ESF, Lord’s Day service message
3/2/2025
A Blessed Life in God’s Faithfulness and Grace
Text: Matthew 1:1-6

This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham: 2 Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,
Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram,
4 Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse,
6 and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,

In the 1920’s, there was a famous mafia boss in Chicago. His name? Al Capone. He committed horrible crimes and terrorized people. He was arrested and put in trials many times. But every time he won the trials and remained as a free man. How? He had a lawyer whose name was Eddie O’Hare. His expert legal skill kept Al Capone from being charged for his crimes. To show his appreciation, Capone paid Eddy not only lots of money but also much land in a prime location in the city. The estate was so large that it filled an entire city block.
Eddie had a son that he loved dearly. Eddie saw to it that his young son had the best of everything–clothes, cars and a good education. Nothing was withheld. And despite his involvement with organized crime, Eddie even tried to teach his son right from wrong. He wanted him to be a better man than he was.
Yet, with all his wealth and influence, there were two things that Eddie couldn’t give his son. A good example and a good name.
One day Eddie reached a difficult decision. Offering his son a good name was far more important than all the riches. He had to rectify all the wrong that he had done. He went to the top authorities and told them the truth about Al Capone. He tried to clean up his tarnished name and offer his son a family name of honor. To do this he would have to testify against the mob, and he knew that the cost would be great. But he wanted to set a good example, and he wanted his son to have a good name. So, he testified. Several years later, Eddie’s life ended in a blaze of gunfire on a lonely Chicago street.

But his son was determined to carry his family name as an honorable name. Later he became a navy fighter pilot and courageously fought against the Japanese and won many air battles. He was recognized as a hero and given one of the nation’s highest military honors. Today, O’Hare airport in Chicago is named in tribute to the hero.

Our family name carries certain meanings. Some family names such as Kennedy, Bush, Obama, Biden, and Trump mean wealth, power and authority in the modern history of the US.

But most of the ordinary people will never have the power and authority of those family names. However, in this text, God is offering us the most powerful family name of all names. It is the family of Jesus Christ.

If you belong to the family of Christ, your family name becomes Christian and you have the power and authority of the King of kings whose wealth, power and authority surpasses all the wealthiest and powerful people on earth.

How can you be a member of this family? Today’s text teaches you how you can be a member of this family, and how you can live with the power and authority in this family.

By faith in God’s faithfulness
One of the reasons why many people are living in misery is that there are broken promises in their lives. When young people get married, they are promising each other: “I will love you until death do us part”. But some years later, both of them or one of them may not want to keep the promise. When people make business partnerships, some partners don’t keep their promises, and they break the hearts of the other partners. Men’s promises are fragile or deceptive. If you live your life by men’s promises, you will be disappointed because of their broken promises.

It doesn’t mean that we should not trust each other. We have to trust each other. But we should not trust each other as if we have the power and ability to keep promises at all times.

Psalm 146:3-4 says:
Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortal men, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.

Isaiah 2:22 says:
Stop trusting in man,
who has but a breath in his nostrils.
Of what account is he?

The genealogy of Jesus starts with the phrase, “the son of Abraham. Through Abraham’s life, God is showing us what we must trust. It is God’s promise. And it is the faithfulness of God who always keeps His promises.

Abraham was a very old man who did not have a son. In ancient times, an old man without a son was a miserable man. Because in ancient times, a son could mean everything for an old man. A son could be his protector, his provider, and his primary caregiver. So, an old man without a son had no primary caregiver, no provider, no protector, and no one he could depend upon on earth.

But one day Abraham heard God’s word. God told him two things. One was a command, and the other was a promise. The command was that he had to leave his home and go to a place where God would instruct him. The promise was that God would give him a son and through the son, God would make a great nation and would bless all people.

