Lessons From the Lists
Tom Shrader walks through the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew 1 and Luke 3, explaining why Matthew traces the legal royal line through Joseph while Luke traces the blood line through Mary, together establishing Jesus' legitimate claim to the throne of David. He draws five practical lessons from these often-skimmed passages: all Scripture is inspired and worthy of study, God always keeps His promises, God destroys barriers between sinners and Himself, His grace overcomes human sinfulness, and His love for His people is relentless. The teaching closes with a pastoral reflection on how these truths sustain believers in grief and everyday life.
“God makes a promise and he keeps it. You can stake your life and your death on it.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: A Study Of The Life Of Jesus Christ (2003/2004)
Recorded: 2003 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 47 min
Themes: grace, promises, genealogy, scripture, hope, grief, forgiveness, love, grieving a loss, doubting god's promises, feeling unworthy, new believer, struggling with sin, parent, searching for hope, everyday christian
Scripture: Matthew 1:1-17, Luke 3:23-38, John 1:1-18, Genesis 3:15, Genesis 38, Joshua 2, Ezra 2:61-62, Matthew 13:55-56, John 7, Luke 1:34-35, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, 2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 3, Galatians 3:26-28, Romans 5:8, Acts 2:22-23, 1 John 4:9-11, Philippians 1:6
Theological Themes: biblical inspiration, messianic prophecy, davidic covenant, incarnation, redemptive history, inerrancy, typology, divine faithfulness
Full Transcript
Introduction
I want to thank Neil, who taught last week at the 9 and 11 o'clock services. Tim taught in the afternoon, and Chris taught in the morning over in the worship center. We were away in Houston and San Antonio for two different engagements. We were at Second Baptist Church in Houston — you may be familiar with it, 35,000 members — and it was interesting to be in a culture so different from our own. The South is just very different, and I don't just mean in external ways. Even in the church, it's a very different culture. The whole church becomes the focal point and brings people to campus, and our philosophy here is a little different. It's not to say one is right and one is wrong — it's simply interesting to be in a different setting. We were there doing outreach to business people, and then we went to San Antonio at the end of the year for a pro-athletes outreach focused on major league baseball.
Pro-athletes outreach is something we book three or four years in advance, and I've done six or seven football and baseball conferences. What amazes me is how young these guys are getting. There was a kid at this one — and I mean he was a kid. He didn't shave, and honestly I didn't know if he was old enough to drive. So I asked him, "Are you somebody's son?" He said, "No, I'm in the minor leagues." I said, "Well, how old are you?" He said, "I just turned 18." Obviously he hadn't signed out of college — he'd signed straight out of high school. I ask all of them the same thing: "Are you any good? Are you very good?" He said, "Yeah." I asked if they'd given him a signing bonus, and he said yes. I said, "Well, what did they pay you?" He said, "$4.2 million." I said, "Well, then you're just average."
There was a kid there from a little town in Florida, just right out of this small Mayberry-type town, thrust into the middle of all of this. It's fun to spend time with them, because — and you may not believe this — they fight the same issues you fight. What do I do with my kids? What do we do about school when we're traveling? It's a great time. And as good as it is, I didn't want to go. My mom used to send us to my grandma's house in the summer, and I'd say, "I don't want to go." I was on the plane saying to Susan, "I don't want to go to Houston, I don't want to go to San Antonio." But we landed around 2:30, went home, showered, and I was back here to worship with you at the six o'clock service, which was really meaningful for me.
Continuing Our Study in the Life of Jesus Christ
We are continuing our study in the life of Jesus Christ, harmonizing the four Gospels and bringing them together. We have provided an introduction of sorts by looking at John chapter one, verses 1 through 18. Today we are going to look at two passages of Scripture, and I am not going to put them on the screen, so you will need to get your Bibles out. You will need to mark two different passages because we are going to move back and forth between them. First, open to Matthew's Gospel, chapter one. Then also turn to Luke's Gospel, chapter three, verse 23.
