this Sunday morning before Christmas every other year we take a break from what we're normally preaching on and we will have a Christmas message and then every other year we remain in the text that we're at. This year we are looking at a Christmas passage and I was looking initially at Matthew 1 beginning in verse 18 and as I began to consider that passage I began reading in verse 1 and studying a little bit of what came before verse 18, and I changed my mind, and I'm not going to be preaching on verse 18 and following like the bulletin says, but we'll be preaching this morning on verses 1-17. Matthew chapter 1, beginning in verse 1. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez, and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nashon, and Nashon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, And Obed the father of Jesse, Jesse the father of David the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. And Solomon the father of Rehoboam. And Rehoboam the father of Abijah. And Abijah the father of Asaph. And Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat. And Jehoshaphat the father of Joram. Joram the father of Uzziah. Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers, and at the time of the deportation to Babylon. And after the deportation to Babylon, Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel the father of Abihud, the father of Eliakim. Eliakim, the father of Azor. Azor, the father of Zadok. Zadok, the father of Achim. Achim, the father of Eliud. Eliud, the father of Eleazar. Eleazar, the father of Matan. Matan, the father of Jacob. And Jacob, the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations. And from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations. And from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ, fourteen generations. Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place this way. And Matthew continues on with the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say. This is often not one of those passages that we tend to read as a family sitting around our Christmas tree at Christmas time. When we look at verse 1 of Matthew, chapter 1, the first book of the New Testament, we read this is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Well, in the Greek language as well as in the Hebrew, the word for the word for Genesis also means beginning, or birth, or genealogy. And so the very first words of the New Testament then can be translated this way, this is the book of the Genesis of Jesus Christ. Most translators though translate this word genealogy because a genealogy is what follows that, but the book of Matthew is only introduced by this genealogy. Verse 1 is talking about the book as a whole. I think the book is about much more than this list of names of the generations of men who lived from Abraham until David, and then from David until the deportation to Babylon when that particular family no longer sat on the throne of Israel, and then from that deportation until the birth of Jesus Christ. Matthew is the Genesis of the New Testament, just as Genesis is the Genesis of the Old. The Old Testament opens up with the actions of God, which both created and set into order the cosmos, or the world, or the universe, everything that we know that exists. In a similar way, the New Testament also opens up, talking about the actions of God, through which He established a new world order, which began with the person and work of Jesus Christ. But why does Matthew begin his Gospel with a genealogy? Was he not at all desiring to capture the attention of his readers? I know in modern days, if you start reading a book and it starts with a genealogy, there's a long list of names, this guy begat that guy, this guy begat that guy, we can't pronounce this guy's name or his either, People start falling asleep. It doesn't really capture our attention. Was Matthew trying to lose the interest of his audience? Doesn't he realize that reading a long list of names is confusing and tedious and sometimes boring? Well, in spite of how many Christians view this genealogy, which they view it as nothing more than a long list of names that were given in order to validate that Jesus was actually truly born of the house and lineage of David, the rightful who had the right to sit on the throne of Israel. It's more than that. If that were all that Matthew wanted to establish, was that Jesus was truly a son of David, he would have begun this genealogy with David. But he didn't. He began this genealogy back with Abraham. Matthew had the same Hebrew Bible that we have today. He knew that Abraham's father was Terah. and that his family tree was embedded within all the pages of scripture even before Abraham was born. So why did Matthew begin with Abraham and not something before? Why did he begin with Abraham and not someone after? Basically, Matthew is indicating to us that in order to rightly understand the gospel of Jesus Christ as he has chosen to present it in his gospel, we have to first go back at least to Abraham and understand what it is the Lord was doing there to prepare the world for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. God had revealed Himself to Abraham, and God had made many promises. He solved many problems. Abraham is the one that created the problems. He made many promises to Abraham in a number of different times throughout his life. And some of those promises that God made to Abraham were fulfilled in the nation of Israel, which were his own descendants, the descendants of Abraham. But many of those promises that God gave to him were not fulfilled in national Israel, but rather were fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The first promise that God made to Abraham was fulfilled partially in Israel, but only completely in Christ. God told Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. And in him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed." That's pretty astounding for God to say to one