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

August 24th, 2025

As we make our way through the genealogy of Christ in Matthew 1, Pastor Ben has been identifying, through the names, the precise way that the Messiah is being revealed to us. As we approach Judah this week, the realization of the intricate relationship of mercy and grace is highlighted, and the different nuances of grace found in the Old and New Testaments prepare us to examine Judah and his brothers as examples of grace.

We started this study of the genealogy with the promised King as the son of David and the son of Abraham. Through that relationship we have this perpetual dynasty, and we have this global King that's going to reign for eternity. Next we began to see how God is preserving that truth as He moves from those sonship categories down into individual people. He begins with the patriarchs, as types and shadows of Christ coming through, and then He preserves through Abraham this promise to bless the nations, a blessing in which we are partaking. 

As we begin to watch the gospel itself unfold, Matthew lists names under the inspiration of the Spirit.  In finishing up Isaac and Jacob last week, we highlighted how mercy comes forth in their lives. We defined mercy as just “withholding deserved punishment”. With that phrase you have this idea that mercy is one side of the coin, and grace, as unmerited favor, is the other side.  We still often look at grace and mercy in this way. 

But as we began to look at mercy itself, we also realized that mercy is actually a movement of God towards sinners more than it was just a definitive action. We saw it as a restorative way in which God moves towards sinners, keeping them from His wrath. We saw in Genesis 3 that mercy is first and foremost relational in its nature. And this is what sets Christianity apart from every other religion in the world, because we worship a relational God, and we see that clearly in His response to Adam and Eve. When they sinned God came walking in the garden, pursuing them relationally rather than just abandoning them to their guilt. He questions them, saying, “Where are you?”. Again, it's not this immediate execution of judgment. He's drawing them into his own meekness, really understanding the power and authority that He has to judge them for their sin. From there, He continues to ask them questions. 

As we looked at mercy we realized that mercy is not just a concept, or a disposition of God, but, because of this personal movement of God toward us as sinners, He forgives sins. The reason He forgives sins is because He wants to have fellowship.  It's a ministry of reconciliation, so we can be reconciled back to Him through forgiveness. This explains why the Bible repeatedly frames mercy in this relational language, e.g. “I will be their God and they will be my people “(Jeremiah 31:33). 

This is why you must contrast Christianity with every other religion of the world. In all other religions, mercy becomes transactional. It becomes something that you earn, or something that you strive after, and you never really know whether or not you actually reach that. You think about even in the worship of the pagan gods that you read about in Scripture (e.g. Marduk, Ishtar, Ra, Baal, and the other gods of ancient near Eastern paganism) that their worshippers tried to appease their angry gods as a bargaining chip, and mercy wasn't something that was a movement by that god towards them, as it is with the one true God. Instead, it was something they had to earn, or it was conditioned upon the loyalty of the organization or the church itself. You had mercy conditioned upon works, not through Christ. 

Sadly, we see mysticism and the new age movement coming into the church today, where mercy is replaced by self-realization, spiritual techniques, and atmosphere-driven worship, energy, or “the divine within”, all labeled as “Christian” by some people. The motivation there, though, is just immediacy and control: “I want to feel God right now”, and the idea that whenever they have this worship “experience” then they know that they have received the mercy of God. In reality, it lacks a personal God who loves and forgives. So, Christianity alone presents mercy as God drawing near, and love to those who are destitute.

What makes our relationship with the Lord, and some would say biblical Christianity in general, just a beautifully magnificent dynamic is that we're not merely forgiven, we're not just offered a clean slate, we're given more. The “more” is grace: “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, also heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.” We have this testimony of the Spirit within us that we're children of God, and, not only just that we are children of God, but also we are coheirs with Christ. The inheritance that He receives, we're going to be a part of that glory as He envelops us into all eternity.  Here's the amazing truth concerning grace, and it's very important for us to understand, is that grace and mercy are not necessarily two sides of the same coin. Mercy begins and grace flows from mercy. 

That's the biblical concept of mercy and grace, and grace just continues to build and momentum throughout all of eternity. That's how they interact. Mercy is like this calm, high lake that gives way to this powerful, life-giving river of grace that continues to build momentum, such that it can't be contained as we receive grace upon grace by our Lord. 

