Savior and King (Matthew 1:1)

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
– Matthew 1:1

Sometimes it’s good just to read a verse, or a paragraph, or passage, or a chapter in the Bible and just to stop and praise God for his revelation of himself in that verse. Don’t forget, first and foremost, that the Bible is the revelation of God, of who God is. This is a God-centered book. And that may sound obvious to us, but so often we come to God’s Word and we’re viewing it through a self-centered lens. Like, what does this book say about me? How does this book apply to my life?

Which God is revealing so much truth about who we are, and so much truth that applies to our lives. But fundamentally, the Bible is the revelation of God that shall lead us to praise him for all of his attributes and characteristics that we see on the pages of his Word.

Matthew 1:1 shows Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s promises.

And this is just one of those easy verses where it’s good, instead of just jumping through the rest of a chapter, just to pause in Matthew 1:1, the first verse in the New Testament, and to read the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the son of Abraham. And just to realize, whoa, God is revealing in just this first verse so much about who Jesus is that should lead us to stop and just praise him for who he is, for the revelation of who he is.

So let’s do that now. God, we praise you for your Word and for what it reveals to us about who you are. We praise you for showing us who you are in ways that ignite our affections and our worship towards you. So we exalt you specifically right now. Jesus, the son of God, your name means the one who saves us from our sins. The Lord is salvation.

Jesus, we praise you for the salvation we have in you. We praise you as the Savior of our sins. Thank you for delivering us from sin and death. We praise you, Jesus, as the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, the one who all throughout the Old Testament, we see all these promises that you were coming. Jesus, we praise you as the fulfillment of all those promises, as the One whom your people, oh God, we’re waiting for centuries, that we now look back and see you fulfilled all those promises.

Matthew 1:1 invites us to trust in Christ’s perfect kingship.

We praise you as the Christ. We praise you, Jesus, as the Son of David, as the King that was promised to come, the perfect King. God, we think about all these kings we read about in the Old Testament, including David, who is after your heart. Oh God. Yet so many of all of them, all of them, so many of them, were so evil, so wicked… Jesus, you are the King we need.

You’re the perfect King. You’re the holy King. Lord, you’re the righteous king. You’re the King who will never let us down. You’re the King who is always faithful. Jesus, you’re the King who is sinless. You’re the King we need. We praise you as the Son of David. And we praise you, Jesus, as the Son of Abraham, thinking back to your promise, oh God, to through Abraham as the father of your people, bring blessing to all the nations.

Jesus, we praise you as the Son of Abraham, the One who has come from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, to bring blessing to us and all the nations. Jesus, there is no one like you, and we worship you today. We joyfully meditate on who you are as Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham, and we exalt you, and we pray that you’d help us to proclaim you.

Help us to speak about you all day long today, to steward opportunities we have to encourage other brothers and sisters in you, Jesus. And to share about you with people who don’t know about you. And God, for people who have never heard the name or the truth about who Jesus is, we pray that his name would spread to all the nations.

Prayer for the Wassulu People

We pray for the Wassulu people of Mali. Oh God, we intercede right now that the Wassulu people of Mali would be reached with the good news of Jesus’ name. Please, oh God, bless all those who are working for the spread of the gospel of the Wassulu. Please raise up more workers for the Wassulu. Use the resources you’ve given to us, our lives, our time, our money. We pray for the spread of the name of Jesus to all the nations. We pray all this in light of your Word, your revelation of yourself in Matthew 1:1. In Jesus’ name, amen.