Exploring My Strange Bible - Yahweh Saves - Gospel of Matthew Part 1

Episode Date: April 30, 2018

These sermons originally took almost two years to get through, and it was a remarkable experience for our whole church community. Stories of Jesus can become so over-familiarized that they begin to lack the power and passion and brilliance that they actually possess. Going through this book was an amazing religious and life-transforming experience for me and I hope it is for you too.

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. All right. Well, in this episode, we are going to begin a new series. It's going to go for quite some time. We're going to walk our way through the entire first book of the New Testament,

the Gospel According to Matthew. I was a part of this teaching series when I was a pastor at Door of Hope a few years ago, and we just decided to do something we hadn't done before. Usually, we would do teaching series in four to 12-week blocks. Sometimes we take three months to explore a book of the Bible. But this was a commitment to exploring one of the longest books in the New Testament and just going through it every section by every section, no matter how long it took. It ended up taking almost two years worth of Sunday gatherings, and it was incredible. It was a really

remarkable experience for our whole church community. And for me personally, and I know for many people, the stories about Jesus, if you grow up in and around Christianity, they're some of the first stories that are burned into your memory as a little kid. And so these stories can become so over-familiarized, they begin to lack the power and passion and brilliance that they actually possess. And so what this series was for me was it was two years to just sit in the Gospel of Matthew constantly over and over again, rereading and rereading and rereading the whole thing, I hit the biggest stack of books I ever have of first century historical Jesus Judaism awesomeness. And it was amazing learning experience and life transforming experience for me. So there you go. That's what we're going to

do. This is going to be like 40 episodes for the next 40 episodes are just going to be about the Gospel of Matthew working through it. Since I wasn't the only teacher in the series, we're going to be kind of going about every other story or so. Josh White did a whole bunch along with a few other teachers, but we'll cover most of the gospel of Matthew in the series. And yeah, there you go. I just encourage you to have an open mind and heart and see what new things are lying there in these stories that many of you probably already know. So there you go. We're going to dive into the birth story of Jesus in Matthew chapter 1 and learn about the meaning of Jesus' name.

So there you go. Let's dive in and learn together. We're into this series on Matthew now, and so for the next couple weeks, we're going to be camping out in these stories about Jesus' birth, the circumstances of his birth in Matthew chapters 1 and 2. Of the four biographies, biographical accounts of Jesus in the New Testament, two have information about Jesus's family history and birth story and so on, the Gospel of Matthew and then also the Gospel of Luke. And these, you know, these are stories, they're traditional, they're probably familiar to you even if you didn't grow up around the church or anything

because they're the iconic Christmas stories of the magi and the star and the manger and all this kind of thing. But what I think that familiarity does is it dulls us, it dulls our imaginations and we tend not to think that we're going to be surprised or learn anything significant or new from these stories, because after all, you've been hearing them for a long time or whatever. And so we're just going to dismantle that real quick over the next couple weeks. These stories are really significant and profound. And the reason Matthew has included them in this account of Jesus isn't just because he likes history and he thinks just

historical events are significant. If Matthew just thought things were interesting about Jesus' life and so he just like compiled everything that could be told, the book would be way bigger than the entire Bible, of course. So he's selected, really, he's actually only selected five stories to begin this account of the life of Jesus, and they're all connected to the story of his origins. Actually, look at the first, look at the first word, the first sentence of the Gospel of Matthew. And this is, Matthew begins with a genealogy. And the word, does everybody have the word genealogy at the beginning here? Matthew, first sentence, this is the genealogy of Jesus Messiah. Are we all, you with me here?

Genealogy. Here's what's interesting. And we're just minutes in and already talking about Greek. I'm so sorry. The word that Matthew begins his gospel with is a word, it's a Greek word, but you know it. You know it, because it's a word that's come right into English, and it's the Greek word genesis, or in English we say genesis. Yeah, so he starts off, he says, literally, this is the book of the genesis of Jesus Messiah, and what follows? The genealogy. Now, in what we're looking at today,

if you look at verse 18, New International Version reads, this is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about. Do we all have birth? Y'all looking at something that says birth right there? Depending on what translation you have, there might be a handful of you that have something different. Or maybe if you have a footnote, you go down and you read that and it says or it could be translated this is the how the origins of jesus the messiah came about and can you guess what greek word matthew has repeated right here at verse 18 notice the point direction of my arm right right here at verse 18. Notice the point direction of my arm right here. So yeah, he's used the same exact word that he's used, only it's not a genealogy. It's a birth story. And so our English translators are like, wow, how do you do Genesis in this context? I guess

