Welcome to From the Pulpit and Classic Sermons.
Each week we bring you a different message
from some of history's greatest speakers in the
Christian faith, and powerful sermons for modern preachers
too.
This week we have Jim Stimbala with his
message, A Descendant of David and Abraham.
I bet you never heard a sermon from
the first verse of the New Testament.
This is a record of the ancestors of
Jesus the Messiah, a descendant of King David
and of Abraham.
This is a record, listen, of the ancestors
of Jesus the Messiah, a descendant of King
David and of Abraham.
And then what follows, and Luke has the
same thing as part of his Christmas story,
is how many verses?
From 2 to 16 is what's called a
genealogy, and it says this, Abraham was the
father of Isaac.
Isaac was the father of who?
Jacob.
Jacob was the father of Judah and his
brothers.
Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah,
their mother was Tamar.
Perez was the father of Hezron.
All the way, and then when it gets
to the end, and Jacob was the father
of Joseph, the husband of Mary.
Mary was the mother of Jesus, who is
called the Messiah.
Matthew runs the ancestry of Jesus Christ from
Abraham through Joseph, the foster father, shall we
say, of Jesus Christ, for he was born
of a virgin.
When Luke tells the story, he gives the
Jewish genealogy that leads up to Mary.
Why do you list all these names?
Why are there genealogies in the Bible?
What's important?
If it's all scriptures inspired by God, why
waste all of that stuff with names that
we can hardly pronounce?
What is a genealogy?
A genealogy is a family tree.
You ever look up your family tree?
Someone gave me last Christmas something from the
National Geographic, and if you take a scraping
from inside your mouth, and another scraping, and
you put it in, and you send it,
they check through your DNA, and they tell
you where your ancestry supposedly comes from.
After a couple months, I plugged into it
and found out that my ancestry, as I
thought, came from Eastern Europe, Ukrainian, Polish, but
they go further back from that into the
Middle East, and then down to Africa.
This genealogy is in the Bible to prove
Matthew is the Jewish, called the Jewish Gospel.
What are the four Gospels?
Matthew, Mark.
Matthew is the one written to the Jewish
person in mind, and he wants to prove
that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the
prophecies made in the Old Testament to the
Jewish people that one day God would send
a Messiah.
What does Messiah mean?
He's the promised one.
He's the deliverer.
The Old Testament word is Messiah.
The New Testament word in the Greek language
is Christ.
So Messiah and Christ are the same words
in meaning to a Hebrew word, a Greek
word.
This Messiah was the one everybody was waiting
for, and Matthew wants to make sure that
everyone knows this Jesus was not some Johnny
-come-lately, somebody that was slipped in.
No, he had the heritage starting from Abraham,
and then Luke tells us another genealogy to
prove this is the one who had the
credentials to be qualified to be the one
that the Jewish people could claim as their
Messiah.
In fact, they rejected him, but Matthew wants
to be sure and tell the story.
This is his family tree.
He didn't come from outside of the people
of the covenant, the Jewish people.
Jesus was Jewish, but the mystery of Jesus,
of course, is that that baby that was
born, something we can't fully understand.
He was fully man, fully human baby, but
he was also fully God.
Where did the human stop and the God
part begin?
The Bible doesn't explain that to us.
We just know that his name was Emmanuel,
which means God with us.
In other words, God walked on this planet.
God himself walked on this planet.
He put two feet on the planet and
put one foot in front of the other,
and he walked, and he wept, and he
cried, and he got hungry, and he got
tired, and he felt pain, especially on the
cross.
So he was fully man, but he was
fully divine.
He was the one that was promised, but
none of the people who were waiting for
him understood what he would be like, because
they had a preconception from their religious traditions
of what the Messiah would look like.
So now Jesus was five feet in front
of the religious leaders with their big Old
Testament Torahs, and they didn't even know that
God was in front of them.
How in the world could you be that
blind that God was in front of you,
and you're a religious leader, and you don't
pick it up, which warns us every time
we come to church.
We have to say, God, open our eyes
every time we read the Bible.
