AM Sermon preached at Syria Christian Church December 26, 2004
God’s Gifts Wrapped in Jesus’ Genealogy Matthew 1 & 2, 1 Corinthians 13:13
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Back in High School I was fascinated when we began to do three dimensional equations in calculus. I thought wearing goggles and cooking things over bunsen burners in chemistry class was cool. Art class gave my creative juices opportunity to flow. And Phys. Ed. well, the competitive side of me always loved it. But history now that met with an entirely different reaction. I dreaded history class. I responded to the lectures in that class with either boredom or sleep. And I liked the homework even less. Now since High School I’ve developed a whole new appreciation for history. And I’ve come to believe that history itself isn’t boring although it’s often approached in boring ways but that’s a rabbit chase I don’t want to get sidetracked with right now. I’m just mentioning my former boredom with history because I know it used to effect the way I read the Bible, especially whenever I came to the genealogical sections of scripture...I’d start reading how so and so begot so and so who begot so and so and so on and so forth and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah---and this switch would go off inside my head and this inner voice would cry start crying out, "boring," "boring," "boring." And my typical reaction was to quickly skim or completely skip those sections of scripture. I mean I was channel surfing before the TV remote was invented. Just look at Genesis---The creation account to me was like the Discovery Channel, pretty neat stuff. The report on Sodom and Gomorrah--that would be the weather channel. The Tower of Babel that was the Women’s Network--just kidding ladies! Jacob’s wrestling a stranger all-night was an ESPN special. The genealogies were of course, the history channel and every time I come across that kind of thing out would come the mental remote and I’d push the skip button... I think it took me three attempts to read through the Bible before I ever got it done cause I kept getting bogged down in the book of Numbers and all of its begets and begottens....but like I said I’ve developed a whole new appreciation for history since my High School years---and this is especially true for the history recorded for us in the Bible. Why I’ve learned that even the begets and begottens sections have some pretty good stuff in them. In fact I want to share some of what I’ve discovered with you today as we take a brief representative look at the genealogy of Jesus.
My sermon text this morning is Matthew chapter 1. I encourage you to follow along in your Bible or on the screen as I read some representative verses from it...
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"Mat 1:1 A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham:"
Comment: Let me stop her just for a moment---and say that Abraham wasn’t really David’s father---this was just a Jewish way of hitting some highpoints in a person’s family heritage... Put 12 greats in front of the word grandfather and you come up with David’s actual relationship to Abraham...now let’s read on...
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2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers
Comment: Jacob by the way was renamed Israel by God and so the descendents of Judah and his brothers became known as the 12 tribes of Israel.... ah but we digress---moving on...
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3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar
Comment: gotta say it---it the male dominated society of the first century, it was highly unusual to list a women in a genealogy but God had it done anyway...let’s skip down to verse 5 and we’ll notice mention of two other women...
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5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse,
Comment: Rahab...now where have we heard about her before? Could this be the same Rahab who helped the Jewish spies escape capture, could this be the prostitute Rahab in the family line of Jesus? And Ruth---she’s left us with one of the greatest examples of committed love in the Bible. Reading on...
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6 and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife, Comment: Uriah’s wife? That would have been Bathsheba, the woman David committed adultery with. Verse 7...
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7 Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa,
Comment: This would be King Solomon, the man God granted the greatest measure of wisdom given to any man other than Jesus Christ. There are serveral more names I could stumble across in reading the next several verses and each person is important but we’re not going for an indepth look of Jesus’ genealogy this morning just a representative look and what we can learn from it...so let’s skip down to verse 16 to pick up the last of the genealogical record and then quickly finish the chapter...
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16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
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 Christ.
18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.
19 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:
23 "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" --which means, "God with us."
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.
25 But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus. [NO SHOW]
Lois Elaine Yordy. Dick Bertsche. Those names probably mean nothing to you. And up until about 18 months ago they meant nothing to my Dad. For you see it was about 18 months ago when Lois Yordey’s son made a discovery while tracing his family lineage. He learned that his grandmother had a brother that she had been separated from in early childhood, one Theodore McCormick. Theodore McCormick lived out his entire life believing he was not only an orphan but an only child too. Theodore McCormick was my grandfather. And as a result of her son’s interest in genealogy both Lois Yordy and her brother Dick Bertsche learned they had some living cousins they had never met---one of those being my Dad. Family histories often contain more than meets the eye friends---and this is certainly the case with the genealogy of Jesus......For in a careful reading and study of Jesus’ genealogical record we find we can unwrap three of God’s greatest gifts to men.
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First we find the gift of faith. Now I know a lot of the time we think of faith in the sense it all rests upon us. We often think if we do have faith in God it’s because we choose to and if we don’t believe in God it’s because we choose not to---it’s all up to us. But that’s only partly true. Putting our faith in God does involve our making a choice to do so---but the matter of faith doesn’t depend entirely upon us. We must never forget that God’s part of the faith equation---in fact He’s so much a part of the faith equation that none of us would have faith or could have faith if He wasn’t. I hope this becomes clear to you this morning. Perhaps some illustrations will help....
