Lineage of Jesus

[0:00] teacher, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, begat, begat, begat. Well, this genealogy has a little bit more than we realize. And so, as a creative way to start, if you'd open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter 1, children, you are dismissed.

[0:23] I'm going to play a song for you. This is by Andrew Peterson. It's called Matthew's Begats. And I'm going to, I have to play it into my microphone. So, I am tech basic.

[0:38] There's a jack on my stand. Brilliant, sister.

[0:57] Okay. Man. You are a gifted woman. More than the clarinet, sister. Thank you so much. All right.

[1:08] So, this is going to be about two minutes. Enjoy it. You ready, brother? E. Thanks, brother.

[1:28] Appreciate it. All right. Yeah.

[1:38] Thank you.

[2:08] Thank you.

[2:38] Thank you.

[3:08] Thank you.

[3:38] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[3:50] Amen. Let me pray and let's start talking genealogies. Father God, would you now cause your spirit to fall afresh upon us that we can see Christ in these pages in a way that will cause our hearts to rejoice that our Christ, our Savior, our King has come.

[4:19] God, would you minister to us as your church? Would you unite us together around our Savior, King? In Jesus' name, amen. Well, we all have genealogies, as it turns out.

[4:35] Some of us know our genealogies better than others. This past Thanksgiving, I brought my immediate family down to my folks' house, and my mom's sister was in town, Aunt Carol, also Aunt Carol when I'm around her.

[4:52] She's a New Englander. And she had with her this red book with the title MacIntyre on it. And it was the genealogy of my mom's side of the family.

[5:03] And so she gave me a brief tutorial in something. So I had this descendant, Micah McIntyre, who came over to America in 1650 as a prisoner of the English royalists.

[5:22] Isn't that interesting? It explains a lot. Do you know why? Because I've always been drawn to bagpipes. I've always been drawn to, like, kilts. When I watch Braveheart, there's something native in me that comes out.

[5:36] I love face paint. I'm a Scottish Highlander who likes pasta. Genealogies, they tell you something about yourself.

[5:54] They inform. They tell you something about other people. A genealogy is a tool. It has a purpose to show you where you came from and who you're related to.

[6:09] They provide definition to who you are. It reveals something about you. For me, I've got Scottish Highlander roots.

[6:22] The Gospel of Matthew was originally written to Jews. And genealogies were of extreme importance. Because a genealogy would demonstrate someone's rightful claim to land, to inheritance, to title, to role.

[6:43] And so, if there was any kind of question about someone's rightful claim to something, there would be public genealogies opened and consulted to say, wait, what do the facts say?

[6:57] Genealogies show who a person is. And the genealogy here in Matthew 1, verses 1-17, I'll just be straight up with you. This genealogy has an incredible purpose.

[7:11] Its purpose is to help us to see that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ. We can read it so often that we kind of say, okay, yeah, I get it.

[7:25] But this was a major, it's a huge claim. The genealogy is a lineage of our King, of Christ. It shows us that He, in fact, is a descendant of Abraham.

[7:38] That He is connected to David. It is of incredible importance, considering that our salvation hangs on it. So, Matthew's genealogy is here to show us, to start the gospel, to show us who Jesus is from the outset.

[7:56] Jesus of Nazareth, He is Christ the King. And He came to bring salvation, blessing for all nations.

[8:10] So, this morning, what we're going to do is this. I want to help you understand what Christ means. It's not a last name. So, Christ. And then I want to help you see how this Christ is connected to a promise God made to Abraham, another promise He made to David, and then how that looks like, how it shows up in Jesus Himself.

[8:31] And finally, I want to connect that to us. So, we're going to start with Christ, go to Abraham, David, Jesus, us. You ready? Let's roll. Title. This title of Christ.

[8:43] Well, again, it's not Jesus' last name. It's not like Mike Salvati, Jesus Christ. It's more like Mike Pastor, Jesus the Christ.

[8:55] It's a title of a position, of a role. Christ is from a Greek word, Christos. And what that means is anointed one. And so, when you hear of that word Messiah, that's a Hebrew word.

[9:10] It also means anointed one. And so, when you hear Christ and Messiah, they're getting at the same thing. The anointed one. Now, we've got to ask this question.

[9:23] You hear that word anointing, and we've got to ask the question, well, what does that mean? Well, back in the Old Testament, anointing was the smudging of oil on one's forehead, or the pouring out of oil on one's head.

