Christmas, This Little Light of Mine II

Sit in there and get around the tree and see what Santa brought. I mean, any parents remember those moments? And any parents remember at least one time that the kids were up before you on Christmas morning? Oh, my gosh. I mean, back in the days when we had to put things together and, you know, you're up till 4, and then at 6 the kids are—you can hear them out there. And, yeah, I mean, all that kind of stuff happens, and it's just part of being a normal family. It doesn't always go the way you scripted it, but just hearing those kids have a great time made it worthwhile and called back great memories, but far from perfect. I remember at least one kid looking at the other kid's thing and saying, how come I didn't get that? They're like, wow, you know, and then they start nagging at the end, and you have to reassure them. Well, families aren't perfect because we're human, and we're going to look at this today just because I feel like, as Scott pointed out, we have an opportunity in the next weeks to shine this little light, this light of Jesus' presence amongst the whole world. No place is more important than in our families. And I know for some of you this is the best time of year. You know, your family comes in from around the country, and you gather together, and you share stories and presents and great food and, you know, leisurely evenings around the fire, whatever. It's just a great time, and you look forward to it. And I also know equally that there are a lot of you for whom this is perhaps some of the most painful seasons or days, actually, of the year that you really don't look forward to at all. You're wondering how you're going to manage the tension that already exists between you and your ex and the kids and all that kind of stuff. And we live in that world where some of you are with broken dreams and the sadness of things that didn't work out. So there's an opportunity for your light to shine as well. So what we want to look at is the reality of imperfect families, and yet the hope that we have that if we do our part, we can make a difference in making Christmas just a little bit better for our families. And what I want to talk about specifically, in a word, is despite the beauty of the whole story, and I could go on into the shepherds and the stars and the angelic choirs and all the rest, I'm not sure if it was Pastor Scott or whoever pushed me into the gospel of Matthew and said, well, why don't you tackle the Christmas story and the family in partisan from the gospel of Matthew. Well, there are only two gospels that talk about the Christmas story. What are they? Matthew and Luke, right? And the other two, you sort of jump into Jesus' life when he was Mark and John. And Luke is the one that tells the narrative. I mean, he's the one that kind of tells it from the characters, you know, and we get into Elizabeth and Mary exchanging stories and all this, you know, Zechariah, all that kind of, it's really almost, you could write a TV movie on it. What's Matthew do? Or Scott tells me to preach. Well, let's put this up, please, on the screen. You should grab your outline out of your notes. It doesn't have it there. It's too long. But here's what it says. If you have your Bible, turn to Matthew 1, and here's how it starts. Well, let me read it. If we don't have it, here's where it starts. A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob. And on and on it goes, friends, for 17 verses, the genealogies. Now, let's be honest. How many of you have sorted into the genealogies and gone from the 1st verse to the 17th verse because you couldn't even pronounce the names, let alone care that much what they said? Yeah, that's probably the norm. And I have to tell you, I had to confess and almost repent that when I really dug into this, I learned some things about what God expects and what God is saying about our families as I studied this genealogy. And so, as impossible as it may seem, for the next 20 minutes or so, if you're like, hang with me, here's what you're going to find out. You're going to find out the incredible purposefulness of every word of the Bible and how something as apparently boring and irrelevant as a genealogy can come to life if you understand why it was there and what it says. And then secondly, I trust that out of this will come something that will be relevant to help you be just a little more equipped to be that light that's going to shine in your family as you head into these next couple weeks of Christmas. A little bit of test here, just out of curiosity. If we were to check back, how many of you know the names of your grandparents on both sides? Hands? Good, good, most of you. How many of you know the names of the great-grandparents on both sides? Substantially fewer. How many know great-great? Okay, now we're getting into the historians of the family, you know, the people that go way into this. How many of you have five generations back and you know the names? Anybody? Matthew goes 41 generations and names every one of them. And what struck me, first of all, was the incredible detail with which Matthew took on this assignment of validating who Jesus was, that He was indeed the Messiah. Now, let me talk to you why that was so. Matthew knew to whom he was going to be speaking. His primary audience was whom? The Jews. And the Jews wanted to know more than anything else that this so-called Messiah that they were talking about was from the line of David because they knew that the Bible had declared that there would be forever on the throne of David a ruler and that that ultimate Messiah would come through the direct-blood line of David. So if he couldn't demonstrate through specific lineage that Jesus was from the line of David, game over. Don't even talk about it. He's not the guy. And so Matthew starts his book by proving that Jesus came from the line of David. It's interesting to me, he starts by saying, look at it, go back to that first verse again, a record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David. So he mentions David right at the very beginning to let them know where he's going. And he starts, if