As you look at those two passages, you will discover very quickly that you are looking at genealogies — a series of names in which so-and-so is the father of so-and-so, or so-and-so is the son of so-and-so. There might be a tendency to move over them very quickly. I tend to be notorious for not reading the introductions and forewords of books, and I am sure I am poorer for it. I remember when I was teaching one of the first books I ever taught — Philippians or Ephesians, I don't recall which, but let's say Ephesians. I read those first two verses: "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." I thought, well, we can skip that and get down to "Blessed be the God." But I realized I couldn't skip it — God wrote it — and we ended up spending two weeks in those two verses.
The same thing happens with a book like James. James identifies himself: "James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad: greetings." We open that and spend a full hour studying just that one verse. There is a tendency here to want to skip the genealogies. We have to remember that all of these words are not the words of men but are truly the Word of God, as 1 Thessalonians 2:13 reminds us.
Why the Genealogies Are Here
What you have in front of you is this genealogy, and I believe we can establish fairly quickly why it is here. Matthew and Luke have the same end in mind: to establish Jesus' authentic, legitimate claim to the throne of David — to demonstrate His pedigree, His legal claim. Both of them have that purpose. However, they accomplish it in two different ways, because they are writing to two different audiences, and so the genealogies you will see are significantly different — so different, in fact, that for many commentators...
The Importance of Genealogy
Scholars have produced some problems as they have tried to bring these two genealogies together and ask why Luke has certain names that Matthew does not, and vice versa. We will try to address some of that today.
In Matthew 1, verse one, Matthew writes this: "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." That word "book" can refer to the idea of an account or a record — a record of genealogy, a book of beginnings, a book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Genealogy was very important to the Jewish people. Pedigree was important to establish.
This concern for lineage goes all the way back to when the people entered Canaan. They were promised the land, and they had to be able to demonstrate that pedigree, demonstrate that link, in order to have a claim to it. The land was for all the people except those who were descendants of Levi — the Levites — who were priests. Ezra chapter two, verses 61 and 62, tells us that after the exile from Babylon, certain sons of the priests were not allowed to serve in the priesthood because they had lost their ancestral registration, it could not be located, and so they were denied that right. Ancestry was that important.
Ultimately, ancestry was important because the person who laid claim to messiahship had to be able to trace their lineage back to David. That had to be in place. Here is something significant: in 70 AD, when the temple was destroyed, all the genealogies were destroyed with it. No person alive today could trace their genealogy back far enough, and no person since then could legitimately stake a claim to messiahship. That is an important issue, and clearly it is in Matthew's mind as he writes this genealogy.
Matthew's Purpose and Audience
Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience, and his singular purpose is to prove to them who Jesus Christ is. That needed to be proved because there was all sorts of skepticism. Consider Matthew chapter 13, where Jesus came into His hometown and began teaching in the synagogue. The people were astonished and said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?" All of a sudden Jesus is teaching and beginning to reveal who He really is.
Remember, He had walked into the synagogue, read the passage of the day — the passage that speaks of the Messiah who would come, when the blind would see and the lame would walk and the deaf would hear — and then He rolled up the scroll, sat down, and said, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled right here, in Me." The people responded by saying, in effect, "How can this be? We know this man." As a side note, verses 55 and 56 of Matthew 13 are also important when engaging with the Catholic teaching that Mary was forever a virgin. Those verses present real obstacles to that doctrine, because they reference Jesus's brothers — naming four of them — and His sisters, plural, implying at least two. That begins to challenge that teaching.
Skepticism in Jerusalem
In John chapter 7, Jesus comes into Jerusalem and is speaking publicly. The people are saying, "The rulers — do they really know this is the Christ? However, we know where this man is from, and whenever the Christ comes, we will not know where He is from." They were confused, essentially saying, "We know too much about this man — it cannot be Him." A little later in that same chapter, some of the multitude heard His words and said, "He is certainly a prophet." Others said, "This is the Christ." And still others objected, "Surely the Christ is not going to come from Galilee, is He?"
