Advent 1: Hope | Matthew 1:1-17
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,[a] 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,[b] 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,[c] 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,[d] 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.
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I love the Bible… but if I were to be totally transparent with you I will tell you some parts of the Bible are harder to read than others… some parts I quickly gravitate to and I’m ready to jump right in…and other parts, to be honest, I am tempted to skip over because it doesn’t seem relevant or helpful at all…. Just keeping it real, folks…
And maybe, maybe… one type of scripture YOU want to skip over in your Bible is stuff like what Ryan just read… the genealogies. I know especially as a younger Christian I paid little to no attention to scriptures like this…it seemed boring and monotonous…and so and so begat so and so who begat so and so….
I saw it as something that just sort of got in the way….almost like introductory filler that I had to plod through until I could get to where the action REALLY was…
Today is the first Sunday of Advent… and the theme today is hope. And in particular the hope that is found in the coming of Christ into the world… a hope that can sustain us in between His first and second coming… And as I thought and prayed about what scripture to focus on today I have to say…that thanks to the amazingly wonderful and ironic providence of a God who has a sense of humor.. it is my privilege today to actually preach on a part of the Bible I used to skip over!
Matthew 1 is probably not the first scripture you would go to when you’re struggling and looking for hope…
And yet hope is all over this passage and I “hope” God will help us to see it and that our hearts would be lifted up by….of all things… a genealogy…
And the first thing this genealogy shows us that
Our hope is rooted in history (it’s real!)
It’s interesting to note how Matthew begins his account of Jesus. He doesn’t begin it by saying “once upon a time…” or “a long time ago in a galaxy far far away…”
When we read something that we automatically know what we’re reading…it’s a fairy tale, a fantasy…. A myth or a legend.
But Matthew doesn’t start out his book with “there once was a boy in a far away village….” No instead, Matthew writes,
…The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ…
Matthew 1:1
And then he lists dozens of names going back thousands of years.
The Jews were very serious about their genealogies… it was important for a Jew to know who his ancestors were… what particular tribe he was from… and anyone in the first century could have easily checked out the veracity of this…this would not have slipped by if this were fabricated… but no one disputed this…not even Jesus’ enemies.
Because all of the people in this genealogy are real… and they were really connected to Jesus…
Unlike other religions and philosophies, Christianity is rooted in the soil of this world. It hinges on real events with real people in real time. This isn’t merely an inspiring story…The historical roots under the tree of Matthew’s gospel run thousands of years deep…
And if you’re new to Christianity… you need to know that this is one of the most important distinguishing features of our faith…
Most religions, at their core, are rooted not in history but in principles and ethical teachings… so I follow a religion that tells me I need to check off a bunch of boxes and, if I fulfill those requirements, then I’ll be good with God, others, and the universe…
Sometimes people think of Christianity that way… as mainly a moral pathway… as a set of tips and principles for self-improvement.
But the core of Christianity is NOT what Jesus taught us to do… It’s instead what Jesus did for us… which means that if all of this is fabricated… then Christianity is totally useless…
Tim Keller rightly said that Christianity at its core isn’t good advice, it’s good news!
Other religions give good advice… obey these rules… follow these principles…. Do these things, and it’ll turn out well for you… Friends…that is NOT good news. That’s exhausting…. And we know in our hearts that we can never measure up to be what God wants us to be.
Matthew isn’t writing a fairy tale…nor is he writing a self-help book that you can pick up at Barnes and Noble… this isn’t about advice, tips, religious deeds, or inspirational stories…
Matthew instead is making a proclamation of news! News about something God did for you in history…in the actual, real person of Jesus Christ!
In fact, the word Christians often use is the word Gospel , which comes from a Greek Word εὐαγγέλιον (euangelion)… Eu- meaning good and αγγέλιον meaning message… and so the gospel is “the good message.”
Imagine for a moment that you were in ancient Greece and an invading army was coming towards your village, pillaging and plundering everything in their way…. And everyone they fought…they obliterated… And someone comes to your town and says you need to strengthen your defenses… gather every able-bodied man to fight…. ration your food…
It may not help, but it’s better than nothing, and maybe you’ll be able to fend off this attack… Well, that’s good advice…but it’s not good news that’s for sure…
But imagine, as you’re preparing for this horrible battle, another person approaches your village running at top speed, shouting… shouts of joy… he says the King has come with his army… he’s defeated the barbarians… and they’ll never bother us again… well in the ancient world that proclamation of peace would have been called a “gospel.” A good message! And the person who would have brought the message would have been called an “Angelos,” a messenger or angel…
And in that classic Christmas story in Luke 2, who appeared to make the happy announcement of Jesus’ birth? Angels.… And what did they say?