Imagine this scene for a moment. A woman notices her husband forgot to shut off his computer. She goes over to it with the intention of turning it off. To her shock and dismay she discovers that the computer is logged on to a pornographic website. She quickly does a search of sites visited and she’s horrified. He promised her that he had stopped. But then again he’d broken that promise on more than one occasion in the past. She immediately confronts him. His face is guilt ridden---his brow sweaty, his voice shaky. She shouts in anger and hurt, "Why ---why should I keep on believing you?"
Switch now to another imaginary scene. A young girl comes in an hour late from a date. She claims she would have phoned home but the car they were in stalled and they weren’t anywhere near a phone and what’s more they were apparently in a pocket where her cell phone wouldn’t work. This young girl has always tried to be upfront and honest with her parents. Her parents can see that her boyfriend’s hands are covered with engine grease and they’d already overheard him on the phone asking his Dad if he could come pick him up and help him work on his car. "Well, of course we believe you. Why wouldn’t we believe you, after all you’ve not given us reason to doubt you." the girl’s parents tell their daughter.
When you put those two illustrations alongside each other you realize that the amount of one’s faith or trust in another person is usually related to a track record. Since that husband had a poor track record it would be reasonable for his wife to have doubts. On the other hand the young girl had a proven track record so it was reasonable for her parents to believe in her. God’s proven track record is an integral part of the faith equation.
I want to emphasize this because a lot of people think faith is nothing more than a leap into darkness or a step into the unknown that involves an abandonment of all reason. But this simply isn’t true. Yes, putting our faith in God does involve our stepping out into the unknown but it doesn’t do so at the cost of all reason. For example when Peter stepped out of the boat onto the water---he was taking a step into the unknown---other than those times when the ponds had froze over, Peter had never walked on water before. And that first step that took Peter off the boat and out onto the churning waters would have been a very foolish one if doing it would have involved an abandonment of all reason---but you see it didn’t involve an abandonment of all reason. For Peter was taking that step in response to the calling of Jesus---Jesus that great miracle worker... Jesus who was at the time he was inviting Peter to walk on the water... already walking on the water Himself... Stepping out of the boat onto the water would certainly involve courage, it would certainly involve risk and the unknown but it did not require an abandonment of reason---to the contrary when Jesus calls us to Himself, the reasonable thing would be for us to go., why? Because Jesus has a proven track record.
In this genealogical record of Jesus the faithfulness of God shines forth. God had made promises to Abraham, David, Solomon and others concerning the coming of His Son. God had filled the mouths of the prophets with predictions concerning Jesus coming. And even though there were the unfaithful types along they way---even though in the line of Jesus there are some pretty shady characters, it does not change the fact that God was faithful to His promises. God’s faithfulness, friends, is reason to trust Him. Put another way ---God’s not given us any reasons to doubt Him only reasons to trust Him. And in that light --our faith in God rests upon God’s faithfulness which is one of His gifts to us.
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Another gift of God that is wrapped into the genealogical record of Jesus is the gift of hope.
A lot of people today live rather depressed and unfulfilled lives because they see themselves or the situation they are in as being hopeless. Instead of approaching life with a positive can-do attitude, they mope around wearing the shackles of their own negative outlook. They’re quite often guilty of blame-shifting their failures or trying to rationalize away their lack of personal effort.... They describe themselves as victims of circumstance, products of their environment, prisoners of poor upbringing, having come from a dysfunctional family. To those types of people, indeed to all of us who at any time would attempt to shirk personal responsibility or who would downplay the potential our future holds, the record of Jesus family line speaks volumes. I say this because Jesus’ family line is far from perfect. Sure there are some pretty notable characters in Jesus line but there are also as I’ve said some pretty flawed people too. Yes, there kings and prophets were part of Jesus’ heritage but there were also liars, adulterers, drunks. Skeletons in Jesus’ family closet appear to include prostitution, murder, incest and rape. You name it, and somewhere along the line someone in Jesus’ family probably did it. Now I don’t bring this up to shame Jesus in anyway. I bring it up because if anything it ought to cause us to admire Him all the more.
For you see, Jesus’ genealogy not only reveals that Jesus’ family line had its black sheep but it also reminds us that in Jesus maturing to become an adult in whom God the Father was well pleased---and in Jesus’ rise to become the most powerful and influencial person in all of human history--- He overcame all the negatives that were present in His family line and environment. I don’t think we should forget Jesus humble beginnings. Jesus was born in a stable area with a manger as a his first bed. He was born into poverty, into a family that today in America probably would have been eligible for food stamps. As jesus grew, He was raised by imperfect parents. Even in His adult years, even during His years of public ministry Jesus was occasionally ridiculed by His own family---the Bible tells us of one incident where Jesus’ mother and brothers accused Him of being mentally off base and out of touch with reality. Yet this same Jesus never once failed to be obedient to His Father in heaven. Jesus overcame every obstacle and every temptation. He even overcame death. And in doing those things He brings us hope. For this great Overcoming One wants to empower us so that we can be overcomers too. Friends, we do not have to be victims of our environment nor prisoners of our past. Jesus didn’t come so you’d have to go on hating your life and He didn’t come simply to enable you to endure life---no Jesus came so that you [TEXT SLIDE] "may have life and have it to the full." John 10:10 And friend, God’s got plans for you. He doesn’t plan to keep you down and out. He doesn’t plan to keep you trapped in a hopeless situation or stuck in an eternal rut. [TEXT SLIDE] "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." So reads Jeremiah 29:11. [NO SHOW] Can you see it? Can you hear it? Hope is found here...Through the verses of His genealogy and the pages of Bible history Jesus’ record shouts to our hearts---I overcame all the obstacles which threatened to keep me from living life the way it was meant to be lived and I will spend eternity in heaven with the Father---and I am willing to help you so you can do the same. It’s because of these things we find ourselves singing at this time of year about the town of Bethlehem that "the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight."