God, give me illumination in my heart that
I might hear your voice and understand what
you're doing.
How many say amen?
Otherwise, we can get religiously blind.
The first verse, though, just picks two people
out.
He says, this is the list of the
ancestors of Jesus the Messiah.
He was a descendant of King David and
of Abraham.
David and Abraham.
Then it starts all over, starting with Abraham.
Abraham is mentioned again.
David is mentioned again, but in some unique
way, Matthew, inspired by the Holy Spirit, says
Jesus is the Messiah, and he's the son,
he's the descendant of David and then Abraham
before that.
So today, in these brief moments, I want
to talk to you about why is that
in the Bible?
Why is David special?
Why is Abraham specially named?
And what does it have to do with
us?
How do I apply this verse to my
life, and how can I learn something to
encourage me?
What is God trying to say to me
through Jesus the Messiah, a descendant of David
and of Abraham?
I understand Abraham, because Abraham was the father
of the Jewish people.
So his name is prominent in the Old
Testament and in the New Testament, because he's
the progenitor of all the Jewish people.
The Jewish race, the Hebrew people, start with
Abraham, who himself was an idolater living in
Ur of the Chaldees, and God spoke to
him, and he obeyed God, followed God, trusted
God, and he began to have children, Isaac
and Jacob and so forth, and that's the
Jewish people.
And Jesus was born of a Jew.
So I understand that.
Okay, so Matthew, I know what he's saying
to us.
He's saying Jesus is Jewish.
Jesus was Jewish.
Now David, I understand that in a way,
because I keep thinking Jesus in the New
Testament is always called never son of Moses,
never son of Isaiah, never son of Abraham,
but what is Jesus always called in the
Bible?
Jesus, son of David.
But what's the spiritual lesson behind it?
Jesus is Jewish.
He's a descendant of Abraham.
Jesus is the son of David, because David
was God's choice as the king, and Jesus
is a king, the king of kings and
the Lord of lords.
But let's probe deeper, shall we, just briefly,
and see what we can gather from this.
Jesus is a descendant of David.
How can I link Jesus to David and
then David and Jesus to me?
Because I'm connected to Jesus.
If you're a believer, you're connected to Jesus.
So I know my connection to Jesus, but
now what can I learn that Jesus is
connected to David?
What's the lesson for me?
Because David stands out, and so does Abraham.
Jesus a descendant of David.
Well, David was like Jesus, a prophetic symbol
of Jesus in this way.
God spoke a word about David, but it
was to an obscure person who nobody cared
about, and before that word was fulfilled, oh
my goodness what he went through.
For those of you who don't know the
story of David, David was a little shepherd
boy, and yet the Lord had been tracking
him, had him on his radar, and he
told the prophet Samuel, this king Saul that's
on the throne, the one the people wanted,
who was the first king of Israel, he
was the people's choice.
God said to Samuel, I'm displeased with Saul.
I want you to go and anoint one
of Jesse's children.
Samuel goes at a difficult time when Saul
is persecuting the people who really believe in
God, and he gets to Jesse's house, and
he says, all I know is that God
has shown me one of your boys is
going to be the next king of Israel.
Could I please see the boys?
Listen, the father thought so little of David,
he didn't even bring him in the house.
He lets all the other sons pass by,
and the first couple of them were so
big, and strapping, and bulked up, and looked
so charismatic, and handsome, that Samuel, who was
a prophet, said surely that's the one that
God is going to pick, and God said,
no, I don't look at people the way
you look at people.
People look at the outside, but I look
at the inside.
So then all the sons go by, and
the Lord doesn't indicate any of them, and
he turns to Jesse, and he says, is
this it?
These are all your boys?
He goes, no, I got another one, but
he's like, it's not even, it's just, he's
out there watching the sheep.
He's just a kid.
He says, I'm not eating until you bring
them in, and when he walks in, the
Lord speaks to Samuel, and says, get your
horn of oil, and anoint him.
