“The Genealogy of Jesus” Sermon Series on Matthew
Matthew 1:1-17
Robert Warren
Westmoreland Church of Christ
February 26th, 2005
A genealogy is a list of a person’s ancestor, showing their family tree. To be honest, they are usually not very interesting. They list name after name of people that are mostly forgotten with the rare name that might stand out, if you happen to be related to somebody famous. But in general, they are people that you have never heard of, and their lives are usually boiled down to a few dates and relationships. And for me, genealogies are confusing. I have a hard time making sense of who is related to whom and what relationship they are to one another.
There is a song that sums up genealogies to me. It tells about a widow who remarried. Her grown daughter later married her new husband’s father. Each couple had a child. The song says:
This made my dad my son-in law,
my daughter was my ‘mother,’ cause she was my father’s wife.
Father’s wife then had a son,
he became my grandchild, for he was my daughter’s son.
My wife is now my mother’s mother,
now if my wife is my grandmother,
then I’m her grandchild...
As husband of my grandmother,
I’m my own grandpa. (from Holmans New Testament Commentary, "Matthew")
Got all that? Families are confusing, aren’t they? Still, all that being said, I think that there is a part of us all that is very interested in our family tree. Deep down inside we want to know the history of our family, to know where we are from. Personally, I’d like to know what kind of people my ancestors were, to know what kind of struggles they went through, to know how they came to this country and how I ended up where I am. But most of all, I’m always amazed at how unlikely it is that all of us are here. Think about it: if each and every one of your ancestors had not met and produced each and every one of your ancestors when they did, you would not be here. Take away one husband or one wife somewhere down the line and you would not exist. Tracing back your family tree is a lesson in how uncertain life is. Of course, you could argue, you’re here because you’re here, it’s just a matter of chance, but imagine if you were trying to ensure that a child would be born generations and generations in the future: it would be impossible. And that brings us to the scripture today.
Matthew begins his account of the story of Jesus with a genealogy. A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, is how he starts his book. Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? To be honest, a lot of people, if they were going to start a study of Matthew, would probably just skim over the first chapter of Matthew. I’ve always wanted to memorize as much as I could of the New Testament, but have never started because I didn’t think I could learn all those names. After all, when most people think of the bible and the difficulties in reading it, it’s because they think the bible is just a bunch of "So-and-so begat so-and-so." And, sure enough, you turn to the first chapter of the New Testament and there is a whole list of hard to pronounce names that you have probably never heard of begatting one another. Yes, this first section is full of hard to pronounce names. And yes, you probably have never heard of most of them. And yes, it’s hard, at first, to see what you could learn from all these names. What could we possibly gain by looking at the genealogy of Jesus?
A whole lot, it turns out. For the Jewish people, their genealogy was very important. It told you who your people were, what tribe they came from, and most importantly, if you were 100% Jewish or not; they would have been horrified to think that they were not one of the Promised People. So, the Jewish people kept very careful records of their genealogy. No, the bible is not just a bunch of who begat whoms, but there ARE a lot of genealogies in the bible. The Book of Numbers is little more than names. Knowing your genealogy was important to a people who cared about maintaining their identity, which is the same reason that people even today go back and try to find out who they are and where they came from.
But you know, there is one group of people who care about genealogy more than anyone else, and that is royalty. It is essential to royalty to be able to prove that they are indeed descended from the royal family so that they can make a claim to the throne. There are people who have made a living out of studying the royal line and being able to determine exactly who is in line to be the king. Remember the movie “King Ralph?” That was exactly the premise of that movie. The royal family of England gathers for a picture, and they are all electrocuted. So, the English people have to search back through the records to find the 100th person or so in line to be king, and it happens to be an American played by John Goodman. Sounds silly, but it’s important to royalty to be able to prove that the person on the throne is really descended from royalty in the proper way.
That’s exactly why the genealogy of Jesus is so important: it proves that he is the man who was to be the King of the Kingdom of God. You could paraphrase the first 17 verses of Matthew by saying, “Hear, O Israel! Here is your king! Jesus, son of Joseph, is the only living legal heir to the throne of Israel. The records prove it. And if you have got a problem with it, check it out. The lineage is indisputable. This is Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews! King of all who would be a subject in the Kingdom of Heaven. Your king if you would so choose.”
And so, it’s worth a bit of our time to look at this long line of ancestors that Matthew lays out for us. Don’t worry, I won’t bore you by going through every name, but an overview of the genealogy of Jesus gives us so valuable information about Jesus that should make a difference in your life.
First, this shows that God will go to ridiculous lengths to keep his promise to save us.
I won’t go into this point in great detail, since I talked about it last week. But, suffice it to say that this genealogy is incredible proof that God keeps his promises. This list of names shows that Jesus is the answer to mankind’s greatest needs. There are two things that we need: We need to be saved from the grip of Satan, a grip which he has had on us since the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God. We need a King to come to win back this world from Satan. We need to be saved, the world needs to be saved. Jesus shows the ridiculous lengths that God will go to fulfill both of those needs.
