Thank you, my friend. Well, it is so good to be back with you again. I want to say what a privilege it is to be at Christ Covenant Church. Every time I come back, I remind myself of how and why this feels like really a home away from home for us. And so it’s a joy to be back and a joy to be in this brand new pulpit. I don’t think I’ve been here since the pulpit has changed. I realize it’s gotten higher, so if I look like I’m disappearing behind it, you can understand why. But it is great to be back with you again here. We love this church, love this family, and it’s a privilege to share another Sunday morning with you.

Now I know that this summer you are going through a series in the book of Proverbs, and I’m going to be the delinquent pastor today. I’m going to take you out of that series. I told Kevin, when he invited me to preach, look, I’d love to come preach, but I don’t think I can do the book of Proverbs, but I’ve got another text in mind. He said great, whatever’s on your mind, come preach it, and so I’m going to do that today.

And believe it or not, the text I want to preach from today is the genealogy of Matthew. Now, you’re hearing that and you’re thinking so I guess you aren’t expecting to be invited back after this particular Sunday. [laughter] And that may be true. But the Lord has laid this passage on my heart, and I trust that He has much to teach to us today from it.

So if you have your Bibles, let’s turn to the book of Matthew, chapter 1, and our text today is the genealogy. A strange and bizarre as that sounds, you’re thinking why would anybody, especially as a guest preacher, preach from a genealogy. Surely that is an unusual pick, but I think you’ll see today that the Gospel is here.

And one of the things I enjoy about passages of Scripture like this is sometimes the Gospel is even more richly displayed in a passage where we don’t expect to find it. And passages like a genealogy are just such a passage.

Now to your great relief, and perhaps to mine as well, I will not read every verse of this genealogy. In fact, I want you to listen and meditate with me on the very first verse of the New Testament. Matthew chapter 1, verse 1: “Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Amen. May God bless the reading of His Word.

Let’s pray and ask Him to do that as we dive into this passage today. Let’s pray together.

Lord, we’re so grateful for Your Word. Yes, we’ve read only one short verse of this genealogy, there’s many more we’ll get to, but Lord, let us dwell on this. The very first verse of the New Testament is telling us the story of Jesus, is actually the end of a larger and older story. Give us insight into that today, we pray. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Now, if you’re like me, you’ve probably got your own little list of pet peeves about the world. And for me, there’s something that draws very near to the top. And that’s when I’m in the middle of a book or maybe waiting to watch a movie, and I’m eager to find out how it ends, and then someone spoils it before you get there. In fact, you’ve probably had that happen to you at some point. Maybe you’ve been in a book or a series of books and you’ve been dutifully poring through it, you’re tracking the plot, and you’re, you’re getting to know the characters and you’re engaged in the story and the tension is starting to build and you’re wondering how this is all going to end at the very last chapter, and every time you pick up the book to read it, you’re, you’re resisting the inevitable temptation that you feel, that what if I just flipped to the end of the book? What if I just went to that last chapter and I found out how things actually ended at ...