Message
Matthew 1:1b
Name Above All Names - Son of Abraham
In the weeks leading up to Christmas we're looking at a series of under the general title of “Name above all Names.” This series focuses on the titles of Jesus that come up in the New Testament, from the time from before he was born, to the time of his circumcise. Today as we continue we're going to focus on Jesus who is the son of Abraham.
This title is in Matthew 1:1 … which we also looked at last week because this verse also has the title of Jesus being the son of David. Today we want to look at Jesus as the son of Abraham.
Matthew 1:1 describes the genealogy of Jesus Christ and tells us said that he is, “the son of David, the son of Abraham.”
Matthew’s account of who Jesus is, and Jesus' lineage, starts with his genealogy. Which means that the name of Abraham is really important in understanding who Jesus is and what Jesus has done.
To understand who Abraham is we go back almost the very beginning of the Bible to Genesis 12. We're going to read various sections from the early part of Genesis. Genesis 1 to 11 is the section that talks about creation and the flood and the tower of Babel. Genes12 is the Call of Abraham which, in many ways, is the beginning of the nation of Israel. The nation that is set aside by God. Let’s read Genesis 12:1-4 (read)
So Abraham is 75 years old when God first comes to him and He makes His great promises.
You will be a great nation.
You will have a great name.
You will be a blessing to other nations.
Now move forward just a couple of chapters to chapter 15.
We are reading Genesis 15:1-6 (read)
Abraham, who is living in faith, still has no children but is believing that this promise is going to come to fruition.
Go a bit further down to verse 18-20 of the same chapter (Read Genesis 15:18-20)
So this promise of the land is that a physical nation is going to be established in a place where God's people are eventually going to live. The promises keep building. Then we get to Genesis chapter 17:1-11 (read)
Then the rest of the story unfolds and everyone in Abraham's household who is a male is circumcised. So what's happening here is this is building of a relationship between Abraham - who is the representative of the nation of Israel - and God. And God says to makes it very clear that all of your descendants are involved in this Covenant in some way… You are included in the plan so this is how you were going to be part of the nation.
The covenant with Abraham is a covenant of inclusion. If you wanted to be included into God's family Abraham has to be your father.
This is how the scriptures are unfolding right from almost the beginning - 4000 years ago.
If you wanted to be included in the Jewish family Abraham has to be your father.
For the Jews having Abraham as your father seems to be a simple matter.
Every Jew can trace their heritage back to Abraham.
But so can every Arab.
The Jews trace their heritage back to Isaac.
The Arabs trace their heritage back to Ishmael.
Both sons were circumcised, according to the sign of the covenant.
But only one nation is included in God’s family.
Isaac had a set of twins, Esau and Jacob.
Both sons were circumcised, according to the sign of the covenant.
Esau was the forefather of the Edomites …. a group of people who were the enemies of God’s family.
If you know biblical history you will know why did the Edomites and the Israelites are always at odds with each other. There's a lot of wars between the two of them over the years and they end up hating each.
Malachi 1:7-8 tells us the story in a nutshell. “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated,
Can you see the pattern which is emerging?
Having Abraham in your family lineage is not what makes you a part of God’s family.
When the Pharisees were coming to John the Baptist to be see what was happening John says:
Just because you've got Abraham in your lineage it's not this guarantee that everything's going to be ok and you're going to be included. Even the Jews in Jesus day understood this. When the Pharisees went to John the Baptist who is baptising people. The Pharisees come along because the Pharisees want to make sure they do everything right to be included in God's family. So this is happening down at the Jordan River. They go down and have a look just to make sure - maybe they need to be involved. They decide to be involved and join the others and John looks up at them and he says:-
“You brood of vipers! … Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’
Matthew 3:8-9
Just because you can say here is Abraham and we've got the sign of the Covenant and it's easier for us to prove … just saying that … doesn’t mean you’re necessarily in the right spiritual family.
Let me encourage you to turn to John chapter 8.
I know we're skipping around a little bit but we need to understand how this all works and then we'll see how this applies to Jesus.
John 8:31-36 (read)
Here Jesus is saying to his fellow countrymen, “don't think that just because you've got the right sign and you've got the right parts of your body taken away that means that you are in the family. It's not about the outward sign -- it's about your heart.
