Game of Thrones 1: a Study in the Book of Matthew

Game Of Thrones 1: A Study In The Book of Matthew

Matthew 1:1-17

September 7, 2014

One of the greatest barometers of a region’s interests can be figured out via Google. It is so common now, you probably don’t even think about it, but Google autocomplete is amazing. All you need to do is type in one word and it guesses what you are searching for. It does this based on a complex set of calculations, but two major factors for autocorrect are popularity and region. Google will suggest something for your search based on overall popularity, but it will also use searches specific to where you live. So if you type “San Jose,” the first four results you see are, San Jose Mercury News, San Jose Sharks, San Jose State and San Jose Library. Now then, if you type “Dallas,” it comes back with Dallas Cowboys, Dallas the TV show, Dallas Buyer’s Club and Dallas Morning News. I think that shows you which city has their priorities straight.

Now then, here is an interesting one. If you type in “King,” this is what you get, 1) King Arthur, 2) King James Bible,3) King Eggroll and, 4) King Thai. So to sum it up, when the Bay Area is looking for a king it is either a legendary literary figure, the King James Bible or a couple of delicious Chinese and Thai food joints. I am convinced, in general, that this would be the same in just about any region in the US. Our understanding and search for a king is usually rooted in a fictional character or something to satisfy our hunger. We have quite a limited understanding of kings and kingdoms.

This is the case for many reasons, 1) we don’t live in a kingdom, and we specifically don’t have a king on purpose. We left that model of government over 200 years ago. We fought for our right to not have a king and not live in a kingdom. So much so, those are almost still dirty words. Which leads to a second reason we have a limited understanding of kings and kingdoms. 2) Kings mean someone else is in charge of us. In the US, we get to vote for our representation and have a say in our direction. A king is someone who leads by birthright. Someone who has absolute say and authority is not at all appealing to our 21st Century American sensibilities. 3) There are very few functioning kings and kingdoms anymore, at least in the historical sense. There are kings and kingdoms around the globe, but those are usually ceremonial positions not true positions of power and authority. Because of this, we have very little understanding of what a king should do and how we should relate to him.

Over the next 15 weeks, we will be studying the book of Matthew. My purpose for this series will be twofold: 1) to introduce you to King Jesus, so you see himnot only as a savior, a messiah or a teacher but also a king. The book of Matthew, more than any other gospel, talks about the Kingdom of God. The language of the book focuses on Jesus as king. In fact, Jesus is called the king at his birth and called the king in his death. Over the course of this series, I want you to consider what it means to have a king. 2) I want you to understand the Kingdom of God. This is a phrase that sounds great but defining it is difficult. How do you live in the Kingdom of God while a citizen of the USA? Is the Kingdom of God something for here and now or is it something for later almost like a synonym for Heaven? Once you settle those questions, you begin to ask what am I supposed to do? How does this change how I live?

As some of you may know, Casey and I are expecting our third child this February and we are very excited. One funny thing that you have probably heard of more recently is birth plans. You can try and schedule out breathing techniques, drugs or no drugs, etc. Now on our third child, it has become pretty obvious, plans are nice, but things don’t always go the way you think they will. Birthplans are great, but things rarely go according to plan.

Some people might have been prone to the same idea over 2,000 years ago in a small town called Bethlehem. Seriously consider the birth of Jesus and it might lead you to ask the question,“Was this the way God planned it?”We are being introduced to the king but it is a strange introduction. It all seems to be thought of on the fly. Jesus was bornnot in the town he would grow up in, but he was born while his parents traveled out of town. I am certain this wasn’t in Mary’s birth plan. She would rather have had Jesus back in Nazareth so she could be close to home with friends and family. Instead she goes into labor in the middle of a long journey. Not only that, there was no vacancy in Bethlehem. Joseph didn’t have Hotwire or Travelocity to find a room, so they end up staying in a stable. Mary and Joseph didn’t have a bassinet with them, so Jesus was not placed in a beautiful crib but in an animal’s feed trough. I am certain it was not in Mary’s birth plan to place her special infant son in a wooden box that only hours earlier was being slobbered on by some cud-chewing cow. Was there a plan for this baby? It all seems so last minute and thrown together. There was no grand entrance. There was no birth plan. It seems to be all thrown together as if God finally had enough with humanity’s sin and brokenness and on a whim sent his son to go and fix everything. Because God decided on a whim, everything was kind of thrown together like a last minute party. Ok- no rooms,available just let him be born in a stable. Oh- there is a census, well he doesn’t have to be born in Nazareth.Bethlehem will do. Oh there is no crib, well I guess an animal’s food trough will do. Was there a plan for this king?