you were, with these credits. Now when you go to a movie, an action movie especially, how many like to walk into an action movie and right as the movie begins, you like to go right into the action, don't you? Think of an action film that you've seen. I like to walk right into the first scene as a rescue or an attack or something. And the credits can come at the end. I don't like it when you got to sit through three or four minutes of, you know, who's holding this gaff and who's doing that. You know, that doesn't really... But Matthew knew that the Jews had to be sure that if they were going to pay attention, that this person that he was talking about was from the line of David. Now notice in your Bibles, or we might be able to put up on the screen for you, if we skip down here simply to verse 6, and just see the father of King David. So notice that in those six verses, he mentions David twice. David was the father of Solomon. On he goes through all 41 generations. David is confirmed as being in the direct line of Jesus. And so this cemented in their minds the possibility that this was indeed the Messiah. And this was so important to them. From all the way back to Abraham, all the way through David and then through, finally, Joseph, we could validate that Jesus came from the line of David. And this, you see, opened the people to the possibility that Jesus was who these apostles were claiming. So what does, on your outline, what does Jesus want to do with this little light of ours? If you're filling in the blanks, what does he want to do with that? In the presence of our families? Well, in a word, friends, he wants us to be real. He just wants us to be real. He doesn't want us to be religious. He doesn't want us just to play the Christmas carols and presents and games. He wants us to be authentic, real. And nothing does more to draw a family together than being real about the situations of life. Why do I know that? Well, right here, we're going to see it perfectly clearly. Let's look at number one. Jesus' genealogy includes all of the people that were in his line. From Abraham to Joseph, all of the people, write it down, all of the people from Abraham to Joseph. Now, that might not seem like a big deal to you, but let me remind you of this. In ancient times, only the very wealthy people could afford to have historians validate their lineage. So they paid people to go out, the kings, the emperors, the Caesars, the great generals, to validate that their families were who they said they were. And by the way, this is well-established, that when a historian was commissioned to do this, he was told to leave out the names of the black sheep. You know, if somebody in the family kind of messed up, got into trouble, didn't get very far, they left his name out of the genealogy, and they jumped over to the other child. On the other hand, if the child was very successful or had achieved a lot, they made it loud and clear that that person was part of it. And that was the way they did it, because they wanted to elevate the status of the family. Interestingly enough, in this story, if we would take the time, and I won't try to read through all the names, because it would put most of you to sleep. All 41 generations are listed, and Matthew lists all the people, including rebels, adulterers, prostitutes, even a few Gentiles. He includes kings who raised kids who were rebellious, and he included some kings who were able to raise their kids in a positive way. For example, he mentions Rehoboam and Abijah, who were two wicked kings in 1 Kings 14 and so, who raised after them Asa and Jehoshaphat, who were good kings. Now, the paid historians normally would have just, they would have whited out Rehoboam and Abijah, if you read their stories. They were wicked. If nothing else, we can glean from this that being real is incredibly important. And here's a major point. I urge you to write this down. By reading this again, and here's what I found. Listen, it's on your outline. Jesus' genealogy confirms this. You are never limited by your family tree. Nor are you guaranteed anything because of it. Please write that down. So in other words, if some of you have grown up and your parents and grandparents before you had no interest in spiritual things, you wanted to say, I feel so like, you know, unprepared for this. I know so little. I didn't have anyone teaching me. Friends, listen, there are people in the line of Jesus who are just like that. And yet God used them for His purposes. And you should be greatly encouraged today that you can be used, even if the people above you had no interest in God at all. Just out of curiosity, show of hands real quick. How many of you would just say, you know, I can't remember anyone in my family that went to church very often. Anybody like that? Several of you, thank you very much. And I feel for you. You kind of almost wonder if you were a spiritual orphan. Let me tell you something. There's no limit to what God can do in your life. That should be awesome. That should encourage you. On the other hand, how many of you grew up in church and you had a really strong spiritual background? Let me see your hands. Yeah, that's the great majority as I expected. Here's the bad news. That doesn't guarantee anything for you. That doesn't mean you're going to have any impact whatsoever. Now you can, you can use that foundation to build upon, but loved ones, clearly in the line of Jesus. And by the way, it's interesting if you study it, it's almost rhythmic. It's good king, bad king. Two good kings, two bad kings. It's almost like there's a pattern that evolves there. So I just want to say, be on guard. Those of you who were good, had good parents, you need to really lean into being a good parent because it seems like the evil one tries even harder to pull you out of that cycle. Very important. Some of you may have suffered heartache or failure or divorce or brokenness in your family. And you're wondering why am I, I've been, I've been penalized in life. Will I ever overcome it? And here's the answer. The answer clearly is from the genealogy of Jesus. Absolutely. And we're going to look in a minute