A TREE OF HOPE 12-22-13 Sermon MATTHEW
1:1-17
The Genealogy of Jesus the Messiah
1 This is the
genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham: 2 Abraham was the
father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of
Judah and his brothers, 3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah,
whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of
Ram, 4 Ram the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father
of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon,
5 Salmon
the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose
mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the
father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been
Uriah’s wife, 7 Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the
father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa, 8 Asa the father of
Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, Jehoram the father of Uzziah,
9 Uzziah
the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, 10 Hezekiah
the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah,
11 and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the
time of the exile to Babylon. 12 After the exile to
Babylon: Jeconiah was the father
of Shealtiel,
Shealtiel the father
of Zerubbabel, 13 Zerubbabel the father of Abihud,
Abihud the father of
Eliakim, Eliakim the father of Azor, 14 Azor the father of
Zadok, Zadok the father of Akim, Akim the father of Elihud, 15 Elihud
the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of Matthan,Matthan the father of
Jacob, 16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary,
and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.
17 Thus
there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from
David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah. Mt 1: 1-17
4 Jesus
answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word
that comes from the mouth of God.’” Mt 4:4
16 All
Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and
training in righteousness, 2
Tim 3:16
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM JESUS’ FAMILY TREE?
Jesus was a R_______________ P____________________
Jesus’ birth fulfilled P___________________________
Jesus’ bloodline was not P____________________
In spite of S_______ God can accomplish his
P_______________
OTHER PROBLEMS…
They were in the wrong P___________________
The wrong P___________________ P________________ was
in power
It was taking
T___________L____________________________
It was an I_________________________________ birth
4-7 But
when the time arrived that was set by God the Father, God sent his Son, born
among us of a woman, born under the conditions of the law so that he might
redeem those of us who have been kidnapped by the law. Thus we have been set
free to experience our rightful heritage. You can tell for sure that you are
now fully adopted as his own children because God sent the Spirit of his Son
into our lives crying out, “Papa! Father!” Doesn’t that privilege of intimate
conversation with God make it plain that you are not a slave, but a child? And
if you are a child, you’re also an heir, with complete access to the
inheritance. Galatians 4: 4-7 [The Message]
If GOD COULD ACCOMPLISH HIS WILL IN SPITE OF ALL THAT,
WHAT CAN HE DO IN YOUR LIFE AND IN THE LIFE OF OUR CHURCH?
A TREE OF HOPE 12-22-13 Sermon MATTHEW 1:1-17
A TREE OF HOPE 12-22-13 Sermon MATTHEW 1:1-17
I
assume that you have gotten your Christmas tree by now. Artificial tree sales now exceed real
tree sales, mostly because of the mess of a real one dropping needles. There are places where you can buy a
real tree that is flocked—it is sprayed with a mixture of glue and wood pulp
and that completely seals the tree so it no longer needs to be watered and it
won’t drop any needles because they are all glued on. Furthermore the flocking comes in different colors, white,
pink, purple and other colors. Why
someone would want a pink or purple Christmas tree is a mystery to me!
When
he was young my grandson, Forrest, thought that the angel at the top of their
real tree looked really neat. He
decided that he wanted a closer look at it. And he had previously established a reputation for being a
climber. He had already scaled the
kitchen cabinets and the refrigerator, a simple tree should be no problem! Did you know that cut live trees in
stands were not made for climbing?
There was a crash and Forrest was found somewhere under the tree and all
the decorations and lights. But he
did get a better look at that angel.
It came right down to see him.
I
want to talk to you today about a real tree. A tree of hope.
It is the family tree of Jesus.
The Genealogy of Jesus the
Messiah
1 This is the genealogy
of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham: 2 Abraham was the
father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and
his brothers, 3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose
mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram, 4 Ram
the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of
Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon,
5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and
Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother
had been Uriah’s wife, 7 Solomon the father of Rehoboam,
Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa, 8 Asa
the father of Jehoshaphat,
Jehoshaphat the father of
Jehoram, Jehoram the father of Uzziah,
9 Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of
Ahaz,
Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, 10 Hezekiah
the father of Manasseh,
Manasseh the father of Amon,
Amon the father of Josiah,
11 and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at
the time of the exile to Babylon. 12 After the exile to
Babylon: Jeconiah was the father
of Shealtiel,
Shealtiel the father of
Zerubbabel, 13 Zerubbabel the father of Abihud,
Abihud the father of Eliakim,
Eliakim the father of Azor, 14 Azor the father of Zadok, Zadok
the father of Akim, Akim the father of Elihud,
15 Elihud the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of
Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob, 16 and
Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of
Jesus who is called the Messiah.