The thinking was that the Messiah could not come from a place like Galilee — it would be like suggesting the Messiah would come from some small, unremarkable town that no one takes seriously. Nothing good could come from there. As they put it, "Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?" Matthew understands this Jewish mindset completely, and he writes precisely to address it and declare these truths.
The Meaning Behind the Names
So Matthew says this is a book of genealogy — a record of beginnings, a record of origins. The origins of whom? Of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew name Yeshua, which means "Jehovah saves." Christ is the Greek form of a Hebrew word that in English means Messiah — the anointed one. Matthew understands exactly what he is doing. He is laying his cards on the table in the very first verse: this is the record of the origins of Jesus the Messiah, the anointed one.
Three times more often than Mark, Luke, and John combined, Matthew will refer to Old Testament Scripture. He is showing that this is Jesus — the One the angel announced to Joseph in Matthew 1:21: "You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." Now, there are two genealogies before us — one in Matthew and one in Luke. Rather than reading through them line by line in a way that might cause us to lose the thread, we will hear them read by Max McLean, whose Scripture recordings many of you will be familiar with. Let us turn to Matthew chapter one, verse one, and listen.
The Two Genealogies
Isaac, the father of Jacob. Jacob, the father of Judah and his brothers. Judah, the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar. Perez, the father of Hezron. Hezron, the father of Ram. Ram, the father of Amminadab. Amminadab, the father of Nashun. Nashun, the father of Salmon. Salmon, the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab. Boaz, the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth. Obed, the father of Jesse. And Jesse, the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife. Solomon, the father of Rehoboam. Rehoboam, the father of Abijah. Abijah, the father of Asa. Asa, the father of Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat, the father of Jehoram. Jehoram, the father of Uzziah. Uzziah, the father of Jotham. Jotham, the father of Ahaz. Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah. Hezekiah, the father of Manasseh. Manasseh, the father of Ammon. Ammon, the father of Josiah. And Josiah the father of Jakaniah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.
After the exile to Babylon, Jakaniah was the father of Shaltiel. Shaltiel, the father of Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel, the father of Abiud. Abiud, the father of Eliakim. Eliakim, the father of Azor. Azor, the father of Zadok. Zadok, the father of Achim. Achim, the father of Eliud. Eliud, the father of Eleazar. Eleazar, the father of Matan. Matan, the father of Jacob. And Jacob, the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
Thus, there were 14 generations in all from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the exile to Babylon, and 14 from the exile to the Christ. That is Matthew's account and Matthew's genealogy.
Luke's Genealogy
Now turn to Luke chapter three, verse 23. There are some things you will notice very quickly — the two genealogies are very different in their names, though you will also see some striking similarities. You will see sections where it moves rapidly from name to name, and then all of a sudden Luke has inserted names that are absent from Matthew's genealogy. That presents all sorts of issues and questions, which we will address in a moment. But let us first work our way through the text.
Luke chapter three, verse 23: "Now Jesus himself was about 30 years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Janii, the son of Joseph, the son of Marathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Eslai, the son of Negei, the son of Maith, the son of Marathias, the son of Simethere, the son of Joseph, the son of Jodah, the son of Joannen, the son of Risa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Sheoltuil, the son of Neri, the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, the son of Joshua, the son of Eliesir, the son of Joerim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eleikim, the son of Melia, the son of Menna, the son of Matatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Noshen, the son of Aminadab, the son of Ram, the son of Khazrian, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terra, the son of Nehor, the son of Sarag, the son of Ru, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, the son of Canaan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lambek, the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Canaan, the son of Enoch, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God."
The son of God. That phrase at the end carries enormous weight. You hear it building — the son of, the son of, the son of — all the way back to Adam, and ultimately to God Himself.