we'll translate it birth here, but genealogy in the first sentence. Isn't that interesting? Who wants to become a translator for a living? It's actually really hard work. So the whole point is that it's not just birth, because it's also about his whole family history, but it's not just about his family tree. It's the actual story of how Jesus was born. And the concept, really the concept underneath this, is Matthew has begun this account of Jesus' life with the story of Jesus' origins. And I think this is a helpful word to get at what he's doing here with Genesis, because in our culture, we actually use this word in a very similar way than what Matthew is doing in these stories. If I say, you know, let's say like you meet a counselor, a therapist or something,

and, you know, you want to start off, they want to start off the conversation talking about your family of origin. What does that mean? It's kind of a loaded concept, right, in our culture now, because we're talking about how you have been shaped by your whole experience, not just your birth story, your whole experience of how you were raised, how you were parented, was it one parent or two, siblings and temperaments of your parents, and all those kinds of things are all wrapped up in this package that we call your family of origins. And of course, you know, a therapist or counselor, a good therapist or counselor isn't going to do that just to rehash the past. The whole point is to illuminate the present.

Are you with me? The whole point is that you actually, you come to understand new things about yourself through learning about your origins. And for Matthew, it's exactly the same. He selected five stories to highlight the origins of Jesus because he's convinced that each of these stories significantly helps you understand an aspect of who Jesus is. Not just who he was, but who he is right now here in the present. And even as he tells us Jesus's origins to help us understand

who Jesus is in the present, even then he has an even larger aim than just telling us about Jesus. And this boils down to what the whole gospel of Matthew is about. Matthew wants to put this figure in front of you, Jesus of Nazareth. And he's just going to... Very rarely is Matthew going to back up and, like, as a storyteller or narrator,

like, tell you what's happening. He's just going to back up and like as a storyteller or narrator, like tell you what's happening. He's just going to present Jesus to you full force, stories about him, teachings, and just constantly put the ball under your court to just have to reckon with this man. Like, holy cow, who is this person and what is this all about? And Matthew's going to keep presenting Jesus to us because he's convinced that actually you and I, as we get to know Jesus, we are also at the same time getting to know ourselves. Matthew believes that it's actually only through knowing Jesus that you and I can really grasp the truth about ourselves and who we are. And so these stories about Jesus' origins are

actually not just cute stories about how remarkable it was how Jesus was born. He actually wants us to get a new perspective on who Jesus is and who we are. I just want to pause on that concept for a second because I think it's been helpful for me, at least in reading this very familiar story about the virgin birth of Jesus and so on. It's that the Jesus we're being introduced to here is a Jesus that as we get to know him, we actually are being invited to get to know ourselves even better at the same time. And I'm going to pause and kind of explore it. And also it gives me an excuse to show my children to everybody because pictures of my children are amazing

and to tell a story about them. Now, I do this every couple of months or so. Just indulge me. I mean, if you could show your picture to hundreds of people at a time, wouldn't you too? So anyway, these are my little dudes. Little Roman on the right. He just turned three this summer.

Little August on the left. Little Roman on the right, he just turned three this summer. Little August on the left. This was August's first real weekend playing at the beach. Because he was the infant during the winter, not the best time to visit the Oregon coast. And as you can tell here, it's a very typical day of summer at the Oregon coast as well, which means overcast and slightly drizzly.

So anyway, here we are, a day at the beach earlier this summer. And whatever, it's awesome. They're just so great. They're adorable, and I love to talk about them. Jessica and I, we live with them. We live with these boys. Every day. Every day, we live with these boys. Every day. Every day we live with them.

And it's been the most amazing and difficult thing at the same time that we have ever experienced. And specifically, you know, they come just ready to rock. I mean, they're just ready to come out with full personalities. You know, within the first week, we learned that Roman's a little stressed all of the time for no discernible reason. You know, and he's just kind of wound tight, you know. August is a little more chill, and he kind of rolls with it, laughs a lot more, and so on. And so here we are, three years for Roman, one year for August. We spend every day getting to know them.

