Grace Abounding! | Matthew 1:1-17

INTRODUCTION

Matthew’s gospel demonstrates that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah whom Jews were longing to see. He is the King of the Jews, but His people rejected Him, and Gentiles accepted Him, and someday will return to reign as King of kings and Lord of Lords!  It is the arrived King, the rejected King, and the returning King’s story. Most of all it is the story of Grace Abounding to the least expected.

Jesus is the king. Most kings rule with an iron fist. Most kings rule by the law. Jesus is not a king who rules with law, but he rules with grace abounding marvelously. Jesus is the Gracious King with that grace abounding to us.

Matthew the tax collector wrote this gospel. At the time when Christ was born, Israel was under Roman domination. And there were many things about the Roman domination that were oppressive to Israel. One aspect of the oppression of Rome was the crushing taxation system. There were two particular taxes –  the “poll tax” (income tax) and  “ground tax” (property or land tax). Roman lawmakers would hire tax collectors to do the actual tax gathering. All tax collectors and harlots were considered as notorious and wicked as highwaymen, robbers, and murderers in those days.

Now one of these tax collectors who worked for some wealthy coalition of Roman lawmakers was a man by the name of Matthew Levi, Matthew, or Levi. And when Jesus spoke to him, he immediately followed, which leads us to believe that he was perhaps very familiar with Jesus. Jesus drew this man into an amazing inner circle of 12 people. Matthew wrote this gospel sometime between 50 and 70 AD, sometime before the destruction of Jerusalem.

The Presentation of the King

If a king is to be heralded as a king, then it must start with the proof that he comes from the royal line. Matthew is doing that in Matthew 1:1-17

There was a royal line in Israel, and it came through David. In 2 Samuel 7, God said through the prophet Nathan to David that it would be through the loins of David that the king would come who would ultimately reign in Israel and set up an eternal kingdom. That was never fulfilled in Solomon. And so, they waited and waited for one born of the seed of David to fulfill the prophecy. And so, if Jesus is to be the king, it must be established that He has the right to reign because He descends from the genealogy of royalty.

Importance of Accurate Geneology to Jews

Now that is precisely what verses 1 to 17 present. Why do we have all of this? First of all, the Jews were tenacious about their pedigrees. And if anybody was going to be presented to them as a king, he needed to have the pedigree to prove it.

For example, after the conquest of Canaan when they went into the land of Canaan and took the land flowing with milk and honey as God had promised, it was essential to determine what your family group was and what your heritage was so that you knew where you were to live because the line of all the land was divided into different family groups.

Transfer of property required accurate knowledge of the family tree. God wanted to keep tribal land within the family group, and so there had to be a pedigree to make some business transactions with the land.

Importance of Geneology after Captivity

In Ezra 2:62, what it means, is that when after the Babylonian captivity, the people started coming back to Israel, and at the end of the 70 years, they started flowing many of them were claiming to be priests and they were claiming to be Levites. And so, when these people came back, they had to be proven based on their genealogy.

Luke 2 talks about Joseph and Mary going down to be registered according to their ancestry in their place because they were still identifying people in that manner.

You see, those identifications were still in existence at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ. The Jews were interested in everybody having their pedigree and knowing exactly to whom they belonged.

Identity through Geneology

Paul says in Romans 11:1 “I am  Israelite myself, … of Abraham, from  … Benjamin. You see, he was still laying out his pedigree. To the Jewish people, it was very important. This is why you see there are at least 50 genealogies in the Old Testament. Because there were reasons for that. Not only the royal line, and the priestly line, but in terms of property transfer, and so forth.

Now all of this has changed today. Jews today don’t know this. They have no record of their tribal ancestry today. No Jew existent in the world today could ever prove himself to be a son of David. There are some Orthodox Jews who still believe the Messiah is going to come, but the problem is there will never be any logical way to prove that. What goes to say this: Jesus Christ is the last verifiable claimant to David’s throne. If he is not the Messiah, nobody else can ever lay a believable claim to it.

Genealogy of Jesus

Now in this genealogy in Matthew, we have what we call a descending record leading through Joseph to Jesus. It comes from David and Abraham, descending through Joseph to Jesus.

In the New Testament, Jesus’ genealogy is also recorded in the third chapter of Luke. But the genealogy in Luke is the reverse. It is an ascending genealogy. It starts with Jesus and goes back through Mary. So here you have a genealogy coming down through Joseph and there you have a genealogy going back through Mary. One begins with Jesus, the other ends with Jesus. It just goes both ways, and it all comes out the same in the end. It’s as if the Spirit of God says, “Any way you cut it, this is the one.”

