Matthew 1:1-17

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Jesus is King: Living in that victory under His timetable. Matthew 1:1-17

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Hello, good evening, this is Truth in Love. We get truth in love from Ephesians chapter four, verse 15.
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We want to grow up in all things into Christ. And that's our goal, that's our aim in everything that we do is to be growing up in all things together for God's glory, being obedient to scripture.
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And as we talk about scripture, as we talk about how we should live, how God wants us to live, we want to speak that truth.
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We want to speak that truth in love. We want to have that type of attitude when we communicate with one another, but we don't want to steer away from truth.
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We want to speak the truth of God's word in all that we do to a lost and dying world, to our brothers and sisters in Christ, in all places at all times, speaking that truth in love and growing up in all aspects into Christ.
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I want to continue with a theme, but before I say that, let me say this.
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We always like to pray at the end. So if I can pray for you, I'd love to be able to do that.
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All you have to do is type me and hopefully I'll see that comment and I'll pray for you at the end.
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If you watch the video later and you would like for somebody to pray for you, all you have to do is type me and I'll see that notification, excuse me, and hopefully other brothers and sisters will see that notification as well and they will be glad to pray for you.
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If you're so inclined, let me know that you're watching. Let me know that you're joining me. I like to know who's with me as we look at God's word together.
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Would you pray for me as I pray for you as we go through this life together, as we work in the kingdom together?
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And if you have any comments, I always say that the floor is always yours. If you have any comments, if you have any questions, you want to talk about something else from scripture,
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I'd love to be able to do that as well with you. So ask a question, give me a comment, a question about church, a question about the
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Bible, a question about what's going on in the world, some type of conversation that you would like to have.
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The floor is always open, the floor is yours and we'll stop whatever we're doing here and have that discussion with you.
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I'd love to be able to do that. This is a time that we can spend together. This is not my show.
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This is for the Lord and it's for us and it's for the community and for God's glory.
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So I want to be able to do that if it would encourage you and if it would help you to ask questions or talk about things.
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Also, I have been, I don't know how many videos I've done so far on this topic, but for a while now,
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I continue to end the show talking about how Jesus is a king and living in that victory.
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And I wanted to do some videos and have some conversations about living in that victory.
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What does that mean when I say Jesus is king and we want to live in that victory?
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It's not a victory that we accomplish on our own. The victory has been won.
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The victory is Christ. And in that victory, Jesus is king. He's seated on his throne.
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And so based on what Christ has done and based on who Christ is, how do we live in that victory?
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And so I wanted to do some videos hitting on that topic of how we live in that victory of who
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Christ is and the victory that he won. And I thought that there's no better place to go.
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We could hit different topics and I may steer away from where I'm at now to hit different topics because we can talk about that issue, living in Christ's victory from many different topics.
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But as I was thinking about that and trying to contemplate where we could go in scripture that would help us to navigate how we can live in that victory of who
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Christ is and the victory Christ has won, where can we go in scripture that would help us to learn that and do that?
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And the book that come to mind, that popped out to me was the book of Matthew.
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And the reason that the book of Matthew popped out to me is because the theme of Matthew is to show that Jesus is the long awaited, anointed one, the long awaited
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Messiah, King, King of Israel, and that he brought the kingdom to earth.
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The thing about it is, is that the Jewish people had their ideas about what and who the
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King would be and the kingdom. And what Matthew was doing is revealing that you had your ideas about the
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King, about the kingdom, but here is who and what it really is.
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And he tells about Jesus and how Jesus is the long awaited, anointed one, the
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Messiah, the King, King of Israel, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And so if this is the theme of Matthew and we want to learn how to live in the victory of who
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Jesus is and the victory that he won, then what better place to go than to dig into Matthew and see how he shows us how
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Jesus is that King, that anointed one, the long awaited Messiah, and then how we can live in that victory.
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So that's where I wanted to go. That's where I wanted to hopefully stay for a while, unless we look at some different topics, some different issues.
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So with that in mind, I have no better way to do this on my own, in my own creativity, other than to go verse by verse from start to finish.
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And so that's kind of how I want to tackle this as we go through Matthew. And again, if I can pray for you at the end, all you have to do is type me.
