Jesus' Legal Right to Messiah's Throne - Part 2

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In an article entitled, “Why Are Americans Obsessed with Genealogy?” author Libby Copeland writes this, “Genealogical subscription services are big business.  And 20 years into the creation of recreational DNA testing for ancestry, 35 million Americans have taken a DNA test to match them to genetic relatives and predict where in the world their genes come from.”  35 million Americans, and that article's a couple years old, so I'm sure the number has risen significantly from that.  In answering why this industry has taken off as it has? she continues, “They search out of a sense of rootlessness.  Time and assimilation have stripped their families of the customs, language, and foods of the past…”  In other words, there's a curiosity and an effort to sort of tie ourselves to the past.

Well, in ancient Israel, genealogies were also very important, but not simply out of curiosity or rootlessness.  Instead, they were crucial to everyday life.  They determined your legal place of residence.  They were necessary to transfer land.  They established your family relationships, determined who could serve in leadership as a priest or even as the king of the nation.  So, the Old Testament, not surprisingly, is full of genealogies, and most Jewish people in the first century knew their ancestry. 

You see this in the Scriptures.  Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, knew that he was of the course of Abijah; and Elizabeth, his wife, that she was a descendant of Aaron, according to Luke chapter 1.  Joseph knew he was a descendant of David, Luke 2.  Paul knew that he was of the tribe of Benjamin, Philippians 3.  Even those writing secular history knew this.  Josephus, the Jewish man writing for the Romans, records his ancestry for several generations, and then he writes this,  “I present the descent of our family as I found it recorded in the public registers.”  In other words, there were official documents, records kept of a public nature tracking genealogies.  He goes on, by the way, to describe how Jewish priests, living in Egypt and Babylon and other countries abroad, would send certified documents back to the Temple in Jerusalem, documenting births and marriages so that the records could be expanded and kept accurately. 

The importance of such genealogical records in the ancient world really sets the backdrop for Matthew, chapter 1.  Matthew, just to remind you, begins his Gospel, in chapters 1 and 2, with “The Messiah's Arrival.”  He starts in the first 17 verses by tracing “Jesus' Royal Ancestry.”  These 17 verses prove that the ancestry of Jesus of Nazareth gives Him the right, the legal right, to David's throne and qualifies Him, therefore, to be the promised Messiah.  There are two parts of this genealogy. Last time, we considered just the first part in verse 1, and that is “The Title of This Genealogy.”  Look at verse 1, “The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”  That title tells us, or reminds us, I should say, of “The Purpose” of this genealogy. It is to “Introduce the Entire Gospel” and to “Introduce Jesus' Ancestral Record.”  The title serves that purpose. 

The rest of verse 1 lays out “The Case” that Matthew intends to make, both in the genealogy and in the rest of his Gospel as well.  It's a case for “Jesus' Historical Identity,” who is this person, Jesus of Nazareth?  For “His Official Title–the Messiah,” the anointed one, the promised one, and “His Biblical Credentials,”  He is both “the son of David and the son of Abraham.”  Now, that's where we left off last time. 

Today, we come to the second part of this genealogy, and it is “The Record of Jesus' Genealogy,” the record of Jesus' genealogy.  This runs from verse 2 all the way down through verse 17.  Let's read it together.  Stay with me; I promise it'll be worth the wait, all right?  Verse 1.

The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham: Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.  Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez was the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram.  Ram was the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon.  Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab, Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse.  Jesse was the father of David the king.  David was the father of Solomon by Bathsheba who had been the wife of Uriah.  Solomon was the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asa.  Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah.  Uzziah was the father of Jotham.  Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah.  Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, and Amon the father of Josiah.  Josiah became the father of Jeconiah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.  After the deportation to Babylon, Jeconiah became the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel.  Zerubbabel was the father of Abihud, and Abihud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor.  Azor was the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud.  Eliud was the father of Eleazer, Eleazer the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob.  Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.  So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations;  from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations. 

Believe it or not, this morning I intend to cover all 16 of those verses!  So, buckle up, here we go.  Let's begin our study of “The Record of Jesus' Ancestry” with some “Key Structural Observations.”

First of all, and this is obvious, this genealogy “Descends from Abraham to Jesus.”  Verse 2, you have Abraham. Verse 16, you have Jesus.

