Sermon Tone Analysis

Prayer: Give us grace, O Lord, not only to hear your Word with our ears, but also to receive it into our hearts and to show it in our lives; for the glory of your great name.

Is all Scripture God-breathed?

It is important that we do not skip scripture when we read it for it is there for a purpose.

In doing a harmony of the Gospels you have to cover all the passages within them and so these two passages were unavoidable today.

I cannot imagine that these are popular passages to preach on.

But let me ask you this: Do you think anyone could get saved through reading these genealogies?

Well, I heard the story of a guy from India who read the Matthew one that was read by Judith earlier.

He was saved.

How?

He saw that our faith was rooted historically whereas Hinduism and Buddhism was not.

And indeed ours is an historical religion based in real time and space.

Even in a passage like today’s God speaks.

What is the fascination today with genealogies?

You only have to switch on the telly and there is a programme called: ‘So you think you are royal...’ or ‘Who do you think you are?’

I think that we are all interested to find out if there is royalty or perhaps a scandal from our past.

But I think that today because of the family breakdown; because we no longer live near where we were born; because we feel unrooted and unstable we want to grasp at roots and say: this is who I am.

...but when you have a surname like ‘Thomas’ to look up a family tree then it is like a needle in a haystack.

But no one quite does genealogies like the Jews and hence the list in Mathew: this is how you show your family, even today, if you want to make Aliya by moving to Israel you have to show from which tribe you are from, which family, what is your progeny, before they let you immigrate.

He wants the reader to know how Jesus belongs to the story of Israel—and how that story belongs to him!

So, Matthew’s list simply starts at Abraham.

Matthew wants to remind the Jews of the promises made by God to Abraham, Jacob and Isaac found in Genesis 12ff.

Matthew’s aim is to show the Jews in a Jewish way the progeny of the Messiah so that they can see the truth of it and come into the Kingdom of Heaven.

And that all the promises made concerning the Messiah in the Old Testament come true in Jesus, that He is the Son of David; that He is the heir to the royal throne having gone through the line of kings.

Then, we have a change at the end of Matthew’s list: He did not say Joseph the Father of Jesus but Joseph, the husband of Mary to whom a son is born.

Jesus, being adopted by Joseph is his son and therefore heir of the kings mentioned before.

In the same way we have been adopted by God and become heir of all that He has.

Luke’s list, unlike Matthew’s, goes all the way back to Adam and God Himself to show that Jesus is the One who has come for the whole human race and that He is not just the Son of David but the Son of God.

Matthew’s list is taking a sweep of Jewish History to show Jesus is the One they are looking for; he takes us through David’s son Solomon however Luke follows the lineage back through the side of the family through David’s son Nathan.

You have to bear in mind in Matthew he does not give every name and follows a Levitical path which can take us through uncles and grandparents rather than through fathers but Luke is thought to be a more literal, biological path.

It is interesting to note that we have a genealogy that takes us back to Adam whom Luke, take to be a real historical figure, the first human to have lived on earth, which the book of Genesis takes as one made from the earth rather than descending from apes.

In the same way that we have read of the genealogy of Jesus we also find in Genesis 5 and 1 Chronicles 1 Adam’s genealogy too.

There are at least ten reasons to believe that Adam was a real person but for now but here are two:

Jesus talked of Adam and Eve as the first literal male and female in Matthew 19 and forms the basis for marriage.

No Adam and Eve - no reason for marriage.

There was certainly no Adam and Steve or Ellen and Eve.

Paul talks of sin coming in through one man, that is, Adam and that Christ is the last Adam.

All our Christian doctrine is founded upon the story of salvation - one man’s sin brought down the whole human race until Jesus redeemed us.

Adam is absolutely vital to our theology and our history.

Adam was as real as you or me.

Luke also mentions Noah who was one of eight who survived a worldwide flood.

Genesis presents these stories as history which also becomes the history of Jesus.

Jesus took Noah to be a real person for He says:

Was Jesus deceived?

Were the writers of Luke, Matthew Hebrews and First and Second Peter who mention Noah deceived?

Science shows that there was a catastrophe in the past and they have their own conclusions as to what this was however there was definitely one calamity that befell humankind - and this was the flood, not some localised disaster otherwise how can we explain the tsunamis of 2004 and 2011 for they would break God’s promise not to flood and destroy mankind - no, this was worldwide.