[9:37] And what it was, was a way to set somebody apart. And so, priests were anointed in the Old Testament. But for our purposes this morning, we've got to realize that kings were anointed in the Old Testament.

[9:56] Do you remember 1 Samuel 16? Oh, it's such a great, great account. Saul, the first king of Israel, he just totally blundered and lost it.

[10:09] God was like, I'm giving the kingdom to somebody else. And so, in 1 Samuel 16, God calls the prophet Samuel to go to Bethlehem to Jesse's house.

[10:20] And he says to him in verse 1, fill your horn with oil, like an ox horn, fill your horn with oil, and go, for I have provided for myself, that's God speaking, a king among his sons.

[10:37] So, Samuel goes to Bethlehem. Goes to Jesse's house, and first he sees this firstborn son, Eliab.

[10:47] And he was dashing. And Samuel's like, surely this is God's anointed. And God, this is that classic response.

[10:59] Samuel, don't look at the outward appearance. God doesn't look at the outward appearance. He looks at the heart. And so, what happens is, the next six brothers in line come in front of Samuel and God saying, no, not that one, not that one, not that one, not that one.

[11:14] Eventually, there's no more brothers in the house. And so, Samuel's like, Jesse, do you got any more boys? And Jesse says, well, we got this one other boy. He's out, he's shepherding the sheep right now in the fields.

[11:25] And so, Samuel's like, why don't you go get them? Samuel, well, David comes back. And when he comes into his house, God says to Samuel, arise, anoint him, for this is he.

[11:41] Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him on the spot in the midst of his brothers. So, what I want you to see here is anointing and kingship.

[11:54] David was anointed king with oil. And eventually, what this anointing came to be is not just the anointing of a king, but eventually came to be associated with the anointed one.

[12:13] A coming king who would be the king of kings. The Messiah. The Christ. The one who would come and establish David's throne forever.

[12:29] He would bring with him the blessing of salvation. And so, when we look at Matthew 1, verse 1, if you look at that, you see the book of the genealogy of Jesus, Jesus, the anointed one, the Christ, the Messiah, the long-awaited king.

[12:47] And then he says, son of David, son of Abraham. And what Matthew is seeking to do is help us to see that the Christ is connected to Abraham and David in very important ways.

[13:02] And so, let's go there now. Christ is not the last name of Jesus. It is a kingly title. And so, what I want to help you to see now is how Christ is connected to Abraham.

[13:18] Abraham comes up a number of times in this genealogy. You see it in 1-1, the son of Abraham. You see it in 1-2, Abraham was the father of Isaac.

[13:29] And then you see it coming up again in verse 17. So, all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations. Abraham is a connection that Matthew is trying to help us to see here.

[13:44] On a very basic level, Matthew is showing us that Jesus of Nazareth was descendant from Abraham. He's a Jew. But there's something really more significant going on here.

[13:55] There's a bigger picture issue that is a plan for the fullness of time going on here. God has made, back in Genesis 12, he makes this huge promise to Abraham.

[14:08] He says that he is going to make Abraham, this is Genesis 12, 1-3. He's going to make a nation out of him. And then he's going to bless all the families of the earth through him.

[14:23] It's a huge promise. And when he talks about blessing, he's talking about not just making nice people. What he's talking about is salvation, redemption, reconciling sinners to himself.

[14:40] And so this blessing is a blessing for all people because all people need to be reconciled to God. All of us are sinners. There's not one exception.

[14:52] Except the Christ. But for those of us here, we're all sinners. And so God wants a plan from Genesis 12, even before that, to bless all nations through Abraham.

[15:10] To experience a right relationship with the one true living God. And by all nations, what he's talking about is not just Jews, but all Gentiles, everybody. A plan for the nations.

[15:22] So Genesis 12, we learn that God has this plan to bless the nations. And then in Genesis 22, God gets a little bit more specific. You remember Genesis 22? Abraham offers Isaac, his only son.

[15:35] And it's in that narrative that God gets even more specific with Abraham. He says not only is he going to bless all the nations, he's going to bless the nations through one particular offspring of Abraham.

[15:56] It's getting very, very specific. He goes from talking about a multitude of offspring to a particular offspring. So here's what I'm trying to help you to see.

[16:08] God's going to bless the nations with salvation through one particular offspring of Abraham. Who do you think that is? It's the Christ.

[16:22] So bear with me. I know we're kind of in deeper waters. Would you go to Galatians chapter 3, verse 16? Galatians chapter 3, verse 16.

