Matthew 1:1-17 | The Sin, Horror, and Redemption of Christmas | Andrew Gutierrez

December 24, 2017 Speaker: Andrew Gutierrez

Topic: Stand-alone messages Passage: Matthew 1:1–17

Well, I’d ask you to open your Bibles not to John this morning, but to Matthew. We’ll take a break from our time in John, and I want you to turn to Matthew chapter 1.

Just for those of you wondering, I think we’ve got three more messages in John, perhaps four, and then we will be doing something else together. And I assure you, it will be Biblical. In case you were wondering. My Bible just kind of opens to John, so I’ve got to work to get to Matthew.

Matthew 1, verses 1 through 17 is the text for us today, and if you’ve glanced down at it since I’ve said that, you may be asking, seriously? Yes. I want to point out a few things to you that are included in the genealogy of Matthew.

Genealogy is often something in your daily Bible reading that you kind of skip over pretty quickly. But as in any genealogy, if you take the time to go through it and study what is revealed, I think you’ll come away with some gold. And I think we’ll do that this morning as well.

I’m not going to explain every name and the story behind every name. I’m actually going to focus you on three people in this list. So it’s not going to be an exhaustive exposition of these seventeen verses, but I do want to highlight three people to you.

And there’s a reason I want to do that for you. I’ve entitled this message “The Sin, Horror, and Redemption of Christmas.” The sin, horror, and redemption of Christmas.

I know that we are supposed to be talking a lot about jingle bells and joy and merriment and things like that, and I believe that that is certainly appropriate in the Christian life. But I also know that some—some of you, some out there in the world—don’t always see the holidays as joyful, don’t always see Christmas as a merry time. And while I believe, which I often say from this pulpit, that a Christian—every Christian—should be an optimistic person because of what we believe in and what we believe about the future, I also believe that Christians are realists as well.

So I think sometimes you may hear a person say something, like express some hope in some thing. Maybe it’s as little as their favorite team coming back from a large point spread, or they’re losing by a large amount of points and the one fanatic who just knows his team always come through in the end says, they’re gonna do it, and, I’m an optimist. And the friend says, well, they’re not gonna do it; I’m a realist.

So maybe you’ve seen those two things pit against each other. But the opposite of optimism is not realism. The opposite of optimism is pessimism. I believe that Christians should be optimistic realists. Optimistic realists. And I think if you look at the incarnation of Jesus, if you look at the whole ministry of Jesus—better yet, if you look at the entire Scriptures—you’re going to see optimistic realism.

Sometimes I think that if you go to some Christian environments, there’s kind of this attitude that we’re always happy all the time. Nothing bad really happens to us. In some circles, there can often be a jolly charade that causes people to pretend that everybody is happy all the time because Jesus rocks. But that’s not real. There is joy to be found. But there’s not joy to be found because we kind of forget about our difficulties; there’s joy to be found because Jesus comes into our difficulties and meets us where we are.

I remember hearing the story of one author who said that a friend of his and his wife’s had experienced a miscarriage, and they were seeking to console this lady and care for her. And around the time where she was mourning the loss of her child, she left her current church that she was at and went to a church with actually horrible theology and went to this church that did not tell the truth about the Scriptures, and she knew it.

And they were puzzled by this, and they asked her, why are you going there? Why did you leave your church, the church you were going to? And she said about her former church, the church she had been going to, she said, I couldn’t stand the hilarity of it all. It just felt like this Tonight Show. There wasn’t any real help for people who were hurting.

And so while I am often encouraged when the Christmas season comes, while I love the Christmas season, while I love the joy that it brings—and I do believe that it brings joy as we reflect on the truths of Scripture—I also know that there is a real sense where it’s not always easy.

And so by looking at three people in this genealogy this morning, I want to flesh out this idea that Jesus doesn’t come down to immediately take us to heaven and free us from every single one of our problems. But he actually has chosen to enter into this world with us, to be present with us, and one day to relieve us from all these problems.

So I want you to see this morning that there are three examples of redemption resulting from sin and horror. Three examples of redemption in this genealogy resulting from sin and horror.

The ministry of Jesus doesn’t call us to act like everything is okay when life is difficult. The ministry of Jesus calls us to believe that he is with us in the pain and in the trials. The ministry of Jesus is not about removing ourselves from reality for a couple of hours on Sunday or for a few weeks at Christmastime. We’re not trying to get you to kind of forget about your problems. We’re trying to show you that Jesus is sovereign over problems and Jesus is near to the brokenhearted.

Jesus entered into the lives of people who were full of sin and who possessed checkered pasts. Jesus entered into his creation to be present and active in order to bring about his redemption. This is what our Lord does. He doesn’t stand at a distance, shake his head, but he humbles himself, comes down to live among us in order to win us and save us.