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You don't have to give any details about anything. All you have to do is type me. If this time together is an encouragement to you,
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I would appreciate if you would like and share and share this time with others that we can spend together in God's word.
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And if there's any topic that you would like to address as I do these videos,
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I'd like to try to touch on those topics. Any conversation that you want to have while I'm doing a video, all you have to do is ask a question, start the conversation and we can go from there.
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And try to hit on those things that interest you and let me know that you're watching. And I'd really appreciate that.
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So let's get started. The title, I hope the title was not too confusing.
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Sometimes it's really hard to put your thoughts into titles and gather all your thoughts and put them together very well.
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That's why I really depend on the Holy Spirit to help me put these things together as we try to communicate them with each other.
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But the title that I give as I posted it on Facebook was that Jesus is
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King, living in that victory under God's timetable.
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And I think that probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense and I really didn't know any other way to title it.
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And hopefully things will become more clear as we have this discussion tonight.
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But we want to live under God's timetable. We want to know how
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God works. Hey Tammy, hey Maggie, congratulations
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Tammy on the birth of the little one.
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We're excited about that. Can't wait to meet that little one. Yeah, so we want to live, we want to know who
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God is. We want to know his character and his nature and how he works in this world and how we can live based on how he works and not in our own wisdom, not in our own, making our own path, but we want to live in such a way that we're following how
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God works and how God does things and not make him out to be a God that's not described in scripture, but look and see how
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God describes himself in scripture and live accordingly. And so we want to know how God works in time, how he does things, what kind of timetable he uses and what kind of timetable he wants us to use in our life.
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And so let's start moving forward and maybe that will become a little more clear. We're in Matthew because Matthew's theme is
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Jesus is King. He's the long awaited Messiah. We want to learn about this King and how we can live in the victory that he won.
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What we want to do is look at chapter one, verses one through 17, and let me read them to you and try not to stumble over these ancient names.
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Verse one says, but the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, to Abraham was born
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Isaac and to Isaac Jacob and to Jacob Judah and his brothers and to Judah were born
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Perez and Zerah and Tamar and to Perez was born Hezron and to Hezron Ram and to Ram was born
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Aminadab and to Aminadab Nashon and to Nashon Salmon and to Salmon was born
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Boaz by Rahab and to Boaz was born Obed by Ruth and to Obed Jesse and to Jesse was born
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David the King and to David was born Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah and to Solomon was born
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Rehoboam and to Rehoboam Abijab and Abijab Asa and to Asa born
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Jehoshaphat and to Jehoshaphat Joram and to Joram Uzziah and to Uzziah was born
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Jotham and to Jotham Ahaz and to Ahaz Hezekiah and to Hezekiah was born
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Manasseh and to Manasseh Amon and to Amon Josiah and to Josiah were born
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Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon and after the deportation to Babylon to Jeconiah was born
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Sheltiel and to Sheltiel Zerubbabel and to Zerubbabel was born Abiud and Abiud Eliakim and to Eliakim Azor and to Azor was born
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Zadok and to Zadok Achim and to Achim Eliud and to Eliud was born
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Eleazar and to Eleazar Mathan and to Mathan Jacob and to Jacob was born
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Joseph the husband of Mary by whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.
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Verse 17, therefore all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations and from David to the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations and from the deportation to Babylon to the time of Christ, 14 generations.
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So what do we wanna pull out from this? Well, if the theme of Matthew is that Jesus is king, you know, we can look at where Matthew starts.
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Matthew doesn't start with Adam. Matthew starts with Abraham and then he goes to King David and he gives the line of Joseph.
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So he's given the lineage of Jesus to show that he is in this kingly lineage and we can look at the promise that God gave to Abraham and I'll probably mention that a little bit later but the promises given to Abraham, the promises given to David, David the
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King about his future throne and we can look at all these things and the promises that were given to point to this
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Messiah, this anointed one that would come, that would be the
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King, the long awaited King and of course the genealogy ends with Jesus and so Matthew was revealing to his mostly
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Jewish readers here that at the end of this line is, hey
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Pam, absolutely we'll pray for you, Pam, absolutely. Thank you for joining us.
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So Matthew ends this lineage line with Jesus telling his
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Jewish audience that this long awaited King Messiah, the anointed one that is to come, it ends with Jesus, your wait ends with Jesus.
