyard and he leases it out to vine growers.

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And there's guys there and he sends people to get the fruit of the vineyard. And they keep like stoning one and beating one.

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And then he says, well, I'll send my son to the vineyard to get the fruit. And they see the son and they say, look, here's the heir.

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Let's come kill him. And then Jesus says to the Jews, he says, what do you think the owner of the vineyard is going to do when he finds out they've killed his son?

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And the Jews hear the story and they're like, he'll destroy those miserable wretches and he'll give the kingdom to someone else to bear the fruit of it.

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And he's like, right, that's you. And God's going to take the kingdom away from you and give it to others.

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And then it begins to peak in Matthew 23 where Jesus gives the smackdown, the holy righteous smackdown to the scribes and Pharisees.

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I'll tell you, meek and mild Jesus, yeah, right. Jesus was love incarnate, but he didn't play games.

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In Matthew 23, you see him throw down on religious hypocrites. He calls them brood of vipers.

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He says, you're like whitewashed tombs, right? Like basically like you look good on the outside, but inside you are full of foul, stinking, dead bones.

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And they hate him for it. And he tells them, he says, your house is left to you desolate and that this generation, all the blood of the righteous is going to be upon you, this generation.

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And then he tells them their temple is going to be left desolate and taken apart, stone off a stone before they all die.

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And that the kingdom of God is going to be taken away from them and given to others. And then

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Pilate asked Jesus, are you a king? What does Jesus say? Yes, and my kingdom is what?

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Not of this world. It's not like you think. It's not like this building. It's not like that over there.

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You can't touch it. It's bigger. You see, the amazing thing about earthly kingdoms is this. Ready? They all go away.

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Give them enough time and the buildings come down, right? Look at America. America alone, it's a young nation, right?

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And in just a short period of time, it's already losing its foundations as a kingdom because it's moved away from the word of God.

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But even more so, when you look at the fact of kingdom in the world, what do you see? You can go look at the rubble, you can see the stones, and you can see the paint wearing off, right?

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You see, earthly kingdoms do that. No matter how strong, no matter how mighty they are, they eventually turn to dust.

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Ideologically and actually physically, the buildings actually fall down. But Jesus' kingdom is a kingdom which will never be destroyed.

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His kingdom comes in history. He rules and reigns over it, and guess what? It never goes away.

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When Jesus brought the kingdom of God on time and as promised, guess what? It's never left history since.

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You ever met a Babylonian? How about an Assyrian? Anybody know any Assyrians in here? Philistines?

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Anybody a Philistine in here? I think Luke would make a Philistine. He is big. His brother is actually bigger than him.

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It's frightening. Seriously, like bigger than Luke. It's amazing. He looks like a midget compared to his brothers. Straight up Goliaths, right?

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Philistines. I'm just saying, you're part of an uncircumcised clan of men. That's all

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I'm saying. Philistine. That's a Bible joke, by the way. All right, so you should know that, right?

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It's a Bible trivia nerd joke. Okay, all right. So listen, you have to consider for a moment that the earthly kingdoms come and they go.

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They're gone. But Jesus comes and brings a kingdom, and guess what? At the ascension, 11 dudes.

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11 dudes at the ascension of Jesus. And what does he tell them at the ascension?

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He says, go make disciples of all the what? Nations. Notice Jesus doesn't say, go get individual decisions for Jesus.

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Go make disciples of a few people here and there. Go make disciples of people everywhere.

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He says, go disciple whom? The nations.

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Jesus doesn't want a few people in Ethiopia. He wants what? Ethiopia. He doesn't want a few people in North America.

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He wants North America. He doesn't want a few Irish Christians. He wants

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Ireland under his rule. Do you get the point? That's how it ends.

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And so Matthew is picking up the pace. For everybody that knows their Bibles, he knows he's gonna talk about kingdom,

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Messiah, because Jesus is the fulfillment. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Okay.

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So as you move now next, let's talk about the promise to fulfillment. Now here's what I want you to see as you look up here at the screen.

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I want you to capture this, because if you get this, you'll pretty much understand where I'm heading and what the punch should be today.

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Everyone listen closely, because this should awe you. It really should. This is a jaw dropper right here.

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Promise to fulfillment in one book. It's not an accident that Matthew, a Jew, a Christian, chooses to open up his gospel like this and to end his gospel like this.

