The King Has Come Pt. 14 | Matthew 1:1-17

November 9th, 2025

This week we continue our journey through Matthew’s opening genealogy, and Pastor Ben shows up how Jesse’s place in the list becomes a living parable of sanctifying grace, incorporating hidden roots, steady faith, and visible fruit.

Taking time to concentrate on the names listed in Christ’s genealogy has enabled us to see really spectacular truths concerning our salvation, and the love that Christ has for us in that salvation. These truths have led to a broader, cosmic view of salvation as something happening in real time and space, with God interceding in our lives as we experience salvation in a real, tangible way. We now find ourselves in verses 5 and 6 of Matthew 1, where it reads, “…and Obed was the father of Jesse…And Jesse was the father of David, the king.”

Last week we noted a shift in what we know as the order of salvation (ordo salutis), moving from justification to adoption. We have already looked at election, calling, regeneration, faith, and repentance, seeing how God, in the progression of those steps, works in our lives. Included in this shift we saw how it shifted from the courtroom towards the home. In  justification we are legally declared righteous. That's the robe of righteousness that's put on us by God's grace. Then adoption becomes relational by nature. In so doing it moves into the home. This week, in moving from adoption to sanctification, what was relational becomes transformational in our lives. Sanctification is one of the most common words used in Christian vocabulary. People understand the term, or they think they understand the term. It is a concept that is dear to us because we know we're growing in our faith. Contemplating it causes a peace to wash over us because we know that, although we haven't arrived yet, at least we know we're striving to get there, which is good. In essence, sanctification is the way in which God shapes His children to resemble Himself. It's how we get to Christlikeness. 

The Puritan John Owen writes in his Works VI, “Adoption gives us the names of sons; sanctification gives us the nature of sons.”  It becomes the way in which we actually tangibly see fruit in our lives, enabling us to make righteous decisions, therefore indicating that righteousness cannot exist outside of Christ. 

I. The Root of Sanctification: Introducing the Person of Jesse

 Our first introduction to Jesse comes in 1 Samuel 16:1-13, where we get some historical context. As you look at Jesse the man, he lived in the waning days of the judges. We know that he was a Bethlehemite from the tribe of Judah, the tribe from which the scepter shall not depart (Genesis 49:10). We also see that Jesse was called upon by Samuel through God  as stated in 1 Samuel 16:1, “I'll send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I see among his sons a king for me.” 

That verse prompts one to ask, “Just who was Jesse, and why would God call upon him? It’s helpful to first consider the character of the time of the judges in which Jesse lived and was raising his sons, for example:

• There was spiritual chaos. Judges 21:25 indicates that, “…every man did was right in his own eyes.” Everyone saw his own truth. There was moral relativism, which replaced divine authority. 

• There was idolatry, where Israel repeatedly turned to idols over and over and over again. There was sensuality, self-exultation, and violence all blended into this time. (Judges 2:11-13)

• There was unfaithfulness, forgetting Yahweh who had previously delivered them from Egypt, coupled with the forsaking of His commandments. (Judges 2:10-12)

• There was moral depravity. If you look at the closing chapters of judges (17-21), the level of moral depravity of man is striking, e.g.

  • A Levite hires himself out to be a private priest for an idol (Judges 17)

  • A concubine was abused and murdered, and Israel plunges into civil war (Judges 19-20)

• There was a leadership void, because there was no king in Israel.

•  There was division among the people. Everyone acted independently. They were in conflict with one another rather than united under God’s authority. 

