Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Audio Transcript
All right. Well, beautiful singing. So I’ve not met you. My name is Aaron and I’m the preaching pastor here at Red Village. And we’re glad you’re with us today.
So if you have a Bible with you, if you turn to the Gospel of Luke and if you don’t have a Bible with you, there are Bibles kind of scattered throughout the chairs. And so if you want to find Luke there, it’s actually on page 501 on those blue Bibles. So today our text to study is going to be Luke 3, verses 23 through the end of the chapter, verse 38. But I’m just going to read verse 23 and then you’re going to skip down and read verse 38. And as you’re looking through that, I’ll let you guess why we’re skipping a good portion of that from me reading before you today.
So Luke 3 starting verse 23, please hear the words of our God says this Jesus, when he began his ministry was about 30 years of age, being the son, as was supposed of Joseph, the son of Heli. Dropping down verse 38 and the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. So that’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me?
God, thank you for bringing us together. And Lord, please, please bless this time that in this time that you would help us to see Christ in Christ alone. I pray so on his name. Amen. So there are two similar shows that I enjoy watching.
Many ways similar that the shows talk a lot about history, history being something I enjoy. So the first is a show on PBS called Antique Roadshow. Maybe some of you heard of that where in this show people bring in like various artifacts, antiques for experts to look at to not only get the experts opinion to get a better idea of the historical value or historical significance of the artifact, but of more of interest to get the experts opinion on like the value of the antique that if they’re put up at auction, like what might it bring? Then the other show that I like, which in a sense similar but maybe just a little less cultured, a little less sophisticated, a show called Pawn Stars, which is basically a reality TV show of a family owned and operated pawn shop where likewise people come in with various items, some of which not exactly sure what they have with hopes to likewise get a little more information on them, a little bit of understanding of the history of them, but likewise more importantly, they get a better idea on the value of what they have with hopes that they’ll then turn around and sell the item to the pawn shop for a significant amount. Where in that show, very often as items are brought in, the pawn brokers also have to call in experts just to help them understand the item and how much it is worth.
Now, I like both these shows and I like just kind of like mentioned learning about history, and I like to understand just some of the values of things tied to history. And so in these shows, often as people bring things in, like they just don’t know, they know there’s something there, they know there’s some type of value, but just not sure what it might be. Now, I share this with you this morning because we come to a text in our study of Luke that we might actually know a little bit about this text. We do know there’s a lot of history in this text. We probably understand for Luke to include this in his Gospel account, there has to be value in it.
But in a lot of ways, I think we’re not really sure what to do with this text, maybe even less sure of the value of it. Because today, as we gather together, we do so to study a genealogy, a long list of names recorded by Luke, starting with Jesus in verse 23 and then ending with Adam in verse 38. So my hope for us today, with the help of various biblical experts in their commentaries, I hope is through their help, I can bring to light exactly what this genealogy is and why Luke found it so valuable that he decided to include it in his Gospel account. Now, just a few things for us before we try to work through this text. First, I just want to remind you yet again of the context of Luke.
And if you’re here, you know, every week, you’re one of our members, you’re wondering why we do this week after week after week. Why always set the context? There’s a couple reasons. So often we have visitors with us, and so we want to be hospitable and just give some context to those who maybe are visiting with us today. Just help them understand what we’ve been studying so they have some handles to work through the sermon.
Second, we do this every week, week after week, just to hopefully be good Bible readers. So it’s critically important for us to understand the context of what we’re reading. So hopefully, by setting the context every Sunday, not only help us with understanding the sermon, but also hopefully by sending the context every Sunday as we get to our own personal Bible reading, throughout the week, that we are sending the context, remembering the context of that which we’re reading. Okay, so over the history of Christianity, as passages have been removed from their context, it has led to some like, interpretations and applications that are just not true to Scripture, which not only has led to like, misunderstanding what scripture says, but also greatly missing the value on what scripture actually does say. So setting the context helps us just to see and understand just how rich, how valuable God’s word is to us.