man. that in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." It was not the nation of Israel that blessed every family in the world. It was the person of Jesus Christ who came to take away the sins of the world. Now the Gospel of Matthew begins to make more sense to us. It begins with God's promise to Abraham to bless all the families of the earth. And the Gospel itself essentially ends with Jesus doing just that, and Him telling His disciples to go out to the ends of all the earth, making disciples of all nations. Knowing this helps us to make more sense of the Gospel of Matthew as a whole. There are many other promises that God had made to Abraham as well, which were fulfilled in Christ. And Christ is the Son of Abraham, who would be given all things, and inherit all of the promises that God gave to Abraham. and through whom all the families of the earth would be blessed." The genealogy continues for 14 generations. As I started studying this, I recognized pretty quickly that I could have easily began the first Sunday in December and done a series of four or five sermons on justice genealogy to have a really good understanding of it. But I'm not going to do that. We're just going to kind of take a brief flyover here. So we're just going to skip 14 generations and up comes David. We get to David and Matthew specifically points out in verse 17 that all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations and from David to the deportation of Babylon was 14 generations and from the deportation to Christ was 14 generations. Matthew is telling us there is intentional structure in what I've laid out before you. What I wrote, this list, is intentional. And each list has a heading, or a beginning. Abraham was the head of the first part, and David is the head of the second. Now God had promised David that his throne would be established forever before the Lord. From that point onward, the Psalms look forward to the day when a great king would come and rule David's throne over lands which extended far beyond the borders of Israel when David himself ruled. In other words, David heard the promises that were given to him by the Lord that his throne would be established forever, but he understood that God was talking about his descendants, not himself. And he wrote many in the Psalms about that, of looking forward to that descendant of his who would come and be the fulfillment of all these marvelous promises God had given to him. It was about Christ that David wrote in Psalm 2, I will tell of the decree, the Lord said to me, you are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them to pieces like the potter's vessel. Now therefore, O kings, be wise, be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling, and kiss the sun, lest he be angry. And you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled, and blessed are all who take refuge in him." And again in Psalm 110, David writes, a psalm of David, the Lord says to my Lord. Well, this is a passage that was quoted a lot in the New Testament by the apostles and by Jesus to the Jewish people, because they knew this. And he says, who is David talking about here? David is saying, the Lord God, Yahweh, said to my Lord. Well, who is David referring to as my Lord? And the Pharisees and the scribes had no answer, because David was the king. He did not have a Lord other than God. But he's talking to God about a different Lord. The Lord said to my Lord, which is speaking of Christ, who would be his own descendant. And he refers to his own descendant, 14 generations later, or 28 generations later, as his Lord. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord, Yahweh, sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies. He's speaking right to Christ here. This is David writing to his great-great-great-great times 28 grandson. Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments from the womb of the morning. The dew of your youth will be yours. The Lord God has sworn and will not change His mind. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Not only will you be a king, you're going to be a priest in the order of Melchizedek. somehow knew a whole lot about who Jesus would be. And it makes me wonder what all he knew and how he knew it. But it's marvelous that he did. David himself is looking forward to that King who would one day be born from his own family. Then we come to the third section in Matthew's genealogy. We'll skip another 14 generations. See how fast we're moving here? The removal of God's people from Jerusalem into bondage in Babylon, into the exile. God had promised, through Moses, that so long as the people remained faithful to the Lord, that the land of Israel would remain in their possession. But He also told Israel that if you disobey the Lord, the land will spit you out. And that is exactly what happened. The people did not remain faithful. The Lord was long suffering with them, But his long-suffering came to an end. And what happened as a result of their sin was exactly what God said would happen. The land spat them out. They were conquered by the Chaldeans or the Babylonians. They were besieged. Many of them were slaughtered. All of their possessions were stolen. And many of the survivors of that siege were taken as captives to Babylon. And they lived there for years and years. God promised judgment upon them if they broke the covenant of the Lord. Read about that promise in Deuteronomy 28, where he says, if you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, so that you may fear the glorious and awesome name of the Lord your God, then the Lord will bring upon you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions which are severe and lasting, and sicknesses and grievous and lasting. And he will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. And every sickness and every affliction that is not recorded in the book of this law, the Lord will bring upon you until you are