Jesus’ Resume, Part 2

Today on Summit Life, Pastor J.D. Greer talks about the genealogy of Jesus. These names are included in the line that leads to Christ, so that you can know that your name can be included in the line that leads from Christ. Our Savior saves to the uttermost, which means that no matter who you are or what you have done, there is the room in His family for you. Welcome to Summit Life with J.D. Greer.

I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. I bet when most of us are reading the Bible, we tend to kind of skim past the genealogies. You know, those long lists of names of who begat who, and they don't really seem very relevant.

Kind of like flipping through the yearbook of a school that you didn't go to. But the fact is, God had a very intentional reason for including these lists in the Bible, and they actually matter. That's our subject today as Pastor J.D.

continues our new series called Upside Down Christmas. This is the second part of a message that we began yesterday called Jesus's Resume. I have realized that the amount of things that Matthew is trying to teach you through this very simple list of 42 names is remarkable.

I am going to, by sheer act of self-discipline, limit myself to only five observations. All right, but there are many more that are in there, and these are what you have to know about Christianity. The first one I borrow from Tim Keller, number one. The gospel is not good advice. The gospel is good news. First thing you learn from this genealogy is that the gospel is not good advice.

It's good news. You see, most stories or fairy tales start out with once upon a time or somewhere in a galaxy far, far away or something like that. But Matthew does not start out his story that way. Matthew starts out with a genealogy, which is a way of saying what I'm going to tell you about actually happened in time and space. You see, Christianity's most important feature is that it is actual history because the core, listen, of Christianity is not a set of principles that Jesus taught to us. The core of Christianity is something that Jesus would do for us. Most religions, you see, when you peel back the layers are built on teachings and principles that really would be true whether their religious founder ever lived or not.

The religious founder was merely the mouthpiece for those teachings. That is not true for Christianity. Christianity depends on a set of events that actually took place in time and history because the core of Christianity is not what Jesus taught us to do. The core of Christianity is what Jesus would do for us. Secondly, this genealogy shows you, number two, that Jesus is the center of history. He's the center of history. Matthew takes what the world would have considered to be an insignificant family line and he organizes all of human history around it.

Here's why that's important. At this point in world history, it certainly did not seem like Jesus was the focal point. Israel was a small backwater Middle Eastern country that was under the rule of somebody else.

Nobody in Rome, nobody in the halls of power, Herod, nobody was paying attention to this family line. But God, you see, had made a promise to Abraham to bring salvation to the world through Jesus and to bring the whole world into subjection to Jesus. At this point in history, you've got these really powerful nations and people that seem like they are directing everything, but what Matthew shows you in this genealogy is that God is the one who is guiding it all according to his plans for this Messiah that nobody's thinking about. He's showing you that the powers of the world are an illusion. You may be discouraged because it may look like you are subject to forces that you can't control, but God, you see, has an infallible purpose in your life. God's infallible purpose is to reveal Jesus to you and to glorify himself in you and everything in your life has ultimately been about that.

He is bringing forth the Messiah. He is bringing forth the Messiah in you and you can interpret all of these things that look to you like they were under the power and the direction of others as being superimposed by God to accomplish his purpose in your life, which brings me to number three. God is working in all things, good and bad, for his purposes, which is absolutely amazing when you consider some of the messy, random, chaotic stuff that is in this genealogy. Some of you have had some pretty messy dysfunction in your life and I am not saying to you that God caused it. I'm not saying to you that God was okay with it.

I'm not saying to you that God was not deeply grieved by it and angered by it the same way I would be angered and grieved if anybody did anything to one of my children. But what I am telling you is that God has one overriding purpose in your life and that is to accomplish Jesus' purposes in and through you and he is working in all things. He is working in the darkest parts of your personal genealogy to bring to pass his perfect purpose for you.

He is superimposing his perfect 14 on the messy, random, chaotic details of your life. Romans 8 28, all things work together for good to them who love God and are called according to his purpose. Now, most Christians know that verse. Do you know the verse after that verse? This is one of those verses you really ought to know the verse after the verse.

Romans 8 29 says, for those that he called, those he predestined, he predestined to be conformed to the image of Jesus. What is God working all things in your life together for? He's working them for the greatest plan he's ever had and that is to bring forth Jesus, to bring forth Jesus in you, to make you love Jesus, to make you look like Jesus, to make you glorify Jesus.