So Psalm 19, speaking of Scripture, which includes even our pastor’s day, says, more to be desired than gold, even much fine gold, the scripture is sweeter than honey. The drippings of a honey scone, moreover, by them your servant is warned. And in keeping them, there is a great reward. So every week, including this week, including today, we do want to spend a little bit of time to remind ourselves of the context of our passage, to help receive the great reward that comes from studying in ways that hopefully we’re showing ourselves approved. Okay, so the context.
So as mentioned, Luke is a gospel account. So this is one of the four gospel accounts that we have in scripture. Gospel accounts that tell the life, the death, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Where Luke this gospel account is not only the longest gospel account in terms of words, but it’s actually the longest of the New Testament books in terms of words. Within the book of Acts, you may remember, which is paired with Luke.
It’s volume two of Luke is actually the second longest book in the New Testament in terms of words. Luke was written by a man named Luke. He’s a doctor, a missionary, a Christian. And as the Christian faith was rapidly spreading around the region, Luke decided that he wanted to write an orderly account of events that took place concerning the Lord Jesus. And as Luke desired to write this early account, he did so maybe like 30 years or so after the life, death, resurrection and then ascension of Christ, which meant for Luke there still were people living when Jesus walked the earth.
Which allowed Luke to write this orderly account by interviewing eyewitnesses where throughout this account, Luke is very careful to ground all that he wrote in history, including our text today. This is yet again another historical passage in this Gospel. Furthermore, as a community reminder, the Gospel of Luke is first written to a man named Theophilus, who seemed either to be like on the verge of becoming a Christian or perhaps recently became one. However, as Theophilus was exploring the Christian faith, he was on, he’s a bit unsettled on the things concerning Christ, which is why Luke desired to write this early account to help Theophilus find assurance Christianity. And this also includes our text today.
As this genealogy has of great value towards that end, as the genealogy is there to help ground our assurance of our faith in Jesus. Lastly, just to mention the context of the passage where we were last week. So if you’re here, Wes gave a really helpful sermon to us in the previous passage. And in that passage we learned about the start of the ministry of a man named John, who was a man that we met in chapter one of our study of Luke. John was uniquely born to parents who were advanced in age, where his mother Elizabeth, you may remember, was barren his entire life.
And as John was uniquely born, we also learned in our study of Luke that he would have a unique purpose, unique ministry, as he came to be the promised prophet of the Old Testament, the one who would come to prepare the way for the long awaited, long anticipated Messiah who was to come. In our text last week, as John started his public ministry, he did so by calling people to repentance, which is to turn from sin and turn to God to find forgiveness, where John would then symbolically baptize those who professed repentance, as baptism was a symbol of cleansing. And where we finished last week, we saw how Jesus himself was baptized. Whereas baptism, Wes pointed out, there’s actually a lot of value for that passage for us to see in that passage as well. So first, you may remember we saw how the baptism of Jesus helped declare that Jesus was indeed the Christ, the promised Messiah.
Something all throughout Luke we see that. Second, at the baptism of Jesus, we saw the triune nature of God on display. Remember how God the Father spoke from heaven as Jesus, God the Son was baptized, where God the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus as a dove. So while there’s no passages in scripture explicitly use the word Trinity, so this is one of the many passages throughout Scripture where we see the triune nature of God. So there’s one God and three persons.
God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Third, now at the baptism of Jesus, we see Jesus actually coming to identify with his people. As mentioned, as John was baptizing, it was symbolic of one’s like repentance, of turning from sin and turning to God. However, with Jesus, he was without sin. There’s nothing for him to repent of.
So as Jesus was getting baptized, it was not out of repentance, but it was him actually coming to identify with his people as their representative, which Jesus continued to do throughout his ministry, culminating in his death on the cross, where Jesus died for his sinful people as their representative. So that by faith in him now we in Turn can identify with him having his righteousness counted as our righteousness. And this edification particularly relates to Jesus being a representative is actually important to understand the value of our text today, which we’ll get to in just a bit. So that’s a bit of the context. Second, I do want to mention as we work through the sermon, this is probably feel a little different than other sermons and how I try to communicate what the text is saying.