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But what stood out to me, the question that I wanted to answer coming verse 17, and sometimes
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I ask questions that I don't have an answer for, I can't find an answer for or questions that we will never have an answer for until we're in glory and we can get answers for those questions but I think there's things that we can glean and learn even though we can't answer certain questions directly.
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Verse 17 gives us some unique information. It tells us about from the time of Abraham to David, to the deportation to Babylon and then from that point to the time of Christ between each point were 14 years or 14 generations, excuse me.
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Between each of those points there were 14 generations. Why does
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Matthew share this information? Of course I want to dig a little bit further and see if I can discover maybe the reasoning or the point that Matt, the reason
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Matthew gives and gives this type of information and these numbers that he does and figure out why because it's a mostly
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Jewish audience. He's writing to a Jewish audience and he's wanting to reveal to them that and prove to them and show them that Jesus is the long awaited anointed one, the
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King of Israel. And so this definitely, I'm sure it has something to do with that.
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But I looked at these numbers and I looked at what Matthew does here, given these numbers and of course all this information is given to us in the
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Old Testament, this history is recorded. And I asked myself, beyond that, beyond Matthew's direct and intentional meaning to his audience there, what other information can
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I glean from this? What answers can I get from this before I can get those other details?
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And what jumped out to me was information about God's character and who he is and how he works and how
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Jesus, our King works. And what I discovered was this, that God works over long periods of time.
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If God wanted to, after the fall, after Adam and Eve sinned, he could have rescued us immediately.
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But in God's plan, in his wisdom for his glory, he chose to go from Adam and wait thousands of years.
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And then at this point you get to Abraham where Matthew starts and then there's 14 generations to David.
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And then from David to the deportation, the exile to Babylon, you have 14 generations.
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And then from there to Jesus, you have 14 generations. So Matthew was telling us there's this great length of time between all these things happening all throughout history where God is working,
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God is working, but he is working over a long period of time. So that's our
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King. That's the King that we serve. And we are in his kingdom, a kingdom that works over a long period of time.
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I found it interesting. We just read the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew chapter one, but I found it interesting too, that when you look at Acts, and if you recall in Acts, you have a guy named
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Stephen. And let me just flip over there real quick. I'm not gonna read it word for word, but I just wanna reference it.
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In Acts chapter seven, you have a guy named Stephen. And Stephen was gathered up by this group of people and brought, they were saying that he speaks blasphemous words against Moses and against God.
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He's gathered up and drugged before the council and they put forward false witness who said that this man incessantly speaks against this holy place, the temple and the law, for we have heard him say that this
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Nazarene Jesus will destroy this place and alter the customs which
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Moses had laid down or handed down to us. And so he was brought before this council and they gave these accusations against Stephen.
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And so therefore the priest asked him if these things are so, and then from chapter one of seven to all the way to 53,
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Acts records this sermon or this defense, as it says, that Stephen gives not of himself, but of his message, of the
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King that he serves and the kingdom that he is a part of. He gives this defense and of course his audience is this
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Jewish audience. And Stephen's defense is very similar to the genealogy, the recounting of the genealogy that we find in Matthew chapter one.
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And I found that so interesting where Matthew in chapter one when he begins the genealogy, he begins with Abraham and that is where Stephen begins.
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Stephen begins with Abraham and I called it, and I don't know if academics and scholars would agree with me, but as I read it, this is what come to my mind.
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I called Stephen's defense or Stephen's speech here, the genealogy of the kingdom as it's so familiar with the genealogy of Jesus.
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And Stephen begins with Abraham and he's speaking to this Jewish audience, the
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Jewish council and he's wanting to convince them of, he's wanting their eyes to open to what has happened in the past and of course the mistakes in the past and that Jesus is this long awaited
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Messiah, this long awaited King that has come and how they've done things and how they view things have went off course and they've gone all wrong and Jesus has come to rescue, to rule and to reign and make things right.
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And of course, Stephen and Peter and Paul, they all go out to preach the message of Christ so that men are converted and they submit to Christ.
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But Stephen, his defense is so similar to the genealogy in Matthew chapter one.
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He begins with Abraham and of course Abraham, God promised Abraham an offspring and I'm gonna try to stick with the theme of God's timetable and how he does things.