Abraham believed in the promise and left his home. He went to the place where God told him to go. As an old man he expected that God would fulfill His promise of a son soon, probably in a few years. But God did not fulfill the promise as Abraham expected. After he received the promise, a few years passed but nothing happened. 5 years passed. 10 years passed. 15 years passed. 20 years passed. 24 years passed. The promise was not fulfilled. So, from time to time, Abraham’s faith was shaken. When his faith was shaken, he did not know what to do. Once he tried to have a son through a servant woman who had nothing to do with God’s promise.

But God helped him regain his faith again and again. And then finally, 25 years later, God gave him a son just as He had promised. God helped him see the Savior who would come through the lineage of his seed. Although Abraham was a miserable, hopeless old man, by God, who faithfully kept His promise, he became a blessed man. It was neither his own strength nor his own effort which made him a blessed person. It was God’s faithfulness.

While we believe in God’s promise, our faith may become weak. We may almost give up on believing in God’s promise. But God never gives up on us. He keeps helping us regain our faith and to believe in His promise until He fulfills the promise.

In this genealogy of Jesus, He is also the son of David. Why is this significant? Even though David made some mistakes– and some very great sins– he loved God with all his heart and God loved David in return.
God made a promise to David in 2 Samuel 7:16, “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.”

God promised David that his kingdom would endure forever, that one of his household, or descendants, would be king forever. But there was a time when it seemed that this promise would not stand the test of time. After David’s death, his son caused a rift in the nation, and by the time of his grandchildren the nation of Israel had split apart. Before too long there were two nations, Israel and Judah. And then, in the course of time, the two nations would be destroyed and carried off into exile. It would seem that God did not keep his promise, because there was no earthly throne and no earthly king from David’s line.

But God was sending a king, and he would indeed be descended from David as Galatians 4:4-5 says, “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full rights of son.” In the fullness of time God sent his son. He sent Jesus Christ, the son of David.
Through Jesus, God confirms that everyone who comes to Jesus and believes in Him will receive the same blessing. God is saying to us: If you come to Jesus my Son, and live by faith in Him, I will let you trust in my promises. And when you trust in my promises, you will never be disappointed. I will surely keep all the promises. You may feel hopeless now because of your difficult condition. But don’t give up. Keep trusting in my faithfulness. Wait until I fulfill the promises.

When we live by God’s promise, our lives will stand upon a solid rock. Although the promise may not be fulfilled as we expect, it will surely be fulfilled. While we are waiting for the promise to be fulfilled, God helps us grow in faith. God convinces us that He is faithful and He will surely fulfill His promise. God strengthens our faith to see His mysterious world more deeply, widely and highly. So, while we are waiting for God to fulfill His promise, we can live with hope.

Numbers 23:19
God is not a man, that he should lie,
nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act?
Does he promise and not fulfill?

If you have a problem that nobody can solve, try to find one of the promises of God for the problem and hold on to that promise. If you have a problem of fear, hold on to God’s promise of courage.
Joshua 1:9, Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

If you have a financial problem, hold on to God’s promise of financial blessing. Philippians 4:19, “And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.”

If you have a problem of conflict and bitterness, hold on to God’s promise of forgiveness and peace. John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

If you have a problem of depression, hold on to God’s promise of hope and joy.

Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

If you have a problem of sickness, hold on to God’s promise of healing.
Isaiah 53:5 – “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

And God will surely fulfil the promise according to His faithfulness.

By faith in God’s grace
Another blessing in this genealogy is that when we live with faith in Jesus, we can live in God’s grace. And a life in God’s grace is a most blessed life. Why?

Here in Jesus genealogy, we can find people who had a shameful past. In verse 3, we can see an unusual family history. Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar. Do you know what the relationship between Judah and Tamar was? The original record of their relationship is in the book of Genesis chapter 38. Judah was the father-in-law of Tamar. Tamar was the wife of Judah’s oldest son Er. But the son died without leaving a son to succeed his name. The only way to inherit the name of the dead son was to let the widow get married to the dead son’s brother. So, Judah let his second son Onan marry his dead brother’s wife Tamar. But that son also died without leaving a son.

