Matthew 1-2 4/30/2023
Notes
Transcript
The Arrival of the King
The Arrival of the King
INTRODUCTION: Good morning everyone. My name is Joshua McCay. I’m the preaching minister here at ACC. Over the next severaral weeks we’re going to be going through a series called Kingdom. And we’re going to dive into the book of Matthew and really flesh out the idea that we are a part of God’s kingdom.
One of the things I wanted to do was to give you all an opportunity to really engage with scripture. That can be difficult when the font in the bibles may seem like it’s getting smaller and smaller every year.
And it can be hard when you want to take notes and highlight in your bible but at the same time you don’t want to clutter up the page. not everybody likes to write in their bibles.
And so what I have gone ahead and done is get the text of the book of matthew printed out in a reasonably sized font, on normal paper. So that you can feel comfortable reading and highlighting and circling and taking notes. I have those available for you all. Today I just have chapters 1 and two.
So if you want one of those that has the full book of matthew let me know so that I can get the rest of the book printed off. But I wanted to see how many people would be interested first, so I didn’t waste a bunch of paper.
Also if you want a bigger size let me know I can get it printed in a bigger size.
One thing about that that I want to point out is that I’m using a different translation than the NIV which I normally use. I don’t know if you know this or not, but most Bibles are copyright protected. Meaning if I wanted to print the NIV or the ESV, you actually have to pay the publisher a fee every time you want to print those out.
So what I’m using is the NET bible, It’s very similar to the NIV or the ESV. But the publishers have decided to remove all of their copyright restrictions. Meaning they allow churches to print and copy their bible translation as much as you want, with the only caveat that you have to give it away for free.
And so if you want to follow along with those, feel free to grab one from the back, and let me know if you’d like the whole book.
We also have the Youversion bible event.
I’ve also made a place on our App right on the home page where you can follow along.
And lastly of course if you have your paper bible you can follow along with us.
But I want us to jump into matthew chapter 1: 1
I. Lineage of a king.
This is the record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
This is one of those passages of scripture where, especially if you’re doing your bible in a year plan, let’s be completely honest, most of us skim through. We tend to read passages like this and we go into “fast forward mode”
(Mumbling) Abraham, father of Issac, Isac Father of Jacaob, father of mm hmm, Ammina…ok that’s an A name. yep yep yep, david, solomon Elia… yep yep. Now let’s get to the story
In our culture, this is probably NOT the best way to get an audiences attention. But I want us to back up and actually look at what Matthew says here. Because In Matthew’s culture, they would have gotten through verse 17 and their minds would have been blown.
All the way in the very first verse, for Matthew’s audience, Matthew is making a HUGE claim
“This is the record of the genealogy” Literally says “this is the book of Genesis of Jesus the Messiah”:
If you remember way back in October when we did our Fingerprints series, we looked at this verse from Genesis chapter 2
This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created—when the Lord God made the earth and heavens.
Our english Bibles to a terrible job of pulling that out, but in the original language it’s the exact same wording. This is the book of genesis of the heavens and the earth. So when Matthew starts his book off this way, it would be like me starting my sermon by saying “We hold these truths to be self-evident” From those words alone, you instantly know that I am referencing back, and that whatever I am about to say had better be on par with what I’m referencing.
Jesus Christ
We take for granted the fact that “Christ” is a title, not a name. The word literally means “Annointed one” “King”
So Matthew’s audience now sees that this is the beginnings of the King Jesus
Son of David
This is Calling us back to 2 Samuel, and the covenant that God makes with David when he says
When the time comes for you to die, I will raise up your descendant, one of your own sons, to succeed you, and I will establish his kingdom. He will build a house for my name, and I will make his dynasty permanent.
Son of Abraham
It draws us back to another covenant that God makes with Abraham. And there were multiple. But since he’s bringing up the kings and the annointing the obvious covenant that they would have been drawn to is from
I will make you extremely fruitful. I will make nations of you, and kings will descend from you.