17 Thus there were fourteen generations in all from
Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen
from the exile to the Messiah. Mt
1: 1-17
Now wasn't that an exciting
scripture passage? How many of you are glad that I didn’t ask you to read that
scripture for the congregation today?
Don't you think that will make an exciting, inspiring advent sermon?
Well, I sure hope so! Can you see
how that passage will help us prepare for Christmas? I hope that by the end of the sermon you will.
Perhaps you can remember, as
I do, times as a child in Sunday school when you were given an oral reading
assignment from the Bible. It was
your job to read the bible verse in front of the class. When you finally found the proper place
in the bible, you looked at the verses and your worst fears were realized! Yes, there were a whole bunch of Old
Testament names and places, and , to make matters worse, the version you were
using was the King James Version, so there were also a bunch of English words
that you could neither recognize nor pronounce. How would you ever make it through without the rest of the
class breaking up with laughter at your stumbling and sputtering efforts to get
through the passage?
Or, perhaps in a bible study
or in your person al devotions you came across a genealogy, someone’s family
tree, and you quickly turned the age to a more “weighty” passage. The only thing more boring could be to
read through the Book of Leviticus while you were dead tired! That would work better than a bottle of sleeping pills!
Have you realized that there
are dull and boring parts of Scripture?
Genealogies and lists of begats in the KJV certainly would qualify among
the boring hall of fame. Reading
about the lives of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Esau, David,
Elijah and Elisha, and John the Baptist, Jesus and Paul is a lot more exciting
than reading about who their parents and grandparents and great grandparents
were. So why did God put them
there?
Why in the world would the
Bible writers have to be so detailed in their writing? They could have made things much easier
on generations of their readers if they just cut out all the names and places
and got on with more interesting material. And Matthew especially, why would he START his gospel with a
family tree? What could be more
boring? Anyone knows that a story
should start with something catchy to grab the attention of the reader.
I must confess that there
have been many times when I have just skipped over the family trees to get to
more interesting material. In
fact, I often wondered if any of the great preachers of history actually used
one of these genealogies as a preaching text. There certainly would seem to be a real lack of preaching
material here.
A number of our hymns and
worship songs are based on scripture passages. In our hymnal you can see some of these at the bottom of the
page after the note: Words.
But I can’t think of one hymn or praise song that is based on a
genealogy from the Bible. There is
an index in the back of the hymnal that you can use to look up scriptures
connected to hymns and sure
enough, you don’t find any genealogy scriptures attached to hymns. Just what would you get out of singing
through a list of names?
There is a scripture verse
that can help us to appreciate the boring parts of God's Word, including the
genealogies--One that Jesus quoted in Matthew 4:4--Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And 2 Timothy says all scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, rebuking,
correcting and training in righteousness.
If we as Christians take that statement at face value, we would not
despise or ignore a single inspired word of God. Much less would we ignore whole chapters and books of the
Bible. Rather we would honor and
respect the entire word of God, just like our Lord did.
But, you say, Matthew 4:4
only obligates me to READ the boring parts, not to delight in them. I can read them out of obedience to God
but I won't like it. That brings
us to an important point. God has
said that we are to LIVE by every word of God hasn't he? So, what is God's idea of life? Is it dry, boring, empty, drudgery?
No he said that he came to
bring us abundant, triumphant, eternal life. We are to share the life of God and live forever with
him. And we are to live by EVERY
word of God, including the boring parts of the Bible.
The infamous begats, the
genealogies of the Bible, are the first boring parts of the New Testament and
they are the only boring parts quoted extensively in the New Testament. Perhaps that doesn't impress you. When you read your favorite magazine,
you don't rejoice over the masthead. You don't need to know the name of the
subscription manager or the assistant editor, and in the genealogies you don't
care who was the son of Zerubbabel.
But what does God think?
What if he thinks the genealogical records are important? Would that impress you?
