Love Through the Ages

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 Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and 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, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon. And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan 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.

Last year I contributed to a book titled, Heal Us, Emmanuel: A Call for Racial Reconciliation, Representation, and Unity in the Church. The book is a compilation of 30 essays written by a diverse group of pastors and elders in the PCA. One of the chapters that bothered a good number of people was Dr. Alexander Jun’s chapter, “Unintentional Racism.” What folks were put off by was his use of the term “microagressions.’ He defined it as “commonplace verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of a nondominant group.” The primary complaint we received about this term was that it’s use was a reflection that we had given in to the political correctness of our day.

Dr. Jun is Asian American, Korean American to be exact. Here’s how he related an experience that he regularly encounters. He said,

“I was speaking recently at a Christian conference. At the end of my talk and throughout the conference, I received compliments, as well as some interesting questions and comments. I heard: ‘Your English is so good. When did you come to the States?’ ‘Where are you from? … No, where are you really from?’”

People are not intending to be offensive, but that is nevertheless exactly what they are accomplishing. Well, this sermon isn’t about microaggressions or macroaggressions, it’s about God’s love. The connection is in the question Dr. Jun is used to being asked. Where are you from? Where are you really from? Even today, where people come from matters to us. It’s information we want to have about people. It helps us to know who they are. Do you ever think about how often you ask people that question when you first meet them? “Are you new to the area? Where’s home for you?” You ask it without even thinking why you’re asking it. Where do you come from and who are your people?

Well, that’s the question Matthew is answering for us about Jesus here in the first 17 verses of his Gospel. Who is this Jesus? Where does he come from? Who are his people? I might answer that question, “I’m from NYC, Brooklyn, to be exact. And my people are from Wilmington, NC and Port of Spain, Trinidad.” For me there’s a source of pride in my heritage. I wear it gladly. The folk I think about when I think about where I’m from, what my lineage is, who my people are, the people I think about are those who by their sacrifices and faith made it possible for me to be standing here today. But the sketchy folk, the not so faithful folk, don’t even come to mind when I think about who I am and where I’m from.

Matthew is saying to us right off the bat, as he starts his book, that Jesus is the Son of David. He is the son of Abraham. Verse 1 is the title verse: The Book of the Genealogy (the Lineage) of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. What he’s saying right off the bat is that Jesus is the King. You’d better look at him and see that he is the one who rules and reigns over this world. Not only that, you’d better look at him and see that he’s the son of promise. He’s the one in whom God promised that all the nations of the world would be blessed. Matthew gives us this genealogy because he’s got to let us know that Jesus is legit. But even though his legitimacy comes through his biological genealogy, it doesn’t come through the faithfulness of his people. Where’s he from? He’s from Abraham and he’s from David. But all the folk in the genealogy have issues! His lineage shouts to us of God’s love through the ages. Matthew welcomes us to come alongside in this genealogy of 3 by 14 generations from Abraham to Jesus and see the unspoken, but evident love of God permeating this history to bring us our King. This genealogy invites us into the tension of knowing God’s promise and living like it’s true even though we haven’t yet seen the full realization of it. We’re going to take a walk through the tension of our 3 by 14 generations and talk about Love Through the Familiar, Love Through the Famine, and Love Through the Faint.

Love Through the Familiar

Let’s be clear. Matthew is writing his Gospel to a primarily Jewish audience. If you read through the book you will find Matthew saying things like, “this was to fulfill what what spoken by the prophet.” He’s taking care to show that Jesus’ life and ministry were the fulfillment of what was declared in the OT. Matthew’s strategy is to start his genealogy with the one whom the Jewish people considered to be the father of their faith, Abraham. The gospel writer, Luke, has a different audience. He’s writing to a primarily non-Jewish audience, a Gentile audience. So, in , he works his way backward from Jesus all the way to Adam in order to demonstrate that Jesus is the Son of God. We could say that because of his audience, Luke determines that he needs to go all the way back to . Matthew, because of his audience, needs to go all the way back to .

