Jesus Comes To Our Rescue

That's not exactly how it happened. But you know, we'll do it all

right. I'm gonna teach you something. Everybody, grab your hand like this.

Everybody want you to take your thumb, put it here, turn it

around, cross your two middle fingers. Uh luke. Chapter two, verse

eight. There were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over

their flocks at night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them,

and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

But the Angel said to them, do not be afraid. I bring you

good news. They will cause great joy for all people. For today in

the David, a savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah

the Lord. This will be a signed to you. You will find a

baby wrapped in clothed and lying in a manger. Suddenly, a great company

of heavenly host appeared with the Angel, praising God, saying glory to God

in the highest peace on earth, to those in whom is favor rest.

I want to ask everyone by your heads, close your eyes. I want

you to repeat this prayer after me. Everyone say, dear Jesus, speak

to my heart, change my life in Jesus' name. Amen, we have

been firmly planted first in Jonah and then in the book of Daniel, and

I've taught you on the Persian Empire conquering the Babylonian Empire. What's interesting is

that the Old Testament ends with the Persian still ruling the world. And while

the Persian Empire was ruling the world, there was a remnant of people that

believed in God, and they were holding out to the hope of the promise

that they'd been given that someday God is going to come to their rescue,

that a someday God is going to bring a Messiah, and that that Messiah

is going to come and bring them freedom and bring them victory and bring them

salvation and hope. They were holding on to this belief that someday a savior

is going to come from the moment the Old Testament closed to the beginning of

Matthew, chapter one, verse one, four hundred years past. Could you

imagine you were living through the Persian occupation believing God's gonna send Messiah. God's

gonna send a savior, He's gonna lead us. You tell that to your

kids, You're sharing that with your grandkids. Yet you watch generation after generation

die not seeing it happen. Now your four hundred years removed. I mean,

this is just some fairy tale that your great great great grandparents used to

believe, But your reality is different. In that four hundred years, people

refer to it as four hundred years of silence, but there's actually lots of

significant history that took place. The Persians were conquered by the Greeks. The

Greeks were then conquered by the Romans, and in those four hundred years there

was a small remnant of people that held out hope that someday a savior is

going to come. Today, I want to talk to you about my favorite

version of the Christmas story. That was referring to that video, the Luke

chapter two portion that I just read, But that is not my favorite portion

of the Christmas story. I love Matthew's version of the Christmas story. So

if you have your Bible, you need to turn to Matthew chapter one.

I want to share with you what I believe is the best of all the

Christmas stories that we read about in scripture. Are you ready? Matthew Chapter

one, verse one. This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the

son of David, the son of Abraham. Most of you are thinking the

genealogy. When I do through the Bible reading, I skip all the genealogies.

I don't even know how to pronounce half the names. I don't know

who these people are. It's this big chunk of this person Begat, this

person who begat? This person. Well, I love this portion of the

Christmas story, even though everybody else always skips it. So let's keep reading.

I bet as I read it, you're gonna hear Christmas music in the

background in your head, not literally. Abraham was the father of Isaac.

Isaac was the father of Jacob. Jacob the father of Judah. Don't you

hear that Christmas music? Judah and his brothers. Judah was the father of

Perez and Zarah, whose mother was Tamar. Some of you were thinking that

is not very Christmasy, Brandon, Well, Matthew here, the author of

this gospel wrote this gospel to a Jewish audience, and he was trying to

prove that Jesus had the legal right to be the Messiah. And since he

was writing this to his Jewish audience, he starts off with names that are

on the Jewish Mount Rushmore. He uses the big names Abraham, David,

and finally Jesus. And you're thinking, what is so Christmasy about this.

We know about Abraham, who's the father of nations. We know about David,

this great king, saying many of you even probably know that there was

a prophecy that the Messiah would come through the lineage of David and his throne.

But what Matthew is doing from the outset of his gospel, Matthew is

saying Jesus has the legal right to be the Messiah. So over these seventeen

verses, Matthew shares the grand story, the whole narrative of the entire Bible.

