Jesus wants us in His family!!
Matthew 1:1-17
Welcome the family! PTCC is a big family, as Christians we are all part of Gods extended family and here in our church, this is our family. We have baggage, we have issues, and we have those weird uncles that no one wants to talk about. Its true we are a family.
We started 7 years ago with around 20, when I got her you adopted me in, gave a place to live and took me in; some of you took me to eat or brought me food. Some would always bring by a diet coke, (that’s my coffee). We laughed and cried, we buried people and saw births and most of us are still here a family.
As we grow I worry about us becoming like a business, where people come and try and give a little and get a lot. Or the government where it’s the many benefiting from the few.
I want us to remember we are a family, we take care of one another, and we work together for God our father and Jesus our big brother.
Its curious to me that God keeps the theme of family through the bible. He is the father, we are His kids. He wants to love us and protect us, He wants to adopt us I to His family.
And that’s where we start, with a list of Jesus’s family. It’s crazy that’s how the New Testament starts with a list of Jesus’s family. This is the parts of the Bible we just over look, we just skip, but if we look closely we can learn for just a few names!
So, here’s what we’re going to do: I’m going to pick out two men and four women who are prominent in the story.
Matthew 1: 1-17 Read
Let me say a few things about genealogies in general, and then we’ll get into Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus in particular.
• Number one: children should know their father and fathers should know their children.
o For the first time in the nation’s history, the majority of children born to women under the age of thirty are born out of wedlock, they don’t know their dad, and they don’t have a dad active in their life.
o Many don’t even have the father listed on the birth certificate. They don’t know who their dad is.
• Number two: God loves people and he knows us by name.
o God knows you by name,
o God loves you by name,
o God calls you by name.
o Just like a father knows every single one of his kids, God’s a Father who knows us all by name.
• Number three: God works through families.
o Here we’re seeing God working through a family line, one generation to the next, to bring into human history Jesus Christ.
• Number four: every family tree has some knots.
Frist man, Abraham
Genesis 12:1–3 (ESV) Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
• He’s mentioned more than three hundred times in your Bible, hugely important.
• Eleven of the New Testament books mention him.
• Every one of the New Testament gospels mentions him.
• He is a towering figure.
• God loves all people equally, but he doesn’t work through all people equally. He works through Abraham uniquely, to the degree that he is called the father of faith, that all who are in Christ are ultimately adopted spiritually into the family of Father Abraham.
• Three religions today would say that they are founded on his teaching: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.
• He was not a Jew, but he was a Gentile.
But I want you to see here that though Abraham is a magnificent man, he’s still a sinful man who needs a Savior. He was a lost, sinner when God came to him, and even through the course of his life, he continually needs the grace of God.
In two examples he actually tried to give away his own wife to avoid conflict with others.. It shows that Abraham wasn’t always a man of faith; sometimes he was a man of cowardice. And even though he was a man who was magnificently used of God, he’s a man who continually needed God. He needed a savior!
Second Man, David
David had a mighty kingdom, but he died and his kingdom came to an end, and the prophecy is given that through his line would come a greater King, the King of kings, with a kingdom that would never end.
But even David was not always a godly man. He needed a Savior as well. It just goes to show; even the best among us are still sinners in need of the grace of God. And ultimately, Matthew hints at this. Here’s how he says it: “But David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah.” Did you catch that?
Even David needed Jesus! We all need a SAVIOR!
Tamar
Now we are going to look at the women in Jesus’s family tree!! So, the first gal mentioned, Tamar, Matthew 1:3. You can read more about her in Genesis 38. Here’s her story.
• Judah. He’s a descendant of Abraham. He’s got some sons.
One of his son’s names is Er.
o Er is a godless man, so God kills him.
o his brother’s name was Onan. Onan is a horrible guy.
it was customary in that day that if the husband died, the closest living male relative, the brother, would marry the widow, would love her, serve her, protect her, provide for her, raise a family with her, care for her. There wasn’t social service, welfare safety net. Your family looked after you when you were in trouble.
• Onan is a horrible guy. Onan was very glad to sleep with her, but didn’t want to marry her and didn’t want to be in any way obligated to her.
How many of you, you’re going; this is kind of like your family history. There’s stuff they don’t talk about! This is in the family of Jesus. Here’s the big idea: even people who do bad things are still welcome in the family of Jesus.
RAHAB
Rahab is mentioned in Matthew 1:5 and in Joshua 2 and 6 . Her name means pride, insolence, and savagery.
• She’s from a race called the Canaanites. These are the enemies of God’s people, always at war seeking to put them to death.
• She’s a prostitute. She’s a pagan prostitute.
• She’s a lying, Canaanite prostitute. But she gets converted because God is a Father who’s willing to adopt anyone into his family.
God is a Father who’s willing to look at even the most troubled, difficult, obstinate, rebellious kids and say, “I will be your Father and my love will change you.”
• If you say, “I’ve done some horrible things,” you’re welcome in Jesus’ family. There’s room for you, amen? There’s room for you.
• See, it’s not just about who you’re born by, but whether or not you’ve been born again.
• It’s not just about your earthly father, but if you have been adopted by your Heavenly Father.
• It’s not just who your relatives are, it’s whether or not Jesus is your big Brother.
