Jesus: The Chosen Seed
Finding Jesus In The Old Testament • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 12 viewsNotes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
When it comes to preaching a sermon from this pulpit there are a number of simultaneous goals that I have in mind, to differing degrees depending on the text that I’m preaching and the context of when I’m preaching it. Ultimately the greatest purpose is to equip the saints, that’s you guys, to be the best disciples and disciple makers that we can be. That being said there are a number of important tools to equip the saints with. One of the goals is inspiration, sharing the encouraging and motivating words of Scripture to wake us up and get us excited to be disciples. Another goal is application, drilling down into what exactly the Scriptures are asking us to do and how we can best go about doing it.
Finally there’s instruction, teaching the theology and content of the Scripture to inform our understanding of who God is and who we are. A lot of the times a sermon is a mix of all of those goals and maybe even a few more. Sometimes however the nature of the text I’m preaching on will be such that it lends itself primarily to just one of those goals. Today we’re going to be focusing more on an instructional content focused kind of text.
Now interestingly, technically the text for this sermon is the same one that I preached my first official sermon as your pastor on last year, Matthew 1:1-17, the geneology of Jesus. When I preached on this passage last year around Christmas I focused on how it shows from the flaws in Jesus’ ancestors the redeeming nature of God. This time however, we are looking at it from the perspective of the series “Finding Jesus in the Old Testament,” so we’re looking at how it fulfills the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah.
By way of reminder, the Finding Jesus in the Old Testament series that we have been going through most of this year has been focused on finding the passages of the Old Testament which teach us about Jesus before He was even born. The three categories of passages about Jesus in the Old Testament are Types of Christ that are people or things which foreshadow Jesus, Christologies which are appearances of Jesus before He was born as a man, and finally prophecies, where God through His prophets announced to Israel who the Messiah, Jesus, would be in the future. This is actually the penultimate sermon in the series, meaning that next week will be the last sermon in the series and then we will move on to something different.
Now the reason the main text of this sermon is the first 17 verses of Matthew is because these prophecies are actually scattered throughout the Old Testament. So for a main text we’re going to be looking at the one place that gathers all of those prophecies in order to confirm who Jesus is. The gospel according to Matthew is just chock full of references to fulfilled Old Testament Scriptures. One of the major theme’s of Matthew’s Gospel is the fact that Jesus is the prophecied Messiah and that He came to fulfill the Old Testament. That’s why he begins writting his book the way that he does; because the very ancestry of Jesus proves that He is the Messiah. So Jesus’ status as the chosen, anointed, Messiah, or Christ is already proven the moment that He is born.
In this sermon we’ll walk through the prophecies that tell us whose descendant the Messiah will be, and see that the field of eligible candidates gets narrower and narrower as history progresses before Jesus finally comes. Of course the first prediction about the ancestry of the Messiah is left out of Matthew’s geneology, probably because literally every human being qualifies. This is Genesis 3:14-15
Genesis 3:14–15 (CSB)
So the Lord God said to the serpent: Because you have done this, you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal. You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life.
I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.
We talked about this prophecy already at the beginning of the series, but it’s importance is basically in showing that the Messiah would be a human being. From then on we get no more prophecies about this until we get to the Father of the Jewish faith himself,
Abraham
Abraham
At this point in Biblical history we’ve been living with the fall for a while, and Noah’s flood has already come and the descendants of Noah are spreading throughout the world. Out of all the outspread people God calls one man named Abram, who He will later rename Abraham, and gives Him an amazing promise:
Genesis 12:1–3 (CSB)
The Lord said to Abram: Go from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.
I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
Now at first blush this doesn’t look like a Messianic prophecy, but more like a promise/prophecy to Abraham about the future of His descendants. It’s only really in retrospect that we see the true significance of this passage. First, clearly this prophecy isn’t just about Abraham and its descendants, but also includes the rest of the world. It says that Abraham’s seed would be blessed, but also that it would be a blessing to other people. How would the nation of Israel bless the rest of the world? In the end the way that the whole world was blessed through the descendants of Israel is through Jesus, who is the seed of Abraham.
We have this confirmed in Galatians, when Paul Comments on the promises given to Abraham in Galatians 3:16
Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say “and to seeds,” as though referring to many, but referring to one, and to your seed, who is Christ.
So we can see from Paul that Jesus is the one about whom God was speaking when He promised Abraham that all the nations will be blessed through him, so in a sense this prophecy becomes Messianic. And what a blessing Jesus has been to the nations of the world! To the Jew first and then to the Greek Jesus came and taught incredible wisdom and performed many miracles, culminating in His death on the cross for our sins and resurrection from the dead defeating death forever. I think that qualifies as a blessing, don’t you think so? So the field of candidates narrows from any human male to only the descendants of Abraham. This still leaves the entirety of the nation of Israel and even the Edomites and Ishmaelites as possible candidates however.
