Matthew 1:1-17 - Nov 5, 2023

All right.

Respect for God’s Word and the Seriousness of the Pulpit

So this is exciting today. Last week, if you weren't here, you all prayed over my family and I. So you came up and we kneeled at the altar and you put your hands on us. And in the process of doing that, Margie realized that I sweat a lot when I'm up here.

Evidently.

So she brought me a fan so that hopefully I won't be as sweaty and disgusting. So we'll try to put this somewhere that I can get it to blow on me. So thank you for doing that.

Maybe you could dress down too.

No, you know, that's interesting that you bring that up. I wasn't gonna talk about this at all. But to my eyes, the position here in the pulpit to be teaching and to be proclaiming God's word is something that's extremely serious.

And the reason that I follow in the tradition of other people that I respect in wearing a suit and a tie is because this is just one small way that I can show respect to God's word and respect to the position and respect to the task that is to be performed here.

And I will say that this is in no way a requirement of anybody else to wear a suit, right? Elvin, you do not have to wear a suit. I will never judge you for that. And it doesn't concern me in the least what people come in.

We have people wearing everything from suits to my son's wearing basketball shorts, right? So it's okay. But to be here, it's just a certain level of respect that I feel has sort of fallen out of favor in our culture, even in our churches as well.

So that is why I dress this way when I'm up here. And for this time and at this point, I don't see that changing anytime in the near future. So that's just a little extra sermonette that you weren't expecting to get today and I wasn't expecting to give because what we're talking about is the genealogy of Matthew, right?

The Purpose of Matthew’s Genealogy and the Davidic Covenant

So last week, we started in on the genealogy of Matthew. We read all the names. And I told you that a big part of the purpose of this genealogy was for Matthew to demonstrate to his readers Jesus's lineage.

So he was attempting to prove to the Jews at the time, the people that this book was written to, that Jesus was the Messiah. And one of the big things that we looked at last week was the Davidic covenant, right?

That's the covenant that God made with King David. And we looked at how Jesus was ultimately the fulfillment of that covenant. And so this morning, what I wanna do is just briefly review a little bit of that.

We're gonna go a little bit deeper into some of the lineage stuff with the rest of the genealogy. And then we're gonna push forward and talk about a little bit more modern application or what this means more specifically to us and some of the lessons that we can take from this.

So again, let's just highlight the fact that in this culture, the Jewish culture of the time, for someone to be considered royalty or for someone to be coming from a royal lineage like they're trying to claim Jesus is, it was so important for them to establish that, you know, almost on a legal basis, right?

We have to trace everybody's family all the way back to the beginning to prove that they actually do have a claim to the throne that they're making a claim on. And this carried a lot of weight. So I wanna show you an example of this in the Old Testament.

This is just something that came out of Ezra. It's Ezra 2, verses 61 through 62. It says this, of the sons of the priest, the son of Hobiah, the sons of Hakaz, the sons of Barzillai, who took a wife from the daughters of Barzillai, the Gileadite.

And he was called by their name. They searched in their genealogical records, but they could not be found. Therefore, they were considered unclean and excluded from the priesthood. Now, I know that was kind of weird, some more funny names and just a short passage there, but the thing that we can take away from this was that these priests, or the sons of these priests, they were from the line of Levi.

They were Levitical priests, which were the ones that served in the temple. And what we're looking at in Ezra is a period after the deportation to Babylon and the destruction of the temple. And they couldn't find the records that these were actually part of these family lines.

So despite the fact that they were priests and they were claiming to be heirs of these priests from an earlier generation, they didn't have the documentation to prove it. So they kicked them out of the temple, right?

Not only were they not allowed to serve, they were out of the priesthood and out completely. So we see the weight that they put on lineage and the importance that they put on that, and not just on the lineage, but on being able to document it and being able to prove it beyond the shadow of a doubt.

For example, these priests couldn't prove it and they had to give that priesthood up. So we already talked about the Davidic covenant in some detail, but I wanna highlight the fact that the most obvious fulfillment of the Davidic covenant, like I said last week, was Solomon because he was David's son, right?