You know, if you were to
write a book, wouldn't you start with something catchy, something to catch the
reader's interest so they would continue reading? Why would God then begin with a genealogy? It certainly doesn't seem catchy. But maybe God is trying to tell you
something through this. Maybe God
is saying I'm going to tell you a story that is fantastic and may even seem
unbelievable, but I am not beginning the story by saying "Once upon a
time..." lest you think this is just some parable or fable. What I am about to tell you is not a
myth or a fairy tale. I am going
to tell you about a real person, a person born in a real place in a real period
of history. So in preparing to
tell us the Christmas story, God starts with a genealogy.
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM JESUS’ FAMILY TREE?
The first thing that Jesus’ family tree assures us is
that Jesus was a real person who walked this earth some 2000 years ago. Look
at the historical significance of these records. I know that some of you have probably traced your family
tree back some distance. We have
found that my wife, Peg, is a distant cousin of Andrew Jackson. The Daughters of the American
Revolution must be able to trace their ancestry through more than two
centuries. The Daughters of the
Barons of Runnymede must be able to follow theirs for nearly 800 years. But in the New Testament Matthew shows
the lineage of Christ through 20 centuries, and Luke carries it back to the
beginning of the world! This poor
carpenter from a conquered nation could trace his descent back many times
farther than anyone alive today.
Luke, the historian, opens
the chapter which begins his genealogy--Now in the 15th year of the reign of
Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being tetrarch
of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and the region of
Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being high
priests, the word of God came to John the son of Zachariah in the wilderness.
It would be strange indeed to
begin with such a detailed historical account and end with a legendary
genealogy. It would make as much
sense as listing Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill among the presidents of the United
States. Luke mentions names of
persons that are grounded in secular history. They belong to a definite time period in a definite
geographical area. People who were
alive at the time could say whether what the gospel writers said happened really
happened or not.
This is far more than you can
say about many of the other world religions and the cults. No other faith is as grounded in real
history as Christianity and Judaism.
Not Buddhism. Not
Hinduism. Not even Islam. Joseph Smith of the Mormons
claims to have been visited by the angel Moroni and given golden plates with
the Book of Mormon on them, which he buried somewhere in New York state. That was his claim. But no one else witnessed this
meeting. No one else ever saw the
plates. And no one was ever shown
where the plates were buried.
The events of the Bible are
connected to real world events that we know about in secular history more than
any other religion's holy book.
Archaeology has, over and over again, confirmed the accuracy of the
Bible. Numerous archaeological discoveries, particularly those made in the last
30 years, have provided objective evidence that the narratives found in the Old
Testament are reliable accounts of what happened. In fact archaeology has only confirmed and never
contradicted the Bible.
All throughout the Bible
names of real people and real places and real times are given. In a number of places the Bible dares
its contemporary readers to go look for themselves, go talk to the people
themselves. For instance in 1 Corinthians 15:6
Paul is telling about the various people that Jesus appeared to after the
resurrection and he mentions that at one time Jesus appeared to over 500 people
at once and he says that most of those people were still alive at the time
of his writing--the implication
being, if you don’t believe me you can go and ask the other witnesses.
The Bible writers had nothing
to hide because they knew they were dealing with real historical events. These things really happened. It is simply not true what some people
say, that you have to accept all this Christianity stuff just on faith. That may be true of other religions but
not Christianity! Christianity
says these things really happened.
This Jesus, born in Bethlehem in the days of Caesar Augustus, made these
claims and did these things to prove that he was who he said he was. He even made claims on your life. Then you are stuck with the question of
what are you going to do about that.
Thus God in preparing for
Christmas started with a genealogy to say this Christmas birth that I am
telling you about really happened.
This is who this person was.
And these are the things that he went on to say and do.
So when Jesus died on the
cross and rose again, before he ascended into heaven he said that he would be
with you always, even unto the end of the age. You can believe that!
You can count on that! Because this was a real risen savior saying
that. The easiest way of
disproving the resurrection would be to produce the dead body of Jesus--end of
Christianity. But instead the
risen savior was seen by many people over 40 days time. He was touched. He ate with people. He talked to people.