Two Wrong Responses
There are two tendencies when encountering a passage like this. One is to simply blow through it and say it doesn't matter, moving on to the next thing. The other is to get so bogged down in each individual personality that you lose sight of the larger point. MacArthur writes this: Matthew's intent was not to have the reader digress into a study of each person listed, but to show that all of these persons point to the royalty of Christ. Let us not miss that.
When we get to Hebrews 11, we are not simply given name after name after name. We are given a name and a study — each one an illustration of faith. We could not even begin to unpack the names in these genealogies if we wanted to, because the vast majority of them are mentioned nowhere else in Scripture. We simply do not know anything about them.
What the Lists Reveal
There are some general observations worth making as you read through these lists. There are giants of the faith — David and Abraham — and then there are dozens of men you have never heard of. There are some very godly men and women, Mary among them, but there are also some real scoundrels. There are Jews, and there are Gentiles. It is a very mixed bag.
What is particularly significant, I think, is the inclusion of five women. In Jewish culture, women would never be included in a genealogy. They were considered less than men — they were chattel. Their names simply would not appear. And yet here they are. Furthermore, these are not women of unquestioned reputation. Each one carries a story of somewhat questionable character.
The Women in the Line
Consider Tamar. It is worth making a note here, because Genesis 38 tells quite a story. Tamar is married to Er, a son of Judah, and then Er dies. She is given in marriage to the next brother, and he too is gone — God takes him out. There is a younger brother, but he is really too young for marriage. Meanwhile, Tamar desperately wants children. In that culture, to be without children was a stigma she could not bear. So she dresses as a prostitute, seduces Judah himself, and that is how she enters the Messianic line. It is a pretty sordid tale.
The Women in the Genealogy
That's Tamar. Then there's Rahab. She didn't dress up like a prostitute one time — that's what she was. You know her story from Joshua 2, where the spies come into the land, she protects them and hides them, and she ends up in the Messianic line. She married Salmon and is the mother of Boaz, who is the great-grandfather of David.
She's in this line, and then there's Ruth. Ruth is a foreigner — she's a Moabite. She moves into this story from among a people who were pagans, and she gets grafted into this line. Then there is Bathsheba. You know her story. She's a Hittite, also a foreigner. Matthew points out that she is the wife of Uriah, which reminds us — and certainly any Jewish reader — of the sin in David's life, as he lusted after her, had her husband killed, and bore a son by her. And then there's Mary.
Here, in this genealogy, is a great reminder that Jesus Christ is the great liberator of women. Christianity liberates. You see it right there in the list.
Matthew Descends, Luke Ascends
Let me give you a couple of contrasts and comparisons that I think are observations you would pick up very quickly — you may have already noticed them if you've read through these passages. Matthew descends in his order, going from father to son to father to son. Luke reverses the process, ascending from son to father, son to father.
When you listen to Luke, he keeps going: "the son of, the son of, the son of." You see the example in Matthew 1:2 — "To Abraham was born Isaac, to Isaac, Jacob, to Jacob, Judah and his brothers" — and it continues down through verse 16: "To Jacob was born Joseph, the husband of Mary, by whom was born Jesus the Christ." That is the descending order. Luke reverses it. He starts with Jesus rather than ending with Him, saying, "When He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age, being supposedly the son of Joseph, the son of Eli," and goes all the way through to "the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God."
Both Genealogies Affirm the Virgin Birth
There is another important observation. Look at the pivotal verses in both accounts. Both Matthew and Luke are deliberate in pointing out that Joseph is not the biological father of Jesus Christ. Matthew does it this way: "To Jacob was born Joseph, the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born." The word "whom" there is singular and feminine — it connects with Mary, not with Joseph. It speaks of the virgin birth.
Luke had already written about the virgin birth in his Gospel. He records in Luke chapter 1 that the angel appears to Mary and tells her she will have this child. Mary responds in Luke 1:34, "How can this be since I am a virgin?" The angel answered and said, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and for this reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God."