That's his purpose for you. Before I go on to our fourth point, let me give you one other remarkable observation about this genealogy that will further substantiate that point, right? Still on point three, I want to give you one other observation here. Skeptics will often point out, listen, I need you to put your theological big boy pants on for a minute. Skeptics will often point out that the genealogy given for Jesus in Matthew chapter one is different than the one given in Luke chapter three, right?

They say, hey, here you got a contradiction. You've got two different genealogies, but conservative scholars will point out that most likely the genealogy that is given in Matthew chapter one is Joseph's line and the one that is given in Luke chapter three is Mary's line. Here's why that is important, okay? God made a promise to David in 2 Samuel chapter seven that, listen, one of his blood descendants would never fail to sit on the throne of Israel. In those days, a father passed on the legal right to the throne to his son, and so David passed on the right to the throne to his son Solomon. Well, one of Solomon's descendants, a guy named Jeconiah, he was his, you know, great-great-great-great grandson or whatever, he sinned so badly that God said to him in Jeremiah 22 three, one of your blood descendants will never sit on the throne. None of your descendants will ever sit on the throne again, which presents kind of a problem, a dilemma, because here you've got the legal right to the throne passed down through Jeconiah, but a curse on Jeconiah's bloodline that none of his descendants could ever sit on the throne. So one of Jeconiah's blood descendants is Joseph, all right? So you've got this dilemma, that's Joseph. Joseph has the legal right to the throne, but his blood is not allowed to ever sit on the throne, all right? Enter Luke's genealogy, all right? Mary is descendant of a different son of David named Nathan. Nathan gives birth to his son, he gives birth to his son on another line, who gives birth to Mary, who is the biological mother of Jesus. So Jesus is born of a virgin, he is born of Mary, which means he has David's blood in her, but because he is adopted by Joseph, he receives the right to the throne from Joseph, but because he is adopted, he evades the blood curse that is put on Jeconiah. The virgin birth is the only way that all of those prophecies could all come true. Who but God could have come up with something like that, right?

I give myself my own amen, amen. Who but God, who but God works in the complexities of history like that, and just says, I'm doing this just to show off, just to show off, and just to make fun of you, that when you think everything is out of control and there's no possible way that I'm gonna be able to put a king on Israel and honor all the promises, I do it in a way that you weren't expecting. I give birth to a virgin who avoids the blood curse that I put on his adopted father, so that Jesus is the rightful king of Israel. Number four, the gospel is for the outsider. That's the fourth thing you learn from this genealogy, the gospel for the outsider. For a Jewish person, their genealogy was like their resume. Your heritage was how you showed the world your worth. And so back then, like today, resumes were, shall we say, can we be honest, fudge to include the best parts of your history and to leave out some of the nasty details.

The closest some of you have ever come to perfection and to being an abject liar is when you put together your resume, because you talk about all the awesome things that you have experienced and leave out the shady details of the things that you have failed at. I'll give you an example from Jewish history. Herod, who was the king when Jesus was born, Herod published his genealogy. But when Herod published his genealogy, he expunged his record of all of his embarrassing ancestors, so it looked like he came from a line of sheer, unadulterated awesomeness. So of course he deserved to be king, right? He's like, of course, I mean, he's got awesomeness in his line. I told you I'm not that into genealogies, but if you do ask me what I know about my genealogy, I will tell you all the great famous people that I am even remotely related to so that you will think that I've just got awesomeness in my blood.

For example, this is actually kind of a joke around here. Anybody that knows me knows that if you bring up my ancestry, I will tell you within 30 seconds that my great-great-great-great-uncle was Davy Crockett, right? And so when I went to the Alamo for the first time a few years ago, I walked around the Alamo saying, you're welcome.

You're welcome. Your state is free because of my family. Take that, Texas, all right? One of my ancestors was a captain in the Union Army. I'll likely repeat that. But I've also got some people who, one of my relatives did one of these studies, you know, whatever, and was showing me some of this stuff. I got some people who spent some time in prison, one for counterfeiting money, ones who spent a considerable amount of time in prison for making moonshine. In fact, my last name, Greer, people often ask me why it looks like I'm in prison. People often ask me why it looks like I have an extra vowel in my name.

