The Promised King #1

This testimony from the Gospel of Matthew will strengthen your confidence and should strengthen your assurance of salvation in Christ. Who is this Jesus we serve? We don't have to guess.

We don't have to speculate. We have God's infallible Word. And today on The Truth Pulpit, Pastor Don Green begins a journey through the Gospels to provide Portraits of Christ. Hi, I'm Bill Wright, and I am so excited about this series.

Each Gospel writer emphasized a different aspect of our Savior, and each writer came from a different background. Today and for the next few days, we'll see Jesus from the testimony of Matthew, a former tax collector. And Don's here to tell us what we can look forward to as this message and series unfolds.

Friend, I share Bill's excitement. Over the next two weeks, we're going to take a big picture look at all the four Gospels. We're going to stand, as it were, on the mountaintop of God's Word and see the broad vista of who Christ is. Today in Matthew, we'll see that He is the King promised for centuries in the Old Testament. And when we're done, we'll recognize Christ as the Son of God and Son of Man who came to save sinners like you by the sacrifice of Himself on the cross.

Bill, let's get started. All right then, let's join Don now for part one of a message titled, The Promised King on the Truth Pulpit. We're going to look at Christ from a particular thematic way from the Gospel of Matthew, and I'd invite you to turn to Matthew chapter 1. In a particular way, in a particular way, the Gospel of Matthew ties the life of Jesus Christ to the history and promises of the Old Testament. Matthew was a Jew.

He was writing primarily to a Jewish audience, and so it's natural that he would focus on the Old Testament and put Christ in the context of the Old Testament Scriptures which the Jews knew. And as he does that, as Matthew does that, we're going to see that what he lays out, the picture that he paints of our Lord Jesus Christ, is that Christ, the Lord Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth who walked on the earth with human feet, Jesus of Nazareth is the promised King that God had been promising for ages and ages in the past. For centuries, the prophets had been speaking. Here's a picture of who this Christ will be. And for hundreds and hundreds of years, the Jews had been looking for this one to appear. And Matthew, as he writes his Gospel, makes it plain and makes it obvious that Jesus of Nazareth is the one that we've been waiting for.

It is a glorious expectation that has now reached its fulfillment in Christ. And the force of Matthew's argument is seen in the cumulative impact of multiple fulfilled prophecies about the life of Christ. It is obvious as Matthew writes his Gospel that he wants his audience, he wants us as his readers to understand that Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies.

Those men of God who without dispute spoke for the living God were mouthpieces of the living God. What they had said over the centuries and in centuries gone by found their perfect fulfillment in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the promised King that the Jews had been looking for. And as you go through the book of Matthew, you see this laid out in five different areas, and we're just going to start in chapter one and go through this rather in very much a survey fashion.

I'm really not much of a preacher here. I'm more of a tour guide for you to simply point out highlights along the way that you would see them and that you would be impressed upon and impressed by the perfect way that Christ matches the picture that the prophets painted many years earlier. Whenever it comes to talking about fulfilled prophecy in the life of Christ, I like to set a little context like this. Some of the main prophecies of Christ came from the prophet Isaiah over 700 years before the life of Christ. If you put that in our context just to give a sense of that length of time, 700 years today looking back would precede the date that Columbus discovered America. And so if you put ourselves just to give you a sense that of what those who saw Christ at the time, they were seeing someone who had been prophesied not only 700 years, but we're just using that as part of the example, it's as if we were seeing today someone who had been accurately predicted to come before Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean.

That is remarkable. And here's what you need to think about by way of orienting your mind to receive the Word of God in a proper way here today. The only way that could be true, the only way that that kind of perfect prophetic fulfillment could take place hundreds of years after the prophecies were made were the fact that those prophets spoke by inspiration of a sovereign omniscient God who knew the end from the beginning. The only way that a man could accurately speak to what would happen 700, a thousand years after the fact is if he's not speaking from his own wisdom and insight, he is speaking as the mouthpiece of a holy and sovereign God who had not only the knowledge but the perfect power to bring to pass what he had said through those men centuries earlier, hundreds of years earlier. That's what we're seeing in the book of Matthew. And I say that all by way of introduction so that you would, your heart would be properly prepared for what is about to come. But as you come to this Gospel, what you need to see is the context of the life of Christ. And what you see by the way of the context of the life of Christ is the context of what we believe as Christians.

You see, we have to transcend our ever-present temptation to be fascinated with ourselves. We have to transcend our ever-present temptation to be consumed with this life and to be consumed with what God can do for me today. You see, we as believers in Christ, we stand in a stream of history that far transcends us. Our lives, in a sense, although they have eternal significance because Christ has set his love upon us, our lives pale into insignificance in light of the transcendent work of God that is taking place throughout the course of history. And as you grasp that sense of the transcendent nature of the purposes of God in Christ, you're going to have a context to understand your own life with the right sense of perspective.

