…till you and Idaho all miss the music that we enjoy every Sunday here at Compass. We're so blessed, aren't we? [applause] Honestly, are you running low on hope for somebody in your life? I mean, they're on the slippery slide. And this slippery slide says, you know, 20 years ago, they didn't drink very much, but they started making bad choices with people and they started drinking more and more and doing drugs. And after a while, their conscience was numb to their behavior. It was just normal. And they're going farther and farther down into becoming an alcoholic. Our choices determine who we become until finally we become our choices. We're so far down and the consequences come. Or it may be drugs. Or maybe when you first were dating, she didn't have a temper like she does. And now you find her more and more having this temper that shows up. You're having to deal with it in your relationship. You're on the slippery slide. You've pleaded, you've cried, you've yelled, you've threatened, you've left and come back, and nothing has changed. Honestly, about whom have you become more and more negative? You've become more and more critical of them. And with good reason. And you're low on hope because you've been trying so long. You're saying, "I care, but I'm done trying." Anybody been saying that lately? How about some of us have? On the screen, you see a picture of a junkyard for cars. And you find these around in every big city. These are cars that there was a day when you drove them off the lot. And it was beautiful. And you were so happy because this car was so lovely. And then it had a few dents, began to rust. After a few years, it just wasn't as beautiful to you anymore, and you finally just say, "It's beyond repair." And you put it in the junkyard because it's not worth keeping. It's not worth trying to repair. You give up on this car. It doesn't run anymore. It just doesn't make it in your life. Into the junkyard. Do you know anybody who's junk? No. Seriously. Someone who's beyond repair. I mean, it just doesn't work with you anymore. You don't want to ride with them in life. I'll bet almost everyone here has people in your life who you've put in the junkyard, because that's just so human. You know, there are people who have huge skills and they can salvage junk. In fact, some of my favorite TV programs are these programs where they go to the junkyard, find a total wreck, then they show you the process, they turn it into something beautiful. I love these shows. Just let me show you what they can do. They're so skilled. Here is a Jaguar XK dream car. Not in too good a shape. But the salvage people got a hold of it and turned it into something really valuable today. And then this is my favorite. This is an old Buick, about 80 years old. Bad shape. Give it into the hands of the salvage people. They modify it a little bit and it turns out to be that. What guy wouldn't want that car to tool around in? That's how skilled they are. And that's what Matthew is trying to communicate in these opening verses: that God is the most skilled salvage person you have ever heard about. But He doesn't salvage automobiles. He salvages people and marriages. Jesus is in the salvage business. And no matter how far down the slide someone has gone, Jesus can still salvage you and turn you into something beautiful. And that's the whole point of the family tree, because these four scandalous women in Jewish society all became virtuous and a factor, says the New Testament, in what God did in Israel. And they all were great-grandmothers of Jesus. Jesus created you and me, and that means you aren't junk, because God made you. Don't ever let anybody treat you as junk. I'm really serious. I am sure there are women in here especially, but some men, who are allowing people at work or at home to treat you like junk. You've got to stop that, because what you tolerate you get more of, and it's not good for them to treat you as junk. You aren't junk. Don't let that sink into you, because Jesus made you and He does not make junk. [applause] So that's Matthew's good news. In the opening six verses of the New Testament, the first words are "a record of the genealogy of Jesus." A record of the genealogy of Jesus, family tree. How boring could it be? But he's using the family tree here to preach such hope to us, because in Greek there are three words translated "genealogy of Jesus." So the New Testament begins with three Greek words: Biblos, geneseos, Iesou. Bible, Genesis, Jesus. Notice that he's connecting Jesus with the creation of the universe and of human beings in the first book of the Bible, Genesis. So the first book of the New Testament begins where the first book of the Old Testament, Genesis, begins. "In the beginning, God created." Colossians 1:16 says, "For by Jesus all things were created, things in heaven and on earth." We believe in creation. That