So it only makes sense that he would be the one to reign. But that covenant said that that throne would continue forever, right? And unfortunately, Solomon committed quite a bit of sins and he had a very significant downfall.

So while he still found favor with God, he was not the one to carry on that throne forever. So that's part of the setting that we find ourselves in. But in addition to the Davidic covenant, there's another very significant covenant that's referenced in this genealogy and referenced in a way that's very specific to the audience that would be reading this, and that's the Abrahamic covenant, if you've heard that before.

The Abrahamic Covenant and the Promise to Bless All Nations

So I wanna take a quick look at Genesis 12, verses one through three. It says this,. And Yahweh said to Abraham, go forth from your land and from your kin and from your father's house to the land which I will show you.

And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great. And so you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed.

So these make up the promises of the Abrahamic covenant or the covenant that God made with Abraham and with his descendants. And technically, the actual covenant itself happens in Genesis 15. But again, these are the promises and these are what are firmed up in Genesis 15 with the actual ceremony.

One author that I read summarizes the significance of the Abrahamic covenant saying this, he says, by his solemn covenant, the Lord guarantees his people that his promises will be fulfilled in spite of the prospects of their death and suffering.

So what God is promising here is that he's gonna continue to provide a spiritual blessing to the world through the descendants of Abraham. And at the risk of belaboring this and saying this too many times, the names of Abraham and David are very important to the people at the time that we're gonna be reading this.

And related to that, Matthew uses two titles in the genealogy that are also extremely significant. And those two titles are the son of David and the son of Abraham. So to say that Jesus is the son of Abraham is essentially to say that he was the ideal Jew.

He was absolutely a Jew. And sons of Abraham was a term that the Jewish people at the time used for themselves as well. But son of David is something very different. So for the people of this time, son of David was basically the messianic title.

It was like the title to end all titles. If somebody claimed to be the son of David, they were the Messiah, the Messiah that these people were expecting to come and conquer and free them and reign for all eternity.

The Genealogy Matters for More Than First-Century Jews

So up to this point, we've spent a lot of time talking about why Matthew provided the genealogy. And we've been focused on the reasons why the names and the people that were in it would be important to the people that he was writing to, right?

So we're talking first century Jews. But of course, that can't be the last word on the topic, right? Because if that was the case, and if these names only had meaning within the context of which they were being read, well, we wouldn't have to understand them.

We wouldn't have to take that much of an interest in these, right? We could just sort of breeze through them and get onto the good stuff in the rest of the Gospel of Matthew. And frankly, that's probably what a lot of us do, right?

When we start this, we're like, Rahab, Ruth, Jeconiah, Zerubbabel, behoo, Eliakim, get through it as fast as we can. But, you know, because it's more fun, it's more fun to read about healing the sick, walking on water, feeding the 5 ,000, than it is to just read this list of names.

But once again, I'm gonna take this opportunity to remind you, you could have a bingo card to check off the things that I say over and over and over again, right? And that's that God put everything in the Bible for a reason.

So check that off your bingo card. A Puritan pastor named J .C. Ryle said this, let no one think that these verses are useless, because nothing is useless in creation. And of course, this is true for the genealogy as well.

In fact, there's something very important and very significant that comes out of each and every name that's listed in this genealogy. And what that is, is the grace of God. I think that there are lessons that we can pull out of this that demonstrate the grace of God.

And I picked three of them that we can look at today. And here are the lessons. The first one is that God carries out His will through ordinary, sinful people. The second lesson is that God always keeps His promises.

And the third lesson is that God's promises are universal. That is, they're for everyone. They're not just for Israel. So let's take a look at these promises and some of the names that are associated with them.

God Uses Ordinary, Sinful People Like Abraham, David, and Mary

So the first one, God carries out His will through ordinary, sinful people, through ordinary sinners. One commentator I read is that God uses real, not ideal people. And this should be good news for all of us, right?

Like every last one of us, every single person in this room, myself included, is a sinner. We are destined for hell, but for the grace of God, and but for the work of Jesus on the cross.

Amen.