And Judah was afraid of giving another son to Tamar, because he thought if he gave another son to her, the son also would die. But Tamar was upset about Judah’s decision. So, she disguised herself as a prostitute and covered her face with a veil and seduced her father-in-law and slept with him. And she became pregnant and gave birth to the twin sons- Perez and Zerah. What an unthinkable sin they committed. But God put their names in Jesus’ genealogy.

Look at other names: Rahab and Ruth in verse 5. Both were gentiles who had no right to belong to God’s people. Rahab was a prostitute. However, God allowed them to become wives of forefathers in Jesus’ ancestry.

Also look at David and Uriah’s wife in verse 6. David committed adultery with the wife of one of his own soldiers Uriah, who was loyal to him. Also, when David found Uriah’s wife got pregnant, he killed Uriah to hide his sin (2 Samuel chapter 11). What dreadful sins David committed! But God permitted those names be put in Jesus’ genealogy.

Why?
God does not condone their shameful sins, but God shows that
“There is no one righteous, not even one” Romans 3:10.
“We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way” Isaiah 53:6

God shows that man’s shameful sin can be forgiven and wiped out in Jesus Christ. God shows that there is no sin which cannot be forgiven in Jesus. God shows that a man can be set free from his or her shameful past. God shows us that regardless of our shameful past, we still can have a chance to live a new life, and we still can receive His blessings if we believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that Jesus died for our sins.

God shows us that we must live by faith in His grace not by our own good works.

In Romans 4:6-8 Paul puts the truth this way:
David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

“Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man
whose sin the Lord will never count against him.”

There was a young pretty girl, Christina, who was living with her poor mom in a small village in Brazil. Longing to leave her poor Brazilian neighborhood, Christina wanted to see the world. Discontent with a home having only a palette on the floor, a washbasin, and a wood-burning stove, she dreamed of a better life in the city. One morning she slipped away, breaking her mother’s heart. Knowing what life on the streets would be like for her young, attractive daughter, her mom Maria hurriedly packed to go find her. On her way to the bus stop she entered a drugstore to get one last thing. Pictures. She sat in the photograph booth, closed the curtain, and spent all she could on pictures of herself. With her purse full of small black-and-white photos, she boarded the next bus to Rio de Janeiro.

Maria, Christina’s mother knew Christina had no way of earning money. She also knew that her daughter was too stubborn to give up. When pride meets hunger, a human will do things that were before unthinkable. Knowing this, Maria began her search. Bars, hotels, nightclubs, any place with the reputation for street walkers or prostitutes. She went to them all. And at each place she left her picture – taped on a bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board, fastened to a corner phone booth. And on the back of each photo, she wrote a note.

It wasn’t too long before both the money and the pictures ran out, and Maria had to go home. The weary mother wept as the bus began its long journey back to her small village. It was a few weeks later that young Christina descended the hotel stairs. Her young face was tired. Her brown eyes no longer danced with youth but spoke of pain and fear. Her laughter was broken. Her dream had become a nightmare. A thousand times over she had longed to trade these countless beds for her secure pallet. Yet the little village was, in many ways, too far away. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar face. She looked again, and there on the lobby mirror was a small picture of her mother. Christina’s eyes burned and her throat tightened as she walked across the room and removed the small photo. Written on the back was this compelling invitation: “Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home.” And she did.

In this genealogy of Jesus, God is showing His own photo to all of us. When we are wondering without faith, God shows His face of grace and mercy. When we are agonizing in our own sinful ways, God is showing His gracious face to us so that we can come back to home, the home where we can have peace with God, where we can start a new life all over again, where we can receive the best blessing we need.

It doesn’t matter where you have been. It doesn’t matter what you have done. What matters now is what you allow God to do in your life through Jesus Christ. Believe in God’s unconditional grace available for you in Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
God wants us to see today that through Christ anything is possible. Through Him, even you and I can be used. Through Him, it does not matter how bad our past is. Through Him our lives can be changed although we don’t deserve it. Through Him, our lives can have an eternal impact on many people.