is the essence of Christianity: that God is the Creator. It didn't just happen. God created all this beauty. And you know, sometimes when I go to Oxford to study, I meet all these atheist professors and graduate students, because it's the center of atheism in England. And I just love to get in discussions with them, because one of my lines to them is, "The problem with atheism is it's unscientific. It doesn't follow science." And they just about go bananas, because they think of atheism as pure science, but it's purely against science. And what I say to them is that nothing can create nothing. Nothing can create nothing. And all science agrees: in the beginning there was nothing before there was something. And science says nothing can create nothing. Out of nothing comes nothing. That's pure science. Nothing can create nothing. And that's the problem with atheism. If you begin with nothing, you have to have a first cause. Someone needs to be there, a divinity outside of time before creation, to create it. And that's Genesis. God created all that we see. [applause] So Matthew is taking hold of that and saying, God's still in the creation business. You look at a person, you see no raw material. People come to me with marriages: "There's nothing to work with. It's finished. Story over. There's nothing to work with." Perfect for God. Because out of nothing, God creates something beautiful: the universe. And in theology it's called ex nihilo. That's Latin for "out of nothing." And that's fundamental to the Christian faith: that in the beginning there was only God and nothing else. And out of nothing, God created all of this beauty that we see. Which is the good news that if you don't see anything to work with in a person, and you look at yourself and you're just so scarred and marred, there's nothing to work with, you're perfect for God to do a miracle. And that is out of nothing. He can recreate your future, recreate you. He can give you a new future. That's the good news that Matthew's trying to tell us. Have you ever been called junk? Not that word. Something like it. Ever been treated as junk? Oh yeah, you have. Yes, you have. Sometimes the person we're married to treats us as junk once a week. Our parents, or a child that's grown up. Have you ever been treated as junk? Matthew was not always called Matthew. He was born into the tribe of Levi. And that tribe was the only tribe that the priests of the temple in Jerusalem could come from. They were the priestly tribe, the Levites. And his father was a priest in the temple, which was just about the highest honor you could have. And his father dreamed of his son following in his footsteps. So he names him Levi, short for Levite, to remind him, "This is your future." But instead of becoming a priest, he becomes a tax collector. Now, tax collectors were seen as traitors, because their purpose was to collect money from Jews to support the Roman legions who were occupying the country. They were making it possible for the country to be occupied by Rome. They were despised. They didn't get invited to any parties. No. Nobody talked to them on the street, because they were junk. Now, Levi's tax booth was in Capernaum, which was the headquarters of Jesus and His new home. So Levi had heard Jesus preach often, and Jesus did some of His best miracles in Capernaum. One day Jesus walks up to this hated tax collector and says, "I want you in my group. Come." Now, Levi had heard Jesus and all that. He got up and went right with Jesus and became one of His 12 disciples. And you imagine Peter's reaction. He just about gags when Jesus invites Levi into the group. "He's a tax collector. He's junk." That's exactly what Peter thought, and all the other disciples really as well. And that's when Jesus looked at Peter and says, "Peter, I want you to be Levi's roommate." [laughter] I wish I could have seen Peter. Well, that's not actually in the Bible. I just made that up, but I think it should have been. You see, from the beginning of Jesus's ministry, He called His disciples, you and me, His people, to stop judging people and stop being the reason for division, talking behind people's backs, judging them, treating them as junk. Stop it. That's exactly what He was doing in inviting this tax collector to be part of the 12. And that's why this genealogy is against racism. The four grandmothers are all outside the Jewish tribe. They were despised by Jews. And God, through the family tree of Jesus, stops it. Because the family tree of Jesus is polluted, if you will, with Gentile blood. I mean, America, I've never seen it so divided. Never. Every race is being agitated against each other. Oh, yeah. That's what's happening. And so-called leaders in our country are inciting division and inciting racism. I mean, you're deaf if you don't see that. And that's why we're seeing what we're seeing on the news like