So don’t miss the fact that in the very first verse Matthew is making a Huge claim. And what follows in this chapter is him backing it up. He gives us a list of names from Abraham, and that promise that God made to abraham all the way to Jesus.
Matthew 1:2-17
Matthew 1:2-17
Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah the father of Perez and Zerah (by Tamar), Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz (by Rahab), Boaz the father of Obed (by Ruth), Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king.
David was the father of Solomon (by the wife of Uriah), Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa,Asa 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, Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.
After the deportation to Babylon, Jeconiah became the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, Abiud 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 Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.
So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to Christ, fourteen generations.
I want to make a couple observations about that list of names
Starting in verse 6 and continuing on to verse 11, every single one of those people are kings.
This is important because we’re talking about legal lineage. Joseph was not Jesus’ biological father, and we’ll talk about that. But he was his legal father. And so the heir to the throne comes through him
And not only is Joseph decended from David, but specifically through the exact line of Kings he is decended from David.
Notice verse 17
So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to Christ, fourteen generations.
I encourage you if you have time to take your bible and go back through the old testament and follow the lineage from David until the deportation to Babylon. It’s going to take a lot of time flipping back and forth between Matthew 1 and the book of 2 Kings, but It can be done.
One thing you will notice if you do that is the fact that there’s not actually 14 generations. Matthew actually skips a few people to make it add up to 14. Now to you and I, that might worry us. But I want to assure you:
that number one it’s not a mistake. Matthew was a tax collector. His entire livelyhood depended on his ability to count and to track interitence money through a lineage. So if Matthew skips a couple people you can be certain that it’s absolutely on purpose
And number 2, in Matthew’s culture and his original audience nobody would have been bothered by this. You and I if we read somehting like this it’s going to bother us. But to Matthew’s readers, They understand exactly what he’s doing, nobody feels tricked. He’s doing it on purpose to prove a point.
Numbers in the ancient world were a big deal. and numbers had meaning and symbolism attached to them. The number 14 was a symbol of completeness
So don’t get caught up in the nitty gritty of the numbers, and see what it is that Matthew is actually trying to show here. He is showing complete sets of generations
He’s drawing out a pattern using the number 14 to highlight it for us. Hes’ drawing attention to something that you and I might miss, and he’s using this number 14 to really spell it out for us. Look at the pattern:
There’s a complete era of generations where there is no king, followed by a complete era of generations of kings, and then another complete era of generations in babylon with no king. No King, king, NO king, what comes next?
The last thing I want you to notice is that Matthew includes women in his geneaology. That wasn’t something people did back then. Right wrong or indifferent it’s just a cultural difference. But we should understand the fact that if Matthew is going outside the bounds of what is considered normal, it’s for a reason. And I think the best way to understand that reason is for us to read what comes next.
II. Defending Mary
Matthew 1:18-25
Matthew 1:18-25
Now the birth of Jesus Christ happened this way. While his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph, her husband to be, was a righteous man, and because he did not want to disgrace her, he intended to divorce her privately. When he had contemplated this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” This all happened so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled: “Look! The virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call him Emmanuel,” which means “God with us.”When Joseph awoke from sleep he did what the angel of the Lord told him. He took his wife, but did not have marital relations with her until she gave birth to a son, whom he named Jesus.
You and I take the virgin birth account for granted. But Imagine you are living in the first century and you’ve never heard about Jesus before. And you read this story. How likely is it that you’re actually going to believe it?
I want to keep this message as family friendly as possible, but let’s talk about the elphant in the room. It’s not like the way babies are made has changed in the last several thousnad years. And it’s not like it was different back then. If someone came up to me today, and she told me she was expecting a child, she wasn’t married, and that she had never been with a man before in her life. I’m not going to believe her. I’m going to want proof.