Obscure, insignificant, and then that word is given,
you're anointed, you're going to sit on the
throne, you're going to be the, you're telling
a kid, you're telling a shepherd boy, he's
going to be the king of Israel.
Does that make any sense?
Saul's in charge, and Saul is not from
the house of Judah.
He's going to want his sons to sit
on the throne, but God speaks an unlikely
word, and now David has this anointing on
him, and God's blessing is on him, and
he begins to achieve certain things through the
strength of the Lord, but what does it
bring on him?
Persecution.
Most of the Psalms were written because David
was running for his life from King Saul,
who was trying to kill him.
He's hiding in caves.
He's out in the desert.
He's writing Psalms that say, God, where are
you?
You know, that was great that Samuel anointed
me, and I'm supposed to be the king.
Forget the king.
How about just keep me alive?
I'll just take live, rather than king.
Persecution for no reason.
Hated for no reason.
Helps people, even Saul, hated, turmoil, cut off
from his family, but in the end, God's
word is fulfilled, and he sits on the
throne.
Jesus, a descendant of David.
Jesus was born the same way.
Obscure.
We don't capture that in Christmas because Christmas
is so popular and so worldwide.
Do you realize nobody knew about this baby?
Do you realize he was born in a
stinking manger with the smell of manure?
Do you understand there was no room at
the inn?
Do you realize that Joseph and Mary were
nobodies?
Do you realize that they were so poor
that when they brought an offering, when they
presented him in the temple, they had to
give little birds?
They didn't even have money to buy an
animal, a real animal.
He was a nobody.
He was obscure.
He had no halo over his head.
He didn't look like anybody fancy or important,
but God spoke over him before he was
born.
God spoke over him at the Jordan River.
This is my son, my beloved son, in
whom I am well pleased.
It was spoken about him in the prophets.
His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Prince
of Peace, Everlasting Father, and all kingdoms of
the earth will come under his rulership.
How in the world can that happen to
a kid born in a manger?
If a kid's going to be great, send
him to the best schools.
Let him be born in a palace.
You don't let somebody important be born in
a stinking manger.
Then when he's ministering, he has nowhere to
lay his head.
Then when he begins his ministry, people begin
to hate him.
Hate him why?
He didn't say anything wrong.
He didn't hurt anybody.
Why do you hate somebody like that?
Because such is the human heart.
He was dragging people into the light.
And a lot of people who love evil,
they don't want to be brought into the
light.
They want to live in the dark because
they don't want their deeds to be exposed.
But when you met Jesus and he looked
at you, he brought you into the light
quick.
Everything you knew was revealed to him.
And then the cross.
I mean, where is this word about king
of kings and lord of lords?
They're sticking spears in his side.
They're putting a crown of thorns on his
head.
They're spitting at him.
You realize when he was crucified, there was
still spittle running down his face and neck.
I mean, where is all this fulfillment?
Where is this king of kings and lord
of lords?
His name shall be called wonderful.
Oh, but listen.
They buried him, but on the third day,
God raised him from the dead.
Can we all put our hands together?
Do you get it?
Listen, do you get it?
It was spoken about David, obscure, obscure.
Jesus was raised in an obscure place, Nazareth
up in Galilee, which was looked down like
podunk.
He's from podunk.
He's from nowheresville.
Just like David, a shepherd boy, nobody caring
about him, nobody acknowledging him.
Jesus, then trouble, persecution, being hated, being rejected,
fighting battle after battle.
But the word of the Lord came true
for David.
The word of the Lord came true for
Jesus.
For every knee will bow and every tongue
will confess one day that Jesus Christ is
Lord.
Right now, he's seated at the right hand
of the father, and he's waiting for all
of his enemies to submit to him and
to be made his footstool.
But the people who mock Jesus now, the
people who curse Jesus now, the people who
hate Christmas, they want him now replace Christ
with an ex.
This board of education, these mayors and senators
and governors, godless, anti-christian.
Every one of their knees will bow.
Every one of their tongues will confess.
Come on, do we say amen to that?
Just like they had to acknowledge David as
king, they're going to acknowledge that Jesus Christ
is king of kings and lord of lords.
