Well, guys, you might have noticed it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here, right? Thanksgiving's over, decorations are up. Your walk to our building's getting a little chillier. All clear signs Christmas is coming fast. And then clearly we have snow on the ground more than we did last week, man. Guys, there is a lot of sweet things about this season that I love. But the sweetest thing and the thing I always look forward to, that we do as a church, is we take this time to intentionally reflect on the significance of Jesus birth. We reflect on what's called, we've already mentioned it, the Advent of Christ. And I love that word Advent because it just means the arrival of a significant person or event. And in Jesus we get both, don't we? In Jesus birth, we get the arrival of the most significant person in human history. And in Jesus birth, we get the arrival of one of the most significant events in human history. And because this Advent is so deeply significant, we always take the weeks leading up to Christmas to preach on it. So we remember that the real wonder of this season is actually the incarnation of Jesus, that he took on flesh, that God dwells with man. And this year, what we're reflecting on as we think about Advent is this. We're reflecting on the character of God in the coming of Jesus. We're reflecting on what the birth of Jesus tells us about who God is. Because the truth is, the greatest revelation of God to us is the coming of Jesus. Look at how John puts it in John 1:14. I love this verse. He says, and the word Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us. And catch this. We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. So John is saying, do you want to know, like, what God is like? Do you want to see his glory? Do you want to see God? Clearly look at the person of Jesus. Jesus reveals the Father in a deeper, richer, more clear way than like we ever could have hoped for. So for these next four weeks, here's where we're going. We're going to look at what Jesus birth reveals to us about the character of God. We're going to trace four characteristics of who God is that Jesus birth just like lifts up, exalts, puts on display. And I'm excited about this because veritas, we're people that more than anything, we want to know our God well and deeply. Amen. Amen. So I'm excited to dig in. I'm going to dive right in this morning. The first characteristic we're looking at. It's one you've heard before if you've been around our church for any length of time. And that characteristic is God's sovereignty. It's a big word, sovereignty. Don't let it trip you up, the word sovereign. It just means king or ruler. And what you find as you dig into God's word and know it more deeply, is that on every page, it's revealing to us that God is the ultimate sovereign. He's the ultimate king. He has the ultimate throne. And because he's king of kings, because he's sovereign of sovereigns, this is what that means. He is in complete, utter control. Nothing happens apart from his purposeful will, his authority, his permission. And that means that everything in our world, and I do mean everything, goes according to his purposeful and perfect plan. I don't think you could get a better description of God's sovereignty than Isaiah 46, 9 and 10, where God declares this. This is one of my favorite passages. He says, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose. So according to God, what makes Him God? What sets God apart from all the false gods Israel was tempted to worship? Well, we see it. It's his sovereignty. He's declared the end from the beginning. His purpose will be accomplished and no one can can thwart his plan. I love the way RC Sproul highlights this truth when he says this. There is not one maverick molecule running around loose and free of God's sovereignty. But as you hear that, if we're being honest, can we just be honest here and think about this? There might be an uncomfortable thought you might be thinking, and it's this. Well, it feels like there's a lot of maverick molecules in my life. In fact, it might even feel like there's maverick people in your life, maverick situations, even maverick tragedies. This really might be our biggest obstacle to our belief in love of God's sovereignty. Not his testimony and his word, but the personal experience of our lives, right? And like, sure, it might be easy for us to pay lip service to the belief God is King. We just sang that. He is the King of all. He's on his throne. Nothing is outside of his plans. But in our experience, when you get that call or you lose that thing you aren't sure you can live without, or you have that problem in your marriage, or you worry about the future of that child, or you think about that thing that happened to you, it becomes a lot harder to believe, doesn't it? Here's the unavoidable question like every one of us will ask sooner or later when we try to believe in God's sovereignty in a fallen world. It's this question, how can we believe God's really in control when so much of our lives feels out of control? How can we really believe God is on the throne, that he's king, that he's in control when so much feels like, hey, I would have done it differently. I would have written it differently. This doesn't make sense. It doesn't feel like God, you're in control. If you're all powerful and all good. What's going on? Well, veritas, I have two burdens