And if you don't believe that, we'll get to it. As we get farther in Matthew, I'll show you exactly how. I'll show you exactly what Jesus says. But this is good on another level as well. I just wanna mention this briefly.

So I'm sort of sidebarring into one of those things that's a little pet peeve of mine, right? And that's that a lot of people in our culture, especially people who are immersed in celebrity culture, or just, you know, knowing people who are famous, or that we really like this kind of music, or sports, or movies, or whatever, they get really excited when a famous person gets converted to Christianity, right?

And I hope that they are becoming true believers. But here's the thing. There's this idea that society at large is gonna become more convinced of the truth of Christianity because some celebrity that they've heard of starts going to church, or says that they think some of the stuff in the Bible is true.

For example, maybe this is a bad idea, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Here's a random sample of some names that fall into this category, right? And I hope that you don't know these names. I'm kinda sad that I know these names.

But these are a few people that would be considered celebrities that are Christian. Justin Bieber, Tim Tebow, Chris Pratt, Carrie Underwood, Kat Von D, and probably like a third of the country music industry,.

Right?

They sing a few songs about drinking and doing other stuff like that, and then they tack him onto the end of the album because they're Christian. And don't get me wrong, right? We should celebrate anybody who's truly converted.

To Christianity.

We should celebrate no matter how well-known or completely unknown. We should celebrate anyone who is converted into a true believer in Christ, and who joins the saints in the kingdom of God. But when we hold up celebrities as something special, what this does is it unintentionally, unintentionally, it's not on purpose, it conveys a message that what God has done through history is not enough by itself, and that if you have a certain level of wealth or fame, that just adds another level of credibility to the gospel, a level of credibility that the gospel somehow didn't have on its own before this person was converted, right?

So we gotta be careful of stuff like that because God can use whoever He pleases, and consistently, over and over, He does it through the pages of Scripture, and that's part of what the genealogy shows us.

So let's look at a couple of these people. We'll look at some of the most significant ones. Abraham, we see Abraham first in Genesis 11, 26. Abraham, the father of all humanity, basically. Well, not all humanity, but a large portion of humanity.

This is how we are introduced to him. And Terah lived 70 years and became the father of Abraham, Nahor, and Haran. Not exactly a huge, stunning introduction for somebody who's gonna be so significant.

Yes, for some reason, Yahweh had a plan to use Abraham, but Abraham didn't make it easy, did he? Think about some of the things that he did. He told people that his wife was his sister so that he wouldn't be killed, and not only did he do that, he did it twice.

He did it first in Egypt in Genesis 12, 10, and then he did it again in Genesis 20. So when they wound up in Egypt, he was afraid that they would find out that Sarah was his wife and kill him and take her.

So he said, no, no, she's not my wife, she's my sister, you can have her. And of course, that brought curses down onto the Egyptians that did that, and he had to confess that he had done that. And then he did it again.

And not only that, but a significant portion of Abraham's lineage came from his wife's servant, Hagar. When Sarah thought that she couldn't have children, she had Abraham have children with her first.

So part of his lineage had come out of an extramarital relationship that was not ordained by God, by the way. It was something of their own plan that they decided to do. So while Abraham was clearly great, and clearly became great, became wealthy, became well-known, he was an ordinary run-of-the-mill sinner.

He wasn't perfect. He wasn't chosen because he was perfect. But what he did have was faith. So we see this in Hebrews 11, verses eight through 10. By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance.

And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith, he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fulfilling heirs of the same promise. For he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

And we mention Isaac here. Another great story of Abraham was his faith in God, where God told him to sacrifice Isaac, and he was going to do it. I know people have mixed feelings about that idea, because they wonder what would cause Abraham to be willing to kill his son, but it was faith in God and God's plan, and God redeemed that as well.

So just from that brief sketch, we see that Abraham was an ordinary man, made great by the grace of God, and by the will of God. Not chosen by God for his greatness. Another significant name in this genealogy that we can look at is David.

That we refer to him as King David often, right? Because he's well known for a lot of stuff. He was the kid that took down Goliath. He wrote a whole bunch of our Psalms, and he was one of the greatest kings in the history of Israel.