So when Jesus says, I am the
light of the world and you find yourself in darkness you can turn to him
because he is real. And when he
says I am the good shepherd and you need guidance in your life, you can trust
him to lead you to good pastures and still clear waters because he is real. And when he says I am the resurrection
and the life, he who believes in me shall never die, and you face death
yourself or the death of a loved one, you can know that death is not the end
because Jesus is real. Since all
that the gospels tell us happened really did happen, we can have hope in the
midst of hopeless situations.
Jesus’ bloodline also tells
us something about prophecy. Jesus birth fulfilled prophecies, over
300 of them! In Genesis 3:15,
immediately after Adam and Eve sinned, we read the first promise of a messiah
who was to come. Some 4000 years
ago, God made a promise, what Genesis 17:7 calls an everlasting covenant, to
Abraham. God promised that the
relationship between himself and his people would be restored; and the walls of
separation would be pulled down.
As more and more information
about the messiah that would mend the separation between God and his people was
revealed to the prophets we learn that the messiah was to be a descendent of
Jesse and David, and that he would be born in Bethlehem, the hometown of Joseph
. Jesus’ family tree shows us that
he did have the right lineage to be the messiah. It is possible to try to make a prophecy come true about you
but how many of you know that it is real tough to do that about your birth!
The ancient world had many
different devices for determining the future, known as divination, and they
even use the terms prophet and prophecy. But not in the entire gamut of
Greek and Roman literature can you find a specific prophecy of a great historic
event to come in the distant future.
Nor can you find any prophecy about a savior to come in the human
race. Islam cannot point to any
prophecies of the coming of Mohammed uttered hundreds of years before his
birth. Neither can the founders of
any cult point to any ancient text foretelling their appearance. It is Jesus and the Hebrew/Christian
faith that deals with real prophecies because this is a faith that is tied to
real history. In the case of
Jesus, he fulfilled over 300 prophecies, spoken by different voices over 500
years, including 29 major prophecies fulfilled in the day he died.
But there is something else
you need to note about this genealogy.
If you read it slowly instead of quickly, and if you look up in a Bible
dictionary the names of the people mentioned in Jesus’ family tree you find
something very interesting. Jesus’ bloodline was not pure.
In the 3rd verse of Matthew
we find the name of Tamar. Tamar
disguised herself as a prostitute in order to become pregnant by Judah, her
father-in-law. Verse 5 mentions
two Gentile women, Rahab, the prostitute, and Ruth. Verse 6 alludes to Bathsheba as "of Uriah" as if
to emphasize her and David's adultery.
Verse 8 mentions Joram king of Judah, who, once he became king, killed
all his brothers so they would not threaten his throne. Verse 9 mentions king Ahaz who made and
worshiped idols and sacrificed his own sons as burnt offerings to idols. In verse 10 he mentions king Manasseh
who built altars to idols right in God's holy temple. He sacrificed his own sons as burnt offerings to idols. He practiced sorcery, witchcraft,
divination and consulted mediums and spiritists. His Son king Amon followed in his father's footsteps and
worshiped and offered sacrifices to all the idols that Manasseh did.
Now remember this is Jesus'
lineage we are talking about! What
kind of genealogy is this for a messiah?
It tells us that our messiah has Gentiles, a prostitute, an adulteress,
idolaters, persons involved in the occult, murderers and even people who burned
their children as offerings to idols for ancestors. And you thought some people in your family are messed
up!
This genealogy never mentions
Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, or any of the godly Jewish women from whom Christ
descended. It's as if the
Daughters of the American Revolution were to publish a genealogy of George
Washington, recording every Gypsy and horse thief in his family tree while
omitting every Englishman and scholar.
What can we learn from
this? In spite of sin, God can accomplish his purposes! God's ways are not our ways, and we
learn to be grateful for that. God
specializes in bringing good out of evil.
He brought the messiah to us out of a sinful family (though not from
sinful seed), and so he can bring the salvation of Christ to others through the
likes of you and me. Whatever is
irregular, preposterous, or even wicked in our lives, God can turn to
Good. Those who feel hopeless or
inadequate ought to derive great encouragement from the genealogy of Christ.
