Sing We Now of Christmas 2
“Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus”:
The King was Expected
Matthew 1:1-17
Introduction: Christmas is a time of expectations. We expect family to be together for better or worse! We expect to get a gift and sometimes even have expectations for that gift thus sometimes meaning an unfulfilled expectation. I believe in Christmas being a time of continual expectation and so I put off gift buying until the last minute and then wrap a picture of what will be arriving by mail sometime after Christmas!
Matthew’s gospel account of Jesus begins with that same concept. A gift is coming but it will not arrive for several centuries (so my family should be appreciative that it is only days!). He begins his story of Jesus with a genealogy! If there is a more boring way to start a book I am not sure what it would be, but Matthew is writing to Jews to whom ancestry was important to let them know the King is coming! He traces Jesus’ ancestry back to Abraham and David to remind them and us that “the King was expected”.
1. The King came despite man’s sinfulness.
(vv. 1-6)
v. 1 – Prequel – The story of a promised King!
First, we get the back story of His earthly beginnings.
Jesus – “Jehovah saves”
Christ – not His last name - “anointed or promised One”
The fulfiller of prophecy.
He is a Jewish man – traced His lineage to Abraham.
v. 2 – “begot” – typical Jewish ancestral language.
“Jacob” – not the first born. Jacob stole the birthright and was a schemer and liar like his dad and grandfather.
“Judah” – Jacob’s fourth son through whom Messiah would come.
Matthew then does something highly unheard of in Jewish genealogies; he introduces the names of women! Jewish men thought little of women and would daily pray, “I thank God I am not a Gentile dog, a slave, or a woman.” Not only are they women but some are Gentile women and most have some sordid sexual past.
v. 3 – “Tamar” – Her story is in Genesis 38. She was a Gentile married to Judah’s son but he died before they had children and so his brother was supposed to father children with her but he refused and God killed him. She dressed up like a prostitute and seduced Judah, her father-in-law and ended up getting pregnant from him!
No one looks good in this story, which reeks of greed, deception, illegitimacy, prostitution, sexual lust, and even the hint of incest.
-- Rob Salvato, pastor, Calvary Chapel, Vista, CA
v. 5 – “Rahab” – Gentile prostitute that helped Israelite spies in Jericho in Joshua 2.
“Ruth” – Another Gentile from a cursed people, the Moabites. They were cursed because their tribe began when Lot’s daughters got him drunk and slept with him in order to have children through incest. YUCK!
v. 6 – Bathsheba (unnamed) committed adultery with David and her husband was murdered to cover it up.
These are the only women referenced until we get to Mary in verse 16 and to say they each come with some baggage would be an understatement, so why are they mentioned rather than some of the nobler ones?
Perhaps, I believe, for a couple of reasons. 1) Women are important in God’s kingdom, so they are not to be ignored. 2) To remind us that God’s work will go forward despite man’s sin or our past. Grace wins!
Matthew was a tax collector so naturally he would be drawn to focus on God’s grace for sinners. In fact, that was one of the Pharisees complaints with Jesus was that He spent time with sinners.
And when the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, “How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” Mark 2:16-17
Too many times we want to avoid people that need the love of Jesus and His grace or we try and hide our past or ignore it, but God says let me use your past for My glory. The hero in this story is God and not man!
WOW! What a messy genealogy and we just started! This shows that the King’s closet is full of skeletons, but we know from Ezekiel that even God can use dry bones for His glory. BUT we must give our skeletons to Him so that He might breathe new life into our old dead ones!
2. The King fulfilled God’s promise. (vv. 6-11)
The prophets promised that Messiah would come through the line of David and God always keeps His promises.
And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.
2 Samuel 7:16
Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this. Isaiah 9:7
Matthew mentions David’s name 4 times in this section (v. 1, twice in v. 6, and again in v. 17). He hammers home the point that Jesus is heir to David’s throne.
Even though the days may seem dark like in verse 10 where we see the name Manasseh who was one of the most evil wicked kings in the O.T. and in verse 11 where we see the name Jeconiah.
