primary text of the sermon, read through the genealogy and birth narrative of Jesus
1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
2 Abraham became the father of Isaac. Isaac became the father of Jacob. Jacob became the father of Judah and his brothers.
3 Judah became the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. Perez became the father of Hezron. Hezron became the father of Ram.
4 Ram became the father of Amminadab. Amminadab became the father of Nahshon. Nahshon became the father of Salmon.
5 Salmon became the father of Boaz by Rahab. Boaz became the father of Obed by Ruth. Obed became the father of Jesse.
6 Jesse became the father of King David. David became the father of Solomon by her who had been Uriah’s wife.
7 Solomon became the father of Rehoboam. Rehoboam became the father of Abijah. Abijah became the father of Asa.
8 Asa became the father of Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat became the father of Joram. Joram became the father of Uzziah.
9 Uzziah became the father of Jotham. Jotham became the father of Ahaz. Ahaz became the father of Hezekiah.
10 Hezekiah became the father of Manasseh. Manasseh became the father of Amon. Amon became the father of Josiah.
11 Josiah became the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the exile to Babylon.
12 After the exile to Babylon, Jechoniah became the father of Shealtiel. Shealtiel became the father of Zerubbabel.
13 Zerubbabel became the father of Abiud. Abiud became the father of Eliakim. Eliakim became the father of Azor.
14 Azor became the father of Zadok. Zadok became the father of Achim. Achim became the father of Eliud.
15 Eliud became the father of Eleazar. Eleazar became the father of Matthan. Matthan became the father of Jacob.
16 Jacob became the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, from whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the exile to Babylon fourteen generations; and from the carrying away to Babylon to the Christ, fourteen generations.
18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was like this: After his mother, Mary, was engaged to Joseph, before they came together, she was found pregnant by the Holy Spirit.
19 Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man, and not willing to make her a public example, intended to put her away secretly.
20 But when he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take to yourself Mary, your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.
21 She shall give birth to a son. You shall call his name Jesus, for it is he who shall save his people from their sins.”
22 Now all this has happened, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying,
23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall give birth to a son. They shall call his name Immanuel”; which is, being interpreted, “God with us.”
24 Joseph arose from his sleep, and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took his wife to himself;
25 and didn’t know her sexually until she had given birth to her firstborn son. He named him Jesus.
referenced as the seed of woman who will conquer Satan
1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?’”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden,
3 but not the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God has said, ‘You shall not eat of it. You shall not touch it, lest you die.’”
4 The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t really die,
5 for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took some of its fruit, and ate; and she gave some to her husband with her, and he ate it, too.
7 Their eyes were opened, and they both knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together, and made coverings for themselves.
8 They heard Yahweh God’s voice walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God among the trees of the garden.
9 Yahweh God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?”
10 The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
11 God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Yahweh God said to the woman, “What have you done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14 Yahweh God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed above all livestock, and above every animal of the field. You shall go on your belly and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.
15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”
16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you will bear children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you have listened to your wife’s voice, and ate from the tree, about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ the ground is cursed for your sake. You will eat from it with much labor all the days of your life.
18 It will yield thorns and thistles to you; and you will eat the herb of the field.
19 By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
20 The man called his wife Eve because she would be the mother of all the living.
21 Yahweh God made coats of animal skins for Adam and for his wife, and clothed them.
22 Yahweh God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever—”
23 Therefore Yahweh God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.
24 So he drove out the man; and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
referenced as the story of Tamar, described as not a pleasant story
1 At that time, Judah went down from his brothers, and visited a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah.
2 Judah saw there a certain Canaanite man named Shua’s daughter. He took her, and went in to her.
3 She conceived, and bore a son; and he named him Er.
4 She conceived again, and bore a son; and she named him Onan.
5 She yet again bore a son, and named him Shelah: and he was at Chezib, when she bore him.
6 Judah took a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar.
7 Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in Yahweh’s sight. Yahweh killed him.
8 Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.”
9 Onan knew that the offspring wouldn’t be his; and when he went in to his brother’s wife, he spilled it on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother.
10 The thing which he did was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and he killed him also.
11 Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, “Remain a widow in your father’s house, until Shelah, my son, is grown up”; for he said, “Lest he also die, like his brothers.” Tamar went and lived in her father’s house.
12 After many days, Shua’s daughter, the wife of Judah, died. Judah was comforted, and went up to his sheep shearers to Timnah, he and his friend Hirah, the Adullamite.
13 Tamar was told, “Behold, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep.”
14 She took off her the garments of her widowhood, and covered herself with her veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in the gate of Enaim, which is by the way to Timnah; for she saw that Shelah was grown up, and she wasn’t given to him as a wife.