So to narrow down the possible candidates we come to the next of the patriarchs, Isaac:
Isaac
Isaac
This one won’t take very long, because basically God just reiterates the promise He made to Abraham to his son Isaac. The significance of this has mostly to do with Abraham’s other son Ishmael. See while Abraham and Sarah had been told that God would give them a child and all those other blessings, they were getting old and had been unable to conceive. So they took matters into their own hands. Sarah gave her servant Hagar to Abraham as a surrogate mother and she got pregnant and gave birth to Ishmael.
It’s after this that we read this statement from God:
But God said, “No. Your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will name him Isaac. I will confirm my covenant with him as a permanent covenant for his future offspring.
A reminder that God’s plan is better and endures, even if we try to do things on our own strength. Ishmael represents trying to get a blessing outside of God’s plan, so he doesn’t inherit the promise. So that eliminates any descendants of Ishmael from the promise. Still we are left with an entire nation of people that could be in the running for Messiah. After this Isaac has two twin sons, Esau and Jacob. Esau was born first, but Jacob tricks him out of his inheritance as firstborn and out of his father’s blessing as firstborn. Eventually Jacob meets God on the road to reuniting with his brother after 14 years away and wrestles with God, earning the name “Israel” from God, which means “wrestles with God.” He has twelve sons from whom come the twelve tribes of Israel. So the promise continuing through Jacob/Israel eliminates the Edomites as candidates for the Messiah, but now we have twelve whole tribes worth of contenders. Which son will inherit the promise of the Messiah from Jacob?
Judah
Judah
Fast forward a number of years and Jacob is a really old man who knows that He is soon going to die. The family has all moved into the land of Egypt because of a terrible famine that was afflicting them. In this context he calls together all of His sons and shares a prophecy and a blessing for each of them. When it comes to Judah’s turn to receive the prophecy about him, we read this amazing prediction:
Genesis 49:8–10 (CSB)
Judah, your brothers will praise you. Your hand will be on the necks of your enemies; your father’s sons will bow down to you.
Judah is a young lion—my son, you return from the kill. He crouches; he lies down like a lion or a lioness—who dares to rouse him?
The scepter will not depart from Judah or the staff from between his feet until he whose right it is comes and the obedience of the peoples belongs to him.
This is interesting for a number of reasons. It ascribes to Judah the leadership of the twelve tribes of Israel, and compares him to a lion. The image of “the lion of Judah” of course will later be applied to Jesus. The image of “a scepter” or “staff” represents not just authority, but kingly authority. This is interesting because at this point the Israelites are a small family, and will not have a king for hundreds of years. Even more interesting is that when they do anoint their first King, Saul is anointed by God to lead Israel and he is from the tribe of Benjamin. I wonder if anyone at that point read this passage and wondered at why the king wasn’t from the tribe of Judah?
Of course because of His disobedience Saul loses the kingdom and it’s given to David, who is from the tribe of Judah. Thus the image of a descendant of Judah having the scepter and staff is fulfilled, but hold on a second. This prophecy says that the scepter will not depart from Judah until “he whose right it is comes.” This CSB phrase is a translation of the word “Shiloh.”
Shiloh—this obscure word is variously interpreted to mean “the sent” (Jn 17:3), “the seed” (Is 11:1), the “peaceable or prosperous one” (Eph 2:14)—that is, the Messiah (Is 11:10; Ro 15:12);
So here we get the narrowest and clearest Messianic prediction so far in the Old Testament. There will be a special seed or sent one that will be the rightful king of Israel who the people should rightfully obey. So now even among the Jewish people only those who are born in the tribe of Judah could possibly claim to be a candidate for Messiah. Yet the narrowing of the Messiah’s ancestry does not end there, but continues with the most famous of Jesus’ ancestors, David himself.
David
David
So David comes along in history and God annoints him as king after the first king, Saul, fails to patiently wait on God. David is selected as basically the opposite of Saul. Saul was a big handsome man according to Scripture, an obvious pick for leadership. David however was a small man, the youngest in his family which was in a small tribe. Yet he was chosen by God, and his rule was famously one of the best and most prosperous of the Kingdom of Israel. He was even described as a man after God’s own heart. Huge praise.