“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord…”
Luke 2:10–11
The biblical gospel is in essence a joyful proclamation of the arrival of the King… And this King has come for sinners who have been at war with Him… who have sought to dethrone Him so that we could be the King of our own lives….
And the wonderful twist in the story of Christmas is that the King comes…breaking into history…entering the human story… not to round up and execute the rebels and traitors…but to save them….
Brothers and sisters, THAT is good news!! Have we forgotten this?
Have some of us been Christians so long that another Christmas comes and goes and we yawn because this world has dulled our senses and we need to recapture the glory….the awe…the wonder of what Christmas is….
And surely part of that is remembering that the old story of the gospel is news… and not fake news… but good news…and news as real as me standing in front of you right now…as real as your story… it’s history… and history is “His Story…”. It’s all about what He is doing for you…
RC Sproul once told a story of a missionary with Wycliffe translators working with a remote tribe who didn’t have the Bible… and her project was translating the gospel of Matthew for them…. And she couldn’t do the whole book at once, and so
She decided to do what many of US do…she skipped over the genealogy to get down to the meat and substance of the story …
And when she got the edition printed and copied, and it was distributed among the tribe, it totally bombed… nobody was interested… and she was very discouraged as she had labored for years over this project.
But she eventually published a second edition, and this time it included the genealogy. And the chief of the tribe called her to his hut and said, “What is this?” And she’s like, “What is what?” And the chief said, “I’m reading this book, and you mean to say that this Jesus you’ve been telling me about all these years was a real person? I thought you were just telling us stories…”
And when he discovered the truth, he was stunned…. And he actually turned to Christ and became a Christian… and not long after that, the whole tribe came to Christ. Why?
Because the fact that Jesus entered into real time and space changes everything! And that means… (watch this)…. That's because what happened was actually real, which means that Jesus’ big story intersects with, transforms, and redeems your own personal story. And now…. anything is possible… and that gives us hope…
Because this great, wonderful God is not distant and aloof… no…the great desire of God has always been to be in close proximity and relationship to His people… To love you, to care for you, to help you… Indeed, in the account of Jesus’ birth, we discover that one of His names is to be “Immanuel”, which means God with us.
And so if you are His… Know that He has broken into your story…and is involved in your life every second of every day… You are not alone… just trying to be religious…trying to follow a moral path… you’re actually walking down a road with God Himself who is writing your story…for your good…and His glory….
And this genealogy is an amazing reminder of this… that our hope is real and rooted in history….
But also, this genealogy reminds us that our hope is
Rooted in God’s faithfulness
This scripture isn’t ultimately about all the names on this list… It’s ultimately about God and His faithfulness to keep His promises to His people.
…the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Matthew 1:1
Matthew immediately connects the advent of Jesus with David and Abraham because those names are especially associated with promises God made to them and us…
Which should remind us that God’s plan to send Jesus wasn’t an afterthought in the mind of God… it wasn’t plan B… it was part of God’s glorious plan from the beginning…
Indeed, just three chapters into the Bible… after Adam and Eve sin against the Lord…. God in response promises the ultimate defeat…the ultimate destruction…not of Adam and Eve or wicked humanity… but of the great enemy of humanity who led them into sin…The devil… God says to the serpent,
…I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head…
Genesis 3:15
This speaks to the final overthrow of Satan and the restoration of all that has gone wrong with the world because of our sin… and the rest of the Bible story traces the outworking of this incredible promise, anticipating the arrival of the serpent crushing offspring.
And this promise is restated in a very special way to Abraham and David.
Thousands of years before Jesus, God promised Abraham offspring that would bring blessing to the world….
And this genealogy details the proliferation of Abraham’s descendants as we see the promise unfolding from generation to generation… Matthew’s genealogy is broken up into three movements, which essentially tell Israel’s story…
Some of these names may be obscure to you… But for the first century Jew, they were mile markers on the road of God’s unfolding plan… and Matthew’s readers would be reminded that yes, the promises of God are unfolding…but they are unfolding over a long period of time and through much difficulty… and through moments where it seems like the promises will fail…
Consider Abraham himself… an old man with an infertile wife… how could the promise move forward through them? And yet God miraculously gives new life to this couple as Isaac is born, and through Issac comes Jacob.
