Message
Matthew 1:1
Name Above All Names - Son of David
We are going to continue our sermon series on the names of Jesus. We started this series only last week and we are looking at the names of Jesus as they appear in the New Testament from Jesus being the Word who was there “in the beginning” up to the time when Jesus goes into Egypt.
There are 10 names all together that we are going to look at as we make our way through this advent … and into the new year. By doing this we get a sense of who Jesus is, and the names of Jesus, and how important each one of these names is for our understanding of Jesus’ personality character mission and focus.
Today the name that we are focusing on today comes out of Matthew 1:1 where Jesus is called the Son of David. Let’s read the context so we have a broader understanding of this name. What Matthew wants us to understand here is the heritage of Jesus and the names in the lineage of Jesus.
Some of the names we know - by seeing them as we go back in the Old Testament
So of them we don’t know so well … especially after verse 12.
The importance is not knowing every single name but the names that stand out.
Here the name of David stands out.
Thing about David is that a lot of us have a good understanding of who David is.
So I am not going to necessarily tell you things that you do not know.
But let us have a look at various aspects of David’s life.
We start with the reality that David is a Shepherd. He's just a boy ... he might be 14 or 15 … certainly not much older than that. When we first introduced to David in the Old Testament it's at the time when king Saul is ruling the land. Saul is a tall man, but he is not a good King. God has already said “Nope Saul is not going to be my man. I want someone else to be King.” In this situation Samuel comes along to Jesse's family and Samuel tells Jesse. “One of your sons is going to be the new King.” So Jesse brings out all of these different sons from the oldest and then the second oldest. It is none of them … and it turns out it's going to be the youngest. Jesse is so convinced that it's not going to be David that David is still out in the field watching the sheep. So they go and get him and Samuel anoints him while Saul is still alive. This anointing causes a few issues but I will go to that another time.
What we do know about David is he's a good fighter. Every time you talk about, “what did David do well?” the answer is that “David killed Goliath” Actually David was much more than a Goliath giant killer. He was a great Warrior and he surrounded himself at one stage with 30 Mighty Men. And these 30 Mighty Men performed incredible deeds of success for the Israelites. So much so that people were saying of David how great he is comparative to Saul.
We also know that David was a good song-writer. At one stage Saul gets him to sing a song … and David sings that song and Saul throws a spear at him. At that point I don't know if that means that David's a bad singer or what that is … but that happens. We also know a lot of the Psalms are written by David - not all of them. There's 150 Psalms and 75 have definitely been identified as being written by David. The rest were written by other people or are anonymous. So take note that David didn't write all the Psalms.
We also know that he like to dance. There's a story about David who dances when the Ark of the Covenant is brought home. And he dances so crazily his wife says, “you were an embarrassment.” Men who dance understand this - that you can embarrass your wife very quickly and they will let you know about this. This tradition all started really in the Old Testament from that time so us embarrassing dancing men are just continuing that heritage. David loved to dance and the Psalms talk a lot about dancing before the Lord as well.
This is what we know about David. But I think the most well-known aspect of David’s life is the fact that he become the king of Israel after Saul. And the important thing to remember is even though he was anointed to the be the King, David did not do anything against Saul. David let the process unfold and when Saul died - and it wasn't at the hands of David - when Saul died at the hands of someone else then David became king.
4 David was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned forty years. 5 In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he reigned over all Israel and Judah thirty-three years.
2 Samuel 5:4-5
So initially the capital, the ruling capital of Israel, was not Jerusalem. Jerusalem at the time was led by other people. David comes in and, with fighting men as well and helpers, he makes Jerusalem the capital.
Now you might wonder what's so good about Jerusalem - because strategically Jerusalem is actually a bad place for a capital. There's no running water near it. It's not the easiest place to defend. And it's not even on a really important path or anything like that. It's actually a little bit out of the way.
But the reason that Jerusalem is chosen is because Jerusalem is the place called Mount Moriah. And Mount Moriah is that place where God appeared to Abraham. God said to Abraham this is the place where I want you to sacrifice your son. And God appears at that point, just before Abraham is going to sacrifice Isaac. And God appears and then he makes promises to Abraham. So from then Jerusalem is important for that specific reason.
As David establishes himself as king God comes and speaks to him.
Look up 2 Samuel 7:11b-16
In terms of understanding the kingship of David 2 Samuel 7 is the key.
There's lots of other passages that you can look at this is the key passage.
This chapter is often referred to as the Davidic Covenant.