So the context of this passage is in verse 1. This is the book of the genealogy of Jesus, or the book of the genesis of Jesus, or the beginning of Jesus. This is his story. This is his family line. This is his family tree. “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1).

Now I told you I’m not going to explain every single detail in this genealogy but instead focus on three people, but just at the very beginning, this is a story—and Matthew is arguing the fact—that Jesus is the son of David. That’s the first person he mentions, apart from Christ, in this book. Matthew’s whole book argues that Jesus is the King, the Messiah, the Chosen One, the Anointed One.

And so his genealogy starts with David. And what would the Israelites have thought, or what would the Jewish people at that time in the first century thought when they heard the name David? King. Matthew is showing us that Jesus is King.

He’s not just the son of David; he’s also the son of Abraham. He comes in the line of the one who started the nation of Israel, Abraham. Jesus comes in the line of the father of our faith, Abraham.

So this is the context that we find ourselves in. Matthew is making the argument that Jesus is the King, and he’s the one that comes from the line of Abraham, and remember what God told Abraham. I will start a great nation with you. You’ll have many, many, many descendants. And he didn’t say, and I’m going to bless those physical descendants only. No, he said, in you the nations of the world will be blessed. So Jesus isn’t just a king of Israel like David; he’s the King over the whole entire world, is the argument from Matthew. And you see that played out throughout Matthew.

Well, I want you, like I said, to focus on three people. And what’s striking about the three people that I’m going to focus you on is that they are not men. These are women. There are five women included in this genealogy. We’re going to look at three of them this morning. Three examples of redemption resulting from sin and horror.

1.  Tamar – A Redeemed Family

The first is Tamar [pronouncing as Tay-mar], or Tamar [pronouncing as Te-mar]. Tamar, found in verse 3. We’ll pick up in verse 2. “Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah”—Jacob actually had a number of children, but we focus here on Judah because Judah was the tribe that the Messiah would come from. So Matthew focuses us on Judah.

“[A]nd Judah was the father of [two children] Perez and Zerah by Tamar” (Matthew 1:3). Now let’s just pause there. Now I’m going to tell you a little bit about the story of Judah and his children by their mother, Tamar. And let me start it by saying it this way: Judah had two children by Tamar. Tamar, before she had Judah’s children, was actually his daughter-in-law. So, right off the bat you can tell there’s controversy. Something happened. Something’s wrong.

If you go to Genesis 38, you’ll read a story about incest, prostitution, and deception. Judah had chosen Tamar, his daughter-in-law, to be the wife of his firstborn son Er. So Judah chooses Tamar to be the wife of his firstborn son Er. Er died, and so Tamar did what she was supposed to do and married his brother—Er’s brother—Onan.

Now Onan had children already. And Onan was supposed to provide Tamar with children. But he didn’t want to do that. Because if he did that, then the more children that came in, the less of an inheritance there would be for his own children who he had previously. So Onan refuses to have a child with Tamar. He goes through the…well, I’ll just leave it at that. You can read Genesis 38. Some of you know the story. He refuses to father her children.

Tamar, desiring to have children and with the fact that it’s not happening in the ways that it should be happening, decides to dress up like a prostitute. Now I know that we’ve got young ones here, but basically Tamar decided to treat another man like her husband who was not her husband. So this is what she does.

And she not only dresses up like this, but she does so for the purpose of seducing her father-in-law, Judah. Judah is away on a trip; she is at the place where Judah goes, and she seduces him and becomes pregnant. And later on, a couple months later, it’s discovered that Judah is the father of her children. And again, I’m making this long story short. But she bore two children by Judah—Perez and Zerah. Perez would be one of the great-great-great-great-grandfathers of Jesus, our Lord.

Now, if you do any study of the royal family in England, you’re going to find out that as soon as there happens to be scandal or sin, they try to keep it quiet. Stay away from the press. And it’s not just the royal family; it’s any high-profile celebrity or family. Let’s just pay someone money and kind of keep them away, out of the limelight. We don’t want people knowing all of the bad stuff.

Evidently, the Holy Spirit doesn’t care that you know the bad stuff about the family history of Jesus. And in fact, I would say more than the Holy Spirit doesn’t care, the Holy Spirit purposes for you to know about it. Why? Because Jesus came and embraced sinners. Jesus is the friend of sinners. He came into the curse.

He didn’t just come and sit on the throne in Israel and say, keep all the sinners away from me, and watch, I’ll do something great. He came down and jumped into the family line of those sinners and said, I’m going to identify with them. I’m going to be part of them. And in that way I will redeem them and bring them hope, even in horrible, horrendous situations.

And by the way, that’s just the second part of Tamar’s life. The first part is equally horrible. She was the victim of rape. It’s horrible. And God determines that his Son would come in her line, and even come in the line of her children who were born out of incest.