Hey listen, we're on the winning side here.
And isn't that the same about us in
another way?
Paul says in first Corinthians, speaking to the
Christians, he says there's not many wise among
you.
Not a lot of rich people.
Not a lot of famous folks.
Not a lot of PhDs.
No.
For his church, God has chosen the foolish
things of this world.
Just common people.
Oh yeah, there's a couple, especially educated, especially
wealthy.
If you're one of those especially wealthy ones,
I'd love to meet you for coffee at
the end of the service.
No, God has chosen the foolish things of
this world to confound the wise.
He chooses the things that are not.
Does that bother you?
Are some of you wrestling against that?
Your ego and your pride says, no, don't
define me like that.
I'm not defining you, I'm telling you what
God's word says.
There's not many of us that are super
wise and smart in the eyes of this
world.
In fact, God has chosen the people that
are not to bring down the people that
are.
An obscure person, just like us.
We're not well known and famous and all
of that, but God has put his hand
on us and he's spoken a word over
us.
He spoke a word over David and it
came to pass, but there were trials and
tribulations.
He spoke a word over Jesus and it
came to pass even though it led through
the cross.
He has spoken a word over you and
me.
The good work that I have begun, I'm
going to finish it.
One day you will wear a crown.
One day you and I are going to
wear a crown and we're going to be
in that choir in front of the King
of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
Come on, can we put our hands together
and celebrate it?
So when you go through trials, you go
through tribulations, when people mock you and make
fun of you and say this or say
that, that's something we can just dismiss and
say it's all part of the process.
Jesus Christ, a descendant of David, and we're
descendants of Jesus Christ through being born again.
But then there's of course this about Jesus.
He was a king.
That's what they came, the wise men came
to Jerusalem and said, where is this one
who's born King of the Jews?
Herod didn't like that.
He didn't want to hear about another king.
So Jesus, like David, came to be a
king.
But David sat on a throne and ruled
people and if they didn't obey, he, you
know, had to use force.
But Jesus is a different kind of king.
Jesus's kingdom is right in here.
Now you might say, I don't want a
king.
The days of kings are over.
Oh no, the days of kings are right
now for today, because all of us here
has a king.
All of us have a king.
Everyone here has a king that you submit
to.
Yeah, it's true.
And the people who say, no, I don't
want any king.
I don't want Jesus.
I don't want anybody telling me what to
do.
I don't want the Bible telling me what
to do.
You just have another king other than Jesus.
Sometimes it's greed that's your king.
Money is your king.
And you make decisions based on the king
who rules over you.
Sometimes it's a lust, a desire of the
flesh, like these terrible things they were hearing
about, scandals, men driven to hurt innocent little
boys.
Why?
Because they had a king.
But what a tyrant they had as a
king.
What a horrible king to have, to be
driven like that.
Other people, it's pride.
Everything in life is based on how I
look and I want people to be impressed
by me.
Other people, it's peer pressure.
That's your king.
You want to fit in with everyone, how
you dress, how you act, who accepts you.
You compromise your principles because you're king.
My king becomes my peer group.
I want acceptance.
But everyone has a king.
But I want to tell you today, the
best king that you could ever have is
Jesus.
Because when Jesus becomes your king, he rules
over you and he brings peace and joy.
He brings peace and joy.
He's the best king you could ever have.
He's the shepherd who protects you.
He brings you into green pastures where you're
refreshed and renewed on the inside.
Brothers and sisters, ladies and gentlemen, if you're
sitting here and Jesus is not your king,
you're not going to enjoy Christmas the way
he wants you to.
You've got to bow and say, Jesus, I
have other kings in my life and they're
wearing me out.
Look at me.
I had other kings in my life.
I went through college with a whole bunch
of other kings and I was the most
miserable, empty person you could meet.
But my goodness, when Jesus is the king
of your life, oh, he changes everything about
your life.
How many have found him as the best
king, best friend?
Lift your hand up high.
How many have him as king?
Just wave it at me.
He is our king.