What this means is that the covenant with Abraham is a covenant of inclusion, yet you can't just rely on having Abraham in your family line for salvation.
But if you want to be included in God's family Abraham has to be your father.
So understand what's going on here. Never in the scripture are people saved because they are descendants of Abraham. That's part of the issue but like us they are still saved by God's grace and then needs to be an active measure of faith in response. There are plenty of people who have got the right sign, but who are not included in God's family.
For Jews that creates a small difficulty.
The difficulty of making sure that they are not just relying on family heritage for salvation.
But for Gentiles … and all of us are Gentiles - unless we have a Jewish lineage … for Gentiles we have a real problem.
Because none of us have Abraham in our heritage.
Which means the covenant to Abraham can’t apply to us.
Well it can’t apply until something changes.
And that change comes about when we understand the importance of Jesus having this name in Matthew 1:1
The Son of Abraham.
There are two important New Testament passages that apply to this situation
Romans 4:7-12
Paul is talking here about understanding the relationship between Abraham and us and the importance of Abraham in the scheme of things.
Let’s read it verse 7-8 (read Romans 4:7-8).
So obviously someone's ask a question – “Well how did the Gentiles get in?” Paul is answering that question
Read Romans 4:9-10
What is the answer to the question? Abraham is called in Genesis 12 … where we read that the faith of Abraham was credited to him as righteousness. Genesis 17 is when the covenant of circumcision takes place. Faith comes first before he received the sign of circumcision - a seal of the righteousness … so what does that mean?
Read Romans 4:11-12
What we are talking about here is circumcision of the heart. Recognising that the offer of forgiveness is still an offer that's being offered to all people … including the Gentiles.
But also that God is for filling the requirements that are set out there all the way back in in Genesis chapter 17.
The requirement for us, that if we are to be involved in God’s family, we need to somehow have Abraham as our father.
So that means in this world there are 4 types of people.
(I had it as a grid on a powerpoint.
The grid looks like this …)
Four Types of People
SAVED NOT SAVED
In Line of Abraham In Line of Abraham
(circumcised) (circumcised)
Walking in Faith Not Walking in Faith
Not in Line of Abraham Not in line of Abraham
(uncircumcised) (uncircumcised)
Faith Credited As Righteousness No Faith and No Righteousness
Those on the left-hand columns who are saved; the right-hand columns are those who are not saved.
Those who are saved are those who are in the line of Abraham
… either circumcised and they walk in faith … as Romans 4:12 says.
… or they are not in the line of Abraham … they are uncircumcised … but their faith is able to be credited to them as righteousness.
You also have the unsaved.
The unsaved are those who walk in the line of Abraham because they are circumcised, but they didn’t walk in faith. Many of the kings of Israel were in this space.
Then, finally you have those who are not in the line of Abraham … that's the uncircumcised … and have no faith and have no righteousness. This is a description of many modern people who are round as today.
They have no interest in the will of Jesus Christ. Gentiles who have no interest in Jesus Christ.
Abraham, and connection to Abraham and faith, is the key.
I'm nearly there with the lecture type approach … we will get to the application part in a minute. So let’s turn to
Galatians 3:26-4:7 (read)
Maybe it's just me but I find stuff like this really really interesting.
Because I see God all the way back there when he made this promise to Abraham.
God coming to Abraham 4000 years ago … to this guy who's just a nomad walking around in this area. God comes to this guy and says, “Look I want you to leave your home. You are going to go to another place. As you think about that here are a series of promises that I'm going to make to you. You are going to be a great nation. You are going to have lots of people and nations come from you. I'm going to give you all of this land over here as well.”
And here is Abraham's:- 75 years old he's got no children. But he believes goes over to the area where God's told him to go. Then at this point God appears to him again and says, “Look up at the stars in the sky can you count the stars?” You can’t count the stars! “This is your descendants.”
You can imagine Abraham thinking I'm already more than 75 years old. Even if I have one child every year for the next however many years how will this happen. I’m not getting any younger.