Who is the father of the 12 tribes of Israel…the people through whom God will carry forward the promise….
And this whole first section of the genealogy summarizes the early phases of Israel’s history, which brought all kinds of threats and obstacles to God’s promise to bless the world…
This section of history includes Israel’s displacement in Egypt, including their slavery…. where it seems like the promise of God will be crushed in the Egyptian sand… yet God miraculously delivers them….
This period includes the time of the Judges…one of the most chaotic and evil times in Israel’s history… yet in that darkness, there is a good, faithful man like Boaz that God uses to carry that promise forward…
And then we get to David the King…. Israel’s greatest King…who ushers in Israel’s golden age… and God reiterates the old Genesis 3:15 promise to him…. but adds more detail… promising that David’s throne would endure forever….
Which fanned the flames of hope… that a son of David would be that special offspring that would reverse the curse and bring blessing to all…
But the second section of the genealogy details another dark moment in Israel’s history that seems to threaten the promise. Yes, David does have a son, Solomon… but he’s not what his father was… he falls into sin and idolatry, and it becomes very clear there’s no way he can deliver on the promises of God….
Solomon’s son Rehoboam is worse… and under him David’s kingdom is divided which results in civil war… and this whole period of time in Matthews genealogy represents a long downward spiral into darkness… while there were a few good kings…and two particularly stellar ones, many of the kings were bad….and over time things get so bad… that God judges the nation…
And they are conquered by the evil Babylonian empire, and the temple is destroyed, and the people go into exile…and you wonder how in the world God is going to bring blessing out of this? It seems like it’s all over…
But then you get to the third section of the genealogy… where we find Zerubbabel. And this guy is another important mile marker on the road map of Israel’s history… because this marks the end of the exile… as God has mercy on the people and Zerubbabel begins to lead the Jews back to Israel… but not back to glory…
Though the temple is rebuilt…it does not match the grandeur of Solomon’s temple… and this period is marked by much affliction, difficulty, war, and oppression for the Jews… climaxed by the rise of the Roman Empire… which held Israel in its iron grip like no other… this family tree…seen from one angle is a discouraging story….
When things seem to get better… darkness returns… when a King or leader emerges who might make things better… he turns out to be a flawed failure…seen from one angle, this story is confusing, convoluted, and random…. and surely many Jews wondered “Would God ever keep his promise?”
But then you get down to the end of the genealogy….
…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.
Matthew 1:15–16
And so it turns out that God knew what He was doing all along… and seen from another angle this genealogy inspires great hope…because the message is that when God seems absent, He never is…
when it seems like God isn’t working…He's working in the background… when it seems like the promise will never be fulfilled… it comes to fruition… not according to our timetable… but always according to His perfect timing… the apostle Paul put it this way….
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. Galatians 4:4–5
Martyn Lloyd Jones once said that the message of Christmas is that God always keeps His promises… He is totally faithful to do what He says He will do…
And this oft-ignored genealogy is here to give you hope… because God has made promises in the Bible to all who trust in Christ… promises of His provision, His protection, His presence… and sometimes…let’s be honest… it seems like…from a human perspective that God is dropping the ball….That he isn’t coming through for us…. We wonder if He’ll really do what He says He will do…
We pray alongside the Psalmist,
How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
Psalm 13:1
You get that prayer…. You feel that way sometimes… It’s not just me, right? “God, I know you said you’ll provide… that you’re with me… that you’re for me… but I’m looking around at my circumstances, and I just don’t see it…”
But this genealogy reminds us of something I heard John Piper say once… that right now in your life God is doing 10,000 things…. And you may be aware of 3 of them…. And so we can’t put our hope in our senses…in how we perceive reality… we’ve got to plant our flag on the simple truth that what God says….God does…
And this genealogy gives us hope in that we see in it God fulfilling His promises against the backdrop of tribulation, hardship, and impossible odds… impossible from our perspective… and this proves that nothing is too hard for God and that God is actually for us…and…
…If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
Romans 8:31–32
You see Paul’s logic? If God did something that…from our perspective… would be the most difficult thing… the giving up of His Son… if he can do that…. Then how much more can we have confidence that everything else we need, and everything else He promises…. God will provide…
And so when you feel alone, and everyone else has turned against you…and God says,
“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Hebrews 13:5
We know this is true because God has given you His Son…
When you feel overwhelmed by the great needs in your life and He says,
…God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory…
Philippians 4:19
You can count on it as good as done because God has given you His Son…
When you are going through affliction and great difficulty, and you wonder how in the world God can even work through this mess… and God promises that,
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good…
Romans 8:28
We can take comfort in that and believe in it not because it all makes sense to us according to our senses….but because God has kept the promise of sending His Son… and therefore God will keep every other promise He has made… this wonderful genealogy should stir up hope that your God will never fail you…
We make promises and fail to keep them all the time… thank God, God is not like us.