we've never seen before. We need to speak up and stand up against racism, against division in all of its forms, because our Lord is not a divider. Satan is a divider. Our Lord is a uniter. And we've got to choose which side we're going to be on. And that includes our mouth: not saying things that divide people from people, and how we treat people. It really is a challenge today, because division is so popular, and that includes denominational division. I need to say in my last message to you, I don't care if you're Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, doo dah dah. I don't care. All that matters is: do you know Jesus, and is He Lord? That's all that matters. And we've got to get away from this. "Are you Catholic or Presbyterian?" I'm a Christian. That's what I am, a Christian. And you're my brother or sister, I hope. Division even within the churches. So many people are calling other people junk, aren't they? I mean, in the media, if you watch the news, everybody's being called junk. Don't be part of that group that calls other people junk just because they're different from you. No, don't be part of that group. Be with the Jesus group. Well, then Jesus renames Levi, and his new name is Matthew, which means "gift of God." And you can just imagine Peter again when He says, "Well, his new name is Matthew, gift of God." And Peter goes, "He's a tax collector. How can he be a gift of God?" "Because I'm changing him. He's no longer Levi: greedy, selfish, hard-hearted. He's the new Matthew, who's becoming more and more like me. And because he's becoming more and more like Jesus, he's a gift." That's why the first book of the New Testament is not called the Gospel of Levi, but Matthew's Gospel. Two of the other Gospel writers to the end call him Levi. They keep attached to him this old name of Levi. They won't let his past go. But Matthew only calls himself Matthew, because God renamed him. And he stands up to these people who want to drag him back into guilt and regrets and all of that. He stands up to them and says, "No, I now have Jesus as my Lord and I'm Matthew. That's my name." And he stands up to these people who want to drag him back into his old identity. One of my good friends in this church is Hammer Hamilton. He's a contractor, a builder. He can build anything. And he helped me, the first couple of years, remodel my home completely and build on a study. He taught me how to paint without leaving lines and how to do various carpentry work I won't bore you with, but he's one of my best friends. One afternoon we were out in front of my home after working all day on the house, and I looked at this ugly tree that's been there from the beginning, and I said, "Ham, I hate this tree. Would you back your muscle truck up to it and just drag it off and drag it away?" He says, "You talk to Susie about this?" I said, "No, but she won't even miss it." Ham looks at the tree. He says to me, "It's 40 feet tall and she won't miss it?" I said, "Really, she won't even miss it." So he backs up and hitches up to that tree, and in 10 seconds pulls it out. There it is, 40 feet of tree in the front yard with three or four feet of roots all on the side of it sticking out. And just then, Susie comes around the corner. Ham, the coward, rolls up the window on his truck and slides down in his seat to hide from her. I'm banging on his window, calling him, "You coward! Come out and help me." He won't come out and help me. Susie squeals up in her car, jumps out of her car. Honest, I'm not lying. Gives him a look that, if looks could kill, he's dead. And then she doesn't even talk to me or look at me. She just walks right past me on the sidewalk. I said, "Honey, I can fix it. I'll stick it back in the ground, water it, put some dirt around it. It'll be okay." She doesn't even answer. Slams the door behind her. I think Susie's only been mad five times since she was born. Every time at me, because I have the knack of making her mad, apparently. She was mad. The thing is that I couldn't fix that tree. What I had done was done, and the consequences were there. And so Susie remembers the tree that I pulled out of the front yard. You should see the faces of the women right now. You think I'm hopeless, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm clinging to the fact that everything is possible for Jesus, even the impossible. Even salvaging your pastor, changing me over the years. He can salvage anyone, and He can make improvements on a person who thinks they're good enough. When you're low on hope, you've got to tell yourself that everything is possible for God. Even the miracle of changing that person I think is junk. Secondly, Matthew is using Jesus's family tree to preach that becoming more and more like Him will solve problems in your life. This is really escaping a lot of people: that the solution to so many problems in my life