2 Samuel 7:11b-16 (read)
These are the promises that God makes to David. The technical name for these promises is a “Covenant”. A Covenant is a binding promise that people make to each other. There's all sorts of covenants that can be made.
There are covenants that can be made between equals.
There are covenants that can be made between those who have greater power and those who have lesser power.
This is one of those Covenant and God comes along and it makes this promise to David that no matter what happens David's Kingdom will be established forever. That's really hard isn't it because we sit here and we look back at history and we go, “that didn't actually happen or it doesn't seem like it happen.”
We know that there are times when there was not a faithful King.
We certainly know after the time of the exile there's no King sitting on the throne in Jerusalem.
So when we read this Covenant - when we read this binding promise - we need to remember the context of what's going on. This is not a do-as-you-please Covenant. Verse 14 makes it very clear, “when he does wrong I will punish him with the rod of men with floggings afflicted by men.”
So that's not saying, “Look here is the divine Covenant. Here is this road and now just do whatever you want and it doesn't matter. I'm not going to respond because I made this promise.”
That isn’t what is happening. There are conditions … and as a result of these conditions actions are expected.
“I will do this, but you need to do this.”
The underlying issue here is that if the King wants to live under the rule of the kingdom then they need to accept God’s ways. Also noticed that the promise doesn't say there will always be a king -- it says there will always be a kingdom and my rule will be established. So even when there's no King God is still at work. We need to remember those two things:-
… sometimes the throne is empty but the kingdom is still in place.
… sometimes the throne is filled by an evil King but God is still in control.
And so God promises that no matter what happens I'm going to ultimately bring my rule out through this Covenant.
It all revolves around the presence of the son of David. Look at verse 15-16, “my love will never be taken away from him as I took it away from Saul. Your house and your kingdom will endure for ever before me your throne will be established forever.”
It will keep on coming back to the promise of God's throne
Why spend so much time looking at this?
Because of the covenant David, and the sons of David, are a key. Not because David is an exceptional person.
Admittedly he's pretty good.
You know the fact that you can pick up a stone and take out this huge guy from a fair distance that's pretty impressive.
The fact that you can kill a lion and a bear is a pretty impressive thing.
The fact that you and 30 other people can successfully get rid of these other nations that are impacting Israel is impressive.
The fact that you're standing on your on the top of your balcony in your palace which overlooks - and you look down and there's some naked woman having a bath below you and then you do sorts of things that you shouldn't be doing. That is not so impressive.
This is Bathsheba who were talking about.
There are other times when God's not impressed with what David does.
There's a time when David is showing off his kingdom to other people. Then God comes in and says, “What are you doing? Why are you counting all these fighting man? Why are you so obsessed with this sort of stuff?”
There are times when God's not happy. But this is the man that God has chosen to build his kingdom … and David is the one through whom God is going his promises
Now we might say, “yeah we understand that because we are Christians.” But did the Jews understand how important being a son of David was for the Messiah?
They certainly did.
There's a time when the Jews are all arguing about Jesus and if He is the Messiah.
40 On hearing his words, some of the people said, “Surely this man is the Prophet.”
41 Others said, “He is the Messiah.”
Still others asked, “How can the Messiah come from Galilee? 42 Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David’s descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?”
John 7:40-42
The Jews understood the importance of the fact that the Messiah had to be in the Davidic line. If you were a messianic figure and you couldn’t say, “Here's my lineage that goes back David” straight away the Jews would wipe you off as a candidate.
But the thing about Jesus is everyone thinks he's born in Nazareth. Because that's where he grows up. And in the Bible times people would say, nothing good comes out of Nazareth. Nazareth is a tiny unknown place. But either people forgot where Jesus was born. Or Jesus didn't make a really big song and dance with the fact that he was born in Bethlehem.
So these people are confused because he doesn't seem to fit the Messianic mould.
But definitely Jesus is in the genealogy.
This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:
Matthew 1:1
When the angel appears to Mary
30 the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favour with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 3 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
Luke 1:30-33
Jesus fulfils this requirement. Jesus is the one who steps into this place where these promises are taking place.
Which is great isn't it.
It great to now that but I can see you sitting there saying, “This is great to know but we knew this all and hour ago! Why is it so important that Jesus is the son of David. And why spend a whole sermon focused on that?”
Well I think it's important because it helps us to understand how God works in relationship to the son of David.
There is one very specific application that I want to focus on it.
It is the phrase where God effectively says, “I'm doing this for David’s sake” or “for the sake of David.”
