Genealogy

I remember the first job that I ever got was as a counter worker at KFC.

It was an exciting first career step.

But I remember when I was applying for that job,

I got really focused on developing my resume to hand in,

to convince them that they should employ me.

The difficult thing about writing a resume when you're about 14

is that you don't really have a whole lot you can put on it.

I had no previous employment, and so instead,

once I got the first bit with my name and address and date of birth

and all the really official things down,

I set about filling my resume and padding it out as best as I could

with all the mad skills that I had that I could think of,

some of which didn't completely apply to working at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I was sure to notify my future employer that I drank close to a litre of Coke a day

because I thought that was impressive.

I was sure to alert him also that I had a gift for watching movies

and then being able to quote key lines at appropriate moments in conversations

and then laugh at them regardless of if anyone else knew what I was talking about.

I also informed him that I had two brothers and two sisters,

as if that would somehow make me a better employee.

But as if that wasn't the worst,

just to make sure he knew what a valuable asset I would be to the company,

I also told him exactly how many grand finals I'd played in

as a junior footballer playing Australian Rules football.

Now, none of this, in pretty much everything on my resume,

had absolutely nothing to do with working at KFC.

Luckily, not a lot has to do with working at KFC,

so I think you hand in your name and you'd get the tick.

No offence to anyone who works at KFC.

But the point is, resumes are supposed to include information

that is appropriate or pertinent to the job that you're trying to get.

You know, had I maybe liked chicken,

then that might have been a tick on my resume.

I did, but just forgot to mention it.

But the point is, you include things that are going to convince

whoever you're handing this piece of paper to

that you are the right person for the job.

Now, the reason I tell you that is because this exciting bit of Scripture

that I have just worked my way through in the reading here

is actually more like a resume.

It's not a simple genealogy where we just go,

this person's son and their person's son and so on and so on.

In the ancient world, genealogies are more like resumes.

They're designed to tell you a little bit about the credibility of a person.

Now, this one traces all the way back to Abraham,

which is a huge chunk of human history,

and there's actually not enough generations for this to be a full, complete one.

But that's okay, because that's not how genealogies worked.

The point was to give you the highlights or the important people

that showed you that Jesus is qualified for the job that he's applying for, if you like.

This is a resume to give us Jesus' credentials.

Not every detail, not every person is in there, just the ones that matter,

just the ones that are important.

And a little bonus bit of information that I didn't mention this morning,

but someone asked me a question about it.

Why the 14, 14, 14?

Well, this, when it was originally written,

would have been designed like an acrostic poem.

And the 14s, that would have been in really simple language,

in Greek and in Hebrew when it was written,

it would have been designed to be something memorable

so that you could have just spat it out like a memory verse,

because they thought this was so important,

they wanted it to stick in people's minds.

So it's not a complete genealogy,

it's a highlights reel to tell us something about Jesus.

And so straight away we know that even though deep down

we're hoping I'm going to jump to verse 18

and the bit they come after and the bit we can understand really easily,

that we should pay attention to this.

Because of everything that happened from Abraham to Jesus,

Matthew, when he was inspired by God to write this gospel,

thought that this list of names was a good place to start.

With everything that Jesus had done in his life,

all the miracles, all the excitement, all the teaching,

everything that happened,

Matthew thought this would be a good first interaction

for people with Jesus.

And you've got to ask yourself the question,

why would you start with that?

If you were writing the gospel,

if you were going to be informing people

about this incredible person Jesus

that you'd met or heard about,

why would you start with something which, let's be honest,

doesn't come up in anyone's favourite Bible passages?

It is the bit we skip over.

It's the one day in our quiet times

where we're motivated to read more.

So why start with this?

Why is this a good spot?

Well, I was reading this week a story

about a missionary who worked in Papua New Guinea.

He was doing some work with some translators

and they were translating this particular bit of scripture,

all of Matthew's gospel,

but they'd given it to the locals to start reading.

They were just in early stages.

And the locals came back with this page open

with a look of wonder and amazement on their face.

