Redeeming Genealogies (Part 2)

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There is some brand loyalty there.

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And that goes for sexual fidelity as well. I don't know why I can't talk today. Tomorrow I have to preach, so how does that all work out? Who knows. Thanks for praying for me. So far, so good. Thankful.

Don't really want to get sick this time of year. My white count used to be 49. Now it's under 10 where it's supposed to be. But then it's going to keep dropping as we do who know what. Do who know what.

We don't know what we're doing to the body. All right. Redeeming genealogies. Redeeming genealogies. Not that biblical genealogies need to be redeemed. They're God-breathed. But I thought, in light of my Luke 3 passage, that we would talk on the radio about how to have a good attitude when it comes to genealogies.

You know, if somebody got up and said, I'm going to preach a whole sermon on a genealogy,.

You're like, oh, brother.

You would know deep down, okay, I know it's in the Bible and I should have a better attitude, but I'd rather have something else. I don't know. Something thrilling. Something Korah and the ground opening up and swallowing him up.

Or something like the dramatic pilot in Jesus in Barabbas. Or something about the resurrection of Lazarus. Or something about Matthew and the tombs were opened and people got up and walked around Jerusalem.

You know, something like that. Red Sea. Dead Sea. Med Sea. Something. I mean, let's have some excitement, let alone genealogy. But then we go, well, we kind of like Ancestry .com. Kind of like finding our own genealogy.

How about the genealogy of the Lord Jesus? So what we did last show, if you haven't listened to the last show,.

You probably should.

So you can just stop now, go back to that show and listen to the podcast. And I think I have 10 ways to redeem genealogies, biblical genealogies in your mind. Number one, recognize their prophet because they're God-breathed.

Number two, ask why are they there? That's the context. Remember the biblical authority. Sorry. Remember the Bible's historical accuracy. Four, rejoice in the fulfillment of prophecy and promises. Like with David, right?

We see David in Jesus' line because Matthew 1 and Luke 3 show the fulfillment of Isaiah 11, right? And 2 Samuel 7. Boy, this is a rough show. We're going to have to revert to something else. I don't know what we're going to have to revert to, but maybe.

And if you know Star Trek, you'll know that show. I should probably rewatch some of those shows. It's been quite a while. I used to have a Star Trek book of, I'm guessing now, 79, 83 episodes. Not sure about the pilots and all that other stuff.

And then every time I saw one, I would just put a little check mark there, four or five ticks, little tick marks to make sure I'd seen those shows. And I had a little booklet that had summaries of those shows too.

So I was a real Trekker. Not a tracker, but a Trekker. And then, of course, Star Wars came out and then everybody said, Kirk who? James Tiberius Kirk. Of all things, Tiberius Kirk. And James Tiberius Kirk was from what state?

According to Gene Roddenberry's fictional account. I is for Iowa. O is for Iowa. W is for Iowa. A is for Iowa. Number five, we saw that you could praise God for his care and interest in people, individuals, souls, and spirits.

Same thing. Image bearers, eternal souls. And then lastly we saw, or today not lastly, but firstly today, sixly yesterday. This is the worst show I've ever done. Not any amount of anything will rescue it.

You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to pull up the genealogy in the Message Bible and see if it's got any way to help me redeem. Not genealogies, but I need this show redeemed. That's what I need.

I need redeemed.

Okay.

When Jesus entered public life, he was about 30 years old. The son, in public perception, of Joseph, who was, and then it lists all the names. And even the Message Bible can't. All right. There you go.

Good for nothing. Number six, redeeming genealogies. Be amazed that God is not a far-off God. In other words, he's not a deist. He's working. The last one he talks, works with people directly, right?

He has care and interest for people. But now we're realizing he's working with people, but in history too. We look at the world and we think it's out of control. And certainly sin seems like it's out of control.

But God, as we see in genealogies, is a God who is sovereign. God who's in control. In faraway places, in insignificant locations, he, the Lord, has established his throne in the heavens and his sovereignty rules over all.

Our God is in the heavens and he does whatever he pleases. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. Biblical genealogies show that God is certainly not far-off and a deist God, winding things up and then letting them go into chaos.