I want you to turn for a moment to Revelation 5. And I want you to, as you’re turning, picture the people who hear about this controversy between Judah and Tamar. Did you hear what Tamar did to Judah? Did you hear what Judah did to Tamar? Oh my goodness. And by the way, Judah was wealthy. Judah had possessions. Judah was well known. This is a scandal. This is a scandal full of immorality, and people would have been talking. Newspaper articles—I mean, this is front-page stuff.

Imagine hearing that. And imagine thinking, his life is over. His heritage or what comes after him—done. He’s ruined his life, ruined his reputation. And we’ve seen that certainly in the news in the last few months, haven’t we? Strong, powerful people involved in scandal, and they are done.

It’s not the end of Judah though. God doesn’t say, Judah messed up, so now I’m going to go actually to one of Jacob’s other twelve sons, and I’m going to kind of go to the best son, the son that’s never done anything wrong, and Jesus will come from his line. Well, there’s only one problem. That son doesn’t exist. There’s no perfect son of Jacob. There’s no perfect person in the entire world. Jesus is going to come from the stock of sinners. And I want you to see at the end of the Bible what happened with the tribe of Judah.

Revelation 5: “Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals” (Revelation 5:1).

Now, here’s the setting. John, the apostle John who wrote Revelation, who had the vision and wrote Revelation, is seeing this vision in heaven, and there’s this scroll from the one who sits on the throne. And the scroll was the title deed to the earth or really what would happen to the earth in the future. And so far it seems like what’s going to happen to the earth is only judgment, and it’s horrible. What’s going to happen to the earth is that because of all the sin that has happened for millennia, it’s going to end badly. There is guilt and shame and rape and incest and sin and horror, and that’s horrible. And there’s no one who is worthy to take the scroll and to complete what should happen to fix all of those problems.

What should happen to fix all of those problems is that there is judgment and punishment for evildoers, and there is redemption for those who have trusted in God, that there is a new heaven, so to speak. So there’s been pain for centuries and millennia, but there’s no one to fix it all, basically. There’s no one that can open the scroll and fix it all—judge the evildoers and reward those who follow Christ. It’s just all going to end badly.

Verse 2: “And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?’ And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it” (Revelation 5:2-3).

So there’s no final salvation. There’s no making sense of tragedy. There’s only guilt. There’s only shame. There’s only abuse. There’s only oppression. And there’s going to be no sense made of that all. If you’ve ever experienced the difficulty of a loved one dying, no sense will be made of that. It’s just going to be painful.

And so you see why, because no one can open the scroll and fix the world, John begins weeping. And in verse 4 he says, “[A]nd I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.”

Verse 5: “And one of the elders said to me, ‘Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of [what’s that word?] Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.’”

So, this is saying that because of what happened back in Genesis 38. The Lord still came from the line of Judah, and he’s the one that can open the scroll and fix and right all of the wrongs that have happened in human history. And he’s going to be known as the one coming from the tribe of Judah. And so right away when you read Judah, you think back; one of the things he’s going to make sense of is what happened back in Genesis 38. This is one who redeems. This is one who fixes. This is one who reverses curses.

John is told by the elder to look at the Lion of the tribe of Judah—and I love this. Verse 6: John turns around, “And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw”—and you expect him to say, I saw that Lion. “…I saw a Lamb standing, as thought it had been slain.”

You see, the way that Jesus Christ ultimately fixes the problem of sin is that he receives the punishment for it in the place of sinners. He is the sacrificial Lamb in that sense. That’s how he makes sense of it all. That’s how he fixes it. That’s how he redeems it. He dies for it. He suffers for it, so that others don’t have to suffer for it eternally. This is Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of a messed up tribe, coming to conquer and to redeem everything.

Matthew 1:21. Remember what the angel told Joseph? “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” He will save his tribe from their sins. He will save his nations from their sins. He will save you and me from our sins. Our God is a redeeming God. Our God knows about past sin. Our God understands what happened in that sinful circumstance, and our God redeems people. And he redeems families. He does the work of redemption.

If I were a friend of Tamar and Judah, I’d be tempted to hang my head in thinking, this is horrible. This is the end. But it’s not the end. Our God’s a redeeming God. We see that in Revelation 5.

When we went to Nicaragua a couple months ago—Brad and I and Mark—we went, and one of the things that is true there in Nicaragua is that there are a lot of messed up families. Just horrible family situations. And what often happens in the church there—and again most of the members of the church in Nicaragua are first-generation believers. They didn’t kind of follow this long family line of believers. They’re first-generation believers.

And what often happens is a believer is saved and won to Christ in a family, in a messed up family. First Christian maybe in decades and decades in that family. They’re won to Christ, and what often happens is, they start telling the gospel to their mothers, who have been steeped in false religion, or their fathers or their sisters and brothers. And slowly this family is converted.

