Abraham Family Reunion

If you would, take your Bibles
and turn to the Gospel of John. Not anymore. Turn, if you would, to the Gospel
of Matthew. Quite a milestone last week,
and bittersweet to always finish a book, but what a rich privilege
to just think that you turn the page, and it is just as rich
as the scriptures that you were deeply immersed in. I want to
spend the next couple of weeks in the Gospel of Matthew in those
opening chapters. They have been called the story
of the nativity and we have been in these passages in times past
but I looked and realized how long it had been since we were
in the Gospel of Matthew. Gospel of Matthew chapter 1 And
I want to take you to a passage that you might initially think
that I have really jumped off the deep end. But I want to take
you to the genealogy, the passage there, the opening 17 verses
of Matthew chapter 1. Matthew chapter 1, verse 1. The book of the genealogy of
Jesus Christ, son of David, the son of Abraham. To Abraham was
born Isaac, and to Isaac Jacob, and to Jacob Judah and his brothers,
and to Judah were born Perez and Zerub by Tamar, and to Perez
was born Hezron, and to Hezron Ram, and to Ram was born Aminadab,
and to Aminadab Nashon, and to Nashon Salmon, and to Salmon
was born Boaz by Rahab, and to and to Boaz was born Obed by
Ruth and to Obed Jesse and to Jesse was born David the king. and to David was born Solomon
by her who had been the wife of Uriah and to Solomon was born
Rehoboam and to Rehoboam Abijah and to Abijah Asa and to Asa
was born Jehoshaphat and to Jehoshaphat Joram and to Joram Uzziah and
to Uzziah was born Jotham and to Jotham Ahaz and to Ahaz Hezekiah
and to Hezekiah was born Manasseh and to Manasseh, Ammon, and to
Ammon, Josiah, and to Josiah were born Jeconiah and his brothers
at the time of the deportation to Babylon. And after the deportation
to Babylon, to Jeconiah was born Shealtiel, and to Shealtiel,
Zerubbabel, and to Zerubbabel was born Abiud, and to Abiud,
Eliakim, and to Eliakim, Azor, and to Azor was born Zadok, and
to Zadok, Achim, and to Achim, Eliud, and to Eliud was born
Eleazar, and to Eleazar, Mathan, and to Mathan, Jacob, and to
Jacob was born Joseph, the husband of Mary, by whom was born Jesus,
who is called Christ. Therefore, all the generations
from Abraham to David are 14 generations. And from David to
the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations. And from the deportation
to Babylon to the time of Christ, 14 generations. In my lifetime, a fad has developed
that has largely been enhanced and benefited by the technological
age of the Internet. that of tracing your genealogy
or your family tree. In this age of computers and
databases, a fascination quickly develops into a fixation that
becomes an obsession in tracing down your roots, your family
genealogy, your family tree. Part of it is born out of curiosity.
People just want to know what their ancestors were like, what
they did. Part of it is wanting to know
what perhaps is your legacy. Did you have any war heroes?
Nobody goes looking for criminals in their family tree history,
but we want to know about our pedigree. We want to know about
our lineage. We want to see, in graphic terms,
our family tree. We look for big names in our
family tree. Wealthy people that maybe have
some secret bank account somewhere that hasn’t been tapped into.
Famous people. Years ago, I had the privilege
of doing mine, and I don’t know the person, and I don’t even
know how they’re related, but we have a Civil War participant
in our family tree. We want to know what their religious
heritage was. Were there any believers? Were
there any Christians? But that leads us to the question,
what must be the pedigree, what must be the heritage, the legacy
of a Savior, of the Lord Jesus Christ? A perfectly sinless Savior,
God incarnate. We know that Jesus took on human
flesh, but he was also born into a very particular bloodline,
if you will. He was born as a Jew. He was
born ultimately as a descendant of Abraham himself. And so we look this morning at
the pedigree of a Savior. Jewish people placed a great
deal of emphasis on the importance of bloodline, family tree, your
genealogy. If you were to ask almost any
Jew in the first century about their genealogy, they would be
able to trace it with great precision. It was very important to know
of what tribe they were, who their ancestors were. They had
access to thousands of years of genealogical history. Some of us would like to keep our study
of the genealogy on the computer and on paper, because the more
we learn sometimes about our family, the less inclined we
are to draw near. Many of us will be spending time
with family this Christmas season. And it made me wonder for a moment,
what would the Lord’s family reunion look like? Consider just
for a moment the hypothetical of Jesus’ family reunion, which
would technically be called Abraham’s family reunion. After all, it’s
Abraham’s family into which Jesus is born. I want to do this this morning
bearing in mind that these are Jesus Christ’s relatives. This
is his family tree. And if it were possible for a
moment to course down through the ages of history and call
together this great family reunion, this would be the guest list.