Nowhere is this truth better seen than in the life of Judah and his brothers.  It becomes apparent as we look at the names (Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac was the father of Jacob, and then He brings up Judah) that Matthew, through the Spirit, is actually walking us from mercy onto grace, bringing us through the gospel, because Christ, the Messiah, is the One to be born.  In exploring Judah, we will see that God’s grace is this beautiful rushing river of blessing flowing from the serene, abundant lake of mercy. 

• Judah

Just as it is with mercy, grace finds its roots in the Old Testament. And from the very beginning of Scripture, we see that grace is not an abstract quality, nor is it something that we see dispensed from glory. We sometimes look at grace as something we need to “offer” to someone else. Some may hear that terminology and wonder what you're really talking about, or ask what it means. By using that terminology, it appears as though it's something that is just dispensed at will. When we understand grace from the pattern of Scripture, though, we find that it is the unique way that God's eternal compassion collides with on our unworthiness in time and space. Grace is magnificent and beautiful, and, to best understand it, it’s best to begin with the Hebrew word hen. 

Last week we talked about how mercy is such is such a rich, complex word, in part  because of the lexical harmony in which it’s used throughout the Old Testament.  The Hebrew word for grace, hen, doesn't have the same kind of complexity. There are not as many words used for grace in the Old and New Testaments as there are for mercy. Grace is profoundly simple, but it's dynamically nuanced in that, in the ways that it's used, it builds your understanding of it.

Grace is Rescue from Judgment

The first place we come to hen is in Genesis 6:8, “But Noah found favor [hen] in the eyes of Yahweh.”  When we look at this verse, we must understand the context of what's happening. We had universal corruption. God was bringing judgment on the earth. That judgment was impending, and as He was looking at this judgment He finds favor with Noah.  God marks out Noah as the recipient of His hen, or His favor.  By basic definition, hen means “to show favor, or “to be gracious”. It's kindness extended when undeserved, even from a superior to an inferior.  Therefore, we often see it translated either “grace”, “favor”, or “kindness”. As you look at this action, or if you think about what it is as kindness extended from a superior to an inferior, it makes sense logically that, just like mercy, grace is a one way street from God to us.  God rescued Noah and his family from divine judgment. Why? Well, beginning in verse 9, He described Noah as “…a righteous man, blameless in his generation…”. We could read that and say, “OK, well, there was righteousness. Noah was doing some good, and He says He was blameless in his generation”, but his righteousness was the fruit of grace, not the cause of it. However, if we understand the sequence from verse 8 to 9 it follows that favor precedes righteousness… his standing flows FROM grace, and not any merit of his own.  

Grace is Intimate Fellowship

Next, we see hen in Genesis 18:3: “And [Abraham] said, my Lord, if I found favor [hen] your sight do not pass by your servant”. Here we, again, have it translated “favor”, and the simple understanding is that Abraham desired kindness from God. When Genesis 18 opens, we find Abraham sitting at the entrance of his tent near the oaks of Mamre in the heat of the day. As He's sitting there, he sees these three men walking by. And he runs to them and bows to them. The reason he bows is that he understands that this is a theophany, an appearance of the Lord. We now understand from the account of Sodom and Gomorrah that the other two figures with Christ were angels. He bows to the ground, and offers hospitality to them.  Just previously in chapter 17 he had just received the covenant sign from God (circumcision). And he was excited about having that covenant sign. When He recognizes the Lord. he's excited about that too, and runs to Him, He bows showing that He is unworthy before Him. He knows that God has every reason to just continue to walk by, and no reason to stop at his tent.  Then, in verse 3, Abraham makes a plea to the Lord that they would not pass by, but stop, rest, and receive refreshment. This, then, is an appeal to God for favor by intimate fellowship. 

Abraham wants Christ to come, and in return he wants to offer hospitality.  What's significant here is wrapped up in this fellowship: God is condescending to come down to fellowship intimately with humanity, being willing to draw near to humanity, stooping down to relate to them.  Abraham says this favor was “found” (v. 18:3): “My Lord, if I have found favor in your sight…”.  What is really fascinating is to realize that “to find favor” means “to find, to come upon, or to attain”.  It can also be described as someone who's finding something, discovering something that's lost. 