So if you look back ten years ago and you see kind of the ruin of these families, it’s horrendous. Adultery, and even murder. Strife. All sorts of horrible situations. Yet down the line God has chosen that there is a person in that family that’s going to be won to me, and what happens through that person’s being won to Christ? They start to affect the rest of their family, and pretty soon a whole family has been changed.

This is what our God does. And some of you know that story in your family. Some of you were led to Christ by family members. Some of you have led family members to Christ. Our God is a redeeming God.

So if you look back twenty years at your family, and you look now, and you see little things that God has done and even big things that God has done. This is what he is like. He’s a redeeming God. Yes, there is sin. Yes, there is horror. But remember, remember the end of the Bible. He’s a redeemer.

And I would say this just as a believer, just as an encouragement to you. You are going to be in this world in many messed up situations. Family tension, family strife, workplace—whatever it may be. I would say this: Just as Christ came to this earth to serve and to give his life, come to any of those situations representing Christ. Represent Christ in the muck of this world. Be the embodiment of him. You have his spirit with you. John 1:14: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt [lived, stayed] among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Bring Christ to difficult situations. You bring Christ to difficult family meals this week. You bring Christ. And hopefully people will see him as glorious as they see you representing him by being gracious and truthful. Be gracious and truthful. And come and embrace family members. Be with family members. Be with friends who are going through difficult times and bring Christ with you. This is what he does.

So in Tamar and Judah we see that God is a redeemer.

2.  Rahab – A Changed Life

Secondly, I want to focus you on verse 5 back in Matthew 1. Verse 5. I want to focus you on Rahab. “…and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab.”

Again, most of the people in this list are men. God has a special place to use women. God is pro-women. God does not abuse women; God is pro-women. He uses them as instruments for his glory. Many of them are examples to us. This is the story of Rahab. And in Rahab you see a changed life. In Tamar you see a redeemed family, or even a redeemed tribe. In Rahab you see a changed life.

Her story is found in Joshua chapter 2. Now, while Tamar acted like a prostitute for a time, Rahab was one by profession. She was one by profession in Jericho. What’s happening is, you’ve got the end of Deuteronomy, you’ve got Moses who goes off the scene into heaven, and Joshua now becomes the leader of Israel. And the first thing that Joshua is called to do for the people that have been wandering around the wilderness for forty years is to go and possess the promised land.

Now, a lot of the people that were living in that land thought of that land as their own. But really, like all land—even your land that you own—it’s not yours. It’s God’s. God owns it all. And so God has his people go and possess that land, defeat the enemies—as an act of judgment because those enemies deserved the judgment of God—defeat the enemies, take over the land. And one of the areas in that land was Jericho, the city of Jericho.

Now, you know Jericho; it’s the city that had walls. And what happened to those walls? They came down, not by battering rams, but by people marching around it seven times and blowing trumpets. Not the normal way of warfare, but it worked here. This is God doing this. This is Jericho.

So God sends some of the Israelite men to Jericho to spy out the land because they’re going to come and conquer it. Well, they get to Jericho, and they’re housed in the home of Rahab the prostitute. Again, this is her life. This is her profession.

And they go up on the roof when some men of the city come because they hear these spies are there, and they question Rahab, and she lies and says the men are not there. Now, in God’s providence, this lady sins, but he uses that sin to protect the spies.

So should we go out and lie? No. Don’t make the Bible say things it’s not saying. She lied, but God used that to protect the spies. So the spies are up on the roof, hiding at her home. The men of the city of Jericho leave, she comes back up to the roof, and listen to what Rahab, the harlot, the sinner, says in Joshua 2:

Before the men lay down, she came up to them on the roof and said to the men, “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. 10 For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction.” (Joshua 2:8-10)

So she’s saying, we know what you guys have done. We know what your God has done. We know how you’ve executed the kings of other lands. We’re a little scared here. Then she says this:

And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the LORD your God [this is her saying this, and she knows this to be true now], he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. (Joshua 2:11)

This is a time where Rahab is now confessing, I know that your God is in charge of everything. Now remember, back at that time, each land had their own private gods. And our god is better than your god; but our god is our god. You’ve got your god; we’ve got our god. She’s saying, your God is over everything, heavens, earth, and under the earth. That’s quite an abnormal statement for anybody at this time, let alone the lady who had the profession that she had.   This is quite a statement.

In Joshua 6 the spies come back, but they come back with an army. And Rahab escapes the judgment of God because of her faith in God. And this is something that God does for Rahab because of her faith. Everybody else in that land—judged. She has faith.

Listen to what Hebrews 11 says about her. She is in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11. Now, if you know anything about sports leagues—basketball, baseball, football—to get into the Hall of Fame, you’ve got to have an exceptional career. Most athletes do not make their Halls of Fame in their respective sport. Only the best of the best.