These names, which to us are really no more than names, this
would be Jesus’ family tree reunion guest list. And I want you to
imagine for a moment, perhaps it isn’t Difficult for you if
your family plans include time spent with grandpa Boaz or Uncle
a has or cousins a doc It’s that graphic here this family tree
and let me say before we get rolling we’re not going to dissect
and and thoroughly examine this genealogy of especially in contrast
with that which is given in the gospel of Luke. We’re going to
take a much more broad overview. And I want to begin just with
a consideration of this Jewish mindset of the genealogy. Matthew gives the royal succession
of Jesus’ bloodline. Luke gives the direct family
lineage, if you would. As we get into this passage,
there are a number of different ways to outline this particular
passage. Matthew chapter 1, verses 1 through
17. One commentator suggested that
there are three sections that correspond to what he calls three
crises in the history of God’s people. They are the call of
Abraham, The kingship of David and the captivity of God’s people,
that’s a pretty easy outline to grab because it’s exactly
how the scriptures have outlined it, as we’ll see in a moment.
Still another just simply titles them three sections in these
terms. He says the rise of David’s house,
the decline of David’s house, and the ultimate eclipse of David’s
house. And that’s fine. Scripture itself
makes it very clear it breaks It breaks this whole thing up
into three groups of 14 14 generations for Abraham from Abraham to David
where he is born for greatness from David to exile where the
greatness is lost and from exile to the Savior where greatness
ultimately is Regained I thought it would be easier this morning
for us though to look at all 42 of these people in the time
remaining. We’re not even going to attempt
that. I want to look at generally three kinds of people. And I see three kinds of people
in this very intricate genealogy. First of all, I see the famous.
the famous. These are those individuals who
by God’s enabling grace are known for great acts of faith. You
know them. These are the ones that we happen
to learn about in Sunday school so often. Great acts of faith. Each of whom are unfortunately
also known for great acts of faithlessness. It’s noteworthy
that we find many of these so-called famous people in the hall of
faith there in Hebrews chapter 11. Men and women like Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, David, and even Rahab, as we’ll see in a moment. And there’s a continuum here.
When I speak of fame, there’s a broad spectrum of faithfulness
and whatever degree of accomplishment. Some did great deeds, greater
deeds than others. All of them exhibited some degree
of human weakness. None of them were perfect. Look
at the first on the list in verse two, Abraham. The very one with
whom God had covenanted to give the land, the seed, and the blessing. He had demonstrations of great
faith, this magnanimous act that he made, active faith in giving
Lot the choice of the land. His faith in God’s promise, humanly
impossible, but God’s promise of a son and a countless heritage. Hebrews records this act of faith
in Hebrews chapter 11. By faith Abraham when he was
called obeyed by going out to a place where he was to receive
for an inheritance. He went out not knowing where
he was going. By faith he lived as an alien
in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents
with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise, For
he was looking for the city which has its foundations, whose architect
and builder is God.” This was a man of great faith. A man who
wasn’t afraid to wrestle, in a sense, with God. Remember him
pleading with God for the righteous in the God-forsaken city of Sodom. Lord, what if there are 50? What
if we’re missing five of that 50? What if there are only 45,
and then 40, and 30, and 20, and you know the story. This
is a man of great faith, culminated by this act of faith in offering,
being willing to offer his only son as a sacrifice. But even
this great patriarch was not without human nature, without
human weakness. In chapter 12 of Genesis, it
records that he concocted a lie to Pharaoh, born out of a lack
of faith. He had a sinful union with his
wife’s handmaid, which has consequences down to our very day. The repeat
of the lie about Sarah being his sister instead of his wife
Look at verse 2 again, where we see his son Isaac, another
