The Importance of the Geneology of Jesus Christ

Matthew 1:1-17

1. Genealogies help us understand the historicity of the Bible

2. Genealogies help us understand the promises of God

1. INTRODUCTION

There are a lot of hot topics in our society today. We can talk about all social issues. One of the great social issues of our time has been the topic of abortion. Now you ask what does abortions have to do with today’s topic? It doesn’t. But what it does have to do with today’s message is the issue of life. Every life is precious. I want us to examine this idea. Every life we see on earth is precious, not only to men but to God. Well, I want to bring the argument that genealogies help us understand the significance of life. Afterall, a genealogy tells the story of how someone came to be. This is what makes life precious. Everyone has a story and every story is equally valuable. Because someone grew up in a poor family or a rich family does not take away from the richness of someone’s story. The fact that this person came to life was special. This is no different for the Messiah. Why? Because we understand how hard it is to be pregnant. Read the story of the nativity and you could see how Jesus could easily have not existed. Not only this, but we understand how many circumstances could have prevented any of us to be born. If mom didn’t meet dad, or if grandma didn’t meet grandpa, we wouldn’t be who we are today. This is what makes life precious because each and every person here made it by God’ grace. It wasn’t by accident. It was by God’s design and purpose. So where do we go from here?

2. BODY

a. Genealogies help us understand the historicity of the Bible

i. As I was doing my study for today’s message, I kept coming to the understanding of how connected the Bible is with both testaments. Many of us, myself included have lopsided understanding of the Bible. We know our New Testament well because it’s about Jesus and we have a lacking understanding of the Old Testament. The majority of Christians, I would argue know the New Testament much better than the Old Testament. But the question is why? Because we think that the Old Testament is not about us, and it’s about Israel and we don’t like to read about stories that don’t necessarily teach us how to live.

ii. But as I kept reading the genealogy, it brought to mind how important the genealogy is. It helps us understand the historicity of the Bible. The Old Testament presents to us how God called Israel. The importance of this as we see in this Genealogy is how God called men and women to do His work. What is the significance of the Genealogy? Verse 1 tells us. It tells us that this Genealogy is the record, the historical truth of Jesus the Messiah.

iii. Why is the Genealogy important? Because it tells us who this Jesus is. But why is this important? Well, let me tell you. How many of you have used or know someone who has used ancestor.com? Why are people curious about their ancestors? Because it helps them understand a little bit about who they are and where they came from. It helps them understand their identity.

iv. Well, when we read the genealogies, it’s the same thing for Christians. It’s hard to look at this way because well, I’m not an Israelite. I think this is why the Old Testament is easier for Jews because they are directly related to the Old Testament. But if we believe that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior and He truly is my father, then we belong to this rich lineage. We are His children and this central truth has importance to why we should understand read our genealogies.

v. So what is the significance of this genealogy about Christ? Well verse 1 tells us that it tells us that He is the Messiah. Jesus was literally the Messiah, the chosen one of God. He was the one whom God had chosen would fulfill His plan in the world. But genealogies help us understand that He was more than the Messiah. He was a child within a certain family. This helps us understand the human aspect of Jesus. He was truly human. He was a son of somebody and He belonged to a certain family like us. In that way, He was the same as us. This is what bridges Jesus to us. It helps us understand that He was no different in the sense that He had family like you and I. But it also helps us understand that if He had a family, then as we become disciples and followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we also join into His family.

vi. So not only was He the Messiah, He is the son of David. One of the most important phrases in the Bible is this simple phrase, son of David. Why? Is Jesus literally the son of David? No, the Bible tells us that Solomon was the son of David. So Jesus wasn’t actually the son of David. So what does this phrase actually mean? It means that Jesus came from the family of David. How do we know this to be true? The genealogy of Jesus Christ tells us how He came to be. We see this in verse 6 where it states that Jesse was the father of king David.

vii. This is why it is important here that it says David was king. We could say that’s important because if we didn’t know our Bible, we would think that David was the only king in the family. No, if you read the narrative, David was the first king in the family of Jesus. Because the first king of Israel was king Saul. We know from the Old Testament that prior to Saul, there was no king in Israel because God was king over Israel. Through our Bible, we know that there were 3 kings before the division of Israel. When Solomon was king, he had a son named Rehoboam. But during his reign, Israel was split into two kingdoms, the northern kingdom Israel and the southern kingdom Judah. So then there were 20 kings of Judah and 19 kings of Israel. But even through this split, the line of Judah produces Jacob who becomes the father of Joseph who eventually is the father to Jesus. So when David became king, that was how Jesus entered into the family of kings. Every son after David was king over Israel. That’s what the book of 1-2 Kings/Chronicles tells us about the history of Israel. But the importance of David was to show that just like David, Jesus was now king. It was through David that Jesus would be king. This is why we call Jesus, King Jesus. This is also the significance of why Jesus, when He was crucified and died, was buried as a king.

viii. This continues to help us understand the significance of understanding Jesus Christ as king. Jesus wasn’t merely a man, but He was truly the Messiah and genealogies help us understand the historicity of the Bible. It isn’t fiction as many unbelieving people say it is. Rather, the historicity of the Old Testament help us understand how real men and women existed and that links even to the life of Christ.

b. Genealogies help us understand the promises of God

i. One of the best parts of the genealogies is the fact that it not only tells us about the men involved but also women. There are 4 women to be exact in this genealogy. What is the significance of this? Well, it helps us understand one thing clearly, among other things, it helps us to understand how God keeps His promises despite the fact that people are imperfect. In short, the genealogies help us understand the sovereignty of God.

ii. The women spoken are some interesting women. Tamar (Genesis 38, Tamar pretends to be a harlot), Rahab (Joshua 2; Rahab was a harlot), Ruth (Ruth 3, controversy about her incident with Boaz), and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11, where she was raped by David). All four are either non-Israelites or connected to non-Israelite families. Another interesting point is these particular women are all associated with potential sex scandals. Matthew could have highlighted Jesus’ connection to Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel, the matriarchs of Israel. But instead, he mentions Canaanites, prostitutes, and Moabite women, who would be associated with Israel’s sin and covenant failure.

iii. What is the significance of this? Matthew wants his readers to see that God has been using all types of people to move his plan forward. This is exactly what the sovereignty of God means. It means that even though people do things that seem to cause the sovereignty of God to fail, God still prevails. The genealogy help us clearly to understand the promises of God. If God says something, He will keep that promise to the end. No matter how impossible or difficult we may think of the given situation, God tells us through His genealogy that He will bring about the savior through this lineage.

iv. Another great truth to remember is, God uses sinners to fulfill His promises. He will continue to include the rejects and outsiders into his family which eventually spans to the Great Commission where Jesus tells His disciples to make disciples of all nations. Jesus doesn’t just invite perfect people, but through imperfect people, God is able to still bring about the Messiah.

v. This is a comforting message to us. It tells us that despite our failures, God still can overcome our failures and bring about His will. Thus, when we read the genealogy of Matthew and see the royal lineage of Jesus, we realize He’s the one who will bring the blessing of Abraham to the whole world. He’s the royal son of David that all of Israel has been waiting for. He’s the one that the prophets wrote about, and the psalmists sang about. He will be the king of Israel who blesses all of the nations of the world, especially the outsiders. We know all of this because Matthew tells us in a genealogy that carefully reveals the hope that has arrived in Jesus.

3. CONCLUSION