Rahab is in the Hall of Faith described in Hebrews 11 that people have been reading about for centuries and centuries. And if Isaiah 40, verse 8 is true that the word of the Lord endures forever—and it is—Rahab will be known forever. Her faith will be known forever.

Hebrews 11:31 says this about Rahab: “By faith Rahab the prostitute”—I love how it includes her former profession. This is just what God does. He turns someone who was once this into that. And so he’s not bringing this up to get people to keep condemning Rahab. Or he doesn’t call Rahab by her former profession so that she goes, I know; I messed up. No, it’s a way to glory. I know! I was once that; now I’m this! It’s a time for celebration.

“By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.” Do you notice the very first two words of that verse? By faith. Rahab. Had given a friendly welcome to the spies. Rahab had trusted in the one true and living God. And all of a sudden she was not known by what she once was; she was now known by her faith and will forever be known by her faith. This is what God does.

What are you known for today? Not what are you trying to let people know you for. You can’t hide anything. Everything you’ve ever done shown on a public video screen. What would you be known for? It might be something as bad as Rahab. It might be some other kind of sin. It might be some other kind of lifestyle.

Jesus comes not for those who are clean and righteous; he comes for the sinners. He comes for the tax collectors, for the prostitutes, for the adulterers, for the liars, for the cheaters, for the proud, for the arrogant, for the impatient, for the angry. He comes for the lazy. He comes for those people. And he calls them to have faith in him. Trust me.

Trust him to forgive, trust him to restore, trust him to guide and lead you. This is what Christ came to do. He came looking for sinners. Luke 19:10: “[T]he Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” This is what he came for.

So you might not have the same profession as Rahab, but you, if you are not in Christ, have some sin or group of sins; you are just known as being an enemy of God. But Christ came for his enemies; Christ came to be the friend of sinners and to redeem them, and he calls all sinners everywhere to have faith in him, trust in him.

So I would say, just by way of application, if you’re sick of who you are and you’re not in Christ, if you’re tired of where your sin has got you, this is a great time for you. This study is a great study for you. Rahab is your girl. Look how Rahab’s life was changed once she trusted in the true and living God. I would call you to do the same thing. Trust in the true and living God and have faith and walk according to his ways.

There was a New York Times article earlier this year, and it was about a jihadist who became a follower of Christ. An actual Islamic extremist who had killed Christians. And he became a Christian. Why? How’d that happen? Well, his wife was a Christian, and when his wife got sick he saw her Christian community praying for her, and he saw their faith, and he was shaken. And he actually asked one of them in Turkey if they would point him toward a pastor because he had some questions. And ultimately he was led to Christ. That man now leads a Bible study for refugees, of which he is one, in his home and teaches the Bible to a number of refugees. And the people around him say that he is completely different.

And the New York Times article—I don’t know if it was written by a Christian; I don’t know how many Christians they actually have in the offices of The New York Times—but the New York Times article actually made it a point to quote the people who knew him, like his wife, saying how different he was, and they made it a point to show that while he was at the Bible study teaching, he was also the one serving coffee to people. This man is no longer known as one who slaughters Christians, but serves Christians. Striking.

This doesn’t just happen to people back in Bible times. Oh, Rahab—that’s kind of the exception. It happens to everyone who is a Christ follower. You were once one thing, and now you’re something else. You were once lazy; now you work hard for the glory of God. You were once a thief; now you’re known as a giver. You once took, took, and took, and now you serve people. You’ve been changed. If any man is in Christ, he’s a new creation. The old is gone; the new has come. This is Rahab. This is you. This is me. This happens when Jesus comes.

The man in that New York Times article—his name is given, Mohammad Bashir—said this: “’There’s a big gap between the god I used to worship and the one I worship now,’ Mr. Mohammad said. ‘We used to worship in fear. Now everything has changed.’”

The writer of the article says this: “For Mr. Mohammad, all this has nevertheless come at a high price. His rejection of Islam makes him a target for his fundamentalist former allies and he fears they will one day catch up with him. If they do, however, he reckons he now has the greatest protection of all.” And the article ends with his quote, saying, “I trust in God.” I trust in God.

That’s faith. This is what Rahab demonstrated. She trusted in the one true and living God. In Rahab we see that God changes lives, and he calls people to faith in him.

3.  The Wife of Uriah – A Promised King

One final example of sin, horror, and then redemption is found in verse 6. The wife of Uriah. “…and Jesse the father of David the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah.”

He doesn’t call her Bathsheba. That’s her name. The Holy Spirit does not call her Bathsheba. The Holy Spirit wants us to remember that she was the wife of someone else. She was the wife of someone whom the king murders. She was the wife of someone whom the king, the man after God’s own heart, murdered.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t want us to forget about this. The Holy Spirit doesn’t hire a publicist that says, hey, make this sound good. The Holy Spirit says, this is what it is, and Jesus came out of that. Out of that family.