Secondly, it intentionally “Skips generations to make the record fit the predetermined structure of 3 periods of 14 generations.”  We know that Matthew omitted several kings from the inspired Old Testament record where he got this portion of this genealogy.  But that was common in ancient genealogies to skip generations, intentionally listing only those significant to either the line or to the author's purpose, like David's genealogy in Ruth 4 where there are generations skipped.  So, keep that in mind. 

Number three, it's divided into three groups of 14 names to emphasize “Three key periods in Israel's history.”  You saw that, I read it a moment ago in verse 17, 3 periods of 14 generations. What are those periods?  First of all, there is “The Patriarchal Period that goes from Abraham to David.”  That's covered in verses 2 through the first half of verse 6.  One author has called this period of history “The Origin of David's Throne.”  “The Sources” of these names, Matthew gets them from 1 Chronicles 2, and Ruth 4.  This is a period of about “1,100 years” from Abraham in 2166 B.C. to the time of David in 1051 B.C.  The second period is “The Monarchy.”  It goes from “David to the Babylonian Deportation” from the middle of verse 6 down through verse 11.  This period could be called “The Glory and Decline of David's Throne.”  It rises to glory in David and Solomon, and then from there, it's a steady skid downward with the rest of the kings. “The Source” of this portion of the genealogy comes from 1 Chronicles 3.  It covers a period of some “465 Years” from the time of David to 586 B.C. 

That brings us then to the third period and that is “The Exile and Return: The Babylonian Deportation to the time of Jesus,” and that's covered in verses 12 to 16.  This could be called “The Eclipse of David's Throne;” it disappears.  Matthew's “Source” for this portion of the genealogy is likely to be “personal or official genealogies outside the Scripture, possibly from Mary, possibly from the temple records” that Josephus refers to that were kept in Jerusalem.  This is a period of 582 years from 586 B.C. when Jerusalem falls to Nebuchadnezzar, to 4 B.C. when Jesus is born.  

Now, why did Matthew build this genealogy around 14 generations?  What's the significance of the number 14?  He skipped generations to get to 14.  Why?  Well, there are several very interesting theories.  One of them is that if you assign each Hebrew letter a numeric value, the numeric value of David's name is 14.  They say that's what he's trying to do here.  Others say, “No, if you look at 14, it's the double of 7 and everybody knows 7 is the number of perfection so somehow this is like the double of perfection.  I don't know exactly what that means, but that's what they say.  I think it's doubtful that Matthew's first Greek readers would have caught such subtle messages buried in the text.  I think it's far more likely that Matthew arranges them into groups of 14 as a memory device for his Jewish readers so that they can use this genealogy as an apologetic in their evangelism to prove that Jesus of Nazareth is, in fact, who He claimed.  Those are some structural observations about this genealogy. 

In the rest of our time, however, I want us to move on from that to consider several “Key Spiritual Lessons” that are buried in this genealogy.  Some of them are obvious, others of them, as I've meditated on it, thought through it, have come out to me, so let me just call your attention to several key spiritual lessons. Number one, and I love this, “Individuals matter to God,” Individuals matter to God.  Our great God not only cares for humanity, generally, but also for individuals.  When you read the genealogies in the Bible, don't think of them as just a list of names.  What if your name was in one of those lists?  What if your relatives were in one of those lists?  Would you think of it as just a list of names?  

Listen, these are real people who lived and loved and died in their generation. Every one of these names experienced life just like you do.  They lived and died and were soon mostly forgotten except by those who loved them most.  But God knew them as individuals, both the righteous and the wicked.  He knew them all as individuals.  You know, our God knows the stars and calls them all by name; He knows every hair on your head; He knows every human being on this planet–He knows you individually.  2 Chronicles 16:9, “…the eyes of Yahweh move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.”  But He also knows those whose hearts are not completely His. God remembered these names; He remembered these people; He remembered the family history.  And God, under the inspiration of the Spirit, wanted these names recorded.  Listen, as an individual, you matter to God.  God knows you whether you know Him or not.  He knows everything about you.  We just read it in Psalm 139; He knows what you think before you think it; He knows the word that you're going to speak before you think about saying that word.  He knows every detail of your life.  He knows your regular habits.  He knows when you take a trip, where you end up staying.  He knows it all.  And I love that because you're not just a number to God–He cares about individuals. 