15 When Judah saw her, he thought that she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face.
16 He turned to her by the way, and said, “Please come, let me come in to you,” for he didn’t know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, “What will you give me, that you may come in to me?”
17 He said, “I will send you a young goat from the flock.” She said, “Will you give me a pledge, until you send it?”
18 He said, “What pledge will I give you?” She said, “Your signet and your cord, and your staff that is in your hand.” He gave them to her, and came in to her, and she conceived by him.
19 She arose, and went away, and put off her veil from her, and put on the garments of her widowhood.
20 Judah sent the young goat by the hand of his friend, the Adullamite, to receive the pledge from the woman’s hand, but he didn’t find her.
21 Then he asked the men of her place, saying, “Where is the prostitute, that was at Enaim by the road?” They said, “There has been no prostitute here.”
22 He returned to Judah, and said, “I haven’t found her; and also the men of the place said, ‘There has been no prostitute here.’”
23 Judah said, “Let her keep it, lest we be shamed. Behold, I sent this young goat, and you haven’t found her.”
24 About three months later, Judah was told, “Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has played the prostitute. Moreover, behold, she is with child by prostitution.” Judah said, “Bring her out, and let her be burned.”
25 When she was brought out, she sent to her father-in-law, saying, “By the man, whose these are, I am with child.” She also said, “Please discern whose are these—the signet, and the cords, and the staff.”
26 Judah acknowledged them, and said, “She is more righteous than I, because I didn’t give her to Shelah, my son.” He knew her again no more.
27 In the time of her travail, behold, twins were in her womb.
28 When she travailed, one put out a hand, and the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread on his hand, saying, “This came out first.”
29 As he drew back his hand, behold, his brother came out, and she said, “Why have you made a breach for yourself?” Therefore his name was called Perez.
30 Afterward his brother came out, that had the scarlet thread on his hand, and his name was called Zerah.
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
The message came from Matthew 1 and traced the genealogy of Jesus from Abraham to Joseph, showing how God worked through ordinary, flawed, and even foreign people to bring about the birth of Christ. The central point was that Joseph's quiet act of obedience, choosing to follow God's word over his own settled plan, is what we are celebrating when we celebrate Christmas. Simple obedience to God, the preacher argued, is the thread that runs through the whole of that family line.
What was said
Matthew opens with a word that echoes the very first book of the Bible: the book of the genesis, or genealogy, of Jesus Christ. The preacher noted that Matthew, a Jewish man writing to a Jewish audience, was doing something deliberate by starting there. He was grounding the story of Jesus in the promises God made to Abraham and David, while at the same time pointing forward to every tribe and nation, all the way to the Great Commission at the end of the same gospel.
Working through the genealogy verse by verse, the preacher kept returning to one observation: this is not a clean list. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob each had their failures. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba are all included, and none of them fit the profile of someone a first-century Jewish writer would typically name. They were women, they were Gentiles, and their stories were complicated. Matthew includes them anyway, and the preacher took that as intentional.
The point being built was that God's line of blessing passed through people who were crooked, foreign, adulterous, or otherwise disqualified by human reckoning. No name on that list earned their place in it. The genealogy does not read like a Greek hero story, where everyone is noble and the line is pristine. It reads like real human history, which is the point.
When the genealogy reaches Joseph, the preacher slowed down. Joseph had already thought through what he was going to do about Mary. He had resolved to divorce her quietly, and that resolution was careful and even merciful. But as he was turning it over in his mind, the angel came to him in a dream and told him not to be afraid, that what was conceived in Mary was from the Holy Spirit, and that he should name the child Jesus, because he would save his people from their sins.
The preacher connected the name Jesus to Joshua in the Old Testament. The law, like Moses, could bring people so far but could not bring them in. Joshua took the people into the promised land. Jesus is the one who saves, and the whole of Matthew's gospel, the preacher said, builds on that theme of forgiveness and salvation from sin.
What Joseph did next is what the message kept coming back to. He woke up and did exactly what the angel had told him. He took Mary as his wife and named the child Jesus. Two things, simply done. The preacher said we are celebrating Christmas because of that act of obedience, a man surrendering what he had already decided to do in favor of what God told him to do.
The closing argument was that the genealogy and the obedience belong together. God used people with real failures and real histories all the way down that list. No ancestry, and no decision already made, is beyond the reach of God's purposes. The invitation was to respond to God the way Joseph did: hear what He says, and do it.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages
in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
The preacher pointed out that God chose to announce the birth of Jesus to ordinary shepherds rather than to the rich or powerful. What does that tell us about how God works, and where do you see that same pattern in your own life?