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But you look at God's promise to Abraham that he's promised an offspring, but Abraham and his wife,
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Sarah, were both old. So this promise wasn't given and this promise wasn't fulfilled when
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Abraham was young. It was when he was old, Abraham had to wait all these years before he would have an offspring and even hear response from God with the promise of an offspring.
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And then God gives a promise also to Abraham that he would have many descendants and that his descendants, he's promised an offspring and he's promised many descendants, which is great news.
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But then he gets this other news that his descendants will one day be enslaved in another country and that country was
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Egypt for 400 years. And then, of course,
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I'm trying to follow Stephen's defense here, Stephen's speech. Then we kind of, we go towards Moses and Moses is sent, of course, as the rescuer of the
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Israelites out of Egypt. But Moses, it doesn't seem like Moses, Stephen kind of,
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Stephen points out that Moses is 40 years old. It seems like when
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Moses begins to turn towards God's plan of rescuing the
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Israelites. So Stephen points out that it's not until Moses is 40 years old that he goes to visit his brethren.
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And then Stephen tells us that 40 years later is when
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God speaks to Moses in the burning bush. And then once God, through Moses, rescues
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Israel out of Egypt, and of course it's because of their disobedience, but then they wander in the wilderness for 40 years.
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And then Stephen picks up with David and he talks about God wanted
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David to find a dwelling place for him in the land of Jacob, but it was
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Solomon who built the house for God. But then
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Stephen changes the direction of his defense.
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He goes from this history lesson, which they all knew, they were all familiar with, but he kind of changes the direction from his history lesson to where it's pointed directly at the council there.
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When he says, he's quoting from the prophet Isaiah that God doesn't dwell in a building that was made by the hands of men, but that, however, the most high, just to read it here, however, the most high does not dwell in houses made by human hands.
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As the prophet says, heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool of my feet. What kind of house will you build for me, says the
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Lord, or what place is there for my repose? So the outlook of who
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God is and his kingdom and how God works was all misplaced and misunderstood by their forefathers, by the folks that had came before them.
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And Stephen is telling this council, you are falling right in line with our forefathers.
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He calls them stiff -necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the
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Holy Spirit. You are doing just as your fathers did. And I found this so interesting.
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Stephen says, which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?
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And we see this several other places in scripture. And Jesus even brings it up when he's speaking to the crowds, the
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Jews, the Jewish leaders, speaking of their fathers and persecuting the prophets.
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Stephen says something, gives a detail here that I find so amazing.
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He says, and they killed those who had previously announced the coming of the righteous one, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become.
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You know, if you came and you were giving them news that they wanted to hear that tickled their ears, suited their fancy, you know, you would be fine.
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But it seems to be consistent throughout all time, throughout this whole timetable, that if you were prophesying about the righteous one to come, if you were following Jesus, if you were one of his disciples, or if you were one of his followers afterwards, what's the promise of Christ?
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That the world hated me first. And so don't be surprised when it hates you.
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This is a consistent theme all throughout history about how men are treated that point to Christ.
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And I found that so, so interesting that Stephen points that out and it shows us the consistency of Christ's followers all throughout history.
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That was a little side note. And I know why we get a little off track with that side note, but we're wanting to look at how
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God operates in his timetable and how we can live in the victory of our
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King and in his timetable and live in his timetable and how he works and not how we envision it.
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And so we've got to learn how he works. Stephen doesn't bring up here.
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Stephen goes through Abraham, he talks about Moses and he talks about David. But the thing that Stephen doesn't talk about that Matthew talks about is the dispersion to Babylon or the exile.
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And we can read a mention of that since Matthew talks about it.
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Matthew brings it up in chapter one. We can go to chapter nine of Daniel and I've done some videos and I've talked about Daniel chapter nine before, but Daniel was in that exile.
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He was a part of that. And how that relates to what we're talking about tonight, it was promised or prophesied in Jeremiah how long this exile would take.
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And Daniel was reading that and seeing that and he was noticing that they were at the end of the prophesied time of the exile.
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And that prophesied time was 70 years that they would be in exile. You see all these numbers, 14 generations, 14 generations, 14 generations.
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Moses, Abraham was his old age when he got the promise and then that promise was fulfilled of an offspring.
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They were, his people, his descendants were enslaved in Egypt for 400 years. You have a wandering in the wilderness for 40 years.