Look at what else Matthew is doing. This first point is Love Through the Familiar. His title, “The Book of the Genealogy of Jesus Christ,” is meant to strike a familiar tone in their ears. They’re supposed to hear the echo of a text like ringing in their ears. says, “This is the book of generations of Adam.” The connection is to say that there’s a shift with the coming of Jesus Christ. This is a new beginning that’s taking place by looking back at what God did to bring Jesus on the scene.

The key verb in this genealogy is the word, “to beget,” “to bring forth.” If you’ve ever read through the OT, your eyes have probably glazed over in the genealogy sections: so and so begot so and so…This one starts a little differently for you. These are familiar people. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. And when you get to that line it causes you to pause. Matthew, how are you not naming of all the 12 tribes of Israel? How are you going to write eleven of them off by just saying Judah and his brothers? Listen, there is significance to whom Matthew includes and whom he leaves out. Jacob had a twin brother named Esau. When you get through the first group of 14 generations down to v. 6, you’re at David. Not only did Matthew fail to include the names of Judah’s eleven brothers, there’s no mention of Moses. There’s no mention of the Exodus. There’s a whole book of the Bible dedicated to God’s deliverance of his people from slavery in Egypt through Moses. Moses who is a type of Christ. Moses, who points us forward to Jesus. But Matthew leaves him out! Why? Because Jesus is the Lion of the tribe of Judah! Jesus is the root of David! He’s not showing us that Jesus is the Great High Priest who intercedes for you and I. He’s showing us that Jesus is the King! Matthew is saying, “Do you remember when Jacob gathered his twelve sons to him in before he died? He prophesied about what would happen to them in days to come. He said to Judah (), ‘Judah, your brothers shall praise you…Judah is a lion’s cub; from the prey my son, you have gone up. He stooped down; he crouched as a lion and as a lioness; who dares rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples…”

The Lion of the tribe of Judah is here! His scepter is in his hand! His ruler’s staff is positioned between his feet! And tribute will come to him! I’m letting you know, Matthew says, I’m about to tell you about the baby boy born in Bethlehem of Judea, but don’t get it twisted. This is your King! And it’s through God’s particular care, love, and commitment to his promise that the King has come through these people who are familiar to you. Genealogies of that day didn’t normally include women. Matthew not only highlights women in Jesus’ genealogy. He highlights Gentile women, non-Jewish women. Tamar, who had to trick her father-in-law, Judah by pretending to be a prostitute. Rahab, who was a prostitute, but who hid the Israelite spies who came to scope out Jerusalem before the conquest. Ruth, the Moabitess, who was so bold as to basically propose marriage to Boaz. Why do these Gentile women get this place of prominence in the Jewish genealogy of Jesus? It’s at least in part because they are among the most faithful people in his biological line! They committed themselves to God’s purposes. They, as much as anyone else, represented faithful Israel. God’s love is such that he raises up faithfulness from the most unexpected places and people!

Love Through the Famine

We go from God’s love through the familiar in the first set of 14 to God’s love through the famine in the 2nd part of v. 6 to v. 11. Let me answer this question that you might not even be asking. Why 14 generations? Why is Matthew giving us 3 sets of 14 generations? He’s not a dummy. He writing to a Jewish audience. He knows that all they have to do is go read Samuel and Kings, and they’ll be able to count the number of kings between David and Jeconiah and the deportation of Israel to exile in Babylon. If they do that, they’ll come up with more than 14 names. So, he’s not trying to pull the wool over their eyes and deceive them. He’s giving abbreviated generations. The most plausible reason I’ve found, and I think the right one, is that David’s name in Hebrew is three letters. The first and third letters in David’s name is the fourth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The middle letter of his name is the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. So, you have three letters, and three generations. You have the fourth letter plus the sixth letter plus the fourth letter again, which gives you 14. Three by 14 generations around the name David, who was the ideal glorious king in the mind of Israel. So, even in the selection of 3x14 generations, Matthew’s message is, Jesus Christ is King!

