THE GENEALOGY OF JESUS
Matthew 1:1-17
Key Verse: 1:1
"A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ
the son of David, the son of Abraham."
Merry Christmas! As we all know, Christmas is about Santa Claus and
nice presents, right? No! What is it about then? It is Jesus’ birthday. My
friends, today we want to study about Christmas by tracing the roots of Jesus
through his genealogy. The genealogy of Jesus includes the Jewish
patriarchs, kings and several unique women. We can learn that the family
tree of Jesus is deeply planted in the faithfulness of God from the beginning
to the end. May God help us to learn how God faithfully kept his promise to
send a Savior of the world.
Part I: Jesus Christ, David and Abraham (1, 2).
Read verse 1. "A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of
David, the son of Abraham." The word ‘genealogy’ means the study of ones
race or descent. When the world was first created, it was good; it was
paradise in which man lived for the glory of God and enjoyed utmost
happiness. But through one man Adam's disobedience to the holy command
of God, sin and death came into the world (Ro 5:12). Since then, man lost
paradise and the world has gone to heck in a hand basket on roller-skates.
What did God do in this situation? God, in his great mercy, made a new plan
of world salvation. God promised to send a Savior from the offspring of a
woman (Ge 3:15). In his genealogy, Matthew recognized three people-Abraham, David and Christ--as three pillars in the genealogy, because God
gave each of them special promises and made them covenant people
(Ge12:2,3; 2Sa 7:12-16; Mt1:21). God helped them to live as covenant
people, who believed his promises that God would send a Savior of the
world (Ge 15:6; Ro 4:3). Let’s study about three main characters in this
genealogy.
First, Abraham. Abraham was 75 years old when God called him.
Abraham’s human desire was to have a son and to be a noble father.
However, his wife Sarah was barren. This made Abraham fatalistic. It
seemed that no matter how hard he worked or what he might accomplish, it
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would end with his death; he would leave nothing behind. He had no human
hope. One day, God said to Abraham, “I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you; I will make your name great and you will be a blessing”
(Gen 12:2). Abraham put his faith and hope in God’s promise. Abraham
obeyed God practically by leaving his country and family to go to the land
God would show him. Abraham began to honor God as God with material
possessions, in human relationships, and through devotion to God in altar
building and prayer. But after ten years, Abraham faced a human limitation.
He felt that living a holy life with the hope of God was only a losing
business, like selling ice cream to Eskimos. At that moment, God helped him
put his whole trust in God and his promise. Romans 4:18 describes Abraham
like this: “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the
father of many nations....” Abraham believed and hoped in God, because he
considered God faithful to his promise. Abraham’s faith in God’s promise
pleased God. God blessed Abraham’s faith by giving him a son, Isaac, and
by making him into a great nation, and ultimately by sending the Christ,
Jesus, through his line.
Second, David. Around 1,000 B.C., back when I was in high school,
God called David, a shepherd boy, who was the youngest of the eight sons
of Jesse. When God called David he had a great purpose for him. It was to
establish through him a kingdom of priests, that is, a shepherd nation, and a
model of the theocratic kingdom of God. God said to David, “Your house
and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be
established forever.” (2Sa 7:16) In essence, David was a shepherd. When he
was shepherding his father's sheep, many times wild animals came to attack
and eat the sheep. But David fought them, risking his own life. He was also
a shepherd for his people. When the Philistine champion, Goliath,
challenged the army of Israel, no one dared to fight a duel against him. But
David risked his life and fought Goliath and defeated him with one
slingshot. Once, when he was running for his life as a political criminal,
many needy people--around 400 of them--came to him for help. David was
in a helpless situation, but he shepherded them as if they were his own children. Because of his shepherd heart, he was known as a man after God's own
heart (Ac 13:22). When God's time came, God established him as the king of
the united kingdom of Israel. He knew that God's purpose for him was to
rule over his people as a shepherd king. He served God's purpose in his
generation with absolute obedience. (Ac 13:36) His absolute obedience to
God and shepherd heart toward people was the quality that made him the
second ancestor of faith.
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Read verse 2. "Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of
Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers." Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, these three persons of three generations had ups and downs in their
lives of faith, but basically they lived by faith in God's promises. Hebrews
11:9 says of Abraham, "By faith he made his home in the Promised Land
like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob,
who were heirs with him of the same promise." Since God blessed them
abundantly, they could have lived in mansion houses. But they did not do so.
Three generations lived a tent life as the expression of their faith in God
Almighty. They became a good influence to their descendants. We can learn
here the importance of raising one man until he has the unshakable faith of a
patriarch. During the last year, God has blessed UBF USA/Canada by
sending pioneering families to fourteen new campuses. In light of this
genealogy, we should pray for each pioneering chapter to raise an ancestor
of faith like one of the patriarchs.
Third, Jesus. Jesus is the perfecter of faith, while Abraham and David
were models of faith. When God sent Jesus to the world, God had a definite
purpose for him. Matthew 1:21 says, "She will give birth to a son, and you
are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their
sins." In order to fulfill God's will, Jesus had to die on the cross for the sin of
the world. Although God made Jesus a ransom sacrifice, Jesus obeyed unto
death, death on the cross. Jesus became a sacrificial Lamb for the sin of the
world. On the cross, while his mother and the others cried endlessly, Jesus
said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Lk
23:34a). Praise Jesus, who is the perfecter of faith (Heb 12:2).