Supervisor. So most often what we do is we work through sermons and we just kind of go line by line through the passage, whereas you go through the passage. You know, I’m just trying to help us understand what the text is saying. However, that line by line approach would be pretty difficult for us this morning with the genealogy, particularly because most of the names listed we actually know nothing about. So if you went line by line, the sermon would be me trying to pronounce a name that I have little hope of actually doing correctly.
And then after mispronouncing the name to you, then I have to say something like, yeah, we don’t know anything about him, so let’s go on to the next name. I do the same thing, mispronounce the name followed by, yeah, don’t know anything about that one either. Okay. So rather than doing that, I’m just going to group together a whole bunch of these names to talk about them all at once. And after doing that, I want to talk about some of the names that we do know and some of the details about their lives that are significant to us.
So this sermon is going to feel a little different on that end. Let me also mention it’s probably a little bit more of an informational sermon than maybe what we typically have here, which actually leads to the third thing. So the third thing I want to mention, just for the sake of information, relates to a different genealogy in one of the Gospels, the Gospel of Matthew. So if you turn your Bible, if you want to look there at the Gospel of Matthew, that book actually starts out with a genealogy. And if you look at that genealogy to the one of Luke, there actually are clear differences between them.
So I want to spend a little bit more time on this just because this is actually one of the most talked about things when it comes to the genealogies in the New Testament. Okay. So if you look at Matthew’s genealogy, if you want to flip back there, you see how he starts that gospel account, the genealogy begin with Abraham, who is the great father of faith, who in the book of Genesis was given the promise by God. That through him, through his family line, there would be one who would come, who would bless the nations and from Abraham, the genealogy. And Matthew then moves forward in time and then ending with Jesus, who is called the Christ.
And as Matthew does this, I think he’s helping us see that Jesus is the one from Abraham by which all nations would be blessed. In addition, as Matthew structured his genealogy, he did so in such a way he kind of broke it up into groupings which also points that Jesus not only came from Abraham, but also from the lineage of David, who was a far off grandson of Abraham. So just notice that about Matthew. Now back to Luke, as you remember in chapter two that he came through a man named Joseph and he’s born of Mary. And they had to travel from Nazareth from where they were to Bethlehem because he was born of the lineage of David.
Okay. And so we kind of see that in Luke. But back to Matthew’s genealogy. Matthew really want to see his readers to see that Jesus came from David, that he came to be the great king, the one promised that the Messiah would come, who’d be the eternal king. Okay, so back to Matthew, starting with Abraham, move forward in time through David to Jesus.
But now Luke, we see the genealogy is different, it’s flipped. The genealogy actually starts with Jesus and then from Jesus works backwards in time. In fact all the way backwards in time to the start of time. It ends with Adam, who our text calls the Son of God, because Adam was formed by God from the ground. And it appears that Luke did his genealogy this way to hide Jesus to all of humanity.
Okay, so that’s one difference. Okay, just how it’s kind of structured. Another difference that you’ll notice is that the names and genealogies are not always the same, same. And this is where some call this like an obvious like discrepancy in Scripture. A reason why we can’t trust scripture because these genealogies do not match up, however, as kind of mentioned earlier.
So context matters. And not just the context of scriptures in Scripture, but also the context of scripture within history. So Matthew’s Gospel as it goes from Abraham to Jesus, what we seem to be doing there is chasing the family line of Jesus through Joseph. Okay? Jesus, earthly father, his adoptive father, adoptive, as we learn in our study of Luke, Jesus not conceived by Joseph, but by the Holy Spirit.
So Joseph adopt Jesus fully as his own, which, true as it is today, as it was then, adoptive sons. So they’re full sons with full rights of sonship. But Luke, rather than tracing through Joseph, it seems that he’s actually tracing lineage through Mary, Jesus’s mother. And this is actually where the kind of the crux of the sticking point comes between these two genealogies, where some just perceive like discrepancies or error related to Matthew and Luke. And the reason why primarily revolves like who is listed as Joseph’s father.
If you want to look at our text, verse 23. So you see a Joseph is the son of Heli. But if you look at Matthew’s gospel at the end of it, the genealogy we read Jacob, the father of Joseph. So not Heli but a man named Jacob. Okay, so why the difference?