Matthew 1:1, 16-17

The genealogy of Jesus shows us something amazing. This was not a last minute party. This wasn’t thrown together. God always had a plan. It was the perfect mix of divine direction and human action. The way our king came into this world says everything about how we should understand him. In fact for 42 generations this plan was unfolding. From eternity past this plan was made. God knew we would never measure up and he knew in his omnipotence that only he could fix it, so he methodically began with Abraham to set in motion a lineage that would lead to that fateful day over 2,000 years ago. God has always had a plan, but he included us. He chose Abraham. He chose David. He set all these things in motion so one day a baby boy would be born in Bethlehem and placed in a food trough in less than auspicious circumstances. God has always had a plan, and it always included us.

I want to show you two quick things about this plan this morning.

God’s plan was divine

Galatians 4:4: Fullness. Plyroma. Perfect complete. God was not twiddling his thumbs wondering when he should make his move. He always had a plan and that plan was divine. What I mean is it was perfect, smooth and well thought out. There is symmetry to it, 14 generations from Abraham to David. The beginning of this covenant community took several hundred years. This is the integration of God’s people. They multiply, they suffer, they see God’s goodness and God’s judgment and they find great success around 1,000 BC as the kingdom is unified and becomes very powerful under David.

From David to Babylon was 14 generations. Watch the symmetry and design of God’s plyroma timing. If David represents the zenith of Israel, then Babylon is its nadir. This is their lowest point. This is effectively the end of the Israelite nation. They are conquered by the Babylonians and kicked out of their own nation. They take on new identity and new worship in new places. They are far from home and far from God.

For 14 more generations, the Israelite people were far from God and far from home. We are looking at 14 more generations of hopelessness and pain. Why would anyone call that timing perfect? If we see a problem, we want to fix it immediately. If we see suffering or pain- fix it now. How is this plyroma? How is this a perfect, smooth, divine plan?

God was setting the stage. He was weaving a perfect tapestry to be the backdrop for the savior’s birth. Here are a few things that were going on: lingua franca under Alexander the Great. Homogenized Hellenism, bad in many ways, but good because of lingua franca. It was something the whole world could understand. God was allowing people to be unified around language because after his son came, his story would be passed on through a series of stories and letters, and they would all be written in Greek. God’s plan was divine, not only that, the Roman Empire had extended to its greatest size and with a common language they were able to accomplish amazing feats. Jesus was born during one of the greatest times of peace and prosperity called the PaxRomana. During this time of peace (27 BC until 180 AD), 250,000 roads were built. What a perfect window and means for the gospel to go forth to all, written in a common language. There was exponential growth from 120 followers of Jesus after his death to 25 million by the early 300s AD.

Not only were the logistics in place, but God was using this waiting period to shape the hearts of people. His covenant community had been longing for a messiah. They had been divided and torn by legalism and Pharisainism- Gnosticism. None of it seemed to fit. None of it seemed to make a difference. God showed up at just the perfect time. God’s plan was perfect, but that doesn’t mean he used perfect people to carry it out.

God’s plan was human

I want to highlight a few people that Jesus would call ancestors. They weren’t all royalty, and they weren’t all perfect. They weren’t all famous. In fact many of them were infamous. If God’s divine plan was smooth, symmetrical and perfect, then the human component of this equation was rugged and jagged often times bordering on disastrous.

Some of God’s people in this plan were a bit shady. In verse 3 Tamar and Judah are mentioned in the lineage of Jesus. For anyone who is unfamiliar or thinks the Bible is uninteresting or modest, read Genesis 38. It’s like a combination of Jersey Shore and Days Of Our Lives. Long story short, Tamar acts like a prostitute so she can get pregnant by her father-in-law. But she does it undercover. Essentially we have Judah buying prostitutes and Tamar hiding her true identity so she can get pregnant by her father-in-law. If that weren’t enough, Judah finds out Tamar is pregnant from being a prostitute and tries to have her killed until she proves he was the one who fathered the child. This is the crazy mixed up family that Jesus came from.