You know the story—2 Samuel 11. David should have been off to war like other kings would have been with their troops, but for some reason he made a bad decision and didn’t do that, so there’s his first failure, failing in his normal everyday responsibilities, and that leads to more failure and more temptation. David should have been off to war leading his nation; he didn’t, stayed home for some reason, sees a woman bathing, decides to take her as if she were his own, and she was not.

She becomes pregnant with a son, so he decides, I’m going to call her husband back—who is fighting the war, doing what David should have been doing. Calls her husband back, and dear Uriah—so faithful to his king, so faithful to his nation—will not go back home to be with his wife on this little reprieve from the war. Does not go home. Goes to outside the king’s palace and sleeps there.

David’s incensed because he wants Uriah to go back to his house and for him to be the one that gets the credit for impregnating Bathsheba, but Uriah won’t do that because he’s loyal. How can I do this while my brothers are dying on the battlefield? I can’t do this. I’m gonna sleep here, outside the king’s palace.

So David, who should have repented at that point as well as at other points previously, David, as is what happens when someone sins, compounds his problems, tries to hide them all the more—but remember, you can never hide from God—compounds them all the more by sending Uriah back to the battle, and not just back to the battle but to the fiercest part of the battle, the hottest part of the battle. And Uriah dies.

So now David is not only a failed leader, not only is he an adulterer; now he’s a murderer. David. The one who was promised the eternal kingdom. The one who’s a man after God’s own heart. David, who’s probably the best king Israel’s ever had. Murderer.

So David sends Uriah back; he’s murdered. David then takes Bathsheba as his wife, of which he had many, and has a son—the same son that was the result of all this—and that son dies as discipline on David. David then later has another son with Bathsheba, and that’s the son Solomon. And from Solomon’s line would come another and another and another and another and ultimately Jesus. And remember—verse 1 of Matthew 1—Jesus is the son of David in that sense. And Bathsheba is one of Jesus’ great-great-great-great-grandmothers. Bathsheba. This one.

This is a great lesson for us. While sin can bring about redemption, can be forgiven, there are still consequences for sin. David lost one of his children. David and Bathsheba lost their child. There are consequences of sin. But salvation ultimately will reign for the believer. There are consequences; there’s discipline, but salvation is the end of the story for a believer.

Psalm 32 is what David penned looking back on this a year later. In 2 Samuel—you know the story—David’s hiding his sin. I don’t know how many people knew about it. Maybe it was those close to David who were loyal to him that didn’t say a word. Maybe it was nobody. I don’t know, but David’s hiding his sin, and the prophet Nathan comes, the prophet Nathan sent by God comes to David and tells him a story about a poor man who had a lamb and then a rich man who had many possessions. Great flocks. And the rich man goes and takes from the poor man.

And David is incensed by this. Bring the man here. He’s gonna punish the man, and Nathan says those words, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12:7). You are the man. And finally, David does what he should have done all along and acknowledges that he’s the man. He says, “I have sinned against the LORD” (2 Samuel 12:13).

It’s interesting there. He’s sinned against a lot more people than the Lord, right? Bathsheba, Uriah, Uriah’s parents, the nation. He’s sinned against a lot of people, but ultimately, first and foremost, he’s sinned against the Lord. And this is one of my favorite white spaces in Scripture. “I have sinned against the LORD.” Little white space after that period. And then a statement written by Nathan the prophet, coming from the Lord. Nathan says, and the Lord has forgiven your sin.

That’s it? That can’t be it. That cannot be it. This man has murdered someone. And I’ve said this before: Imagine being Uriah’s father listening in on that conversation. I’ve sinned against the Lord. The Lord has forgiven your sin. Imagine being Uriah’s father and being incensed by that. How dare the Lord forgive him for murdering my son?

Is this an unfaithful God? Is this a God that just winks at sin, doesn’t care about sin, overlooks sin for kind of the good guys and doesn’t really care what it does to people who are affected by sin? No. Because if Uriah’s father said to God, how dare you not do anything about the one who killed my son, you know what God’s response to Uriah’s father could be? I’m executing my son for what he did. I’m going to lose a son, and my son’s never done anything wrong. I’m going to execute my son for what David did. Oh, I am doing something about your David’s sin, and I’m also while demonstrating justice, I’m demonstrating grace.

And for that reason, we know there is no god like our God. Jesus dies to show the justice of God, and he dies to show the mercy of God. And this is what we see in Matthew. The Holy Spirit, I should say, wants us to know the story and to know that Jesus comes from this mess. Jesus comes from out of this sin.

The promises are still true. That’s why David says in Psalm 32 when he writes about a year later about this whole scenario, “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven” (Psalm 32:1). And he wasn’t just writing that because he heard it in some class one day. He’s writing it because he knew that his life was blessed because the Lord would not count any one of those sins against him. “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity” (Psalm 32:1-2). None whatsoever.