A second key spiritual lesson here is that “God sovereignly orchestrates the history of the world and individuals to accomplish His eternal plan.”  Why did Matthew arrange Jesus' genealogy into three periods?  I agree with most when they say that these three time periods in Israel's history powerfully illustrate that God's providence is at work in all of human history. He's at work in the best of times, and some of those times are recorded in this genealogy.  He's at work in the worst of times, and some of those are recorded in this genealogy as well.  He is working out His plan.  He's at work in the vast sweep of human history and its politics and its leaders and its nations.  Psalm 33:11, “The counsel of the LORD (Yahweh) stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation.”  Listen, if you're all worried about the election, relax; God's still driving the bus!  He's at work in the vast sweep of redemptive history.  That's Paul's point in Ephesians 1:11, where he talks about the salvation that God brings to His people.  And he says in the middle of that passage, God works “all things after the counsel of His will.”  

And I love this, He's at work in the smallest details of every one of our individual lives.  We sang it this morning; “The moments of our lives He weaves, so all the glory He receives.” Do you believe that? Proverbs 16:9 says this, “The mind of man plans his way,” and the Hebrew has the idea of you sort of plan out the larger scope of your life.  “The mind of man plans his way,” but he goes on to say, “but the LORD (Yahweh) directs his steps.”  In Hebrew, literally, Yahweh directs his step, singular.  You plan the scope of your life and God directs every single step.   That's your life.  That's my life.  

Leon Morris writes:

God watches over people, directs their paths; God works out His purpose generation after generation; limited as we are to one lifetime, each of us sees so little of what happens.  A genealogy is a striking way of bringing before us the continuity of God's purpose through the ages.  The process of history is not haphazard; there is a purpose in it all.  And the purpose is the purpose of God.” 

That's true of history, that's true of redemptive history, and that's true of every detail of your life.  God was at work in the lives of these people, and He is in yours. 

There's a third lesson, “Every one of us desperately needs the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”  That's true because of sin.  In this genealogy are men whose lives were entirely given over to evil.  I wish I had time to take you back to 2 Chronicles 33; you could read the story of Manasseh, one of the most evil people to ever walk this planet.  He became king at 12, reigned, if I remember right, for some 55 years.  And in that period, he built up the high places that his godly father, Hezekiah, had torn down.  He put in the Temple pagan altars to pagan gods.  He made his own children go into the fire as sacrifices in the Valley of Hinnom outside the city of Jerusalem.  He practiced witchcraft, divination.  He shed innocent blood across the country.  He was a horribly wicked man.  He's in the genealogy of the Messiah.  What does that illustrate?  He needed a savior.  

There are others in this list who are redeemed, who are called righteous, but even they, even after their redemption, sin.  Look at verse 2, “Abraham,” the father of the faithful, twice lied about Sarah being his wife out of fear of personal harm.  Verse 6, “David,” notoriously committed adultery and murder. Listen, like the names in this list, every one of us needs the Gospel that promises forgiveness of our sins.  Every one of us also needs the Gospel because of death.  The names in this record, look at every one of them; they share two things.  They're different in so many ways, but they share two realities.  One, they were all sinners in need of a savior, and two, they all died.  I hate to break this news to you, but the mortality rate is 100%.  If Jesus delays His coming, every person in this room will die–you will die.  

Why is this such a universal problem?  Look at Romans, chapter 5; Romans, chapter 5, verse 12, Paul explains, he says, “Therefore, just as through one man (Adam) sin entered into the world, and death through sin…”  You go back and you read the genealogy of Adam in Genesis 5, and guess what it says?  Adam lived 930 years, and he died.  And so-and-so lived so many years, and he died, and he died, and he died.  This is why.  It goes on to say, “so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” 