But if we look at the first time that David shows up in scripture, we see something similar to Abraham. We don't see somebody who everyone knew was gonna be a king. In 1 Samuel 16, Samuel's looking to anoint the next king after Saul had been disobedient and ended his reign, right?

What we see is not what we expect. Samuel looks at every single one of David's brothers before him. In fact, David's father, Jesse, didn't even consider bringing David in to be among the people that were considered to be chosen to be king until Samuel asked if he had any other children.

Because we see that God sees not as man sees, right? That's one of the big verses in that section. And what we see here is an ordinary person who God chose to make great, and it was not because of what David had done.

He was basically a humble shepherd at that time. And was David a sinner?

Yes.

Yeah.

Was he ever?

Never.

Something really interesting that's brought out in this genealogy is verse six. It says, David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. Wife of Uriah has a name. We know what the name is. It's Bathsheba.

But they didn't put that in the genealogy. And I'm not sure why, but this is absolutely one of David's most well-known incidents. And in case you're not familiar with what happened, we'll just summarize it briefly here.

You know, to make a long story short, David saw Bathsheba, slept with her. Bathsheba was the wife of a man named Uriah who was a soldier in the army. And after he did that and she got pregnant, David tried to have Uriah come back and sleep with her again to cover it up.

And when that didn't work, David sent Uriah to a dangerous spot on the front lines of the war where he would be killed, and he was killed. And David paid for this as well. But this was a tremendous sin that happened.

He also sinned taking a census of Israel. This is one of the last things that happened before he died. Yet David was still known as the king from whose throne the Messiah would come, the king who would rule over God's people.

We see David as being great because God made him great. Through his grace, one more person, Mary, the mother of Jesus. Now you don't have to raise your hands or anything, but I do know that we get a lot of people who are brought up Catholic.

So if you were brought up Catholic, you were taught a lot of strange stuff about Mary, stuff that's not in the Bible. You're taught that Mary was perpetually sinless, that she was sinless for her whole life, never committed a sin, she was perfect.

You were taught that she was a virgin for her whole life. And there's even the idea that she is a co-redeemer with Jesus, right? That somehow you can be saved through Mary and you can pray to Mary and Mary will take your prayer to Jesus.

None of this stuff is in the Bible. It was all added afterwards. All this stuff probably would have been a surprise to Mary herself, right? Because while there's nothing to suggest that she was a bad person, in fact, she was probably a good person, probably as or more virtuous than many people at the time, but she was far from perfect.

She needed a savior just like everyone else at the time. She needed a savior just like we did. And we see some of her story in Luke. So just to get an idea of the humility of Mary, when the angel Gabriel first greets her in Luke 1, 28 through 29, it says this, and coming in, he said to her, "'Greetings, favored one.

"'The Lord is with you.'". But she was perplexed at this statement and was pondering what kind of greeting this was. And after she was told what was gonna happen in Luke 1, 38, it says this, and Mary said, "'Behold, the slave of the Lord.

"'May it be done to me according to your word.'". So she is submitting herself to the will of the Lord because again, Mary needed a savior like everyone else. And God showed grace by making her an unknown woman.

The first time we see her, it is in the gospel accounts of Jesus's birth, the mother of our savior. And just one more part about Mary, Luke 1, 46 through 48. This is her song. And Mary said, "'My soul magnifies the Lord, "'and my spirit has rejoiced in God my savior.

"'For he has looked upon the humble state of his slaves.'". This is Mary talking about herself. "'For behold, from this time on, "'all generations will count me as blessed.'". So these names in the Bible are very well known to us, Abraham, David, Mary, and there's more.

And we hold them in high regard because we have the testimony of Scripture to tell us what they did. In fact, we see the amazing things that they accomplished for the kingdom of God. Abraham, David, Mary, we see it.

And we get to see it in the context of the whole Bible. Old Testament, New Testament, all together we can see how it works. But what we can't lose sight of is the fact that ultimately, these were just ordinary people.

They were sinners that by the grace of God were used in powerful ways for God's purposes. And again, God made them great. And he made them great because it was part of his plan for redemption for each and every one of us.