is to become more like Jesus. It really is true. Being a rebel never gets me the life I want. It walks me away from Jesus. You walk away from Jesus, you don't have His favor on your life. Let me ask us: what is becoming a Christian supposed to do to you? What is Christianity supposed to do to you? Anything? A lot of people would say, "Well, I'm saved and I'm going to heaven. End of story." That's not the end of the story. The end of the story is that Christianity is to increasingly, little by little, change us into the likeness of Jesus: the way He would talk, the way He would behave, the way He would think. That's the Christian life. And in America today, so many Christians are just religious versions of their old self. There's not a lot of difference between them and other people who aren't believers at all. There should be a great difference, and that is we're becoming kinder and more loving and forgiving, all the things of Jesus. That's how we become the light of the world. But that's also how we solve problems: because we became more like Jesus. Your family would be blessed. So would you. The reason we have these problems is that we are disobedient to Jesus in some areas of our life and attitudes, negativity, our mouth. And we think we can be rebels against Jesus as Lord and have His blessings on our life. We're living in La La Land. Rebels aren't blessed. Maybe materially, but not in what really counts in life. So Jesus constantly invites us to ask this question: What would He do? Then let us do it too. Because the right thing to do is always to do what Jesus would do. The wrong thing is always to do what Jesus would not do. Do what Jesus would do. That's spirituality, not religious rituals. Notice the angel names the baby Jesus because, he says, He will salvage us from our sins. Not other people's sins, from our sins. This is really unbelievable. Right at the beginning, we're told that Jesus came to save us from our sins. Our sins are the problem. They're the obstacle. They're the wall, and He's come to save us. I like the word "salvage" to translate that Greek word. Salvage. We're worth something. Even though we may have come from prison, even though we may have all kinds of mistakes in our life, we're worth a lot. Enough to go to the junkyard people have put you in and retrieve you and make your life beautiful again. That's Christianity. [applause] So, can you imagine yourself living a better life? No, let me ask this: Can you imagine yourself a better person? Maybe a person whose mouth is under control. Maybe a person whose attitudes are positive. Can you imagine yourself forgiving some people in your life you haven't forgiven? Can you imagine it? Because if you can't imagine it, you can't do it. That's what prayer is: spiritual imagination. "Lord, I'm not this. Help me to be more forgiving." And some of us need to pray that prayer, don't we? We need Jesus to come and make us more like Him in attitudes and behavior in every way. So often we're the obstacle to the better life we want. So Matthew is challenging us in these opening verses to a profound self-criticism. Self-criticism: taking a good look at ourselves and what could be better. Would Jesus talk to my spouse as I do? Would He talk to my kids as I do? Would He behave at work as I do on Saturday night? Would Jesus be doing what I'm doing? That's what it means for Jesus to be Lord. Dostoevsky really wrote about "If I don't change, nothing changes." And that's why it's important to be regular in worship, to hear Pastor Todd's preaching; for your children to be regular in Sunday school; to be part of a life group that goes deep into the Scriptures, giving God material to work with. It's really important to make those choices so that God might have material to work on. Dostoevsky, the great Russian novelist, asked a classic question in his novel The Brothers Karamazov. In this very famous novel, he asked this question: Can people be good without God? Can they? There are lots of people, pundits, saying, "Oh, atheists, we don't need God to be good." Really? I think America in the last 50 years has answered that question. Can people be good without God? Is America better today? Are people better than they were 50 years ago? We've taken Jesus out of schools. We've taken prayer out, taken Scripture out of teaching. Christianity is attacked and attacked. Jesus is removed to the church and isolated and quarantined in the church, and not allowed to be talked about in public life. We've removed Jesus from the public and really personal life of America. And we think we're going to get better? This is where we are now, because people have lost their conscience, because they've lost touch with Jesus in America. We are no longer a Christian nation. No, we're not. And the hope of America is for Christ to come back into the life of people like you and me. We wonder why