Think about how that woman would be recieved today. Think about what kinds of rumors would be spread around about that woman. You don’t think the same kinds of attitudes were going around about mary?
We actually have historical evidence of the sorts of things people were saying about Jesus and about mary. This is from a first century opponent of christianity—someone who was trying to dis-prove christians—who wrote close to the same time matthew was writing. From a guy named Celsus:
born in a certain Jewish village, of a poor woman of the country, who gained her subsistence by spinning,
So he’s saying she wasn’t even able to keep a man, because she had to make ends meet by spinning yarn
and who was turned out of doors by her husband, a carpenter by trade, because she was convicted of adultery
that after being driven away by her husband, and wandering about for a time, she disgracefully gave birth to Jesus, an illegitimate child
These are the kinds of nasty rumors that were spreading around during time the church was growing. So Matthew is making it a point to dispel these rumors
He brings in the fact that Josephs was aware of the whole situation, that he was about to divorce her when an angel came and said, no, this is from God. He’s saying don’t you think that if she really was commiting adultery that Joseph would have up and left by this point?
And then he brings in scripture. He quotes Isa 7:14 and says the prophets were saying this was going to happen hundreds of years ago. You shouldnt’ be surprised
And we get a clear picture of why it is that he includes those women.
Every single one of those women had a bad reputation for one reason or another. Sometimes it was something they did, and sometimes it was just their life circumstnaces
Tamar was the woman in Genesis who dressed up like a prostitute and tricked her father in law into giving her a child
Rahab was gentile prostitute in the book of Joshau
“The wife of Uriah” that’s bathshebah. The one who slept with david, and then david had Uriah sent into battle to be killed so he could continue sleeping with Bathshebah
And by the way if you think Bathsebah was innnocent in that whole ordeal, go back and read 2 Sam 11 again.
It takes two to tango, and she was just as culpable.
The important thing is the fact that Matthew understnads that not everyone is going to believe that mary was a virgin. And for those people, the ones who refuse to believe, by bringing attention to these women he’s looking at the people who are saying that Jesus can’t be the messiah based on what they think mary allegedly did, and he’s saying “how dare you” How dare you say that these rumors somehow disqualify Jesus. Because if you’re going to say that well then you’re gonna have to go all the way back and apply that standard equally.
That means David is unqualified. That means the entire line of Judah is unqualified. So you’re either going to accept Jesus as the messiah, or else you’re going to have to admit that if he can’t be the messiah, then nobody can.
And this is a very compelling case, for us and for them. Make no mistake Jesus is the king, he is the annointed one. And to the people in power, to the earthly kings, That’s terrifying.
III. Puppet king.
Matthew 2:1-8
Matthew 2:1-8
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, in the time of King Herod, wise men from the East came to Jerusalemsaying, “Where is the one who is born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When King Herod heard this he was alarmed, and all Jerusalem with him. After assembling all the chief priests and experts in the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. “In Bethlehem of Judea,” they said, “for it is written this way by the prophet:
And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are in no way least among the rulers of Judah,
for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’ ”
Then Herod privately summoned the wise men and determined from them when the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and look carefully for the child. When you find him, inform me so that I can go and worship him as well.”
Spoiler alert, Herod has no intentions of worshipping Jesus. Herod was a bad dude.
He was a puppet king installed by the roman governemnt. Even his earthly power as king was an illusion. He knew that he was right in between the masses of people who hated him, and the roman emperor who could take him out in an instnat. He was in a very fragile illusion of power and he knew it. He was desperate to keep hold of that illusion
When he died, he wrote two things in his will
He requested that his first born son be executed, because he didn’t like the idea of passing on the throne. (I’m not really sure if he thought that all the way through)
He ordered that upon his death he wanted all of the elders of Jerusalem to be rounded up and executed in the town square: Why? I kid you not he wanted that done so that he could ensure that people would be crying during his funeral.