Walking through the genealogy in Matthew 1, the preacher highlighted people like Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba as outsiders and people with messy histories who were still included in the line of Jesus. What does their inclusion say to you about who God can use?
Hey. Can we thank Kale for, this... What would you call it? Intro, prelude. Excuse me.
Some worship leader I am. How about this? We're here. We're together. We have the opportunity to worship and give praise.
So what do say we stand up? Sing some familiar Christmas tunes, and, please sing out. Please sing out. Alright. Angels from the realms of glory.
Let's sing.
Of Jesus. We're of to do. Jesus. We're new born king. Amen.
Sages, lead. Sages, leave your contemplations. Greater visions meet afar. Seek the great desire king. Saints before the olds are bending, watching long in hope and fear.
Suddenly the descending in his temple shall appear. Come and worship. Come and worship. Worship Christ, the new born king once more. Come and worship.
Come and worship. Worship Christ the new born king. Amen. If y'all
can be seated.
Alright. Good morning, everybody. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. I am glad to be here this morning.
I I was not here last week and I thank you for praying for me. I have I have been under the weather for quite some time, but I just wanna say thank you for praying for me. I've had pneumonia for like a month or more, and it's been pretty rough. But I'm here today. I'm glad to be here with you all.
So I've got a few announcements, and we've got a baptism, and we've got lots of good Christmas music and I pray a sermon that will be a blessing. So, today is also happens to be the third Sunday just because December doesn't mean we're not gonna do this. So, the third Sunday of the month, we have a discovery class that meets in my office between services with Gary Geek. So if you'll meet up, if you're thinking that you might wanna be a member of the church and you wanna know a little bit more about how that works, really, there's one one bar to membership in this church is that you are a believer in Jesus, a regenerate Christian to be a member. When I...
The church I grew up in, you had to be immersed. If you were not immersed, you were not, to be allowed into the church. We have one, and it is that you believe in Jesus. So the discovery class with Gary will help you ask... Help you...
Give you a place to ask questions, and he'll ask you a bunch of questions too. So that's today at 10:00 in my office. Awana is happening tomorrow night, and it happens to be store night right before Christmas. Generally, they have a chance to spend some of the Awana dollars that they've been gaining. So that's tomorrow night at 06:00, store night for Awana.
Happens during the same time as the Merry Monday nights. Merry Monday nights at first b. This edition is a soft start at 06:00. Meal, music, and a message. What's the message tomorrow night?
Yep. I forgot. Yeah. Come on. It's gonna be Christmas related.
I... I'm pretty much can
Jesus is light of the world.
Jesus is the light of the world. Perfect. Good slide there.
Don't put me on the spot.
Yeah. So, the angel tree back there, I know that y'all have seen this along. There are just a few more tags back there and y'all it's amazing how many families have been helped. And I don't know if you've seen the present stacking up around here, but I have, and I just want to say thank you to that. And people all over the community too have been coming in, folks that half the people that come in to bring stuff, I don't even know who they are, which is amazing that we're able to just kind of be a channel or conduit for God's blessing these families.
There are a few more if you wanted to grab one on your way out today. I have... I'm gonna invite Kevin Olson and Dave Kaufman up to the front. Are you headed this way, fellas? I've got a red mic here for you to share.
Update us.
Good morning, first b. Ray is rocking the Chuck Taylor Converses today. I like it. Nice job. Dave and I wanted to just pause for a minute and bring you guys up to speed with our family fellowship faith capital campaign to raise $250,000 for the complete remodel of our kitchen and our fellowship hall.
By now, think you guys are well aware of the campaign. And so, we wanna have Dave just give you a little slice of life back in the kitchen and how things are gonna improve when we complete this project. And then I'll give you a quick progress report and a little bit of a challenge before we leave today.
It's like NPR, our challenge hour. Hey, good morning. I'm David Kaufman, of course. And one of the things that we like to do each year is have a sunrise breakfast that we utilize our fellowship hall and kitchen facilities for. This breakfast was a tradition started quite a few years ago, I want to say upwards of thirty years ago, by a fellow named Norris Brown, who is a long standing member of our community and church.
And he did it not only as a great way to get up and have some breakfast to get off to Easter sunrise service, but also as a way to honor all the wives and women and mothers and everything also in the church since they are always the ones stuck cooking the holiday meals. He thought it would be nice to give these gals a break too on Easter. And so the tradition has gone on a long time, and another long standing community member and church member, Seal Lamb, would always supply sourdough pancake batter. And, it was just... I got involved in it, oh, quite a while ago, and it was just such a fantastic opportunity, for the men to fellowship together and get together and be back there in the kitchen and cooking everything and just setting everything up and then the opportunity to serve everybody and not only, to serve the members and folks here of our church, but also just to serve our community because this breakfast has just had such an outreach that, it's no longer just our church coming to breakfast, but we have people.