for you today as we hear God's word and my main burden. It's to show you how Jesus birth. It reveals that God's sovereign control over all things is a true doctrine that we need to believe. Like, I want to help you see Jesus's entrance into our world. It reveals and proves that God is in control over all the world There. Jesus birth reveals there are no maverick molecules in God's universe. But I have another burden for you underneath that along the way. Like, I want to help us see and believe that God's sovereignty is a good and beautiful truth to hold. Because let me tell you, if you get this, if we get this, if you can open your hand, bend your knee and surrender to this truth of God's sovereignty, it will change your faith for the better. No attribute of God is meant to leave us where we are. Each truth about God's character, it's meant to draw us to richer devotion, worship, hope. And. And that is certainly true for the utter and complete sovereignty of God. And the reason I know this is because when I was a freshman in college, surrendering to God's sovereignty did that to me. It changed me. Like, it gave me deeper resources I didn't even think were possible to experience peace, patience and hope. And I wanted to do that for you, too. Now, the text we're gonna look at this morning isn't a typical text. It's not a story. It's not. Not a psalm or a poem. It's not a prophecy. Though we're gonna look at some of those. It's actually exactly what you were hoping for. It's a genealogy in Matthew, chapter one. You guys pumped for that? The part of the Bible you have never skipped over or glanced over Right? We're all good Christians here. Trust me, I get it, okay? I've done the exact same thing. But over the past few years, here's what I've discovered that I hope to show you in this genealogy to help you and us be better readers of our Bible. Every genealogy in the Bible is an intentional and important placement. And here's what we're gonna see. We're digging into Matthew's genealogy in Matthew, chapter one. We're gonna see he's actually masterfully designed it to reveal a deeply significant truth about God. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna read this whole genealogy together. I'm gonna attempt to cut through these names. Cause I want you to hear the whole text, and I want you to get a sense of just how many names, how many generations, how many thousands of years it took for Jesus to actually finally arrive in human history. And then I'm going to simplify it and point out to you two things that demand our attention in this genealogy. Two truths that I believe Matthew has placed here. Clearly that it's going to help us not just believe in God's sovereignty, but start to trust God's sovereignty. Okay, so look with me starting in verse one, and pay attention if you want some great baby names here. I would love if in five, 10 years, this room was filled with a lot more Jehoshaphats and Amminadabs. Okay, so this is what it says. Here we go. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Here we go. Abraham the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob. Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. And Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, by Tamar and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab. There it is. And Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Naashon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed, by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David, the king. That was a lot of names just to get from Abraham to David. And then he keeps going. David was the father of Solomon, by the wife of Uriah. Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asaph, Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amos, Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers. At the time of the deportation to Babylon, a lot more names. We went from Abraham to David. Now we got from David all throughout Israel's history to exile to brought us right where we just ended in Daniel. And then he keeps going. This is right after Daniel's history, after the deportation to Babylon, more names. Jeconiah the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, Abiyud the father of Eliakim, Eliakim the father of Azor, Azor the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Achim, Achim the father of Eliad. Elliot the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of Mathan, Mathan the father of Jacob. Here we go. And Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ, which means the Messiah or the Anointed One. And then he sums it all up in this. So all the generations from Abraham to David, 14 generations. David to the deportation of Babylon, 14 generations. And the deportation of Babylon to the Christ, 14 generations. There's our text today. A lot of names in there. I flawlessly pronounced. I'm glad you noticed. But for now, I just want to hone in on the beginning and end of this genealogy. Lots of names in there. But as we zero in on verse one and verse 17, you're going to see Matthew's making an important point. And I'm going to detail this more, but just at least give you something to grab onto. Matthew is calling us to see God had a plan for Israel and all nations, even through all their ups and downs. And that plan, it's finally fulfilled in Jesus's birth. Here's how you could think of this through this genealogy. What Matthew is proving is that God is the