And then why would I say that Luke seems to be tracing this through Mary if it starts out like the son of Joseph? Again answer I think is historical context. So in biblical times, if a couple only had daughters, or if they had a son who had no children, who could pass on the family name. So as daughters married, their husbands would be like the adoptive sons of her parents. And this is culturally significant, not just to pass down one’s family name or genealogy, but also to pass down like an inheritance which is done through men.
So for a couple who only had daughters or sons with no children, they would adopt their son in laws as their own son which allowed for the inheritance, allowed for the family line to continue on past them. And many throughout history believe that’s what’s happening here with Luke’s genealogy where Heli was actually Mary’s father who adopted Joseph, his son in law, as his own son. Okay, now as I said to you, there are some do wonder if Matthew traced the genealogy of Joseph’s father. But now Luke is tracing the genealogies through Joseph’s mother. Perhaps.
But I tend to think Luke’s genealogy is actually Mary’s line with my belief that Mary is actually one of the eyewitnesses that Luke used to write this account. Okay, now I do want to mention there are other discrepancies between these two lists. For sake time I’m not going to go through all of them. But some of the discrepancies are simply ways that maybe a name is spelled differently, which you know can be common even today, particularly with names to go from generation back we might spell a little differently. Other discrepancies seem to be tied to different points that Matthew and Luke are trying to communicate where they might pick a different sun as they trace lines back and common to that time, really common throughout history, lineage or lines often diverge but then they come back together, which actually does think happens in the Genealogy between Matthew and Luke.
Now, for us here in the United States, we don’t see this as much because we’re more of a melting pot where we have people from all over the world coming to settle here. But in most other places of the world where there are families who have genealogies that run deep into history, this is actually something you can find fairly commonly where genealogies diverge, but then over time they kind of come back together. It does seem that’s actually a real part of discrepancies that we find between these two genealogies. Whereas mentioned, one author might trace through a different son to show different truths concerning Jesus Christ. Okay, now, if you have questions on this, I’d actually talk to you more about the service, but I think for now that’s probably going to be enough, so let’s just keep going.
So, fourth, I do want to mention how important genealogies were during this time period. So a lot of religious and a lot of legal standings were very much tied to one’s genealogy. And because of that, records were meticulously kept and stored either in a temple or in a synagogue. So just a couple things on that note for sake of information. So back to differences between Matthew and Luke’s genealogies.
So if there actually was an issue like related to error in that day, people would easily been able to point that out. Particularly came to, like Joseph’s father. However, there seems to be like no issue of the early church on that end. Okay, so it seems like there’s no discrepancy made sense. Second, I did one this week.
Of all the hard work Luke put in to write this orderly account, you know, where Luke had like probably hours and hours of interviewing people, hours deliberating over, like, what was the most important information to conclude or to include in these Gospel account and in the book of Acts, I did wonder of all the homework that he did to write this longest New Testament book, I did wonder if this genealogy actually required the most effort from Luke to put together. You know, for me, I could just see Luke in some study room in the temple area, maybe a candle lit, and then scrolls of all these genealogies filling up the table by which he sat. However, for Luke, he’s happy to do the long hours of research to put the genealogies together from Jesus to Adam, because he knew how valuable this would be for us to have. Which, by the way, kind of on this note, next time you and I are reading through scripture and we come to a genealogy, whether it’s this one in Matthews or maybe one of the genealogies, Old Testament. So rather than skipping over it, let’s just try to honor the authors and all the hard work that they did to put this together.
At least just try to read through it. Okay. There’s a lot more I could say that’s probably enough for information for this time. So let’s go back to the text. Verse 23 just mentioned starts with the genealogy of Jesus and then works backwards in time.
So in verse 23, we see that Jesus was about 30 when he began his public ministry. And there seems to be significance here with the age 30. Some of the significance seems maybe more of like a cultural significance where there’s some that conclude that is around the age of 30 in this day. This is like those are being trained to be like rabbis or teachers around 30s when they moved to public ministry. There’s also some Old Testament significance concerning the age of 30.