Luke goes out of his way in the same manner in the genealogy itself: "When Jesus began His ministry, He was about thirty years of age, being — as was supposed — the son of Joseph, the son of Eli." Both Matthew and Luke preserved this truth carefully.
Two Different Lines, One Qualified King
Going back to our contrasts and comparisons, Matthew's list is obviously much shorter than Luke's. Many of the names in Luke's account are not recorded in Matthew's, and each genealogy had a very distinct purpose. Matthew is demonstrating Jesus' legal claim to royalty. Luke is tracing Jesus' ancestral claim to royalty.
John MacArthur offers this insight: Matthew's intent was to validate Jesus' royal claim by showing His legal descent from David through Joseph, who was Jesus' legal father though not His natural father. Luke's intent was to trace Jesus' actual royal blood ancestry through His mother, thereby establishing His racial lineage from David. Matthew follows the royal line through David and Solomon, David's son and the successor to the throne. Luke follows the royal line through Nathan, another son of David.
Jesus was therefore the blood descendant of David through Mary and the legal descendant of David through Joseph. Genealogically, Jesus was perfectly qualified to take the throne of David, and that was the point both of these writers had in mind. So what you have in front of you are two genealogies you can lay side by side and read. I don't think they are given primarily for us to take apart and analyze each individual person, but to see that Jesus had an authentic, genuine, and legitimate claim to the throne of David.
Five Lessons From the Lists
Now, setting that aside, let me give you five things I have called "lessons from the lists" — five important things we can learn from these genealogies that we might have easily passed over.
The first is this: all Scripture is inspired by God. Second Timothy 3:16 says, "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness." We have to be very careful here. Experience and common sense tell me that there are verses I will return to over and over again — I go to Ephesians 2:8–9 repeatedly. I am not necessarily camped out in Luke chapter 3, verse 27 on a regular basis. But when we are handling any verse, we are handling the Word of God, and that is a very important thing to understand. It is not for us to pick and choose. It is there for a reason.
God Always Keeps His Promises
The second lesson is this: God always keeps His promises. If we go back to Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, God is speaking to the serpent and says, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed." It is as early as Genesis 3 that we see the prophetic promise of the virgin birth. Her seed — that is what
God's Faithfulness to His Promises
All the way back to Adam and Eve, there is a promise that God has made. God is faithful and He delivers on that promise. From the opening pages of Scripture to Matthew — 1,440 pages of how God is working through the nation of Israel in His faithfulness, picturing Christ who would come, foreshadowing the Lamb of God who would come to take away the sins of the world. God is diligent. God is a faithful giver of promises and He does not waver.
Peter addresses the same thing at the other end of the book, in 2 Peter 3. People were saying to Peter, "Jesus said He's coming again — where is He? He said He's coming soon, and it's been a couple of decades now. Where is He?" Well, we need a little context here. What is "soon" in God's time frame?
If I call Susan around four or five o'clock in the evening and she asks when I'll be home, I'll say, "I'll be home soon." But if I'm not there for 2,000 years, that changes things. When is "soon" in God's economy? A day is as 1,000 years, so Jesus has been gone what — two days? Do not think that because Jesus hasn't come yet He isn't coming. His promises can be believed.
A guarantee is only as good as the one granting it. If I buy a Ginsu knife with a lifetime guarantee and it breaks, but I have no idea where to find Joe Ginsu, that guarantee isn't worth much. A promise is only as good as the one who makes it. I've made promises I've broken — something intervened, something beyond my control, something I never anticipated. And people have made promises to me and broken them, either for the same reason or because they never intended to keep them in the first place. That is not the way God is. God makes a promise and He keeps it.
Why God's Immutability Matters
I came across something the other day in the front of one of my old Bibles — a note I had written: five ways to eliminate stress in your life. Number one: remember things are temporary. Number two: remember God is in control. Number three: remember God forgives sin. Number four: remember God works all things together for good. Those four alone, with the supporting scriptures, could fill a sermon. But let me give you the fifth one: God is immutable.