Yet, here, in this second section that begins with David, the overriding message is that God’s love and faithfulness was maintained through famine. By famine I don’t mean a literal famine, lack of food. I mean a famine of faith. Why does this second section end in v. 11 with the deportation to Babylon? It’s because of the unfaithfulness of her kings! Notice this with me please. Remember, I said that this genealogy is significant for what and whom Matthew includes and whom he excludes as unimportant to the narrative he’s writing. In the history of Israel there were two exiles. There were two deportations. In the reign of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, the kingdom of Israel split in two. Ten tribes broke off and formed the northern kingdom, Israel. Two tribes continued as the southern kingdom of Judah. The northern kingdom of Israel fell in 722 BC to the Assyrians. The southern kingdom of Judah fell to the Babylonians in 586 BC. There’s no mention of the northern kingdom or her kings at all. Why? You know the answer. Because Jesus is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Jesus is the legit king because he’s descended from David, not those illegit northern kings who were never included in God’s promise to David.

Even though this is the case, Matthew is declaring through this second generation of 14 that there was a famine of faith and faithfulness even in the legitimate line. Do you notice what he says about David, their ideal glorious king, in v. 6? David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. Here’s the fourth woman in our genealogy, Bathsheba. She wasn’t Jewish either. She’s not mentioned by name. Matthew says, “the wife of Uriah.” Uriah was a Gentile too. Matthew is giving us a double dip of unfaithfulness in King David. David committed adultery by taking Bathsheba. Then he committed murder when he tried to cover it up by making sure that Uriah was killed in battle. Of King Solomon, we’re told in , that he excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. And the whole earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind. But then starts out by telling us that King Solomon loved many foreign women…from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon, the Bible says, had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not true to the Lord his God. What you get in the list is this declining mix of faith and faithlessness in the kings of Judah. Uzziah had a 52 year reign over Judah (). He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but he didn’t tear down the high places where the people made offerings to other gods. The same mix of faith and faithlessness is said of his son Jotham. Then Jotham’s son, Ahaz, begins to reign. And it says in that he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God. He even burned his son as an offering. There’s a revival in Judah when Hezekiah comes on the scene. He does what’s right in the eyes of the Lord. He removes the high places. He trusted in the Lord, the Bible declares (). He held fast to the Lord. There’s hope, but then his son Manasseh begins to rule. He does what’s evil in the sight of the Lord. He rebuilt the high places that his father, Hezekiah had destroyed (). says that Manasseh shed very much innocent blood. The Lord sent his prophets to declare that because of Manasseh’s sin he was going to bring upon Jerusalem and Judah such disaster that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. A second revival comes through Josiah who discovers the book of the Law, but it’s too late. Judah’s fate is sealed. The famine of faith in the majority of her kings threatened the promise God made to David that he would always have a son to sit on the throne.

The message of the second set of 14 generations is that the promise of God is never really under threat. If God make a promise, you can take it to the bank. The unfaithfulness of the people doesn’t derail the faithfulness of God. Jesus Christ is King! He’s the king, not because the people get the king they deserve. They deserve Manasseh, but they get Jesus because God’s ultimate concern is not to give us the king we deserve, but the one we need! We needed a king who would be faithful in the midst of our famine of faith. Matthew is demonstrating that we needed the love of God to come to us in Jesus Christ so that our faithlessness could be arrested by his reign and rule, and we could be freed for a life of faith in our glorious king.

Love Through the Faint

Well, if the second set of 14 generations is love through the famine of faith, the third set is love through the faint. By faint I mean the fading, the “can hardly be seen promise,” the dimly lit flicker. In the first two sets of the genealogy most of the people are familiar to us, and you can find all of them in the OT. By the time we get to the end of this third genealogy, you don’t know who Matthew’s taking about. There are some names we can recognize after the deportation to Babylon and the from exile. I can find this Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, but who are these other people? Eliud the father of Eleazar…