The Geneology in Matthew Vs Geneology in Luke

Now there are some other distinctions between this one and the Luke genealogy. Matthew is showing the legal descent of Jesus as the King of Israel. Luke is showing the lineal descent. In other words, Matthew shows us the royal line, whereas Luke shows us the bloodline. You say, “What’s the difference?” The difference is this. The royal line always was passed through which parent? The father. It always came through the father. But Jesus had no human father. So, to have the bloodline to reign, he had to be a descendant of David through his mother, as well. Do you understand that?

And so, the line of Mary is also the line of David. So, through Mary comes the line of David, and through Joseph comes the line of David. Through Mary, he has the blood of David, and through Joseph he has the right to reign that belonged to David, even though Joseph was not his father in terms of actuality he was his legal father.

Royal line vs. bloodline

Now stay with me. We’ll cover it another way. Matthew follows the royal line through David and Solomon, David’s son. Matthew follows it down, he gets to David and then the royal line goes through Solomon. But David had other sons, one was Nathan. And Mary’s line came through Nathan. So, what you have is one line coming down through David, and then it goes this way through Solomon. Through Nathan, you come to Mary and through Solomon, you come to Joseph. Both of them of the seed of David. Both of them passed on royal blood.

So lineally bloodline is of David. Legally as heir to the throne, he is of David, both by his mother and his father. He is the actual seed of David through Mary. He is the legal heir of David through Joseph.

Now Look at

 Matthew 1:16 

Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah. Isn’t that interesting? What doesn’t it say? The father of Jesus. Joseph was not the father of Jesus in a human way. He was the husband of Mary who received the grace abounding from God. The Bible never calls Joseph the father of Jesus.

Matthew 1:16 

Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah. He was born not of Joseph. He was born of Mary.

And so, every way possible Jesus Christ had the right to rule. The father was the one who granted the royal line. The mother was the one who granted the royal blood to Jesus.

Luke 3:23 

And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli. Though Jesus was not the physical son of Joseph, he was considered by everybody to be the son of Joseph.

Now most people thought, at least at the time of his birth, that he was the son of some illicit affair. But they called him the son of Joseph because Joseph was constituted his legal father. There was never any argument because they accepted what amounts to adoption in the legal sense with all the rights and privileges.

Luke 4:22

 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.

Now Listen to

Matthew 1:11-12

 ¹¹and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon. ¹²After the exile to Babylon:

Jeconiah’s Curse

Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel was the father of Zerubbabel. Now I want you to know something very interesting. Remember whose line is this in Matthew? Joseph’s. And I want you to notice something. Jeremiah 22:30 This is what the Lord says: “Record this man as if childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime, for none of his offspring will prosper, none will sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah.

None of Jeconiah’s offspring will ever sit on the throne of David. That was the curse on Jeconiah. Now listen to me. If Jesus had been the real son of Joseph, he never could have sat on the throne of David. Did you get that? He would be under the curse. And yet, he had to be the legal son of Joseph to have the right. So, God had to devise a plan by which he would be the legal heir to the throne, but that he would not be in the line of David descending through Jeconiah. And so, God did it by the virgin birth, bypassing the actual bloodline of Jeconiah and yet carrying the royal right to reign and descending the blood through the side of Mary.

It’s a fantastic thing. How God guarded every single detail. And the virgin birth solved it. So, you see, the reason for the genealogy is to present the fact that this is the one who has the right to reign. Listen, it may take me a long time to unscramble the significance of this, but all the Jewish people had to do was read it and they got the message. They knew their Old Testament, they knew the curse on Jeconiah, they knew this line, they knew their pedigrees. And Matthew is establishing that He has the right to be King.

Matthew 1:1 

This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham: This is the story of how Jesus Christ came to be. This is the record of his origin, the record of his ancestry. Iēsous Christos is the Greek equivalent of the Old Testament Yeshua which means “Jehovah saves.”

Matthew 1:21 

She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” And then there’s Christos, which means “the anointed.” And He was anointed as a Prophet. He was anointed as a Priest, and he was also anointed as a King. After so many infallible proofs about His origin and lineage, the Jews never accepted Jesus Christ.

John 8:48 

The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?”

So, Matthew, you see, looks back on all this, and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he writes down the book of the beginnings of Jesus Christ so there never needs to be a question about where He came from actually.

Jesus is the king. Most kings rule with an iron fist. Most kings rule by the law. Jesus is not a king who rules with law, but he rules with grace abounding. Jesus is the gracious king with that grace abounding to the least expected.

1. Grace abounding to Mary

Matthew 1:16

 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.