All our problems began when Adam and Eve ate the fruit and disobeyed God. God made a promise then and there that he would send a savior to be a sacrifice for us. That savior would be just like the son of Abraham. If you remember from last week, I read you the scripture that describes that. God tested Abraham by asking Abraham to sacrifice his son. That’s a pretty harsh thing to ask, but God wanted to know if Abraham loved him with everything he had, including his son. Abraham passed the test, and was just about to sacrifice his son when God stopped him and provided him with a ram to sacrifice instead. God gave him a substitute sacrifice.
And, through Jesus, God gave the whole world a substitute. Instead of us having to die for our sins, God sent his son to die for us instead. That’s why Matthew makes it clear by giving us this genealogy that Jesus is the Son of Abraham, the promised sacrifice. You can trace the names all the way back and you will see that Jesus is the one that God intended to send when he said he would give Abraham a sacrifice that would be a blessing for all the nations.
But, we also need a king. This world is messed up, and God will not be satisfied until it is cleaned up and reclaimed for His glory. Remember last week I made it clear that God had promised David that because David was a man after’s God’s own heart that a descendant of his would be on the throne forever. Well, that descendant is Jesus, and you can follow the genealogy back to see for yourself that Jesus is indeed descended from King David. In his earthly lineage, Jesus has royal blood, and in his heavenly lineage, he sits on the throne of heaven.
So, when you look at God’s hand at work in history, he was somehow able to do the unlikely: he arranged so that one man would come to the earth that would be both a king who would reign forever and a sacrifice that would die for the sins of the earth: he would die on the cross and yet through the resurrection would rule forever on the throne of David. It would seem impossible to have one person be both a son of David and also a son of Abraham, a promised king and a promised sacrifice, but all you have to do is start with Abraham, go through Isaac and Jacob and so on, all the way through David and Solomon and on to Matthan and Jacob, the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus, who is called the Messiah: the king who came to save the world.
It was very important for the Jews to be able to trace this lineage so that they could be convinced that Jesus really was of royal blood. But for us, it’s important to be able to trace this to see that God would go to ridiculous lengths to fulfill his promise to save us.
But you know, this genealogy is not just a bunch of names. Oh, sure, it looks like a bunch of names, but behind every name is a story. If you were to look at my genealogy, you would see a family history. A dad who served in the military, a grandfather who moved to Appalachia from Maryland, a great-grandfather who was a notorious murderer, a great great who served in the Civil War, a great great great who emigrated to America, and so on. If you go back far enough and connect the names with the stories you would see wars, deaths, betrayals, love affairs, religious persecution and so on.
The same is true when you look back through Jesus’ genealogy: you will find all kinds of stories that prove my second point.
God will work through ridiculous circumstances to save his people.
Yes, the genealogy of Jesus shows you that not only would God go to great lengths to save us, but he worked through all kinds of trying circumstances to bring his savior to this earth. Look at these names and the things they went through:
• Abraham wandered from Babylon to Egypt and back to the Promised Land, narrowly escaping death many a time. Although he and his wife were childless beyond the normal time, God provided him a son who would eventually become a nation.
• His son was Isaac who was almost sacrificed on a mountain.
• Jacob was nearly killed by his own brother and had a difficult time even finding a wife. At the time he died the entire nation of God was less than 100 people.
• Judah’s generation would have died in a famine had it not been for his younger brother Joseph being sold into slavery.
• Then the nation of Israel lived as slaves in Egypt for 400 years, seemingly forgotten by God.
• Having been freed from Israel by escaping through the Red Sea, the nation wandered in the desert for 40 years. God was disappointed with the nation of Israel, but allowed the nation to live so that the next generation could take the Promised Land.
• Once they were in the Promised Land the nation had to fight the people living in the land. When they obeyed God, they did well, when they rebelled they suffered. Yet God kept the nation alive, and the line of Abraham continued on...God would not allow this line to end.
• By the time we get to Jesse, King David and Solomon, the nation had become great, but they had also become spiritually corrupt, worshiping other gods. It would have been understandable if God had just given up on this rebellious nation and started over. But God kept working through this lineage, because he had promised that the Savior would come from this line.
• From Solomon through Jehoiachin, God had to be patient with a nation that was wicked, corrupt, and faithless. Over and over he sent his prophets to warn, beg, and threaten his people to turn back to him. But over and over the people turned their back on God.
• So God allowed his people to be taken off into exile. Rather than just allowing them to be killed off, God had them carried off. For generations the nation lived in exile.
• Meanwhile, nations came and went. The Babylonians were defeated by the Persians. The Persians allowed the Jews to go back to the Promised Land, but then the Persians were defeated by the Greeks. The Greeks spread their beautiful nation around the Mediterranean, giving all nations a common language. Then the Romans came, bringing peace and roads and shipping that would unite the Mediterranean.
• But in the midst of all this upheaval, God preserved the Jewish people. And a man named Jacob gave birth to a son named Joseph, who married a woman named Mary, who gave birth to a son named Jesus, who is called the Messiah.
From a wandering Jew in Babylon, through slavery in Egypt, through wandering in the desert, through warfare, through kingdoms rising and falling, through empires waxing and waning, through rebellion, through apostasy, through godlessness, through it all, God kept the line from Abraham to Jesus unbroken so that Jesus could be born to be a sacrifice and a king for us.