So I want you to notice, just by looking at three names in this genealogy, Jesus didn’t come down to earth and try to keep his distance from sinners. He came down to earth and jumped into their messed up family lives in order to redeem them from their sin. This is what the Lord does.

Some of you may be going through trials right now, and I think oftentimes when we’re going through trials our prayer is, Lord, take me out of the trial. And you know this to be true—he oftentimes doesn’t do that. He doesn’t. He doesn’t.

Oftentimes he wants us to know, stop focusing on being out of the trial; focus on the fact that I’m in it with you. You can come to me. You can pray to me. You can look at my example, and you can be like me. You can represent me in this trial. And all the while knowing what I promise for the future. Trust me. Trust me. Trust me. Talk to me. Talk to me. Talk to me. Listen to me talk to you. Listen to me talk to you.

He doesn’t always come removing us from sin and horror. He comes showing us that he’s our redeemer in the midst of the sin and horror. This is his normal pattern. This is his character.

I have three implications for you as we close, three things that I want you to believe and know to be true. Number one is this: Sin and horror will always be present at Christmas to some degree. And I just say at Christmas because this is the season we’re in. We could say sin and horror will always be present in our lives to some degree.

You know this. Sometimes the difficulties aren’t many; things are relatively easy and good. And then before you go to sleep at night, some piece of information, some news, has changed your whole world. Or something in between that. We’ve got trials. The question is how big or small are they at any given time. We’ve got trials.

And remember—I constantly try to remind our church—this isn’t heaven. This isn’t meant to be heaven yet. Don’t be surprised by the curse. Don’t be surprised that your body doesn’t work as well as it did. Don’t be surprised that people treat you poorly. Don’t be surprised that you treat other people poorly. Don’t be surprised by it. We’re still in a cursed world, but God will redeem us from the curse finally one day, and he will see to it that everything that goes wrong now, there will be sense made to it later and justice will be done.

So sin and horror will always be present to some degree. Don’t think that you can only be joyful when nothing is wrong. You’re just not gonna have joy ever. But the fruit of the Spirit is that there’s joy. Not joy apart from circumstances, joy in circumstances.

Russell Moore said it this way in a recent article. He wrote, “Remember: Jesus was not born into a gauzy, snowy ‘winter wonderland’ of sweetly-singing angels and cute reindeer nuzzling one another at the side of his manger.” And I’ll pause here. Moore is writing this article to show that Jesus didn’t come with all the warm fuzzies. His family was literally chased to Egypt. Jesus came into the midst of brokenness and sin and horrible leadership. Jesus came into that.

And sometimes I think that because of, you know, our consumerism—and I’m not knocking the bells and the songs and the radio. I mean, eat the cookies. I mean, it’s great; have fun. But if we’re Christians who kind of try to show people, see look! Everything’s warm and fuzzy and everything’s always easy all the time! Nothing’s wrong. Act like nothing’s wrong. We can’t be those people. We know there’s something wrong. But Jesus is the hope in the middle of the something wrong, and he makes sense of the something wrong, and he will one day redeem it all. So we can have joy for those reasons.

Moore goes on to say, it’s not about “sweetly-singing angels and cute reindeer nuzzling one another at the side of his manger. He was born into a warzone. Jesus was chased out of his manger and into Egypt by…King Herod, who also sacrificed Bethlehem’s infant children for the sake of power.”

Jesus isn’t trying to distract you from the difficulty. He enters into the difficulty and embraces it with you, knows what you’re going through, knows that you’re a man, knows that you’re a woman, knows that you’re human and have the limitations of a human. He knows all that; he experienced all that. And one day he will redeem it all, and in the meantime, he’s present now.

Turn to Romans 8 if you will. Romans 8:18. Paul writes what we all know to be true. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

That’s a great kind of introductory statement to this whole section. He’s saying, this is truth. This is truth. And I would ask you, again, if you are going through any trial of any size—small, big, medium—know that this is truth. “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” I pray that you can believe that.

And then he fleshes out that suffering that we go through. Verse 19: “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.” He’s not even talking about people yet. I mean, just look at the trees. They die. They’re waiting for one day when trees won’t die. The grass is waiting for a day when grass won’t die.

19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Romans 8:19-21).

You know what trees are thinking right now? I hate that we always die, but there’s going to be one day where we don’t die. Now, I’m using personification just based on what this says. The creation knows some things, according to Romans 8. The creation knows this is painful, but there’s hope. That’s what the creation knows.

22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:22-25)

You know what this life is for a Christian? It’s a life where we groan, we wait, we hope with patience. That’s what we do.

Dave Harvey, pastor, said this: “Remember when Christmas doesn’t give what you expect, it brings more than you deserve.” There might be things that we would wish would be different at Christmas. Maybe people that are not at our table that we wish would be at our table, including loved ones and children and parents. He says, remember when Christmas doesn’t give you what you expect, it brings you more than you deserve.