famous person, somebody that we’ve studied, a godly, peaceful,
humble shepherd who deeply loved his family. That’s what we know
so much about Isaac. Took Rebecca to be his wife,
took on a well-digging operation, faith in God’s providence, and
then he borrowed from his father a lie. about his wife being his
sister. And then there was Jacob, this
strange blend of a godly man who resorted at times to trickery,
where his life spans almost the entire latter half of the book
of Genesis from chapter 25 to 49. In chapter 28, he made a
faithful vow at Bethel, remember? In chapter 32, he wrestled so
famously with the angel in faith. In obedience to God, his name
was changed to Israel. But he too succumbed to human
nature. He engaged in trickery for Esau’s
birthright, trickery of his father for that blessing. That leads
us in verses two and three to Judah. Judah, we actually begin with
the bad portion of his life, a sinful liaison with his daughter-in-law
Tamar, in which he was tricked. He engaged in good deeds, going
surety for others on occasion, that ultimately Judah would go
down as just one of the many names in this list of famous people.
Skip, if you would, down to verse 5. Well, we meet in this family
tree perhaps one of the most remarkable names to be included
in Jesus’ family tree, Rahab. the harlot. She was a Gentile. She had a union with Salmon,
mentioned only here. She famously sheltered the spies,
an act of faith in God that also was recorded in the Hall of Faith,
Hebrews 11 31. James even speaks of her great
faith as justifying her. She was justified by her working
faith, says James. That leads us in verse 5 to Boaz,
another famous person in Jesus’ family tree, a wealthy man from
Bethlehem, the husband of Naomi. When Naomi and Ruth came back
and returned from the country of Moab, they were dirt poor
and desperately needy. Ruth received permission to glean
in the fields that belonged to Boaz, and Boaz showed himself
extremely generous to these women. He gave her greater privileges
than to any who normally came into his fields to glean. He was the kinsman redeemer. Boaz married Ruth, and their
union was blessed by the birth of Obed, the grandfather of David.
Many of us have an uncle like this, a grandfather like this,
a kindly gentleman. a generous gentleman, well-to-do,
kind, friendly, sought out by others, lively, the life of the
party, the family spokesman, the representative. That’s Boaz. Still in the same verse, verse
5, Ruth, another woman mentioned in the family tree of Jesus Christ,
a Moabite, a heathen. I’m not talking about the Moab
in Utah. This one was a Gentile, a heathen,
but a faithful woman, mother-in-law to Naomi, who took her in and
said, wherever you go, I will go. Your people will be my people. And God made it true. And then
we come to verse 6, to arguably the grandest name in the family
tree, next to Abraham, that of David. whom God referred to as
a man after his own heart when God went looking for a new king. He was made famous by his fight
with Goliath. He was a valiant man of war.
But he also showed a refusal to take matters into his own
hands by refusing to strike King Saul. In wisdom, he heeded Abigail’s
advice and he spared Nabal. and then married his widow. The
humble prayer of the king is recorded in 2 Samuel 7. It’s
just one of many Psalms that David wrote. At the end of that
great book, he shows mercy towards his own rebellious son, and then
in closing, reviews his everlasting covenant with the sovereign God.
But we know well David’s human nature. the sin of Bathsheba,
the murder of Uriah, taking multiple wives, even heathen wives, Moabites,
Ammonites, and killing those that he did
not take. Verse 7, skipping down to verse
7, we meet his son Solomon, perhaps the most disappointing individual
on the portion of the list. What I would call a life of wasted
wisdom. Jesus we know was to be of the
tribe of Judah, downline of Judah, the son of Jacob, and here we
have several famous kings that come out of Solomon’s bloodline
at the time of the divided kingdom. First of them, look at verse
eight, Asa. Asa did right. He did right in
that he removed idols. He went to destroy idolatry in
the land. Prostitutes. His reform didn’t
even spare his own mother. He removed her from being queen
because of her idolatry. 1 Kings 15 says, the heart of
Asa was wholly devoted to the Lord all his days. But the reform
in the land, even through his best efforts, was incomplete.