destroyed. Whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, you shall be left few in number, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God." And that was true. The majority of the Jewish people were slaughtered by the Babylonians before the rest of them were taken captive to Babylon. You think the Holocaust in World War II is the first time the Jews went through something like that. They've been through things like that over and over and over again when you study their history. The Holocaust is just the latest in a long line of holocausts that God's people have suffered. And as the Lord took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the Lord will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you. And you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of. And the Lord will scatter you among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other. And there you shall serve other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. And among these nations you shall find no respite. There shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but the Lord will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and languishing soul." Those are difficult curses to hear. But these things all came about. when Israel was sent off into the deportation. That was not the end of the promises God had sworn to Abraham, but the rebellion against the Lord under the covenant that God made with Moses. This covenant was made with Moses. These threats. If you disobey me, I will curse you and throw you out of the land. They disobeyed. They broke that covenant that God made with them at Sinai under Moses. But the covenant that God made with Moses could not annul the promises that God had made to Abraham fourteen generations earlier. So Matthew continues to trace the royal line of Abraham and David even through this period of exile where God's people were living as slaves and then they were returned to Israel but in a far diminished capacity. And none of these men ever sat on the throne of their father David to demonstrate how God was remaining faithful to the promise given to Abraham. And Matthew continues to trace that line of this family who no longer are considered loyalty, but they are the line of promise. And he traces that line all the way through to a lowly carpenter living in Nazareth who was betrothed to a young woman whom God gave a son who would not simply restore the throne of his ancestor David, but he would usher in that far greater kingdom of God which was promised to David 28 generations previous. a man who was also the seed of Abraham, in whom all of the promises made to Abraham would be fulfilled. This genealogy is tracing God's faithfulness throughout the generations to bless all the families of earth through the seed of Abraham, with one who would be a king of a far greater kingdom than that of David, a king who would receive the worship of all nations. which is a promise we begin to see fulfilled in Matthew. This is how Matthew is introducing this man, Jesus. All these things are going to be fulfilled in this one person, Jesus Christ. And all the families of the earth will worship Him, which we begin to see fulfilled right in chapter 2. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men came from the east to Jerusalem. saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews, for we saw his star when it rose, and have come to worship him? To worship him? The blessing to all the nations God promised to Abraham was already beginning to be fulfilled in Jesus Christ, even in his infancy. These are kings or rulers of Gentile nations far away, coming to worship a Jewish king. when the Romans were occupying Israel. Isn't that odd that they would do this? Unless they were guided in fulfilling prophecy and held up by the hand of the Lord's providence. So Matthew is telling us that all the promises God made to Abraham, all the promises God gave to David, And many other promises as well were all coming to pass in this one person, Jesus Christ. That the entire direction of Biblical history from beginning up until this point has been pointing to this moment. The birth of the One in whom God would fulfill all of His promises made to His people throughout human history. Consider the words of this Christmas hymn. Christmas hymns are a lot of times those hymns that we're familiar with. We know the words, but we never really stop and listen to the words. But listen to the words. O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie. Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by. Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light. And the hopes and the fears of all the years are met in thee tonight. Are met in thee tonight. You ever think about that? There's tremendous potency in every line of this poem. That last line especially summarizes the point that Matthew is driving home in this genealogy. That the hopes and the fears of All the years, generations upon generation upon generation of human beings are met, are answered, are coming to pass in Bethlehem through the birth of this one man, Jesus Christ. The birth of Jesus was unlike the birth of any other man or king. In fact, his birth marks the dividing line between the two great epochs of human history, the time before Christ and the time after. Whenever we read history books, we read about the dates when certain events took place, events that took place prior to the birth of Christ are given with a number such as 1250 BC, which means 1250 years before Christ. And after Jesus was born, we count years up from then. So this year is the year 2017 AD. Which stands for the Latin phrase, Anno Domini. Which means, literally, the year of our Lord. The year of our Lord. Is this the year of our Lord? Or was last year the year of our Lord? I used to ask that question a lot when I was a kid. It didn't make sense. Well, when we read the Old Testament, we read in the Old Testament, the historical books, we read things like, in the fourth year of King