We all get to a point where the circumstances become too difficult for us to carry on and we quit. There comes a time when the project is too fouled up to continue. There comes a point when there is too much money begin wasted to continue the job. There comes a time when you are so far off target, budget, or schedule that you just throw in the towel.
But not God. He kept going through all the circumstances to make sure that there was an unbroken line from Abraham to Jesus. No matter how unfaithful the Israelites were, no matter how hopeless things seemed, no matter how impossible it was to keep going, God kept going.
Why? Because he loved you so much that he wanted to make sure that Jesus would come to save the world from its sins. God loved you so much that he was willing to literally move heaven and earth to get his son to earth to be the king.
It’s like the rescue teams whose motto is, “Failure is not an option.” They must get in an save those who are perishing, their job is too important to even entertain the thought of not getting it done. They resolve to never get to a point where they quit and say that they will be satisfied with failure, “Failure is not an option.”
You might say that this is God’s motto in making sure that Jesus would come to save us, “Failure is not an option.” Through wars, famines, betrayals, slavery, exile, and turmoil, God is going to make sure that Jesus comes. When you read the story behind these names, you realize that God loves you silly, He loves you so much that He worked through all these situations to make sure that Jesus, the Messiah, would come.
And that brings me to my final point. When you look at all these names, you can only come to one conclusion:
God will work through ridiculous people to accomplish his will.
Most people will get fighting mad if you say something bad about their family or their ancestors. They would feel that if you say something bad about their kin then you are by default saying something bad about them. So, if you were to ask someone to list their ancestors, they would probably sugarcoat things, listing the kings and the heroes and leaving out the pirates and cutthroats.
How much more do you think that would be in the genealogy of Jesus? You might think that Matthew, a good and devout Jew, would do his best to paint the best picture possible of Jesus’ ancestors, to show that not only was he the coming king, but that he came from good stock.
But, when you look at Jesus’ ancestors, the people in the line from Abraham to Jesus, you see just the opposite. Each person has skeletons in their closet.
• Abraham twice said that his wife was his sister so that he would not have to fight for her.
• Isaac did the same thing, saying that his wife was his sister, and then got caught snuggling up to her.
• Jacob was a flat out cheat and swindler, his name even meant “He struggles.” He lied to his father, cheated his brother, and ripped off his father-in-law.
• Judah sold his own brother into slavery and slept with his daughter-in-law, thinking that she was a prostitute.
• Rahab was a prostitute.
• Ruth was a Gentile from a despised country.
• David committed adultery and then had the husband of the woman killed.
• Solomon allowed his wives...and he had a bunch... to worship false gods.
• Rehoboam split the nation of Israel in two with his harsh ways.
• Many of the kings in Jesus line were wicked and evil. They worshiped false gods and did many cruel things. One king, Manasseh, even sacrificed his own son to an idol, among other detestable things.
You get the idea, I hope. All of Jesus’ descendants were very human with very human weaknesses, some worse than others. I’m sure that every family has skeletons in the closet that you would like to keep there, but in Jesus’ case their deeds are right there in scripture for all the world to see. You might think that the son of God, the King of the Universe, the Messiah himself would have a good pedigree. But this is not so.
And yet, God used all of these sinful, fallen people in his plan to bring the savior to the world, to save the world. God used murderers, cheats, liars, prostitutes, pagans and swindlers to accomplish his plan to save the world.
Why? Because he sent his son to save murderers, cheats, liars, prostitutes, pagans and swindlers. You know, people like you and me. He allowed his perfect son to be born from such imperfect ancestors because it was those kinds of people that God came to save.
When you read the names in Jesus’ ancestry, you see a cross section of humanity, in all its glory and shame. Some did great heroic things, some did despicable things, some did both. But you know something? We’re all like those people in Jesus’ family tree: some good, some bad, most in between.
But, the incredible thing is that God, in his infinite inscrutability, loves us, warts and all. He loves us enough to work through all these fallen people to bring his son the earth to keep his promise to save us and to redeem his world from the clutches of Satan.
In fact, that’s what we can learn from this genealogy. You might never have taken any time to look at it, but it tells an amazing story. I read about a Hindu man who was converted to Christianity simply from reading this genealogy. He said that he was amazed to see a savior that did not come from some perfect mythology, but who came from history and humanity; a savior with a past and a promise to keep. A believable savior sent by an unbelievable God.
Matthew might have written this genealogy to prove to skeptical Jewish minds that Jesus was truly a legitimate descendant of Abraham and David, but it shows so much more.
• It shows a God who was willing to go to ridiculous lengths to keep a promise.
• It shows a God who worked through ridiculous circumstances to bring a savior.
• It shows a God who worked through ridiculous people to save ridiculous people like you and me.
When you look at this genealogy, you see the great lengths of time, space and circumstance that God went through to save you, to make sure that you would have a savior to free you from your sins.
Considering all that: what are you willing to do?
Invitation
The point: there is not enough time, there is not enough circumstance, there are not enough sinful people to stop God in his relentless quest to save your soul
God was willing to do all this: are you willing to accept it?