And so this genealogy shows us that our hope is rooted in history… it’s a reminder of God’s faithfulness…this genealogy is also
Saturated with grace
For an ancient Jewish person, your genealogy wasn’t just a semi-interesting trivia… it was your resume… it was how you demonstrated your worth…and sometimes they were fudged…like today’s resumes… which we deliberately craft so that we will look as awesome as possible…
That’s what King Herod did…. Herod was a very insecure man… this was the guy who killed the children in Bethlehem trying to get to Jesus….
Herod was very egotistical and concerned about his image… and he actually expunged his genealogical record of embarrassing family members so it looked like he came from a line of nonstop awesomeness…making him seem great!
Herod was essentially saying, “these are not my people”….I want nothing to do with them and in no way want to be seen as connected to them…
Now, Matthew here is presenting Jesus’ resume. And why you should receive Him as King. And we know from other biblical records that this is not an exhaustive resume…there are gaps in the genealogy… which was acceptable back then…. and so if Matthew isn’t going to include every name, he’s got to be very thoughtful and deliberate about who he IS going to include…
But he’s not doing what Herod did…he’s not polishing up the resume… he’s not trying to clean up the family tree to make it look better… in fact it he’s doing the exact opposite…
Because when you look at the names on this account, what do you have? You have a motley collection of people! Some of you probably have people in your family tree who are embarrassing to you…. People whom you might not feel comfortable being attached to…
There are people in Jesus’ genealogy that would cause people to scratch their heads and say, “Matthew, why are you including that person?”
First…there are several women included in this record… and women were not seen as important or great… they would have been very low in the pecking order of 1st century society… but what’s more shocking is which women are featured in this resume…
I mean, if you’re going to have women in here, why not start with Sarah, the great matriarch of Israel…
But Sarah is skipped right over…. And the very first woman mentioned is Tamar.
Tamar! You know who she is? Tamar played the role of a prostitute to have an incestuous encounter with her father-in-law, who was treating her unjustly… and she did it for the manipulative purpose of having a child… Is this something you really want broadcast in your resume?
How about Rahab?
She didn’t just play the role of a prostitute…she was one by trade… and a foreigner. You need to remember that many Jews despised Gentiles and saw them as outside the sphere of God’s grace… But worse, Rahab was a Canaanite… part of the evil enemies of God and doomed for judgment… and yet Rahab actually becomes part of Israel through faith in Israel’s God….and she becomes part of this family….
And likewise Ruth abandoned the pagan gods of her people to join Israel…
And she was a Gentile…a Moabite…more enemies of God’s people whose origins were shady and rooted in another incestuous relationship…. I mean, this is messy R-rated stuff we have here in Jesus’ resume…. And yet these women are honored by God as being part of His plan to bring forth the Messiah…
And it’s not just the women that are shady… some of the men are worse… You have Judah…
He is that wicked father-in-law of Tamar… and he did a lot of other awful stuff… Goodness, I don’t want him as a reference on my resume….
This is not to say this resume doesn’t have spiritual giants and heroes…
Abraham is held up as one with exemplary faith…but even his faith falters, and we see him falling into embarrassing scandal…
But lets jump ahead to the one whom many would say is the BEST guy on this resume…and that’s David!
