This sermon is from the series on the LIFE OF CHRIST and was preached at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Cherry Log, Georgia on Sunday, October 5, 2014 by Pastor Paul Mims. You can hear this sermon at www.csbccl.org
Matthew 1:1-17Have you ever wondered about the people in your line of ancestors? It is easy now to discover who they are. With the discovery of DNA science you can be taken back hundreds of years and even to other countries to find out who is in your genome. There is a web site called AncestryDNA.com. For just $99 they will send you a kit to begin your search. You will take a saliva sample which will contain your DNA and send it back to them. They will analyze it and send you the results in about six weeks. That will give you the basics and if you want more you can combine it with Ancestery.com to go even farther back into your history.

There was a humorous song, years ago, called “I’m my own grandpa.” It tells about a widow who remarried. Her grown daughter later married her new husband’s father. Each couple had a child. The song says:

“This made my dad my son-in law,
my daughter was my ‘mother,’ cause she was my father’s wife.
Father’s wife then had a son,
he became my grandchild, for he was my daughter’s son.
My wife is now my mother’s mother,
now if my wife is my grandmother,
then I’m her grandchild…
As husband of my grandmother,
I’m my own grandpa.” (from Holmans New Testament Commentary, “Matthew”).

You probably did not read our scripture passage today for your devotional reading this morning. It is likely that you have not sought to memorize it either. For what possible meaning can all of the “begats” and “the father of” or “the son of” or “the daughter of” have for us who live in a world that is seething with uncertainty and hatred? Why is it important that we even consider the genealogy of Jesus? Perhaps our British friends can shed light on the answer.

When Queen Elizabeth dies or steps down, who will take her place? Prince Charles is next in line. Who is next in line? Genealogy gives the answer. The oldest child of Charles and Diana, Prince William, would be second in line, and their second son, Harry, would be third in line. The rulers of England must, at present, come from the line of Windsor, and those rulers are determined strictly by genealogy.

One of the first questions a Jew would ask of one who claims to be Messiah is, “Is He a son of Abraham?” Another question that must be answered is, “Is He in the line of David?” Matthew answers both of these questions in his first sentence, “The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Matthew divides the names into three groups of fourteen each corresponding to the three periods of national history: from Abraham to David – the theocracy; from David to the Babylonian exile – the monarchy; and from exile to the time of Christ – the hierarchy.

THAT WE MAY KNOW HIM is the theme for this study on the Life of Christ, our Lord. There are blessed family treasures that are embedded in lives of the people in His ancestry that have meaning for us. We will explore a few of them.

I. SON OF ABRAHAM
Do you remember that God chose Abraham to be the father of the Hebrew nation? Abraham was a pagan living in Ur of the Chaldees, which we know now as encompassing the Iraq-Iran area. God led him to leave that land to go “to a land I will show you.” He promised Abraham that his decedents would be as the “sand on the seashore.” But when he was seventy-five years old and Sarah was past child-bearing age there was still no child. God kept saying to him, “trust me” you will have a son. When he was about one hundred and Sarah was ninety, the promise was fulfilled and Isaac was born. God was not through testing Abraham to make him a man of stalwart faith. So when Isaac was just a boy, God required of him an ultimate sacrifice. “I want you to give him back to me by offering him as a sacrifice of faith. Go to the land of Moriah and offer him there.” The amazing story is told in Genesis 22 of how Abraham trusted God to the nth degree. They prepared an altar and Isaac was bound and placed upon it. “But father, where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” Isaac asked. “My son, God will provide.” As Abraham raised his hand to plunge the knife into the heart of Isaac, his hand was stayed and then the sound of a ram caught in a thicket was heard. Abraham freed Isaac and said, “Look son, the Lord provided the sacrifice.”

This was a foreshadowing of God offering his Son for a sacrifice for our sin. Jesus is known as The Lamb of God. It is assurance to us that God keeps his promises. This is a family treasure that we have taught our children and they have come to believe that God will keep every promise that He has made. Matthew includes four women in the family tree of Jesus, contrary to Jewish custom, and this shows us some deep spiritual treasures.

First, there was Tamar (v.3). She shows us that God can bring good out of broken families. Tamar’s story is in Genesis 38. Tamar was the daughter-in-law of Judah who was the son of Jacob, grandson of Abraham. Judah had a son named “Er” who married a Gentile woman named “Tamar”. Er died, and his brother, Onan, married Tamar. But he, too, suddenly died, leaving Tamar both husbandless and childless which was considered a curse in those days. She was impatient and unwilling to wait for God to supply her need, so she planned a scheme to trap her father-in-law, Judah, to sleep with her. She dressed up as a shrine prostitute and seduced Judah into sleeping with her by which she became pregnant and gave birth to twin boys—Perez and Zerah. When she confronted Judah with the truth, he said, “She is more righteous than I.” The story of her encounter with Judah is a story of human frailty and weakness—of the sinfulness of human flesh. That people like Judah and Tamar would be included in the line of the Messiah speaks loudly about the pure grace of God. No matter what you or anyone back in your past has done this is the story of redemption for believers.