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You know the first part. We just read it. Matthew 1, verse 1. The record of the genealogy of Jesus the

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Messiah. Ready? Here we go. The son of David, the son of Abraham. You notice I put some verses there.

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I want you to record those verses. Here's why. Because son of David means something.

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What does it mean? Anybody know? Son of David. What does it mean that Jesus is son of David? What's that?

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He's part of the promise. But what does Jesus specifically have a right to if he's son of David?

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The throne. And so calling Jesus son of David means he's what?

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He's royalty. He's the what? He's the king. And so we know that the promises to David, the

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Davidic promises, was that through David's seed, his line, somebody would actually hold the throne of David, the kingdom that would never be destroyed, the

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Messiah, the king. Next, son of David means what? Genesis 15.

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Genesis chapter 12 through 15, actually. If you read it, what are the promises to Abraham? That through his seed,

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Isaac, through that seed, all of the world was going to be blessed, right? That all the nations were going to be blessed through believing

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Abraham. And what did God say? Though your descendants are like stars of heaven and the sand.

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That's what your descendants are going to be like. Like that. We were just up in Greer, and I went out.

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We were shocking each other with an electrical thing. Huh? Oh, sorry.

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And someone had the idea of putting their bare forehead on another man's chest and bringing the current through that way.

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It was me. It was me. It was my idea. It was me. And so at one point,

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I actually got confused for a few minutes, and somebody else was on the ground gasping for air, and most other people were laughing and crying.

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And I had to get some air, so I went outside in Greer, and we're at the highest point of Arizona, right?

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And it's freezing outside. But I went outside, and it was this moment where I forgot. Oh, yeah, I forgot to come outside and look at the stars, and it was like 12 o 'clock at night.

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It was amazing to look up in Greer with no pollution, no light pollution, to see the stars.

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And imagine that promise being made to Abraham that through your seed, all the nations are going to be blessed, all the nations.

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Look up at the stars. Can you even count the stars? Can you count them? And it was supposed to be mind -boggling.

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There's no end to them. I can't count them. And God says, that's how your descendants are going to be, like that.

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How about the sands? Can't count that either, right? That's how your descendants are going to be. And so when Matthew, watch, opens up, here's the genealogy of Yeshua the

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Mashiach, Jesus the Messiah. Son of David means what? King. Son of Abraham means what?

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The heir of the promise that all the nations now are going to be blessed through this one. All the nations.

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But I want you to think about something. What does Psalm 2 say? David says it. Psalm 2 says what? The Father says to the

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Son, ready? Ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance.

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Now pause there for a second because I need you to hear it. Don't let it go over your heads. David records in Psalm 2, listen closely, the

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Father saying to the Son, the Messiah, he says, ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance.

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And he warns the kings in Psalm 2, he says this. Here's God warning the kings of the earth.

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He says, obey the Son or you'll perish. Now, that's the promise.

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Look at how Matthew ends. Jesus has conquered death in victory. And here's how that gospel ends.

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Ready? And Jesus said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey.

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Do you see it? Matthew 1 has his genealogy as king, the one who owns the nations, who is the one that all the nations are gonna be blessed by.

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This is the Messiah, he's come. And then the book ends with Jesus ascending saying, now go get him.

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That's the story. The king has come. And if you wanna know just how true it is,

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I've got to point out to you something very significant. In this room today, a lot of different colors, people.

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By the way, we need to fill this church up with black people, white people, red people, yeah, whatever. We need them all, amen?

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Because we wanted to testify to the world that this king has come. And it's amazing, 2 ,000 years after this

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Messiah died, buried, risen again, and ascended. 2 ,000 years later in Phoenix, Arizona, you got a room meeting together with people who are in love with the

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Lord God of Israel because of his Messiah. Representation of all the nations in this room.

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Think about it. He's come, the kingdom has come. And so I want to just point that out to you, the book ends.

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Now, here's what's earth -shattering. I'm just gonna point it out to you quickly. Here's how I want you to look at the verse. First point that should be earth -shattering, the record of the genealogy.

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Second point is that Jesus is Messiah. The third point, son of David. The fourth point, son of Abraham.

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Here's what's significant. Number one, the fact that it is the record of the genealogy is in reality, can

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I just change the wording a bit in my own terms? It's a record of God's faithfulness. When you read the genealogy, be honest for a second, do you ever go through the genealogies, you're like, nope,

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I'm skipping some page two. Right? Right? I remember

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I used to, when I first became a Christian, I used to read the Bible, I'd open it up, I'd get to the genealogies, and for the first few months when I read genealogies,

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I would read it, I'm like, this is the word of God, I'm gonna read every word. Every word. And then after a while, I was like,

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I love you, Lord, I love you, I'm not reading the genealogies. I can't pronounce most of them.