And the other thing that it will do for you is that this testimony from the Gospel of Matthew will strengthen your confidence and should strengthen your assurance of salvation in Christ. Those of us who have repented of sin and put our faith in Christ, let me say something emphatically from the start. We have not believed in an imposter. We have not followed cleverly devised tales that were spun out of the imagination of some silly old woman a few years ago. We're not following the imaginations of people who today say that God has spoken directly to them because he hasn't. Where God spoke was God spoke through the Old Testament prophets.

And in Hebrews chapter 1 it says, in these last days God has spoken to us in his Son who is the fulfillment of those prophetic proclamations. When we preach the Bible, when we preach Christ, when you walk with Christ and follow him, you're not following something that you designed. You're not following something that is a trivial piece of religious curiosity.

You're following the living and true God. If your faith is in Christ for your eternal salvation, your faith is in the King that God promised to be the one and only Savior of mankind, when you see the vast span of history that was fulfilled in the life of Christ, you realize that God in his grace has brought you to the one true Savior, the one true Lord, and in that your spiritual confidence takes great root. That's what Matthew intended for us to see and that's what I'm going to try to guide you through briefly here. Where do we see this fulfillment of prophecy?

It's all over the Gospel of Matthew from beginning to end. And we're going to frame this, I think I said around five, we're going to frame this around four aspects of the life of Christ here. To just help us see that Christ is in fact the King that God had promised to Israel and now is the King that is proclaimed to all of the world. You see this first of all in the person of Christ, who he is in his human lineage even. So point number one is the person of Christ. How do we know that Christ is the promised King?

Well, we look first of all at his person. In the Old Testament, in Genesis chapter 12, God made promises to Abraham that from Abraham would come a seed that would be a blessing to all the nations. When David became king in 2 Samuel chapter 7, God promised David that there would be a king that would come from his loins who would reign in an everlasting way. Well, Matthew and the Jews as they contemplate who is going to be this Messiah are conscious of these Old Testament promises. That God had promised blessing through the line of Abraham. He had promised a king through the line of David.

And Matthew does not waste any time getting to the point. Right in Matthew chapter 1 verse 1, he says, the record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah. It's the word that's usually translated Christ. The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. And then the genealogy follows in the following 16 verses, through verse 16 I should say, and we won't bother to read each one. But what Matthew is doing here in Matthew chapter 1 is he is meticulously showing the genealogical connection that Jesus had to the promises that were made to Abraham and David. Jesus was a legal heir to the throne of Israel. He was a descendant of Abraham through whom the promised blessing would come. And so from the very start, Matthew connects Jesus of Nazareth and says he is in the line of Abraham, he is in the line of David, and a Jew reading this would immediately snap to attention and say, hey, this matters. And then he goes through and he gives that physical lineage starting from Abraham in verse 2 all the way down through verse 16 showing that his father Joseph, not his human biological father, but the father, the patriarch of his family, to whom into whose family he was born by the Virgin Mary is in the line of Abraham. He is in the line of David.

Jesus is entitled to the throne. And look at verse 17. So all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations. From David to the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations. And from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, 14 generations. Matthew has delineated 42 generations to set the genealogical context for the life of Christ. 42 generations. I can identify maybe 7 generations of my parents.

Maybe you can identify a few more. But in Christ we have not someone who randomly appeared on the scene, we have someone who has the genealogical pedigree to be the Messiah. That is significant to understand because not anyone could have been the Messiah.

He had to be in the right genealogical line for that to occur. And so from the very beginning, Matthew declares that Jesus is the Messiah. By Messiah he means that he is God's anointed one. In the Old Testament, kings and high priests were set aside.

They were set apart, I should say, often by ceremonies that involved anointing with oil. What happens here is that Jesus is set apart to be the King of the Jews. His very person speaks to that. And so, beloved, just dealing with this at a very basic fundamental level, how do we know as Christians that we've looked to the right one for our salvation? How would you as an unbeliever know that what I am saying when I call you to repentance and faith in Christ for your salvation? How would you know that Christ is the right one to whom you are to look? It starts with this God-inspired testimony in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew's Gospel shows that Christ is in the Old Testament line to fulfill what was promised.

In Jesus Christ, we have the promised King that dozens of generations were looking for, that many prophets spoke of, that the course of history, Scripture says, finds its culmination in him. Here's the beauty of it, beloved, and here's one of the reasons why I love to preach Scripture and I would never preach anything else. You don't have to take my word for it. Your faith does not rely on anything that I say that you can't verify for yourself in Scripture. You don't have to depend on the word of a human speaker.

In fact, you shouldn't. You should be searching the Scriptures for yourself and say, is Christ the one who is really promised? Is he the one to whom we are really to put our only faith in?

Is he the one who can truly save me? Matthew settles that from the beginning saying, here's the Messiah, here's the proof, here's his genealogical pedigree. But he doesn't stop there as he lays forth the person of Christ. As you walk through the life of Christ, you see other manner of fulfilled prophecy and Matthew goes out of his way to emphasize this. Let's look secondly at the youth of Christ.

Look at his childhood, if we could. In Isaiah chapter 7 verse 14, you don't need to turn there, the prophet Isaiah foretold that the Messiah would be born of a virgin. Now that's a pretty remarkable prophecy to make.