Artaxerxes. Notice how they count years back then. They don't say in 1250 BC. They say in the fourth year of King Artaxerxes because years back then were counted according to the reigns of powerful kings. And until that king died and a new king came to place, they wouldn't start that counting over. But when a new king would come to place, they started again, starting with the first year of King Solomon And then they count up again until he dies and is replaced by a new king. That's how ancient history was always recorded. But after Christ was born, there has never been a greater king than he. And he is still reigning even now. So this is still the year of our Lord Jesus Christ. Right now, we are living in the 2700th year of the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why we call this year 2017, instead of Year the first year of the reign of President Trump. I like 2017 better. At the very center of all of human history stands the Lord Jesus Christ. Another important feature of Matthew's genealogy is that it included in it the names of women. Genealogies like this one in the ancient world never ever contained the names of women. This is quite unusual, but their names are included in Matthew's genealogy in order to teach us some important lessons which Matthew feels we need to know to prepare us to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ as he is going to write it. The first three of these women are Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. All three of these women's lives are full of scandal. if you know who they are from Biblical history. We read in verse 3, Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. And when we go back to Genesis chapter 38 and read about the birth of Perez and Zerah and how it was that Tamar came to be pregnant by them, we read that Tamar was actually the wife of Judah's oldest son. She was not his wife. She was the wife of his son. Well, his son was really evil and God killed him for it. So she was married to the next oldest son in the same family, which was the custom in those days. He was evil before the Lord, and the Lord killed him. So she was promised to be given to the next son, but he was not yet old enough to marry. Judah promised her that he would still give her a husband to provide her with a son so that she could be provided for in her old age. But because he never kept his promise, Tamar dressed up one day as a prostitute and she seduced Judah, her father-in-law, and became pregnant by that and bore twins, Perez and Zerah. That's what Matthew is talking about here. Even by today's standards, that is scandalous. You would think that this genealogy of a great king trying to show how great he is that as someone is recording his genealogy, they would take all of the skeletons in the family closet and leave them in the closet and shut the door. But Matthew doesn't do that. He brings them all out and he displays them. In the line of Jesus Christ, from Abraham to Christ, is a woman who dressed as a prostitute and seduced her father-in-law to bear children and they were of the line of Christ. Then we come to verse 5 and we read, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab. Here's Rahab, another woman mentioned in this genealogy. Now Rahab, if you recall, lived as a prostitute in the city of Jericho when Joshua came through conquering the land and her life was spared while everyone else in that city was put to death. Rahab eventually became a follower of the Lord and married a Jewish man named Salmon and was the father of Boaz. Rahab was a Gentile a prostitute, and a woman. And she was blessed by the Lord to be in the line of Jesus Christ. She was the mother of a man named Boaz, whom we come to Ruth. She too was a Gentile who married a Jewish man who died, leaving her childless. But she remained loyal to her own mother-in-law rather than going back to her people and eventually married Boaz, who was Rahab's son. in one of the greatest love stories contained in the Bible, in the book of Ruth, which is also a story about the nature of the redemption that God gives His people in the Gospel. All three of these women were Gentiles and less than glorious in the eyes of man, to say the least, yet all of them were counted worthy by God as He inspired this genealogy to be written in His Holy Word, to be included in this genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then the fourth woman mentioned in this genealogy is mentioned but not by her name. She is referred to by the name of her first husband who was murdered by King David in order to cover up his sin of adultery with her. She is mentioned by Matthew in verse 6 this way, and David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. King Solomon, one of the greatest kings in the whole history of the nation of Israel, was the son of a woman that his father committed adultery with and murdered her husband to cover it up. Scandal. Shame. Sin. Wickedness. The only reason anyone would read this genealogy and think that it's boring is if they're unfamiliar with the history behind it. This is more of a soap opera than a boring list of names. This family history is anything but boring. What is more, we see Matthew here foreshadowing the very kinds of people that Christ came into the world to save. Not only men, but women. Not only Jews, but Gentiles. Certainly not only those who are considered righteous, but those who are considered wicked and sinful. Even the scandalous sinfulness, such as prostitution, Christ came to save even them. This genealogy prepares us to hear about the one born from this long family line whom God had been working in and through for generations. Ever since Genesis chapter 12, we hear the story of this one family until we come to Christ. The purpose of God's working through this family is Christ. It's the reason. It's the culmination. Not only that, but for Matthew to start the New Testament with this genealogy makes it abundantly clear that this gospel that he's