• There was a cycle of sin: 

  • Rebellion to Oppression,

  • Oppression to Crying for Help,

  • Crying for Help to Deliverance,

  • Deliverance to Blessing,

  • Blessing to Complacency,

  • Complacency to Rebellion. And we see this cycle over and over and over again throughout Judges. (Judges 2:18-19) 

• There was corrupted worship. Even the priests and the Levites were persuaded for personal gain to serve themselves. (Judges 2:18-19)

So, this Is the time in which Jesse lived. Why did they have judges to begin with? Why did they need this? Judges were necessary because of Israel's sin. In Israel’s sin, God handed them over to their oppressors in the surrounding nations. Eventually, though, God raises up the judges as deliverers, putting them in direct rule over His people, as a theocracy. God was ruling directly over His people, speaking the truth of God to them. They needed judges, then, because they repeatedly did what Judges chapter 2 says “…was evil in the sight of the Lord.” (Judges 2:11). The people didn't like the judges: They looked around to the other nations monarchies, with kings. They wanted a king too. In response, God gave them kings, then the question became: Since the people’s choice of king (Saul) turned out to be a failure, who does God choose to begin this new rule? Who would stand before the people on behalf of God? Who would rule as God would rule? Who would think as God would think? Who would live then as God would have them live? 

God’s answer to those questions turns out to be a man (a boy, really) from the house of Jesse. At a time when everyone did what was right in their own eyes, Jesse's household was preserved as a remnant- a people of God’s own choosing. In Saul the nation had been given the worldly definition of a powerful king - tall, dark and impressive. But Saul was not seeking the heart of God, he was more concerned with appearances. God tells Samuel he doesn’t look at the outside appearances he looks at the heart and God will show Samuel his anointed one.

So the prophet Samuel came to Jesse's house to anoint the king, and Jesse presented his seven sons. Consider how surreal this had to be for all involved: For Samuel, for Jesse, and for David, as, at God’s command, Samuel is anointing David. And as he's anointing David, Jesse's youngest son, God demonstrates His covenant, keeping love for his people, sanctifying His people - starting right from the top- the King- and even before with the King’s father. In Jesse we see God’s sanctifying work unfold in a quiet faithfulness of an ordinary obedient life.  

Jesse’s understated appearance in Scripture also speaks in three ways to the broader story of redemption. First, both Isaiah and Micah contribute prophecies that intersect with Jesse, with Isaiah 11:1-3, 10 indicating that “…a shoot from the stump of Jesse…” would lead to the Messiah, that from Jesse's seemingly dead lineage that would spring this branch. This olive branch would be Christ himself. Micah also tells us in Micah 5:2 that this king would come from Bethlehem (Jesse’s home). Therefore, as the New Testament opens in Matthew, the name of Jesse then links Abraham's promise and David's kingship to Christ's Kingdom through this same shoot. 

Secondly, the name “Jesse” itself brings a theological shadow of sanctification. The name Jesse is from a root that means “to exist”, “to be”, “to give”, or “to possess”. Lexically, as Hebrew authors begin to use the word in Scripture, it came to mean “Yahweh exists”, or “Yahweh is”.  Old Testament commentators Keil & Delitzsch state that the name conveys stability and rooted existence. 

Thirdly, in Jesse's quiet life we see this pattern of sanctification: God’s transforming grace through inner obedience, as most people don't know about that obedience. People have a very limited view. The only understanding of what one’s obedience is, is what they see in outward works, when, in reality, obedience is actually happening inside the heart. Isaiah’s use of “…the root of Jesse…”, then, calls into focus the humanity of Jesus, and the fact that the Messiah would possess human ancestry. It also speaks to the humble origins that are coming through, that the root of Christ would be a shepherd from Bethlehem. Likewise, in Jesse's name, we have this picture of humility through Christ’s humanity (flesh) while at the same time we have the reminder of His perfection in divine righteousness (Spirit), as lived in faithful obedience to God. 

We get this picture of how sanctification begins to work:  In adoption, God gives us a new identity, a new family that we come into, while in sanctification, God's Spirit transforms us to reflect this new family as we humbly seek his face. Romans 6:4 highlights this new identity, this transformation this way: “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”  There comes the newness of life, the shoot that comes out from this root that's planted in God. In this stump that we have that's cut down in humility, then new life begins. Colossians 3:10 indicates that, “…we have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him.”  When we look at sanctification, then, we have this idea that we're united with Christ, that we can walk in the newness of life. We have this new self, we have Christ-like attributes that we put on, and we put the flesh off. It’s simple enough, right? Or is it? 