The 1689 chapter 5 of Divine Providence comes to mind when I think of a genealogy. God, the good creator of all things, in his infinite power and wisdom, does uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, to the end for the which they were created.

I didn't make a mistake there. I read it perfectly. According unto his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness, and mercy.

The almighty power, the confession goes on to say, unsearchable wisdom and infinite goodness of God, so far manifest themselves in his providence, that his determinate counsel extends itself even to the first fall and all other sinful actions, both of angels and men, and that not by a bare permission, which also he most wisely and powerfully binds and otherwise orders and governs, in a manifold dispensation to his most holy ends.

The most wise, righteous, and gracious God does oft times leave for a season his own children to manifold temptations and the corruptions of their own hearts, to chasten them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled, and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself, and to make them more watchful against all other future occasions of sin and for other just and holy ends, so that wherever befalls any of his elect is by his appointment for his glory and their good.

And as I read the genealogies, those truths from the Bible summarized by the 1689 come to my mind. I read genealogies, I think of God's sovereignty, and that God has an everlasting dominion. His kingdom endures from generation to generation.

And he, like Daniel 4 says, does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth, and no one can ward off his hand or say to him, what have you done? When I read genealogies, I think about God as Lord and Sovereign, Most High, King, Almighty.

He sits on a throne, his hands hold time and all eternity. He's sovereign, he reigns, he rules, he decrees, he ordains, he commands, he appoints, he establishes, he chooses, he predestines, he foreordains, everything without exception.

Cannot be frustrated by anyone or anything. I read those genealogies and they're meant to be. That was just not accidental. And that makes me think, this is amazing, I should stand in awe of such a great God.

It's not chaos that's ruling, it's not sin that's ruling, it's God that's ruling. And this is good for us to grab hold of in our days. You want to build your faith? You want to have comfort in sorrow?

You want to realize that not a single event in all the universe occurs outside of God's sovereign control? Then genealogies are a good place to go. Number seven, trust that the Lord can use sinful people for his purposes.

Mike Ebenroth, No Compromise Radio, redeeming genealogies, at least in our mind. I hear something outside. First I thought it was music, then I thought it was a motorcycle, then I thought it was a chainsaw.

Trust that the Lord can use sinful people for his purposes. It is a chainsaw. Not every person in biblical genealogies was godly. Not everyone was a believer. Some believers in genealogies, yes, and some genealogies contain believers that were pretty sinful.

You have Israelites, you have Gentiles, you have men, you have women. God uses believers, God uses unbelievers. God uses believers who sin, God utilizes unbelievers who sin. And God is teaching us through genealogies many things, and I think one of the things that we need to do is that God uses people that are sinful for his purposes.

Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba, David, Abraham, Ammon, Manasseh, those are in biblical genealogies. You learn that these people were sinners. Phil Reichen has a good paragraph when it comes to this. They were all guilty of the same kinds of sins as we are.

All these men were sinners. It's nice to think that our ancestors were noble and good and they did something heroic. This is one of the reasons why people like to study their family trees. Whether they were heroic people or not, the people who came before us were just as deeply flawed as we are.

We can infer this from the mere fact that they were human beings. We can also prove it from the pages of the Bible. Consider some of the skeletons in the family closet as recorded in the Old Testament.

Terah, the father of Abraham, was an idolater. Abraham was a liar. Jacob was a cheater and a thief. Judah traded slaves and consorted with prostitutes. David was a murderer and adulterer. We usually remember these men as heroes, but they were also scoundrels.

All the way back to Adam. At the taproot of the family tree, like any genealogy, the one in Luke's Gospel records a long line of sinners. And, might I say, on No Compromise Radio, unlike cancel culture that we live in now, which comes back to bite you because everybody needs to be canceled, whether we've been caught on tape or not, God uses sinners so he gets all the glory.

You can even think of Bible verses. As for you, Joseph said to his brothers, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for what? Good, in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people.

You realize that God can use even Satan. Job didn't know it was Satan, but he knew that God controlled Satan. Should we indeed accept good from God? Job said to his wife, and not accept adversity. And all this Job did not sin with his lips.

Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. God calls Nebuchadnezzar his servant in Jeremiah 25. And even the worst sin of all, the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, where Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, crucified Jesus, the Holy Servant, taking their stand against him, to do whatever God's hand and God's purpose predestined to occur.

That's Acts chapter 4. No Compromise Radio Ministry. Today we're looking at genealogies. How to redeem them. Not that they need redeeming, but in our minds, we need to be redeemed in the way we think about them.

Because maybe I'm just the only one. When I get to genealogy, I'm like, oh brother. Maybe I'll just put the audio Bible on at that part. We have three more ways to redeem genealogies that are pretty much specific to Luke.

So let's see what we can do when it comes to redeeming genealogies. And now we get a particular three for Luke. The other ones were just general. They work for Luke, but also these are more specific to Luke.

Number eight. Or maybe we should say particularly number one for Luke. Not the last seven general ones. Spot the order of names. Spot the order of names. Matthew goes from older to the present. Luke does the opposite.

Spot the order. So what's going on? This should be like a signal or a spotlight for emphasis. Luke 3 .23. The genealogy of Jesus starts with Jesus when he began his ministry. He was about 30 years of age, being the son, as was supposed, of Joseph, the son of Heli.

And so here we have Jesus about 30 years age. And we move from chapter 2 where he's 12 to now 30. 18 years passes, right? Even when we were dealing with John the Baptist and Jesus earlier. It's the same thing.

And, of course, 30 years of age. If you're thinking about the Bible, Ezekiel starts at 30. David was 30 years old when he became king. When you were 30, you could serve as a priest from 30 years and upward, even to 50 years old.

Tent of meeting. And so public ministry seems like it's a theme in the Bible, 30 years old. And as one man said, the hour strikes for Jesus. And we start off with Joseph, the supposed father, because we know of the virgin conception and then the virgin birth.

Luke's genealogy ends with son of Venus, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God. So it doesn't start off with Adam and work its way forward in that direction of chronology like Matthew does. It ends like this.

I don't know of any other genealogy that ends this way. One writer said, no parallel in the Old Testament or in rabbinic text for a genealogy to begin or end with the name of God. Luke's ending shouts for attention this way.

So not just the order, but who's there. It's kind of jolting.

Hmm.

Adam, son of God.

Hmm.

Son of God. There's another son of God.

Israel.

Then there's another son of God. This eternal son of God.

Okay.

I'm thinking. Thinking through the Bible. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. So it is written, the first man Adam became a living being, the last Adam a life-giving spirit.

Okay.

I'm thinking. Thinking through Romans 5. Not just 1 Corinthians 15, but Romans 5 says, for if by the trespass of one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

He's the son of God. Son of Venus. Son of Seth. Son of Adam.

Son of God.

Now, we've talked about this on the show before, but it's good to talk about it again. If I were to give you two terms, son of God and son of man, do they both apply to Jesus?

Yes.

Jesus is the son of man and son of God. Which one talks about his humanity? Which one talks about his deity? Well, most of the time we would say son of man, since man's human, that son of man talks about his humanity.

Son of God, God is divine, and so son of God talks about his deity. Jesus certainly is truly God and truly man. He perfectly is man and perfectly is God. He verily is both. Two natures, certainly. One person, certainly.

But son of man and son of God, it's not as easy to say, well, you know what? Son of man, man is man, so that's humanity. Son of God, God, that's deity. It doesn't work that way. While Jesus has dual natures, remember son of man.

That's what Jesus called himself regularly. And if you think about the Old Testament, you should go to a vision that Daniel had about a heavenly court. And there was this heavenly person, a divine person, who's going to visit the earth and judge.

I saw in the night visions, Daniel 7, 13,. And behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like the son of man. And he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and a glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away. And his kingdom, one that shall not be destroyed. Divine authority on the clouds. Dominion, glory, kingdom, son of man. This is not talking about Nebuchadnezzar.

Nebuchadnezzar would never make it. And therefore, when we say son of man, it's a claim to deity. Jesus calls himself son of man. He's saying, I'm God. I did this that you might know that the son of man has authority to forgive sins.