Manasseh, 7th century BC King of Judah, is also mentioned in Jesus’ lineage in verse 10. He was king for 55 years and his record is less than stellar. He turned the nation of Israel to idolatry and he made treaties with the Assyrians. He is also credited with killing the prophet Isaiah. This was not a good man. In fact this entire lineage is full of murderers, sexual immorality, cheaters, liars and idolaters. This is Jesus’ family tree. God’s plan was human. He had his own touch and movement toward the messiah, but we were also a part of his plan. He chose to use humanity even though we were murderous, immoral idolaters.

This means no matter where you are today, you are not too far away from the messiah. When we take communion, in a little bit, if you have strayed from the king, know that God forgives and uses sinners. If you don’t believe me, look at Jesus’ ancestors. God can and will use you this season to pass on his goodnessif you will be willing and obedient to his call.

God has always had a plan for redemption. His plan was human and divine. In fact that is the perfect description of his plan- human and divine. Jesus was fully man and fully God. We celebrate a savior whose divinity allowed him to conquer sin and death but whose humanity allowed him to walk in our shoes.

This is your introduction to the king, divine and human. His story is our story. God’s path through history has been to use his perfect divine direction mixed with our fallible human actions. With that introduction to the king, let me give you an introduction to his kingdom. If you understand the king, you can begin to understand the kingdom. Throughout this series, we will have nuanced looks at the Kingdom of God, what that means and what it means to you. Here is a guiding principle; the Kingdom of God is first and foremost a collection of people living like Jesus is king. This is a very important distinction. In this series, I will not tell you about the kingdom and tell you to go and do that without first telling you to know your king more. For instance when we come to the Sermon on the Mount, my goal will not to be to teach you to be meek or merciful. That is backwards. The Sermon on the Mount is not how you act to be a follower of Jesus. The Sermon on the Mount is how people act that know Jesus. Throughout this series, the kingdom follows the king. I want you to know the king and then I am sure the kingdom will follow. The Kingdom of God is first and foremost a collection of people living like Jesus is king.

Throughout this series, I want you to begin to understand this king and his kingdom. This is practically important to me for one main reason. I want to lay out for you the ministry vision for SFC. In the past, we have talked about Life in God, Life with Others and Life for Others as our vision, but that is really more of our discipleship path. For those who come to SFC, we think if you want to be a follower of Jesus Christ, you should be doing those three things. Life in God is about practicing Christ-centered worship, Life with Others is about practicing your faith in Christian community and Life for Others is about sharing and serving in Jesus’ name.

Moving forward, when we talk about vision, I am talking about SFC’s particular niche. Most Christian churches should be fulfilling Jesus vision for the church, which is to make disciples. When we talk about vision, it is a lower case “v” vision. We agree that our main goal is to make disciples, but how will we do that here with the resources that we have, in the place where we live, with the people who live here. We serve a king who is both human and divine and so will this vision. Jesus has called us divinely to a big “V” vision- that is the divine direction, but we also have the little “v” vision of our human response. We know God is sovereign and all-powerful, but we also know we are to respond. Our vision is dependent on an all-powerful God, but it also involves our willingness to dive in and listen and respond.

With that in mind, let me lay out some thoughts about our ministry vision. The Bible calls us the Body of Christ, which means every body part has a function. I think this is true on a broader scale when it comes to churches. Each church in this valley serves a unique purpose. Some churches are very big on counseling and soul care, so their vision might be “to serve as a spiritual hospital for the broken and hurting.” Some churches might call themselves seeker sensitive, which means their main goal is contextualizing their language and services so they are easily digestible to a world that might not otherwise go to church. Their vision might be “to create a church that un-churched people love to attend.”

So what are we? That is a question I have been pondering for the past two and a half years. It is not enough to say what we do. In the past it was Ministry, Message and Maturity. Now it is Life in God, Life with Others and Life for Others. But that is what we do…not what we are trying to achieve. A vision is our preferred future. If SFC were a factory, what would we be churning out? Using that idea, it is not enough to say, “At SFC we have smelting basins, conveyor belts and packaging centers.” The question still remains … “but what are you making?”

Ideally, all businesses’ main goal is to be profitable and thus be a business, but each business has a specific product. Imagine approaching a CEO and asking his vision and he says, “To make money” and you say, “But how?” And he says, “By being a business.” It is no less maddening to ask a church what their vision is and to hear them say, “Make disciples.” And people say, “But how?” and we respond with “By being a church?”