In this way, Matthew began by showing that Jesus was a descendant
of Abraham and a direct descendant of David, fulfilling Old Testament
prophecies about the Messiah’s line. This is the first of many proofs
recorded by Matthew to show that Jesus is the true Messiah.
Part II: Women of faith (3-6).
In the genealogy of Jesus, three Gentile women are mentioned. They
are Tamar, Rahab and Ruth. Typically, the Jews did not regard women
highly. Moreover, they were Gentiles. Yet Matthew includes these three
women. It is because they had the faith that pleased God.
First, Tamar (3a). Tamar was from a town 20 miles west of Jerusalem.
(Gen 38:12) She was an abandoned widow after the consecutive deaths of
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her two husbands, the sons of Judah. Judah promised to give his third son to
her, but did not. When Judah was emotionally weak after the death of his
own wife, Tamar dressed as a prostitute, slept with Judah and conceived. But
her act was regarded as an act of faith because she risked her life to fulfill
her duty as a wife and mother. Then, because God had mercy on her, her life
was spared, Judah repented, and God granted twin babies. In this way, she
became the great-great-great-grandmother of Jesus.
Second, Rahab (5a). Rahab was a Gentile prostitute who lived in the
walls of Jericho. But by faith she helped the spies of Israel to hide in her
house when they came to Jericho to spy out the land (Josh 2:1-21; Heb
11:31). She had the absolute fear of God, the God of Israel, whom she
believed to be the Creator of heaven and earth. Because of her personal faith
in the Creator God, the army of Israel could conquer Jericho, the first
invincible fortress in the Promised Land. Later, Rahab became the mother of
Boaz and the great-great-grandmother of King David. She was also included
in the genealogy of Jesus.
Third, Ruth (5b). Ruth was from Moab, a Gentile woman. One day
her Jewish husband died. But Ruth gave up her second chance to marry and
decided to follow her mother-in-law, Naomi, back to the foreign country
Israel, while the other daughter-in-law Orpah went away to remarry. God
honored Ruth's faithfulness as a precious factor in the history of God and
made her the great-grandmother of King David. God also included her in the
genealogy of Jesus.
Through Tamar, Rahab and Ruth, we learn that that God works
through faith, and he is pleased by those who live by faith, regardless of
gender or nationality. God’s work in history is not limited by human failures
or sins. Just as God used all kinds of people to bring his Son into the world,
he uses all kinds today to accomplish his will. And God wants to use you.
Part III: Our God is a faithful God (7-17).
Read verse 17. “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.” Matthew organized Israel’s history
into three periods. The first was the period of the patriarchs from Abraham
to David (2-6a). God helped these patriarchs to pass their faith and blessing
from one generation to the next. The second period was the time of the kings
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from David to the exile. Those mentioned in verses 6b-11 are all kings of
Judah. The third period is from the exile to Babylon to the Christ.
Verses 7-15 speaks of two tragic events in the history of Israel. The
first tragic event was the division of the nation. The real cause of this
division was in David’s son, Solomon himself. At the beginning of his reign,
Solomon obeyed God. But later, when he had firmly established his
kingdom, Solomon began to indulge in corruption by having too many
foreign women through royal marriages (1 Ki 11:1-6). Napoleon once said,
“Behind every great man is a great woman.” So Solomon must have thought
he was really great, because he had over 700 wives! Solomon was overly
confident about himself; he thought he could control all the women under
his reign. But he could not; instead, he was influenced by them. As a result,
he began to worship many foreign idols. Thus Solomon became unfaithful to
God and a bad influence to his people. Because of this idol worship, God
caused the nation to be divided into two. This division between Northern and
Southern Israel caused incessant war, which made the people miserable.
Throughout history, immorality has been the root cause of the destruction of
any nation. Seeing this, don’t be afraid to stand up for what is morally right,
God can use people who have moral standards in God.
The second tragedy was the Babylonian captivity. The exile to
Babylon was precisely God’s punishment on his people, Israel, for their sins.
In that time of punishment they were driven from the Promised Land and
sent into Babylon. They lost all their privileges and became slaves. Their
human condition became as bad as it could be. Yet, at that very time, they
began to remember the promise of God to send the Christ. The hope of God
began to burn in their hearts. They began to sing, “O Come, O Come
Immanuel!” As a people, they revealed the faith of Abraham, whose hope
was only in God, when there was no hope in the world. God sanctifies his
people through divine discipline, though it is very costly. In this way, God
faithfully carries out his work through undeserving people. We believe that
the terrorist attack of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina are examples of God’s
divine discipline on America, calling us to repent and live as a kingdom of
priests and a holy nation.
In this passage we learn God's faithfulness. In spite of the fact that his
people sinned, God had never abandoned them. God was with them
faithfully to the end. We also learn that those who were included in the
genealogy of Jesus were those who pleased God by their faithfulness. Let's
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pray that we may please God with our faithfulness so that we may also be
included in the genealogy of Jesus.
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