If it’s so simple, then, why can't we grow in faith? Why is it so hard to overcome sins in our lives? Why does this seem difficult to overcome things? We can clearly see our lives remain sinful week after week after week. We end up like Paul does, saying, “…what a wretched man that I am…”(Romans 7:24).  And sanctification, while very simple, still needs to be rightfully understood. And with that understanding we can then “grow up” in our salvation. It begins with a better understanding of the true nature of sanctification. 

II. The Nature of Sanctification-God’s Work in the Believer

It’s best to start with a good definition: Sanctification is God's inner work of dependence. And the nature of sanctification is threefold: It's internal, it's spiritual, and it's a dependent work. Let’s look at each of these to give us building blocks to understand the means of sanctification

Sanctification is Internal

Sanctification, first and foremost, is internal. We see this in Philippians 2:12-13: “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” Here we have this Greek verb katergazomai (“to achieve, accomplish, do, bring about”, or “to cause something to happen”, or “to produce results, bring to full expression”), indicating that we need to work out our salvation. But, how do I work this out if it's something that God works in me? How does this coincide? Where does this work together? Well, if you understand what the verb “work out” means, it means to bring to full expression. That's the easiest way to understand, just to bring it to full expression. And it means this continuously. Personal participation in an ongoing process. You're always doing this. If you look at your life every single day, all day long, every moment of your day, this is what you're doing. You're working out your salvation. There is not a moment when your eyes are open and you're conscious that you're not working out your salvation. And when Paul uses this, he’s not saying work for your salvation. Instead, he's saying work out the salvation that God has already worked in you. That's literally what he's saying there. You need to work out the salvation that God has already worked in you, to bring it to full expression or completion. 

You could picture it another way: God plants the seed of salvation (election, calling, regeneration, justification, adoption). And that seed takes root. Sanctification is the cultivation of that seed that God has planted in there. It's the watering, it's the nurturing. It’s also trusting in the weather you can't control.  And you have this cultivating of that seed to its maturity, and that's what our sanctification is. 

Paul uses similar logic in 2 Corinthians 7:1: “…let us cleanse ourselves…bringing holiness to completion”. You're to live out to maturity what God began inside of you. Look again a Philippians 2:13, “…for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Sanctification by nature has to first be understood as internal and that's good because we always focus on the external, right? We can see that clearly in 2 Corinthians 3:18: “But we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed onto the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord the Spirit.” And  here this “being transformed” is metamorpho, from where we get “metamorphosis”. When you think about salvation, it's this metamorphosis. We're being transformed. But it happens internally before it happens externally. When we look at sanctification, it's not behavioral compliance because a lot of times when we look at sanctification, we think we need to make ourselves obey. While there's some truth to that, it’s also true that if we don't desire to obey, there are other things that are at work in our heart.  That's a very, very important distinction for us to understand in our Christian lives.  it's not behavioral compliance…it's an internal steering of the affections. We have new internal affections and those internal affections then move to outward conduct. Louis Berkof's (Systematic Theology) definition of sanctification is “the strengthening of the holy disposition born in regeneration.”  God has given us in salvation a wholly disposition, and sanctification is a strengthening of that holy disposition. It is born, he said, in regeneration. There you see the flow: the desire, the affection, and then the work. True holiness isn't just change of behavior. It's this transformation of the heart’s affections. God doesn't just restrain sin, and I think that's what we think of when we think of sanctification. We think of sin we want to do, and then we hold ourselves back and we restrain from that. When God helps the students just restrain from sin, That's not necessarily a correct understanding of sanctification. It's not simply a restraint of sin. What God does in sanctification, because it's born out of regeneration, He reorders our love, and that takes on a different understanding when it comes to our behavior.  God has regenerated us. And then what did he do? Well, he reordered what was lost at the fall. 