And we're getting to know their unique temperaments and personalities. But here's what happens, is that at the same time I'm getting to know them, Jessica and I are also getting to know ourselves. So the last three years have exposed new depths of selfishness within me, for example. And, you know, times when, like, my little dream scenario for how this morning or evening is going to go dash to pieces on the ground because of diapers and tears and skinned knees or whatever. And so, and then I get, like, ticked off. I'm, like, dang it, I didn't get to do this or that or whatever. So, like, that gets exposed, you know, through getting to know them. And that's kind of a bummer. But at the same time, the flip side of that is that all these new capacities for self-giving I've discovered within myself.

Because a lot of the times I have to do stuff for them and it's not convenient and I don't even think about the fact that it's not convenient. I just do it because they're awesome and I love them. And so I've discovered this really like, you know, flawed thing about myself and also like this kind of redeeming part of my character. I've discovered that I get really easily frustrated when things don't go my way, and I've discovered that they bring out this silly, goofy side of me that nobody else sees, because they're just my boys, and we wrestle and play elephant and whatever, like, and I'm never going to do elephant with you. I'm sorry. It's never going to happen. So here's the point. Here's my point.

In this relationship I have with these boys, I'm getting to know myself as much as I'm getting to know them. Are you with me on that point? And this is true. This is my just most recent experience of it. But this is true for all of our closest relationships. You could put a picture of two of the most significant people in your life up on the screen for us all, and we would love to see them and hear the story.

And one of the things, I'm certain of it, one of the things would be that somehow your relationship with this person, they're awesome, but also that relationship has brought out all of this awareness and growth in you too. That's why we value people in our lives, is because they enrich us and we learn about ourselves just as much as we learn about them. This, I think, is exactly what Matthew is trying to do with us, especially as he tells us

the origins of Jesus. He's putting Jesus on the screen for us and saying that the meaning of who Jesus is, as you get to know him, he's written this book for disciples and communities of disciples of Jesus. And as you and I get to know him, as we grow in our awareness of his presence and in a relationship with him, we are growing in our knowledge of ourselves. And who Jesus is, especially in a story like we're looking at the next couple weeks, helps us learn about ourselves as much as Him. You guys with me on that point? Okay, let's read, let's kind of dive back into the story again with that on our minds, and I think it'll open up some things for us.

So, we're told verse 18 that this is how the genesis of Jesus came about. And let's just be honest, this is quite an odd story. The Bible is strange, you guys. So you have this couple, Mary and Joseph, right? And you have to imagine the scene here. This is a small town. They are going to eventually settle in, and their families are from, they're from this town called Nazareth. It's now a big. They are going to eventually settle in and their families are from this town called Nazareth. It's now a big iconic tourist site. It was not before this. Nazareth, the archaeologists have dug up first century Nazareth and it's small. It's podunk. There's no more than 500 people living. It's really more a collection of large family, extended family homes. About 500 people, small town. And it's a very traditional Jewish culture. And how do

marriages happen in ancient, very traditional Jewish culture, like many traditional cultures in the world today? Who's the driver in marriage? The people getting married or the parents? Yeah, that's exactly right. So Israelite, Jewish culture, it's a fiddler on the roof, matchmaker, anybody, matchmaker, make me a match, you know the song. So it's all about the parents. And so the parents, you know, and it's a small town, everybody knows each other. And so when these kids are young, they're somewhere 10 to 13, their parents have already had the conversation. Like, it's already, the match is made.

So Joseph and Mary, they have history. They've known each other for a long time. And the way the process goes is that at some point, they reach their mid to late teens, and then the parents come together and negotiate an actual marriage contract. And it's very official. There's witnesses, people from the community are there. And for all intents and purposes, it's way more than engagement in our culture. Notice what it says here. It says they were engaged, they were pledged

to be married, and then it comes out that she's pregnant and so on. And so Joseph had in mind to divorce her quietly. Now just think about that. Would we use that word to describe breaking an engagement in our culture? No. For us, divorce is connected to severing the actual marriage covenant. And that's about how serious this family engagement was. And after one year, after that engagement place, typically it would be one year, then the bride fiance would move into the husband's household who's been preparing for her for about a year. So we're in this final stage. There's years of history for this couple. And it turns out that she's pregnant. Now, just how well is that going to go?

For your Joseph, the story is told mostly from his perspective. Luke's account is told with a lot of personal perspective from Mary. Matthew is told from personal perspective of Joseph. And your're Joseph, and your years-engaged fiancee, imagine the conversation, for goodness sakes. She's like, I'm pregnant. Okay, that's not good. That's just not good at all, just at that fact alone. And then like, okay, so who and how?