Death in three senses results from Adam's sin.  Physical death, you're going to die, I'm going to die.  Secondly, spiritual death.  Every human being is born spiritually dead.  If nothing changes that, you will end your life, and you will go to what the Bible calls the “Second Death,” which Jesus defines in the book of Revelation as the “Lake of fire.”  That's our problem.  How can we be delivered from our sin problem and our problem with certain death, physical, spiritual, and eternal?  Well, turn over to Romans 6, verse 23, “For the wages of sin is death (spiritual, physical, and eternal), but the free gift of God is eternal life (And you don't earn it; it comes as a free gift.) in (The Messiah) Christ Jesus our Lord.”  He came, sent by the Father, the eternal Son of God.  He took to Himself full and complete humanity.  He lived the life you were commanded to live, but never have; and then He died the death you should have died, for all of those who would ever repent and believe in Him; and if you do repent and believe in Him, then your problem with sin is shattered.  The guilt is removed; you are forgiven by God, and death will not be final as it was not for Him.  That's the Gospel.  That's my plea to you.  “Repent and believe the Gospel,” but this genealogy tells us we all need the Gospel. 

A fourth spiritual lesson is that “God is sovereign in salvation,” God is sovereign in salvation.  To demonstrate this clearly, God often chose the unexpected.  He chose the younger son rather than the eldest son, both for salvation and as the heir.  For example, look at verse 2, God chose Jacob rather than his twin brother, Esau.  Why?  Jacob was the younger of the two; he came out of the womb second.  Why did God choose him?  Listen to Paul's explanation in Romans, chapter 9, verse 11, “Though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God's purpose according to His choice would stand…it was said to her, ‘THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER,’ just as it is written, ‘JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.’” 

You say, “So what conclusion should we draw from that?”  Paul draws it in verse 16 of that same chapter, “So then it (election) does not depend on the man who wills (that is, human decision) or the man who runs (that is, human effort), but on God who has mercy.”  God neither saves nor rejects individuals based on their parents, their background, their own merit, their own efforts.  He's sovereign in salvation; you see that in this genealogy.  In the succession of kings in this text, we discover redeemed and evil generations mixed in all together.  The clearest example is verses 7 and 8; look at them.  Let me interpret them for you.  Look at verses 7 and 8.  Here's how we could read it, “Wicked Rehoboam,” and I'm bringing in what the Old Testament tells us. “Wicked Rehoboam was the father of Wicked Abijah.  Wicked Abijah was the father of Redeemed Asa.  Redeemed Asa was the father of Redeemed Jehoshaphat, and Redeemed Jehoshaphat was the father of Wicked Joram.”  In these two verses, you have every possible combination, father to son, wicked to wicked, righteous to righteous, and so forth. They're all here.  Matthew Henry was right when he said this, “Grace does not run in the blood, neither does reigning sin.  God's grace is His own, and He gives or withholds it as He pleases.”  God is sovereign in salvation. 

Closely related is a fifth key spiritual lesson for the encouragement of some of you parents.  Number five, “God evaluates parents based not on their results but their faithfulness.”  You're not going to stand before God and give an account for the decisions your children have made.  You're going to give an account for your faithfulness to do what God called you to do.  God identifies the kings in this genealogy, back in the Old Testament, as either righteous or wicked based not on their parents, but their own response to God.  The point is, God deals with people as individuals. Listen to Ezekiel 18:20, “The person who sins will die.  The son will not bear the punishment for the father's iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son's iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.”  Listen, your parents' faith won't save you, nor will their sins condemn you.  What's your response to God?  And as parents, let me just remind you that God is only going to evaluate you based on your faithfulness, not the outcome of your kids. 

There's a sixth spiritual lesson here we discover in Jesus' genealogy.  It's “Through His adoptive father, Joseph, Jesus has the legal right to the throne of the Messiah.”  This is really Matthew's major point.  The Old Testament prophecies are clear that Messiah would be a descendant of David, so to meet the biblical qualifications to be Messiah, Jesus had to be in David's line. Through the Old Testament, the prophecies became more and more specific.  In Genesis 3, we learn that a unique human male will come and deal with sin.  In Genesis 12, we learn that that male will come as a descendant of Abraham.  In Genesis 21, through Abraham's son Isaac; in Genesis 28, through Isaac's son Jacob; and in Genesis 49, through Jacob's son Judah, the Messiah would come.  And then we come to 2 Samuel 7, and there, God promised David that the Messiah would come from one of his descendants.  So from that family in Judah, David's family, is where the Messiah would come.  So, listen carefully, unless the New Testament proves that Jesus was legally descended from David, no one here should believe His claims to be the Messiah because the Old Testament said He would come from David.  That's why it's crucial we have the record of Jesus' ancestry.  And in fact, we have an abundance of riches because we have two separate genealogies of Jesus in the New Testament in Matthew 1 and in Luke 3.  Luke goes back to Adam, Matthew only to Abraham; Matthew ascends to Jesus, Luke descends from Jesus to Adam.  Now listen carefully.  From Abraham to David, the two genealogies are practically identical. Matthew 1 and Luke 3.  But in the generations from David to Christ, there are huge differences in the list of names. Why is that?  