And they showed it to the missionary and the translator.

They're ready to ask questions.

And the translator apparently confessed

that he was ready to flip them over to chapter 2

so that they could get into some good and exciting things.

And they said, no, no, no, no.

This is amazing.

And he's like, maybe we've translated it wrong.

And they're like, no, this is amazing.

They explained that up until that point,

up until they got to Matthew chapter 1,

Matthew 1 · chapter mention

they'd always thought that Jesus was kind of like a fairy,

imaginary.

Good stories, impressive.

But now they could look at his lineage,

they could look at his ancestry,

and they said, so Jesus is real.

It totally changed the way that they had to re-engage

with every other thing that they'd heard about Jesus.

See, it matters that we start at this particular point

because if we don't,

there's always the possibility

that people hear the story of Christmas, Easter, whatever,

the miraculous birth,

and file it away under stories like Santa

or the tooth fairy.

It's nice.

They're good.

They sound impressive.

But it's just imaginary.

And so it's important that we start here.

The senior minister from a church down the road,

down at Roseville, John Dixon,

who is a fairly esteemed historian,

has a quote, and I could be misquoting him,

so I need to put a disclaimer on this.

But he says something like,

and he does this publicly, online, regularly,

if you can find me a credible historian

who denies the existence of Jesus,

I'll eat a page of my Bible.

And this is a guy who has thousands of Facebook friends,

many of whom are atheists,

and try to argue with him regularly,

and no one has found a credible historian

who will try and say that Jesus didn't exist.

And that might be really comforting for us as Christians,

but the reality is,

every single one of us has had a conversation with somebody,

a work colleague, a neighbour,

someone we care about, a family member,

who does believe that Jesus didn't exist,

who does believe that it's all just a nice myth,

it's just a comfortable thing for us to hold on to,

and so the gospel begins here,

because this is really important.

Before we hear about what he's done,

what he's going to do,

who he is, anything else,

we need to understand,

Jesus is real.

The point of these generations,

the point of this list,

is to say that there's ancestry,

he's human,

he's a person.

It's not just magic,

it's real.

It's like in the end of Luke's gospel,

when Jesus has died and he's risen,

and he appears to his disciples,

he does something really strange.

He asks them for food.

And he does it for their sake,

so that they can realise he's a person.

He's hungry.

He says, touch me.

It's not a vision.

I'm not a ghost.

I'm a human.

And the same goes here.

Before we move into the rest of this gospel,

and we're going to over the next few weeks,

we need to start by understanding,

Jesus is real.

Because if he's not real,

then everything we're going to read

becomes kind of unimpressive and unimportant.

We need to know he's real

when we open up to a passage like Hebrews chapter 2

Hebrews 2 · chapter mention

and verse 14 and read this.

Since the children, that's us,

have flesh and blood,

he too, Jesus,

shared in their humanity

so that by his death,

he might destroy him

who holds the power of death,

that is the devil,

and free those who all their lives

were held in slavery

by their fear of death.

For what Jesus does later in his life

to matter or be powerful or significant,

we need to have as a starting point,

he's real.

He's human.

He's flesh and blood.

He's like us.

He's tempted like us.

He suffers like us.

Why start here?

Because we need to start from a place

where we recognise who is lying in that manger.

It's a human baby.

It's a real person.

The second question we need to ask

as to why this genealogy is,

why would you include these people?

Remembering this doesn't cover every generation

from Abraham to Jesus.

It's a highlights package.

Why choose these names?

And the answer to that

is going to tell us a whole lot

about how God works.

A whole lot about what we should expect

to see from Jesus

as we continue to walk through Matthew

and even now in our lives.

Earlier this week,

Sal and I were having a conversation.

Bailey is a little over three and a half now.

And so we're getting to the point

where we're trying to explain more to him.

You know, Christmas comes up.

We're trying to talk about

how God came as a baby

and stuff like that.

And I don't know if you've ever tried

to do that to a three-year-old,

but suddenly you start doing

these backflips and U-turns

because you realise you're getting

into really convoluted

and complex language.