It's advertised in the paper, and we have people from all over to visit us. And if they stay for service, that's just even an extra bonus. But we'll sure to... Make sure to give them some food. And the the facilities back there now, we've gotten by, but each year, we talked about how incredible it would be to have, new kitchen arrangements, some new appliances.
And and as much as that kitchen is used for not only this Easter service, but just throughout the week with Monday night service here at First Bee and just the Boy Scouts and different Al Anon groups, weddings, just... You name it. It's just such an outreach, that little room back there. And with a new kitchen, we could so provide so much more in the way of fellowship and ministry that it would just really be an enhancement. So I would just like to encourage everybody just to reach down in and, you know, we only have, what, three more months of this fundraising drive.
So listen, we are... We can cut this drive short by everybody phoning in their donation right now. So we hate to interrupt this programming that you love so much with these little announcements, but please... And and it's also a great ministry for the young folks too because we get them involved with cooking every year back there for pancakes. And I know Renzi does high school breakfast with the guys back there and the gals.
Please give some thought and consideration to our kitchen campaign fund.
Thanks, Kevin. Outstanding, Dave. Thank you very much. And so we are on final approach. If you guys will recall when we kick this off about nine weeks ago, we had hoped to wrap it up by the end of this month.
And so here's the challenge. We have to date $126,500 that have been contributed, which is amazing because nine weeks ago, we started out with $50,000 and you guys have been amazing with your giving and your sacrificial recognition that this is an important project for the church. So with the end of the year nearing, we are asking you to consider with your year end giving a pledge or a contribution if you choose to contribute. You can just simply write on the memo line of your check, Building fund, if you wish to pledge, we are taking pledges now in terms of the form, but you can complete your pledge by June of next year. Construction for the kitchen will start in April of next year and we will make this happen.
And we'll make it happen because of this. We have, this is the NPR part. We had a donor step forward since we're kind of in the last week and a half of what our planned giving was for this campaign with a $10,000 matching grant. And what that means is if we can match that $10,000 in giving with your contribution and pledges between now and the end of the year, we can confidently move forward 100% in doing the kitchen remodel portion of this project. And so that would begin in earnest in April.
So with that in mind, please consider how you can help us make this project a reality. And the quicker we can complete this, we can stop coming up here and asking you to consider giving. So thank you guys very much for your help.
All right. A couple more announcements. So Christmas Eve is next Saturday night. Christmas Eve, we're having two services here. They're the same time they were last year and the year before that.
It's 04:30 and six. So what time are they?
04:30 and six.
And they're going to be very similar. They're not going to be different. It's not like first service, second service. They're gonna be very similar. So, choose either one.
It should not make a whole lot of difference. So, 04:30 or 06:00, whatever works for your family and Christmas morning is one week from today. We're having one service at eleven, Okay? One service next Sunday and it'll be at eleven. And Carl and the band will be leading that service, but we'll also have some traditional hymns, so it'll be a blended type service next week at 11:00.
So next week, how many services we have? One. One. I know when you got here at nine this morning, you thought you might have missed it and this was that week but it's not, okay? It's 11:00 next week.
So, this is the fourth Sunday in of Advent which is the Sunday where we highlight the love of God. I'm going to invite forward Blake and Bailey. Oh, here we are. They're coming forward too. You do it.
You do it. Valerie and John, here we are. I I knew who I was supposed to invite but they started walking this way. So, this is Valerie and John Burnett and Gideon. Gideon.
Fantastic. Aaron Simmons has been coming on Monday nights is where he started coming, I think. Is Aaron around? Come on up, Aaron. So Aaron has been hanging out here on Monday nights for some time.
He spent most of the summer, went away, and came back. And he has been feeling more and more drawn into the family of God and feeling God drawing him into that family. I love this guy. And he... A couple of weeks ago, the message was on time and on purpose.
And when we... After the sermon was over, he came straightforward and said that this morning, I talked to Carl about how I felt like God was drawing me in, and I believe what he has said. I believe what y'all are saying. I believe what it is that y'all believe, although this is a new and big step for me. I just wanted to tell you that I'm praying that he will come into my life and take over my life.
And so praise God. That's Aaron's testimony. And he he also said, and to have a topical sermon that is about exactly the purposes of God is to save and to give peace and hope and joy and love and light and all of that to be repent and believe the gospel. Repent and believe the gospel is that on time thing. And so he has done that, and he doesn't say a whole lot, but we're gonna get in here and he's gonna say a whole lot.