So there are two really important characters in the Old Testament that entered into their important roles at that age. So if you remember Joseph from the book of Genesis, in chapter 41, if you remember, remember Joseph basically became like the second command of all of Egypt. And he did so the text tells us at age 30, where God used Joseph then to save his people from famine in the land. Then similarly in 2nd Samuel 5, we see that David, right, the great king over Israel, that he started his reign or his reign also at age 30. And so this seems here like Jesus is linking himself to these like, famous, important Old Testament characters as he starts his public ministry.
Verse 23, as a genealogy of Jesus began, we see that he was a son, as was supposed, to Joseph, which that phrase as was supposed. It seems that Luke continued to communicate, which already communicated in chapter one, it’s kind of mentioned that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, where then Jesus became the adoptive son of Joseph, who Virgin Mary was betrothed to be, to be married to. Now, after the name Joseph, this is where you get all the names that I won’t be able to pronounce all the names that at this point we know like nothing about. So I’ll let you just kind of scan through to see so many of these names there. And as you scan through, you see the list of names of people we don’t know anything about.
I think this just implies that these are just like common, ordinary, just like everyday people. And for us, maybe this is like, maybe a little disappointing. We’d like to know a few more things about these people. Yet in the genealogy, by far the majority of the names listed, they’re just names at this point, nothing more to us. Names that have been completely lost to history.
And while this might be disappointing to us, I actually think this reality should be encouraging to us. So in years down the line, when someone who comes from your family line is doing some research on their ancestry and they get a list of names who came before them, you know, who will also be a name for that person, who most likely also, they’ll know nothing about each one of us, where soon after our time here is complete, listen, we too, we’re going to be lost to history. So I actually find the list of these names listed of so many forgotten people. I actually find that encouraging. Just like me, like you, these forgotten people, normal people who live normal lives like they’re still used by God according to God’s incredible eternal plan, through them, one day Jesus would come born from their family.
Thanks a lot to us. Obviously we won’t have the same incredible family lineage as the folks here in the genealogy. But who knows how, according to God’s good plan, who knows how he might use you, your family line to either like produce or continue forward like a Christian heritage for generations to come? Or who knows how God might use you or your family line that is to come to share the message of Jesus and in ways that others believe and then like new Christian heritage is like start. So for me to read these names, names I have no shot at pronouncing, say it again.
It actually gives me encouragement, it gives me actually a lot of hope. If God used them in his eternal plan to keep his promises of the Messiah to come, friends, he can use me, he can use you as well. Now that being said about the names that we know nothing about, let me point out a few of the names that we do know about. So if you want to drop your eyes down to verse 31, so we see in the geology, we see the names. The son of David, the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, talked a little bit about David already.
David is a great king, the one who’s promised that the Messiah, the Christ would come from. His line talks about how David was from Bethlehem, where the Christ would be born. Which Luke 2 tells us that Joseph left from Nazareth, went to Bethlehem, where he’s registered to be registered for his census. And that’s where Jesus was born to fulfill the scriptures. So this genealogy through David is pointing how Jesus fulfillment of that promise, the names, Jesse, Obed, Boaz, we actually read these names in a different genealogy In Scripture, if you remember the Book of Ruth, which is a great book of like God’s providence, how God kept his promises through the providential work that he was doing in the world.
So remember Ruth, how the Lord used a lady named Ruth, who was a young Moabite woman, was a widow, to show great kindness to her mother in law, a lady named Naomi, her herself a widow. Where in the providence of God Ruth met Boaz, they fell in love, where Boaz just so happened to be in the same field where Ruth was working, where Boaz also just so happened to be the needed kind redeemer. If you have not read through the Book of Ruth, let me encourage you to do so. So it’s only four chapters, but it actually is one of my favorite stories in all of scripture mentioned God providentially was at work to provide for Ruth, provide for Naomi, even in there just normal life, as even Ruth walked by faith. Whereas a providence in that story actually is leading to a much greater, much more important providence that led to Jesus Christ.