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You have, many of these things are consequences, of course, of the people of Israel, but you have the deportation or the exile to Babylon, which lasted for 70 years.
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And then after Daniel reflects on this time, he receives a visit from the angel
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Gabriel, giving him another prophecy of time.
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And at the end of that time period, the Messiah would come, the long awaited anointed one, the king, he would come and Daniel calls him the prince, the
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Messiah prince. And that number is 490 years, 490 years.
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Look at all these numbers. We can see throughout scripture that God is not a
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God and we do not live in a kingdom. We are not part of a kingdom where our king works instantly and immediately.
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His plan is working out over time. Abraham in Genesis 49, 10,
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God promises Abraham, a savior will come. Moses, God promises Moses that one will come,
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God will raise up one like him. David is promised from God that one day, one will sit on his throne.
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And so, and then God promises, gives the gospel proclamation or the gospel promise in Genesis to Adam and Eve.
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And then all the prophets that Stephen mentions that are prophesying about the righteous one to come.
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All throughout these years, they're waiting, they're looking, God is speaking and prophesying that there's one to come.
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I'm promising one in your line, I'm promising one for your throne, that there's one coming, there's one coming.
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And it happens over years. And it's so important that we don't look at history as if we're reading a little booklet in one sitting for 20 minutes to an hour.
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This time period lasted over thousands of years that God promised and promised and promised.
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And we can look back to the Old Testament and we can, looking back, we can see how and where God worked and moved.
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But God's people, the people of his kingdom lived in faith because of his promise, knowing that they would not see probably the fulfillment of that ultimate promise, the anointed one in their lifetime.
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But they lived in such a way because they believed and they trusted in God's promise that one day the anointed one would come.
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That's how they lived their lives. That's how they lived in the victory of their king, looking forward to that promise and lived their lives in such a way that they knew, they had faith that God was going to fulfill that promise.
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And there've been others who lived that way as well. And when I say thousands of years, from, let me just give you some dates,
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Abraham around the year 1996 BC, Moses 1245,
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David 1491, the exile was around 772 and Jesus around the year four.
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So between Abraham and Jesus was around 2000 years. That's the timeframe that we're talking about where the believers and the
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Messiah to come lived by faith and they lived out their everyday life in view of a future promise, a future king, a future savior.
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And we need to absorb that and learn how to live that way.
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Let's look at a few more points. Now that we've made it to Jesus, John, let's look at the kingdom, the kingdom of God, the kingdom that Christ rules and reigns over that he brought to this earth.
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Jesus tells us in John chapter three, verse 17, this is about his kingdom.
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He says, well, I didn't run out the whole verse and I want to read it.
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I apologize. Ooh, I'm right here. That was quick. John chapter three, verse 17. We're familiar with verse 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that everyone believing in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
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And then Jesus says, a lot of times we forget about this verse. Verse 17, for God did not send the son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him.
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That the world should be saved through him. So what is this kingdom?
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What did this kingdom come for? What is Jesus doing as the anointed one, as the king?
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He's saving the world. What a huge task.
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And they waited, Abraham waited 2000 years for this promise to be fulfilled, even for Adam and Eve, even longer than that.
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And so Jesus saving the world, should we think that that's going to happen immediately?
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If we look at how God has worked in his kingdom in history over time, it seems as though the character of God, the character of his kingdom is that he is going to work through time to accomplish this goal.
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And what is he going to be? What else is he going to be doing? He's going to be saving the world. And also, if you look at Hebrews 1 .13,
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Hebrews 10 .13, Acts 2, 34 and 35, and 1 Corinthians 15 .25,
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they all say the same thing. Or in Psalm 110 .1, which all these New Testament verses point back to Psalm 110 .1.
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But it says that he is going to reign. Now, Jesus is reigning until all his enemies are made his footstool and that last enemy is going to be dead.
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So you have Jesus saving the world, and then you have his enemies through this time period being made his footstool and then the last enemy is going to be dead.
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And then his second coming. So all this is happening over this period of time that we're living in his kingdom.
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Hey Tammy, good evening. Hope you are doing well. It's good to see you. Thank you for watching.
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And so, we want to know, we want to try to understand why does
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God work in such long periods of time? We can't always answer those questions with great detail, but in some ways we can answer that question.