It's G-R-E-E-A-R. I do have an extra vowel in my name. This genealogy showed the first of my ancestors to come to America was Shadrach Greer in 1735.

I kid you not. Shadrach Greer. But Shadrach Greer spelled his name G-R-E-E-R, right? And then you go on down the line, spelled E-E-R, and then inexplicably, somewhere in the middle of the late, you know, 18th century, inexplicably, extra vowel gets added. And the genealogist's note was, whenever this happened, it's usually an indication that somebody changed the spelling of their name to avoid a census so they didn't have to pay taxes. So I've got tax evaders in my bloodline.

Now, I'm not likely to bring up all of that stuff when you're talking about my resume. That's the same thing that happened then, is kings like Herod, with only this people in their genealogy, who established their worth. Yeah, did you see who Jesus included in his genealogy? Tamar, the prostitute who commits incest. Rahab, verse five, did you see that? Rahab was a prostitute, and she was a Gentile that God saved from Jericho. Ruth, remember Ruth? Ruth was a Moabite. By the way, you see all these women? Women, I told you, were never included in Jewish genealogies because they just weren't considered that important in those days. Yet Jesus filled his genealogy with names of women. And by the way, not even respectable women. Every woman listed in here was involved in some sexual scandal.

Everyone. Verse six, David and the wife of Uriah. Why did he put the wife of Uriah and not just her name?

Because he's trying to make you remember the story. Do you remember the story of David and the wife of Uriah, Bathsheba? Uriah was one of David's best friends. David, when Uriah was all fighting a battle, David sleeps with Uriah's wife, Bathsheba, gets her pregnant, brings back Uriah to try to cover it up.

It doesn't work, so he has Uriah murdered. That's in the bloodline of Jesus Christ. Jesus' family line is filled with moral outsiders, ethnic outsiders, Gentiles, and if you will, gender outsiders, women.

This is all supposed to be sending you a message. Jesus came for the outcast. He was not ashamed to identify with the outcast as their brother and to make them part of his family. Because all we, like sheep, have gone astray.

We have turned every one of us to his own way. And so Jesus took upon himself the iniquity of us all and his family line includes giants of the faith like Abraham and noble men like King David, and it also includes prostitutes like Rahab, because in Jesus Christ, prostitute and king sit down as equals. It's a message to you. It's a message to you.

These names are included in the line that leads to Christ so that you can know that your name can be included in the line that leads from Christ. Our Savior saves to the uttermost, which means that no matter who you are or what you have done, there is the room in his family for you. You may feel like the outcast. You are not. He has brought you close.

You may feel worthless. He has purchased you with the universe's most valuable possession, his blood. You may think God's plans for you are over because you have messed up so badly.

But this genealogy shows you that they have just begun. God was at work in the ugliest of situations, bringing forth his most beautiful son. So in Christ, he takes the ugliness of your life, and in a way that only God can do, he redeems it and he weaves it for the beauty of his glory. Number five. This genealogy shows you that Jesus is the ultimate rest.

He's the ultimate rest. You recall I told you that he organizes into three sets of 14. Three sets of 14 is six, is how many sevens? How many sevens? I'll just give you the answer accidentally.

Come on now. Three sets of 14 is how many sevens? Six. Six sevens.

Watch. Which means that Jesus is the seventh seven. Now I told you that seven is a very significant number in the Bible. Seven is the number of completion. Seven indicates rest.

God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh day. Every seven years, the land in Israel was supposed to rest, that is to lie fallow and not be planted so that it could replenish its nutrients. Leviticus 25 talks about the year of the seventh sevens, seven whatever. It's year of the seven sevens. It was the year of Jubilee. Every 49th year, they were to take a year in which, listen to this, all debts in Israel were erased and every slave was freed.

When Jesus shows up as the seventh seven, what Matthew is saying to you is, Jesus is the year of Jubilee. In him all debts are forgiven, in him all slaves are freed. That he is the ultimate rest. Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden. Matthew will later record Jesus saying, and I will give you what?

I'll give you rest. You don't have to earn God's love anymore because it's a gift given to you as a gift. And some of you have spent your whole life striving to be good enough for God, to erase the mistakes of your past, to get yourself to a point where you had the merit to be accepted by God. And what Jesus shows up saying to you is, I give you rest because I'm purchasing that for you.