Jehoshaphat, another king, sought God. He was a good king. Scriptures
record that he walked in all the ways of Asa, his father.
And he did not turn aside from it, doing right in the sight
of the Lord, but his reforms likewise. were incomplete. Such is the case of pernicious
sin when it gets deeply rooted into a community. Jump down to
verse 9 if you would. Uzziah, another king. Uzziah
did right. He did right in the sight of
the Lord according to all that his father Amaziah had done. But even his reforms through
his best efforts, through years and years of faithful labor,
his reforms were incomplete. Look at verse 9, Jotham. Jotham
did right. 1st Kings says he did right according
to all that his father Uzziah had done. And we see again and
again throughout the study of the kings the blessing of parental
example. The blessing of laying down a
good model for children to follow. If his reforms were incomplete,
And then comes Hezekiah, look at verse 10. At the end of verse
10, Hezekiah, Hezekiah was a king, he did right. First Kings 18
says, he did right according to all that his father David
had done, removed the high places, that is the places of idolatry,
he trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, so that after him
there was none like him in all the kings of Judah, nor who were
before him. where he clung to the Lord. He
did not depart from following him, but he kept his commandments. He was a famous king. A good king. A king who did right. And yet it records that he made
a boastful display of his treasures to God’s enemies, and he paid
a mighty price. Jump down to verse 11. Josiah, another godly man, he
did right. He walked in the way of his father
David, nor did he turn aside to the right or to the left,
but it was too little to save Judah. It was too little. Jump down to verse 13, where
we come across a man named Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel was the head of the
tribe of Judah at the time of the return from the Babylonian
captivity. If you will, you could almost
call him the general contractor of the rebuilding of the temple.
And that leads us to verse 16. To Joseph and Mary. Joseph, recorded
in Matthew 1.19, was a righteous man, a good man, a God-fearing
man, a man who wanted to do the right thing in all circumstances.
That’s even what led him into that. Remember that tussle with
God himself, because he contemplated putting Mary away because she
was found to be with child. Joseph wanted to do the right
thing. He was a good man, a godly man, and Mary herself. The angels
referred to her as favored one, graced. She was a blessed woman. again by famous in this list
I’m not suggesting that these people were thoroughly good or
perfectly or inherently righteous they were all sinners in need
of a savior and many sin terribly before God but the general characterization
characterization of their life was good and if you’re doing
a genealogy This list is the best you could
ever hope for, for mere mortals. By God’s grace, doing amazing
things, but in the end, very human. And in Scripture, the history
of humanity is full of these spiritually famous. How deserving
that a perfect, sinless saver would have Such a noble pedigree,
as people mentioned in this list. We would expect to find these,
and frankly, we would expect to find only these. Even better
men and women than these. But there are others. The second
portion of the list, or what I would call the second group,
would be the infamous. Not only the famous, but the
infamous. You see, the infamous are those who are without God
and without hope, and they’re characterized by lives of complete
and utter faithlessness, and as a result, sinfulness. I want
to make one very interesting note here, that these infamous
individuals, nearly all of whom were kings of Judah, But they
were characterized as having done evil in God’s eyes. One of the most frightening things
about ever entering the ministry is that famous line in scripture,
it would be like people like priests. People do follow a leader. And people followed these leaders
into great and gross idolatry. The fascinating truth is that
the average reign of the good kings of Judah, listen to this,
the average reign of the good kings of Judah, the ones that
we just reviewed, those who were characterized by doing right,
the average reign was 37 years. And I can see that you’re curious.
The average reign of bad kings, those who were characterized
as having done evil, was only eight years. Sin and sinful living
has its consequence. And yet here they are, found
in the midst of the Savior’s genealogy, His family tree. They’re going to be invited to
this reunion, this hypothetical reunion. The first of which,
jump back if you would, to verse 7, Rehoboam. Rehoboam, the first
king of Judah, as the kingdom split, was a harsh, arrogant,
insolent man. He consulted only with the young
men because they were yes-men. First Kings, it says, my father
made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined
you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions. This was
an evil man, an overbearing man. Worse than a church split, this
split an entire kingdom. Rehoboam’s son was no better,
Abijah, verse 7. Abijah reigned three years as
king of Judah. God was eager to be rid of him.