Mary became the mother of the Messiah. Nobody knew about Mary before this. Mary was like everybody else. Mary was no doubt a deeply devout and religious person, but she was a sinner who needed a Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ had to be a Savior to her as well as a son to her. She needed a grace abounding too.

Mark 3:31-34

 ³¹ Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. ³² A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.” ³³ “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. ³⁴ Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵ Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” Jesus minimized the place of Mary. Mary was a face in the crowd.

Luke 11:27-28 

²⁷ As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.” ²⁸ He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” There was nothing sanctimonious about Mary. The issue was obedience to his Word and Mary needed that as much as anybody else.

Luke 1:28

 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you. Do you know what that is in Greek? “You who are induced with grace.” Mary needed grace abounding. Unmerited grace abounding, given to sinners.

Mary prayed in

 Luke 1:46 

And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord. Hey, Mary was a wonderful lady. She was probably very devout, a pure lady, a virgin. But she was a sinner who needed a Savior of grace abounding. Hey, do you see God’s grace in that He chose a sinner to be His mother?

2. Grace abounding to David and Abraham

Matthew 1:1 

This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham: David was a sinner, Abraham was a sinner and God acted in grace toward them.

David and Abraham

Imagine David, David who sinned so vilely with Bathsheba and had her husband murdered. David, the polygamist, David, who had sexually tormented, David, a bad father, and the same David, who slaughtered multitudes of humanity, so many that his hands were too bloody to build the temple of God.

Imagine Abraham who lied about his wife in Egypt and brought them both into shame, Abraham who disbelieved God is the Abraham who committed adultery with Hagar, and Abraham again, at Gerar, lied about Sarah and gave her to the king as if she was his sister.

Here are two sinners and their seed was the Son of God. That’s grace. God used these two, one to father the nation of the Messiah, the other to father the royal line. Jesus is the son of David, the son of Abraham. His connection with the Hebrew people is racial and royal and it’s royal first and that’s why David comes first. That’s the point that Matthew wants to make. And by the way, grace abounding was extended to everyone, to each of those men, even in their seed.

You may say David shaped up well and so did Abraham. Well, all right, but what about their children, Solomon, and Isaac? The son of David, to whom David looked for the fulfillment of prophecy turned out to be a terrible, tragedy. His story is a disastrous failure. Solomon lived a life of appalling folly despite his peaceful nature and unmatched wisdom. He sowed seeds of disruption by marrying foreign wives. He went way beyond his father in having hundreds of wives and concubines who turned his heart to the Lord.

Solomon’s Life

Solomon shattered the unity of Israel. And God would have had every right to cancel His promise right then, but He didn’t. But someday there came a greater Son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ who overcame the failures of David and overcame the failures of Solomon with grace abounding and with infinite wisdom He will build a temple that will never be destroyed.

Abraham’s Life

Then there was the son of Abraham. The son to whom Abraham looked for the fulfillment of the amazing promise of God, the son who was born when Abraham was 100 years old. The son in whom his hope was resting. But that seed failed, and Israel failed, and God set him aside and cut out a new channel, the church. And the story of Isaac and his seed is a story of weakness and a story of failure, and a story of apostasy, and a story of idolatry, and a story of sin. But Jesus Christ, the ultimate Son of Abraham came to fulfill everything that Isaac couldn’t do, and from Him will spring forth a seed that will number as the sands of the seas and number as the stars of the heaven. And they will carry out the purposes of God forever.

So, Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham came to overcome the failures of both of those lines and their seeds and to accomplish what they could never. But He came through the line of two sinners. That’s grace abounding. God’s grace abounding is seen in one woman and two men.

3. Grace abounds in the history of three eras

Matthew 1:17 

Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah. Notice that? Three eras.

Grace Abounding in the First Period

Now the first period is the period from Abraham to David. That’s the period of the patriarchs and the period of the Judges. Patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Joshua and the great judges like Deborah, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, etc… It’s that great period of heroism when Israel was made famous. You have people even like Ruth and people like Jesse, the father of David. Ah, it was a period of greatness.

Grace Abounding in the Second Period

The second period is the period from David to the exile of Babylon. It’s a period of decline. The first is a period of ascendency, as Israel goes from non-existence at Abraham’s time and oblivion to fame where Israel goes from victory after victory. The second period is the period of the monarchy. And as soon as the monarchy came with Saul, things started to go downhill.

And from David following, you have glory days in Solomon. But after Solomon, tragedy upon tragedy upon tragedy. Oh, every once in a while, in the genealogy you get a little glimpse of a Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah; they were good and godly. But what seems to dominate is Rehoboams, Ahazes, and Manassehs, who were evil men. It’s a period of apostasy, and it’s a period of degeneration that ultimately ends up in the devastation and destruction of Israel and the captivity in Babylon.