Following the deportation to Babylon, Israel was never the same again. Even when they returned to the land after the exile, they never returned to the glory and autonomy of David’s kingdom. Any rulers they had were puppets; put in place by whatever nation was in power, the Medes, the Persians, the Romans. As their power faded, the means by which God’s promise would come to pass faded with it. Does the Lord still love us? Has he forsaken his promise? The message of the third set of 14 is that even when you can’t see it, the Lord is still at work. His love and his faithfulness never fail. Even when it looks faint and dim, his love is shining. Would you notice with me the intentional shift Matthew makes in his use of our main verb? Remember, that main verb, “to beget,” “to bring forth?” The ESV translates that verb over and over again as so and so was the father of so and so. It’s literally, Abraham begot, or fathered, Isaac. Isaac begot, or fathered Jacob…Look at v. 16. “Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born,” or, “of whom Jesus was begotten,” the one who is called Christ. Jacob fathered Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was begotten. In other words, Joseph is in Jesus’ lineage, but he didn’t father Jesus. Joseph is in Jesus’ lineage, but he ain’t Jesus’ father. Jesus is begotten of God the Father. John put it this way in 1:14 of his Gospel. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Why is Jesus the King? Because he’s the only begotten of God. What else would you expect? Matthew is saying look at Jesus and behold your King! He wasn’t born in a palace. He didn’t look like royalty. But what happened with all those kings who were born in a palace, who were of the lineage of David? They were all jacked up. So God decides that when it’s fading and faint, when my promise of providing the king you need seems like a wick that’s about to be snuffed out, I’m going to show up and show out. The light of my love is going to shine brightly because I’m taking care of your problem myself. I’ve got this the Lord says. Behold your king. Be amazed and awed by the powerful presence of my love through the generations to ensure that my promise comes to pass.

It mattered where Jesus came from. It mattered that he was of the lineage and line of David and Abraham. It mattered who his people were, that he was of the right stock ethnically and biologically. But it mattered more that he came from God. It mattered and it matters more that he was and is God’s loving provision of a faithful king for faithless people. It matters more that Jesus is God’s loving provision of a faithful King for you, for me, for us. The most faithful King who ever walked the face of the earth conquered what no other king could ever conquer; death itself. The death that has you and I, and this whole world in its grip was conquered by King Jesus.

“In this the love of God was made manifest among us,” the Bible says in , “that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

Let me ask you two questions. First, do you see your name in this list? You’re not in the biological genealogy of Jesus Christ, but do you count yourself among the broken, crooked, sinful people who need the Savior? Have you come to realized that God specializes in making straight lines with crooked sticks?

Now, if I were God, I would do it differently. I’d pick the smartest men and women to be on my strategy team. I’d draft the world’s sharpest millionaires to finance the operation. My public relations people would be the most effective communicators anywhere. Weak people need not apply. Those with physical defects? Forget it. People who might slow down my progress? Never. Thank the Lord that I am not running the world. He’s in charge. And he opens his arms to the weak and ungifted, the unlovely and unlikely. He opens his arms to sinners. It’s because of his great love. It’s also because this is the way God does things to bring maximum glory to himself. (Joni Eareckson Tada, Introduction to From Weakness to Strength)

Have you realized that you’re the weak and ungifted, the unlovely and unlikely to whom God has opened his arms, inviting you to come to him through faith in Jesus Christ?

The second question is, if you have realized this, how is God opening your eyes to see and love the people we wouldn’t expect to find among us? It’s always necessary for a church to ask the question, How are we extending the love, mercy, and grace of Jesus Christ to those who are not like us, to the people you wouldn’t naturally expect to find among us? People should be able to look at the church and say, How did that happen? How did those people come together? Black, White, Asian, Latino, young, old, the well-off and those on welfare, able bodied, and disabled, the citizens and the immigrants. God does the unexpected, and he does it by challenging us through texts like these to see, to delight in, and to embrace the discomfort of the unexpected. How is he doing that here? Who are the unexpected people God wants to invite in to this church? Do you see them?

Sauls, Scott. From Weakness to Strength: 8 Vulnerabilities That Can Bring Out the Best in Your Leadership (PastorServe Series) (Kindle Locations 79-83). David C. Cook. Kindle Edition.

This genealogy is love through the generations. The love of God to bring the only king who could conquer death and give us life…

Related Media

Related Sermons