And, you know, well, the Holy Spirit is making a human inside of me. You're just like, okay. Who's going to believe that? Did Joseph believe it? No, it doesn't actually seem like he does because it actually takes like a vision from an angel in a dream to convince him to like change course here. This is really odd.

And Joseph knows what's going to happen here if a teenage pregnancy in that kind of town, in that kind of traditional culture, this does not bode well for Mary, for her family, her reputation. And so Joseph, right, he's a kind man. He has every legal right to sever the engagement, and he doesn't want to do it publicly, right, he's a kind man. He has every legal right to sever, you know, the engagement, and he doesn't want to do it publicly, right? He's being kind, but clearly he thinks that this is really screwed up,

and like a spontaneous pregnancy through the Holy Spirit, like that happens, right? Joseph seems just as incredulous as a lot of people in our culture are when they hear this story too. And so it takes this vision, right, this visionary dream for Joseph to realize, hearing from this divine messenger, like, oh my gosh, this is true. This is true. Now, Matthew, as he tells the story, first of all, let's just say the story was fabricated to make Jesus look awesome. Is this really the kind of story that you would fabricate if you were trying to present Jesus as

this awesome hero of incredible pedigree and present him to the world as the Savior and Son of God? Is this the kind of story you would tell? I mean, this scandal, its intrigue, it raises like moral questions and illegitimate, you know, pregnancy and so on. It's just like, holy cow. So there's no reason to tell this story unless it's preserving a memory of things that really took place as a part of Jesus's story of origins. And even more interesting is Matthew knows, he knows for sure, that he's treading on thin ice. In the Greek and Roman world, there are stories galore about the different gods and goddesses taking human form, having sex with humans, and birthing the great gods or whatever. If you've seen any, you know, Greek mythology movies are popular right now. You've seen them, whatever.

The Iliad, the Odyssey, that kind of thing. And so even like great Homer's great Iliad and so on, Achilles, you know, one of the main heroes of Homer's Iliad. He's a hero of the story and he's birthed from a goddess and a great warrior, a Roman soldier and so on. And so these stories are very common. And so Matthew knows, like he wants to separate what's happening here from what's going on in the soap opera, right, of Greek and Roman mythology. And so who is the agent? Who is the divine one through whom this life is generated inside of Mary? It says it twice.

What is it? Holy Spirit. Now, that's interesting. Like, why doesn't it just say, well, through God's power or something like that? Why the Spirit? Spirit. It's mentioned twice. It must be significant. Now, this one's for free. So, Matthew has begun his story of Jesus by telling us twice that this is a story of a Genesis. This is a Genesis story. Can you think of another Genesis story where the Spirit is the one working to create and sustain life where there would not otherwise be life. Can you think of, oh right, so like the book of Genesis, like page one, page one of your Bibles. Let me refresh

your memories. In the beginning, God created the heavens, what's up there, and earth, what's down here. Now what's down here, the earth, it was formless and empty. Darkness over the surface of the deep. So God's responsible for making all that is. How does he do that? He takes this chaotic, watery wasteland, and in the midst of that dark, lifeless place, who is found there hovering the divine presence? Who?

The Spirit. We talked about this in the Holy Spirit series a few months ago. And the personal presence, the very breath presence, life-animating power of the Creator God is there in the midst of that darkness, and out of that comes the rest of Genesis 1, a garden of life and beauty and goodness and so on. that comes the rest of Genesis 1, a garden of life and beauty and goodness and so on. And it seems to me that Matthew is trying to say something very similar here at the beginning of his Genesis story of Jesus, that what happened with the birth of Jesus, it's not about the Holy Spirit having sex with Mary or something. This is not about sex. This is about creation. about sex, this is about creation. This is about the generation of life where there once was not life. It's marking the generation of this life, the human life, Jesus, as being utterly unique

and without precedent. There's something completely unique happening here. We call it the virgin birth, and it's become kind of a familiar part of Western culture and so on, but this is utterly, this is utterly remarkable. It's a new generation of human, of human life. Now, let's keep going in the story. Verse 21. So Mary is going to give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. And here you go. Verse 21. This is where all the money is right here in this story. The first part of where the money is. This is where the story gives us insight into who Jesus is, and therefore who we are. So she's going to give birth to this utterly unique son whose life has been generated within her.