In the Garden Eve had had an affection for God, an affinity for God, a love for God. It was unhindered. Then sin came in, and through the curse, it was reordered through a ministry of reconciliation. And what is God doing? He's reconciling people back to Himself. He's reordering their love, and that reordering of love manifests itself and worship. Proverbs 4:23, “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.” In Hebrew Scripture the heart was the seat of affections and desires that determined the direction of life. Again, Owen stated, “The affections are the vigorous and sensible motions of the will toward that which it apprehends as good or evil.”  

What happens then is these reordered affections respond to what the the mind presents as true or valuable. He's saying that the mind perceives what is true, then the affections embrace it or reject it, and the will acts upon it. That's how this works in our lives. What this looks like in sanctification is the Spirit not only enlightens the mind to see the face of Christ (it's unveiled), but also inflames the affections to love that glory, so that, whenever the face of Christ is unveiled, you're drawn to Him. You want more of Him, you desire Him. You go to His Word, you seek Him in prayer. You do those things because you can't not do them. Because it's been unveiled before you and now your affections are drawn to Him, and you respond because God has reordered those affections to be for Christ specifically, These affections are not just feelings, and that's where we get mixed up. We think that they're just feelings or emotions. Affections, instead, are the spiritual movement of the soul. That's what the affections are, and that's why Owens warns against false religion because false religion serves the passions, but it leaves the affections alone. But the passions are ignited, and you have to watch those. Sanctification is not just emotional excitement. If you're not careful, you’ll be following after the flesh, and at first it's going to look really lot like Christ, but then throughout your life it will diverge completely. Sanctification is this effectual transformation…it's the Spirit reordering the soul's desires and delights into God. You have holy affections, leading to holy desires, resulting in holy actions. 

Obedience, then, is not the cause of salvation, it's the consequence. People obey because they love Christ. That's it. And if you love Christ, guess what? Your life is going to start to look like His. You're not going to have to convince someone who's whose affections have been reordered that they need to read the word because their heart is going to be drawn to it, and they desire it, and they want to drink from that well to know more about Him. Obedience is just the natural consequence that naturally flows out of someone who loves Christ. As we look at Jesse's relatively unseen life in Scripture in the unlikely setting of Bethlehem's shepherding fields, God tells Samuel to go to Jesse and his sons. You're going to find my king there. The Lord unveils the fruit of Jesse's faithfulness, then, demonstrating  that the work is internal by nature. We cannot produce it ourselves.

Sanctification is the Work of the Spirit  

The second principle of sanctification is that it is, by nature, a work of the Spirit. Philippians 2:13, again, reminds us that “It is God who is at work in you.” That's why those reordered affections happen. As you read through the pages of New Testament, it becomes “the divine passive”. The divine passive is best characterized by looking at Romans 12:2. What does it say: “Make sure you transform yourself by the renewing of your mind?” No, it says “Be transformed (passive) by the renewing of your mind, that you can prove what the will of God is.”  Second Corinthians 3:18 supports this idea when it says that we are, “…being transformed.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23 confirms it: “May the God of peace Himself sanctify you.”, with Paul having already given a long lists of exhortations from 4:1 through 5:22. So, then, it's the Spirit alone that renews and transforms the heart, infusing habits of holiness that we desire due to the internal work of the Spirit. 

