January 19 2014 Steve Rahter Matthew 1 1 17 audio

Sunday January 19thMatthew 1:1-17The gospel of Matthew has been described as “a book written by a Jewish man to his Jewish countrymen about the Jewish Messiah”, and that fact is established from the very first verse:“The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham:”To our modern minds, a genealogy, or list of someone’s ancestors, can seem pointless or boring, and we might even be tempted to skip over it so that we can get to the more interesting parts of the story. But we need to understand the importance of lineage to the Jewish people, and especially the lineage of the promised Messiah.If a man came along who did great miracles and taught wonderful truths and raised the dead and controlled the wind and the waves with his voice, but he WASN’T descended from Abraham, through Isaac, and then from David, then there was still NO WAY he could be the Messiah, based upon everything that God had already spoken prophetically.In his opening verse, Matthew is clearly establishing that Jesus DOES have the credentials to qualify as the Messiah because he IS a descendant of Abraham and David. Then Matthew spells it all out in more detail to drive home his point:2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. 3 Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez was the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram. 4 Ram was the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon. 5 Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab, Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse. 6 Jesse was the father of David the king.Just in case you missed this in the onslaught of names, this list of ancestors isn’t exactly a who’s who of perfect people! One commentary put it this way: “Jesus’ genealogy reminds us that God often does the unexpected and chooses the unlikely.”For starters, Jewish genealogies hardly EVER mentioned the women in someone’s lineage, only the men. Matthew will list a total of five women, and the three mentioned so far have quite interesting backgrounds. Tamar was Judah’s daughter-in-law. Her story is found Genesis 38.Her husband Er, Jacob’s son, was so evil that God killed him. Judah asked his second son to raise a family with Tamar, but he refused, so Judah promised Tamar that she could marry his youngest son after he got old enough. Then time went by and Judah never kept his promise, so Tamar disguised herself and Jacob, thinking she was a prostitute, got her pregnant with twin boys. One of them, Perez, is in the lineage of Jesus.Then we have Rahab. Tamar might have been mistaken for a prostitute, but Rahab WAS a prostitute! In Joshua Chapter 2 she helps two Israelite spies escape from Jericho and as a reward they spare her life when the city is conquered. Her son Boaz ends up marrying Ruth.Now Ruth was a lovely, virtuous woman (she even has a book in the bible named after her) but she had one little strike against her. Ruth was a Moabite, and Moabites were subject to a special curse in Deuteronomy 23:3–5 “No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the Lord; none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the Lord, 4 because they did not meet you with food and water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.”So Ruth technically wasn’t allowed to enter the tabernacle, but she WAS allowed to be David’s grandmother! And now Matthew will continue listing Jesus’ ancestors, from David on down:David was the father of Solomon by Bathsheba who had been the wife of Uriah. 7 Solomon was the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asa.8 Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah. 9 Uzziah was the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah. 10 Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, and Amon the father of Josiah. 11 Josiah became the father of Jeconiah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.So let’s look at this next batch of family members:1.    David was the father of Solomon by Bathsheba who had been the wife of Uriah. That’s AFTER David had an affair with Bathsheba and then had Uriah killed to cover up his adultery!2.    Rehoboam was Solomon’s son. He was such a terrible ruler that the nation of Israel ended up splitting into two separate kingdoms.3.    Rehoboam’s son Abijah, according to 1 Kings 15, “walked in all the sins of his father which he had committed before him; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord.”4.    The same was true of Ahaz. “Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and he did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord his God, as his father David had done. 3 But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and even made his son pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had driven out from before the sons of Israel.” (2 Kings 16:2-3)5.    And again, here is what 2 kings 21:1-3 says about Manasseh: “Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Hephzibah. 2 He did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord dispossessed before the sons of Israel. 3 For he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them.”6.    By the time Jeconiah because king, God was pretty fed up with the disobedience of the nation of Judah, so He removed his protection from them and allowed the Babylonians to take them into captivity. But of course God is rich in mercy, and his plan to send a savior continued even during the time of captivity:12 After the deportation to Babylon: Jeconiah became the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel. 13 Zerubbabel was the father of Abihud, Abihud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor. 14 Azor was the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud. 15 Eliud was the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob. 16 Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.So it was a pretty bumpy road, with quite a few odd characters, but God accomplished His ultimate plan to bring forth the promised Messiah through the line of Abraham, Isaac, Judah, and David. To show that God knew exactly what He was doing, despite man’s unfaithfulness, Matthew points out the mathematical precision of the genealogy:17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.Remember that Matthew is establishing for Jewish readers that Jesus is truly the promised Messiah. “Messiah” is the Hebrew word for “anointed” The Old Testament prophets foretold the coming of the righteous Servant of the Lord (Is. 42:1–9), who will be a prophet like Moses (Deut. 18:18, 19), a priest like Melchizedek (Ps. 110:4), and a king like David, who was anointed by Samuel to be Israel’s king. The word Christ comes from the Greek word Christos, which also means “anointed.” Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one!Luke 3:23–38 has a similar but slightly different genealogy because Luke traces Jesus’ ancestors all the way back to Adam rather than just to Abraham. Luke also mentions only the men, not the women. But both Matthew and Luke emphasize that Jesus was a direct descendent of Abraham, through David.Personally, I think that Matthew’s genealogy is a more encouraging list as far acknowledging and showing the sins, faults, and failures that were part of the lives of so many people who were used by God to accomplish His salvation plan.Why does that matter?Look at what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:26-28“For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; 27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 28 and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are.”You see, it doesn’t matter if you, or your parents, or your grandparents, or your great-grandparents had flaws, even BIG flaws! God can still use you!In fact, Paul is saying that it’s actually MORE LIKELY that God will use you if you come from a messed-up broken background!Who is God choosing to accomplish His purposes:The foolish things of the world and the weak things of the world and the base things of the world and the despised, the things that are not!Let me ask you a question, “the things that are not WHAT?”The things that are not wise, the things that are not strong, the things that are not mighty, the things that are not noble, the things that are considered worthless and incapable and unattractive by the world’s standards; THESE are the ones that God has chosen!WE are the ones that God has chosen! Because when the wise and the strong and the mighty and the noble ones succeed in life, THEY get the recognition, THEY get the credit, THEY get the glory.But when the weak are MADE strong, when the foolish are MADE wise, when the unrighteous are MADE righteous, GOD gets the recognition, GOD gets the credit, and GOD gets the glory, because there was NO WAY we could have possibly turned around our lives without HIS help!THAT, my friends is what we mean by a TESTIMONY!I once was lost but now I’m found. And I didn’t find myself, someone FOUND me!I once was blind but now I see. And I couldn’t cure my blindness by myself, someone had to open my eyes!I once was weak, but now I’m strong,I once was bound up, powerless in my addictions, but now I’ve been SET FREE!What I used to think was my own wisdom was nothing more than the world’s foolishness! But now I know TRUE wisdom, which is only found through faith in Christ, my Messiah, my anointed one, my savior.And if you see ANYTHING good in me today, give Him ALL the glory, because it was not by might or power of my own that these changes have come, but only by the power of the Spirit, the grace of God, and the blood of the lamb!