Faith, hope and ...many of you know where I’m going and that of course is... love.
[SLIDE WITH 3RD SERMON POINT] David, one of Jesus forefathers wrote at length about His love for God’s word in Psalm 119. In the 97th verse of that Psalm he wrote, "I meditate on it all day long." The Hebrew word translated meditate involves the word picture of a cow chewing its cud---so that the idea of meditation involves our bringing up again and again God’s word, chewing mentally over it and slowly digesting it so we don’t miss out on all it has for us. I can tell you that all week long, in fact for almost two weeks now I’ve been meditating on Jesus’ genealogy. And if you’ve never spent any time doing it, I’d encourage you to give it a try. For you see, if I hadn’t meditated on this genealogy---if I’d only given it a surface level reading or simply skimmed its contents I might have failed to see how--- the love of God is so intensely revealed to us through the genealogy of Jesus...----I mean God’s love really is evident here---how else would you ever explain a Holy God allowing His Son to be born not only into the human race but into a family with such tainted biographies? Would you attempt to explain it as chance? or possibly mistake? No way. [TEXT SLIDE] Look again at verse 22... It begins, "All this took place---" "All this" ---I don’t believe Matthew’s using that phrase simply to refer to the things that happened to Mary and Joseph. No I think Matthew’s using that phrase to describe everything he’s already written about in the chapter---"all this" then entails the things that happened to Mary and Joseph and the way the family lineage of Jesus reads---Matthew is saying "all this" and more happened by the very will of God.
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1 Corinthians 13:13 reads Now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. And certainly that’s the case when you think about the gifts of God wrapped up in the genealogical records of Jesus. Notice once again how Matthew describes Joseph--- Verse 16... [TEXT SLIDE] Matthew doesn’t write, Joseph , the father of Jesus--- Matthew writes "Joseph, the husband of Mary of whom Christ was born." And the obvious reason Matthew didn’t write Joseph, the father of Jesus is because Matthew knew Joseph was not Jesus’ father. God was Jesus’ Father. And while you and I may never fully understand the virgin birth or know the ins and outs of the Trinitarian work of God in bringing it all about---one thing’s for sure we can know God’s motivation. Why was Jesus born in poverty? Why was He born into such a dysfunctional family? Why did the Word become flesh and dwell among us? Why would God have Jesus be born to die on a cross for us? All this took place Matthew reminds us by the plan and will and love of God. The Bible makes this so very clear to us, [TEXT SLIDES] "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." [NO SHOW]
As we approach our time of invitation and decision I would encourage you to think about these three wonderful gifts of God--the gifts of faith, hope and love which God has made available to us all through Jesus Christ so we can be saved from our sins and live in heaven forever with Him. And while you’re thinking on these things, ask yourself---"Have I unwrapped these gifts and do I now possess them in my heart?" I hope your answer to both questions is "yes!" If however, your answer at this moment is "no" and you haven’t yet received God’s gifts to you, I hope you will take advantage of the opportunity we’re giving you right now during this time of invitation. Because you see friend, the same God who planned and according to His promise sent Jesus to earth that first Christmas so long ago has been planning ever since to send Jesus back to earth a second time to pass final judgment----He hasn’t yet done this but He will, so each of us will want to be prepared. Each of us will want to be found with faith, hope and love alive and well in our heart for that time when we will stand before Christ. I have those gifts in my heart. Do you? If you’d like to become a Christian, or wish to make some other decision this morning, please won’t you come to the front as we stand and sing________________
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NOTE TO THOSE WHO READ AND OR CHOOSE TO MAKE USE OF ANY OR ALL OF THIS SERMON: I am sharing this sermon with the hopes it will be an encouragement to others. I know that coming up with new Christmas sermons every year can be difficult! I apologize for any blatant typing errors---I debated submitting the Christmas sermons I have this year because I have not taken the time to edit them. However, I decided that people will find them more helpful at this time than at other times of the year. So, there you go…. I try to give credit where credit is due, noting writers and or sources to the best of my ability. I have for years been drawing from a wealth of sources including this website. I recognize that my mind and writing processes are fallible. I may occasionally fail to properly identify a source. Please do not take offense if you see anything of this nature. I never intend to plagiarize. Having said that I want you to feel free to draw from my message. When appropriate I hope you will give credit as I do. But most of all I hope Christ will be lifted up and God will receive the glory in all things.