That's why we're not embarrassed to worship him.
They bow down to superstars and athletes and
royalty and people scream and all of that.
And then when we make a little noise
and praise our king, they call us all
kinds of names.
I don't care what anybody calls us.
Come on, let's put our hands together for
the king, for the king.
David was obscure.
David went through trials and tribulations, but the
word of the Lord came to pass and
it did for Jesus and it will do
it for you.
Don't give up today.
He who has begun a good work in
you, he's going to complete it.
I know right now it's tough, but he's
going to bring you through.
He brought David through.
He brought Jesus through.
What do you think?
He's not going to bring you and I
through?
He's going to bring us through as we
make him king and submit to his rule.
But you know, the writer Matthew, he's very
risky in mentioning David because in some ways,
if you had David as an ancestor, that
would be something you would hide.
My late father-in-law went to the
Alamo because he had heard that he had
ancestors who fought in the Alamo in San
Antonio, Texas.
And he wanted to check the registry to
see how his ancestor fought there and did
he really die there.
He looked up the record and found out
that he had a great, great, great, great,
great, whatever uncle, grandfather, whatever who was at
the Alamo.
And when the battle ensued, he got afraid
and ran and the officers told him to
stop running and he didn't.
And he shot him.
That was what his ancestor did.
He said, boy, Jim, I came home disappointed
here.
I thought my great, great, great, great had
fought and, you know, showed valor and was
a hero.
He turned coward and he ran and his
own side had to shoot him dead.
His own side.
He never went back to the Alamo again.
After that, he said, let it go.
Did you know about David that Jesus is
the son of David?
Did you know that when David became king,
he went out one night when he should
have been fighting and he saw a woman
taking a bath on a rooftop and he
desired her and he brought her to his
house, even though she was married to one
of his generals, Uriah the Hittite.
And he slept with her, but his little
one night stand turned nasty because she became
pregnant.
So then David, who wrote all those Psalms,
the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not.
That David said, how am I going to
get out of this?
So he brought Uriah home for leave.
You know, the king can do anything he
wants.
Send him home with some for R and
R.
I got to get him home to be
with his wife so that he won't count
the days and the months and he'll be
with his wife.
When the baby's born, nobody will know the
better.
But you know, the guy was so loyal,
he wouldn't go home.
He said, no, David, your men are fighting
and I'm so loyal to you.
I won't even go home to be with
my family.
I'm going to sleep right here on the
steps of the palace.
And David is going like, what is wrong
with this guy?
So then he thinks craftily, I'll get him
drunk.
So the next night he feeds him wine
and he goes, woozy, go home.
He got so drunk, he fell asleep before
he could get home.
So now David, as in Jesus, the Messiah
is a descendant of David.
He sends him back to the battle and
then he sends a note.
How crazy was he to put this in
writing through a messenger?
And he tells Joab, his main general, when
you attack, suddenly everybody withdraw from the enemy,
but leave Uriah dangling out there.
And he did.
And sure enough, Uriah got killed.
And did you know they sent a message
back to David and said, by the way,
we won the battle.
We got a lot of spoils and we
took over a lot of new territory.
Oh, and by the way, on the downside,
Uriah the Messiah died in battle.
And David said, you know what?
It's a shame, but that's what war is
about.
Some live, some die.
Jesus, son of David.
And then for months he couldn't write a
psalm because he was blocking out God and
all that conviction that God was trying to
bring to his heart.
And the baby was born, but the baby
got sick.
And the baby hung between life and death.
And he lost the baby.
But in that process, a prophet came to
him and told him a story about somebody
who robbed somebody else's choice lamb and killed
it so he could feed some people.
And David, like we are, full of righteous
indignation, said, tell me, who did something like
that and robbed a little choice lamb from
a family to feed it when he could
have used his own supplies?
And the prophet said, you want to know
who the man is?
You're the man.
That's where that all started.
You're the man.
And David said, I'm the man.
How many times has God told me that?
How about you?
When we're judging other people and we're acting
so self-righteous.