You can imagine it … but it isn’t what Abraham thinks. He says “I believe.” I believe … faith is credited him as righteousness.
Then God comes him again and this time Abraham's 99. He still is no children and God says, “The promise is still there!”. Can you imagine it … for 24 years the promise is still there. Can you think of many people who keep 24 year old promises?
But God does.
Indeed God’s been keeping this promise for 4000 years.
When God made this promise 4000 years ago He was looking ahead to us.
And as he looked he was thinking, “All these people! I also want to include them in my family. But I'm going to make sure that they included correctly.
This is what I find the blessing that comes out of understanding these sorts of messages.
The blessing of seeing that God is a consistent God
You never ever read the Bible
… remember that this this book that we have in front of us covers 2000 years of history at least
… you never read in the Bible that God gets to a point after about 500 years and goes, “Well actually I didn't think about that too far ahead. I'm gonna have to change the plan.”
You could perhaps understand it.
We are used to a government who say. “In the coming years we will do this.” Then after 18 months they say, “We've got to change the plan.”
Even then people are forgiving … possibly because we know they're lying in the first place anyway.
But when it comes to God … God is consistent.
God has worked the plan out in such a way that we can honestly say, “We are the seeds of Abraham. We have Abraham as a father, just like God said it needed to be.”
You can trust what God says.
But also the blessing that comes out of understanding these truth is the blessing of understanding the lengths God will go to to make us part of his family. Because all the way back there, 4000 years ago, God knew that we were going to be part of the family. God knew that he was going to bring the Gentiles in. The promises go way back.
Even in that in those words to Abraham he says to Abraham, “The nations will be blessed through you.” Gentile coming in is a fulfilment of that aspect of the promises.
How many nations around the world have been blessed with the Scriptures and with God's word going forward. Because of this promise.
God's gone to all of these lengths. All the way from back there God was thinking, “I've gotta make sure these people come in. So I'm going to send my Son and I will bring my Son into the picture. So that all of these people who don't know me … who are outside the family … I want them to be included.
So we can sit here today … and I can say, “God has been working for these millenia so that I can be here today.”
So I can say with faith and hope and truth that God has his eye on me … and he's always had his eye on me. What a great blessing that is. To see these things.
… to see the extent to which God goes.
The third blessing is a blessing which comes from clearly knowing our responsibilities.
You see you can't just take this blessing for granted. The problem that the Jews went through - all the Israelites went through – was that they said, “Well we've got the covenant. We've got these promises. We've gone through the ritual. We are ok. It doesn't matter what we do, we are ok.”
And right from the very beginning God says, “If you thinking just looking the part makes you ok you are wrong. Your heart needs to be transformed.”
There are so many people who look the part.
It's relatively easy to say, “I believe in Jesus Christ.” And those words are the words that are able to bring eternal life. But when we say, “I believe in Jesus Christ,” what we are saying is, “I identify with him.”
I identify with his kingdom.
I know that I am included into his family and because of that I need to act and I need to live and I need to fulfill my responsibility.
So we have the blessing of today being able to say, “When it comes to how to live here it is. I can look at this book. This book is about the instructions that God has given us as we live as kingdom people.
It transforms us.
It changes and molds us.
It challenges us an brings us to our knees.
It causes us to come before God in times of sinfulness and seek forgiveness.
At other times it causes us to come in joyful adoration.
All sorts of responses.
It changes us and makes us think about our responsibilities
Hanging around Christian's doesn't make you a Christian.
Having parents who know Christ is not a guarantee.
Transformation is needed. What was called of Abraham is just as much called of us today. That we need to walk in the footsteps of the one whose faith has been credited to them as righteousness.
These are the blessings of understanding that here is Jesus Christ and one of his names is the son of Abraham.
It’s a name of inclusion.
It's a name of incorporation.
It's a name of a grace that we get to be called Sons and Daughters of God. That we get to be included. That we have an inheritance. We have a heritage.
Jesus who is the son of Abraham coming along and making us coheirs with Christ. Securing that eternal inheritance for us. That as we go through each and every day we can look at Christ and we can say, “Lord you have brought us into the right place because Abraham is indeed our father. Therefore we are just as much included as everyone else.
Prayer