I did this that you may know that the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath. It's an exalted title. And son of God is talking about his humanity. And if you do what your father does, you're a reflection of your father.

And here we have that term used. So, son of God is a term of humanity. And that works out perfectly because we go back to all humanity. He's the son of God.

Perfect.

And then it says in chapter 4, verse 1,. And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returns to Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. And so now we have the man. Of course, the God-man. But we have the great last Adam off into the wilderness.

Not paradise. Not a garden.

Not with a helper.

But against Satan on his own. You think he's going to undo what Adam the first did? I think so. Number 9, recognizing the differences between Luke and Matthew's genealogy will help you understand and redeem Luke's genealogy.

There are differences between Matthew's genealogy of chapter 1 and Luke's genealogy of chapter 3. What's different? Well, many of the names are different. I saw one commentary that there are 38 names that are different.

The arrangements of the names are different. You have maybe Jesus to exile 3 times 7 generations in Luke. And exile to David 3 times 7 generations. David to Abraham 2 times 7 generations, etc. And then, of course, Matthew with 14.

So all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations. That theme of 14. So the arrangement is different. The order of chronology is different. We just talked about that. One going forward, one going backward.

And there's all kinds of exclamations.

No, explanations.

The best thing to do is remember divine author. And so there has to be a perfect reason for this. There has to be a purpose for this. And really what you come down to is simply this. Matthew and Luke are asking two different questions.

Showing the answers to these two different questions. Matthew, who's the next king of Israel? Who's the ultimate king of Israel? Luke, who was this person's father?

I am your father.

I don't have any Star Wars stuff here, do I? Do I have any Star Wars stuff anywhere? Would there be any place I could go to find Star Wars stuff? Why two genealogies? Two different questions.

Right?

Matthew is giving us Joseph genealogy. Luke is giving us Mary's genealogy. That sounds about right. Matthew is following the line of Joseph, his legal father, through David. And Luke is following the line of Mary, Jesus' blood relative, through David's son Nathan.

One through Solomon and one through Nathan. Through either Mary's or Joseph's line, Jesus is a descendant of David and therefore eligible to be the Messiah.

Okay.

You can get into Heli. Who's Heli? Is it a father-in-law, a Levite marriage, and all that other stuff? But we don't need to do that. We have a royal succession and we have a physical descendant. Matthew shows the royal side.

Luke shows the physical side. So, it's fine. Legal in blood. We've got them both there. Riken. While both lines trace Christ to David, each is through a different son of David. Matthew traces Jesus through Joseph, his legal father, to David's son, Solomon the king, by whom Christ rightfully inherited the throne of David.

Luke's purpose, on the other hand, is to show Christ as an actual human. So, he traces Christ to David's son, Nathan, through his actual mother, Mary, through whom he can rightfully claim to be fully human, the redeemer of humanity.

All right.

And then the last one. Understand the context. Well, we already did that one, so let's change it to understand content. How about that? What's the author's purpose? And there are several here in Luke.

He wants you to see that Jesus was a historical person, not a phantom. Not mystical, mysterious. No, he really was a Jew. He really was born in Bethlehem. He really was from Judea. He really had Joseph and Mary as stepfather and mother.

And he was a real man. He also had the right credentials from baptism to temptation. We saw or will see his credentials, but his genealogy shows it as well. I mean, if I'm going to go to a doctor, I want good credentials.

How about you? He's truly man, perfectly man. You'll see that here. As we talked about, and he's the last Adam. So, there you go. Next time you have a genealogy, you can read it with joy. Can you not?

Yes, of course you can. Mike Avendroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry. Today, redeeming biblical genealogies. Not that they need redeeming, but our minds need to be redeemed so that we can think about them properly.

You can write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com. Thanks for praying for my health. My schedule looks pretty clear for 2024. I hope to be in Ohio with my friend John Tucker and Pat Avendroth in April.

I hope to be with my brother, Pat Avendroth, at the Pactum in October. And we'll see where else we go. Thanks for listening. Mike Avendroth, NOCO. Blood Scrotum Radio.