He sought to bring the 10 tribes of Israel back into allegiance
with Judah. But God didn’t want to use him.
He had 14 wives. He imitated his father’s sins.
1 Kings 15 says he walked in all the sins of his father. His
heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord. His great-great-grandson of Abijah,
Jehoram was king of Judah. Verse 8, Jehoram did evil. He killed all his brothers and
some of the rulers as his first act of leadership. Seventh generation from Jehoram
Verse 9, Ahaz. Ahaz did evil. This guy engaged
in the grossest kind of idolatry. Verse King 16 says he did not
do what was right in the sight of the Lord, his God, but he
walked in all the ways of the kings, that is, sinfully, and
he even made his son pass through the fire. He sacrificed his own
children. to the idols. Unfortunately,
sadly, many of us have people like Ahaz in our family trees.
Affected by their egos, ensnared by the devil, motivated by greed,
given to alcohol or drugs, godless, hopeless people. Let me just
walk you through a scriptural portrait of King Ahaz. If you keep your finger in Matthew’s
gospel, would you turn briefly? to 2 Chronicles chapter 28. This
is the only time I’m gonna do this, at least that I know of
this morning, where we dip back into the actual passages, but
this one is important. I want you to see just how infamous
Uncle Ahaz was. 2 Chronicles chapter 28, look at
verse one. Ahaz was 20 years old when he
became king. Now that ought to be your first
clue that problems are coming. He reigned 16 years in Jerusalem.
He did not do right in the sight of the Lord as his father had
done, but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He also
made molten images for the Baal. He made idols. Jump down, if
you would, to verse 5, where we see his defeat and exile.
Wherefore, the Lord his God delivered him into the hand of king of
Aram. They defeated him, carried him away from him a great number
of captives, brought them to Damascus, and he was also delivered
into the hand of the king of Israel, who inflicted him with
heavy casualties. For Pekah, the son of Remeliah,
slew in Judah 120,000 in one day, all valiant men, because
they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers. This is evil
rulership. Jump down to verse eight, where
Israel itself, Judah’s sister, enslaves her. The sons of Israel
carried away captive of their brethren, 200,000 women, sons
and daughters. They took also a great deal of
spoil from them and brought the spoiled to Samaria. The heathen
in the land, they were no help to Judah. Jump down to verse
16. At that time, King Ahaz sent
to the kings of Assyria for help. He wanted to make league with
them. He wanted to make an association with the heathen nations to fight
against his own sister nation, Israel. Second Kings here records
that Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house
of the Lord the treasury that the king’s house and sent a present
to the king of Assyria he took all of his God-given gifts and
he sent them to a heathen king in order to appease him Jump
down to verse 17. It didn’t work the Edomites and
had come, they attacked Judah, carried away captives, the Philistines
likewise. Look at verse 19. The Lord humbled
Judah because of Ahaz king of Israel for he had brought about
a lack of restraint in Judah and was very unfaithful to the
Lord. And the worst thing that Ahaz
ever countenanced was fostering this idolatry in his land. Look at verse 22. the time of
his distress this king the same King Ahaz became yet more unfaithful
to the Lord for he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus which
had defeated him and said because the gods of the king of Aram
helped them I will sacrifice to them that they may help me
that they became the downfall of him and all Israel well back to Matthew if you would
I just wanted to show you just how infamous this individual
was, and yet he’s in the family tree of our Savior. Verse 10,
the great, pardon me, the grandson of Ahaz-Manasseh did evil. He
rebuilt the idolatrous temples. It was like this constant cycle.