It's really hard. How do you talk about something like the virgin birth? something like the virgin birth, except to say it's an act of creation of a fertilized egg within the womb of an unmarried Jewish teenager. That's the story of Christian origins right there. It's just holy cow, who would have thought this up? So she gives birth then to this son, and it's all about the meaning of his name and connected to what he's going to do. You are to give him the name Jesus because he will save. Now, again, we'll put this up on the screen just because I think it's kind of helpful. So the meaning of his name in Hebrew, actually how you would have pronounced his full name in Hebrew, the traditional form is up top there, Yehoshua, Yehoshua, which is where we get the name Joshua in English as well.

But for language geeks, you'll find this interesting, over time, if you say, actually you can do it, if you say Yehoshua, say it ten times fast. But if you say it ten times fast, you'll find your mouth wanting to shorten it into an abbreviated form. And that's where we get Yeshua. Say it. Do it. Just do it. Yeshua, Yeshua, Yeshua, Yeshua, Yeshua, Yeshua. You want to shorten it, don't you?

And the common form that it got shortened to was Yeshua. When that Hebrew name was then spelled with Greek letters, it was spelled and pronounced as Jesus, which is where we get the Spanish and Romance languages, European languages for Jesus. And then somehow in English along the way, that Y turned to a J, and you get Jesus. Jesus.

And that's fine, Jesus. Yeshua's sound has just a more poetic ring to it. Yeshua. Anyway, so the meaning of the name, Yeho is an abbreviated form of the divine name Yahweh, and Shua is part of the Hebrew root for to save or deliver or rescue. Now, with that in mind, go back to verse 21 and think carefully through the significance of this announcement. She'll give birth to a son. You are to give him the name Yahweh saves because he will save his people from their sins. What's the meaning of his name? Yahweh saves. What's he going to do?

He will save. Who's going to save? Yahweh saves is going to save. Wait, no. Who's going to save? Yahweh or Yahweh saves? Okay. Are you with me on that point? In the moment you get there,

you have grasped the first claim that Matthew wants to make about Jesus, and he doesn't like write a little theological treatise about the divine and human and the hypostatic union or anything like that. He tells a story where the meaning of his name speaks of his destiny, but also of his identity. Who is this human who has no earthly father? Who is this son who was created by the spirit, the creative spirit of God within the womb of this Jewish teenager and is born, and whose name means Yahweh saves. But he's going to save. But wait, I thought Yahweh is going to save his people. Yes, exactly.

Okay, you've got it. You've got it. Welcome to claim number one of what Matthew wants you to reckon with about this Jesus. And as we get to know and consider the claim made about this Jesus, we get to know something about ourselves too. Who is he going to save?

His people. Who is his people? So you expect it to say he will save the whole world, don't you? That's what you want it to say. But it doesn't say that, does it? It says he will save his people. Who is his people? Well, look at that. You've got this genealogy conveniently placed on the same exact page for you. Isn't that nice? His people is the family of Abraham,

his tribe, the people of Israel. And what is he saving his people from? of Israel. And what is he saving his people from? Their sins. Now, what about the rest of us? We left high and dry. Here, what's going on here? And right here, the meaning of Jesus' name, and that little line right there, is condensed the whole storyline of the Hebrew Scriptures. So, the Hebrew Scriptures begin, actually, it's a story mostly about Jesus' family, the family of Abraham, but it doesn't begin. The Hebrew Scriptures don't begin with a story about the family of Israel. They begin with a story about all humanity. And humans are made in the divine image and made to reflect the divine image out into the world. They're made to trust God's definition of good and evil as they reproduce and make the world awesome. And how do they do at trusting God's

definition of good or evil, pass or fail? All right. So, I was like, even if you're not religious, you truly have heard about the story of Adam and Eve. Anyway, so how does the story of the Bible go? How the story goes is that God calls into being one particular family, the family of Abraham, who becomes the people of Israel in the storyline of the scriptures. And this is God's response to this problem. Humanity's failed, and so he's going to call into being a new family, one particular tribe, and he rescues them out of slavery in Egypt. He becomes their king, their gracious, saving king. He gives them the Torah, his kind of written express will instruction for their time and place about what it would look like for them to renew their humanity, to become a people of justice and generosity

