Matthew 1 (Part 1) :1-17

Here we are, back at the book of Matthew, and as we look at the book of Matthew, we find that while there are certainly similarities between this book and the other gospel accounts, there's also some things that kind of set Matthew apart. I want to put him up on the screen for you here as we just kind of talk about him for just a moment, as we look at kind of the characteristics of the book of Matthew. First of all, Matthew, more than any of the other gospel writers, really shows Jesus as a teacher and has, includes in his book, no less than five lengthy discourses by Jesus as he teaches, and these are considered to be a discipleship manual for believers. And so we're going to do a lot of getting into a lot of teaching that Jesus does. First in Matthew, it's kind of an interesting thing, but he arranges things, not necessarily in chronological order, but in logical order. What that means is Matthew will put things together because they go together, not because they went together time-wise. So you can't read Matthew and then read Mark and say, well, I'm confused because Matthew said the cursing of the fig tree took place after this, and Mark said this, and Luke said that, because Matthew wasn't really all that concerned with making a chronological sort of a series of events. He was interested more in grouping things together by message and emphasis and topic and that sort of thing. One of the also things you'll find about Matthew is that he quotes the Old Testament, and by the way, that's what that abbreviation OT means, he quotes the Old Testament more than any other gospel writer. There are 50, no less than 50 specific references and 75 other allusions to the Old Testament in the book of Matthew. And so he's very concerned about showing that Jesus Christ came to fulfill what was written in the Old Testament. He obviously is going to make a huge point about the fact that Jesus is the promised Messiah, whereas John the Apostle in his gospel account is very concerned with presenting Jesus as deity, God in human flesh. Matthew has a different perspective or a different emphasis, wanting to show to the Jew, particularly, as well as the Gentile, that Jesus is the one that was promised in the word of God. And then there's an interesting emphasis on Gentiles that does take place in Matthew's gospel account. Matthew is the only one to tell us about the Magi coming to worship, when the Jews were really pretty clueless and so forth about the coming of Christ. Here you have these Gentiles, you know, who are coming to worship and bow down, and Matthew records that for us. Matthew, of course, is also the gospel account that ends with what we call the Great Commission, where Jesus tells his disciples to go into all nations preaching the gospel. So there's this emphasis, and there are other things that Matthew includes that may not necessarily be specific just to Matthew, but he includes them related to Gentiles and paints Gentiles in a fairly positive light, for the most part, telling us the story about the Roman centurion whose faith was so great that Jesus said, I've never seen faith like this even in Israel, and showing the Syrophoenician woman who came to Jesus that her child might be delivered from demonic possession. And with such great faith, Jesus responded and said, because of your answer, your child is healed. Go home. And Matthew includes those things. Another interesting thing about Matthew is the way it begins. It begins, as you see here in your Bible, with a genealogy. You might say, well, you know, Pastor Paul, it's not the only account that has a genealogy, and that's right. Luke does, too. But it's interesting here that if you compare the two genealogies, you find some very interesting differences in them. Here in Matthew, he is going to trace the earthly line of Jesus through Joseph, alright? That's what Matthew is going to accomplish here, and we'll read these verses in a moment. But what we're going to find, or what you will find if you look through Luke's gospel account, is that Luke traces the earthly line of Jesus through Mary, his mother, and there are very important reasons why they did that, why they did those differences. You'll remember that Joseph was not Jesus's earthly father. He did not father Jesus. Mary had no union with Joseph prior to the birth of Christ, and as the Bible clearly says, she was a virgin. And so, therefore, what we find in Matthew here in this genealogy that he gives is the legal lineage of Jesus because it was presumed he was the son of Joseph. So we find here, again, that legal ancestry or bloodline, or rather, I should say, not the bloodline, but rather just the legal part of it. And then again, through Mary, in Luke's account, we do see the bloodline lineage of Jesus. So let's go ahead and look at the genealogy. It's just a lot of names. Those of you that are maybe going to have babies soon might want to pick some of these. Circle the ones that are your favorites. Look them up. See what they mean. And if you have a child named Hezron, we'll know why. It says in verse 1,

This is where you breathe for a minute, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Verse 12,

and Jacob, the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. Thus there were fourteen generations in all, from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ. All right. Now I want to call your attention to something in that, you know, you read through genealogies or maybe you don't. Maybe when you get to them in your Bible you just kind of go, and there's the genealogy, and then you move on. Or something like that. But it's interesting that there are some things in here that are very interesting. And I want to call your attention to verse 11. Because in verse 11 it tells us that Josiah was the father of Jeconiah, remember Josiah was a great king, in fact the last good king of Judah, and it says, and his brothers the time of the exile to Babylon. Now what's interesting about this is that Matthew's genealogy traces the lineage of Joseph through this man named Jeconiah, who you might remember in your Bible as Jehoiakim, King Jehoiakim. He was