The Lineage of a King - Part 2

Bryan Chapell: It's the wonderful message of God simply saying, "I sent my son to save, and he is with you." Whatever you face, he can work past the mess and build something new because he is God, the reconciler and the ruler who is with you.
Guest (Male): So glad you joined us for today's Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. In today's lesson, Pastor Bryan shares the second half of a message from Matthew 1, as we look at the lineage of Jesus Christ. Looking back on the line of David, we see time and again that Jesus' ancestry is unqualified to bring forth the Savior of the world, and yet God uses broken people to show his grace and cleansing power through the coming of our Messiah. You can find this lesson and many others when you visit unlimitedgrace.com. And while you're there, look for Pastor Bryan's book, Unlimited Grace. Dr. Chapell reminds us of the power and mercy of God's grace that motivates and inspires us to serve our Heavenly Father. Let's hear now from Dr. Bryan Chapell as he shares the second half of the lesson, The Lineage of a King.
Bryan Chapell: The Gospel of Matthew, the first book in the New Testament, chapter one, verse one. As we say, how does God now answer what he has promised for so long? When we began months ago back in Genesis, moving forward in the scriptures, we saw that it was gospel at every stage, in every page, God saying, "I will provide for people who cannot provide for themselves. I will send one who will make a way for them to come to me." Now he's here. Now the promised one comes. How does he come? Matthew chapter one, verse 18. We'll cover the rest later. Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means "God with us." When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife but knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus. Please be seated. A teenager in a little village of Nazareth, probably under 100 people, where everybody doesn't just know your name, they know your business. And in just a few months, she'll show and everybody will know, and it will be a scandal. And the teenager in the scandal becomes the mother of God. Amazing grace as God is really scanning history for the situations of women long before the Me Too movement, long before the movements where women are seeking not just equality but recognition and significance. And God in this awful beauty thrusts to the surface women's pain and shame and isolation and loneliness and hurt and pain and sin to make something very clear. Not only does he know the mess, but he has the ability to purify it. Because it's the gospel where he is saying, "I know the worst about these people, what has been done to them, what they have done. But I am willing by my grace to wash that away." And not just to purify the person but to use them to construct a whole new reality. For from this line of women as God is drawing the lineage through the mud of the mothers' lives, he is in fact leading to the wonder that they will be used for the lineage of the Savior of the world. What's the message? That God is not just purifying sin, he's making a new creation. He's constructing out of lives that have faced difficulty and hurt and pain and shame, and he's not just saying that's gone. He's saying, "I can still use and build and make something new out of what you yourself may have hated." God says there is hope. "I am showing you I know the mess, but I can clean the mess and construct something beautiful again." I think of recent conversations with dads in this church. Some whose sexual patterns have led them to be complicit in abortion activities. Some who have had chemical addictions and it's destroyed much of their family. It's maybe years and their family suffering that whose addictions led to rage and harshness and abuse. And as awful as that sounds, I will tell you some of these conversations have been absolute joy. As men have said, "That is what I was. But God forgave me." And he didn't just forgive me. He began by his spirit to build something new in me. Desires for him, renewed love for my spouse, renewed commitment to my family. And I'm different now, and my family is different now, and we're in total new ground. And that's not just idle talk. It's what the scriptures are meant to teach us that God can work. Don't just look at the mothers. Look at the fathers with our gospel magnifier and what do you see? Verse two, Abraham was the father of Isaac. You already know about Abraham. The man who would betray his wife, sleep with another woman, seek to kill his child and his mistress. But he would believe God. What we would believe if we said, "Here is a man and we're expecting him to lead in the church and of course he's a murderer and an adulterer, a liar." We'd say, "Unqualified, unqualified." And that's just the beginning. Verses two and three mention Judah twice, the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. You already know about him. He is the one who would neglect his daughter-in-law and then abuse her and then seek to burn her. And only as she could supply the evidence repent of what he had done and we say unqualified. But God said the scepter shall not depart from Judah. His promise shall be maintained. Boaz, verse five. Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth. He marries outside the faith. He marries outside the clan of Israel. And despite all of that, he is still allowed to be part of the line. You don't even recognize the complication. Boaz, he is a descendant of Perez, who came out of the illicit relationship between Judah and Tamar. If there was an incestuous relationship in Israel, the product of that incestuous relationship would not be allowed in the temple, not recognized as part of the lineage of Israel for ten generations. Now comes Boaz, progeny of Perez, in the tenth generation. He gets in just by the skin of his teeth as God is saying, "I said the scepter shall not depart from Judah." And God maintains the line of holy lineage even as he said he would. David, verse six. You already know who he was. You know his adultery, you know his murder, his bad children, his pride at the end of his life. You would say unqualified. But no one is worse than the one mentioned in verse 11. Josiah, the father of Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon. Jechoniah, now there's a name you don't hear very often. I don't know anybody who's named their kid Jechoniah, and I know why. The last king of the last sliver of Israel surviving. And even as Babylon is pouring into the land to take the people captive, Jechoniah turns to idolatry away from God and to serving the Babylonians. And Jeremiah the prophet says no seed of Jechoniah shall sit on the throne of David. We say unqualified. And uh-oh. Wait, wait. God made a promise to David that from the lineage of David would come the Messiah. And now Jechoniah, a little further down the chain, is cursed and said by Jeremiah, "None of the seed of Jechoniah shall have the promise of David." Oh no. I mean God made the promise to David and said it's irrevocable. You cannot have the promise to David and seemingly have the curse to Jechoniah. Because what that would mean is God would have to maintain the legal lineage of David but break the biological lineage from Jechoniah. How you going to do that? Verse 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. What happened? God did not maintain the line of sin, he did maintain the line of promise. The legal title was maintained by Joseph, but Mary the virgin was given a child by the Holy Spirit, and the biological line would not continue even when the legal line did continue. Six centuries before it happened, God not only prophesies what would happen, he took the steps to make it happen. My son will save, but he will come out of the mess without being tainted by the mess by being born of a virgin. What God is going to do is provide a beautiful story to say to those who are in the mess, "I can do things you can hardly fathom, beyond your mess, beyond your difficulty with a grace greater than you could ever orchestrate. I will bring about my promise to take people who are in the worst of circumstances and to bring my grace beyond them, even through them for a beautiful purpose."
Guest (Male): You're listening to Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. Would you say that you're burdened by some chains of addiction, some patterns of sin or habits of apathy? Would you like to be set free from that and enjoy joy, peace, true satisfaction? Well, the good news, it's possible. Pastor Bryan says so in his book, his powerful book titled Unlimited Grace. Based on Pastor Bryan's decades of teaching the good news of Christ and his amazing grace, this book Unlimited Grace will take you on a personal journey to discover how grace not only frees you from the guilt and shame of a sinful life but also provides the daily fuel you need for joy, which is your strength as a Christian. Request your copy of Unlimited Grace, that's the title of the book, when you go online to unlimitedgrace.com. The web address again, unlimitedgrace.com.
Bryan Chapell: I've told you before of a friend, I've never mentioned his name, I won't now. I'll just call him Bill. A friend of ours whose childhood was so awful, his origin story we could hardly bear to hear. As all he said he could remember of his childhood was his parents physically fighting outside his bedroom door. And a father so desirous of an affair with a neighbor that he intentionally drove his wife, Bill's mother, into insanity in order that he could have an unfettered affair with the neighbor. And now here is Bill, an adult married without any model, without any background to give him guidance. And he flies into rages, and his sexual addictions are destroying his family, and he doesn't know what to do. But what convicts him is learning of the prayers of his wife on her knees for a year praying, praying, praying, "Father, enter my husband's life, convict his heart, turn him around, change him." And when Bill learned of how his wife had served him by her spiritual humility in his behalf, it broke him. He came to us to say, "How do I live as a follower of Jesus Christ? How do I stop these rages? How do I stop this addiction? How do I stop all these things that are hurting my family?" And if you were to see him now, a man repentant, humble, and gloriously walking with Christ for the beauty of his family, you would say God did something beyond what he could have imagined. God was working a grace that we can hardly believe still happens. We tell the stories in the church and we think they just made that up. No, the stories are here. God is working among us because he is still with us. That's the point. What is the genealogy teaching you? Yes, it's teaching you about the mess of the mothers. It is teaching you about the mess of the fathers. But if you've got fathers and mothers with the promise of a child, you know you've got a duty left. You've got to find out who that child is. What will they name the child? We know because it's in the scriptures, and nobody went to babynames.com. It comes from the mouth of an angel. Verse 25. After Joseph woke from a dream, the angel of the Lord commanded him he took his wife but knew her not until she had given birth to a son and he called his name Jesus. That's what the angel said. "You shall call his name Jesus." Do you know what Jesus means? It means salvation or deliverance. And it's actually the same New Testament name as the Old Testament name Joshua. It's just the same name in the Greek representation. And if you thought about that, this one who's coming, you're to name him salvation, you're to name him deliverance, because he will