This idea of “finding” is similar to the teaching of several of the parables later in Matthew. First, in the Parable of the Hidden Treasure in Matthew 13:44: “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”  The man discovers something he wasn't even looking for. Abraham likewise wasn't sitting in his tent waiting for the Lord to walk by, He found the men as he was observing the terrain around him. So, then, the Kingdom then is grace discovered, not created and stumbled upon almost as a gift.  

Secondly, we have the Parable of the Pearl of Great Price in Matthew 13:45-46. “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one of the pearl of great value, he went and He sold all that He had, and bought it.”  Here we have someone actively seeking something, and then attaining it.  We realize here that grace can also be sought, just like Abraham sought the Lord, bowed before Him, asked Him to come and have intimate fellowship with him.  He sought that fellowship, but had to realize it was the Lord first in order to desire that fellowship. So, then, he's seeking something that's brought to his attention that He realizes is valuable. 

A third nuance of grace is contained in the Parable of the Workers of the Vineyard found in Matthew 20:1-16, where the laborers hired late in the day “found” themselves unexpectedly receiving the same wage of those who had worked all day. They were given something that they did not deserve.  Likewise, grace is not a wage earned, but a gift that's granted often, is surprising, and it's always undeserving.  When Abraham discovered the men walking, he sought their company, and he was granted unexpected fellowship. The whole idea of God's favor with Abraham is that it was just this unexpected thing. He did not know the Lord was coming by.  Abraham suddenly found himself and the presence of the Lord. 

Grace is the Presence of God That Distinguishes God’s People from the World

Next, an additional nuance of grace is seen in Exodus 33, where Moses intercedes for Israel. God responds, “You have found favor in my sight… so my presence will go with you.” Moses was with the people right after they had committed the great sin of the golden calf, and God's wrath was burning against them threatening to consume them. Moses is interceding. God tells Moses that He will still allow Israel to go into the land, but He's not going to go with him. And this was devastating to Moses, and he asks how could they have the covenant promise without the covenant presence (like having the glory without Christ)? How does this help us understand grace?  

In verse 12, Moses reminds God that “…You have said, I know you by name and I've also found favor in your sight.”  This is the same idiom, masa hen, used with Abraham and Noah. This highlights the relational aspect of grace already discussed. Of course, if grace flows downstream from mercy, there's going to be this relational aspect that's carried through. 

Then in verse 13, “If I found favor in your sight, show me now your ways that I might know you in order to find favor in your sight.” So, Abraham is asking a favor here. He's talking about this ongoing covenant fellowship, not just this one time gift. He's saying, “If You continue to have this with me, I want this to grow. I want it to deepen, widen. I want this relational knowledge and understanding of you to continue to grow”.  The purpose of favor is intimacy: to know God's ways and to walk in them and to know them ever greater and to continue to walk in them. 

In verse 14, God responds, “My presence will go with you and I will give you rest.” Favor, then, guarantees this presence of God that He's going to be with his people. Grace is not this abstract blessing/feeling/emotion like mercy, but it's God Himself dwelling with His people as He offers this extended blessing to them.  

in verse 16, Moses pleads, “Is it not in you're going with us… so that we are distinct?” Moses is essentially asking: “Isn't your presence what makes us distinct from all the other nations…that we have and worship the one and true God, and, that without your presence there'd be no difference between us and the other nations?” The Lord answers in verse 17: “This very thing that you have spoken I will do for you, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”  This is a covenantal intimate fellowship made possible through the real presence of God. And when He's finding favor, then what God is doing is condescending, committing Himself personally to His servants and people, to be with them.  Therefore, in summary, the nuance of grace found in Exodus 33 is this: Grace is the presence of God that distinguishes God's people from the world. 

Grace is Royal Favor That Exalts the Lowly

In the final Old Testament nuance of grace we see royal favor that exalts, found in Esther 2:15, 17: “And Esther advanced in favor in the eyes of all who saw her… And the king loved Esther more than all the women, and she advanced in favor and lovingkindness before him.”  In these verses we have the same root word, hen, that appears in Genesis with Noah and Abraham, and in Exodus 33 with Moses, but here it's paired with steadfast love and a covenantal loyalty (hesed).  The key here is the intensity of it:  It's like a river as you move downstream, intensifying, and what does that intensity build to? Not just general kindness, but this exaltation of royal kindness.  

