Matthew 1:1-17: Promises Made, Promises Kept

Intro:

Think of a time when you were anticipating something you expected to be wonderful, but it didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to. Maybe it was a movie that you were excited to see and it was terrible. Or maybe it was some special event where you were going to be honored. Or maybe it was for a birthday as a child, the actual birth of your own child, or even your wedding day. Gentlemen, a word of caution if your wife and the mother of your children is in the room, don’t acknowledge those last two as being true even if they are. And if you don’t heed my caution, I have some time free this week to book a marriage counseling session.

Now that you have something in mind, what caused the disappointment? Was it primarily because the event let you down, or was it because your expectations were unrealistic? Too often in my own life I have found that I have eagerly anticipated something that ended up disappointing me, but not because it was an awful thing. I have too often been disappointed by good things because I have had expectations that were based in my own misunderstandings and not in truth.

This morning we are starting our brand new series in Matthew and in this Gospel account, Matthew addresses the long held expectations of the Jewish people for their Messiah, the one who was promised over and over and over again throughout the Old Testament.

If you have your Bibles turn to Matthew 1...

The Story so far...

Adam and Eve - Sin entering the world and the promise of one who could defeat the serpent

Abraham - Set apart by God to be the earthly representative of YHWH. Promised that the whole world would be blessed through his offspring.

Moses and Joshua -

The Judges -

King David -

The Kings -

The Prophets - ended with Malachi in 400 AD

The Intertestamental Period - about 400 years (400 BC-25 AD) of silence from God. The political, religious, and social atmosphere of Israel changed significantly during this period. Much of what happened was predicted by the prophet Daniel.

The Persian Empire - about 532–332 BC. The Persians allowed the Jews to practice their religion with little interference. They were even allowed to rebuild and worship at the temple (2 Chronicles 36:22–23; Ezra 1:1–4). This span of time included the last 100 years of the Old Testament period and about the first 100 years of the intertestamental period. This time of relative peace and contentment was just the calm before the storm. Alexander the Great, Greek Empire - 331 BC -63 BC- defeated Darius of Persia, bringing Greek rule to the world. Alexander was a student of Aristotle and was well-educated in Greek philosophy and politics. Alexander required that Greek culture be promoted in every land that he conquered. As a result, the Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Greek, becoming the translation known as the Septuagint. Most of the New Testament references to Old Testament Scripture use the Septuagint phrasing. Alexander did allow religious freedom for the Jews, though he still strongly promoted Greek lifestyles. This was not a good turn of events for Israel, since the Greek culture was very worldly, humanistic, and ungodly.

Antiochus - After Alexander died (324 BC), Judea was ruled by a series of successors, culminating in the Selucid king Antiochus Epiphanes. Antiochus did far more than refuse religious freedom to the Jews. Around 167 BC, he overthrew the rightful line of the priesthood and desecrated the temple, defiling it with unclean animals and a pagan altar (see Mark 13:14 for a similar event to take place in the future). Eventually, Jewish resistance to Antiochus, led by Judas Maccabeus and the Hasmoneans, restored the rightful priests and rescued the temple. The period of the Maccabean Revolt was one of war, violence, and infighting.

Roman Empire - Around 63 BC, Pompey of Rome conquered Israel, putting all of Judea under control of the Caesars. This eventually led to Herod being made king of Judea by the Roman emperor and senate. Roman, Greek, and Hebrew cultures were now mixed together in Judea.

During the span of the Greek and Roman occupations, two important political/religious groups emerged in Israel. The Pharisees added to the Law of Moses through oral tradition and eventually considered their own laws more important than God’s (see Mark 7:1–23).

The Sadducees represented the aristocrats and the wealthy. The Sadducees, who wielded power through the Sanhedrin, rejected all but the Mosaic books of the Old Testament. They refused to believe in resurrection and were generally shadows of the Greeks, whom they greatly admired.

This is the era of Israel’s history in which the Gospel of Matthew was written. The people of Israel were crushed. Once again, they were conquered, oppressed, and polluted. Hope was running low; faith was even lower. They were convinced that now the only thing that could save them and their faith was the appearance of the Messiah.

But not everyone had faith in the Messiah. There were some Israelites who were looking to gain off of the occupation of the Romans. They did this by helping their Roman oppressors enforce and collect taxes, marking up their own countrymen’s taxes and selfishly getting great gain for themselves while they crush the offspring of Abraham. Matthew himself, was one of those tax collectors. But as we are about to read, Matthew’s lack of faith in the Messiah was overturned by meeting the One who had been promised all those years ago.

Let’s Read Matthew 1:1-17 together.

Matthew 1:1–17 (ESV)

1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,

3 and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, 4 and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5 and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the father of David the king.

And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, 7 and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, 8 and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, 9 and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, 10 and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, 11 and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon. 12

And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, 13 and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, 14 and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, 15 and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, 16 and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

17 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.

Why are we studying a genealogy? This is the part that most people skip over.

3 Claims that Matthew is Making:

1. Jesus is the Messiah

2. Jesus has a legal claim to the throne of David

Jesus restores Israel to the Kingdom of God

3. Jesus is the promised blessing to Abraham

Jesus brings Kingdom of God to the whole world

Why are genealogies important?

RC Sproul tells a story, and I don’t think I can make the point any clearer. He said this:

Several years ago a friend of mine, a missionary with Wycliffe Bible Translators, worked among a people who had never heard the gospel in their language. The people could not write or read, so all their communication was oral.

The missionary’s first task was to learn the language of the tribe. Then she had to change that oral language into written form and teach the people to read and write it. It was a laborious task that took many years. Only after all that was accomplished could she undertake the task of translating the Bible into this language. She began with the Gospel of Matthew.

To expedite the project she skipped the genealogy to get to the meat and substance of the story of Christ, and then she sent her translation work off to be printed by a publisher in a distant city. She waited months for the first copies of Matthew to arrive at the compound, and when the trucks came in with the Bibles, or, at least, the Gospel of Matthew, the people were much more interested in the trucks than they were in the translation. After having spent ten years on the project, she was crushed when she saw that the people didn’t care at all.

Nevertheless, she persevered in her task, and in the second edition of Matthew she included the genealogy. When that arrived the missionary explained the genealogy to the tribal chief, and he said,

“Are you trying to say that this Jesus you’ve been telling us about for ten years was a real person?” She replied, “Yes, of course.” He said, “I thought you were telling us a story about some mythical character.”

Once he understood that this Christ was real in space and time, the chief came to Christ, and shortly thereafter the whole tribe came to Christ.

Genealogies show that our belief is historical

Genealogies are making theological claims about historical facts

The 5 Mothers of the Messiah

Tamar - Canaanite, had to trick her father-in-law into thinking she was a prostitute so that she would be given an heir

Rahab - Jericho, prostitute

Ruth - Moabitess, widow

Bathsheba - became pregnant with David’s child while married to one of his soldiers. At least was married to a Hittite, may have been one herself

Mary -

Application

God delights in using the weak and the least likely in order to accomplish His ends

A Worldwide Mission

God is Sovereign over history

Both Jews and pagans from other nations were becoming dissatisfied with religion. The pagans were beginning to question the validity of polytheism. Romans and Greeks were drawn from their mythologies toward the Hebrew Scriptures, now easily accessible in Greek or Latin.

everyone understood a common language, Koine Greek (the language of the New Testament);

The Romans had built roads (to aid the spread of the gospel) and there was a fair amount of peace and freedom to travel (further aiding the dissemination of the gospel).

4. The Messiah and the Kingdom are here!