Well, two primary solutions have been proposed.  Some say that both genealogies are Joseph's.  Matthew gives the line of succession to the throne, and Luke gives Joseph's biological line.  And that's certainly possible, although I think it's unnecessarily complicated.  I think the simplest, most obvious solution is that from David to Jesus, these are two different genealogies, two different people.  So, you say, “Who are these genealogies describing then?”  Well, I think Luke is giving us Jesus' physical ancestry through Mary.  You see, like Joseph, Mary also descended from David; she was a descendant of David.  That, by the way, is why she had to go to Bethlehem with Joseph to register, because she too was of the house of David.  But Mary descended from David, not through Solomon, but through another of David's sons, Nathan.  So, Jesus had a physical claim to the throne through Mary. 

What about Matthew's genealogy?  What's going on here?  Well, Matthew gives us Jesus' legal ancestry through Joseph.  Joseph was clearly a descendant of David.  Look at verse 20, “Joseph, son of David,” the angel says.  In Luke, chapter 2, verse 4, “Joseph…was of the house and family of David.”  Joseph's family descended from David, not through Nathan like Mary's did, but through David's son, Solomon.  Notice verse 6, so, Joseph, then, was a descendant of David, and Joseph was a legal heir to David's throne.  That's why Matthew records the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph, His adoptive legal father.  In the ancient world, when you adopted someone, that child became everything to you that a biological child was and had every right of a biological child.  And through His adoptive father, Joseph, Jesus had the legal right to David's throne and, therefore, to the Messiah's throne. He has a legitimate claim then to be Messiah through both parents, not just one.  In the genealogy here in Matthew 1, Matthew proves that Jesus is qualified to be the Messiah based on his ancestry.  

Listen, Christian, your faith is not based on thin air; it's not based on myth and legend.  Here is a historical genealogy laying out the reality that Jesus was absolutely qualified to be all that He claimed to be.  Of course, Matthew's going to lay out other proofs, but this is the beginning even here in His genealogy.  He was a legal descendant of David in His humanity.  Notice Matthew's conclusion in verse 16, “Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.”  Now, notice that word ‘whom’ in verse 16.  In English, that's unclear; that pronoun in English doesn't tell us who it's talking about; but in Greek, ‘whom’ is feminine singular.  It's not pointing to Joseph; it's pointing to Mary.  So, we could translate the verse like this, “Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and it was by Mary that Jesus was born, who is called Messiah.”   So, Jesus then was a descendant of David physically through Mary and legally through his adoptive father, Joseph.  Your faith has a solid historical foundation. He's more than qualified to be what He claimed to be.

There's a seventh and final spiritual lesson here.  This genealogy reminds us that “Jesus came to save His people from their sins.”  You see, this genealogy is really a lesson in divine grace.  Look down at verse 21, Mary “will bear a Son,” the angel says to Joseph, “and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”  This is what He came to do.  The angel announced to the shepherds in Luke 2:11, “Today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”  Luke 19:10, “the Son of Man,” Jesus said, “has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”  That's why He came. 

And what I love about this genealogy is beautifully and powerfully, in Jesus' own ancestry, we see how Jesus can save His people, how He can transform their lives, how He can reconcile them to God.  Sadly, there are many in Jesus' ancestry who died unredeemed; I could point out their names to you.  But also in this list, we find amazing examples of the redeemed, of His people whom He came to save, those who truly trusted in God and in the Messiah that had been promised, and that they who believed would come to deal with their sin, those He forgave, those He spiritually rescued.  You look through this list, and you look at the names of those who are called righteous, who are redeemed.  Many of them are Jewish, but some of them are Gentiles.  Some grew up in believing homes, others in wicked families with evil parents.  Some were religious who grew up knowing about God.  Others were pagan idolaters when God found them.  Some of them were saved young.  Others were saved at the end of horrifically destructive lives.  One after another, we see, in this genealogy, the example of those Jesus came to save. 

