Pedigree Of Jesus Series

The manager of a large office noticed a new employee and asked, “What’s your name?”

The worker replied, “John.”

The manager scowled and said, “Look, I don’t know where you worked before, but I don’t call anyone by their first name. It breeds familiarity and that leads to a breakdown in authority. I refer to my employees by their last name only… Smith, Jones, Baker… you got it? I’m to be referred to as Mr. Robertson. Now that we’ve got that straightened out, what’s your last name?”

The new guy sighed, “Darling. My name is John Darling.”

To which the boss replied, “It’s nice to meet you, John.” (Brian Brill, The Forgotten Family Tree, www.SermonCentral. com)

Names are important, especially when it comes to the names in your family tree. If you’ve ever researched your own genealogy, you’ve probably discovered some darlings along with some real disasters.

That’s the case even in Jesus’ genealogy, whose birth we celebrate this Wednesday. There are some darlings in His family tree, along with some real disasters, but they all show us who Jesus really is, giving us hope in the midst of our own disasters. If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Matthew 1, Matthew 1, where we have Jesus’ family tree.

Matthew 1:1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. (ESV)

First, we start with the “darlings” in Jesus’ genealogy: David and Abraham. In the midst of a sin cursed world, God promised to bless the world through Abraham’s seed (Genesis 12:1-3). And in the midst of disappointment, God promised that David’s seed would rule the world forever (2 Samuel 7). Thus, Jesus is the King, whose rule brings blessing to all who welcome Him as their King.

Even His name bears this out. He is called “Jesus CHRIST,” which means Anointed One. That is to say Jesus is KING, because Israel’s kings were all anointed with oil. So, after centuries of anticipation, the opening lines of the New Testament invite you to...

RECEIVE JESUS AS YOUR RIGHTFUL KING.

Welcome Jesus as your Sovereign Lord, and accept His rule over your life.

In her book, The Fire of Your Life, Maggie Ross recounts the story of Emma, a survivor of the Holocaust, who regularly at 4 p.m. each day stood outside a Manhattan church and screamed insults at Jesus.

Finally, the pastor, Bishop C. Kilmer Myers, went outside and said to Emma, “Why don't you go inside and tell him?”

She disappeared into the church. An hour went by, and the bishop, worried, decided to look in on her. He found Emma, prostrate before the cross, absolutely still. Reaching down, he touched her shoulder. She looked up with tears in her eyes and said quietly, “After all, he was a Jew, too.” (Diane Karay. Rantoul, Illinois, Leadership, Vol. 5, no.3; www.PreachingToday. com)

Emma, who blamed Jesus for all her problems, came to realize that He was her Messiah, her Anointed One, Her King! After all, He was a descendant of Abraham like she was, and He suffered on the cross as much or more than she did in the Holocaust. She accepted Jesus as her King and found peace.

You can find peace, as well, if you relinquish control of your life over to Him. Please, stop fighting what Jesus wants to do in your life, and just submit to Him. Receive Jesus as your rightful King. Then...

RELY ON JESUS AS YOUR GRACIOUS KING.

Depend on Christ as your merciful Lord. Trust in Him as your Ruler, who loves you despite your sin.

There are some wonderful “darlings” in Jesus’ genealogy, people like Abraham (vs.2) and David (vs.6), and people like Uzziah (vs.8) and Hezekiah (vs.9), great reformers in their day. These are the kind of people I would expect to see in Jesus’ genealogy.

But there are some I would NOT expect to see, some real “disasters,” if you will. Unlike most royal genealogies, God includes four women in Jesus’ genealogy.

In fact, Barclay says in His commentary on Matthew, “It is not normal to ?nd the names of women in Jewish pedigrees at all. Women had no legal rights; a woman was regarded not as a person, but as a thing. She was merely the possession of her father or of her husband, and therefore his to do with as he liked. In the regular form of morning prayer, the Jew thanked God that he had not made him a Gentile, a slave or a woman. [So] the very existence of these names in any pedigree at all is a most surprising and extraordinary phenomenon” (William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Vol.1)

Including women in your genealogy just wasn’t done in Jesus’ day; but if you’re going to include them, you might at least include the more noble women. However, that’s not what God does in Jesus’ genealogy. He includes some of the four most ignoble women in Jewish history.