like the third to the last king before the final invasion of Israel, or Judah I should say, by the Babylonian army when they broke into the walls, took everybody captive, and so forth. Now here's something you need to know about Jehoiakim. He was evil, so much so that God cursed his bloodline and said, from your line there will never be a man who sits on the throne of David. Now that presents a little bit of a problem, right? Because here you have the lineage that is being given to us in Matthew, but it includes the line of a king who was cursed, cursed by God, and you know, he was cursed for, I guess I could go into a lot of detail about why, but it doesn't really matter, he was just kind of a jerk, and he lived during the time of Jeremiah, and when he read the prophecy of Jeremiah, which said, Jeremiah had written it down, had his prophecy written down on a scroll, and it was brought before the king and read in his presence, and that prophecy basically said, from God listen this whole Babylonian invasion is my doing the only way you're going to escape it the only way you're gonna escape with your lives is if you submit to my disciplinary action in your lives so surrender to the Babylonians and that's the only way you're gonna live the only way you're gonna get out of this thing with your lives and every time they would read a few columns of the scroll he would cut it off with a knife the king would cut it off with a knife burn it and they read a little bit more and he burned it and it was his way of showing utter contempt for the Word of God he basically it's like hearing it's like today you and I reading the Bible and just saying you know what I don't care I I couldn't you know I couldn't care less about what God has to say and that's what Jeconiah or Jehoiakim was kind of like and so it's interesting in the book of Jeremiah you read that God told Jeremiah to go back and re dictate the scroll that had been burned to his scribe and he's but this time he had a word for Jeconiah or Jehoiakim however you want that he went by both names and he said to him in fact I'll show you what he said to him it's in Jeremiah chapter 36 verse 30 it says therefore this is what the Lord says about Jehoiakim king of Judah look at this and I underlined it for you

in fact he goes on to say that he wouldn't even be given a decent burial his body would be literally thrown out and exposed to the elements and so forth and that was by the way a very serious sort of a diss you know from God to this man who refused to listen to the word so God basically cursed the bloodline of Jehoiakim and said that none of your descendants will sit on the throne you won't have a descendant to sit on the throne and so forth so once again we have to kind of look at this and say then why in the world would Matthew include this genealogy of Jesus here in in the beginning of his gospel account and the reason is because it's really not the genealogy of Jesus because remember Jesus was not born of the bloodline of Joseph he was however born of the bloodline of Mary and what's interesting when you go to Luke's gospel account is you'll see these genealogies which by the way are they start from different ends of the spectrum but they both get to King David and then they make a switch I want to put it up on the screen for you can see what I'm talking about here's kind of a little chart to show you in Matthew's genealogy of Jesus on the left they he comes to King David and then he follows the lineage through his son Solomon which eventuates down to Joseph and then of course you'll notice I only have a broken line from Joseph to Jesus because that was not a real bloodline but on Luke's genealogy when he comes to King David he traces David's lineage through his other son or one of his other sons Nathan who goes down and down and down and eventually gets to Mary of whom is born Jesus and there's no curse on that bloodline you see Jesus is truly born of the line of David and not a cursed bloodline either but the reason Matthew gives us the genealogy here that goes to Solomon eventually through Jeconiah and then down to Joseph is because once again that was a legal standing to the line of Joseph whereas the genealogy through Mary is a bloodline genealogy for Jesus so it's very interesting is it not and so there's there's I guess there's just something else I want to bring out here about this genealogy that we've just read I don't know if you noticed but all of these people had something very interesting in common they were all sinners to the last one now you might say well pastor Paul why are you bringing that up I'm bringing it up because it makes a very important statement to you and I about how God wanted his son to identify with man have you ever wondered when you've read the gospel accounts why Jesus got baptized in the Jordan River have you ever wondered that John wondered it when Jesus came to John he was like dude I need to be baptized by you why have you because remember John's baptism was a baptism of repentance Jesus had nothing to repent of right so John immediately realizes this he says I need to be baptized by you and yet you come to me Jesus said sorry let's just let's do this we must fulfill all righteousness Jesus came to be baptized in the Jordan to make a very similar statement to the one God is making Matthew is making even for us here in this genealogy he is identified with sinners Jesus came to identify with you and me he's not of this this this this untainted lineage although he was still born perfect and without the stain of sin that's just the miracle of the incarnation I can't explain that to you anymore than I can explain eternity or the Trinity my point is this Jesus Christ came to identify himself with people who fail right people who struggle people who sin people who don't measure up oh it's so crazy I just was talking to somebody I can't remember who just recently who was talking about how they had invited someone to church and that person kind of did all the usual got all nervous and gave the excuses about how I need to kind of get my life together before I come to church again you know it's like well they just you