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And I look at 2 Peter 3, verse nine. You know, why would
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God work for such a long period of time? And I think Peter kind of gives us a glimpse of God's character and why he would work in this way.
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2 Peter 3, verse nine says, the Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.
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So it's the patience of God, which is compassion and kindness and merciful and graceful to us, gracious to us, that he would have patience, that he would work over a long period of time so that people can come to repentance and not perish.
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So now that we've looked at that, we're gonna try to wrap it up and come to an end. We've looked at God's character.
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We've looked at his kingdom and how he has worked his kingdom throughout history and how he's worked it over long periods of time.
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That's his character. That's our kingdom that we live in. That's our king. So how do we live in that victory that Jesus has secured?
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Jesus won the victory of Christ. How do we live in that and live in the kingdom of a long -term
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God, a long -planning God? We can read in Proverbs chapter six, chapter 10, verse chapter 21, chapter six, chapter 10, chapter 21, and there's plenty of other places as well, that we can read this wisdom literature that we're given to live by, that we are to plan, we are to work, and we are to prepare for the future.
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That's God's will for us, is that while we are working in part of this kingdom, this kingdom that works over a long period of time, we are to have that type of mindset, that type of ethic that we plan, that we work, and we prepare for the future.
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And I'm not sure if you see this as I see it, but it seems like this type of mentality is different than the mentality that we have as Christians today, many of us.
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Can you see that difference yet, that we do live in?
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The reality is that we are living in a kingdom, we serve in a kingdom of a long -term
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God, a long -term king who's working his plan over a long period, but our mindset, how we want to live in this kingdom, seems to be a little different than how our king operates.
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So let's make it a little more personal, a little more personal, and I'm just going to bring up one aspect of our life to kind of show, of course, this is going to apply to every aspect of our lives, but Proverbs and the scriptures bring out an example of how we should think, how we should live.
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And we want to look at one example, Proverbs 13, verse 22. And we'll look at several verses, but it's speaking kind of the same subject.
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Then it will apply also to every part of life. Proverbs 13, verse 22.
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It says, a good man leaves an inheritance to his children.
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Nope, that's not what it says. A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, and the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.
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Why would wisdom literature teach us to leave an inheritance for our children's children if we are to be living in a kingdom that will shortly end, that we should be looking for the world to end instead of looking for Jesus to be saving the world, we are looking for the world to end.
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You see the difference in our thinking? Instead of looking at how God's working and how
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Jesus is saving the world, saving people and being a part of that, and also leaving an inheritance.
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How can you leave an inheritance to your children's children if we can't see often much past the nose on our faces?
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We're not planning for our children's children. We're so worried about this and what's happening right now.
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We can't see past the noses on our face to our children's children, leaving them an inheritance, leaving them the kingdom of God, and leaving this planet, this earth, in such a way that it's going to continue that advancement of God's kingdom.
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Chapter six, 17, verse six. Chapter 17, verse six.
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Grandchildren are the crown of old men, and the glory of sons is their father's.
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Proverbs, again, is speaking of grandchildren. Why are we thinking about grandchildren if we're looking for the world to end soon?
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We see all this destruction and terrible things going on around us. The world's gonna end soon. I'm so worried about the here and now and what's going on in my life, but Proverbs is looking to the grandchildren and how they're the crown of old men.
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Second Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 14. I'm not gonna flip there, but it says the parents are to save for the children, and children are not supposed to be the ones saving for the parent.
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How do you save? How do you prepare an inheritance and leave an inheritance?
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Is if you plan and work and build for that.
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You plan for that and you work for that, for your children and for your grandchildren, instead of being wrapped up in ourselves and the world around us and how we see it, not in a kingdom perspective, but in our own perspective.
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Doom and gloom, the world's gonna end. And we don't look to the future, advancing the kingdom.
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Ephesians chapter six. Ephesians chapter six looks back to the 10 commandments.
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Which ones specifically? You have Paul speaking to husbands.
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You have Paul speaking to wives. Then you have Paul speaking to children. He says, children, obey your parents.
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And this is the first command with a what? A promise that it will go well with you and you will live long in the land.
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The promise is to New Testament believers coming from Paul that if you obey your parents, then you will be blessed and you will live long in the land.