there's so much lying, even at the highest levels, by politicians, and corruption and stealing. I have never in my life seen so much blatant lying publicly as I've seen in the last 10 years. [applause] And this is not political. It's a moral observation. And it's because we've lost Jesus. We don't have a conscience anymore. I love the story of the seven-year-old boy who wrote to Santa Claus at Christmas: "Santa, we have three boys in our family. Eric and Billy, who've been in trouble all year. They've been really naughty. And Norman, who's been good all year as a little boy. I'm Norman." Why is it so hard for us to admit that our sins are different from other people's sins, but we need forgiveness as much as that person? Why is it so hard for us to admit that we too have sin, instead of judging others whose sin is just different from ours? Which is the height of haughtiness, is it not, and immodesty. A lot of people say, "I'm Norman. I'm the good one. The others are junk." No. If we don't change, nothing changes. And the only thing you can change in this life is you, no one else. But when you change, everything changes. Third, Matthew uses Jesus's family tree to say Jesus is the friend of even the worst sinner. So he lists these four great-grandmothers of Jesus who are very tainted morally. Tamar, who's a Moabite. Remember Lot, her father. Lot had incest with his two daughters, and she really is the descendant of that incest. Rahab's a Canaanite, and she was the town prostitute of Jericho. Ruth is a Jearite. And Bathsheba, he doesn't even mention her name. She's a Hittite, but gosh, she committed adultery with King David. And then she didn't speak up when he had her husband killed so he could take her as his wife. And then she does marry him, the husband killer, and does sleep with him from then on. That's not good. He can't even mention her name. She's so tainted. You get the impression Matthew pored over the Old Testament looking for the most scandalous, sinful women who were in Jesus's family tree. He found four women in his family tree that really were deep sinners. Matthew's picking his material carefully, because he's preaching Jesus is the friend of even the worst sinner who repents. So "I've got these four women as my grandmothers." He's a friend of sinners. A few years ago I met a man who killed his wife with a baseball bat. He wanted counseling. His story was horrible. And at the end, it was really quiet. Stone, eerily quiet. And I said to him, "If you want, your past can be cleansed by the blood of Jesus. Jesus salvages even the worst of us and forgives us. You need to ask and repent." He said, "That's too easy." Too easy? Jesus was whipped and beaten so you couldn't recognize His face. Then He was nailed to a cross. Just imagine that. And hung on that cross until He finally died. He died. A spear thrust into Him. He was put into a cave. Dead. Dead. Dead. And you think that was easy? That's what it took for you to be forgiven. That wasn't easy. So don't ever say it's too easy to be forgiven. He was just quiet. Then he got up and walked out. He didn't take the forgiveness. I have a friend who's a world-famous internist. He travels the world teaching in medical schools and doing surgery. And a couple of years ago, just talking with him, he said, "Yeah, we had a guy come in with cancer. We operated, but I don't think he'll make it. If he would have come in two years ago, it would have been a simple operation, and I can almost guarantee you he'd have been healed. If he'd even come in six months ago, I think we could have saved him. But he's come in too late. He delayed too long. I don't think he's going to make it." My friend John said to me, "He was the victim of delay." What a phrase. Victim of delay. He died because he delayed. There are marriages that won't get better because we delay. Relationships with kids, our business, the way we operate, us. We keep procrastinating. "Someday" is not a day of the week. And we need to make up our mind now: we are going to change into the person God can bless. This is my last sermon at Compass. And I guess as I thought about that, I hope over the years I've convinced you that the Christian life is not rituals. It's not even vocabulary. It comes down to becoming more and more like Jesus. And that's where the blessing is. And I want you to be blessed, but you can't have the blessing if you won't be like Him. And then I hope that I have really encouraged you that whatever in your life looks really, really hard, "impossible" is not a word a Christian has in their vocabulary, because God is almighty. And so the next time you become discouraged and you feel hopeless, you've got to ask yourself: When did God die? And that's what I say to all of us. Whatever problem people you face, whatever problems you face, keep your hope. Or else you have to answer: When did God die? God bless you.