and a light to the nations. And how does Israel do at this pass or fail? Fail. Fail. So God calls one particular line out of the family of Israel, a line of kings that comes from the line of who? David. Notice I'm just following the genealogy here, Matthew 1, because he's, he's, Matthew has already told us this story just in a boring genealogy, so I'm trying to spice it up right here. So he, so you have the kings from the line of David, and David and these kings are supposed to be the leaders of Israel

and guide people to obey the Torah and to worship their Redeemer God and so on. And how do, including David, how do the kings of Israel do this, being loyal to Yahweh? Fail. And so all of that ends, lands the people of Israel in exile to Babylon. And that's how the story of the Hebrew scriptures ends for the most part. There's a little, one little book where they return back a handful of them from exile to Jerusalem and things go horribly for them. And then it ends. And that's the story of the Hebrew scriptures. It's just an unfinished story. It's like, I don't know, it's kind of how many of you feel right now with the Hunger Games. You have one and two, right, the movies, but then, like, what's going on?

And what if it just ended? What if movie three was never made? You'd have to read the books. Which are quite entertaining, actually. You know, so, but what if? Like, what if the story just ends with books two? What is Katniss going to do? Is she going to fight? The whole point is that it's an utterly unfinished story,

and that's weird. That's strange. The Hebrew Scriptures are a story in search of an ending. And so what Matthew's doing is he is presenting Jesus as the one who is coming to solve the problem of Israel's sin, his people. But in the bigger story of the scriptures, this was always part of God's greater solution to solve this whole problem right here. And the word that Matthew uses is the word sin. He's going to save his people, Israel, first and foremost, so that what he does for Israel can be done for all humanity, and it's all about dealing with sin. Now, there's a good religious word that nobody really knows what they mean when they say it anymore, right? Sin. There's lots of words in the Bible for how humans are screwed up and the screwed up things that we do to each other.

are screwed up and the screwed up things that we do to each other. One of them is sin. And sin, at least this word, among many in the Bible, this word means to fail, moral failure. It's not talking about like why you fail or anything. There are other words, transgression and iniquity and so on. But sin is just about the simple fact that you've failed. We had a goal as human beings to reflect the divine image and to love God and to love each other, and we've just done really poorly at that, and we have failed. And Jesus comes to rescue his people from their failure and the huge mess that has landed them in. He's come to rescue Israel and therefore all humanity from our failure and the huge mess that it lands itself in.

And this is where, back to the story about my little kids, this is Jesus. So Jesus, he will have lots of good moral teachings, but the heart of who he is isn't a moral program to just tell us to come be better people or something. He's coming to do something for us that we cannot do for ourselves. He's here to save us from our failure as a human race. That's what he's here to do. And if that's what he's here to do, then that also, as you get to know this Jesus, you get to know something about yourself, namely that you and I have, as individuals,

failed at being human beings. Now, that's not the best news to hear. I understand that, right? And there might be some of you who are here, and you don't need any convincing, you know, that that's true about yourself. But my hunch is that there are a whole bunch of us who are here, and we kind of qualify it, and we're like, yeah, you know, I'm screwed up. But like, you know, I get frustrated with my kids, but they also make me do the funny elephant, you know, and so I'm not a completely evil, horrible person. And so what's going on here?

I think this is who this Jesus is, at least for us here in the West. I think especially for us Westerners, it's very easy for us. We look out at the global scene, and we're quite happy to acknowledge that human beings are screwed up. And we just look at the current landscape, you guys. It's no better or worse than it ever has been in the history of the human race. But there's a lot of really, really screwed up stuff happening in our world right now. Do I have to argue and prove that point to anybody? I don't think so. So, and why is the world that way? Why are those things

happening? It's because there's something wrong with us. There's something wrong with us. And this is a part of the Bible's just fundamental diagnosis of who we are and that we need rescuing. And on a large scale, that's not hard to prove. But here's the funny thing is that the moment it becomes personal and I start examining like my own life and motivations and values and so on, I'm all of a sudden like I start minimizing how screwed up I am, right? And just like, well, you know, and conveniently the lines of good and evil are really clear when it comes

to other people, but they're not so clear when it comes to me and my motives. You guys know what I'm talking about here. It's just, isn't that convenient how that works out? And so what this story of Jesus, the story is asking us to entertain something about ourselves. I am in need of such dire help. And I actually am in, along with the rest of humanity, in such a dire situation that rescue and solution to the human problem can only come from outside of ourselves. It can only come by some kind of solution that is utterly out of my hands. Because exhibit A, human history, like we've shown that we do a pretty poor job.

