Genealogy of Jesus: From Fall to Redemption
Transcript
Good evening. Man, what a way to close out the evening. What a way to close out our time here at Glen Forest. I'm so thankful for our worship team and how they lead us. We're going to be celebrating Christmas tonight by looking at Matthew 1, the genealogy of Jesus. And here's why.
Jesus was born into a family. He was born into a family history, a family tree. And that matters. So we're going to take a look at that. A few years ago, I got interested in our family tree. And I learned something.
We moved, my family moved from Germany in the 1600s to Pillion. And for the last 400 years, we've kind of stayed in the same spot. Pillion, Lexington, West Columbia for like 300 plus years. This is where we've been. And I've looked at our family history because it's pretty extensive. And there are some people in it that are admirable.
Like I look at my grandfather who was a titan of a man. He's such a bright spot in our family's history. And there's some other people that do some kind of crazy things. It's a mixed bag because when you're born into a family history, there's good, there's bad, there's moments of brokenness, there's moments of hope. But that's family histories.
And Jesus was no different. He was born into a family. And what we're going to see as we walk through his genealogy, we're going to see as we walk through his background, we're going to see hope and how it meets brokenness. And that really is the story of Christmas. Christmas is a season where we celebrate that hope entered into a broken world. So we're going to be in Matthew 1.
You don't have to follow along because we don't have Bibles out at night, but we'll have it on the screen. So you can follow along there. Verse 1, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Okay, that is a heading. This is not Ancestry.com. He's not about to go this person and this person and this person.
Matthew is retelling the genealogy of Jesus differently. He's telling it thematically. He's sending a bunch of 14 groups of names and he's skipping generations because he's trying to tell a story. By telling Jesus his history. And he starts off by saying, son of David. And that's significant.
David was the king in Jewish history. Everyone looks back to the time of David. That was the glory days. He was the savior type king who brought the nation together and established them as a people. This is the king that slaughtered Goliath as a boy. That helped defeat the surrounding enemies.
That made Israel a light to the surrounding nations. Everyone looks back to David. So when you say son of David, that says something. In the same way that if I said I was the son of George Washington, which I'm not. We're in pillion, y'all. If I said I was the son of George Washington, that would say something.
That would speak volumes about my history. So it says son of David. But what we're about to see is he doesn't just highlight the good moments, the moments of hope, the moments of the bright spots. Matthew's going to go out of his way to highlight the brokenness in the line of Jesus. So he starts off with son of David.
Verse 2. Abraham was the father of Isaac. Isaac, the father of Jacob. These are the patriarchs. These are where the people of God come from. The Israelites look back to father Abraham.
They look at their three patriarchs with joy looking at their history. This is the formation of their people. They look back at this with so much hope. And then it fades into brokenness fairly quickly. It says Jacob, the father of Judah and his brothers. Now, we walked through Genesis in the past year plus.
It was a long time in Genesis, y'all, but it was good. When we got to Judah, I just kind of said, y'all, God could have chosen any of the twelve brothers to bring about the Savior of the world. But he chooses Judah. Who I'd argue is the worst. His stories are not great. Judah sold his brother into slavery.
Pretty much all the highlights we get of him aren't great. And Matthew doesn't skip over this. He says, Judah, the father of Perez and Zerah. And he could have just kept going. But he says, Ba-Tamar, which highlights the brokenness of his past.
That's the worst moments of Judah when his daughter-in-law, Tamar, her husband dies. And he doesn't make sure that she's taken care of. So she, when he is drunk, they sleep together. It's incestuous. It gets weird. And he wants to have her burnt alive.
It's a messed up story. It's a broken story. And Matthew doesn't skip over it. No, he leans into it and says, no, Ba-Tamar. Keeps going. And Perez, the father of Hezron.
Hezron, the father of Ram. Ram, the father of Aminadab. Aminadab, the father of Nahshon. Nahshon, the father of Salmon. Salmon, the father of Boaz by Rahab. And again, he could have just mentioned Boaz, but he mentions Rahab.
Rahab is a bright spot in one respect. She was of the people of Jericho and helped the people of God enter the Promised Land. She was a hero in that regard, but also she was a prostitute. And he doesn't skip over that. No, he mentions the brokenness and the hope that is in this line. He keeps going.