Why is that important? Because if God is not immutable — if God is changing — then how do I know His promises can be believed? If Jesus isn't the same yesterday, today, and forever, if there is a changingness with God, if He is a shifting shadow, then I cannot trust what He said. Maybe He changed His mind. But He is immutable. He makes a promise, and you can bank on it. You can stake your life and your death on it.
This is why these genealogies are practical. They remind us that God keeps His promise, and that is practical. Right there in those lists is one of five ways to eliminate stress in your life.
A Thursday That Didn't Go as Planned
Let me give you an example of what it looks like to lean on that. About two and a half weeks ago, on a Thursday, I was going through my usual routine. My life does not vary much. If I go to a restaurant, I'll order the same thing. I never try anything new. That's just how I think. So my Thursdays are all the same. I get up a little before five, do my morning routine, get ready, drive to Scottsdale, teach in the morning, use the three hours in between for business in central Phoenix — visiting people, whatever needs to be done — teach again, then come back. Some weeks I'll stop by the church, or I'll go home, take care of some things, read the mail, take a short nap, and get back up to prepare, because Friday and Saturday are intense study days. So it was Thursday night.
When Feelings and Knowledge Collide
The phone rings, and Susan is great at screening calls and taking care of things — not just for me, but for anyone who wants to speak to Tom when they're selling a weed eater or something. So I could hear her, and she sounded pretty unusual in the way she was handling it. Finally she said, "Let me get you Tom," and she gave me the phone.
I picked it up, and the person identified herself. It was a lady from the church, from Priority Living, and she was just crying and crying, heaving. Then she disappeared, and another lady from the church came on and said, "I'm so-and-so from East Valley. She just got a call saying her husband was killed today. Thirty-six years old, totally unexpected. Will you come over to the house?" I said, "Sure. Give me directions, and give me the phone number for when I get lost, and I'll come over."
The Problem With Dying Quick
Make sure you understand this, because it's interesting. We always think, "If I could die, I'd like to die quick." Here's the problem with dying quick: there's no time to say goodbye. I know how agonizing it is to have somebody you love who dies slowly, but at least you have an opportunity to minister to them and them to you. You love them, you get to care for them, you get to say goodbye. That's significant.
Here's a guy who was 36 years old, so you're not expecting anything. The call you expect is him saying, "I'm going to be a little late — go ahead and take care of dinner." That's the call you expect. Not that he's dead.
Just Show Up
So I came in, and the friends were starting to arrive. She was there, crying, doing exactly what you would expect — just heaving. We'd sit down, she'd start to say something, I'd start to answer, and then somebody else would come in. The minute they came in, she'd go through the whole process again — and you can understand that.
I said, "Listen, we need to get away. We need to go outside or do something." She said, "Let's go for a walk." So we went out into the street. All the way over there, I had been saying, "All right, Lord, give me wisdom. Help me be quiet. I don't need to be giving a lot of answers here. I just need to be here." This is one of those moments where nobody is looking for a bunch of answers.
There's a little practical advice in that, because the tendency in a moment like that is to stay away because you don't know what to say. You don't need to say anything. Just show up and do your thing.
Tell Me What You Know
So we're walking along, and she's talking and talking. Finally, after maybe fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes, I said to her, "Tell me what you're thinking. Tell me what you're feeling." She said, "I don't know — how did it happen? Why did it happen? Did he do something wrong? Did somebody else do something wrong? Was it an accident? Was there a machine malfunction?" She said, "I feel terrible saying this, because it's only been forty minutes, but where do I go? What do I do next? What about the family?"
Aren't those the things that would be going through your mind? Then I said, "Look at me. You told me what you felt. You told me what you were thinking. Now tell me what you know."