Jeconiah was a king upon whom God placed a curse in Jeremiah 22:30 that none of his children or descendants would ever sit on the throne.
“Thus says the LORD: ‘Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not prosper in his days; for none of his descendants shall prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling anymore in Judah.’” Jeremiah 22:30
Oh no! How could Messiah come through the line of David if a curse is on Jeconiah and any of his kin?
To man it is impossible but with God all things are possible and He always keeps His promise! Jesus’ legal title came through Joseph, but His royal bloodline came from Mary. Joseph’s lineage came by way of Solomon in verse 7, but Mary’s came by way of Nathan, another of David’s sons (Luke3:31)! Since Joseph is not Jesus’ biological father the curse is bypassed!
Man’s sin does not stop God nor does the fact that they were carried away into captivity as part of God’s judgment in verse 11.
Perhaps they thought, “Has God abandoned us? Has He cast us aside?” Will His plan be thwarted by man’s sin?
NO! God may punish and judge but He still loves, restores, forgives, and honors His word to send a King by David’s line.
3. The King is the Messiah. (vv. 12-17)
None of these names appear in the O.T. It is a dark period. Matthew probably got these names from public records. The accuracy was never challenged.
Even after they were in captivity God’s promise continued to move forward during the 400 years between the Old and New Testaments.
Sometimes we too cannot see God’s hand nor are we able to determine how He is working. BUT even through the dark times of captivity God’s promised Messiah was still in the works.
Example: Plant a seed. Is it growing and working? Do you dig it up to see? NO! Continue to trust and then one day the first sign of life appears.
v. 16 – One day Jacob has a son named Joseph and Joseph faithfully marries a young woman named Mary and becomes Jesus’ earthly father not His biological one.
“whom” is a feminine Greek word which means Mary is Jesus’ mom but Joseph is not His dad.
Notice the genealogy changes from “begot” to “the husband of Mary”.
Jesus is called Christ. He is Messiah. He is the Anointed One. He is the Promised One. The promise was made in Genesis to Abraham.
I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Genesis 12:2-3
Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ. Galatians 3:16
v. 17 – Matthew explains that he divided the genealogy into three sections of 14 names. Some of the names were omitted in order to make it easy for them to memorize, but the chain remained unbroken.
The periods were divided as follows:
1. Patriarchs and judges
2. Monarchy and decline
3. Darkness and the unknown
The national genealogy of Jesus is one of mingled pathos and glory, one of heroism and disgrace, one of renown and obscurity. But all along even though the whole nation is going down the tubes, until finally they curse and spit on their own Messiah. It is nevertheless through that nation that the Messiah comes, and again I say to you, that is grace. –John MacArthur, pastor, Grace Community Church, Sun Valley, CA
Conclusion: Joanne Shetler spent years in the Philippines with the Balangao people, translating the Bible into their language and trying to tell them the good news of the Savior. But it was slow going. One day Ama, a man who had “adopted” her as his Balangao daughter, picked up an English New Testament from her desk, opened it to this genealogy on page one of Matthew, and stared at it. He could read enough English to realize what he was seeing. Amazed, he asked her, “You mean this has a genealogy in it?”
She said, “Yeah, but just skip over that so you can get to the good part.”
But his eyes were still riveted to the page. “You mean this is true?” he asked, as he struggled through the list of names. Shetler got some shelf paper and wrote the genealogy from Adam to Jesus, from the ceiling down to the floor. Ama took it all over the village, explaining, “We always thought it was the rock and the banana plant that gave birth to people. But we don’t have their names written down. Look, here are all the names—written down!”
The Balangaos loved Matthew’s written genealogy. It proved the Bible was true. Ama came to believe in Christ as his Savior. He became an enthusiastic evangelist, church leader, and Bible translator. When the Balangao New Testament was finally dedicated, he got the very first copy(from And the Word Came with Power, JoanneShetler with Patricia Purvis [Multnomah Press], pp. 81-82).
No matter what you are going through God is at work in spite of your sin, your past, and your failures. He made a promise and He keeps it in order to bring you into a relationship with His Son Jesus, the Messiah, the King.
After all, “the King was expected.”