David…a man after God’s own heart… through his faith and devotion to God, he slew Goliath… and became Israel’s greatest king… But we read that
…David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah,
Matthew 1:6
Matthew….Matthew…what are you doing, man? You’re just blowing this resume! I know you have to mention David, but why mention the “wife of Uriah?” Why remind us of that thing… the “wife of Uriah” was Bathsheba…
And Uriah was one of David’s friends and most important supporters… and David committed adultery with his friend’s wife… got her pregnant… and then attempted to cover up the scandal by having Uriah killed in battle so that he could marry Bathsheba… not a great idea if you’re wanting a nice shiny polished resume…
And as the genealogy continues, there are other names mentioned… like those sinful, rebellious kings after David…some committing idolatry, witchcraft, and even human sacrifice…this resume just keeps getting better…
and then the third part of the genealogy contains a list of mostly obscure names and unimpressive nobodies…
even going down all the way to Mary… sure she’s famous to us, now…but she was a nobody then… poor and lowly… from a back water town hick town called Nazareth that the elites made fun of… and on top of that she was suspiciously pregnant….and while she did nothing wrong….the air of scandal always surrounded her….
And we’re left thinking, what kind of resume is this?
It’s a resume of grace…. full of ethnic outsiders, gender outsiders, notorious sinners… people with sketchy stories and sordid pasts… the marginalized, those lowly and despised in the eyes of the world…people who have been scarred and stained by their own sin or victimized by the sin of others….
And…don’t miss this…Jesus… without shame connects His story to theirs. Because friends, this genealogy isn’t just some boring list of names… it’s a message… this motley bunch in Matthew 1 is a beautiful representation of the kind of people Jesus came to identify with and save….and it’s a testimony to something glorious about Jesus and why you should receive Him as King…
Herod may clean up his resume and distance himself from certain kinds of people… but not Jesus. Jesus flings the door open wide and welcomes all kinds of people into His family… even you…because,
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:6
You may feel dirty… and torn… and broken…and scarred… and trampled on… and low… and ashamed…and dreadfully sinful… as you think of YOUR resume….YOUR past… YOUR life….. and the things you have done and how you perceive yourself…. You may feel like Jesus wouldn’t want anything to do with you….
But this genealogy that you’ve skipped over in your devotions speaks a better and hopeful word…it shows how God works in the messy ugliness of life…and some of you have had some real messy stuff go down…stuff you’ve done….stuff that’s been done to you…. He can work in and through that to bring forward something beautiful…
and there is a seat as the table for you… because
Hebrews 2:11 says that Jesus is not ashamed to call His people brothers…. Jesus says whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother….
Mark 3:35
And what is the will of God? That you would believe on Him… that you would not let you sin or your righteousness prevent you from coming to Him… don’t think you are so righteous that you don’t need Him…and don’t think you are so sinful that He will reject you…
Tim Keller said,
“In Jesus Christ prostitute and king…male and female… jew and gentile, one race and another race, moral and immoral…they all sit down as equals…equally sinful and lost… equally accepted and loved…the grace of God is so pervasive that even the begats of the bible are dripping with God’s mercy…”
And this is why after the angel proclaimed good news of great joy…
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
Luke 2:13-14
These “messengers” are bringing a proclamation that the King has come not to fight…but to offer a pardon of peace…
Because Jesus didn’t come to judge us…nor did He come to teach moral principles for good people… He came to die for bad people…and through His death and resurrection, Jesus crushed the head of the serpent…
and all of Jesus’ people… who would by faith turn from their sins and trust in Him, the true King… will share in Jesus’ victory and blessing…will be forgiven of sins…and will enjoy peace with God….and eternal life now…
And hope for the future… because Jesus’ first advent is the guarantee that He will fulfill His promise to return… Jesus never does anything halfway…He always finishes what He starts…
I’ve had to repent of my prior attitude towards the genealogies of the Bible as I’ve learned that hope can be found in the most unlikely of places… It’s all God’s Word…It’s all true… It’s all profitable for God’s people…and it all connects to the hope we have in Christ…
Well I want to give us a moment to respond and prayerfully reflect on what we’ve just heard…and here are some questions we can ask ourselves to prime the pump..
Have I seen Christianity as good advice or good news?
Have I been sharing this good news with others? Why or why not?
What promises of God am I struggling to believe today? How does Matthew’s genealogy speak to my struggle and give me hope?
Am I ever tempted to feel too dirty and sinful to be accepted by God? Why? How does this genealogy give me hope?
Have I received Jesus’ invitation to be a part of His family?
Let’s enter into a time of prayerful personal response… and then we’ll corporately sing and celebrate the hope we have in Christ…