We at least get to be sitting at a table. We at least get to be breathing this air. We at least get to have the hope of heaven and not the reality of hell, which every single one of us deserves. So while there is still pain, there is plenty of grace. Just look around. Plenty of grace.

So again, implication number one: Sin and horror will always be present at Christmas to some degree.

Number two—and these are quicker—number two: God is a helper to us in our weakness. God is a helper to us in our weakness. And I take this, again, just from the next verses in Romans 8. So Romans 8:19 specifically through 25—there’s a groaning, and it’s not just the creation that’s groaning; we are groaning. We’re groaning.

Verse 26: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought.” You ever been through a trial, and you don’t even know what to pray? Someone asks you, what can I pray for, and you just…you feel the emotion welling up and you want to give them ten things to pray for that you’ve been thinking about, but you can’t even get the words out of your mouth. You don’t even know where to start. You just don’t even know where to start.

Is God in heaven going, I don’t know what they need; they’d better say something. I have no idea what they need! No. “[B]ut the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” The Spirit brings our prayers to God, brings what we actually need to God. “And he who searches hearts [this is God the Father] knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:27).

So the Spirit takes the prayers that we should be praying, or that we need to be praying; he prays them to God for us, and God knows what the Spirit is praying, and he knows the needs of our heart. That’s a great encouragement to me. I hope that’s a great encouragement to you, because even in trial we don’t see the whole field. We don’t see the whole chess board. We just know our one little move and the threats to us and the difficulty and maybe one opportunity here. We just see this; he knows the whole thing, and he knows what we should be praying. And even if we don’t pray it, the Spirit will pray it for us.

What a good God. Our God does not just say, you know what? I’ll fix it all in the end. In the meantime, you live your life. No, we’re groaning and he is there, and his own Spirit is praying for us, and he as the Father is listening. So God is a helper to us in our weakness.

Again, I would encourage you, take the difficulty you’re going through right now; look for God, pray to God, ask him for wisdom, ask him for this Spirit so that you can live like Christ would live in that trial. Our temptation is to live like we in our flesh want to live in that trial—complain, be angry. Live like Christ would live in that trial.

Number three. So one, sin and horror will always be present at Christmas to some degree. Two, God is a helper to us in our weakness. Three, God will bring redemption to all things for those who love him. One day it will all make sense. And some of you, even when I say that right now, I wonder if you really believe that. How in the world can good come out of what I’m going through?

This is what he promises in Romans 8:28. “And we know that for those who love God all things work together.” You notice those two words, “know” and “all?” We know this to be true. It doesn’t say, and we think that some of these things will make sense one day and work out. We know. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, says, “[W]e know that for those who love God all things work together”—not just the good things; the difficult things—“all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.”

God has a purpose for the lives of his children, and the difficult trials are working together for their good. He’s going to see to it that those things come to fruition. God will bring redemption to all things for those who love him. He will make sense of it all.

So here in this genealogy, that if you’re reading your Bible through in a year and you start on January 1, you may start with Matthew 1. And don’t start with it going, ah, there’s nothing here. Oh, there’s a lot here. Jesus came to dwell with us. And us—we—not very pretty. But he came to dwell with us and to redeem a people for his great name.

Jesus doesn’t always turn things around like we’d like him to, but he comes to fulfill his purpose and to meet us quietly in our need. It’s not always huge fanciful miracles to show that Jesus is working. Sometimes it’s little verses that encourage you in a trial. It’s a friend who is gracious to you. It’s a sermon that you hear. It’s a song that you listen to that reminds you of truth. It’s some little thing that reminds you of the presence of God.

The last month I’ve been closing most of our sermons by reading you a line from a Christmas carol that fits what we’re teaching that morning. I’ll do the same this morning from “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” Listen to these words, the last few lines:

No ear may hear His coming
But in this world of sin
Where meek souls will receive him still
The dear Christ enters in

I hope that the dear Christ would enter into every situation before us. He is, after all, Immanuel, God with us. Let’s pray.

Lord Jesus Christ, we talk a lot here about your sovereignty. Your word talks a lot about your sovereignty. And Lord, for a moment this morning, I want to thank you for not just your sovereign control over all things but your very near and dear presence in all things. Lord, I pray for our brothers and sisters in our congregation going through difficult seasons. I pray that the nearness of God would be their good. I pray that they would draw near to you. I pray that they would know you as a comforter, as one to trust.

Lord Jesus Christ, we are grateful that you came all the way to the earth. You came all the way to meet us where we are. You forgive our sin. You give us hope. You guide us. You call us to trust you, and you are always near to those who have broken hearts. Lord, may you be praised around our tables tonight, tomorrow, this week. May you be praised for your great sovereignty and your great nearness to us. We pray this in your name. Amen.