at some of the people that Jesus used. Some of the people that he mentioned specifically who stood out. In fact, let's do this. And let's focus on number two, that the genealogy included women. Now again, how many of you know, even today in the Middle Eastern culture, women are basically marginalized, especially in religious circles. I mean, that's still today a fact. And I could not find another historian in any other context that put women in the genealogies. But in the Bible, in the line of Jesus, there are five women mentioned. So women hear the message that Jesus elevated the gender gap to the point where women were brought forth as part of the line and purpose of God through Jesus. Now, here's what's kind of fascinating, and I don't know quite how to explain it. Of those women, two of them had very shady backgrounds. One was, her name was Tamar. Anyone know Tamar's story? Genesis 38. Yeah, Tamar, well, she tricked Judah into having intercourse with her because he'd broken a promise. And so she was not going to let him get away with it. And so she had some kind of sketchiness in her background. Another person that's named is a person by the name of Rahab. Anyone know? What are the two words that go with Rahab usually? Rahab, don't say it. Rahab the, yeah. Rahab the, that's right. Rahab in Joshua 2 was the person who sheltered the spies that had been sent out by Joshua to see the land. And Rahab the protected them. And she got mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus. She was a prostitute. Then there was Ruth. And Ruth has a great story. If you haven't read the story of Ruth, Ruth, the Redeemer kinsman, the whole story, it's a wonderful story for just four little chapters. But guess what? Ruth was a Moabitess. What does that mean? She was a Gentile. So non-Jews even appear in the line of Jesus. And then there's this interesting reference in end of verse six, that David was the father of Solomon, whose mother, here's the fourth woman, had been Uriah's wife. Okay, quick check. Uriah's wife, father of Solomon. I'm sorry, mother of Solomon, whose father was, who's Solomon's father? David. Notice it doesn't say David's wife. Why? Because if you know this story, David had a thing for, what was her name? Bathsheba. Bathsheba, very good. And he worked it out that the troops would fall back and Uriah would be left out there on his own. And he got hammered, taken out, basically murdered because of David's lust for Bathsheba. So her name's not even mentioned, but she's mentioned as Uriah's wife. I just find it fascinating that the detail that Matthew goes to to even point out the character flaws and issues that were involved in the people that were related to women. All these women, imperfect, in some cases immoral, certainly impure, but all of them included so that Jesus could say without reservation, here's the message, that salvation that I bring, Jesus would say, comes to everyone. My salvation comes to male and female, Jew and Gentile, good and not so good. It has nothing to do with your status, nothing to do with the people that brought you into the world, nothing to do with the people that follow you. The salvation of Jesus is available to all. Jesus didn't just come for sinners. He came from sinners. I hope you hear that. And though his mother Mary is the other woman mentioned, and thankfully, most everything we know about Mary was that she was a pure, innocent, virgin, young woman, and there's not a negative thing to be said about Mary. She's the fifth woman that's mentioned in the genealogy. So, it's interesting. We're in a time right now, celebrities, athletes, big names are all over the papers and the media for their misbehaviors and misdeeds. Politicians and, you know, you name it. It seems like in our culture and in our great advancement over the years, we still stumble over the same things that they did hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years ago. And yet, for all of this, Jesus has two messages from this genealogy. No matter how big you are, you can fall to the bottom just like that. Anyone think of someone right now who's maybe having a bit of a tumble? David fell from being the king of Israel, everything at his command, to the most broken of men. And I wanted to read for you why God continued to bless David. And so, if you'll put up so kindly, Psalm 51. You see, it doesn't just happen automatically, friends. It happens because of an appropriate response to the grace of God. And so, here's Psalm 51. I'm going to read it out of my Bible. If you have your Bible, turn there because it's powerful. This is how David felt about his transgressions. Have mercy on me, O God. According to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion, blot out my transgression. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgression and my sin is always before me. Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Surely you desire truth in the inner parts. You teach me wisdom in the inmost place. Cleanse me with hyssop. That's a symbol of blood being spread over the archway of the homes in the great exodus. And I will be clean. Wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones you've crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me. Friends, if you feel far from God this Christmas, if you know someone that feels far from God, point them to Psalm 51. That's the prayer of a confessing, sorrowful, repentant heart that God will not turn His own eyes away from. So, David's story is like many of ours. His family was deeply broken. He was haunted by his sin and weakness, as we just read. And yet, he allowed his darkness to turn into light. He allowed his loss to turn into love. He allowed his failure to turn into fullness. He allowed the condemnation that he felt to turn into forgiveness. And friends, that's the story of Christmas. I'm promising you on Christmas Eve, if you bring somebody, I'm gonna tell them the story of Christmas. And it's not about shepherds and angels and donkeys and wise men. It's the story of redemption. It's a story this day that you can hear and respond to in your own heart. An amazing story that only God could