Sanctification is Dependent

The third aspect of sanctification is that it is a dependent work.  It's an internal work, it's a spiritual work, and it's a dependent work. This may seem contradictory, but it is not. What does divine dependence in a believer's life look like? Remember Paul told us in in 1 Thessalonians 5 that we need to cooperate (not contribute) with what we know God is already doing. God. It should be a synergistic experience, while, at the same time, being monergistic in power. It comes from God, but we cooperate, thus moving it forward. It's the Spirit that produces the fruit, it's God that's at work within us as we comply with what He desires us to do, and we respond. But God supplies, we work out what God is working in us. Through true obedience we make progress, but it may not happen without frustration, as we will talk about more next week when we obey only in the flesh. In this cooperative work  when the obedience is real, it's God-enabled, ongoing obedience (Philippians 2:13), 

Dependence also means living by supply, and not self-sufficiency. We don't generate holiness, but draw from holiness. That's why it's important to fill yourself with the word of Christ. That's why we are transformed by the renewing of the mind, because we are drawing from the well. You cannot live out what you do not know. You draw from holiness, and that holiness indwells us. John 15:5 states, “I am the vine, you're the branches. He who abides in me and on him bears much fruit, for apart from me, you can do nothing.”  John is telling us that we can do no works of righteousness apart from Him, the source. It is a simple illustration, but it speaks volumes. Conversely, every time independence in your life is exercised, you will find sin at its core. This is demonstrated throughout Scripture.  Paul's statement Galatians 3:3. “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected in the flesh?” You can't perfect yourself in the flesh. It has to be in the Spirit. That's where we walk by the Spirit. That's what we're filled with, the Spirit. 

Paul uses all of those words and that terminology to help us understand what sanctification really is.  Sin, at its root, is not just disobedience, right? It's also autonomy. That's what sin is. It happens when we separate ourselves from God. Proverbs 3:5-6  tells us to trust in the Lord with all your heart rather than your own understanding. Romans 14:3 confirms that whatever is not from faith is sin. It doesn’t matter if it looks like faith or smells like faith. If it's not by faith, it's just sin.  Even good actions apart from faith, are sin. Nothing of spiritual value or holiness proceeds from independence. It always dependent.  dependence is the nature of sanctification.

This idea brings to mind the hymn “I Need Thee Every Hour”. I need the every hour, every single hour I need, there's not a moment that I don't need thee. It's this dependence upon God every moment of every hour, every second, of every day, just like our lungs depend on oxygen. And if you get to the point where you begin to breathe on your own, you're going to suffocate, and you're going to sin against the Father. Dependence on God is this posture of the heart, this conscious awareness that every breath, every thought, and every victory depends upon him. 

Whenever we see obedience in Scripture it always results in praise to God who's doing something. Will you seek his help before you act? Do you earnestly seek Him before you do anything? It's the Spirit's work of sanctification where we are wholly dependent upon Him that works in us to His glory. We cannot just “let go and let God” (which is horrible theology and found nowhere in Scripture). It is, instead, a synergistic work. It's because of the Spirit’s work in us that we pursue holiness. His grace then engages our efforts because it comes from Him. And He does this through specific appointed channels which are the means by which we grow in our sanctification. This is the way in which we work out our sanctification. Peter summarizes this well in 2 Peter 1:5-8: “Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these things are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the full knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We have the work of the Spirit and the effort of man, and that's what real sanctification looks like. It means placing yourself in the paths or the channels that God has put before you to grow in grace. What are those? Well, that's where we will pick up next week. In the meantime, the takeaway from this week’s message is simple: Outside of the Spirit, every effort on your own is in vain, and it ends in death. Sanctification begins by submitting ourselves to Christ first and foremost, as Lord. If you haven't already, do that today!

Selah

I. If your earthly walk with Christ were to end today, would others look back at the example of your life and immediately see sanctification? If not, what do you need to do differently to change that?

II. If sanctification is the bringing out of your salvation to full expression, is there anything that is getting in the way of it (e.g. unconfessed sin, pride, timidity, fear)? If so, reconcile that before continuing your journey.

III. Conversely, do you see yourself contributing to your salvation, or cooperating with God in your salvation. How does this manifest itself in your walk?

IV. How dependent are you on God for your sanctification?