God Always Keeps His Promises

So let's look at number two. God always keeps his promises. So we talked about two covenants already, two covenants of God that the genealogy brings out for us to look at. The Abrahamic covenant, the one that God made, or that God would make a great people from Abraham, and the Davidic covenant, that David's throne would be established and would reign forever.

So when we look at covenants, John MacArthur tells us this. He says, covenants have three defining qualities. The first is that they're unilateral and come from God alone. So they're divine and they're unconditional.

The second is that they're eternal and therefore irrevocable. That means the covenants will last forever because God said they would. And third, they are gracious and they are undeserved. So when God makes a promise, he keeps that promise.

I keep saying all these like Christianity 101 things, right? Like these are things that we'll teach the kids in Sunday school. When God makes a promise, he keeps a promise. Joshua 21 .45 says, not one promise of God, not one promises of the good promises which Yahweh had promised to the house of Israel failed.

All came to pass. That's not to say that we can always see the promises of God coming true in every situation in our life, right? Sometimes if you're going through a dry spell, it can be hard to see and it can be hard to believe that God's promises are true for you.

And if that's the case for you right now, I hope this verse is helpful in some way. I know that it's always tough in those situations. But 2 Peter 3 .9 says, the Lord is not slow about his promise as some consider slowness, but is patient towards you, not willing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

Time is different for God than it is for us. Let's go back to how this relates to our passage. We see that in this list of names, it's basically divided up into three different eras, right? It's divided up into three distinct periods of time that represent different parts of the history of Israel.

The first era is from Abraham to David. And these are some notable names, but what we have to recognize is there were a lot of years in this span of names. This took up a lot of time. And we have to think about all the things that happened during this period.

So here are some of the noteworthy events that happened in the period from Abraham to David. The people were enslaved in Egypt. God's people were turned into slaves. There were famines. Even after they weren't enslaved, they spent 40 years wandering around in the desert.

40 years. So imagine what it would be like to live in these times if you were alive and the entirety of your life was contained within the period of enslavement in Egypt or the golden years of your life were a part of the 40 years wandering around in the desert.

It's gonna be hard to see how the promises of God are true for you, right, because your life is not good. And that's where faith comes into play. Because during this period, not only do we see the bad, but we see the good.

We see deliverance, freedom. This is when God made those covenant promises with people. And we see victories. There are victories in war there as well. So the next period is from David to the deportation to Babylon.

And this is the time when Israel, now more out on their own, decided that they just had to have kings like the nations that surrounded them, right? The people said it. We wanna have kings. This is not the setup that was intended for them, but they were granted those kings.

And as you can imagine and as you've read in scripture, the kings range from great godly kings that did amazing things for the Israelites, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah. These are amazing stories that we'll get to.

But also, they had horrible kings. One of the lines that we see a lot in these books are so-and-so did not do what was right in the eyes of God. Kings like Ahaz and Manasseh. And this led all the way up to the captivity in Babylon in the destruction of the temple.

So Nebuchadnezzar brought his entire army to bear on Jerusalem, destroyed the city, burned the temple, took everybody captive. Now imagine being part of God's chosen people at this time. You've just been completely defeated.

And because of the destruction of the temple, we don't know a whole lot about what was going on in that time. And in fact, the names in this part of the genealogy are also not really known to us. In fact, the genealogy is the only place that some of them show up in all of scripture.

You can't go back to Kings or Chronicles or Judges and find some of these names. But Matthew's showing us through all this history and all these names how God's promises always come to pass because the culmination of all this was Jesus.

The culmination of all this was the promised Messiah. Slavery, captivity, all this still led to Jesus who died for each and every one of them. And I think this is particularly useful for us today, right?

Because I think that as people, we're all prone to believe that the era in which we live is somehow as bad as it's ever been, right?

We always say this.

We look at what's going on in the world. We look at politicians. We look at culture. We look at society. We look at whatever and we say, it's never been this bad. How on earth could this have happened?

Sometimes we say, how could God let this happen? And we think this and the culture around us, honestly, is probably every bit as pagan as the cultures. Whoa, that was a wasp. The culture is probably as pagan as it was in those biblical times.