save his people from their sins. It would make wonderful sense to you if you were Jewish and in your background, you would know the genealogy, you would know the history. What are the Joshuas you remember? One is very easy, right? There was the one when the walls came tumbling down at Jericho, who took the people of God into the promised land. He was the deliverer of the people to take them from their slavery, from their enemies into the land of promise. But the second Joshua comes much later after the nation has been established, after the kingdom has been built and then destroyed by its own divisiveness. The people are taken into slavery and you remember a remnant comes back to the promised land that's in absolute ruin. And they begin to build the temple. We need to honor God again, not sure how to do that, but we need to honor God, we need to build the temple again. They begin to build the temple again, and the high priest of the new temple of the ruined nation is named Joshua. And Jeremiah actually describes what is to happen with this new high priest. He says tell the people to bring gold and silver and to make a crown for the high priest and put him on a throne in the temple. For he shall reconcile God and man. It's an amazing picture in the Old Testament of who Christ is. He is both king and priest. He is the one who comes to reconcile people who have a mess in their lives to a holy God. And at the same time as a king, he has the authority to do that. He comes with reconciliation and rule. He comes to say, "I can make you right again, and I have the authority to help you rebuild. I have authority over all creation, and I will use who I am for your sake." Wonderful, unless it's just past history. But that's not the only name. Verse 23. When the angel comes in the vision to Joseph, he quotes Isaiah the prophet in the Old Testament. Verse 23. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. He's not just the deliverer. He's not just the one who has the title that allows him to say, "I'll be the reconciler between you and God. I'll make things right again, and I'll put you on a good course again. I have the authority for that." It's not just ancient history. He is Emmanuel. He is God with us. It's been the message from the beginning when God would meet with Adam and Eve in the garden. And when their sin seemed to put God away, he would keep coming in the clouds of glory, in the fire by night to lead, to descend into the temple to say, "I will make my home with you." And then Christ would come among us and he would say, "I am God with you." And then he would send his Holy Spirit so that even when he had ascended to God in heaven, he would say, "I am in you and with you and I will never leave you nor will I forsake you." It's the wonderful message of God simply saying, "I sent my son to save, and he is with you." Whatever you face, he can work past the mess and build something new because he is God, the reconciler and the ruler who is with you. Some of you know just this last week I was in Medellin, Colombia, teaching pastors. In a nation that's filled with violence with the remnants of the drug wars that tore the nation apart. And gathering with 1500 church leaders and pastors, let me tell you there were such assaults, spiritual and otherwise, on that gathering. And yet to be able to say against the difficulties of arrangements, against the difficulty of governmental opposition, against the difficulty of transportation to get there, God is with us. The Lord is near. And so we are able to move forward, believing he is blessing and helping and building as he said he would. The Lord is near. There is no more common note that I make to you when in the hospital or you're suffering different things. If you receive notes from me, you see it over and over, the Lord is near. And I recognized in that storm in which we ourselves were living, it was my message to myself again. Brian, preach the gospel to yourself. This is hard, but the Lord is near. And for that reason, do not fear. The Lord is near. Praise God. The one who knows the mess to rescue from the mess because he is the Savior who is here. The Lord is near. Do not fear. Amen. Heavenly Father, so teach us of the blessings that you have given that we who need to remember when the storms come, when the hardships come, when our own sin is so large in our eyes we can hardly imagine that you would forgive us or fix it. But you have done it throughout history and you teach it through the genealogy and the history of your own son. He knows our mess, but he came to save us from it, even if it must be from ourselves. So Father, for those who are here that need to say it to you, Father, clean up the mess as we believe Jesus would die for our sins to cleanse us from it. And not only die but live again to give us new lives of hope and power. So work in and among us we pray, and we will not fear because you are here. We bless you in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Guest (Male): That's Pastor Bryan Chapell, and you've been listening to Unlimited Grace. If you've missed anything that you'd like to hear once again, just visit unlimitedgrace.com. And when you do so, you can sign up for Pastor Bryan's daily devotional sent right to your inbox. While you're there, also be sure to request a copy of the book from Dr. Bryan Chapell called Unlimited Grace. We'll send you a copy right away as our way of saying thank you for your most generous financial support. Once again, go to unlimitedgrace.com or you can give by calling 844-41-GRACE. That's 844-414-7223. Please be sure to join us next time as once again we endeavor to put Christ at the center of our efforts so that lives might be transformed by his unlimited grace. This ministry is brought to you by Unlimited Grace Media and continues to be made possible through your generous financial support.