And look, it is amazing

and complex and beautiful

and majestic,

but it's hard to explain

to a three-year-old.

And Sal and me were chatting

about it afterwards

and she was just kind of sitting there going,

I just can't imagine Jesus

as like a three-year-old,

as Bailey's age.

But he was.

Like, it is actually

a really ridiculous thing

for us to process

that the God who is infinite,

the God who created everything,

the God who sustains everything,

we sung it just a second ago

that while he's lying on the hay,

he's maintaining the stars

and the planets and everything.

It's an illogical story

that an infinite God

could be packed into a little baby,

but that's actually

kind of the point.

This genealogy,

this story of this beginning

of Jesus' life

reminds us that God's plans

and our plans

are often not the same thing.

The way God works

and the way we expect him to work

are often not the same thing.

We just don't think the way he does.

If by some weird twist

we could end up in the driver's seat

and our job was to plan a way

to save people

by using a specific nation in history,

there is no way

that our plan would look

anything like his did.

At any point.

Just time after time

through this list of names,

he does it different.

Let's pick a couple.

Rahab.

She's there in verse 5.

She's the mother of Boaz.

So there's a few women in here

which is strange in itself.

In an ancient genealogy,

women did not get a run.

But Rahab gets a mention.

Rahab is not even an Israelite.

She's not even one of the nation

that God chose.

She's not even technically

one of the pure breeds,

if you like,

from the bloodline

that he chose

out of all creation.

She belonged to the city of Jericho.

The way she comes into the story

is by protecting a few Jewish spies

who were in there

scouting out her city

to conquer it.

Basically,

all we know about Rahab

is she was a prostitute,

she betrayed her city

by protecting the spies,

and she was the mother of Boaz.

That's about all we know.

If you were designing a lineage

for your king

and saviour of the world,

would you give the prostitute a run?

If you had countless generations

to choose from,

this isn't even

everyone's in there

so you've got to include her,

would you pick her out?

And so I want everyone to know

that she was part of the story.

She was part of the journey

to get to Jesus.

There's no way

we would pick this path,

but God does.

Let's pick another name.

Verse 7.

Sorry, verse 6.

Jesse, the father of King David.

David, the father of Solomon,

whose mother

had been Uriah's wife.

This one doesn't even get named.

She's Uriah's wife.

This is Bathsheba.

For those who are familiar

with the story,

David is the king.

He's wandering on his roof.

He spots an attractive woman

taking a bath.

Finds out she's married,

doesn't care,

sleeps with her,

gets her pregnant,

has a baby,

kills her husband,

takes her as his wife.

Not exactly a high moral point

in David's life,

let alone Israel's history.

And yet,

this woman,

this wife of another man,

is not only part of the bloodline,

she's included in the highlights package.

Again,

that's just not how

we would write the story.

Can you imagine

a politician's PR team

including this sort of history

in the election campaign?

We don't think like this.

We don't function like this.

And God is saying,

before we get to Jesus' life,

before we get to the way he acts,

the teaching,

the miracles,

anything else,

we need to be reminded

that God doesn't work

the way we do.

His plans are not our plans.

He has unique ideas

about the ways that things,

the ways things,

the way things should work.

But there's something

really encouraging about that.

Not just these women,

plenty of the men,

are people that we wouldn't choose.

but they are people

that God chose.

It tells us a little bit

about the fact

that God is somebody

who chooses people

who don't belong.

Chooses people

who maybe society doesn't like.

Chooses people

who are broken.

Chooses people

who maybe they're full of shame.

And draws them

not only into the nation,

not only into that group of people

that he's chosen,

but gives them positions

of prominence,

lifts them up,

includes them in the story,

in the bloodline,

in this resume

for his saviour.

One other one

that comes up there.

Verse 11 and 12.

Josiah,

the father of Jeconiah

and his brothers

at the time of the exile

to Babylon.

Now the exile is in there

almost like it's a person.

The exile

is the time

when Israel

was at its lowest.