We probably think that we're a little more advanced.

Than them, right?

But if you really think about it, we take our fair share of pagan traditions. We dress them up in modern clothes. Some of you are not gonna like this, right? But I think a perfect example of this is Halloween.

I did it when I was a kid. So just so you know, I dressed up, I trick or treated, and we think it's all fun and games. We think it's cute kids and cute costumes and it's free candy. But if you pay attention to it, it's really dark.

Look at some of the decorations that are out there. And if you look at the roots of it, it's dark. And I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like it's getting darker every year. I feel like it's getting more gory, more bloody, more scary.

Everything has to get more extreme each year. So should Christians participate? I don't know. But I'm less and less convinced every year that we should. So just putting that out there. What about the horrible kings and the pagan rulers?

Well, we've got that too, right? Like look no further than the politicians that we have, the godless people that are serving in high positions in our government. If you consider the Jeffrey Epstein incident, for example, to the extent that we actually know anything about it, it really doesn't get more pagan than that.

People were doing evil things and they probably are still doing it. It probably continues to this day. But at least, hey, at least we don't have the horrifying level of human sacrifice they had, right?

Killing people at temples and stuff like that. Well, guess what? No, we don't have that level of sacrifice. We put them to shame. Those are rookie numbers that they're putting up. And it's hard, and I say that for this reason.

It's hard to find numbers on this, right? Because I realized as I was trying to Google this that Google is only gonna show you stuff that aligns with certain narratives in your search. That's just the way it is.

You don't have to believe me, but you'll find out for yourself. But I've seen numbers that say somewhere around 600 ,000 abortions are performed each year. And there's been 63 million abortions since 1973.

And you think we don't have human sacrifice now?

We do.

But we dress it up in a white lab coat and we call it a medical procedure. So yes, it's bad. We can't think that we're better than them. And that's just babies. You guys would think I'm crazy, so I'm not gonna go into all the details.

But I go into the ways that the government and society have cooked up to kill people. But let's just say, we are as bad as them and things are as bad. And my point with all this is to say that it can be hard to see what God is doing in these situations.

It's hard to see what God is doing when you look at those kind of numbers and you look at those kind of things that are happening. But it's just like the Israelites. It's just like being captive in a society where you're a stranger and you're trying to live set apart.

We're not actually prisoners, so we can be thankful for that. But here's the thing. We know that God has already fulfilled his promise through the first coming of Jesus, the Messiah. You can look at all this stuff and know it's bad.

But you can have hope and you can have faith because the pages of scripture show us that God sent Jesus for us. So the hard times, tough times, bad times, none of it's evidence that God is failing to keep his promise.

So don't lose heart. Don't lose faith in what God has done. We know that he's done it. Here's a few verses for you. Hebrews 13, eight. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Philippians 4, 19.

And my God will fulfill all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Jesus Christ. And in the Old Testament, Numbers 23, 19. God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should repent.

Has he said it and will he not do it? Or has he spoken and he will not establish it? Or Isaiah 14, 24. Yahweh of hosts has sworn, saying, surely just as I have intended, so it has happened. And just as I have counseled, so it will stand.

So take heart. Jesus said this in John 16, 33. These things I have spoken to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulations, but take courage, I have overcome the world.

And the entire Bible testifies to God and his fulfillment of his promises. And it testifies to the word of Jesus here. So the last point, we'll hit this one real quick. God's promises are universal. So it's great that God uses regular centers that we see in the Bible, right?

For his plan and his promises will never fail. But when we look at this genealogy, it's written to the Israelites. And also there is a level where we have to understand that the Bible is narrowly written to Israel in a lot of ways.

Now we can juxtapose that or sort of expand it to us, but that makes people stop and think. Are these promises only for them? How do these promises apply to us? But there's a few people in this genealogy, and he sort of snuck them in there.

The hint at the fact that the promises are for everybody. And this is a little sidebar. So I didn't really highlight the fact that there are four women in this genealogy, which is an odd thing, that they are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba, even though Bathsheba wasn't named.