The second woman was Rahab (v.5). We read about her in Joshua 2. When Joshua sent spies into Jericho, they came to the house of Rahab, the harlot. She was of the Canaanites, who were the hated enemies of Israel. She protected the spies by telling of a lie. A Harlot, a Canaanite and a liar is in the lineage of our Lord.

Her story is tied in with the larger story of Joshua’s conquest of the walled city of Jericho. Rahab hid the spies in her house and helped them get safely out of the city. They promised to spare her and her household when the invasion took place. She hung a scarlet cord from her window so the Israelites could identify her house. When the king of Jericho sent messengers asking her to bring out the men, she lied and said they had already left the city, but they were hiding on the roof. She let them out of a window with a rope, and they returned safely to Joshua.

Rahab became a believer in the God of Israel as Hebrews 11:31 says, “By faith Rahab …” She was a believer!

When the invasion came and the walls of Jericho fell down, she was spared and in the course of time became the great-great grandmother of King David. It is amazing how God can transform a life and use that person to achieve his ultimate purpose. This is another family treasure.

The third woman to be included in the ancestry of Jesus was Ruth (v.5). She, too, was not a Jew and was from the country of Moab. The book which bears her name tells of the romance that happened between Ruth of the Moabites and Boaz the Israelite. She gleaned grain for food in his fields. By the providence of God they were brought together in marriage. They had a son named, Obed, who had a son named, Jesse, who had a son named, David. This made her David’s great-grandmother. And that’s how a person from the hated nation of Moab entered the line of the Messiah. This is a family treasure of Jesus that shows that He would be for all people and not just for the Jews.

II. SON OF DAVID

The fourth woman that Matthew mentions is Bathsheba (v.6). She is clearly identified as the woman “who had been the wife of Uriah.” The story of David’s adultery with Bathsheba is told in 2 Samuel 11. It included adultery, lying, a cover-up, and ultimately murder. As a result the child conceived through that union died soon after birth and David’s family and his empire began to crumble.

Eventually David married Bathsheba and they had another son, Solomon, who is said to be the wisest man who ever lived. Bathsheba made the list of ancestors of our Lord which tells us that every sin can be forgiven. Psalm 51 is David’s prayer of repentance and Psalm 32 is his celebration of his forgiveness.
So the gospels prove the right of Jesus to sit on the throne of David and fulfill the promise that God made to Abraham. When Jesus was presented to the Jews as their Messiah, it is likely that they checked his genealogy records. The Jews were very careful to keep the genealogical descent of all the tribes which were kept in the Temple until it was destroyed in 70 AD.

Matthew’s lineage of Jesus was the real account of His heritage. Luke’s account in 3:23-28 is His legal right to the throne of David through the ancestry of Mary and is traced back to Adam.

III. THE SECOND ADAM
When you look at all these names, you can only come to one conclusion: God will work through all kinds of people to accomplish his will.

In I Corinthians 15:45-49, the Apostle Paul calls Jesus “The Second Adam”
“The first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam became a life giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.”

When we look at all of the human failures in the ancestry of Jesus it tells us that there is hope for us. Grace abounds for the person who comes to Christ in repentance and does not give up when circumstances make us want to quit. We do not lose hope regardless of what our family is doing or has done in the years gone by. Or when we have failed by violating all of our family values, God can still bring good to happen when we trust Him to do so.

When you look at all these names, you can only come to one conclusion: God will work through all kinds of people to accomplish his will. The marvelous truth is that earthy, sinful, mortal people made from the dust of the earth can live forever through the life giving spirit of the second Adam.

You say, “What has that to do with me?” It has everything to do with you! You are either IN ADAM or IN CHRIST. God sees you in one or the other. There are only two heads of the race: Adam and Christ. Christ is called in the Word of God the second Adam. He came to make right what the first Adam did. All through this genealogy we read that through Adam came all of our tears and sorrows and sins. But through Christ, come all our blessings and joys and victories. Every human being is either in Adam, condemned, or in Christ, un-condemned.

You are in Christ if you have trusted Him in repentance and faith. You are redeemed if you are His disciple. It is indeed a family treasure if all of your family members are in Christ.

PRAISE BE TO HIS NAME!