David is also the title champion for the person who is most prophecied to be the ancestor of the Messiah. Many of them predict the same thing, that there would always be a son of David on Israel’s throne into eternity. We of course now know in the light of the New Testament revelation that Jesus as the eternal Son of God will always be on the throne of David forever. One passage which predicts this eternal throne is:
Psalm 89:3–4 (CSB)
The Lord said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn an oath to David my servant: ‘I will establish your offspring forever and build up your throne for all generations.’ ” Selah
This is but one of many, many, many predictions about the Messiah being a descendant of David. Another comes in a very famous Messianic prophecy in Isaiah,
Isaiah 9:2–7 (CSB)
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; a light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness. You have enlarged the nation and increased its joy.
The people have rejoiced before you as they rejoice at harvest time and as they rejoice when dividing spoils. For you have shattered their oppressive yoke and the rod on their shoulders, the staff of their oppressor, just as you did on the day of Midian.
For every trampling boot of battle and the bloodied garments of war will be burned as fuel for the fire. For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders.
He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end.
He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this.
In fact there were so many prophecies about the Messiah being the son of David that they began to refer to the Messiah as “Son of David.” This is why every time someone calls Jesus “Son of David” in the New Testament you know that the person is calling Jesus the Messiah and rightful King of Israel.
This is as narrow as it gets. The Messiah therefore will be the descendant of Eve, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and David. If we look at the geneology of Jesus, we find all of those names present, both in Luke and in Matthew.
And largely that’s the point of a lot of this sermon. Let’s be honest, I’m sure a lot of us mostly skip or skim the geneologies in the Bible. A lot of the time it’s hard to see the value of these lists of names. They were important to the Jewish people, but they seem less so to us. Yet we know that Paul says in 2 Tim 3:16
All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness,
That surely includes these lists of names. So the question is, why are these lists of names important for us to know? Primarily they exist to confirm to us that Jesus is the Messiah. For millenia the Jewish people kept careful records of their ancestry, and all along the way God was giving them prophecies about whose descendant the Messiah would be. So the two join hand in hand in the first century to demonstrate that Jesus of Nazereth is who He claims to be, the chosen one that God promised through the prophets.
So when you read this list of names what your reading is good evidence. Remember that God doesn’t call us to a blind faith. Regardless of how you came to know Christ, there are good reasons to believe that Jesus is who He says that He is. Much of Scripture contains that evidence to reassure us that we can have confidence and trust in what God has said.
When you read this list of names you also read the faithfulness of God. He made promises to those men that He faithfully kept, even years after they had died. God always keeps His promise and the genealogy of Jesus proves that it’s so.
When you read this list of names you also read the redemptive nature of God’s will. Abraham was a flawed man who lied multiple times and who tried to take God’s will into His own hands. Jacob stole his inheritance and his blessing. Judah betrayed his brother Joseph into slavery and had incestuous relations with his daughters. David committed adultery with Bathsheba and conspired to have her husband killed in order to hide his infidelity. Yet God still used them to bring about His plan and His purpose to redeem all mankind.
Conclusion
Conclusion
So what is our takeaway from this exploration of Jesus’ ancestry today? The biggest is that the God we serve today is the same God that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob served. He is the same God who David worshipped. He continues to be the faithful one who keeps His promises. When you read in these pages of scripture the fulfillment of prophecy you read the trustworthiness of God. So we can rest assured in our daily life that no matter what valleys we face that we have a good shepherd taking care of us. Psalm 23:1-5
Psalm 23:1–5 (CSB)
The Lord is my shepherd; I have what I need. He lets me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside quiet waters. He renews my life; he leads me along the right paths for his name’s sake.
Even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, for you are with me; your rod and your staff—they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
This is why we should remind ourselves daily who the God we serve is, so that when trouble finds us and we suffer and everything goes wrong, we can rest on the unchanging faithfulness of God.
Another important lesson from today is that if God can use those men to bring about His purpose, He can also use you. No matter how small you feel, how flawed and lost you feel, how useless you feel, God can use you. That’s because when God calls you to do His will, it’s His power that will accomplish it. If God has called you than you can count on Him to equip you. And by the way, God has called you. Even if you don’t feel a particular calling on your life we all share the common calling of the great commission of Matthew 28:18-20
Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Jesus gives us the mission to reach the lost, but reminds us that we do so based on His authority and presence. I know I bring up this verse a lot, but I do so for a reason. It’s Jesus’ final marching orders for His disciples. They are the guiding principle for everything we do and why we focus on being disciples and making disciples in this church.
So at the end of the day we can see that indeed even the genealogies of the Bible are useful for teaching and equipping us to do God’s will. So maybe next time you’re doing your daily Bible reading and you come across a genealogy you might be inspired to slow down and consider those names and why God included them in His word and how they can help you to be a better disciple.