Tear down, rebuild. Tear down, rebuild. He rebuilt
the idolatrous temples, the altars, the idols, and then he fell down
and worshiped them. Manasseh, his son, Amon, did
likewise. He did evil just like his father
Manasseh. He served the idols so bad that
his own servants killed him. That’s a bad president. We’ve already mentioned Tamar,
fostered an illicit reunion with her father-in-law, another infamous
individual. Look at verse 12. Jeconiah, the
great, great grandson of Amon, anything but great, Second Chronicles
says of him that he was eight years old, 18 years old according
to one, when he became king and he reigned three months and 10
days in Jerusalem, he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and
the Lord was done with him. Now I tell you what, if you’re
doing your genealogy study, you know, you’re logged on online,
you’re doing your family tree, and if this is what you discover,
you’d want to change your name, right? And if these people show
up to the family reunion, you’ll see an impromptu game of musical
chairs so as to not be seated at any one of these. Life is full of the infamous,
but why would these be included in the family tree of the Savior? But there’s a third group. There’s
a third group, not only the famous, Abraham, David, Rahab, not only
the infamous people with ugly histories like Ahaz, but finally
the unfamous. And I know I’m inventing a word
here. The unfamous, the unknown, the obscure, those who the world
might refer to as nobodies. Little known individuals about
which even Gracious scripture itself has very little to say
Most of whom belong to the silent years of the intertestimal intertestamental
period After the Old Testament is completed before the New Testament
initiates just really names Jump back if you would to verse 3
This would be a very short study Hezron mentioned only in genealogies. Ram, verse 4, I told you it was
going to be quick. Ram, mentioned only in genealogies. Aminadab, mentioned only in genealogies. His claim to fame was that he
was father of Nashon. Nashon, his fame, verse 4, is
only that he is mentioned in a series of genealogies and possibly
a captain of a portion of the nation. Verse 5, Salmon, mentioned
only in genealogies. Obed, how am I doing on time?
Obed, mentioned only in genealogies. Jesse, characterized no more
than a quiet, hardworking, respectful, respectable man with eight sons,
the youngest of whom was David. They’re really just a name. Sheelteel gets an honorable mention. Abihud, mentioned only here in
all of scripture. Eliakim, mentioned only here
and possibly one other genealogy. Azor, mentioned only here in
all of scripture. Zadok, mentioned only here in
all of scripture. Nobody’s. Let me tell you about
Zadok. Let me tell you all that I know
about Zadok. Mysterious, shy cousin Zadok. This is all we know about him.
Mentioned only here in all of Scripture, and as many of us
know, barely. We know people like this in our
own families, don’t we? They’re just names. We’ve seen
them, we know we’re related in some way, shape, or form. We
really don’t know them. Or if we do, barely. They don’t
stand out, they don’t speak up, they don’t really engage. look
at verse 14, Akim mentioned here and only here in scripture, verse
15 Elihu mentioned only here in all of scripture, Eleazar
mentioned only here in all of scripture, Mathan verse 15 mentioned
only here in all of scripture, verse 16 Jacob mentioned only
here in all of scripture, now If you’re logged on online,
and you’re investing your time and your money, trying to build
and discover your family tree, and all that comes across is
this list, you’re gonna email the company, you want your money
back. This isn’t data, this isn’t information. You didn’t tell
me anything good or bad about these people. But I tell you,
life is full of the unfamous, isn’t it? Why should these people be in
the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ? Life is full of all three of
these kinds of people, isn’t it? Life is full of people of
great faith, famous people, solid Christians, doing God’s will,
but they, in the end, are still human. Some of these people in
this list had to be included. Jesus, the Messiah, had to proceed
according to prophecy from some of these names, Abraham, Isaac,
Judah, David. The infamous people certainly
are people that we wouldn’t want upstream in our bloodline. And if these people show up to
the room reunion, right, you leave the room, And the unfamous people, if they
show up to the reunion, you leave really not knowing them any better
than when they walked in. Still just the same shy, reserved,
dull people. Why the nobodies? May I submit to you first of
all that this is the best list that even God could have produced,
given the material that He had to work with, humanity. In fact, to God-given nature
and human history, God really could only have fared worse.