[17:00] He's referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring who is Christ. Christ, the anointed one.

[17:13] The Messiah, the long-awaited one. Matthew is helping us see that the Christ is the offspring, one offspring of Abraham, whom God was planning from eternity past to bless all the nations with salvation.

[17:32] It's amazing. You know, there's an implication right away that I just want to help you guys see. God is faithful. He has had a plan from before the beginning of time, a plan to bless all people, all nations with salvation.

[17:49] And so even now, we think about the birth of Jesus, not as some kind of random event, but as a great plan from far long back for God to bless the nations.

[18:06] And so we rejoice. Our King has come. Christ is a kingly title. Christ is the one offspring of Abraham and whom He wants to bless the nations.

[18:19] But what about David? What about David? If you look at 1-1, the book of genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David. And then in verse 6, we read, And Jesse, the father of David the king, and David was the father of Solomon.

[18:37] In verse 17, so all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations. Now, when Jews would hear the word David, you know what would happen?

[18:52] The good king. The good king. Fondness. Yes. The one who brought God's kingdom, established God's kingdom in Jerusalem.

[19:04] The man after God's own heart. So in their minds, as with ours, when we hear the name David, we start thinking king.

[19:16] You know, Brett Favre just recently had his jersey retired. Number four, it's hanging in Lambeau Field, right? When Jews would hear of David, they would think about the great king like a retired jersey.

[19:36] David on the back of the jersey. Hanging for all to see. As God made a covenant with Abraham, he also made a covenant with David.

[19:52] And I pointed you to this last week. It's in 2 Samuel chapter 7. God makes a very unique promise to David. He tells David that he is going to establish David's house and his kingdom forever, forever and ever.

[20:08] There will be always someone from the line of David sitting on the throne. There's going to be a king, a forever king that comes from David's line that will rule over a forever kingdom of peace.

[20:21] 2 Samuel 7 is a messianic promise. It's specifically stating that there will always be a descendant of David on David's throne.

[20:36] A king who reigns forever. All right. Would you turn to Isaiah chapter 9? Verses 6 and 7.

[20:52] Handles Messiah, anyone? We're very familiar with verse 6. For to us a child is born. To us a son is given.

[21:02] And the government shall be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor. Mighty God. Everlasting Father. Prince of Peace. This is a messianic prophecy.

[21:16] In verse 7 it says this. Of the increase of his government of peace there will be no end. On the throne of David. And over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.

[21:31] The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. The coming Messiah King. The coming Christ. Is going to be a descendant of David.

[21:44] He's going to bring with him a kingdom of peace. And we all long for peace. What Matthew is showing us is this. That the Christ.

[21:56] The Messiah. The anointed one. Must be a descendant of David. He's going to sit on his throne.

[22:10] Now if you look at verses 6 through 11 in chapter 1. What we see is that Matthew starts by naming David. It's at the end of that first kind of verses 1 through 6.

[22:24] And Jesse the father of David the king. Do you know if you counted all those up David would be number 14 in terms of the one listed. And so you know that you know that jersey of David hanging.

[22:38] Imagine David's name on the back with number 14 on it. That's his number. It's number of David. So Matthew starts with David.

[22:49] And he initiates talking about the regal dynasty of Israel. The throne succession. Verses 6 through 11.

[23:00] And what you notice about verses 6 through 11 is this. That you have faithful kings and you have unfaithful kings. You have kings that led God's people to God.

[23:12] And you have kings that led God's people away from God. And this center section begins with David. The darling king.

[23:22] And then it lands really flat. So if you look at verse 11. It says, And Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers in the time of the deportation to Babylon.

[23:38] Jeconiah was the guy who was reigning when the Babylonians came in and conquered Jerusalem and brought them to Nineveh.

[23:49] Brought them to Babylon. What we have in this little section is the king that established the kingdom. And then we also have the king under which the kingdom got dismantled and dissolved and deported.

[24:04] And you kind of left at the end of verse 11 thinking, Hey, is this promise of 2 Samuel 7, is that going to stand? Because the king is gone.

[24:15] What's going to happen to the kingdom? But what we know and what Matthew is bringing out is that even though the kingdom dissolved under Jeconiah, the covenant God, is going to be faithful to what he said to David in 2 Samuel 7.

[24:32] He's going to bring up a king. He's going to bring up a descendant. Matthew is showing us that the Christ is a descendant of David.