know and they totally missed the point they think they got to come and get better to come to church and they don't realize they don't understand that Jesus came to identify to seek and to save that which was lost and Jesus himself said hey the people who are healthy aren't the ones who need a doctor it's the sick who need a doctor right so why do we come here together we come because we know and we understand Jesus came to identify with us in our sin in fact it becomes so powerful in this whole thing that Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians that God made him who had no sin to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God and what that kind of means is that God made him on the cross to be us I mean that was kind of us on that cross that we we at least deserved to be there we put him there was our sin that put him there and you know there's there's something else about this genealogy that's really interesting too did you notice that there are some women and and which is by the way I think personally a real powerful statement just about you know the equality of women but beside all that it's kind of interesting about the women that he chose in verse 3 it says Judah the father of Perez and Zerah whose mother was Tamar remember what Tamar is known for prostituting herself to her father-in-law to get his attention and having a child through her father-in-law again because she needed to get it she married one of the sons of Judah who died because he was such an incredibly wicked man and so Judah gave her his next son and he died also and so he had a younger son he said just just wait until my younger son comes of age and I'll give him to you too and but he didn't want to do it because he saw what happened to the first two guys so he just he just kind of ignored her so eventually she put a veil over her face and sold herself to him as a prostitute to kind of just again kind of get his attention but isn't that interesting that she's she's in this genealogy that is given to us in the Word of God and and and then in verse five Salmon the father of Boaz whose mother was Rahab this is Rahab the prostitute who lived and worked in Jericho and who hid the spies so that when they came to spy out the land so that they wouldn't be captured and she let him loose with the agreement that I'm gonna hide you and let you go and you saved me and my family and her family we're not only was not only saved they were integrated into Jewish culture themselves and she's in the lineage of Messiah powerful and then you got verse 6 and Jesse the father of King David David was the father of Solomon whose mother had been Uriah's wife and even though she's mentioned here only by implication as Uriah's wife we know who we're talking about here, we're talking about the woman Bathsheba, whose claim to fame in the Word of God basically is an adulterous affair with King David. When he looked out from his balcony upon to the rooftops and saw this absolutely drop-dead gorgeous woman bathing on her roof and sent word and brought her, you know, took advantage of her, had a child with her that died as a result and here she is in the lineage of Messiah. Isn't that amazing? I don't bring up any of these examples to suggest that God is soft on sin. Please understand me, people. I'm not bringing these up in any way to suggest that, you know, God is winking at sin or saying that the things that these people did really aren't that important or that significant. I bring them up because it beautifully, once again, underscores the fact that Jesus came to save sinners and Jesus came to use people's lives and He can use your life no matter what your life has been through, no matter what things you've done, no matter how you've lived, no matter what sin and immorality you've been involved in. Give your life to Him and He will take your life and make it new and He will do a beautiful thing with it and maybe you've already given God your life and you're still, you've got issues and maybe it's your marriage. Maybe your marriage kind of bears a similarity to Rahab or something. It's just not that fun, it's just not that good. Maybe it's a relationship, maybe it's something else in your life that you're just kind of holding here as you go into 2012 and you're hanging on to it and it's a problem, it's an issue with you. And I want to encourage you to just give your life to God. You've got nothing to lose and I mean nothing. Give your life to God, give your situation, give your marriage. If your marriage is in trouble, just give it to the Lord. Just say, you know what, Lord? It's yours. I'm going to let you do with it what you want. I'm taking a hands-off approach to my marriage, to my family. I'm no longer going to step in and try to fix things or try to manipulate things in some kind of a positive way because every time I do, I just mess it up more. I'm going to give it to you because I've seen in your word that you've taken people like Rahab and Tamar and Bathsheba who don't necessarily have this great picture of perfect ethics but you used their lives for your purpose. And I see that no matter what I've been through, no matter what I've done, no matter what I've experienced, you can use my life too. And if I just give it to you, just give you lordship of my life, you can take my life and use it for something beautiful, something powerful, something that's going to be a glory to you and a strength to the kingdom of God. Listen, people, don't ever, don't ever shortchange God as it comes to Him being able to use your life. Don't ever say to somebody, oh, you don't know what I've done. Who cares? I mean, you know, we care. I don't mean to say it that way. I mean to say who cares as if to say it's not too big for God. Nothing is impossible with God, nothing. And if He can use the lives of the people that we see who are sprinkled throughout this genealogy, He can use your life too. He can use your marriage. He can use your relationships. Whatever issues are weighing you the most today, give them to God. He can take them, He can use them. He can glorify His name through them and bring strength through those very things. ♪♪ ♪♪