Esther, if you remember, was an orphan Jew in exile, raised by Her cousin Mordecai. She’s socially and politically insignificant, and the Persian king now is choosing a new queen. While hundreds of women are brought forth, Esther is providentially singled out. And what's the decisive factor? Well, she found favor in the King's eyes, beyond all others.  When the author of Esther says she found favor again, this favor is discovered, received, and not earned. It’s not something that that that she has gone after aggressively. This is not something she’s manipulated or demanded. This is something that has been granted to her. When you go from obscurity to the exaltation of a throne and have the King's favor that leads to this coronation, then you have this powerful picture of grace. Grace that elevates the lowly to royalty.  John Owen wrote. “Grace is the free favor of God, whereby He takes the unworthy into his bosom and crowns the poor with honor.”   

It’s like we move from this beautiful, serene lake down to the rushing stream of God's mercy, and we see that in the way that He exalts, He comes alongside, intimately fellowshipping with us, exalting us into a place of honor.  By looking at these Old Testament passages, we can define grace as finding favor with God; As God's sovereign, unearned kindness discovered by the unworthy and extended into covenantal relationship, exalting the lowly into a royal position. And when we understand what grace is, it is a beautiful picture. In the New Testament, this picture of grace gains even more momentum. It gets even more fantastic.  

As we come to the New Testament, the concept of what we know as grace is represented by the Greek term charis. As we will see, this rich term is strategically used by different authors to demonstrate the divine power of grace.

Grace Incarnate

The apostle John reveals the incarnation of Christ in the first chapter of his gospel:” And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth… For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:14, 16-17).  As already discussed, in the Old Testament grace was something discovered, but here in the New Testament John indicates that grace is embodied in a person, Christ. Grace finds its source in the God-Man Christ, and that flows into our justification.

Grace Justifies

As we move into Paul’s writings, we begin to see the pivot from mercy to grace in our justification. He writes in Romans 3:24 that we are “…justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”. Here we have mercy as this initial movement by God to rescue those who He pities, those who are going to be objects of His wrath, those headed for destruction. Then grace goes beyond that rescue. Grace extends to address the guilt that we have with our sin, pardoning and declaring us righteous by imputing the righteousness of Christ to our lives and making us heirs. John Owen, in volume 21 of his works, states it this way: “Mercy hath misery for its object, and grace hath sin and guilt. Mercy relieves misery, but grace justifies the ungodly.”  Mercy rescues us from the wrath of God, then grace robes us in righteousness and seats us at the table with God, just like the Lord stopping by and fellowshipping with Abraham.  Grace is the person of Jesus Christ who justifies us, then it continues to flow through sanctification. 

Grace Sanctifies

One danger that we could have if we ended with justification is that we could treat grace as just this blessed cover where we are imputed righteousness, and God covers our unworthiness with justification through the righteousness of Christ. Instead, grace is this active power that continues to work in our lives. Titus 2:11-12: “The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness…”.  Grace doesn't leave us where it finds us, rather grace takes us somewhere else. It doesn't just take us somewhere else flippantly, It takes us somewhere else specifically: Into the formation of Jesus Christ Himself. We are being formed into the image of Christ, into that righteousness, into that perfection.  Grace then trains, disciplines, and transforms us.  

Grace, then, becomes our schoolmaster, teaching us holiness by shaping our desires.  Grace is this active force arising from our newfound obedience to God. 1 Corinthians 15:10: “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”  Paul is saying here that all the things he’s done for the Kingdom, all the things he’s done for the gospel, it's not him. It's grace working through him. It's grace working in him. It's grace training him. It's grace disciplining him. It's grace transforming him. That's why he is what he is. That's why he does what he does. That's why he preached in the way that he preached, and that's why God accomplished what He did through his life. God is doing this same sanctifying work in us as He did in Paul, through the mechanism of grace. Grace is not just a passive cover. 

Often we think of grace as something that just rests on us, as you might see on social media posts where people are posting themselves sitting somewhere just “relaxing in His grace”. But grace is not moving quietly or gently, but instead moves like a rushing river going downstream. Instead, grace continues to build in our lives, gaining power over the years into this crescendo at the end of our days. All God wants us to do is yield to the current. It’s the same idea as in whitewater rafting when you go overboard and find yourself in the river.  If you fight it, you drown. Instead, you assume the “whitewater position” and you just allow yourself to be carried downstream. As we yield to grace, we are shaped by it, formed by it, and transformed by it. As it transforms us, it doesn't just leave us where we are. Instead, grace sustains us. 