•
She had faith in the coming of Jesus. She turned from sin and trusted in the God of the Bible. She had a life change, she became converted, and she became the great-great-grandmother to King David. She’s part of the family line of the coming of Jesus.
Ruth
• she comes from a line of people called the Moabites
• Moabites can trace their ancestry all the way back to the days of Abraham with a man named Lot.
o He was not a great guy, not a bright guy, not a godly guy necessarily.
• Now, the Moabites are considered “that” side of the family.
• We don’t want to spend time with them.
• We don’t want to talk about them.
• In fact, we don’t think that they’re equal to us.
• There’s something wrong with that side of the family.
•
Well, the Moabites eventually get their own god, they get their own religion, and they go their own direction. They’re godless.
Well, what happens then is God’s people, through a famine, a handful of them end up in the region of the Moabites and near this woman, Ruth. And you know what? She gets converted.
• She’s not just born, but she’s born again.
• She doesn’t just have her earthly father; she’s now adopted by God, her Heavenly Father.
• And she joins the family of God, and she becomes one of the godliest women in the whole Bible.
• She becomes King David’s great-grandma.
Don’t you love that? Wrong family, wrong history, wrong geography, wrong spirituality, you meet God, you’re part of the family, there’s no second-class citizen in the family of God. She’s a magnificent woman, she has a transformed life. And here’s the big idea: you may come from a horrible family, but everything could change with you in the grace of God. You could become the first generation in a whole new legacy, and the way that you can put an end to the history of your family is by getting a new Father so you can start a new family. That’s the story of Ruth. I find great encouragement in her.
Bathsheba
She was Uriah the Hittite’s wife, and she had an adulterous affair with King David, and her husband was murdered, and would there be any hope for a woman like that?
• To this day we would say that a woman who commits adultery, it’s a bad thing.
• While her husband’s at war, it’s a bad thing.
• And gets pregnant, it’s a bad thing.
God uses what is evil for good, because he’s that good, and from her comes Solomon, a man who writes Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, and Proverbs, three books of the Bible; the man who constructs the temple that was organized by God’s sovereign decree as delivered through his father, David, so that God would be present with his people and that his people could worship him and deal with their sin.
• Have you committed adultery?
• Have you had a child out of wedlock?
• Have you slept with someone you shouldn’t have slept with?
• Have you done something you shouldn’t have done?
• Is it something that you can’t undo?
There’s hope for you. Bathsheba’s loved by God and she’s used by God, and even though her sin is great, God’s grace is greater still. I want you to see this.
Of all the families God could enter the world into, he chose this one to show that he loves sinners, he welcomes sinners, and he’s here to save sinners. He’s here to enable us, and allow us, to be adopted by the Father into a new family and leave a new legacy.
Closing!
There’s Room for You in Jesus’ Family
Ultimately, the Bible is about God and people. And we’re not just individuals, we’re part of a lineage, and a legacy, and a family, and a history. And even the best among us have a sinful pedigree.
Let me ask you a few questions in closing.
• Do you come from a godly family, a godly family line?
o If so don’t break the ling in the family chain
• Do you come from an ungodly family or a godless family, a sinful family, a wicked family, a rebellious family, a discouraging family, a shameful family?
o So did Jesus. It didn’t destroy him, and it doesn’t have to destroy you.
o You don’t need to be ashamed, you need to be honest. That’s what the Scriptures here are doing.
o It’s being honest, not angry, not bitter, not mean-spirited, but honest.
o God would welcome you to be honest about your family history
• When you hear of some of these stories, do you just see yourself as one of those guilty sinners?
o How many of you are at the point where you’re not going to try to explain it, or justify it, or excuse it, or ignore it? You would say, “You know what, everybody knows I’ve done stuff like that. Sexual sin, murder, I have said and done things that I simply regret and I can’t undo, I can’t take back. It’s devastating.” There’s room for you in the family of God. There’s room for you in Jesus’ family, and you won’t be the first, you probably won’t even be the worst, but there’s room for you in Jesus’ family.
• Lastly, how many of you, in reading this, are like the original recipients: moral, religious, self-righteous, and proud.
o Two things I would say: number one, your family’s probably way more messed up than you know, they just didn’t tell you,
o Number two, pride is a sin that is at least equal to incest, adultery, murder. Pride says, “I don’t need the grace of God because the grace of God is for sinners, and I don’t really need the grace of God because I’m not really a sinner
o There is room, as well, for those of you who are religious, and moral, and spiritual, and proud, and self-righteous in the family of God.
Does your family include incest? Does it include adultery? Does it include prostitution? Does it include murder? Jesus’ family does. It didn’t destroy him and it doesn’t need to destroy you.
It’s not about your earthly father, it’s about your Heavenly Father. It’s not about your birth; it’s about your new birth. It’s not just about your family of origin; it’s about the family of God. And he’s inviting all to repent..
See, we’re all born into a sinful family. Through faith, like Abraham, we’re born again into the family of God. We receive all of the promises and provisions that come from the Lordship of Jesus as our King, and with God as our Father, we can now love and serve one another as our family. And PTCC, I just want to impress upon you, in closing, how important this is as we go forward, that we see ourselves as sinners with a great Father, adopted into a family with an opportunity to leave a new legacy. And if we lose sight of that, we’ll find ourselves repeating the sins of our fathers and mothers and not repenting of the sins of our fathers and mothers.
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