She had been in Priority Living that very morning. She said, "You were just talking about this — about the Bible as the Word of God." I said, "That doesn't help me. Tell me what you know." And she said, "Well, I know that God will never leave me or forsake me. I know that God won't test me beyond what I can endure. I know that God is sovereign. I know that God is in control. I know that God forgives." And she just rattled off a couple dozen things.
It was a magnificent moment — probably a moment she would never have anticipated she was capable of having. I think she was even surprised, in retrospect, at how much of God's Word was in her. When we got back to the door, I was able to say what I wanted to say: "Don't worry. Everything is going to be okay." And that doesn't mean you aren't going to hurt.
You Want That Grief
The next time we talked, she said, "I just don't want to hurt like this." I said, "Yes, you do want to hurt like this. If you don't hurt like that, then you don't love that person. You want that grief, and you want that pain, and you want that hardship — because that's because you love them."
People were coming in and saying, "Well, she needs to get closure on this and put it behind her." No. You are not going to get closure on this. This is somebody you love. You are going to have a hole in your heart forever, and that is the way it is supposed to be.
You are not a plant or a dog. You are a human being. There will be times — and some of you who have lost loved ones know this — where you may go a day or two or three, and then all of a sudden you feel guilty because you went so long without thinking about them. Then you will hear a song, or smell a cologne or a perfume, or see a billboard or a movie clip, and it will thrust you right back into all of it again. That is natural, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Natural Versus Supernatural
But here is the key: we don't live natural, do we? We live supernatural. Natural is what I think, what I feel. Supernatural is what I know. And I know that God has listed —
God Keeps His Promises
Those promises — I know He will keep them. I know that He who began a good work in you and me will continue it until the day of Christ Jesus. Why? Because He promised it. He said He would. He keeps His promises. That genealogy tells me that. Jesus Christ was delivered up, as Peter preached in Acts chapter 2, verses 22 and 23, by the predetermined plan of God. That was God's plan, placed from the beginning of time, to redeem you and me.
God Destroys the Barriers Between Sinners and Himself
Here is a third thing I learned: God destroys the barriers between sinners and Himself. We see that in the genealogy. We see it when Jesus comes. Galatians 3:26–28: "You're all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you were baptized into Christ and have clothed yourself with Christ. There's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither slave nor free, there's neither male or female, you're all one in Christ." The barriers are broken down. If you're here today and you don't know Christ, come to Him. That's all you need to do. Come.
God's Grace Overcomes Man's Sinfulness
God's grace overcomes our sinfulness. I cannot out-sin God's grace. We have a temptation, I think, to minimize this idea of sin. I'll look at somebody like Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden or Jeffrey Dahmer or the freeway sniper and think, oh, they're terrible. They're terrible. I may be a sinner, but I'm nothing like them. Let me help you out here: it does not take any more of God's grace to save them than it does to save you. God's grace overcomes sin. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, you, me.
As I was working through and studying, I was reading J.C. Ryle, and I don't know why, but he's moving along and I'm tracking with him, and all of a sudden he puts this quote in. I thought, if it was significant to him, maybe it would be a significant reminder to us. He says, "Grace does not run in families. It needs something more than good examples and good advice to make us children of God. They're not born again of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor the will of man but of God. Praying parents should pray night and day that their children may be born of the Spirit." What he is saying is that grace overcomes the sinfulness of man, but it is not something we should presume upon.
God Has a Deep Love for His People
And here is the last point. God has a deep, deep love for His people. That is what I see in these genealogies. I happen to be a college football fan, not an NFL fan, and I was watching yesterday when I saw something I had not seen at a football game in years and years: a guy held up a John 3:16 sign in the end zone after an extra point. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, and whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." Every time I think of love, I think of it in my context or a human context, and it is always inferior to God's love. God so loved the world that He gave.
Romans 5:8: "God demonstrated his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." While we were separated from Him, Christ died on our behalf so that we would have eternal life.