By following up in believers' baptism, he has taken an immediate and obedient step out of simple obedience to the command of Christ to repent, be baptized, believe the gospel. So we're gonna step into the pool. I'm gonna take this off. So, Aaron, do you commit your life to following Jesus Christ? Do you believe that Jesus cried...
That Jesus died out of obedience to the father for the salvation of all who believe? Yes. And do you believe? Well, in obedience to the command of Christ, I baptize you. I baptize you, my brother, Eric, married with Christ and raised to walk in newness of life.
And if y'all can stand and greet one another, we'll bring you back together after we change clothes. They'll still play a song or two.
Chitchat. There we are. Alright. Joy to the world. Joy to the world when the Lord is God.
Let earth receive a king. Let every heart prepare him rule. And heaven and nature sing. And heaven and nature sing. And heaven and heaven and nature sing.
No more let's say. No more let's ends and sorrows grow. No thorns unfest the ground. He comes to make his best saves though. Far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found, far aheads, far as the curse is found.
He rules the world. He rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations brew. And the peace of his righteousness and wonders of his love and wonders of his love and wonders, wonders of his love.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Can I pray? God, I am very grateful for your love, and I thank you for your compassion toward us.
And I thank you, God, for showing that compassion through your son Jesus in his life, his perfect life, his death, his resurrection. And I thank you, God, for the relationship that we have with you. But it all started by you coming to Earth, God and flesh, to dwell with us. And so we thank you for that. Amen.
From Luke two nine through 11. This this is what what gets me about the birth announcement of Jesus is that God announced this to to lowly shepherds, to humble, you know, ordinary people. And it wasn't, you know, the rich and famous or those we... But just ordinary people. And that's who God reveals himself to, you and me.
We're ordinary people. You know? Just sinners in need of a savior, and that's why he came. And and what comes along with that, what comes along with belief is comfort and joy. And I want you to know that.
If you're not experiencing that, I'd say this, God is the source. He's the one comfort and joy, and all those things come from. And so if you're looking for it, look new... Look no further than a relationship with Jesus because he's the one. He's the one who gives it.
God bless you, Mary, gentlemen, and nothing you
Amen. You all can be seated and invite the friend, frontline team to come forward as we participate here in a worship through giving, and I'd like to just to pray and give thanks. God, I do thank you for just being a generous and good God to us. And you showed your generosity by giving your son. You show your generosity by giving us all things.
And I thank you, God, for the source and the supply of all things good and perfect, including abundant life in you. And I pray that that's the gift that we would really cling to this season because temporary things, they fade. They... The novelty wears off, yet you do not. And you are the source of everlasting joy.
And so I just... I I want to be cognizant of that and aware of that and thankful for that. And as we give here, knowing that these gifts, they that they go to making your name known. And I I thank you for that, and I pray that that's exactly what they would be used for. In Jesus' name, amen.
All right. Now is the time. Children's Church getting started downstairs. So here we go. I am coming off of, like I said, sick bed here.
So pray with me, please, if you would. Lord, would you strengthen me or to carry the truth of your word from Matthew one this morning? Lord, would you touch us in a new way? We get so used to Christmas happening every year, and we hear similar stories and similar tales, Lord, but I don't ever wanna lose the wonder of what happened. And I also am thinking, Lord, specifically of of all of the different things that you brought to pass, but there was some human obedience required in there.
Lord, the vulnerability of a babe in a manger being protected by these human entrusted parents. God, I'm I'm floored by that. God and man, in Jesus, Lord, arriving on the scene. Lord, would you take us to a place right now where you would get us in line with you, where we'd hear clearly what it is that you are directing us to do, us to believe, us to say. In Jesus' name, Lord, would you use your word, and would you impact us this morning in a in a profound way.
Amen. So Matthew one, I was gonna do, and it's written in your bulletin one up through two twenty three. Two full chapters is a little much for any Sunday morning, even if you've heard this story time and time and time again. But Matthew one hit me harder this year than it ever has before, so I'm gonna share just half of what is in your bulletin this morning. This first verse, Matthew one one, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the book of the Genesis, the book of the Genesis is the way he starts off this first New Testament book.
You know, our arrangement. It's the first one. The book of the Genesis of the Christ, the anointed one. Christ being Greek for Messiah, anointed one. He...
This has been something that has been passed down and passed down. This is an old Egyptian papyrus. It's an image of the first nine verses of the book of Matthew, and I think about how many times this sermon has been preached. It had been preached a whole lot of times just by two fifty AD and just as far away as Egypt, which by the end of chapter two, we'll see the holy family heading down into Egypt to get away from and come back from Herod. I just think about the traditions as they have been passed down and what Paul says about the gospel.