writing is not simply a sequel to the Old Testament. It's not part two. It's the final movement of the same symphony. The story of the New Testament is the culmination and the continuation and the consummation of all the promises of God and His dealings with mankind ever since creation. It's what every arrow in the Old Testament is pointing forward towards, to Christ. Matthew's genealogy firmly roots the Gospel message into the history of God's people throughout their generations. I read a great illustration about how the Old and the New Testaments relate to one another in a book written by Sinclair Ferguson, who was paraphrasing C.S. Lewis. So this is by two of the greats, and I'm sure that both of them presented it better than I will, It's a good illustration. C.S. Lewis said to imagine a very great composer who had written what was considered by almost everyone the greatest symphony ever written. And this symphony had been played for centuries in every civilized country in the world. And everyone loved it and praised it for generations. Yet whenever it was played, the conductors, the musicologists, the audience, the players themselves, the critics, they always felt the same thing at the end. It felt to them in some sense that it, even though it was the greatest symphony they've ever heard, in some sense is incomplete, unfinished. Then one day, a man who was an author planning to write a biography of this great composer who lived centuries ago, begins to research this composer's life, seeking out people who were distant relatives of people who knew him and whatnot. And he comes across this box of correspondence that had remained hidden for years. And in that box, he finds a piece of music that was clearly written in the handwriting of this famous composer, but no one had ever heard it played before. Can you imagine what that would be like if someone today found a symphony written by Mozart, and we knew that it was written by Mozart, but it was, up until now, undiscovered? Can you imagine the frenzy that that would create? This author got this piece of music into the hands of a famous symphony conductor who played this new piece, and it was an instant success worldwide. Everyone loved this new piece of music as much as the other symphony that he was so famous for already, but then this author, as he continues his research, finds one more sheet of music, just one page, which is clearly supposed to be the first page of this second symphony, and it's been played without it so far. Except when it's played, it becomes very clear that this sheet of music is filled with the same themes from the first symphony. And in reality, it leads into the second symphony. The two symphonies were not two symphonies at all. They were one symphony, meant to be heard together. And when the first symphony that everyone had loved for years was played, and then this one sheet of music, which was a transition, was played, and then it went right into the second symphony, They both made perfect sense. All of the incompleteness was gone, it vanished, and it was far more glorious than either of those symphonies had ever been together as one complete, beautiful piece of music. The genealogy of Matthew is like that one sheet of music which ties together the Old Testament and the New Testament. That one, 18 verses, this genealogy, talks about all of the people who lived from the time of Genesis 12 all the way through, even after Malachi was written, until the person of Christ. All history in the Old Testament has been leading up to this, and this is what gives us the final answer. This is what completes the great story of the Old Testament. The New Testament and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not God's plan B, because He attempted to give His people the law through Moses, but that ended up failing and they broke His law. and he needed to come up with another plan. It's not plan B, this is plan A. The law of Moses was only leading up to an even greater victory over sin in the personal work of Christ. The gospel of Jesus Christ was always the plan. Christ was always the one who was to come and save mankind from their sin. The family of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Tamar, of Rahab, Boaz, Ruth, David, and Bathsheba, Solomon, and so on Even those who continued after the exile in Babylon, though they no longer sat on the throne of Israel, is watched over, is loved, is cared for by God for all these generations because it was through that one family, which we start hearing about back in the beginning of Genesis, that the Lord Jesus Christ would be born, who would bring salvation promised not only to this family, but would be a blessing for all of the families of the earth, including all of our families here this morning. Let's bow together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we do come before you this morning and we confess that oftentimes our understanding of biblical history is lacking, but we do recognize, Father, that for thousands and thousands of years that you have had your hand and your eye upon the line of Abraham, the line of Isaac, the line of Jacob, the line of Judah, all the way down, Father. And you never took your eye off of them, even when their descendants no longer sat on the throne of Israel, but were in captivity and living in obscurity and poverty. We know that you took care of this family so that you might, through it, take care of all the families of the earth, and that you might send your one and only begotten Son to be born of a poor carpenter with such a great heritage of great sinners, of great believers, of great poets, great kings, great men, great sinners. Father, we thank You that You sent to Him the One who would come and be greater than them all, and be so great that He would remove the sin of all who have faith and trust in Him. Father, we thank You for the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we are blessed this morning. In His name we pray. Amen.