And especially here in the West, that's hard for us to get our minds around. These cultural waves of moral optimism come up and they come and go through Western history. When I was growing up in high school, it was the whole thing about the perform random acts of kindness. Do you guys remember that whole bumper sticker movement? All those bumper stickers are fading now. And there's a new one. Have you seen the new one? It's the be good to people. Have you seen be good to people? Nobody's seen be good to people. I saw it first on Facebook and then on two bumper stickers in the last two weeks. Maybe they're still gaining steam, but it's the same kind of thing. Be good to people. You can go to the website. And here's the thing. You go to the website and it's just a

simple t-shirt bumper sticker campaign or whatever. But their whole point is just like, man, let's just, politics and religion and morality, let's just back it up and let's just be good to people. And we'll start to solve the world's problems. Now, I'm a disciple of Jesus, as are most of you. We believe being good to people is very, very important. Jesus made it one of the core things of being a disciple of Jesus. You love your neighbor as yourself. things of being a disciple of Jesus. You love your neighbor as yourself. But to view that as the solution, as if we just human beings, we could just like start being good to people, do random

acts of kindness and goodness to each other, and then we'll be, it's hopeless naivety. It's hopeless because it doesn't get to the heart of the problem for a number of reasons. Like, I can choose to try and be good to people, but here's the thing. You know it and I know it. We are all quite selective of who we are good to, first of all. And second of all, we're all a huge mixed bag of good and evil, right? Even the mafia boss will order an assassination and then order flowers for his mother on Mother's Day. You know what I'm saying? So we're all this mixed bag of good and evil, and we're highly selective

about who we show good and evil to. And simply telling us to be good to each other totally ignores the fact the most complex conflicts right now, right, in our world are about conflicts of the good. Do you really think the Islamic State fighters and so on in Syria and Iraq think that they are driven by evil? Of course they don't. They think that they are driven by good. They believe that they are doing what is good. And the Western governmental response believes that it's doing good. And it's about the conflict of goods and the millions of people that die in the midst of the conflict of goods. That is the hopeless condition of the human situation. And simply telling each other to be good is like

giving vitamin C to someone with a broken leg. It just, it doesn't even acknowledge the complexity of the problem. And what Matthew is offering to us, and this is, I'm just trying to put the claim in front of us in really stark terms. What Matthew's trying to offer us is he's saying, listen, just read the Hebrew scriptures. They're one of the most profound analysis of the broken human condition that you could ever read on a national, global, individual level, a million stories of horrible people doing horrible things to each other in the Hebrew Bible. And it's all just an analysis of what screwed up with us. And Matthew is putting forward this Jesus of Nazareth as the one in whom the only hope for solution and rescue and salvation from this mess that we have

got ourselves into. It's the only place where we're going to find it. Now, you can reject that claim. You can accept it. You can take time to consider it., you can reject that claim. You can accept it. You can take time to consider it, but you can't ignore it. You can't ignore it. And that's exactly the meaning of the virgin birth. It's a solution of God becoming human, utterly a solution from outside of ourselves to be and to do as the kind of human that you and I are incapable of doing. But at the same time, it's a solution that's totally inside of the human problem because it's actually in the form of a human itself. It's the divine and the human come together to save and to rescue. Who's going to save? Yahweh or this man Yahweh saves? And the answer is yes. Yes.

Let's keep reading. Matthew then, verse 22, Jesus receives two names. The first one, we learn a lot about ourselves, namely that we're hopeless. That we're hopeless and we need someone to rescue us. And the second name that Jesus receives in this story comes alongside it. It says,

He's quoting from the Hebrew prophets right here. Where is he quoting from? He's quoting from the prophet Isaiah. The prophet Isaiah chapter 7. this is the first of many many many times throughout the gospel where well matthew will pause and he'll remind you of some important passage in the hebrew scriptures that left you know it's the unfinished story a promise left dangling but yet in in Jesus that promise finds its fulfillment. You go back to Isaiah and you see that Isaiah 7 is this story about a king

from the line of David who was a total chump. He was a bad guy. And Isaiah makes this promise that a young unmarried woman is going to give birth to a son. You're going to name him Emmanuel, and he's going to replace the current line of David and its unfaithfulness. And then that promise, the promised son is never born in the book of Isaiah. It's just a promise that's left dangling. The unmarried woman, the virgin, will be pregnant and have a son. And you're like, who's it going to be? But it never comes. The son never comes. And you read on, and the promise develops into the hope of this coming Messiah, coming king from the line of David who will do all of this. And what is the name of this coming king from the line of David? What's his name? Emmanuel. Emmanuel. Now in Hebrew, it's spelled with an I, that E-M-A-N-U is with us and then L