I'm not inventing this. I'm handing it on to you the same way that it was handed on to me. It's true. The book of the Genesis or genealogy of Jesus, the Christ, the anointed one, the son of David, military, ruler, government, power. Right?
David and the son of Abraham. Abraham, the one to whom God had made that original promise that I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you and out of your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. That's that's a colossal statement for the first verse of a book. Right? Matthew was a Jewish guy and he was writing to a primarily Jewish audience, but he was writing to them to say, not only is it about the forefathers past, it is about being a light to the nations, sharing this light, this love of God with the nations.
And so from Matthew one all the way up to Matthew 28, we see that grounded focus in the fathers and in the ancestry which we're about to go through but going forward into all the world, every tribe, tongue, and nation, making disciples, baptizing them, and teaching them. In the name of the father, son, and the holy ghost. So, Matthew one, he presents us with Jesus as the culmination of Israel's history, the Christ, the anointed one, the one who bring completion, wholeness, directly related both to David and Abraham. I write these in green just to kind of differentiate them from the red that you'll see in a few minutes. Abraham was the father of Isaac and Isaac, the father of Jacob, and Jacob, the father of Judah and his brothers.
Now, notice this, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. How many times do we hear God called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Lots and lots and lots of times. All throughout the Old Testament, all throughout the New Testament, you hear him referred to, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Actually, Jesus defends against the Sadducees for a change.
Instead of the Pharisees, he defends and says, does not God say, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So, there is a resurrection Sadducees. Don't put that aside. You don't understand the scriptures. I am that I am Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and then, when he gets to Judah, he says, and his brothers.
The blessing of God was on Abraham and it was on Isaac and it was on Jacob but it was not on Esau. Do you see that? It was on Judah and his brothers. It's an interesting thing, I think. So, he starts off.
Abraham was the father of Isaac. This is the line that it passes through. Was Isaac perfect? No. But the line of God passed from Abraham who he made the unilateral promise.
He split the bull. God walked between the pieces, made a treaty in a way that Abraham could understand and promised that he would bless. Through Abraham, through Isaac, the child of promise, through Jacob. Was Jacob a good, good, good, good guy? Deceiver, kinda crooked, kinda wicked in some ways.
Yet, the blessing of God and the grace of God went through that line. Jacob, the father of Judah and his brothers, so those are the 12 tribes of Israel, his brothers. Right? He 11 others. This is a sketch of a destroyed fresco of Michelangelo's destroyed fresco.
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah. It's just a sketch. It's it's actually an an intaglio print. We don't have the original fresco left anymore in the Sistine Chapel. Matthew presents Jesus as the Christ directly related to David and Abraham, but he's very careful to include the Gentiles in Jesus' lineage too.
Now all of the Gentiles that are included that we know were Gentiles are also women, which were almost never included in any first century text of genealogy, which make... Don't make any sense for us today because the way we do genealogy, it's both parents. Right? Typically, they just transmitted through the male line. But I've listed the Gentiles in red for this.
Abraham, father Isaac. Isaac, father of Jacob. Jacob, father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah, the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. Tamar was brought in to the family. She was not Jewish.
It was not a pure line. Actually, if you don't know the story of Tamar, now that the kids are out of the room, my goodness. Genesis 38. It's not a pleasant story. I'll go on.
Judah and Tamar, and Perez was the father of Hezron and Hezron, the father of Ram. Here we have Perez Perez, Hezron, Ram, another destroyed fresco of Michelangelo's in the Sistine Chapel. We just have a sketch of what it looked like on an intaglio print. It was destroyed. And Ram was the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Neshon, and Neshon the father of Salmon.
I'm gonna keep on flashing these up. These are actually still intact. Amminadab. Why he did three or four on one slide and one on the next, nobody really knows, but it's in the cysteine ceiling. These are like our shelves over the windows.
They're little lunette windows, and then there are little freezes over this. So Amminadab, Nashan. Salmon, father of Boaz by Rahab. Rahab, the harlot. We remember from the Old Testament story, not not a line that most people would include in their family history.
But she was a righteous woman. She helped the spies. She helped the plan of God by her simple act of obedience. Boaz, the father of Obed by Ruth, also a Moabite outside of the family of the chosen ones of God. Right?
This is not just a strictly Jewish Jewish line. And Obed, the father of Jesse, Salmon, Boaz, Obed, and Jesse, the father of David the king. This is an illuminated manuscript of the first verses of the book of Matthew, and this image is called the Jesse Tree. It starts with Jesse and goes through the King David and it goes up, and it basically, the same genealogy that we're gonna read from here forward is in that illuminated manuscript right there, and that's French in Latin, but it's French from about 1180. And I think of how many times this story has been told.