That doesn't happen ever. But here we see in Matthew chapter 1 beginning in verse 18 that Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of that very unique prophecy. And now we're just going to start reading Scripture passages together by and large here. Matthew chapter 1 verse 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. We're in verse 19 chapter 1. And Joseph her husband being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife for the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins. Stop right there for just a moment. Notice that the part of the central aspect of the coming of Christ was to come to save people from their sins, his people from their sins.

We're going to pick up on that later. I just want to highlight it right here that it's woven into the very introduction about the life of Christ. Go back to verse 21.

She will bear a son, you'll call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins. Now watch this, verse 22. Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son and they shall call his name Immanuel, which translated means God with us.

What I want you to see there, there's so many things you can focus on in that passage, but for today's message what I want you to focus on is verse 22. All of this, all of the birth of Christ took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet. This, the birth of Christ, took place to fulfill prophecy. The birth of Christ took place in this manner, at this time, to fulfill what the prophet had said. 700 years earlier, 700 years earlier, Isaiah said a virgin will be with child. Now in the life of Christ, 2,000 years ago from our time perspective, that has been fulfilled.

The impossible thing that God promised through the prophet Isaiah has just happened. And a virgin is with child and that child is the promised king as spoken by the prophet. Matthew then goes on as he expands on the youth of Christ, the childhood of Christ. He shows that the very place of Jesus' birth fulfilled another prophecy. This one from Micah chapter 5. Turn to Matthew chapter 2 verse 4.

Actually, let's start in verse 1. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? Verse 3, when Herod the king heard this, because another king would be a threat to his own throne, he was troubled in all Jerusalem with him. And so Herod, verse 4, gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. Verse 5, they said to him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for this is what has been written by the prophet.

And then you see in most of your Bibles it's going to be in all caps which is representing the fact that it's a quotation from the Old Testament. Verse 6, he says, And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the leaders of Judah, for out of you shall come forth a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. Micah was a contemporary of Isaiah. In round numbers, 700 years again before the time of Christ, he prophesied that the Messiah would be born in the little town of Bethlehem.

Just a village of a few hundred people. You never would have guessed it, let alone to guess it 700 years in advance. The fact that Christ was born in Bethlehem was a mark that God had orchestrated history in order to fulfill what his prophets had said, to honor his word which he spoke through the prophets. And you see Matthew again saying, this fulfilled the prophets, this fulfilled the prophets.

And he's not done saying that even about the youth of Christ. Herod searched for Jesus to destroy him and Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt again in fulfillment of prophecy. Look at Matthew chapter 2 verse 14. Herod had threatened to kill all of the babies that were two years and under. And so in verse 14, Joseph got up and took the child and his mother while it was still night and they left for Egypt.

He remained there until the death of Herod. Verse 15, here you see it again. This is a theme throughout the Gospel of Matthew. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet.

Out of Egypt I called my son. Three times at the end of chapter 1 and in chapter 2 describing the life of Christ to fulfill what the prophet said, to fulfill what the prophet said, to fulfill what the prophet said. You know the Bible only has to say something one time for it to be important because all of Scripture is inspired by the Spirit of God. When it says something repeatedly, all the more are you to make the connection, all the more is it to grab your attention. God was keeping his promise to send a king and events which Jesus humanly could never have controlled on his own because he was only an infant, God was orchestrating to be the fulfillment of the prophecy so that Israel could know this was really their king, so that we now 2,000 years later can look through Scripture and say Jesus has to be the one, there was never another one like him and there never will be another one, therefore our faith in him could not possibly be misplaced. That's the thing.

That's what we're supposed to see. Jesus Christ is the promised king. Now, you take these things and you meditate upon them. You set aside the things that trouble you about earthly life. You look beyond your own life. You look beyond your own circumstances and you see this magnificent Christ being raised up, being lifted up in the pages of Scripture and the effect that that is to have on us is to give our exclusive attention to him to recognize that he is the Messiah. He is set apart.

There is no one else like him and there never will be. That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, with part one of The Promised King, the first of four portraits we'll see in the four gospels over the next couple of weeks here on The Truth Pulpit. It's an incredible journey.

We hope you'll travel on with us all the way. Don, you told us again today how much you love teaching straight from Scripture because you need only stand in the stream of history that God has orchestrated to accomplish his word. But what about those who can't seem to find a church with the same outlook? Well, my brother or sister in Christ, I understand the frustration that that can cause when you don't have a good Bible teaching church in your life. I can't say everything in a little spot like this, but here are three quick thoughts to help you. First of all, find the best teaching church you can in your area, even if it lacks in other ways.

Just find the best one that's available and go with it. Secondly, let your hunger drive you to read God's Word each day. You can understand more than many pastors if you simply meditate consistently on God's Word in your life.

And finally, let me invite you, we're here to be a friend to you. Use our many free resources to supplement your spiritual diet. Bill will be happy to help you find them on our website. Just visit us at TheTruthPulpit.com to find those resources. That's TheTruthPulpit.com. I'm Bill Wright. We'll see you next time on The Truth Pulpit with Don Green.