Jesus Introduced
Sermon Notes
Introduction:
Welcome back to our study that we’re calling the The Whole Story, where we are going through the entire Bible in a year to see how interconnected it is. We’re now into the New Testament as we will study Matthew 1 today. But you’ll soon see that even though we are in the New Testament, almost everything we’ll read today is Old Testament material. It seems like I tend to get these in depth, Bible-nerdy passages often. I’m not gonna complain, I just have a hard time limiting my self when I keep getting these deep and rich passages. But today will make it clear that the two testaments aren’t at odds with each other but work in perfect harmony.
Context
Matthew is the first of the 4 Gospel accounts. All of the Gospels seek to tell us about Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection. They each do this truthfully, but they do have subtly different focuses on who Jesus is. Matthew’s Gospel happens to be the most “Jewish” of the Gospels. He focuses a ton on how Jesus fulfilled OT prophecy and rightly could be called the King of the Jews. This is why he opens his book in a way that may seem odd to us. He opens with a genealogy, a long list of names, and names that are hard for us to pronounce at that. That’s why we’re often tempted to skip the first 17 verses of Matthew and take them as givens. But this would cause us to miss some vital points that Matthew is making. Because genealogies were really important in the Jewish world, it mattered who you were related to. This would be especially important for Jesus based on who he would claim to be during his life. Another contextual note is that these lists are not exhaustive. Matthew doesn’t list every single generation of Jesus’ family tree. This wasn’t unusual back then as you would often highlight the notable ancestors in order to make a point. That’s what Matthew is doing, let’s dive in to see everything Matthew is trying to teach about Jesus.
Sermon Body
What’ll notice if you’re looking at Matthew 1 in your Bibles is that Matthew has 3 sections to his genealogy. These 3 sections focus on a prominent person or event in the history of God’s people that would have significance on who Jesus is. We’ll look at those 3 sections and pull some key lessons that we can learn about Jesus. Let’s start in verse 1.
An account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham:
Matthew gives us a summary statement here for the entire genealogy. We get a ton of information just from this simple clause. We get introduced to the genealogy. What’s interesting is that the Greek word here is the word “genesis” it means beginning or origin and as you probably guessed is the word that we use to title the book of Genesis as the first book of the Bible. It’s interesting that Matthew introduces the first book of the New Testament with the word genesis again. It goes to show us again that the Bible is one big, interconnected story pointing to Jesus. We also learn about the role of Jesus in this verse. That’s the first key lesson of Matthew 1.
We learn that Jesus is our Saving Messiah. That’s right Jesus’ own name tells us what he came to do. The name Jesus is the Greek version of the of the Hebrew name Yeshua or Joshua and what it means is Yahweh (God) saves. And Christ is not Jesus’ last name but a title, christos is the Greek form of the Hebrew word for Messiah. We’ve seen throughout the OT that the Messiah was God’s promised, anointed servant who would save the people from their sin and fulfill the prophecy to crush the serpent’s head. We also see that Matthew describes Jesus as the son of both David and Abraham. It’s critical that anyone who would claim to be the Messiah would be directly related to both Abraham and David. We’ll explore that as we continue starting with Abraham.
2 Abraham fathered Isaac, Isaac fathered Jacob, Jacob fathered Judah and his brothers,
Now hopefully these are some of the more familiar names that appear in this list for you. With these names, we have most of the storylines of the book of Genesis covered. But remember from our study of the book of Genesis, that this list of generations didn’t look like it was gonna happen, it seemed impossible honestly. Abraham and Sarah his wife were both almost 100 and had never had kids. They were going to die childless and everything they had would be given to some distant relatives. And this was after they left their homeland in obedience to God’s command for them. It looked like God had been holding out on them…until we get to Genesis 15.
15 After these events, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield; your reward will be very great. 2 But Abram said, “Lord God, what can you give me, since I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” (So Abraham has legitimate questions about this) 3 Abram continued, “Look, you have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house will be my heir.” 4 Now the word of the Lord came to him: “This one will not be your heir; instead, one who comes from your own body will be your heir.” 5 He took him outside and said, “Look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “Your offspring will be that numerous.” 6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
So, Abraham goes to God feeling like his life isn’t really gonna mean much or leave any kind of lasting legacy but comes away from the discussion with a promise greater than he could ever imagine. Not only is he actually going to have a son (which on its own seems impossible), his descendants are going to be as numerous as the stars. We even get a picture of the Gospel in vs 6 where it is Abraham’s belief in the power and promise of God that gets credited to him as righteousness before God.
A few chapters later after God fulfills the first part of the covenant with the birth of Isaac, there’s an interesting story that looked like it would end the promise but instead expanded on it. In Genesis 22 God tells Abraham to take his son Isaac, (the phrase “your only son” is repeated numerous times for effect) kill him, and offer him as a sacrifice. Now that seems both horrifying and counter-intuitive to be sure. But when Abraham shows that he has enough faith to trust God even with something like this and is about to kill Isaac, God stops him and provides a ram for the sacrifice. He then follows up with this reiteration and expansion of their covenant. Here it is Genesis 22:15
15 Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16 and said, “By myself I have sworn,” this is the Lord’s declaration: “Because you have done this thing and have not withheld your only son, 17 I will indeed bless you and make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your offspring will possess the city gates of their enemies. 18 And all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring because you have obeyed my command.”
