Hope in Our Graceous King

Background of Matthew

The gospel of Matthew was written by the Matthew that Jesus called.

At the time of the birth of Jesus Israel had been under the control of the Romans for about 60 years.

One of the worst aspects of Roman rule was the system of taxation.

Taxes in the Roman Period

Roman senators and various other high-ranking officials would buy the rights to tax a country or province at a fixed rate for a period of five years.

Whatever was collected above the set amount owed to Rome was kept as profit.

The men who held the right to tax a country or province were called Publicani

They would hire people to work under them to help collect the tax they were called Publicans

There were 2 kinds of taxes collected:

A toll tax- which was like our income tax.

A ground tax- which is like a tax on your property.

The Gospels all tell the same story and the is the story of Jesus Christ.

They each just tell it from a different perspective.

Matthew presents Jesus as the King who is:

Revealed

Rejected

Return

The Grace of God Seen in the Choice of One Women

We have hope in our lives because we see here that God chose an ordinary women to be the mother of the Savior.

Unlike the belief of some religions there was nothing special about Mary.

She was a very religious and faithful person that was thankful for God choosing her for this task even though it was going to make her life very hard and sometimes even dangerous, she welcomed it with gratefulness and thanksgiving.

It is only through the Grace of God that we like Mary can do the things God set forth for us to do.

The Grace of God Seen in the Descendants of Two Men

Abraham

Abraham was the father of the nation of Isreal Gods chosen people.

He was given a son which God told him to sacrifice and at the last second was given a replacement in the form of a lamb.

His son Isaac was blessed with a Son named Jacob who would have His name changed to the Name Isreal and His 12 sons would become the heads of the 12 tribes of Isreal.

However Abraham and his sons and grandsons were still flawed and often messed up they were not prefect.

Abraham on two different occasions lied about who his wife was to two different Kings because he did not trust God to protect them.

He also got tried of waiting for his promised son with his wife so he had a son with one of His wives servants.

David

We all know that David was a Man after Gods own heart however he was also human and made mistakes just like we do.

He had an affair with a married women and had her husband killed to help cover it up.

He killed thousands of men in battle.

His grandsons would split the Kingdom of Isreal into 2 different kingdoms.

Yet even through all the mistakes and missteps God still blessed this line.

The King of grace came through the line of two sinful men.

The Grace of God Seen in the History of Three Eras

Abraham to David

This period was that of the patriarchs and of Moses, Joshua, and the judges.

It was a period of wandering, of enslavement in a foreign land, of deliverance, of covenant-making, and of conquest and victory.

David to the deportation to Babylon

This was the time of the great monarchy that the people insisted on having human kings like all the nations around them.

They discovered that those kings more often led them away from God and into trouble than to God and into and into peace and prosperity.

It was a time of defeat, conquest, exile, and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.

Only in the lives of David, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah do we see much evidence of Godliness.

The deportation to Babylon to the Time of Christ

This period of time was that of captivity, exile, frustration and of marking time.

Most men that is mentioned by Matthew in this section of Christs genealogy are unknown.

It is a period of time shrouded largely in darkness and characterized largely by inconsequence.

It is what is known as Israels Dark Ages.

Regardless God worked through all three of these periods in time on behalf of his people through all of this to bring forth the savior to His people.

Nothing was done haphazardly or on a whim it was all planed and every person played a role in the outcome.