He covers two thousand years of history, and he tells it through these

names. And what you've got to wonder is, out of the thousands of

names that Matthew could have chose, why did he choose these names? He

did it for you. He did it to remind you that Christmas is for

you. You see, Christmas is that time that we celebrate that Jesus came

to our rescue. One of the things that we launch on Christmas is this

season, is we launch the time of advent. That word advent means arrival.

So we're celebrating that it just the right moment. Jesus crossed our path,

at just the right moment when we needed in most a savior came.

Jesus came to our rescue. One of the things that I always describe about

venture is that all of us we have unique stories, we have different backgrounds.

I mean, we don't have an extraordinary amount in common if you just

meet us on the street. But we all have the greatest thing in common,

which is at just the right moment, Jesus crossed our path. And

when Jesus lost our path, he changed everything. So through this genealogy,

which Matthew has divided into three sets of fourteen names, and you gotta follow

me, I promise this will be good. We see that in this first

list of fourteen names, where he starts with Abraham and he goes all the

way to David, he is reminding us that God always keeps his promise.

That God made a promise to Abraham, that he made that he keeps his

promise, that he made a nation, that he delivered Israel from captivity in

Egypt, that he brought them to the promised land, and then he made

David their king, and that is good news. Then we get this next

list of fourteen names where we go from David to the Babylonian Empire. And

we've been talking about the Babylonian Empire here, and this is when we are

reminded that even when God's people don't listen to him, even when we turn

our back on God, God doesn't forget us. Just when we reject God,

does God say I'm through with you. I don't want anything to do

with you because you weren't faithful. I'm not gonna be faithful to you.

Is that the way that God responds to you and I no. What we

learn about David to the Babylonian Exile is we see that God is faithful,

that even though his people walk away from him, he doesn't walk away from

us Church. That is good news. And then we go from the Babylonian

exile all the way to Jesus. And what do we learn from this portion

of the story. We learn that the years go by dozens hundreds, God

doesn't forget us, that God remembers his people that He's coming to our rescue.

In the period of time from the Babylonian exile to Jesus. The prophet

Isaiah lived and he shared this word of hope to the people. He said,

for un to us, a child is born, to us, a

son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulders, and his

name shall be called Wonderful counselor Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

You see, God spoke to Isaiah to remind the people that God,

God always keeps his promise. And then it just the right moment, Jesus

shows up. Jesus, the Hope of the world, is the Savior,

and he comes to our rescue. So why do what love Matthew won?

In these three sets of fourteen names, you go from good news to good

news to good news. What did that angel promise? He said, I

bring you good news of great joy that is for everyone. You were not

excluded. It doesn't matter what you've done, It doesn't matter where you've been,

it doesn't matter where you've come from. This good news is for you,

well, pastor brandon On. That's intriguing. But why these names?

Why this? You see, Matthew is telling us the grand story of the

Bible through these names. Because every one of these names has a story behind

it, and you are going to see that these names are about to become

very relatable to you. You will see that this good news of great joy.

Even though the enemy has been lying to you telling you this isn't for

you. You've made too many mistakes, You've messed up too bad. You're

going to find out that this good news is for you. Christmas is for

you some of you. You're here and you have never been to church.

Before you came here. You heard they're wearing weird sweaters, that the pastor

was going to do some big thing about the Huskies beating Oregon in the PAC

twelve championship. And you wanted to be here to celebrate too. But you're

here by Oxen, and I want you to know Christmas is for you.

You might be here totally depressed because you're an Oregon fan. I want you

to know Christmas is for you. Now, you might be here and you've

made some terrible mistakes. I want you to know Christmas is for you.

This is good news of great joy for everyone. Matthew gives us this list

of names to remind us the good news is for you. Matthew himself the

author of this gospel was the tax collector. Did you know that at his

point living, he had the worst occupation you could have, You know,

think of don't make it, don't announce them, but think him in your

head. Think of that occupation that if you met someone and they said I

do this, you would immediately think, ooh, I don't want to be

around that person. That was Matthew. He was the worst of the worst.

