Matthew 1:1-17 This is One
Dysfunctional Family
Tonight
Begin gospel of Matthew –
Why
4 Gospels ?
A) 4 different faces or perspectives of the same
story
B) Courson
– Don’t miss my son ! 4 times
1 Each one different
target audience – each one different focus of Christ
C) Focus: Matthew writing to the Jewish world
He
portrays Jesus as the Lion of the tribe of
A) His Purpose: To prove that Jesus is the
Messiah, the eternal King
B) He beginsMatt 1:1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David,
the Son of Abraham:
C) When it comes to the
Genealogy – He starts with David rather than Abraham –
D) The important thing to
the Jewish mind –was not Just that He was Jewish –
1)
But in order to be the Messiah – He had to be the descendant of David –
E)
1,000yrs earlier Prophesied Messiah come from the blood line of David So David is mentioned first because of it’s importance
The vocabulary and style of writing is
very Jewish
A)
The term kingdom of heaven occurs thirty-three times, is, a
distinctly Jewish description, appears in no other Gospel.
B)
The phrase Son of Man refers to the prophecy in Daniel 7:13 and would have been understood and
appreciated by Jewish readers.
C)
Other Jewish terminology: In addition,
Matthew
is a great Bridge between the OT/NT
A)
This Gospel is saturated with citations from the Old Testament Scriptures.
B) Fifty-three OT references
or quotations and seventy-six
allusions.
C) In
His quest to show that Jesus is indeed the long awaited Messiah – Matt places
great emphasis on how Jesus Fulfilled OT Prophecy.
D)
The word fulfilled is used 8 different times
So Matthew portrays Jesus as
the Lion – the Messiah
Mark
Picture of Jesus as the serving Savior – who came not to be served but to serve – lay down
His life… many
The gospel of service –
Jesus the servant
Jesus with People – not
prophecy – pp –
No Geneology in Mark – The
Genealogy of a servant wasn’t considered
Mark’s focus is to present
Jesus primarily to the Roman world
Luke
writing to the Gentile world – His focus is on the
Humanity of Christ
Luke’s Genealogy goes all
the way back to Adam and follows the line of Jesus from David’s son Nathan – to
Mary –
His Focus is blood line –
biological
Matthew’s focus is Pedigree
– Luke’s is Biological
David’s blood line –
Luke portrays the Humanness
of Jesus in a remarkable way
John
writes to the Church: John focuses primarily on
the Judean
ministry of Jesus – the other three His Galilean ministry
John Portrays the Deity of
Christ –
God in the flesh
His
Genealogy goes back before time
In the Beginning was the word … became flesh
So we have
these 4 faces of Christ in the gospels and
the early Church understood this –
Often the place where they
met they would often place outside of it – the four faces of the Cherubim
Face
of a
Lion
tribe of
OX
Jesus coming to serve
Man
Humanity of Christ
Eagle
– Deity
Tonight only going to look
at the Genealogy – easy to skip over – Important see why God put it here
Read Verses
1-17
You might call
this text "The forgotten chapter of
the Christmas story." If you are familiar with the King James Version, you
remember that the word "begot" is used instead of the phrase "the
father of."
"Abraham
begat Isaac, Isaac begat Jacob, Jacob begat Judah," and so on.
One day a little
boy came home from Sunday School excited about his
lesson.
When his mother
asked him what he had learned, the little boy replied, "I learned all the "forgots"
of the Bible." "What do you
mean?" "You know, Abraham forgot Isaac, Isaac forgot Jacob, and Jacob
forgot
Opposite is true
– God doesn’t forget – Doesn’t want us to forget – there is a special message in
the Genealogy of Jesus
Genealogies
were important
Land records
and families - whenever land
was bought or sold, the genealogical records were consulted to insure that land
belonging to one tribe was not being sold to members of another tribe—
1 Chronicles { How to retrace reclaim land
Genealogy
was also crucial in determining the priesthood.
A) The law specified that the priests must come from the tribe of
Levi.
Genealogy also helped determine the line of heirship
to the throne.
Why
is this Genealogy so important
3
reasons:
#1 It
establishes that Jesus was a part of the royal family of David.
Pivotal in the
mind of the first century Jewish person { 1000 yrs
before the Lord had said that the Messiah would come from the line of David.
Any would be
Messiah – first thing – Check his genealogy – Line of David
#2 It demonstrates
that Jesus Christ had historical roots
Galatians 4:4 says, "But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of
a woman, born under the law."
Matthew 1 is telling
us that Jesus Christ had roots. He had a family tree.
He didn't just
drop out of heaven, he didn't
appear magically on the scene, but at the perfect moment of history, Jesus was
born in
Jesus had a human family. He had a mother and a father and a history. He's not
some fictional character—like the greek
gods on
No, he was a real person born into a real family.
#3
It is a picture of the grace of God!
As history, the list is fascinating, but for most of us, that's
about as far as it goes.
It's like the story of the man who was asked to write a review of the phone
book. His summary: "Great cast of characters. Weak plot."
That's the way we feel when we examine Matthew 1: "Great
cast of characters. Weak plot."
Unless you happen to know the Old Testament.
Here
is what you find – Dysfunctional family to the say the least – { Teacher … family trees today….
A) What kind of
family history would you expect the Son of God to have – List of perfect saints
B) Surely not this
group –
Abraham lied about his wife Sarah. He fathered a child by another
woman.