is God. And it's actually in Greek that we've gotten the transition into E, Emmanuel, the way the name is spelled in our language today. And the meaning of the name is God is with us. Now, this second name of Jesus, it's like a repeat. It gets us in the same kind of world of asking questions that the first name does. Well, so who is this Yahweh? Who's going to save? Yahweh saves or Yahweh? Who is God with his people?

Who is Emmanuel? Who is this baby? Is he Yahweh saves or is he God with us? Exactly right. Welcome to claim number two about the identity of Jesus. The divine and the human met together. And for God to be with us, you know, if you just take that line out of the story, that can be a line of comfort for some of us. It can be a line of solace that God is with us. But in the story here, what does

it mean for God to be with us? It means that this God revealed in Jesus is not content to leave humanity as a failed project. And he's certainly not content to leave humanity sitting here rotting in the consequences of its failure. And so all of this, he will say, how is he going to save? And how is Jesus going to be God with us? And it's all leading up to the story of Jesus's cross and to the resurrection. And so for a Christian, God is not an abstract concept. He's not the big guy upstairs. He's Jesus. He's Jesus. How do I know that God exists? Jesus. I believe in God because I believe in Jesus, not because I believe... Actually, when I share this with people, they're often surprised. First of all, I'm speaking very

personally right here. I actually don't find the arguments for God's existence, like just abstractly, actually very compelling at all. I actually kind of find it hard to believe in God, but I don't find it hard to believe in Jesus, because Jesus was an actual historical person, like who lived amidst the dirt and details of first century Palestine. We have four biographical accounts connected to eyewitness testimony. And I believe in the world as Jesus says that it is. And I believe in Jesus, therefore, I believe in God. And what God do you believe in? I believe, as a Christian, in the God that Jesus revealed to us. And this is a God who is with us, not in the abstract kind of general soulless sense. God is with us because this God has utterly bound himself to sinful, broken, hopeless humanity to do something with us,

to bring hope and deliverance out of lives that seem hopeless. That's what it means for God to be with us. And that's the God that Jesus reveals to us. And the version of ourselves that's reflected as we look at Jesus is a version of ourselves that's the most broken, screwed up, mixed bag of good and evil. To know Jesus begins to learn that about myself. But also to see the version of myself that God sees, which is someone that he loves and cares for deeply and that he is utterly committed to be with in the person of Jesus. How do I know that God is real, and how do I know that God is committed to me and with me? I look to the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus. How are you guys doing? Turn to the last page of the Gospel of Matthew with me and we'll close.

Very last page, chapter 28. We're going to look at the last sentences, verses 18 on to the end. This is the resurrected Jesus, and he's talking to a pretty large group of his followers. And it says, Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of whom? Where? So Jesus first came to deal with the sin of his people, absorbs it on the cross, conquers it with his love and the resurrection from the dead,

and then out of that he commissions his people to go and proclaim what he has done with the sins of the world, not just for Israel, but for all nations, right? The story, it begins small and then it gets huge. Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Well, who is this Jesus and who is the God revealed? It's Father, Son, and Spirit. Teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. Who is with us? Who's with us? Yep. So you already know. You know the game now, don't you? All right, you get it. Is it Jesus or God? Mm-hmm. Yep, that's exactly right. And the particular God revealed in Jesus is the God who is not just the Jesus of past history. This is Jesus, our contemporary. The book of Matthew is trying to tell us that Jesus

is alive and he's present right now. And these stories about him mediate the reality of his presence to us. He promises that when we gather together and we remember what he's done and we talk to him and we worship him, that he's actually here with us, reminding us of what he did for us, so that he can make us into new and different kinds of people. And the rest of the gospel is going to be Jesus inviting us to become those kinds of people as we look to him. Amen? What does it mean for Jesus to deliver you from your failures and their consequences. I think that's what we should talk to Jesus about as we come to the bread and the cup. Thank you for listening to Exploring My Strange Bible podcast.

We're going to continue on exploring the Gospel of Matthew. So amazing. It's awesome. So there you go. Onward. Let's keep learning and following Jesus together. We'll see you next time. Thank you.