10 Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the Lord’s command. 11 So the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates. 12 Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son.
1 Kings 11:10-12
God is saying to Solomon, “Look you've messed it up but because I made a promise to David I'm not going to put everything in place now … I'll let you get to the end of your life and after you've got to the end of your life all the Shenanigans with splitting up the kingdom that'll happen to your son.”
Which is a raw deal for the son but that's what happens. And the kingdom is divided between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. And from there it just really all goes downhill in so many ways. But because of the sake of David God's going to minimise the response now.
3 Abijah committed all the sins his father had done before him; his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his forefather had been. 4 Nevertheless, for David’s sake the Lord his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem by raising up a son to succeed him and by making Jerusalem strong.
1 Kings 15:3-4
God makes the promise, “I will continue the lineage. I will continue the kingdom.” Abijah is obviously off the rails -not fully off the rails - but he's off the rails. Then God says but because of the promise I'll make this happen. Not because of you Abijah .. because you're hopeless … but because of David.” And really not even because of David, but because of the promise that I made … I'm going to keep Jerusalem strong.
In 2 Kings 8 we are a few hundred years further in history.
18 Jehoram followed the ways of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for he married a daughter of Ahab. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord. 19 Nevertheless, for the sake of his servant David, the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah. He had promised to maintain a lamp for David and his descendants forever.
2 Kings 8:18-19
It has gotten so bad that the King of Judah is worse than the worst King of Israel. So there's a spiritual defection that's come about in the hearts of the kings. God made a promise to this line to David's line. These Kings should be looking at the promise and saying, “Here’s this great promise. I need to be this sort of person.”
But again and again we get this story where they've lost spiritual direction, They made sinful decisions and all hope seems to be lost.
And yet, in all of these times, even down to the exile and beyond the door isn't shut. Because of the promise - never does God shut the door on his people.
Those who are living under a king in the line of David always have a Door of Hope.
And that's why it's so important to understand who Jesus is as the son of David.
Because the reality is for each one of us there are times when we get to the point where were facing spiritual challenges.
There are times when we might be like Solomon. We haven't even gone too far, but God saying, “Look you've really dropped the ball here. There are going to be consequences of what of what you've done and you need to come to your senses.
Or maybe it's as far as Jeroboam who is as evil as the other people around, and yet God’s saying., “Look there's still this Door of Hope.”
Sometimes we can get to that point can't we.
Sometimes we know that this is where Christianity is, or where Christianity ought to be,
… but we're over here a little bit.
… or maybe we're all the way over here.
… or maybe we’re out the door.
Then God comes along and he says, “Because of my son, who is the son of David … for the sake of David … my promises last forever. My kingdom will continue to advance for the sake of David. Even if you're out the door it's not shut and you can come back in any time.
While ever there is a king on the throne - and that's Jesus Christ who sits on the throne at the right hand of God the father - while ever there is a son of David on the throne for the sake of David there is hope.
Not because you're great people.
And not because we're super spiritual.
And not because we got everything together.
But because of who God is. He is the promise forfiller.
For the sake of David … for the sake of his son … you can at any time come on your knees before God and you can say, “God here I am.”
It might be the first time.
God here I am. Here's my life. It's a mess. Here are the consequences of my decisions – they are a mess. But God, for the sake of your promise to David, and because of your son who is the son of David, God forgive me.
Or maybe you're one of those people who've known the Lord and understood who the Lord was. And then you look at your life and you go, “I made that promise back there I was 15. I was 16. I was 17. And now I'm 25 and 26.” And that promise it's a distant memory. But God for the sake of David, for the sake of the son of David who is Jesus Christ, God says forgives. I know people who knew Jesus when they were 15 and 16 and made a commitment to him. And then they just went off the rails … 10 years … 20 years … 30 years … 40 years … 50 years later. They’re 66, 76, 86 and then all of a sudden they realised what they've done.
They realise that the 50 year period or that 60 year period they've been in rebellion. And they get down on their knees because of the son of David and there is hope.
Because that's who God is isn't he. God is a one who fulfills his promises. His kingdom will continue to advance - not because of the people who are in it - but because of his grace.
That's why this name - son of David - is so important.
It is the name of hope that no matter what happens
… no matter where you are.
… no matter how distant you feel.
… no matter the situation you've been in.
there is hope because God has made the promises. It's not for your sake, but for the sake of his son … for the sake of David … he will do this for you.
So powerful is this name.
It’s an important name.
The name that you hold onto no matter what your spiritual situation.
Prayer
