Follow Me - The Book of Matthew

FOLLOW ME – The Book of Matthew

Matthew 1:1-25

400 years. That is how long it had been since Israel had heard from God – no angels, no miracles, and no prophets of God. Then seemingly out of nowhere bursts this fiery prophet with a bold message of repentance. Matthew’s account of the Gospel contains the greatest story ever told, the story of Jesus.

Matthew was a tax collector for Rome and a Jew. He was regarded as a traitor to his people. But, one day Jesus came along and changed Matthew’s life forever. Matthew left his tax table and immediately began to follow the Lord.

Matthew begins this great Gospel with the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:1-17). This is the most important genealogy in history. Jesus came from the root and offspring of David. Without question David was an imperfect man. David had serious failures, yet he is a key part of the genealogy of the Savior of the World.

Then we have Abraham. He was a great man of faith, but he sinned as well. Yet God made Abraham the father of the faith and His chosen people, Israel, of whom the Messiah would come. Matthew’s genealogy also includes a number of important women. There’s Tamar (Genesis 38). She was a Canaanite daughter-in-law of Judah who pretended to be a prostitute and Judah ended up having two sons with her.

We have Rahab. She was a prostitute by trade. She was a Gentile living in Jericho and protected two Israelite that Joshua sent in to spy out the city and in turn saved her family when Israel invaded. She married Salmon and became the mother of Boaz, king David’s great-grandfather.

Then we have Ruth, the Moabitess. She was a Gentile. She returned to Israel with her mother-in-law Naomi. She came to believe in the God of Naomi, the God of Israel. She later marries Boaz and becomes the great-grandmother king David, and part of Christ’s genealogy.

Finally, we have Bathsheba in Verse 6 as “the wife of Uriah.” She becomes the mother of King Solomon, David’s heir. What does this say? It says God is a God of grace and mercy. Jesus came to save a lost world. He came to put shattered lives back together again and to give life more abundantly.

As we come to the birth of Jesus, we are introduced to Mary, one of the most misunderstood women of all time. There is no person who has ever lived who had such a unique relationship to Jesus as Mary. She is the only woman who ever lived who had Jesus first in her womb and then in her heart. She is the only woman in history who ever had the king for a child and then became a child of the king.

We are also introduced here to Joseph. Verse 19 tells us he was a righteous man, a just man. The angel of the Lord comes to him in Verse 20 and says, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.” Joseph obeys God. A child he had not fathered, but a child he adopted and loved as his own. He nurtured Him. He cared for Him. He provided for Him. He protected Him from the hatred of Herod taking Him down to Egypt. He likely taught Jesus the trade of carpentry. He received the One the world would reject.