purposeful author of a perfect story. And that perfect story has finally reached its powerful climax in the birth of Jesus. Okay, think about some of the best stories you've ever read or watched. They're unpredictable. They're filled with twists and turns, moments. You have no idea how everything's going to be resolved until you reach the point at the end when all the threads come together. And what you realize is, oh, this author has planned for every page, every scene, every Event, they were in complete control of this story the whole time. What Matthew's doing by framing his genealogy with verse one and verse 17 is showing his readers that God, he is the perfect author of the unpredictable story of Israel to its perfect fulfillment in Jesus birth. He is sovereign over the world's story. Okay, we see this right away in verse one, where Matthew calls Jesus the son of David and the son of Abraham. So this verse, it's the summary of the entire genealogy. All of the 41 names center around these three. Abraham, David and Jesus. And we're gonna camp out here. Cause if we get this verse, we're gonna kind of get the purpose of the whole genealogy. The opening verse of the New Testament, guys, it's not just a list of three names. It is declaring Jesus birth is the fulfillment of the entire story of the old Testament. All 39 books, 1,189 chapters, all 23,000 verses. And Matthew does this by linking Jesus to the two central characters of the Old Testament and the two central promises God made to them. Two promises, Israel, that summed up their identity that they were waiting for, longing for. And two promises this is important that at this point seem to be completely forgotten and unfulfilled. Let's start with God's promise to Abraham. What's the significance of Jesus being a descendant of Abraham? Look with me at Genesis 12:1 3, where God says this to Abraham. Now the Lord said to Abram or Abraham, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great. So you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. And him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And this kind of last part is bolded because it's the key promise God made to Abraham. And it's the key promise Israel was clinging to through their history. This promise that somehow, through Abraham's family, through Israel, nations all around the world, they'll become worshipers of the one true go. And what you're going to see is that promise. It reverberates in dozens of places in scripture, but here's just one in Isaiah that's repeated in Micah as well. It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains. It will be lifted up above the hills, and all the nations will flow to it. And Many people shall come and say, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and we may walk in his path. For out of Zion, out of this heavenly city shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. So Isaiah is looking forward. He's picturing a time when this promise to Abraham will come true. All the nations, they'll flow to Israel due to this magnetic glory of God. Nations around the world bowing their knees, pledging allegiance to him, and perfect peace will reign. But this core promise of the Old Testament, this promise Israel hoped in, was also a promise that seemed to fail to come true as centuries wore on. Okay, not only did Abraham clearly fail to see God's purposes come to pass, generation after generation did. And can you imagine what it would have been like to be an Israelite, slowly watching your hope feel like it was eroding over the centuries, name after name in this genealogy, failing to see God's promise come to pass. Instead of watching Israel bless the nations, they watched Israel become like the nations and eventually become conquered by the nations. And can you imagine, just put yourself in their frame of mind, how out of control God would have seemed to be in the middle of Israel's story. How could God fail to do what he said if he's actually sovereign? That's actually the question Psalm 44 asks. Look at these verses. He says this. You've made us the taunt of our neighbors, the derision and scorn of those around us. You've made us a byword among the nations, a laughing stock among the peoples. And jumping to verse 23, he says this. Awake. Why are you sleeping? Oh, Lord, rouse yourself. Do not reject us forever. God's people didn't become the blessing of the nations. They became the taunt of the nations. And because of this, they felt like God's fallen asleep. Now, do you ever feel like that? Like God's kind of maybe falling asleep on the job, like the story of your life? It feels like it's indicating he's forgotten or he's not in control, maybe that he's made promises to you in his word that you aren't feeling like he's keeping? If so, you're not alone. Okay. For thousands of years, Israel was wondering, God, what happened to this promise to Abraham? Are you really as sovereignty sovereign as you say you are? Because it doesn't feel like it right now. We're going to look at God's clear answer in a moment. But I Want you to notice that this story of God's unfulfilled promise to Abraham, it exactly parallels God's unfulfilled promise to David. Remember, in verse one, Jesus is called the son of Abraham, the son of David. And again, just like God made a huge promise to Abraham, God made a huge promise to David. Look at 2 Samuel 7, 12, 13. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, when you die, David, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body. And I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. So again, God's promising David a king that will defeat Israel's enemies, bring peace to the world, finally bring God's kingdom that they were hoping for. And just like God's promise to Abraham, this is a promise that reverberates through the Old Testament. We'll get this Isaiah 9 passage, kind of a famous Christmas passage. He says, for to us a child is born, to us a son is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulder. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and uphold it with justice and with righteousness. From this time forth, forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. God is saying, me, the God in control of all the angel armies, the Lord of hosts, the sovereign God, I will do this. But just like God's promise to Abraham, this promise seemed to go dramatically unfulfilled as well. Because we know the story of Israel's exile, of their kings being carted off and of other kings taking Israel's throne. And in Psalm 89, written after Israel's exile, the author reflects on God's unfulfilled promise. And he says this. But now you have cast off and rejected. You are full of wrath against your anointed. You have renounced the covenant with your servant. You have defiled his crown in the dust. You have breached all his walls. You have laid his stronghold in ruins. How long, O Lord, will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire? Okay, are you starting to see a pattern in the history of God's people? Church God makes a promise. Thousands of years go by. The promise seems to go unfulfilled. History seems to go in the opposite direction. And God's people wonder while they wait. God, why are you hiding? I thought when you spoke Creation was supposed to obey your command. So what's going on? But church, it's in this dark moment of doubting and questioning that God gives his victorious answer. In Matthew 1:1, when Matthew calls Jesus the son of Abraham and the son of David. This is a triumphant opening to the New Testament. After years of silence. When Matthew is saying God's promises to Abraham, his promises to David, they are fulfilled in Jesus birth, he's saying God hadn't forgotten, guess what? He hadn't lost control. He is bringing every prophecy, every promise to pass on the day Jesus took on flesh. Jesus is the son of Abraham, whose salvation is reaching every corner of the earth and winning a people from every tribe, tongue and language. And Jesus is the son of David, who reigns in heaven right now. He's conquered Satan's sin and evil, and he will have the final victory. So at the exact right time, in the exact right way, at the exact moment God had chosen. He kept every promise through time in history he ever made. And by the way, you could spend a whole sermon, whole series year, probably a decade walking through how every single promise in the Old Testament was perfectly, unexpectedly fulfilled in the coming of Jesus. Because this is just verse one of the New Testament, what Matthew and the rest of the writers are going to reveal page after page, as God was perfectly preparing for the coming of Jesus from the very first pages of the Old Testament. Okay, Jesus, he's the crusher of Satan's head that God promised to Adam and eve in Genesis 3:15. He's the better prophet of Deuteronomy 18 that Moses says is gonna come after him to perfectly reveal God. He's the suffering servant of Isaiah 53, who's pierced and crushed for our sins, even though he was innocent. He's the shepherd of Zechariah 13 who was struck so fountains of grace could pour out to an undeserved people. And he's the lowly king of Micah 5, who was unexpectedly born in Bethlehem and yet becomes Israel's victorious king. Like I could go on and on and on, but you get the point, Matthew 1:1. What it's doing is actually proving Paul right when he says this in Galatians 4. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law so we might receive adoption as sons. According to Matthew and Paul, God was divinely orchestrating all of history to find its answer in Jesus birth. And to make sure we don't miss this, this is where we get to verse 17. Matthew doubles down at the end of his genealogy, he sums it up like this. All the generations from Abraham To David were 14. And from David to the deportation of Babylon, 14. And from the deportation of Babylon to the Christ 14. And what Matthew is doing here is he's actually neatly dividing Israel's history into three equal thirds to make a theological point. And the point is this. From God's perspective, when things seem chaotic to us he has actually perfectly ordered history in a symmetrical and purposeful way. There is no chaos to the ebbs and flows of Israel's history from God's point of view. It was always perfectly ordered, structured, designed to lead to Jesus, the son of Abraham, the son of David. One of my favorite commentators on Matthew puts it like this. He says Matthew has selected names and arranged them to make this point. God has designed history around the birth of Jesus. Jesus is the center of history. God designed history with the rise of this empire and the fall of that one with this person born here and that person born there. Why? To prepare us for Jesus. So, putting this together, what does Jesus birth display according to Matthew? This is the first