Dropping down verse 33, see some more familiar names. So you see the son of Judah, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, now Jude, if you’re familiar with him. So he was one of the 12 sons of Jacob. And in Genesis 49 we actually read an incredible promise was given to him as well, that the scepter would not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff between his feet, which is another promise of God that a king was going to come from this line that would go from Judah to David to Jesus. And this promise that was given to Judah is something that was given to him, even though Judah actually wasn’t that great.
So if you read through Genesis, Judah was like an obvious sinner and so was his dad Jacob, who was listed in the genealogy, the name Jacob actually being that of a name that means like deceiver. And he certainly was all throughout Jacob’s life. And he too is an obvious sinner, while his father Isaac, grandfather Abraham on the list, while they seem to have better morals than Jacob or Judah. But if you read through their stories in Genesis, they certainly were less than perfect characters as well. Like even they had issues.
Yet for all these men here who are clearly sinners, they live by faith. God like used them. God used them to keep his promises. Which also I think is an encouragement to us as we connect our dots to ourselves who are also clearly sinners. Let’s talk about that more in just a second.
But then dropping down again in the text, verse 36, just a few more familiar names I want to point out. So we see Noah listed. So no, we learned about him in Genesis as well. We see he’s a righteous man, the man who God called to build the ark before the flood waters came, or through the floodwaters, God basically created like a new creation, even though Noah’s a righteous man, after the floodwaters subsided, even he was a sinner, where he too failed God. It’s after the flood waters subsided, we see in Genesis that he got, like, drunk and naked.
Verse 37, Methuselah is listed. So he’s famous for being the oldest man recording scripture. But other than that, we don’t know anything about him, Enoch. So we knew a little bit about him from Genesis, as well as the New Testament books of Hebrew and Jude. And we see that Enoch was a man who lived by faith as he walked with God before God actually took him up to the heavens.
Whereas Enoch walked with God, he was a preacher. So Noah, Methuselah, Enoch, they’re actually part of a longer genealogy listed in Genesis, like the first book of Scripture. So it tells us, even from the very beginning of Scripture, genealogies had real value to them as they testify of God’s work in the world through his people. And finally, we’re going to end verse 38, where the genealogy ends, which it does. Where actually every genealogy has its start.
Adam, the Son of God. Okay, now a couple things. Just on this first mention again, the Son of God is designated for Adam instead of, like, some. Like son of some earthly father. Because unlike all others who were born, Adam didn’t have a mother or father, because as the first, God himself created Adam out of the dust.
Or God himself, like, breathed life into Adam as he placed his very image upon human. That’s why he’s listed as the Son of God. Second, because Adam is the first in Scripture, we see that he’s actually a representative for all mankind in that by birth, we all are sons, daughters of Adam. Because Adam is a representative of humanity, we actually all are marked by that which marked Adam, which is sin, death, and judgment, which is what God declared to Adam in Genesis when Adam disobeyed and sinned. And because Adam sinned as representative, that same declaration is actually made for each of us of sin, death, and judgment.
That is, unless there’s a different representative for you, which is the good news for us actually found in this genealogy, where in Scripture we see there’s actually a second Adam, a better Adam, one who also came as a representative. Jesus where Jesus came to represent all those who by faith come to him. Whereas our representative, unlike Adam, as mentioned earlier, Jesus did not sin, but he was perfect in every way. Yet according to the eternal plan, eternal promise of God as a representative, Jesus went to the cross to take on the punishment of our sin, where he died for us, only to rise again on the third day. And it’s through his death and resurrection, not only is he proved to be the better Adam, but that’s where Jesus proved to be the Messiah, the eternal king, so that by him, because he is our representative before God now we might be called sons, daughters of God, fully united to God, where by grace, through faith, God actually adopts us through Jesus Christ.
Where through the adoption, through Jesus Christ, we get to enjoy all of the benefits of being a child of God, where every benefit that Jesus had as God’s son, because he is our representative, we have those benefits as well, which really is the value of the genealogy. Let me just read you this from Kent Hughes and his Preach the Word commentary. He captures this so, so well as he ends his section, this part of his study of Luke. He says this Christ the Son of God became a son of Adam, that we sons of Adam might be sons of God and friends. There again, that’s the value.