In fact, the Bible at this point, whenever it lists the great

sins in the world, the list of sins goes like this, liars,

cheaters, murderers, adulterers, thieves, and tax collectors. I mean,

these guys were the worst. You see. The tax collectors were hired by

Rome to receive the taxes from the people. And when they would collect taxes,

they wouldn't just receive the amount they were supposed to get to give to

the Romans. They would size you up and determine how much they could get

from you. They would take as much as they could. They would pay

your taxes to the Romans, and they would keep the rest for themselves.

These were ruthless, materialistic people that better themselves at the expense of everyone around

them, and people despise them. Matthew was a guy who was very disliked.

But one day Matthew hears about Jesus. Yes, Matthew heard about God's

love and forgiveness, and he thinks Christmas couldn't possibly be for a dude like

me. I'm a bad guy, and I'm not just a bad person.

I'm intentionally a bad person. I know what I'm doing is wrong, but

he longs for the love and forgiveness that Jesus is offering, and he wanted

Christmas to be for him. And then one day, at just the right

moment, Jesus crossed his path. Jesus came to his rescue. Jesus changed

everything, and he said, Matthew, come follow me. And for the

first time in Matthew's life, the weight of the heaviness for the way that

he was living his life was off his shoulders and he was free. And

Matthew starts thinking, Honey, my friends to experience exactly what I'm experiencing.

And when you're a tax collector and no one likes you, who do you

think your friends are? The others come the other bad people, the other

tax collectors. So he says, Jesus let's do a Bible study at my

house, and I'll bring all my friends. And in Matthew chapter nine,

we read about this Bible study. It says, as Jesus reclined at the

table in the house, behold many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus

and his disciples. Well that was because Matthew only had that type of friends.

But when the religious people, the Pharisees, saw this, they said

to his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners.

This was the way that Matthew was viewed, and Matthew couldn't get over it.

Did you ever have that moment where you just can't get over the fact

that Jesus saved you? Do you ever just have that moment where you're like,

he loves me, He crossed my path, And Matthew he couldn't get

over the fact that Jesus chose him. Smiths is for me that Jesus came

to my rescue. So when Matthew tells his version of the Christmas story,

he uses names of people that maybe you and I wouldn't be proud of.

You know, whenever we go on ancestry dot com, and you work your

way through your family lineage, you can always find someone in your family lineage

you're really proud of. I was, you know, I was related to

this person. I was related to this person. I love to tell everyone

how a lot of my family, like I have five great great great great

grandparents that came over on the Mayflower. I talk about them, but I

don't talk about the Italian side of my family that had mafia ties, like

we leave out the bad parts of the story. Sorry, but not,

Matthew. Matthew gives you his list with all the dirt to remind you the

Christmas is for you, no matter where you've been or what you've done.

Jesus came to your rescue, all right, So let's look at it,

you ready, Yeah. So he starts off by saying, Abraham the father

of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, the father of Judah and his

brothers. So we know that Jacob had a bunch of sons and Judah was

one of them. And we also know that Jacob's favorite son was a guy

by the name of Joseph. In fact, he favored Joseph so much that

he gave him this special jacket just so he could wear it around and show

off how much Jacob loved him. Well, the other brothers were jealous,

and this got so bad that they plotted Joseph's death. So one day they

took him out into the middle of the wilderness and they were going to kill

him, but Judah paused, and he said, let's not kill him.

Instead, let's make money off of him. Let's sell him to Egyptian slave

traders. So they sold their brother Joseph to the Egyptians. They took the

coat that his father had given him. They killed an animal and took the

animal's blood and put it on the coat. And then Judah carried the coat

back to his father Jacob, and he said, Dad, I'm sorry,

but Joseph has been killed by a wild animal. And then the story goes

on and it says Judah the father of Perez and Zarah, whose mother was

Kamar. Judah and his brothers kept that secret their whole life. They kept

that lie to themselves. Have you ever tried to keep a secret. Have

you ever found yourself living a lie, doing something that you knew was wrong,

and lying about it. You know what happens to you that lie begins

to erode your insides. It begins to affect every area of your life.