And Boaz, the father of Obed. Obed by Ruth, which is a beautiful story in the Old Testament. If you have not read it, go to the book of Ruth. And Obed, the father of Jesse. And Jesse, the father of David, the king. Now, that's the first set.
The first set of names. Leading up to David. And then we get to David. The bright spot. The king that everyone looks back to with joy. And he gets to David and he says, And David was the father of Solomon.
And he could have stopped there, but he doesn't. And he says, of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. And what he just did, was he referenced the worst part of David's history. The moment that he looked at Bathsheba, Uriah's wife. And he took her. And he slept with her.
And they conceived. And to cover it up, he had Uriah sent to the front lines and killed. He highlights David, not just as king, but also as adulterer and a murderer. Keeps going. And Solomon, Solomon, the father of Rehoboam, which could not be two different types of kings. Solomon, the philosopher king.
The wise one. Wrote the book of Proverbs. Ecclesiastes. Everyone looks back to his wisdom. And then you get to his son, Rehoboam, who was a fool. Who, when setting up the kingdom at a very touchy time, listens to his young friends for counsel.
Rejects the counsel of older, wiser men. And the kingdom breaks into two. And it is never the same. Then we get a mixed bag of kings of people, good and bad. Rehoboam, the father of Abijah. Abijah, the father of Asaph.
Asaph, the father of Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat, the father of Joram. Joram, the father of Uzziah. Uzziah, the father of Jotham. Jotham, the father of Ahaz. Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah.
By the time you get to Hezekiah, this is a good example of a king in their history. A good example in the line. Took down Adosh. All kinds of things. But his son could not be any different.
Hezekiah, the father of Manasseh. Manasseh was the most insidious and evil king in the history of the people of God. He sacrificed his own son, burnt him on an altar to a foreign God. This is who the Savior of the world comes through. Manasseh. Manasseh, the father of Amos.
Amos, the father of Josiah. Josiah, the father of Jehoshaphat and his brothers at the time of the deportation of Babylon. Now, I'm not going to read the last ones. I'm just going to give you the highlights of what happened. They spread across the Babylonian empire because of their sin, because of the rebellion. Eventually get back.
They establish themselves again in the land. And there's a 400 plus year period of waiting. A 400 plus year period of darkness. Waiting for someone to come. Waiting for a Savior to bring them out of their situation. As one nation at the other rules over them.
Just as the people of God waited 400 plus years in darkness in Egypt. Waiting for a Savior to come and rescue them. They are waiting. And then finally, finally, on a night in a small town in Bethlehem. Skip down to verse 16. And Jacob, the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.
Finally, on a dark night, hope enters the broken world. What I love about the genealogy of Jesus is that He comes from a broken line of messed up people. Because He comes for a broken, messed up people. This world is broken and marred by sin. But the God of the universe doesn't look at the world and say, I'm going to destroy you.
He doesn't look at the world and say, I don't care about it. He comes and He rescues us. He loves us so much that He comes in the form of a babe on a night in Bethlehem. The God of the universe humbles Himself of becoming a baby. And He grows up. And He obeys the Father perfectly.
And He takes that perfect record with Him to the cross. Where our brokenness and our rebellion and our sin is paid for on the cross. And when He steps out of the tomb on Resurrection Sunday, hope, eternal, beautiful, unending, unfading hope is born and is offered to anyone who would believe. That is why I love the story of Jesus. He comes from a broken people for broken sinners like you and me. And that is the hope of Christmas.
That is what we celebrate every single year. We pause and remember that God loved us so much that He came from heaven and He sought us. That's the good news of the Gospel. And as we go through the next few days of celebrating, whatever traditions you do as you exchange gifts, as you listen to your uncle talk about politics ad nauseum, whatever it is that happens in your family, may we not forget this. May we not forget while we sing these songs, while we gather here. Because there's a loving God who came for us.
May we remember that He comes for the broken. I know that some of you, that this is a difficult season. Some of you have been wrestling with some serious suffering. Maybe some serious sin. Maybe this year brings up all kinds of painful memories. I want to say very clearly to you that this season is because God loves you.
He loves you so much that He sent His Son to die for you. So that you would believe in Him. And for eternity experience this hope. For eternity you would taste and see and Savior this King.