Grace Sustains

Paul reminded the Corinthians (and us) of the sustaining nature of grace: “And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me” (2 Corinthians 12:9). The writer of Hebrews compliments this thought: “Let us then, with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help and time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). Here we find the OT concept of grace we discussed, this idea of “finding” of grace.  In the same way in which Noah found grace, Abraham found grace, Moses found grace, and Esther found grace, we can find grace, as a gift to all believers. Grace cannot be manufactured. It's not something that we go after. It has to be found where it's found. Once God calls us to become believers in Christ, when we repent of our sin and turn to Him in faith, He imputes that righteousness to us, and begins to develop our character over time, sustaining us in the process. Grace is found at the throne of God through its source, the mercy of God. It is sustained through fervent prayer as we embrace our weakness and plea to draw from the sufficiency of Christ Himself and not our own.  It is reminiscent of the picture in Revelation of the throne of God, with the sea like Jasper, and mercy flowing into the grace that begins to sustain us as we continually go to the throne of God to seek His help. We seek this help because we know that we're weak, and are supposed to be weak and insufficient, because, in that insufficiency and weakness the power of God is revealed to us that it is the work of mercy and grace in our lives. 

So, then, our lives point back to the truth that there is mercy flowing through to grace. It's granted to us, not something that we may or may not have sought after, but, either way, something that was granted on behalf of Christ Himself. Grace is like daily manna coming from Heaven, this fresh supply of daily manna from Heaven, carrying us moment by moment. In the times of weakness, temptation, and suffering, we can go back to the throne of mercy and receive grace! And that's why John said grace comes wave upon wave, moment by moment to sustain with an ongoing supply. God says, in essence, “I want you to come before Me. And as you come before Me, the throne of grace, you're going to find the throne of mercy. You're going to find grace, and help in time of need. Whatever need you have, you come to Me and I'm going to supply that need so that you can overcome those temptations, so that you can continue to walk through those times whenever life and suffering seem overwhelming.”  Every temptation, every bit of suffering we go through, every moment where we see that weakness and we rely on God and He grants us grace in that moment, we have a different flavor, a different understanding, a different texture of what that love is in the grace of God through Jesus Christ.  But grace doesn't stop there. Grace keeps going. 

Grace Glorifies

Titus 3:7 says, “So they're being justified by his grace. We might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” 1 Peter 1:13 tells us to “…set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”  Grace will one day crown us with glory. And that grace, this river if you will, will never run dry until it completes its course. And that course will be completed with seating us with Christ in glory and continue throughout eternity.  

Mercy Flows into Grace

Ephesians 2:4-7 states, “But God, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—  and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,  so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” In these verses we see the royal ascension, that grace flowing out of mercy comes from the rich compassion of God seeing us destitute, and then grace lavishing this blessing upon us. It's not, however, just a moment but time after time after time after time.  We have mercy, which spares us, but then we have grace, which crowns us. Mercy sees this as miserable, and Grace sees us as guilty and undeserving, and both converge at the cross and explode into eternity. 

Grace Governs

So, then, where does this leave us today? If we believe that:

• Grace is received, not earned. (John 1:16; Eph. 2:8)

• Grace is lived out (Titus 2:12)

• Grace is sufficient for weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9), and 

• Grace is our future hope (1 Peter 1:13), 

then…

• Stop striving for worthiness. You are justified by grace.

• Don’t neglect holiness. Grace trains you to live set apart.

• Don’t despair in weakness. Grace sustains you, and

• Don’t lose hope. Grace will glorify you.

With this background, next week we will examine how grace is manifested in the lives of Judah and his brothers.

Selah

I. As you look back over your life thus far, can you see instances of how God’s mercy flowed into grace? If so, what effect has that had on your sanctification?

2. As you consider the interplay of God’s sovereign acts of grace as flowing out of mercy and shown to you in your own life, do you still struggle with balancing the reality of your unworthiness to receive grace with the reality of your exaltation as a child of God? If so, meditate on the verses explored in this message, and give thanks and praise to our Savior for providing this refuge in truth.