[24:46] He is fulfillment of 2 Samuel 7. So, so far what I've tried to do is this. Christ is not a last name.

[24:56] It's a title of a king. Christ is connected to Abraham. God is going to bless through the Christ, the offspring, all the nations of the planet with salvation.

[25:08] And now what we've just seen is that this Christ must be a descendant of David. And he's going to take up David's throne. And so now let's ask this question.

[25:21] What does all this have to do with Jesus? So here's the logic. The offspring of Abraham, that one offspring, is the Christ who is Jesus of Nazareth.

[25:36] The descendant of David of 2 Samuel 7 is the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. The connection that Matthew is making for us is the purpose of the genealogy.

[25:51] It's to show us that Jesus of Nazareth is the fulfillment of Genesis 12 of 2 Samuel 7. He is the Christ.

[26:03] He is the fulfillment of God's covenant with Abraham and David. He is the forever king.

[26:17] And he is a king that came and was crucified on a cross in order to bring blessing to all who would believe. And not only was he crucified, he was raised from the dead.

[26:30] Not only raised from the dead, but exalted. Where he's reigning now. And he welcomes all who come to him by faith. So in verse 1, what we've seen is that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

[26:45] Jesus is the Christ. He's the long-awaited king. He's the one who brings blessing. He's the one who brings a new reign for a new people. Verse 16.

[26:58] Mary, whom Jesus was born, who is called the Christ. Jesus is the Messiah. That's what Matthew's showing us. In verse 17, I'm guessing you picked up on this.

[27:11] Verse 17. So all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations. And from David to the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations. And from the deportation to Babylon to Christ, 14 generations.

[27:22] And so you're thinking kind of like, what's the deal with 14? What's up with that? Well, there was a practice among Jews to give numeric values to letters of the alphabet.

[27:37] And so just take the name David and just think about the consonants, DVD. So the numeric amount given to D would be 4.

[27:52] The numeric kind of amount given to V would be 6. And that last D, of course, is 4.

[28:02] Does anybody know how much 4 plus 6 plus 4 is? 14. And so what's happening here is a numeric value is given to David.

[28:15] And so if you look at it through that lens, what's going on here is this. Verse 17 is basically saying 14 generations. David, David, David.

[28:27] King, king, king. Our salvation has come. The first 14 lead up to David. He established the kingdom. The middle 14 ends in Jeconiah, the one in whom the kingdom was dismantled and dissolved.

[28:43] But then what we see at the end of this genealogy, the Christ is that Jesus takes on David's retired jersey.

[28:56] He takes on number 14. He's the greater son. He's the fulfillment. He's the offspring. He's the son of David. He's the king.

[29:14] So under his reign, he has come. Under his reign, he established a new and better kingdom to bless all the nations of the world. So one of the things that we pull out of this, you know what it is?

[29:29] As Christians, those who've come into a knowledge of who this king is and we've bowed our knee, we've been saved, we rejoice. Our king has come. It's amazing.

[29:40] That he would include us in his kingdom. I'm getting ahead of myself. I want to see how this genealogy from the first century connects with people like us in the 21st century.

[29:58] It still stands. The kingdom has been established through Jesus' death and resurrection.

[30:08] He's reigning now. He's the king. And so you know what the question becomes? Is he your king?

[30:22] Have you come under his reign? Have you submitted yourself by faith to the king of kings and lord of lords, the anointed one? The one who brings blessing.

[30:34] The one whose reign is good. Have you by faith bowed your knee before him? And for those of us who have bowed our knees, do we remember how awesome he is?

[30:52] How glorious he is. That in the coming of this baby came our salvation. The fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham and God's promise to David.

[31:05] What I've tried to do this morning is show you who the Christ is, how that's connected to Abraham, how that's connected to David, how that's connected to Jesus, and how that's connected to us.

[31:17] Did you ever think that there's so much in a genealogy? Let me close by saying this. This genealogy is good news.

[31:30] And in the words of the angel of Luke, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Rejoice, brothers and sisters.

[31:40] Our king has come. Let's pray. Lord God, we thank you for this genealogy in Matthew. We thank you, God, that you've laid out for us that Jesus of Nazareth is our king, who brings the blessing of salvation, who brings a glorious reign that will last forever.

[32:05] We are grateful, God, that you would include us in us, and we'll let this fuel our praise for you this Christmas season. You are worthy, God, of our praise. And it's your name we pray.

[32:17] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.