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How can that promise be fulfilled if the world's ending soon and it's doom and gloom?
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Then what's the significance of keeping that command and looking forward to the fulfillment of that promise from God?
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We must change our perspective to a kingdom perspective where we see
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Jesus saving the world and his enemies are being made his footstool.
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That's how God is working. Think about what we've inherited. Where do we live now?
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Where do we live today? We live in a land called the United States of America. Why are we here today?
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How did we get here? With the blessings that we have because we had forefathers, many of them with a kingdom perspective that they looked to the future, a place where there was freedom that they could give to their children and their grandchildren so they wouldn't be living under tyranny, living under persecution, but they wanted to leave a better place for future generations.
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Why would you spend time and effort in putting together a constitution, a document that would live on for hundreds of years that is still relevant, that is the law and rule of this land if everything was just going away?
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But instead they wanted to leave an inheritance to their children's children so that they didn't have to live under tyranny, under persecution so they could worship freely.
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They wanted their children's children to live in a better place, a place where the kingdom of God could flourish, the kingdom of God could advance.
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And why is it not advancing today like it did back then in some aspects?
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In some places it is. But for especially American Christians, we look at the world around us and we see how bad it is and all the sinfulness in the world, in the
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United States, and we're looking for the world to come to an end and it must be coming soon.
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But should we not look back? Look back at this, what I just referenced.
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You had our forefathers coming over to the new world.
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They were under persecution. That was one of the reasons why they wanted to come to the new world.
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And the trip, even the trip to the new world. I mean, you had them hiding just to have church.
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You had them killed. Our forefathers, our Christian forefathers were killed and persecuted, burned at the stake.
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All kinds of torture happened to them. This has happened since the time of the apostles, but they had a kingdom perspective.
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They knew they were living in the victory of King Jesus, that he was saving the world, that he was putting his enemies under his feet.
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His enemies were being made of footstool and they had a kingdom perspective that God was working this out over time.
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And so giving their lives for Christ and the kingdom, looking forward ahead to their children and their children's children so that the kingdom could advance, the kingdom could flourish.
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And we get to where we are today and we see all these sinful things around us and how bad it may be, but it was bad for our forefathers as well.
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Even on the ship, the ride over here on the ship, horrible conditions.
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And then they come over here, suffer horrible winters with little provisions, but yet they wanted to worship in freedom.
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They wanted to promote and advance the gospel to the natives that lived here.
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That was part of the Mayflower Compact. They wanted to advance the gospel.
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And then it just continued with those who had that kingdom perspective, despite the conditions that they lived in that we would see as horrible conditions.
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And I'm sure that they didn't enjoy those conditions. And I'm sure Paul didn't enjoy those conditions that he lived in or he suffered through when he was in prison, but he used those opportunities when he was in prison to share the gospel.
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He counted it all joy when no matter what circumstance he was in, he was content and he shared the gospel.
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I look at Philippians chapter two, and this is the book that we're getting ready to wrap up on Saturday morning.
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But I look at Philippians chapter two, verses four through eight specifically, and look what it says.
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"'Do not merely look out for your own personal interest.'" That's where we live most of the time, looking out for our own personal interest, "'but also for the interest of others.'"
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He says, "'Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men and being found in appearance as a man.
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He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.'" And why did he die on the cross?
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He emptied himself of his own personal interest, of his divinity, so that he could become a man and down the cross for what purpose?
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To save men. Did he come just to save the men and women in the first century?
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Jesus is still saving people. He is still saving souls today, 2 ,000 years later.
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So when Paul asked us to imitate Christ, which means to empty ourselves and look past our own interest, but look at the interest of the kingdom of God, our children, our children's children, and build up an inheritance, expand our territory, work hard, make everything we do, do it with excellence, so that we can advance the kingdom, so that we can earn respect of the people in this world.
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They may not agree with us, but they will look to us with admiration because of what we do and how we do it.
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And we do it with excellence and integrity. And we are working in all those things to advance the gospel and advance the kingdom for God's glory.
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And we're leaving an inheritance for our children and our children's children. Let's have a kingdom perspective, a kingdom perspective, and not a doom and gloom perspective because Jesus, God promised our forefathers from the very beginning, you're gonna have a king.
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The king came, the king won, the king is winning and the king is going to win in the end.