do what man could never do, and that would be to provide atonement for our sin. So, number one, Jesus' genealogy teaches us that He includes all the people, all of humanity. And second, by including women, He makes it very clear that no one is excluded and that even those who've been marginalized, God has purpose and destiny for. And then finally, number three, Jesus' genealogy was the foundation of Matthew's hope. And I just wanna end with this quick reference to Matthew. I couldn't resist it. Matthew was the one that penned this genealogy. Now, remember the story of Matthew and we'll just focus real briefly on it. Matthew was a Jew speaking to Jews, but do you remember Matthew's background? Do you remember where Matthew was? If we read on just a few chapters, we'd see this story. At the beginning of Matthew 9, we read the story of Jesus healing this paralytic that's been brought down through this house. Tiles are being ripped off and four of his friends lower this paralytic down and he's sitting here in front of Jesus, this big scene in this house. And Jesus says to the paralytic, your son, your sins are forgiven. And all the religious Pharisees, they were, well, who are you to forgive sins? And Jesus said, well, just so you know, I have the authority to forgive sins. Rise, take up your mat and walk. And the paralytic stands up and walks out and the crowd goes crazy. Now, they walk up just a couple of blocks and who do they run into in his little booth, his little tax collecting booth? Matthew. Matthew was a tax collector. You've heard it said, it's worth repeating. Back in that culture, the Jews were enslaved by the Romans. The Romans had difficulty collecting all that they wanted from the Jews. So they found the Jews who were traitorous enough to turn on their own people and they use those people to gather the taxes from their Jewish brethren. And oh, by the way, yeah, you can skim as much as you want to. And so the Jewish tax collectors were the most hated of all the Jewish people. In fact, they were so hated that they had their own category. And if you flip in your Bible, don't turn there, but you can turn a little later and find in your Bible, there's references, Matthew 9, 12, to tax collectors and sinners. So like tax collectors, it's its own category of sinfulness. I mean, it was worse than some of the other things we already talked about. They were hated by the people. So Jesus and his disciples walk from this house where this incredible miracle just happened. They walk up to the booth and Jesus looks Matthew in the eye in his little tax collector's booth and he looks at him, he says, follow me. I can hear Peter, can't you? What? No way, Jesus. I don't want that loser, that traitor, I don't want him to be part of us. The Bible says that Matthew closed up his shop and something about the command of Jesus to his life was so powerful that he left his tax collecting scam and followed Jesus and became one of the 12. And again, the message, friends, I want you to hear is, doesn't matter what you've been into. Doesn't matter how dark, doesn't matter how marginalized you feel your life has been or someone near you. Jesus comes to you and he says, follow me. What's our vision statement as a church? We're freeing people to follow Jesus. And Matthew discovered that that was for him. On your notes, I did put this scripture, we're going to add a couple of verses to it. Let's put that up, please. Matthew chapter nine. And let's start in verse nine instead of verse 10, if we could put that up. So as Jesus went from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collectors booth. Follow me, he told him. And Matthew got up and followed him. Now, one last thing and then we'll be done. Look at this. He doesn't just start following Jesus. Jesus says, you know what, Matthew, you're pretty cool. In fact, I'd like to meet some more of your kind. So he has what has been later called a Matthew party and invites other tax collectors and sinners to his house to meet his new friend, Jesus. And they came and ate with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees, that's the religious people, when they saw this, they said, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? And on hearing this, Jesus said, it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. You know what friends, some people might take offense to that. My hunch is that Matthew was so deeply moved and the other tax collectors and sinners that they didn't mind being called the unhealthy ones. In fact, the beginning of change is when you realize I don't have it all together. And so as we end the message even today, just ask yourself the question, are you in that genealogy? Because you see the physical genealogy laid the foundation for the spiritual genealogy. We are all now invited into the bloodline of Jesus through the cross and the blood that he shed there. And I just want to end this by asking you a simple question. When that final reading of the Lamb's book of life is held, these names will appear there because of the covenant. The question is, will your name appear there? Is your name listed because you've accepted the blood of Jesus as atonement for, or payment for your sin? Friends, no other attempt, no religious effort, no good deeds, not the fact that your grandparents build a wing on the old church or whatever it is, none of that matters. All that matters is, do you know Jesus? And you know what? You kind of know if you know him. I had someone say to me, well, how do you define that Pastor Jay? I say, well, if I have to define it for you, then you might want to just kind of lean a little harder because you know if you know the Lord. You know if he's in your life. No, I'm not saying everything's perfect. I'm just saying, you know, if you've surrendered your heart to him. You say, how do I do that? Well, that's what we're going to do right now. In the cafe, worship cafe, Pastor Kent, and over in Oakland and the campus meets there, Pastor Doug is going to lead their campuses and their venues in this same prayer that I'm going to lead you in in just a moment. And so would you please stand and let's pray together.