The first 17 verses of the New Testament, found in the Gospel of Matthew, are some of the most overlooked and unread verses in the entire Bible. And that’s unfortunate because we can learn a lot about God and His ways from them.
But if you’ve never read Matthew 1:1-17, it might help to know why many people don’t make the effort to read those verses. Here’s how the Gospel of Matthew and the New Testament of the Bible begins: “The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the Son of Abraham: Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.” The KJV of the Bible, by the way, uses the word “begat”…we don’t see that word much, do we? “Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judah and his brethren.”
And for 15 verses, we read this long list of names—hard to pronounce names—one person begattin’ another who begat another…and so on…all the way down to Jesus. “Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.”
Now, quite honestly, there’s a lot that could be said about those verses being in the Bible…but here’s what I want to tell you this morning. Those verses—all the begats and everything—teach us one of the most valuable lessons about Jesus that we could ever learn.
You know what that lesson is?...that Jesus is not ashamed of sinners. He loves sinners. His family tree is full of them! If we had time, we could go through and explore the stories of each of these names… and we’d discover some pretty dark and depraved stuff about some of these folk.
Now that’s not to say that God doesn’t take sin seriously. He does…so much so that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in order to die on Calvary for our sins. He takes sin seriously! But this genealogical list teaches us that Jesus is willing to stand among and love sinners (a group to which we all belong)…even though He was/is without sin.
Do you know Him? Don't miss the Christ of Christmas this year!
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