Not only do we get a reiteration of the size of Abraham’s family and the land that they are promised, but God adds that all nations (people) will be blessed by his offspring. Matthew is telling his readers that Jesus is that offering that blesses the whole world. That’s the second lesson we learn from Matthew’s genealogy: Jesus is a Blessing to the Entire World.
Now many if not most people, regardless of if they are Christians or not, acknowledge that Jesus and his ministry was a positive thing. But what we know as Christians and what I want you to know today if you would not call yourself a Christian is that Jesus is only a blessing to the world if He is who He says he was and did what that Bible says He did. His moral and social teachings were certainly good, but what we needed from him most was his sacrificial death and resurrection to atone for our sins. That’s what Matthew is telling us and what the rest of Scripture tells us as well.
So, Jesus is a blessing to the world in fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. Let’s take a look at another one of his famous relatives.
5 Salmon fathered Boaz by Rahab, Boaz fathered Obed by Ruth, Obed fathered Jesse, 6 and Jesse fathered King David. David fathered Solomon by Uriah’s wife,
We know Jesus needed to be related to Abraham to be Jewish first of all and to be the promised blessed offspring, but why does he need to be related to David? Is this Matthew’s way of bragging for Jesus that he was related to some kings? Is this like a cool little leaf that came up on his Ancestry.com? Of course not, Matthew is showing us again that Jesus fulfills all sorts of prophecies and yet another major OT covenant. We’ve talked about this covenant in this series as well, so let’s recap quickly. The covenant with David comes from 2 Samuel 7. God had just rejected David’s desire to build The Temple in Jerusalem. God tells him that his son will be the one that gets to do that and David is understandably a bit confused and disappointed. But God does something similar to what He did with Abraham. He makes him a promise far greater than what He was asking for. He tells David that his family line will be established and will rule forever. So, while David and his son Solomon were great kings of Israel, God promised that eventually an even greater king would come from their line. That’s the third lesson we learn about Jesus here: Jesus is the True and Righteous King.
We see this prophecy repeated throughout the Old Testament. Isaiah 9 gives us a clear and perfect example.
For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. 7 The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this.
By highlighting Jesus relation to King David, Matthew is trying to write in big bold letters, THIS IS THE ONE WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR! Throughout Jesus’ life and ministry, it will be this kingship claim that triggers most of the opposition against him. He almost gets stoned in his own hometown of Nazareth when he quotes another Isaiah prophecy and says that He is the fulfillment of it. (tough crowd) The King of the Jews label is what the Pharisees and religious leaders will use to accuse Jesus before Pilate. It leads to the Romans mocking Jesus by putting him in a purple robe, hammering a crown of thorns on his head, and posting a sign on his cross proclaiming him King of the Jews. The Jewish leaders’ final rejection of Jesus comes at his trial when they brazenly state that “We have no King but Caesar.” But just because Jesus wasn’t the king that they wanted, doesn’t mean that he wasn’t the king that they and we needed.
We live in a world now that looks at any kind of authority as a hindrance to living a good life. Traditional norms and ethics are seen as the product of racism or authoritarianism or patriarchy. Biology is seen as an imposition on happiness in gender ideology. What our society wants today is place ourselves on the throne. Each person gets to be their own King, and studies show that we are all less satisfied with life as a result. The Gospel tells us this is because we have rejected Jesus as our true and righteous King and substituted a false king in his place. As much as we sometimes hate to admit it, we all are and will be ruled by something. When we put a pretender on the throne, it never serves us right in the long run.
Matthew actually gives us an example of this in his genealogy. After reaching the highpoint of Israel’s history with King David and Solomon, things start to go downhill. We know from our study of the OT that the kingdom splits into Israel and Judah after the death of Solomon. Israel almost completely goes to idol worship and evil rule. Judah is a mixed bag with some godly kings and some evil ones. And it leads to the third major event that Matthew includes in his genealogy.
7 Solomon fathered Rehoboam, Rehoboam fathered Abijah, Abijah fathered Asa, 8 Asa fathered Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat fathered Joram, Joram fathered Uzziah, 9 Uzziah fathered Jotham, Jotham fathered Ahaz, Ahaz fathered Hezekiah, 10 Hezekiah fathered Manasseh, Manasseh fathered Amon, Amon fathered Josiah, 11 and Josiah fathered Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.
We can’t really wrap our head around the devasting nature of Israel and Judah’s exile from the Promised Land. Part of the Abraham covenant that we talked about earlier is the idea of God’s people inhabiting the Promised land, and they were ripped away from it by foreign nations that worshipped vicious, false gods. It would have felt like God had completely abandoned them. We get a feel for this in Psalm 137
By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.