Genesis is history - for those of you reading through the Bible with me - we will be reading actual history this week.

Something else that makes Matthew’s genealogy interesting is that he mentions 5 different women – and this is a departure from the way Jews do their genealogies.

William Barclay says, “It is not normal to find the names of women in Jewish pedigrees at all.

Woman had no legal rights; she was not regarded as a person, but as a thing.”

How terrible it must have been for them in those days.

But Scripture does not do cultural relevance:

Scripture is ahead of its time.

But to be fair it is also true today that lineages are done through the men rather than the women.

Women take on the man’s surname as their own when they marry and their original surname disappears until you apply for a loan or bank account where your former name is needed.

There are some that keep their name or double-barrel it.

But here we have five women mentioned, four by name and one by the name of her former husband:

The five women are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary.

It really is incredible to find them here.

Tamar (in Gen 38.6-30) seduced and slept with the father of her husband.

Yes, he had died and under Levitical practices his name should have lived on through his brothers but Judah refused so she disguised herself as a prostitute and slept with Judah, who was widowed himself, and bore twins, one of which was Perez: A direct ancestor of Jesus.

Rahab (in Joshua 2.1-24) was a prostitute who lived in Jericho and gave safe sanctuary for the spies of Israel...she was the mother of Boaz who married Ruth, one of the other women mentioned here: both of whom were not Jews.

Ruth (Ruth 1-4 ) was the woman who followed Naomi back to her home after her husband died when she said ‘My God will be your God, your people my people’.

Because she ended up in the field of Naomi’s relative, Boaz, they met, fell in love and married and are direct ancestors of Jesus.

What is more is that Ruth was a Moabite whereas Deut 23:3 says: No Ammonite or Moabite …may enter the assembly of the Lord...forever.

But Ruth had faith.

And that is the only thing that can please God.

Then, of course, there is Bathsheba not actually named but as ‘her that had been of Uriah’ (2 Samuel 11.1-27)– the woman bathing naked on a rooftop for David to see and seduce.

So an affair, a murder, a cover-up, secret exposed, conviction, death of a child, then a marriage that led to the birth of King Solomon.

And then last of all there was Mary, a woman willing to do whatever God wanted and so bore our Saviour, Jesus.

What this speaks of is the grace and mercy of God.

That these women were shown immense grace to be honoured to be among the progeny of Jesus.

What marks them out is that they were women of faith who were sinners.

Yes, all were sinners for all fall short of the glory of God.

Yes, even Mary, declares in her Magnificat in

Only sinners need a saviour.

Of course, I have not mentioned the men who had their own foibles and did not deserve to be in the lineage of Jesus but they are there nevertheless.

A man like Manasseh who was the most evil of all kings of Israel but, who, in the end humbled himself before God.

Perhaps today you are discovering more about Jesus.

No one doubts that Jesus was historical today except those on the fringes of scholarship.

That one has been put to bed.

This does raise some interesting questions though: so Jesus lived, what has that to do with me?

He lived to die…that is what He came to do.

He came to take our place by taking the punishment we deserve from God for our sin, our wrong-doing, our lies, our rebellion, our stealing, our adulteries, our blaspheming, our coveting and so on.

God says that the punishment is death.

So Jesus died a cruel death on our behalf so that we could be forgiven.

The historical Jesus is one who died on a cross, was buried and the overwhelming evidence is that He rose from the dead and is, therefore, alive today.

We are to humble ourselves like Manasseh who, though, being the vilest of people came to ask God for forgiveness.

Today, we can do the same: We ask Jesus into our lives and He will forgive us all our sin, will give us eternal life, bliss forevermore, and to reign with Him.

What He asks of us is that we will carry our cross and deny ourselves and follow Him.

The genealogies are there to show Jesus came for the Jews and He came for us.

Perhaps you are one who likes to delve into your own history, of those who have gone before, perhaps feeling a bit rootless.

Jesus came to give you roots in one who is able to hold you strong and find your identity in Him:

For those who become His He says:

That means that you and I am accepted; You and I are God's child.

Matthew and Luke show that we have:

(1) a faith rooted in history, (2) a faith expressing God’s grace, (3) a faith recognizing divine providence, (4) a faith which focuses on the Messiah.

I have said before that God has no grandchildren - only children.

Our genealogy is as follows:

Your name (say it!),

son of God.