If you’re wondering what’s the value of this passage, that’s the value, a value we must see, we must believe, we must trust in that through Jesus Christ, the better Adam, our true representative, we can be sons of God. So as a close, let me just close just three encouragements from the genealogy. Just why these are so valuable to us. So first, why are genealogies viable to us? Because they help us to hope that God can use us.
I mentioned this already, but I do want to mention this again. So many names in geology are just names, ordinary common, plain people, yet used by God and friends. That’s actually the story of all history, where the vast majority of God’s work in this world is through ordinary common, plain people like the ones in the list, like the ones that fill the room, ordinary common people who are sinful people who are far less than perfect people, yet in the grace of God, which He’s saying is greater than our sin, still used by God to fulfill his purposes. So this morning, as you think about the genealogy or next time you read a genealogy in the Bible, friends see the value there and find hope. If God used the names listed there, he can use you as well to accomplish his purposes through you in the world around us.
By the way, Maybe just to further encourage you on that. Just be faithful as you go about living your life. Just be faithful. Faithful to serve others, faithful to be active in church life, faithful to do the work of an evangelist, a witness at work or school, a neighborhood. Who knows how God might use you, as ordinary, as normal as you are, to create and advance Christian genealogies.
Second, so why are genealogies valuable? They help us to trust that God indeed is keeping his promises.
So this genealogy, all genealogies, in the end they sing the song great is thy faithfulness because genealogies show us how faithful God continues to be all throughout history. Faithful to keep his promises to his people, faithful even when we’re faithless. Text promises working back in time, through David, through Judah, through Abraham, these promises actually started all the way with Adam, where soon after Adam’s sin and God’s grace, his kindness, God actually made a promise even to Adam, a promise that one day one would come from him who would make things right, which is mentioned, Jesus did, by taking on our sin, our judgment, our death, so that through him, according with God’s promises, we could be forgiven, made right with him and have the promise of eternal life that is to come, which for us, how could we ever place a value of that? So as you go through life, particularly in hard, difficult things in life, I encourage you to actually remember the genealogies and remember that God will be faithful to the promises that he’s given to us. And friend, you can trust Him.
One more genealogies are valuable. Why? I think they give us peace. Peace. Knowing that God does have a plan.
He’s just not like willy nilly just kind of throwing things out there, see, with sticks. He has a plan. So how do you keep his promises? Well, he does so according to his plan, a plan that was set in motion even before history was started. We’re in this plan of God.
God would work through his providence.
Some of the providences would be sweet for us to taste, but some of the providence won’t be so sweet. One of the songs that we sing here correctly states, some of the mysterious providence of God are going to feel pretty bitter to taste in a moment where some of the providence of God might actually feel like God is frowning upon us. Yet as the song sings, as the genealogy is pointing us here, in the end, all the providence of God in time will actually prove to be sweet. As in time, all things are revealed. To see how God was providentially at work with his smile behind every providence because of all the providence, including the Providence that play in this genealogy, all in the end, lead us to the Lord Jesus Christ.
There’s such a great value to this passage, to this genealogy. It helps us see the providence of God. Providence of God, displayed throughout all history, starting with Adam, where all of it leads us to Christ. So this morning, as you look through this list, as you think through the providence of God that put this list together, let your soul be washed over with peace. Friend, God has a plan, a good plan, a plan even for you.
A plan, a good plan that even when the providence they come your way or don’t come your way, might feel like a frown. Because in the end, the providence of God, the plan of God, is always leading us to the same place through the Lord Jesus Christ, who himself is our peace. And for us, friends, we don’t need an expert to come in to help us see how valuable that is. So, church, may we see the value of scripture, all of it, including genealogies. Does they take us to the Lord Jesus, the great treasure whose value is infinite?
Let’s pray.
Lord, thank you for this passage.
And Lord, thank you just for how this passage just points to your work throughout history.
And Lord, I do pray you help us just to see the value in it. Give us confidence that you can use even us to do your work.
Please help us to find.
Just trust in your promises.
Help us to find hope in your good plan.
And Lord, thank you just for all the ways that you continue to provide. Pray us on Jesus name, Amen.