The exile

was the time

after it had its high peaks

with Solomon as king

and everything was great

and suddenly now

in judgment

they get carted off

in slavery

to the Babylonians.

They lose

their national identity.

They lose the temple

where they used

to worship God.

They lose confidence

in God himself,

confidence in his goodness.

They lose confidence

in his promises.

It really is the point

where for many

God's plans

start to fail.

Many in Israel

gave up

and improvised

their own version

of who God was.

Many began to doubt

that he could actually

deliver

on the things

that he had promised

at that point.

So why would you

include that

in this highlights reel

in this resume

of getting to your saviour?

Isn't that the bit

you'd try and skip over

and try and pretend

never happened?

Well again,

God is saying

I don't work like you.

even in the bits

that we don't understand,

the bits where it feels

hopeless,

he was still

marching towards

Jesus.

Everything that happened

throughout all

of Israel's history

was building up

to Jesus.

Even the bits

that they thought

were failures

or wrong bits,

he was still using them.

And now

at the end

of this

somewhat unique

and colourful

family line,

we meet

the Messiah,

the descendant

of David,

the chosen one,

the promised one.

And so God

is saying to us

before we get

into his life,

before we see

what he does,

be excited

that he's here,

be expectant

for what he's

going to achieve,

but just remember

he might do

things differently

to how you

would have him

do them.

He might have

a plan

that is slightly

unique compared

to your plan.

How he'll work,

what he'll achieve,

all that will come

next,

but before we get

there,

there's this sense

and this reminder

that God

has a unique

wisdom,

a unique perspective

on the world

that we live in.

He works in ways

that we don't expect.

And even this

beautiful,

miraculous birth

that we're going

to get to

over the next

couple of weeks

will end

in a bloody

execution.

And that will

be good.

That will be

part of his plan.

It could be

that right now

in your life,

the challenge

you are feeling,

the wrestle

that you're having

with God

is that he's not

doing what you

want him to do.

He's not answering

that prayer

that you keep

bringing to him.

He's not delivering

on what for you

is just the obvious

good that he should

deliver on.

And the encouragement

and the challenge

of this passage

is

just because he's

not working

the way you want

him to

doesn't mean

that he's not

working.

Even in the

situations that

you might not

choose,

he's still at

work.

even in the

bits that you

might have

been ashamed

of,

like Israel

and its

exile,

God is

still at

work.

And just

because he's

not working

the way you

want,

it's actually

okay.

Even though he

might not be

doing the things

that you wish

he would,

that's actually

okay.

Because God's

plan is always

bigger and better

than your plan.

A couple of

weeks ago,

a week ago

now,

I went away

on holidays

with my family,

with Bailey and

Hudson and Sal's,

the first family

with the four,

first holiday

with the four of

us.

And it was

really fun.

We stayed in a

caravan park,

and caravan parks

have got this

whole holiday

thing sussed.

Keep the kids

happy,

which keeps the

parents happy,

which keeps

people coming

back.

And the

caravan park

we went to

had more kids

equipment and

activities and

stuff than I've

ever seen in

like a theme

park.

This one had a

jumping pillow.

If you don't

know what that

is,

it's like a

jumping castle

that's somehow

been buried into

the ground.

Very entertaining

for kids.

Bailey would have

stayed on it for

hours.

It had play

equipment,

it had putt-putt

golf,

it had trampolines,

it had go-karts.

It also had a

water theme park

in the caravan park.

This is all just

free.

Just wander in

there whenever you

want.

There's slides,

there's a tipping

bucket,

there's a whirlpool,

there's water pistols

to shoot at each

other,

there's waterfalls.

It was amazing.

Bailey thought that

he was in heaven on

earth.

Every morning he

would wake up at

6am and be like,

water park?

I said,

it opens at 9,

mate.

He would ask me

every five seconds

for the rest of

the day.

He loved it.

He had a fantastic

time.

He was pretty

emotional when we

had to come home,

I won't lie.

We really had to

break it to him

easy that we

weren't turning

around at any

point and

returning.