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And here's the problem, is you don't recognize the why. The record of the genealogy of Jesus the

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Messiah could really be phrased this way, it's the record of God's faithfulness to his covenant.

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If those names were not there, you wouldn't know that he kept his promise.

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Guess what this is? This is God calling the world out on a mat. You wanna know if I kept my promise? Here's the proof,

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I kept my promise. All of the promises I made to my people, I've kept.

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Here's the record of it. The genealogy of Jesus is proof for you and I to see that God says,

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I keep my covenants. God is the one who declares the end from the beginning.

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He's the faithful one. And when you see that genealogy, listen, gasp. Gasp that God, despite the wreckage and ugliness of sinners, actually kept his promise.

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Hey, guess what? Read the genealogy. It's not a who's who's list of righteous people, by the way. Just so you know.

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As a matter of fact, what's sort of like a star player there in the beginning? David.

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What? He's an adulterer and a murderer. And God chose through David and this wrecked, wretched list of people to bring about the

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Messiah. If that doesn't say something to you about the love of this God and his faithfulness, I don't know what will.

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I don't know what does. Because listen, the story of Jesus' genealogy is ultimately also a story of your life.

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All those wretches, all those liars, all those murderers, all those adulterers, all those unfaithful,

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God still said, I will have victory over this. My Messiah is coming through this line.

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It's a record of God's covenant keeping. And so you can't ever say to God, I never knew if you were faithful.

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He's screaming at you right now, his faithfulness. When you read Matthew, it is shouting to you that he is a

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God who keeps his promises and he never fails despite circumstances like liars, adulterers, and murderers.

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He keeps his promises and guess what? He will have his way in history despite how much you blow it, how wretched you are, or how ugly you think your past is.

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God turns beauty from ashes. And that genealogy screams it at you.

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It's a record of God's faithfulness. The next part is Jesus as Messiah.

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Guys, he's come. Put your chest up. Put your chin up. All the promises that they were waiting for and they were like,

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I know it's coming. I know it's coming. We get to go, he's come. He's reigning.

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He's king. I know him. He knows me. My sins are dealt with. No more temple.

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No more animal sacrifices. No more priests. No more lostness. No more brokenness between God and I.

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I know him. I have eternal life. I am no longer dead and separated from God. That's where we sit today on the other side of this story.

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The Messiah has come. Everything promised happens and everything he still promises will happen.

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And that's the promise. That's the truth. And the next point here, son of David. Did you ever notice that when

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Jesus, look in Matthew, Matthew 15, 22, Matthew 21, 9, Matthew 21, 15, son of David, son of David, son of David.

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Why? Why would anyone want to be called the son of David, right? Imagine the day after, like Bathsheba and Uriah, all this stuff comes out, right?

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And someone's like, well, I'm son of David, son of David, right? Be like, shh, wait a little while because this is kind of a mess right now.

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And here you go now in Jesus' ministry, like Jesus walks by and you're like, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

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The fact that he's called son of David is saying something. It's saying that this one is the king, not might be king, is the king.

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He owns the right to the throne. And when Jesus comes in, think about it for a second. He comes into Jerusalem riding lowly on a donkey.

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Not only was that prophesied, but it's a display to the world that God has installed his king. That's my king.

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That's my king. Jesus' son of David speaks to him actually having the right to the throne.

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And you should care, you should care because God said in Daniel 2,

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Isaiah 9, all these different passages that he himself was gonna set up a kingdom that would change the world, that would put an end to sin and death.

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And when we talk about Jesus' son of David, what we're saying is God kept his promises.

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The king is on the throne. And the final part, son of Abraham, I wanna point you guys to Genesis 12 -15.

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And I want you to hook into something. One of the major arguments in the New Testament is for the

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Abrahamic covenant. God promised that through Abraham's seed, he was gonna bless the whole world.

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All the nations were gonna be blessed because of Abraham, his seed. And what's the promise in Romans 4?

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Is that all who have the faith of Abraham are Abraham's offspring.

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Jesus' son of David, son of Abraham, means this, that God has told the story.

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It's happening. It is gonna come to completion. And guess what? If you have faith in Jesus, you are a child of Abraham, justified by faith.

