Christmas Genealogy

Order of Service

• Announcements
• Opening Hymn — Joy to the World
• Call to Worship — Hebrews 4:14-16
• Hymn — Joy to the World
• Prayer of Invocation
• Confession of Sin — based on Isaiah 53
• Assurance of Pardon — Ephesians 1:7
• Old Testament Reading — Isaiah 9:1-7
• Hymn — Good Christian Men, Rejoice
• Pastoral Prayer
• Offering
• Hymn — O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
• Sermon
• Lord's Supper
  • Words of Institution — Matthew 26:26-29
  • Hymn — Behold the Lamb (verses 1–2)
  • Distribution of Bread
  • Distribution of Cup
  • Hymn — Behold the Lamb (verses 3–4)
• Benediction — Numbers 6:24-26

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Sermon Title: Christmas Genealogy

Scripture: Matthew 1:1-17

I. A Genealogy for Israel

A. Matthew's Gospel is the most Jewish of the four Gospels

1. Matthew quotes from the Hebrew Masoretic text rather than the Greek Septuagint
2. He uses Jewish idioms without explanation, assuming a Jewish audience
3. He employs the Hebrew genealogical style, moving from past to present (contrast with Luke 3, which moves from present to past in the Greco-Roman style)

B. Matthew emphasizes Jesus as the Son of David — a distinctly Jewish Messianic title used nine times in the Gospel

1. David is uniquely called "the king" in Matthew 1:6, highlighting the royal Davidic line
2. Matthew traces the line through Solomon, the reigning heir, fulfilling the Davidic Covenant of 2 Samuel 7
3. Jesus is the greater Son of David, the greater Solomon

C. The structure of 14 generations (verse 17) likely reflects the Jewish literary device of Gematria, in which the numerical value of David's name in Hebrew equals 14

1. The threefold repetition of 14 generations reinforces the Messianic claim
2. Matthew's message to his Jewish audience: this man born of the Virgin Mary is the promised Messiah — Messiah has come

II. A Genealogy for the Gentiles

A. Beginning the genealogy with Abraham signals a message for the nations, not only for Israel

1. God's covenant with Abraham promised he would be the father of many nations (Genesis 12; 15; 17)
2. That covenant reaches its fulfillment in Christ

B. Four women are inserted into the genealogy — highly unusual in Jewish genealogical writing — and each has a Gentile connection

1. Tamar (Matthew 1:3) — identified by Jewish tradition as a Canaanite
2. Rahab (Matthew 1:5) — from Jericho, a pagan city
3. Ruth (Matthew 1:5) — a Moabite
4. Bathsheba (Matthew 1:6) — wife of Uriah the Hittite

C. The inclusion of Gentile women in the Jewish Messiah's genealogy would have been shocking to a first-century Jewish audience

1. Women were treated as second-class citizens in that cultural context
2. Yet Matthew deliberately places them in the origin story of Christ

D. This genealogy prepares the reader for the Great Commission at the end of Matthew's Gospel

1. Go and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19)
2. The genealogy announces: the disciples of Christ will extend to every sex, age, social class, and nation — Joy to the World

E. This is not merely a warm sentiment — it is Christ's bloodline and origin story

1. A genealogy established who you were at birth; you come into the world with a history
2. Jesus is born into an origin story with open arms to the nations; to act otherwise would be to contradict who he is

III. A Genealogy for Sinners

A. This is a genealogy filled with moral failure and scandal

1. Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute to lure her father-in-law Judah (Genesis 38)
2. Rahab was a prostitute
3. Bathsheba was taken in adultery; Matthew pointedly calls her "the wife of Uriah" in Matthew 1:6, highlighting David's guilt in having Uriah killed
4. The genealogy traces the checkered history of the kings after David, which led Israel into Exile in Babylon

B. The genealogy reveals that humanity's greatest enemy — Jew and Gentile alike — is sin

1. Every man born in Adam has been exiled and lives east of Eden
2. The list reads like a train of sin driving into darkness and exile

C. At verse 16, the genealogical pattern abruptly breaks

1. Every prior entry reads "so-and-so fathered so-and-so," but Joseph is not listed as the biological father of Jesus
2. Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary — he is not generated by biological descent from Adam and therefore is not tainted by original sin
3. He is the perfect image of God, the God-man

D. The opening words of the genealogy echo Genesis — literally "the Book of Genesis of Jesus Christ"

1. Genesis 2:4 uses the same genealogical language: "these are the generations of the heavens and the earth"
2. Jesus is a new Genesis, a new creation, a new Adam — Heaven and Earth united once more in the God-man
3. In Christ, sin and death no longer rule over those born again by the Spirit and united to him by faith

E. Application: Christ makes his home on the island of misfits

1. He is born into an origin story of broken, sinful, outcast people — for their sake
2. This genealogy is a call to sinners in the midst of their sin, not after they have cleaned themselves up
3. The invitation of Christmas is to point upward and declare: Messiah has come — and he has become like us in every way, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15)