That lie turns into eve and greater lies and a bigger deception, and it

eventually that lie, that deception ruins everything. The worst part is eventually everybody

finds out that lie. It's interesting to think that here we are thirty five

hundred years later, still talking about Judah's life. Well, Judah's life spirals

out of control because of the secret, and Judah ends up having three sons

of his own. We read about a couple of them there. Well,

Judah's oldest son marries a woman by the name of Tamar. Well, the

problem is that son dies, and there is a principle in the Jewish culture,

it's called the principle of the kinsman Redeemer, that when a woman is

widowed, she is then to marry the next oldest son. Well, fortunately

for her, Judah's next oldest son was a really bad dude and God killed

him. So now she is promised to Judah's youngest son. But Judah doesn't

want his youngest son to marry Tamar. So he lies to her because he's

gotten really proficient at this line, and he said, my son isn't of

age, but you need to wait, and eventually I'll let you marry my

son. And Tamar waits. The son gets older, and sure enough,

Judah doesn't follow through with what he'd said, and Tamar realizes, my father

in law is a deceiving, lying, manipulative man and he needs to get

the only thing that he understands. I need to do it to him.

So she finds out Judah is going on a business trip. Beware these business

trips. And Tamar gets to the place Judah's going before he does, and

she goes to that spot where all the prostitutes hang out. She changes her

clothes, puts the right type of makeup on, and sure enough, Judah

came to the place where the prostitutes frequent, and as luck would have it,

he didn't recognize Tamar, and he chose her well. They end up

sleeping together, and then afterwards Judah does one of these because he's a liar,

he's deceptive. He goes, I forgot my wallet. I promise I'm

good for it. So here's what I'm gonna do. When I hand you

my ring and my staff. In a few days, one of my servants

will come. They'll pay you and they'll receive my ring and my staff back.

So Judah heads home, but Tamar beat him there. A few days

later, Judas sends one of his servants to get his ring and his staff

and couldn't find the woman. A few months later, Judah notices Tamar's pregnant,

and he is outraged that his daughter in law promised to his youngest son,

would do something that would lead her to be pregnant. One of the

common things about people that are secret keepers and deceivers, they are insane over

reactors. They're very judgmental. They are the type of people that notice the

speck in your eye but ignore the log cabin in their own well. He

says, Tamar wasn't faithful to my son. We're gonna have her killed.

So's the men rounded her up and they're about to kill Tamar. She pulls

out the ring, pulls out the staff and says, the father of my

child is the owner of this ring and staff, and Judah says, bummer

and Judah, the Bible tells Us is the father of Perez, and Tamar

is the mother, and these people are in the lineage of Jesus. Why

does Matthew tell us. The story this way tells you. The story this

way to say, if you're someone who's kept secrets, if you're someone who's

a liar, if you're someone who's a deceiver, Christmas is a reminder that

Jesus came to your rescue. The Christmas is for you, that Jesus is

good news for you. God made a promise to Judah, and he didn't

take it away just because Judah did these bad things. So let's keep going

on. Verse five, Salmon the father of bo Az, whose mother was

Rayhab. Why would they talk about rehab. So the story goes back to

Joshua's leading the Israelites and they get to the city of Jericho, and Jericho

was believed to be a city that could not be conquered. So God gives

them this really strange battle plant. He said, you march around the city

seven times, and then you shout, and the walls that surround Jericho will

fall. But before they marched around the city, Israel sent spies into Jericho.

And when those spies went into Jericho, the people of Jericho heard there

is Israelites spies there were going to have them killed. But a prostitute by

the name of Rayhab protected them. She kept them safe. And when the

Israelites marched around Jericho and the walls fell, God not only spared the Israelites,

but he spared Rerayhab. The Israelites were so thankful for Rahab that they

invited Rayhab to join them and to travel with them. Months past, as

they're wandering heading to the Promised Land, I think this is the way the

story goes. This is the Brandon version. They're sitting around a campfire.

They've probably been doing this, singing songs, hanging out every night. But

after a while, Salmon had an eye for Rehab. He's just like,

there's something, there's a twinkle in her eye, there's something special about her.