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He's kept his promise. You are the descendants of Abraham. It's not those who are fleshly descendants.

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John the Baptist threw the smack down on that. Don't say to yourselves, we have

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Abraham as our father. He says, God can raise up from these rocks, heirs of Abraham. And guess what?

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Stones, you are heirs of Abraham. God's turned stony hearts into flesh, and God did what no one else can do.

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He took death, told it to take that. He brought life, and he brought descendants of Abraham that are gonna fill the whole world.

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That's where the story's going. So when Matthew begins his gospel, with this is the history of the genealogy of Jesus the

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Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham, everybody's ears should open up.

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And every single Jew that was waiting in eager anticipation in the first century, where is the Messiah?

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Who's the Messiah? When is he coming? This should have been, for them, light.

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The sun has now risen. It's now in full view.

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And the story ends where we're at today, ultimately, that Jesus says, go make disciples of the nations.

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And I want you to be encouraged by something. You're hearing this story from a guy who has no right to be telling it.

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2 ,000 years after the events themselves, reading the same words from the same book that Christians were reading 2 ,000 years ago.

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Some of them shed their blood so you can hold these words today. Think about it. Some Christians literally died so you can hold these words in your hand today.

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And really what we're looking at is the testimony of God's faithfulness that he is at work in history.

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And if you're in this room and you trust in Jesus, you believe in him, you call him your Messiah, it means that you've gone from death to life and that your king is reigning now.

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And if I could deliver a punch real fast to something in our culture to end the message is the ridiculous idea that's bantied about today in Christian culture.

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It wasn't 200 years ago, but it is today that Jesus could not bring the kingdom in the first century and that he'll bring it later is one of the most anti -biblical things you could add to the story that could possibly be imagined.

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Matthew's entire argument is that he is the king, son of David, son of Abraham. He's brought the kingdom and now it goes throughout the whole world.

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Guess what Jesus says? Go get him. Go get him. And guess what? I want to encourage you with something.

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This story, if you believe in Christ, you're a part of. You are a child of that covenant -keeping

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God. Imagine for a second in the first century Jewish people wondering, is he ever going to come?

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Are these promises ever going to come to fruition? Is it ever going to happen? Ever. And here we sit 2 ,000 years later and we own it.

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We look back at it and all we do is we tell it as a story as what God has done. They were like, when's he going to do it?

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And we're going, it's been done. And now what we get to do is participate as his family in the expansion of that kingdom.

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And guess what? You have every reason when you see this story to risk everything, to risk absolutely everything for the gospel.

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You have every reason to not be indifferent. You have every reason to fight for joy.

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You have every reason to walk in obedience because what they were waiting for, they were just saying,

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I hope so. And what we have, we say, I know. I know.

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He has risen and he has ascended. He is the reigning king.

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And the word to the kings in Psalm 2 is this, obey the son or you'll perish.

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And so what does that mean? You are a child of the king. You are a child of Abraham and your king reigns.

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Live for him. Tell others about him. The proclamation of the gospel is not just gospel for individuals.

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It's the good news of his kingdom. It's good news the king is reigning now.

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Amen? Here's what I want you guys to do. I am committing to reading Matthew as your pastor as I go through it.

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I'm committing to read the book myself once a day. So as I study through Matthew and as I prepare sermons,

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I'm reading Matthew once a day. I'm gonna give you sort of a milder challenge.

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Okay? You can do that with me if you like. But here's my challenge to you as brothers and sisters here under my care is

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I wanna challenge you guys as we do this series through Matthew, read Matthew once a week. You can do that.

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Split it up into a few chapters a day. Read Matthew once a week. Just go through it with me once a week.

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Dedicate yourself to mastering what God says here in Matthew and pray that God would bless me as I walk you through it and teach you through it and pray that God would transform your life and cause you to focus on the exaltation of Christ in the world.

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So please pray for me as we go through this some more. Amen? Let's pray. Father, I wanna praise you, Lord, for your word.

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Thank you for Matthew. I pray you bless me as I prepare the services and the messages.

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I pray that you teach me, allow me to teach faithfully and in a way that brings transformation, Lord, by your spirit.

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I thank you, Lord, so much for preserving this for us in history. We give you all the glory.

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And we praise you, Jesus, the seated and the reigning king. We pray that you would prepare this church to bring the gospel of your kingdom into the world with boldness, with peace, with love, with compassion, and,