And when you're a preacher and you stand up and you tell a story that you know everybody knows, I don't want to ever seek novelty. The story is the story but it's hard to get up here and just go, oh, they've heard this before. Come on. How many times do we have to listen to this? This is God coming into time and space.
This is something we should repeat all of the time. The amazing wonder of God coming in. To life as we know it in time, in space. And David, David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. Bathsheba is not mentioned by name, but she's the wife of Uriah, father...
Mother of Solomon, and so we see another outsider, adulterous even. But forgiven. Forgiven. Jesse, David, Solomon. Solomon was the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Uzziah, and Abijah the father of Asaph.
There they are. Asaph, the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat, the father of Joram, Joram the father of Uzziah. I thought about not not doing the genealogy, but I didn't want to be guilty of jumping Jehoshaphat. Yeah. Y'all are still awake.
Good. Alright. Here we are. And Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz. Ahaz the father of Hezekiah.
Not all these guys are good guys. Are you noticing? If you have any Old Testament history in your mind, it'll be like one really, really good guy, and then it'll be two bad ones, and then a good guy and then a bad one and a good one. Have you noticed that? You're seeing some of em?
It's not like this pristine list. A lot of the old in the same time period, what the Greeks would do. Oh my goodness. It was Zeus was his father and then it was down through these ages and it was everybody good, nobody bad, there's nobody anybody would argue with. Hezekiah, the father of Manasseh, Manasseh, the father of Amos.
Amos, father of Josiah, Josiah king when he was eight years old. Loved Josiah. And Josiah, the father of Jeconiah and
his
brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon. So big major history point for the Jews. Matthew, a Jewish guy, writing to a primarily Jewish audience about the mission of God. He gets them up to the deportation. He's had two distinct breaks.
It's Abraham to David, and then David to the deportation. And after the deportation of Babylon, Jeconiah was the father of Shiltiel, Shiltiel the father of Zerubbabel. There they are, according to Michelangelo. And Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor. There they are.
Father of Achim, and Achim, the father of Eliud. There they are. Keeps going. This is a big building. 42 names on this list.
Right? Elijah, the father of Methan and Methan, the father of Jacob. And Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. That's a different way of keeping up with things too but Jacob, the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born. It's very clear that he's saying that Jesus was born of woman.
Jesus was born of Mary but her husband's line is what we have been experiencing this whole time. Jacob, the father of Joseph, it's a legal distinction. It's very very important because it carries down that governmental aspect of the throne of David. And the blessing of the land of Abraham. Mary also was Jewish.
She had that line too. Of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, he who is called Christ, the anointed one, Messiah. Amen. That is a way to start a book. Jacob, Joseph, and then he kinda clarifies.
This is a bit of a mnemonic device. He's got this for people telling this story. So all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations, and from David to the deportation of Babylon were 14 generations. And from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ were 14 generations. Great.
Nice. Cool. Looks like old Michelangelo could just spelled it out just like that but he puts one on one. He's got a couple of em that didn't even make it. You know, they're destroyed and as I was looking through these verses and looking at this as the foundation, looking backwards and seeing Matthew is establishing something that Mark didn't.
They basically tell the same story. Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell very similar stories. The beginnings are different in Matthew and Luke. They're not contradictory, but they do tell slightly different part of the story. I look at this and go, Lord, you've done just about everything to show us exactly what you want us to know about this baby Jesus and how he came in to the world, what he did to teach and to bless, to show, what he did to suffer and die, buried and resurrected.
You've you've showed of us all of this and you've left nothing out, I feel like, when I'm reading this. 18 is where we traditionally do this Christmas story. We start at verse 18 because in this society, how many of you know the names of both your sets of great grandparents? I knew the three of you that would raise your hands. Yes.
Both sets of your great grandparents, you know them. Well, for them, back then, they did keep up with this in the temple, in the Jewish temple. They kept up with all of these genealogies, and they kept up with them, and they knew them. And they would say them, and they teach them to their children so that they would know that they knew them and keep this going along. It's important.
There are tribes that when when we go and we wanna evangelize, we wanna get the justification by faith. That's where we want to start. John and Romans, let's start there. Almost all mission groups start with Matthew. When you're doing a translation of the Bible and you're starting with one book, one gospel, it's almost always Matthew because your ancestry makes a difference in most cultures of the world, not nearly so much in ours, I don't think, as others.
But at this time of year, we really highlight it and we try to bring out family tradition. I like that. Now, the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way, verse 18. He tells us exactly what he's going to tell us. First verse is, the book of the Genesis of the Christ Jesus and then in 18, he says, now the birth of Jesus took place in this way.