2 There we hung up our lyres on the poplar trees, 3 for our captors there asked us for songs, and our tormentors, for rejoicing: “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” 4 How can we sing the Lord’s song on foreign soil?
You can see the national hurt there. Israel was called since Abraham to be God’s people, living in God’s promised land, living according to God’s law. But that was forever changed by the exile. Verses 12-16 of Matthew 1 show us that the consequences of the exile extended to the time of Jesus’ life. While many of the Jewish people were allowed to move back to Israel, they were not in charge there. The Babylonians sent into captivity, then the Persians came and took over, then the Greeks, and finally the Romans took over and were in power in Jesus’ day. The ending of the genealogy looks like it completely removes the promises of the first parts of the genealogy. Surely, Israel had lost the right to claim that a Messiah or Savior would come to save them. But that’s exactly what Matthew is trying to show them. These last verses teach us the 4th lesson about Jesus from this list…Jesus came for sinners and those on the fringes. No one is excluded from the redeeming work of Jesus. Let’s explore this.
Throughout the history of Israel, God was honest about the sin of the people against him. In Hosea, he compared it to someone betraying their spouse and children to abandon them in favor of slavery. In Isaiah, he says that the sin of Israel is unique because no other nation took the benefits of following their God then rejected Him in order to follow other gods. But even though this is true. He also continually says that He will save his people, that He will leave a remnant to follow Him, and they will be made righteous through His work on their behalf. Your sinful past or current struggles don’t exclude you from God’s love and grace. They are the very things that should point you toward God, because He is the only one who can deal with them. If we recognize that we too deserve exile like Israel, that is when we can receive the healing we need.
Jesus didn’t come because some of us were pretty close to being good with God and just needed that final boost. He came because we were dead in our sins, we were children of wrath, and lovers of darkness. Matthew even includes 5 people that you wouldn’t expect in this genealogy to highlight this point. Let’s take a look at them.
In vs. 3 we see Tamar, in vs. 5 we see Rahab and Ruth, in vs. 6 we see “the wife of Uriah” who we know to be Bathsheba, and then in vs. 16 we see Mary the mother of Jesus.
Now why are these names so unusual to find in a Jewish genealogy? It’s because they are women. Sorry ladies, your names would typically not be mentioned in these lists. Back then what mattered was your paternal line, especially when Matthew was linking Jesus to Abraham and David. So, we already get a picture that the Gospel is not just for men, women also play a prominent and crucial role in it. But the inclusion of these women teaches us even more, because this is a seedy group of women to include in the lineage of the Messiah. Let’s explain why.
This would be problematic ethnically. Rahab and Ruth were gentiles. Rahab was a Canaanite living in Jericho, and Ruth was from Moab. Both of those nations people were bitter enemies of Israel and idol worshippers. There’s a possibility that Bathsheba was Gentile as well since her husband Uriah was a Hittite. So, Jesus as the Messiah had Gentiles in his family tree, showing that He truly came to be blessing and King of all peoples.
There’s also the cloud of sin (especially sexual sin) around this list of women. We know that Rahab was a prostitute in Jericho. And Tamar’s story is full of sexual sin. You can find it in Genesis 38 to get the full picture. But, long story short, Tamar disguises herself as a prostitute, seduces here father in law Judah to sleep with her, and gets pregnant with twins. Jesus, who would be called the Lion of Judah by the way, was the result of his ancestor Judah’s adultery with his disguised, prostitute daughter in law. He then doesn’t even mention Bathsheba’s name deciding to twist the knife by calling her Uriah’s wife. Out of all the kids of David that Jesus could be related to, he had to be descended from the woman that David stole from one of his soldiers, who he then had murdered. Let’s not forget the rumors of sexual sin that would have circled around Mary, the unmarried girl who was claiming to be a pregnant virgin by the work of God. You would think that Matthew is a muckraking journalist or politician trying to discredit a rival with scandal. But he’s doing the opposite. He’s showing something that is unique to Jesus as the Messiah sent by God. Jesus comes into contact with sin and uncleanness and not only does he remain clean, but he actually cleanses and purifies it. We’ll see the same thing when Jesus touches and heals people with leprosy or suffering from demon possession.
Big Idea Closing
That is who Jesus was and who he still is today. He can enter into the darkest and dirtiest situation and make it clean. He can enter into a broken marriage and purify it, he can enter into generations of sin and abuse and redeem it, he can look at any past or present that we normally would hide and say “Yeah my family was pretty crazy too.”
The Big Idea for today is this: Jesus was and is everything that the Bible says he would be. I hope this series has given you not just knowledge about God’s Word but an immense confidence in it as well. The Bible is honest about what happens in our lives, and it grounds our hope in the truth about who Jesus is. It shows us that everything God was doing was according to his perfect plan. We can trust him with our lives even when things look like chaos. If God can bring about Jesus as the perfect Messiah out of the idolatry, adultery, disobedience, unbelief, and misplaced expectations evident throughout Jesus’ family tree, then He can see us through the trials that we face.