And we've all been like sheep and gone
astray.
Why would God put that in the Bible?
I mean, even if it happened to David,
couldn't you leave it out?
Every day of David's life is not in
the Bible.
Every day, every month is not in the
Bible of David, nor Jesus.
So couldn't you skip over that?
If you're going to do a biography of
somebody, couldn't you leave out that you had
a loser of an ancestor like that?
Do something that dirty, that low-down, God
put it in so you and I could
be encouraged, that we're sin about grace, even
more about that Jesus came to help people
like David, like you, like me, who have
broken down and messed up.
Am I the only person here who's ever
broken down and messed up and failed God?
How about you up in the balcony?
Haven't you ever broken down and messed up
and the devil comes and accuses you?
You can't even sleep at night, your conscience
is tormenting you, you're afraid of dying.
And he tells you that God has no
use for you, that God will never pick
you up again, that you've gone too far,
that thing that you did, that sin you
committed, it's over, it's too much, you had
too much light to do it.
And to have that much light, didn't it
ever attack anybody like that?
And that's why when the Holy Spirit inspired
Matthew to write the first verse of the
New Testament, he said, do it this way.
These are the ancestors of Jesus the Messiah,
who was a descendant of David and Abraham.
Can you believe that?
Because that's what Abraham's about.
Can you believe that God is that good?
Can you believe that he'll give you a
new start?
Can you believe that he'll wipe out the
record against you?
Can you believe that you can have a
new beginning in your life?
Because if you can believe, all things are
possible.
This is why Jesus came, he provided a
way for us so we can overcome the
mess-ups of David.
He wasn't embarrassed to link himself to David
because he wanted all of us to know,
that's why I came.
I didn't come for a perfect world, I
came for people who mess up.
But I love them so much, despite their
mess-ups, that I want them to come
so that I can cleanse them and give
them a new start.
Let's close our eyes together.
We want to just proclaim in one way
or another the good news of Jesus Christ.
The good news of Jesus Christ.
Is there anybody here in the balcony or
downstairs to say, Pastor Simba, I needed to
hear that.
I am so glad that Jesus the Messiah
is a descendant of David.
And I want to make Jesus my king
today.
I want a new beginning.
I've got a lot of baggage, I got
a lot of junk that only Jesus can
take care of.
I got a lot of pain that only
he can lift.
I've got my situation and I've been convicted
today that Jesus is the only one who
could help me.
Would you just get out of your seat
and come up here?
I would love to pray over one person
or a hundred people and say, God, Jesus,
give them a new beginning.
Give them a new start.
Maybe you've never been born again.
Maybe you've never confessed your sins and asked
Christ to come in.
Just come out of your seat, come up
here.
Or maybe you've drifted away like David drifted
away.
David drifted so far away after living so
close to God, being so blessed.
And the Lord gave him a new start.
Anybody here want to come up?
I would love to pray for you.
Just come out of your seat and come
up here.
We'll pray together.
Pray with me everyone out loud.
Dear God, forgive us our trespasses as we
forgive those who have trespassed against us.
Give me a new heart.
Give me a new mind.
Cleanse me.
Make me a new person.
Live through me.
Think through me.
Speak through me.
Love through me.
I crown you as my King.
King Jesus.
Give me your thoughts and your ways and
I submit to them because I love you
and I believe in you that you died
for me, that you shed your blood for
me.
In Jesus name.
Amen.
Now look at me.
Those of you in the front, just look
up at me, okay?
Today is the first day of the rest
of your life and God's going to do
something beautiful now in your life.
Congregation, can we encourage them by just putting
our hands together?
Do you believe?
I know you're crying, but do you believe?
Because when you believe, God begins to work
on your behalf.
Congregation, would you turn and hug one another
and greet one another in the name of
the Lord?
You've been listening to the From the Pulpit
in Classic Sermons series.
This week, you heard Jim Cimbala with his
message, A Descendant of David and Abraham.
Tune in next week to hear Leonard Ravenhill
speak about Abraham and Lot on From the
Pulpit in Classic Sermons.