Grace Abounding in the Third Period

You say what’s the third period? The third period is from the captivity of Christ. You don’t know anything about that period. It’s 600 years totally in darkness. Names we don’t even know: Abiud, Eliakim, Azor, Zadok, Achim, Akim, Eliud, Eliud, Eleazar, Matthan, Jacob. We don’t know these people. Oblivion.

So, the story of Israel is the story of three eras of glory, decline, and oblivion; nevertheless, through that nation, the Messiah comes. That is grace. He’s the King of Grace. God’s grace was given as evident in one woman, two men, and three eras in the history of a decaying nation.

4. Grace abounding to the four outcast women in the genealogy

There are only four women mentioned in this genealogy. I want you to see who they are.

A) Tamar in Christ’s genealogy

Matthew 1:3 

Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar.

What kind of a lady was Tamar? Let me introduce you to her from Genesis 38. Judah wanted a wife for his firstborn Er, so he took Tamar. Er was wicked and the Lord put him to death. Tamar was childless and she was given over to her brother. He too was wicked, and the Lord put him to death. Then she was promised the third son and sent back to her father’s house until he was ready for marriage.

Now Tamar’s father-in-law goes up to Timnath to shear his sheep. Tamar puts her widow’s garments off from her, covers her head, and sits in an open place. “When Judah saw her, he thought she was a harlot because she had covered her face. And he turned unto her and said, ‘Come, let me come in unto thee.’ Little did he know that she was his daughter-in-law.

Judah had not brought money, so Tamar took a pledge of Judah’s signet ring, bracelets, and staff. She was conceived by him that day and her identity was proven. There was harlotry and incest. Out of that conception came twins, Pharez and Zarah. You know what’s amazing about that? They are the next people in the genealogy of the line of the Messiah.

B) Rahab in Christ’s Genealogy

Matthew 1:5

 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab.

When you say “Rahab,” what comes to your mind? “Rehab the harlot.” She is a Canaanite, outcast, Gentile, idolatress, a professional immoral woman. Joshua chapter 2 tells us about it. She decided to stand for the Lord and God brought her into his lineage. From her came Boaz. And do you know something about Boaz? Oh, what a godly man. What a godly man.

C) Ruth in Christ’s Genealogy

Matthew 1:5

Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth.

Boaz was married to Ruth. You say Ruth was not an immoral woman. Yes, Ruth was a godly woman. But you know what Ruth was? She was a Gentile, a Moabite. She was an outcast.

Genesis 19 has the origin of the Moabites. And Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountain cave with his two daughters. The firstborn said unto the younger, “Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed from our father.” Incest.

“And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in and lay with her father, and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.” “ it came to pass on the next day, the firstborn said unto the younger, ‘Behold, I lay last night with my father: let us make him drink wine tonight also; and go in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed from our father.’ They made their father drink wine that night also” Tragically, he didn’t have enough backbone to defend himself against somebody making him drunk.

And the younger arose and lay with him. Thus, both the daughters of Lot with children by their father. And the firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab, the father of the Moabites.

Ruth was a Moabite. She was born of incest. God cursed her line:

 Deuteronomy 23:3

No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the tenth generation. God picks up a cursed lady born of an incestuous relationship with the daughters of Judah. Now that’s the interesting ladies who received grace.

She was a pure lady, she was the wife of Boaz, and you want to hear something wonderful? She became the grandmother of David.

D) Bathsheba in Christ’s Geneology

Matthew 1:6

 David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife. According to 2 Samuel 11 & 12, she was up on a roof sunbathing and David was up there looking around. He said, “That’s the one I want.” Brought her over, had a relationship with her, and produced a child. She was an adulteress.

You’ve got two harlots, one born out of incest, and an adulteress, and they’re the only four ladies mentioned in the entire genealogy of Jesus Christ. Now what do you think the message is? God is a God of what? Grace. Are you glad about that grace? I think that this genealogy was a literal knockout punch by Matthew against the Jews.

Coming from a nation whose history was degenerative, coming from two sinful men and born to one sinful lady was the King of all kings. Let it be known to Israel and anybody who listens to Jesus Christ is the friend of sinners. Did you get that? He’s the friend of sinners. And he said it. “I have not come to call the righteous, but –” what? “sinners to repentance.”

This morning grace is available for those who turn to Him. You may have messed up, you may have blown it up, but God is willing to give you his grace this morning. Let’s pray.

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