truth I want to help you see. It displays that God is completely sovereign over time and history. God is completely sovereign over time in history. How else do you explain how God brought every promise, every prophecy of the Old Testament to fulfillment at the exact time in history? He wanted to, in a way no one could have guessed or expected. Only if God is in complete control of every century, every year and every moment. You know, I know Jake's not up here, but I had to get a Lord of the Rings illustration in when we first meet Gandalf because I just couldn't get away from this. It's just perfect. He says something that reminds me of God's sovereignty over time and history. Frodo. He. He meets Gandalf, he rebukes him for being late to the Shire. And Gandalf says this famous line. He says a wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to. And what does the birth of Jesus prove to us about God's sovereign hand? God is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to. From the perspective of God's perfect wisdom there's never been missed opportunities forgotten, promises unexpected holdups, thwarted plans. Jesus arrived exactly when God meant him to. And that timeline is always wiser than ours. Now here's the question for you, veritas thousands of years later. Do you believe that God is in control of your time? In History sovereign over the years of your life, your story, even the ones full of pain and regret, do you believe he's sovereign even when you're waiting for resolution in your life and church? Israel waited thousands of years, thousands to understand what God was doing in their history. And the question for you is, could you wait for five, 10, even 50, if that's what God desires? God is not asleep at the wheel of your life or the life of his church. He is over every moment of it, even the parts that are the most confusing. And here's where the beauty of God's sovereignty starts to shine. Can you imagine how freeing it would be to believe nothing in the story of your life was out of God's sovereign control? To believe the same God who is working through the rises and falls of Israel's history and yet kept every promise in a better way than they could have imagined? Is the same God working in the hills and valleys of your story? Church Because God is sovereign over time and history. God's call for us is to be persistent and patience. And that's hard in an instant gratification culture, isn't it? But waiting for God patiently, it's not a passive thing. It takes an incredible active faith to wait for the sovereign God patiently and obediently and joyfully. But when you know God's in control of your story, you can trust he's writing it exactly the way it should be for his purposes. And your joy in him. When you don't know what God's doing, man, the temptation is to be exactly like Israel. Doubt, to distrust, to try to take control of our ourselves. But church, instead of wrestling against God's sovereignty, may we learn from the birth of Jesus to actually surrender to it, to look at what God did in the coming of Jesus and move us to be patient. You might not know what God's exactly doing in your story, your history, when it's chaotic, when it seems like you're waiting for resolution. But when we look at God's sovereignty over Israel's history, I can tell you a few things he might be doing in your history. He might be making you wait for resolution to increase your longing for him and him alone. In your patient waiting, he might be increasing the strength of your faith by stretching it. And maybe, just maybe, God's planning to prove to you he's a better author of your story than you are. So we're supposed to be patient to wait for the Lord, his sovereignty over the birth of Jesus. It proves he's sovereign over time and history and that includes yours and mine. But Matthew's genealogy, it actually goes one step further and it displays just how complete God's sovereignty is. What Matthew's gonna show us, I'm gonna tell you in a sense is shocking. Cause what I wanna do now is help you notice the significance of some of the other names in Matthew's genealogy. Because when you take a step back, when you actually examine the people Matthew includes in the history of Jesus family, you're going to see God's sovereign hand was working in a very unexpected and shocking way. We're going to look at a few of those people and you'll see what I mean pretty quick. Look at me again at verses two and three. Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. And then verse three, Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. Now if you were an Israelite reading this genealogy, you would have kind of been nodding your head along with the names. Yep, that makes sense. That makes sense until you got to this last sentence. Because Matthew, instead of obscuring, he actually highlights that Jesus comes from Judah and Tamar's line. Why is that so shocking? Well, the story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38 tells us why we aren't going to go there now. But to sum it up briefly, it's the story of Judah failing to provide his daughter in law, Tamar with a new husband after his wicked son dies for blaspheming God. It's the story of how Tamar disguises herself as a prostitute to trick and sleep with Judah to bear a child. And it's the story of Judah realizing Tamar somehow still behaved more righteously than him, which tells you how messed up