Man. She is edgy. This girl is raw and unedited, and

I like it. So Samon Salomon asks her out. They start dating,

they fall in love, They eventually get married, and they become the great

great grandparents of King David. Why does matth you tell us the story this

way? Why does he bring up Rayhab? Because he wants you to know

that if you've messed up, Morley, if you've made a mistake, Christmas

is for you. That Jesus came to your rescue too. And God made

a promise to Rayhab, and he didn't take it away just because Reyhab did

some questionable things. Last name, I want to highlight verse six. David

was the father of Solomon. Listen to how they mentioned this. David was

the father of Solomon, whose mother had been you Riah's wife. I mean,

think about it, Matthew, Come on, of all the things you

could have told us about David, he slayed Goliath. I mean, he

was a king there was known as a man after God's own heart. He

is the greatest king in Israel. He conquered the Philistines. Out of all

the things you could mention to us about David, you bring up the Bathsheba

incident. And we all know the story of Bathsheba. David makes this great

mistake where he sleeps with a woman who's not his wife. Eventually leads to

a massive cover up. He has people killed, just all these things,

and it causes all of his life the spiral out of control. Why would

Matthew, out of all the things he could tell us about David, why

does he tell us the story that way? Here's why many of you you

are so faithful. You live really good lives, admirable lives. But you

were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and you did the wrong

thing that one time, and ever since you've just beat yourself up about it.

That mistake really messes with you. There's times you're laying in bed at

night, you can't sleep, and the enemy lies to you and tells you

you're worthless because you did this. Shame on you. You are a hypocrite

because you did this. Why would Matthew include that story because he wants to

remind you if you've made that one mistake and the enemies beat you up about

it, wants to remind you that Christmas is for you, that Jesus came

to your rescue, that that love, that forgiveness, that hope, it's

for you, that that mistake is something that Jesus can wash away and forgive

that every time you think about forgiveness, don't let the enemy lie to you.

Every time you think about Christmas, don't let the enemy lie to you.

Christmas is for you. Why is this month such a big deal for

those of us that are followers of Jesus, Because this is when we remember,

Jesus came to my rescue. I didn't deserve it. I wasn't worthy

of it. I've made mistakes, done things that I am not proud of.

But he came to my rescue. Christmas is when we remember just the

right moment Jesus crossed our path. The last verse in Matthew's genealogy is my

favorite. Said Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary.

Mary was the mother of Jesus. Who is the messiah? Who's the guy

that came to your rescue? That came to my rescue? I bring you

good news of great joy. It's for everyone. Not one person is excluded

from this good news of great joy. Isn't that amazing? I want everybody

to buy your heads, close your eyes. If you're here today and you

need this good news of great joy for you. Maybe you you're here,

you've never given your life to Jesus, but you want to say pastor Brandon

today I want to. But also maybe you're here and the enemy has beat

you up for your mistakes and you need to be reminded. I am forgiven.

Christmas is for me. Jesus came to my rescue. What I'm I'm

going to do if either one of those is you I'm going to count to

three, and when I say three, I want you to raise your hand.

And most of all, what I want you to do is I want

you to leave this place knowing Jesus is the hope of the world, that

Jesus came to my rescue, that that promise of love and forgiveness that Jesus

gave, that he gave it to me. I want you to leave this

place knowing you are forgiven, you are right with Jesus, and you get

to celebrate that he came to your rescue. If that is you. When

I say three, I want you to raise your hand. Here I go

one, two, raise it up now, three, I love it.

Hands up all over, you can put them down. What everyone stand up.

I do this every time I give this call, and I have us

pray prayer and this is just a prayer that says I just want to make

sure that my heart is right with Jesus. And whenever I do this,

I ask everyone to pray this with me. And I do that because I

want those that are here listening to this podcast watching online to know you're not

alone, that we do this as family. So I want to ask everyone

to close your eyes repeat after me. Everyone say, Dear Jesus, I

stand before you today, and I admit I've made mistakes. But today I

ask you to forgive me, and I invite you to come into my life

and to change me. I choose from this day forward,