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His enemies are becoming his footstool and that last enemy death is gonna be taken care of.
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And so this world, God is saving his people and he's saving this world and he is winning.
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And he is going to win and he has won. And we're living in a victorious kingdom.
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So therefore we should live that way instead of living in gloom and living in doom and living in defeat.
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Don't let the world see us live in defeat. One more verse, one more verse and I'll finish,
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I promise. Matthew, going back to Matthew and I'm going all the way to the end.
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We're starting at the beginning but we're probably gonna read this verse over and over again. Listen to what
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Jesus says. And Jesus came up, chapter 28, starting in verse 18. And Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
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Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. What did
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John 3, 17 say? God is saving the world. He's making his enemies his footstool.
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He says, I've been given all the authority. So wherever you go, Jesus has authority.
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You're in your home, Jesus has authority. You go to China, Jesus has authority. Everywhere you go,
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Jesus has been given authority. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations on this whole planet, baptizing them.
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In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
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And lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. We live in a victorious kingdom with a
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King who has all authority everywhere. Hey Roger, sorry
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I missed you there. Hope you're doing well. And we serve, don't we Roger, a
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King who's victorious, who has authority everywhere. And so we can have a kingdom perspective of victory and we can look to the future and prepare for the future and plan for the future because that future is a winning future.
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Despite what's going on around us, don't believe the lies of the enemy, that he's going to win, that he's winning or whatever he's doing.
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The powers in the darkness that Ephesians chapter six talks about.
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In that realm, that spiritual realm, don't listen to their lies. Jesus is
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King and let's live in that victory. If I can pray for you,
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I wanna pray for Pam tonight. If I can pray for you, please let me know. All you have to do is type me. If there's anything that you would ever like for us to talk about, all you have to do is just give me a message and let me know.
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But we're hopefully wanna continue in Matthew and look in Matthew at Jesus being
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King and how we can continue to live in that victory. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for the time that you've given us tonight.
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Thank you for bringing us into your kingdom, a kingdom that is victorious.
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A kingdom that is victorious, the only kingdom that has ever existed of its kind.
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All earthly and human kingdoms have had their ups and downs, but there's never been a kingdom but yours with a
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King that's always victorious, with a King that came and died for his people, a
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King that is compassionate and merciful and gracious, a King that has all authority and power.
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And thank you for letting us be in your kingdom. Thank you for being our King, our
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Savior, and our God. We worship you and we praise you. Father, we want to pray for Pam tonight.
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We ask that you would help her and bless her in whatever circumstance that she is facing right now.
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I pray that you would comfort her and give her wisdom and give her help. Thank you for the time that you give us together to look at your word.
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And Father, I pray that you would use this time to glorify yourself and to save souls, to draw men unto yourself.
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In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Thank you for watching. Remember that Jesus is
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King. Go live in that victory, and let's continue to go out there and proclaim the gospel together.
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Hope to see you soon. Hold on a second. I saw one more, two more.
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So we're gonna pray for these two more. Tammy has a new grandbaby.
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We want to pray for the new mom, the new dad, and we want to pray for the new baby.
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Tammy Rogers says, please pray for my younger brother, Jeff. Long story, but God knows he needs prayer.
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All right, let's pray together. Father, we thank you for giving us not only life in Christ and the new birth, spiritual birth, but you give us new newborns and new life, new physical life.
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And thank you for the babies that you give us, the treasures that they are. We pray your blessings upon that family.
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That you would give strength to dad and to mom as they begin this new journey.
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We give them wisdom to point to you in all that they do as they lead their family.
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We pray that this baby would come to you. Would you draw this child to yourself and use this child for your kingdom?
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Would you allow this child to be healthy and grow strong? Father, we will pray for Tammy Rogers' brother and the circumstance that she has in her mind that you know the situation.
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We ask for help in the circumstances that they deal with, that they go through.
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Father, you are the one that we come to. Because you are our source of hope and healing and strength, recovery.
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Father, you are our answer. So father, we come to you with open hands, empty hands, pleading for your help.
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And I lift that situation with Tammy and her brother. And we give it to you, trusting in you.
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Father, I pray for my own life and my own family. And we ask for your help in ways only you can.
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In Jesus name we pray, amen. Thank you guys for watching. And I hope to see you soon.