The mention of Rahab as the
mother of Boaz in Matthew 1:5 is quite significant. Only here to we learn that Rahab married a prince of the
tribe of Judah and that they had a son named Boaz. Yes, it was Rahab's son who
was willing to marry the poor and pious daughter of Moab when his Hebrew
kinsman would not. What a testimony
to the love of his parents we find in the life of Boaz! With this knowledge we are prepared for
Rahab's admission to the New Testament Hall of Fame in Hebrews 11:31. On the other hand, if we didn't know
the mother of Boaz, would we really understand the story of Ruth? Do you see how skipping the boring
parts causes us to miss things in the parts we know and love?
There are other interesting
details in this genealogy, but they pale beside the main point. God started the New Testament with a
genealogy because the ancestry of Jesus is a unique and essential element of
his glory.
How shall believers know the
Messiah from imposters? In the
days of Nehemiah we read that some men could not identify their father's house
nor their lineage, whether they were of Israel. These sought their listing among those who were registered
by genealogy, but their family tree was not found, therefore they were excluded
from the priesthood.
If lack of a proper genealogy
excluded a man from the priesthood of Levi, how much more shall it exclude a
man from being High priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek as the
writer of Hebrews says? If the
priests who offered the blood of animals must be able to prove their descent
from Aaron to be qualified for the job, how much more must he who put away sin
by the sacrifice of himself as the lamb of God, how much more must he be able
to prove that he came from the loins of Abraham and David?
The Scriptures make it clear
that the coming Prince must be descended from David. Thus over time, the son of David became a common Jewish
title for the messiah. The Lord
decided to put his son's impeccable credentials right up front. Those credentials were important to the
ancient Jews, and they still are important today. Why else would the first sentence of the New Testament
read--the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the Son of
Abraham?
Yes, Jesus, Son of David, Son
of Abraham and, as Luke points out, Son of God in spite of a family tree with
good fruit but also much bad fruit.
Paul tells us in Romans 8:28 that in all things God works for the good
of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Yes, God could bring a messiah, our
savior, from a background of wicked people. The God who created the universe from nothing, brought our
savior from a bunch of nothings.
There were other problems: They were in the wrong place. The promised land
that God gave to his people had been conquered by the Assyrians, then the
Babylonians, then the Persians, then the Greeks and finally the Romans by the
time that Jesus showed up on the scene.
The Israelites had been scattered all over the place. They were separated from their land,
their homes and many thought they had also been separated from their God. There had not been a prophet in Israel
to speak words from God to them for 400 years.
The wrong political party was in power. There wasn’t a president, there
was an emperor. There were no
elections. The people were under a
Roman dictatorship. There was
little regard for human life.
Slavery was accepted. Women
were second class citizens. All
kinds of sexual immorality was accepted.
It was not a good time to be in Israel.
Another problem, it was going to take too long. From
Abraham to Jesus there were 42 generations—14 to David, 14 to the exile, and 14
to Jesus. Suppose you were given a
promise and then you were told that it would be yours in just 42 generations! How would you do with that?
And then there was an impossible birth. Verse
16 tells us that Jesus was born in a special way, without a biological
father. As if all these other
obstacles didn’t render God’s plan impossible, now there’s this birth by an
impossible process. It’s not
written up in the medical journals.
It is just not natural.
Of course, we live on this
side of the life of Jesus—his birth, life, death, resurrection and
ascension. And we know that what
seemed impossible, God has done.
We know that in Jesus Christ God did what he said he would do in spite
of the wrong people, in the wrong place, and the wrong times.
Paul tells us in Galatians
4: But when the time arrived that was set by God the Father, God sent his
Son, born among us of a woman, born under the conditions of the law so that he
might redeem those of us who have been kidnapped by the law. Thus we have been
set free to experience our rightful heritage.
If God could do that, what do
you think he can do in your life?
You see, it doesn't matter who your parents were, or what your parents
did or did not do, God can still do miraculous things in your life. Your heritage is his Christmas gift to
you, for he will use it for your good if you love him and want his purposes to
be fulfilled in your life.
The genealogy of Jesus is an
anchor grounding the whole story of the gospel in history, in reality; and it
is a promise of hope--that no matter what, God can bring good and even great
things out of even wicked circumstances. That boring family tree of Jesus
should give us hope and faith. As
you prepare for Christmas know that you have a real living and risen savior who
will never leave you or forsake you; a savior who is able to bring good out of
every circumstance, every life situation, no matter how wicked--simply yield
yourself to him and allow him to mold you into the person he has destined you
to become.
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