By the way nobody complied with either one of those requests, but it just goes to show what kind of a psychopath he was;
So all of a sudden these Magi come from the east and show up and say “hey we were looking at the stars, and we’re pretty sure the messiah was born, where is he?
Not only that, but then he gathers all of the scribes together and quote Micah 5 to him
As for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, seemingly insignificant among the clans of Judah— from you a king will emerge who will rule over Israel on my behalf, one whose origins are in the distant past.
So the Lord will hand the people of Israel over to their enemies until the time when the woman in labor gives birth. Then the rest of the king’s countrymen will return to be reunited with the people of Israel.
He will assume his post and shepherd the people by the Lord’s strength, by the sovereign authority of the Lord his God. They will live securely, for at that time he will be honored even in the distant regions of the earth.
That’s a pretty on the nose prophecy. And Herod is terrified of losing his illusion of power. He lashes out, and he orders all of the children ages two and under to be killed. Sounds a lot like what pharaoh did when his illusion of power was threatened.
I think that we need to understnad that these earthly kings are representative of any king who is in opposition to the true king.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.
IV. Spiritual warfare
Our battle as Christians is so much bigger than Herod. So much bigger than pharaoh. Or really any human leader. That’s small potatoes. We’re fighting a spiritual battle. And Spiritual warfare is a real thing. It’s not a metaphor. It’s not symbolic. It’s a real battle between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world.
And look at Matthew 2, Look at exodus 1. Who does the enemy go after? Who is satan’s first target? It’s the kids.
Lindsay is a Middle school secretary. We do a lot of work with the youth in Scottsbluff and Gering. And I don’t know what it is, but the last few months we have both had kids come up to us. I’m talking 11, 12, 13 year olds. Coming up to us and saying things like:
I don’t feel like I have a purpose
I don’t think anybody loves me.
I don’t know why I’m on this earth.
These are kids. These are kids who have never experienced God’s grace. Kids with broken homes. Parents in prison. Kids who are picked on at school, but in todays day and age they can’t even escape it at home because with the internet and social media it follows them around every where they go. The bullies aren’t just at school. They carry the bullies around in their pocket 24 hours a day.
If we’re going to be a part of this kingdom, we have to understand what other kingdoms we’re at war with.
When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he became enraged. He sent men to kill all the children in Bethlehem and throughout the surrounding region from the age of two and under, according to the time he had learned from the wise men.
Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled:
“A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud wailing, Rachel weeping for her children, and she did not want to be comforted, because they were gone.”
This is what we’re up against. We have got to be light to the kids in our community. We have got to be showing them that Jesus loves them. That he created them for a purpose. Because that’s who the enemy is going after right now.
I think the work that we’re doing here at this church, and trying to reach the kids and families that we know is vital.
Going after the leaders
This is what we’re going to read next week, but I want to point this out to you now so that you’re ready. When Satan’s not going after the kids, you know who he goes after next? He goes after the leaders. That’s why in chapter 4 he goes after Jesus directly. Because he knows if he can cut off the head he can be that much more effective
He goes after Judas. He goes after peter. He goes after the ones who are making a difference. Because just like herod. Just Like pharaoh, he illusion of power, and he’ll stop at nothing to keep it.
And the reason I bring that up is because I really feel like we’re gaining some traction at ACC. And satan knows that and he’s terrified. So I want you to be ready because he’s coming after you next.
This isn’t me telling you that I’m predicting the future, this is just me understanding how the enemy operates. Mark my words, you’re going to start to go through some trials in the next few months. That’s just how satan works. He’s predictable like that. Mark my words you’re gonna start to see pressure on your marriage. You’re gonna start to have doubts. You’re gonna have troubles. It’s coming.
And when that happens, I want you to smile. Because you know that it’s a desperate attack by a puppet king, who is lashing out trying to hold on to his illusion of power.
And I want you to take solace in the fact that you are on the side of the true king. The one who has the real power.
INVITATION