I give it to you as a gift. It's a whole different basis of approaching God. Yes, you work hard for God. Yes, you do all kinds of things for God, but it's not because you're trying to gain the favor of God. You're doing those things because you have the favor of God.

Because it's favor that is given to you as a gift and Christian work comes from rest in Christ. It means you don't have to prove yourself. You don't have to prove yourself anymore. Some of you have spent your entire life trying to prove yourself to somebody.

Your dad, your colleagues, your brothers and sisters of the world, anybody that'll listen. You're always trying to prove yourself. What he's trying to show you is that God himself showed up. And that in Christ, you have the absolute approval of the only one whose opinion actually matters. That the highest being in all the universe could not regard you with more affection. And when you understand that the greatest God of the universe could not cherish and love you more than he does right now, that releases you from the captivity of always trying to make everybody else happy and always trying to find their approval. Because if God is for me, who cares who is against me? I mean, if I've got God Almighty that cherishes me and that exalts me, then what do I care about the opinions of a bunch of no account earthlings who are as equally insecure as I am? I can rest because in Christ, I have the absolute approval of the only one whose opinion really matters.

You don't have to bear the weight of the world on your shoulders. Because he came as a shepherd and a friend. He came as your protector and your provider. And that means you can rest in his care.

Because if Jesus cared enough about you to show up when you were his enemy and redeem you and save you, do you not think that he'll care for you now that you're his child and his friend? He who did not spare his own son, will he not freely also give us all things? He shows up bringing rest. Come unto me, he says, all you who labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. Isn't that exactly what some of you most need during a season of Christmas?

You need rest. And listen, let me acknowledge you can go crazy with Bible number games. I realize that. But I think it's pretty clear that when he puts three sets of 14, six sets of seven, that he is saying something pretty significant of Jesus as the seventh seven. In this genealogy are all the essential things that you need to know about Christianity. Jesus comes as a gift, doing something for you that you couldn't do for yourself, winning a battle against your sin, paying your sin debt for you. He comes as a gift. Have you received him? That's the question. Not how well are you doing emulating his teaching?

That comes later. Have you received the gospel, the announcement? Jesus is the central point of history in your life. Have you come to know him? He's the center of history. Have you come to know him?

Is he the center of your life? You understand everything in your life has been about this. It's been about revealing Jesus in you and glorifying Jesus through you. He offers rest to you, which I told you is what some of you most need. You need rest for a weary soul.

And I'm telling you, that rest that you've been looking for is in Christ. Everything in your life, what's happened is you've experienced pain. And that's God trying to show you that the world is fragile.

You've experienced dissatisfaction. That's God trying to show you that the ultimate joy you're looking for is not in this world. But through those chapters of your life, through those dark parts of your genealogy, listen, there's been something that's been pressing into your soul. You didn't even know what to call it. But it's just kind of this whisper that there is a love that is beyond the world that is pressing into you. There is something that's been calling to you and inviting you.

You don't even know what it is or what to call it. And I'm telling you, that was Jesus. That is the voice of Jesus because he entered and came as a savior. In the shortest presentation of the Christmas story in the Gospel of John, John summarized it this way, he came, he came, and as many as received him.

He gave them the right to become the children of God to those who believe on his name. Have you received him? Have you received him? A pressing question that can't wait to be answered from Pastor J.D. Greer on Summit Life. Have you received him?

If you have questions about what this means, please get in touch with us right now by going to jdgreer.com or by giving us a call at 866-335-5220. There's no more important decision this Christmas season than to embrace the savior personally. The free online teaching archive on our website and these daily radio broadcasts are made possible by listeners like you. When you give, you're helping people across the country dive deeper into the transformative power of the gospel. You're equipping a young mom or dad to teach the gospel to their kids. You're giving a college student gospel-centered messages of hope to strengthen their faith on a secular campus.

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Sign up online at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Bittovitch inviting you to join us next week for another message from our Upside Down Christmas series. The nativity scene is often painted as, you know, this picturesque moment. But Monday on Summit Life, Pastor JD reminds us that the story behind that moment and what that little baby's birth really meant for Mary and Joseph. Enjoy your weekend and we'll see you right back here on Summit Life with JD Grier. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Grier Ministries.