1) Isaac also lied
about his wife .
2) Jacob was a
cheater, Judah a fornicator.
3) David was an
adulterer and a murder
4) Solomon was a
polygamist.
5) Manasseh was the
most evil king
C) The best of
these men had flaws and some were so flawed that it is impossible to see their
good points.
How
does that show the grace of God? Simple.
A) It shows the grace of God because people like this make up family
tree of Jesus.
B) A murderer is on the list, a fornicator is on the list, an
adulterer is on the list, a liar is on the list, a deceiver is on the list.
C) And People just like that make up the family of God the
redeemed the saved!
1 Cor 1:26-29
For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according
to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of
the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the
world to put to shame the things which are mighty; 28 and the base things of
the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things
which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, 29 that no flesh should
glory in His presence.
Another
interesting thing about this genealogy is there are women in it – A NO NO
Everyday Jewish
man Thank God ..
gentile dog or a woman –
prayed everyday.
Women are listed
here – not the ones we would think
Sarah-- Rebekah – Rachel –
Tamar
v3 Rahab V.5 Ruth V.5 Bathsheba V.6
Tamar – gentile
woman who married
Leverite law – before the book of Leviticus was written –
responsibility for the brother to raise up a Child –
carry on the family name
Onan – refused – to fulfill the obligation – God smote him
Judah
had one more son – Shelia – Too young, wait until he gets older – Never did
Tamar goes to
another town heard Judah was coming – disguised herself as a Prostitute – Hey
big boy – want some action – no money
What have –
Signet ring, staff, bracelet
Come back – pay
you and collect – never did
Gets
word – Tamar is pregnant – Bring her
slut –
Who is the father ? The man who owns this signet ring, staff and
bracelet
No
one looks good in this story, which reeks of greed, deception, illegitimacy,
prostitution, sexual lust, and even the hint of incest.
Whatever you can say about
She's only
less-bad than her father-in-law. But what she did was evil, wrong and immoral.
So the first woman mentioned in the Genealogy – is Tamar who
played the role of Prostitute –
2nd
Woman Rahab was a prostitute – How many men
had she been with
Believed in what she heard about Jehovah God – hid the spies –
Married an Israelite – has a Son named Boaz –
Jesus Great …………..grandma – Whore
Next
is Ruth – Ruth was a moabitess - Moabites were the
Product of Incestuous relationship
After
Ruth
meets Boaz and falls in love – The law said that a Moabite was not allowed in the
congregation of the Lord until the 10th Generation
3 Generations later – her grandson is King David
Then there is
Bathsheba { Adultery
Before the scandal was over it included lying, a royal cover-up,
and ultimately murder.
As a result the child conceived that night died soon after birth
and David's family and his empire began to crumble.
Eventually David married Bathsheba and they had another son—Solomon, the wisest
man who ever lived. Quite a result for a union that began in
adultery.
There's dirt all
over this episode. But don't miss the main point: Bathsheba made
the list. Her name isn't there but she is mentioned nonetheless.
When you read the stories of these four women—and of the men on
the list—you aren't supposed to focus on the sin, but on the grace of God.
The
hero of this story is God. His grace
shines through the blackest of human sin as he chooses flawed men and women and
places them in the family tree of Jesus.
That
is the beauty of this: God took Tamar and all her sin – He
owned her – claimed her – part of His plan – gave her the honor of being
in the family line of the Messiah
Claims Rahab -
This genealogy
is in the Bible to let us know that he had a background worse than yours and
mine.
He called himself "the friend of sinners," and he said
he didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
He said, "The Son of man has come to seek and to save that which is
lost." (Luke 19:10)
Not ashamed to call us His Brethren He is not ashamed to be called
our God
Owned Jacob in all his Canniving ways – Rahab – Tamar
Ruth – He owns Us
All have a testimony: So many pp today come from broken families –
I was headed there – BITTERNESS
accept for the grace of God
That is our story: All capable of so much accept for the grace of
God
Talking
this morning about Denise Abandoned by one day as baby – didn’t see until after
we married
A)2nd dad – Biker gang abusive bad dude
Dad #3 is in
Prison today
B) Things were so
bad at home she moved out at 16
1) She could
have been a mess – God in His grace got a hold her
C) God called
her/ saved her / owned her –
D) We look at
this dysfunctional lot and need to be reminded that Jesus came to save and
cover the sins of the people in His messed up family tree
Good
News! No matter what you've done in the past, Jesus can save you
Any murderers reading these words? Any prostitutes? Any adulterers? Any liars? Any cheaters? Any angry people? Any thieves? Any hypocrites?
If a prostitute can be saved, you can be saved. If a murderer can be
transformed, you can be transformed.
If an incestuous person can be saved, then there is hope for you.
High Priest who can
sympathize with us – He knows what it is like to come from a rough family
No matter what
your past looks like, or your present feels like,
no matter where you've
been or what you've done, God can give you a fresh start.
Maybe your background tonight is immoral – Saved but think God
doesn’t want to have anything to do with you
Listen, God
takes Tamar into His home and makes her His own
Rahab, how many men had she been with ? Saved her
Testimony tonight
to us from this Genealogy
A) The Lord loves sinners – not looking for perfect pp
B) Sees our weakness and has compassion on us
C) He reaches out and seeks to identify with us tonight