he was. Can you imagine a more broken family and sinful situation than this? And yet in this selective genealogy, Matthew chooses when he could have named anyone from Jesus line to highlight this story. Let's look at a few more of these names, see if there's a pattern here. Look with me at the first half of verse five. And Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab. Again, Matthew highlights someone involved in past sexual sin. Joshua 2:1 tells us Rahab was a prostitute in Jericho before helping hide Israel's spies. So Matthew's not hiding, but highlighting the fact that Jesus comes from a prostitute. Matthew continues on second half of verse five. And Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king. Now the fact that Matthew highlights Ruth not, not not strange at first considering that Ruth was this picture of. Of upright and moral character. But. But the fact that. Fact that Jesus is the descendant of Ruth is shocking when you realize Ruth was a Moabite and the Moabite people began when Lot's daughters got him drunk to sleep with him and bore a child named Moab. Again, Matthew's highlighting, instead of hiding sin and brokenness in Jesus family tree, just two more Matthew continues highlighting this in verse six. And Jesse the father of David the king, David the father of Solon, by the wife of Uriah. Does anyone remember who the wife of Uriah is? Bathsheba, the person David committed adultery with David. And Bathsheba's sin, along with David's murder of Uriah, who's mentioned here, that is the deepest stain on this great king's history. And yet that specific sin is highlighted here. Look at just one more example with me jumping down to verse 10. And Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah. Manessa's story, it's in 2nd Kings 21. And it's the story where you'll find Manessa is actually Israel's most wicked king, even going so far as to sacrifice his own son to idols. Do you see the pattern here? Over and over again, Matthew is tracing and including and highlighting not just the noble people in Jesus's line, but the most sinful people, the most sinful and broken events in Jesus's family history. And the question is why? Why would Matthew, who's presenting Jesus as the perfect son of God, the blameless Savior of the world, who he's hoping his readers will place their faith in, select these people from Jesus lineage. Even more shocking when you consider the fact that at this time in history, Jewish genealogies, they were used to highlight like the purity or nobility of one's bloodline. And Matthew is highlighting the most sinful and broken people in Jesus's bloodline, many of whom weren't even Jewish people, but Gentiles. What's Matthew's intention here? I believe it's this among many things, it's to show his readers that God's redemptive plan can't be thwarted by sin or brokenness. In fact, it's actually through this sin and brokenness that God's wisdom and power are most clearly put on display. Matthew's inclusion of these characters reveals one more truth about God's sovereignty. And it's this. God is sovereign over sin and brokenness. God is sovereign over Sin and brokenness Veritas. If God can work through those sinful, broken circumstances in Israel's history to bring the greatest glory and good in the person of Jesus, what can God not do in God's universe? Sin and evil, they aren't obstacles to his glory. They are somehow, someway, the things he uses to bring deeper glory to his and good to his people. Only a completely sovereign God could work through evil and sin like that to bring a greater good than anyone could have imagined. But the birth of Jesus proves this is exactly what God does. You know, when I think about what God's doing by bringing Jesus into the world this way, this is actually my wife's favorite illustration of this. I think about the Japanese art form called kintsugi. Have you guys ever heard of that before? Well, here's what they do. They take broken pottery, they piece it together, but then they fuse the cracks with gold, making it more valuable and beautiful than when it started. Here's a picture of one so you can see what I mean. It looks like that. And I think this is a perfect image of what Matthew is doing. Here, catch this. The cracks in Jesus family history, their great sin and brokenness, the thing they would have wanted to hide, be ashamed of, is actually somehow what highlights the wisdom of God, the glory of his plan, the sovereign power he has, and the wonders of his loving kindness. Think about how good this is. Who could have imagined that Jesus, the Son of God, would come so close to us, that he would come from a lineage stained with sin and selfishness and scandal? Who could have imagined that God the Father would be so wise, so in control, so creative, that he would bring the perfect Savior not through a line of pure nobility, but sinful outcast. Only if God is sovereign over sin and brokenness can this be true. And again, veritas, this is where God's sovereignty can be deeply beautiful to you. And it can actually give you a deeper confidence than you can find anywhere else. Because if God purposefully brought the perfect sinless Savior into the world through sin, brokenness and evil, why couldn't he have good and wise plans even for the sin and brokenness in your life? Life? Do you believe God's not just in control of the good in your life, but the bad? Just like he was in sovereign control over this broken genealogy? Church Because God is sovereign over sin and brokenness. Here is God's second call to you. Not just to be patient, but to be hopeful in every hardship. Be hopeful in every hardship. William Cowper's hymn God moves in a mysterious, mysterious way, still gets it right when he says this. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace. Behind a frowning providence he hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower. Those are beautiful words, but they aren't naive words. They're the words of someone who knows that the God who chooses to bring good from evil will continue to do it time and time and time again, just like he's always done. And again, you might not know what God is doing when sin and brokenness and evil invade your life and you do not have to completely get it. But here's a few things God might be doing in light of God's sovereignty over Israel's sin and brokenness. He might be exposing your weakness to make you cling more tightly to him, which is exactly where you should want to be. He might be crushing your pride and leading you to humility to bow before God. He might be preparing a way to reveal his mercy, goodness and power to you in a way you never could have seen without the sin and brokenness he's allowed in your life. And he is certainly preparing you to more deeply enjoy the glory of his return when the weight of sin and evil is removed for good, making you more thankful and joyful for all eternity than you could ever imagine. So be hopeful in hardship. It's not ultimately in the hands of Satan or chance. It's in the hands of a purposeful, powerful, sovereign God. And because we know who our God is, we know that that is a good thing. We started this morning by asking how can we really believe God's in control when so much feels out of control? And what this seemingly ordinary or boring genealogy in Matthew 1 shows us is this God's purposeful sovereignty over Jesus birth. It proves that we can trust God's purposeful sovereignty over our lives. God's purposeful sovereignty over every part of Jesus birth, over all of the time, all of the sin, all of the brokenness, generation to generation, proves we can trust God's purposeful sovereignty over our lives, our time in history, our sin and brokenness. God is purposefully working even in the moments where our lives feel so out of control. He did that in Israel's history and he does it in ours. I want to end with this. My favorite description of what it looks like to really get God's sovereignty and what it actually does when it becomes true in your life comes from the Heidelberg Catechism. One of the richest confessions of faith in church history. There's a question in it where it asks this. It says, what does it benefit us to know God is true, created all things and upholds them by his providence? Basically, what difference does it make that God's sovereign, that his hand is in all things? That's what the question's asking. And here's the answer. It's beautiful, and it's a hope I've clinged to for years. We can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and with a view to the future. We can have a firm confidence in our faithful God and Father, that no creature shall separate us from his love. Why, for all creatures are so completely in his hand that without his will they cannot so much as move. That is what happens in our lives when we know God is big and sovereign and in control. We become patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and we have a firm confidence that no person, no circumstance can rip away from us. So this morning, as we look at the birth of Jesus, you can take heart, you can be a patient, hopeful follower of God, because you know the same God who is sovereign over Jesus birth is sovereign over our lives. Amen. Pray with me. Lord, I feel like we barely scratched the surface of what you were intentionally doing. Through all the pages of your word, all the generations of your people, time failed me to be able to talk. How at every moment in Israel's history when it started, seems like you had forgotten you were actually preparing them and their longing for the coming of Jesus, the son of Abraham, the son of David, the better king, Lord, the better sacrifice, the better priest, the better prophet. Lord, you in the sending of your son, have proved that you are sovereign over all things. You're sovereign over time, in history, and you're even sovereign over the sin and brokenness in Jesus's line and in our lives. God, would we surrender to your sovereignty? Would we love it? Would we trust it and be willing to, as your creation, know that we don't need to know every purpose you have, but to trust that you do. You've proven that in your Word. You've proven that in the birth of Jesus. And we can trust you in it now. God, it might take five years, 10 years, 50 years, even a lifetime. Or it might even take till we walk through eternity's gates to know what you were doing. But just like you are the perfect author of Israel's story, we can trust you're the perfect author of our story and the story of our entire world. So make us a patient, hopeful people. Make us thankful in prosperity, patient in adversity, and give us a sure hope that isn't shaken by storms or winds and waves. But trust that they're all in the sovereign hand of a good God who loved us and gave himself for us. We love you and ask this in your name, Amen.