When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, again, it says, his mother Mary, you remember by the seed of woman from Genesis, all the way back from the book of Genesis, the seed of woman is going to conquer. Satan. Now, the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, that is euphemism, physical coming together. Before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame because it was actually a public shame, and it wouldn't have been a light thing. It would have been the same rules still were instituted that were instituted way back in the Old Testament days, actually in the same days of Tamar. Judah and Tamar actually, when Judah found that she was expected, he said, let her be burned. That's heavy. Stoned is the is the norm.
But her husband Joseph, being a just man, merciful, good, a man after God, unwilling to put her to shame, he resolved to divorce her quietly just by a certificate with two or three witnesses, but keep it as quiet as possible. He didn't wanna shame her. He had thought about this. He'd never experienced anything like it before. There was no real other explanation that he could come up with, and so he had resolved.
He had thought about it, he had contemplated, I'm sure he had prayed about it, but he was resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, while he was mowing it over, as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David. Hey, this is a simple builder. Right? You say carpenter.
He's a simple carpenter, a builder, and the angel says to him, Joseph, son of David. He elevates him back to that line. Remember that you are a son of David. Do not fear. Praise God that angels tell us.
Do not fear because we always are fearing in their presence. Do not fear to take Mary as your wife for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you, Joseph, you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins. Jesus is the same as Joshua in the Old Testament. It's a little different because it's Greek but it's a play on words especially in the Hebrew that Jesus is the savior.
He is the one who will save. Moses could not go into the promised land. He got him there. The law could get you so far but it doesn't get you in. Joshua though took his people.
Those people that went with him into the promised land. The savior, the one who would save his people. You shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins and the whole book of Matthew actually concentrates on that theme of saving people from their sins of for the forgiveness of sins. I read this first chapter this week and I thought, my goodness, it pulled me into the second chapter which pulled me to the third. I read all the way through and I thought the whole time it's building on something.
This is a direct command of something that Joseph had been considering, he had been thinking about, and he had come up with what he was gonna do. But as he's considering it, he goes to sleep. He has a dream. Do not fear to take Mary as your wife for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. You will bear scorn.
He knew he would. But don't be afraid to do it. She'll bear a son. You shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins. This is actually 1790, and I think of how many times has this story been told.
Paintings have been painted, songs have been sung, poems written. Matthew one twenty two through 25 says this, all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet and that prophet in this case is Isaiah and if you're reading actually Matthew for the first three chapters from this point forward, just about everything that comes to pass. He says, and it came to pass to fulfill prophecy. So, the past matters because it's a prelude to what's happening in the now and what will happen in the future. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel. Joseph would have known that verse. It sounds like a preposterous explanation to hear that in a dream, but he would have known this verse. Emmanuel, which means God with us. That's a whole series of sermons right there.
When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife but knew her not until she had given birth to a son and he called his name Jesus. So, that is what I wanna talk about, that last verse, the last two really. When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife and he knew or not until she had given birth to his son and he called his name Jesus.
What had the guy, what had the angel, the messenger of God revealed to him in the dream? Don't be afraid to take her as your wife and name him Jesus. He did exactly what was a very, very simple act of obedience and I think about Joseph, a man, has a choice before him to either do what he had resolved within himself to do or to simply be obedient to the command of God. And we are celebrating Christmas right now because he took a simple act of obedience to God. Now, we can argue sovereignty of God and free will of man, but there are time and time and time and time again where it's put forth where he had resolved to do it this way, but when confronted with the word of almighty God, he surrendered his will, surrendered to righteousness as Romans would say, and then God does something amazing, simple obedience.
Simple obedience, no matter your ancestry. We all have black sheep in the family. I think that those are the ones that were highlighted on purpose because I think that it shows that God elevate, continually elevates. None of those were insurmountable. No matter what your human decision has been, even if it's considered and it is set.
God can use you in his plan to redeem if you will just believe the gospel and respond in simple obedience. And I think that to me today is the message. So would you stand with us? We're gonna sing, go tell it on the mountain. If you are a believer in Jesus, and I think that most of you are, Would you live it daily every single day?
Allow God to do what he would through you, to say what he would say through you. Would you be that angel, that messenger of the Lord? In Jesus name.
Alright, here we go. Go tell.
The mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is tell him mountain that Jesus Christ is born, that Jesus Christ is born, that Amen.
Now, this is from Romans 15. Now, may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus. So that with one accord, you may, with one voice, glorify the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ and now, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Would you, lord, would you, let's just carry that this week. In this week, anticipating that December 25, every single year, would you let us just carry it, lord, in such a way that it would be infectious, that other people would grab hold of what it is to love God, be called according to his purpose.