This is the cream of the crop. But unlike people, God didn’t
set about to develop a pedigree in which He could boast, did
He? The problem, as we’ve seen all along, is the quality of
the material which God had to work the glory was Christ’s. As one said, this parade of names
that might be supposed to be unfit for the insertion in the
pedigree of the Messiah is intended to teach that he who came not
to call the righteous, but sinners, and who so commended the faith
of those who were not of Israel, he himself descended from flagrant
sinners and from a stranger and a heathen and a Gentile. I want you to imagine for a moment,
and it isn’t such a stretch for some of us, but imagine that
your holiday plans include spending time with a Grandpa Boaz and
an Uncle Ahaz and a Cousin Zadok. And I know that for the sake
of peace, I’m not talking about the people sitting next to you
this morning, right? I’m talking about your extended
family, and I realize that some of you with a lengthy Christian
heritage will find it really difficult to relate to this.
But I want you to pretend, think for a moment, the great variety
of people in your greater family. A Grandpa Boaz, an Uncle Ahaz,
cousin Zadok. Jesus Christ came to take on
human flesh. He came to embrace humanity in
its completeness. He came to pay the sin of sinners,
to empathize with humanity, to show his love for humanity, to
save humanity. Paul’s own words in Philippians
2 take on a more profound significance with this genealogy. He emptied himself, taking the
form of a bondservant, being made in the likeness of men. He humbled himself by becoming
obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. He empathized
with us. He knew exactly what people were
like. He knew exactly what their weaknesses
were. Hebrews 4, we do not have a high
priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses. but one
who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.”
See, even the best people, even those famous people, even the
very best of them, were sinners in need of God’s saving grace,
right? None of them are truly famous. And what is also true is none
are so infamous that they are beyond God’s saving grace, are
they? Those infamous sinners are the
very ones that Christ called to repentance. No one is beyond
the reach of God’s saving grace. And you look at this list and
say, why the infamous? Because they represent humanity.
Where sin abounded, grace superabounded. And perhaps as we look at this
list, why the unfamous? Why the nobodies? And if they’re
in this list, why didn’t we have some information about them?
I think it’s important to know that there are no nobodies in
God’s eyes. To us, they’re just names. Names in our genealogy. But they
were real people. And in the world today, the world
is still filled with real people that the world would call nobodies. Not many wise, right, 1 Corinthians? And it was for all of these people,
all of these kinds of people, that Jesus Christ came and bled
on that cross. the famous, the infamous, the
unfamous. We sing these songs at Christmas. It’s unfortunate because I love
to, along about July, I always try and reach back in my mind
and at least hum and sing a few lines of joy to the world in
July. joy to the world the Lord is
come let earth receive her king let every heart prepare him room another light and life to all
he brings risen with healing in his wings to the famous to
the infamous to the unfamous born to raise the sons of earth
born to give them second birth No wonder the one hymn says,
the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight. If you have a burden of sin,
and every person ever born on the face of the earth owns that
burden. We are born in sin. There is only one provision for
that sin. and it’s the Lord Jesus Christ.
Even the famous, even the famous, without some mighty work of God’s
hand bringing them to repentance and faith, they can’t stand on
their family history. They can’t stand on their long
family history of faith in their particular family, some denominational
significance. They need Christ. The infamous, those wretched
sinners who turned their back on God. Aren’t we, so many of us all,
living proof of that grace? That no one is outside of God’s
mercy? And if you’re here today, there
are no There are no unfamous in God’s
kingdom. The world might look at you and
look right past you, see right through you, and ignore you completely,
but not God. He’s drawn a circle around you
even this morning. There’s nowhere to hide. Jesus
Christ paid the penalty for sinners, all sinners. Do you humble yourself
before Him? Our merciful God, we rejoice
in the coming of our Savior. We rejoice in the richness and
the diversity of Jesus’ family tree. Lord, if we could have
crafted our own, we certainly wouldn’t have included some of
these names. Lord, throughout the course of
history, the way it played down was according to your sovereign
plan. We look back on it now and we
acknowledge that you are Almighty God, that you have responded
to the world’s greatest need by providing the Savior they
so desperately need. Father, if there is even one,
one person hiding, trying to blend in, thinking I’m not praying
for them, Lord, may today be the day of salvation. May they
yield their hearts in faith to Christ. The lover of souls. It’s in Jesus
name that we pray. Amen.