Take Abraham, for example.  You know, we think about Abraham, we think, you know, the “Father of the faithful;” look at how he believed God.  Yeah, let's remember where he was when God found him.  He was an idolater in Ur, worshiping the moon.  Jacob was a scheming deceiver from the moment he came out of the womb, he grabbed his brother's heel, and that was his life.  But Christ saved him and changed him into Israel, a prince with God.  Manasseh, one of the worst kings of Judah, I described him a few minutes ago, but he repented at the end of his life.  He was forgiven, and he tried to undo all of the sin that he had committed.  

But we also clearly see Jesus’ saving grace in the four women that are mentioned in His genealogy.  It's very unusual, I mean, genealogies, Jewish genealogies occasionally mention women, but when they do, it's typically the sort of heroes of the Hebrew Scripture. They mention Sarah and Rebecca, Rachel and Leah.  Matthew includes women, I think in this genealogy, to make the point that men and women, Jews and Gentiles, can enter into Jesus' kingdom, can be His subjects.  But I think these women, that Matthew mentions, are also intentionally portraits of divine grace. They are portraits of the kind of people that Jesus the Messiah came to spiritually save and to forgive. 

The Gospel, friends, is for sinners, and you see that in Jesus' genealogy.  Look at verse 3, here's the first one, Tamar.  Tamar was likely a Canaanite; she has a sordid history.  You read it in Genesis 38; she disguised herself as a prostitute; she seduced and had a child with her father-in-law, Judah.  Not exactly, you know, someone in the family tree you want to emphasize.  Verse 5, Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute applying her trade in Jericho, but she too repented, placed her faith in the true God of Israel, ends up in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11.   Verse 5, Ruth, Ruth was a Moabitess who worshiped the god Molech, the god who demanded that children be burned as a sacrifice.  She may have participated in that herself at one point.  And verse 6, Bathsheba.  Bathsheba may have been a Hittite like her husband Uriah was, but she's the one, of course, who committed adultery with David.  David had her husband murdered to cover their sin.  You see a hint of this in verse 6.  Literally, it reads in Greek, “The father of Solomon by her of Uriah.”  David and Bathsheba, you remember, their first child died; they later had Solomon.  Here's my point, these women were the worst of sinners, just like a number of men in this genealogy who ended up redeemed as well. They were eventually redeemed.  And because of God's grace, these women all ended up in the family tree of Jesus the Messiah, the Savior of the world.  And you read about them every time you open the New Testament.

Beloved, Jesus is a friend of sinners.  Now, don't misunderstand me.  Jesus came to save sinners, not in their sin, but from their sin.  But He is a friend of sinners.  If you're not a Christian, how can you know Jesus as Savior and Lord?  Like those in this genealogy, you've got to be willing to turn from your sin, whatever it is.  Maybe it's not as horrific as some of these, but you've got to be willing to leave what you know is rebellion against God, and you've got to put your faith in Jesus Christ.  He invites you, Chapter 11 of Matthew, verse 28, he says, “Come, come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”  Are you struggling with the load of your guilt and your sin, what you have made of your life?  Find rest in Jesus Christ.  He says, “Come.”  If you're a follower of Jesus Christ already, then just like those in Jesus' genealogy who came to know God by faith, listen carefully, your sins, like theirs, have been truly, eternally forgiven.  Why?  Because your Messiah has come to save you from your sins.  That's the Gospel, and that's Matthew's Gospel.  It's my hope that understanding our Lord's genealogy will fill your heart with gratitude that He knows individuals, and that He is a friend of sinners like us. 

Let's pray together.  Father, thank You for the truth of Your word.  I pray for us who know and love Your Son, that You would help us to love Him more, to understand Him better, to make Him known more wholeheartedly to others. 

And Father, I pray for those here who don't know Him, that they would answer His invitation, that they would see, even in His genealogy, His amazing, gracious power to forgive sinners, to change them and to make them His own.  Father, I pray that today would be their day. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.