I was meeting with some young guys this week — some of them married six or eight months, others getting married soon — and I asked them what they had learned, what had surprised them about marriage. We started talking about love, and they said something I think is simply true: wives tend to love husbands more sacrificially than husbands love wives. It is not supposed to be that way — we are supposed to love as Christ loved the church — but when it comes to sacrificial, selfless love, it seems more often demonstrated by the wife than the husband. I am not saying that is right; I am saying that is what I have seen.
Guys tend not to be great selfless lovers. I have talked to dozens of men about this, and the closest a man will ever come to unconditional love is the birth of his first child. It is a very strange thing. I will watch heads nod as we compare notes. You are in that room, you watch that birth, and it is not simply that you think, wow, look at God, isn't He great. It is that all of a sudden there is this six-and-a-half-pound, twenty-two-inch person, and you feel these extraordinary emotions you don't even have words for. And the only reason you feel that love for that child is because it is your child. If I took that baby away and handed you the one next door, you would not have anywhere near the same feelings. Even there — and I am not just throwing men under the bus, because this applies to male and female alike — we are so far away from the love of God.
The Love That Is Almost Too Much to Hold
Are there moments when this begins to sink into you? Because there are in my life. First John 4:9–10: "By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world so that we may live through him. And this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sin. We love because he first loved us."
That is an overwhelming thought. And unfortunately, in my life — and perhaps in yours — it is a thought I can spend so much time near that I become numb to it. Two weeks ago, when I taught, I was very emotional at all six services. Maybe you were there, and maybe you were watching. Some of you, I think, were concerned, and I appreciate that.
When Familiar Truth Strikes Fresh
Some of you expressed concern — not many, but some — and it ran along the lines of, "Is there something wrong with Tom? How can he be so emotional?" Let me tell you what was going on. It was the exact opposite of something wrong. Something very right was going on.
I am in the middle of my life, just like yours, looking at all the things going on around me. I came in with a prepared lesson and came face-to-face with this truth: the Word became flesh and dwelled among us, and He showed us the glory of the One above. He demonstrated that He loved us, that He died for us while we were yet sinners. We who believe receive life, and those who believe are not born of blood, nor of will, nor the decision of man, but the decision of God. That entire day, that truth hung over me.
I teach nine times a week. One of the great frustrations I have is that I can grow so familiar with this that I begin to move on to deeper things and take it for granted. God demonstrated His own love for us — how? While we were yet sinners. Not because your act was cleaned up, not because your life was in order, not because you deserved it — while you were a sinner, Christ died for us. I believe there have to be times, preferably not publicly, where you are simply swept away in the emotion of that. That is a big deal.
What a Genealogy Can Hold
Isn't it interesting? There is a genealogy, and I was ready to blow past it and say, "Let's get on to the real stuff — let's get to the meat." And right there in that genealogy, God is saying, "Wait a minute. All this Scripture is inspired. I keep My promise. The barriers are broken down. My grace is sufficient for you, a sinful, undeserving man. My love is relentless for My people."
He is not going to let you pull away from Him. He who began a good work in you will continue it until the day of Christ Jesus — in spite of you. Now that is a truly awesome thought. We use the word awesome all the time: "This is an awesome meal." It is a meal. But here is an awesome thought: the Word became flesh. It rolls off our lips, and most of the time it never gets two seconds of actual thought. When you stop and think about it, it captivates your mind and puts the whole world in perspective.
Love God, Love People
I was thinking about this while I was away: what is the Christian life like? They came to Jesus and asked, "What is the great commandment?" You know what He said — I do not need to tell you. Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor. I think this is the Christian life. I know we wish it were more complex than this, but it is not. Love God and love people.
Why? Because He first loved us, and He demonstrated it by sending Jesus to die so we would have eternal life. That is a magnificent truth. It can get passed over not just in a genealogy, but in a passage as clear as "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." What an incredible word God gives us. What a great tool He places in our lives — magnificent truth that we have the privilege of celebrating every single week.