Every day since,

just about,

he said,

can we go to

the water park?

No,

no we can't.

It's a six-hour

drive.

Now that he's

starting to

understand holidays

and understand that

they're good and

they're fun and

that we as a

family get to do

some fun things,

we thought we'd

let him know that

we've got a big

family holiday plan

for next year,

something special,

something unique.

We're actually going

to go overseas.

And we said,

are you excited for

holidays?

And he said,

will there be a

water park?

I said,

no,

but that's okay

because we're

going to Fiji and

they're going to

have afros and

pools and we can

go snorkeling.

And he just looks

at me and says,

water park?

He hasn't quite

got it yet.

He's so obsessed

with his thing,

with how good it

was,

that he doesn't

even comprehend

that there might

be something better,

that Fiji might be

an improvement.

As good as the

caravan park was,

that there might

be something that

is even more fun

and more exciting

than what he's

already experienced.

And often we do

this with God.

We come to him

and say,

God,

please do this.

And we get so

obsessed with

whatever this is,

give me a job,

fix my health,

give me a partner,

whatever it is,

that we can't

possibly imagine

that there's a

better,

that God has a

plan other than

ours that is

still good for us.

And so we start

Matthew's gospel,

we start looking

at Jesus,

we start to meet

our saviour by

being reminded

that God works

different to us

and his plan

is always

better.

We get to

Jesus and we

meet our

saviour.

His name

itself means

saviour.

Jesus means

God who

saves.

Christ means

the chosen

one.

He's the

chosen saviour.

It's his job

description.

It's his name.

It's what he's

here to do.

The challenge

for us is to

trust him to

do it his

way.

This

newborn

king,

this humble

baby,

will identify

with his

subjects,

will bear

their shame,

take their

punishment,

offer them

love instead

of judgment,

and he'll

do it in a

way that none

of us would

have chosen.

We wouldn't

have sent

our king

to the

cross.

God's plan

was always

bigger.

This

genealogy

starts with

Abraham.

The promises

that God made

to Abraham

way back in

Genesis chapter

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

12, right

near the

beginning of

the Bible,

was that he

would give

him land,

that he

would give

him lots

of descendants,

that they'd

be a

nation,

and that

he would

be a

blessing to

Abraham and

through Abraham.

And pretty

much right up

to Jesus,

the biggest

picture that

anyone had

about that

centred around

a piece of

land that's

now in the

Middle East,

centred around

as many great

grandchildren as

Abraham could

muster,

and centred

around them

being kind

of rich.

And Jesus

turns up and

says, no,

there's always

been a better

plan.

God walks

them through

things like

the exile to

say, no,

I've always

had more in

mind for

you.

The whole

nation thing

is now open

to anyone

who would

follow Jesus,

open to

people like

Rahab.

The whole

land thing

is not just

about some

country somewhere

on the earth,

but it's

heaven.

It's a

perfect creation

for us to

enjoy.

And the

blessing thing,

that's more

than we can

even begin

to comprehend.

One of the

things I love

about Christmas

at the moment

is as a dad

I'm rediscovering

how to talk

about Christmas

in really

basic language.

Like I said,

I struggle

when I'm

trying to do

it, but

thankfully some

gifted people

have written

kids' books

about it.

And one of

the books

that we read

with Bailey

that goes

through the

nativity story,

it's one of

those great

textured books

that's full

of glitter,

so you don't

scratch your

hands over it.

Anyway,

recommend it.

for your

summer reading.

I love the

line in it,

when the

angels appear,

and we're

sitting there

with Bailey,

I've read it

so many times

before I even

paid attention

to what I

was saying.

This textured

angel was

talking to

the shepherds

in the field

and says,

tonight Jesus

has been

born,

a saviour

has been

born,

and he

will bring

all of

God's

blessings

to people

on earth.

All

of God's

blessings,

forgiveness,

mercy,

hope,

comfort,

provision,

everything

found in

Jesus.

These small

plans that we

have for our

life where

God might fix

a circumstance

here or a

difficulty

there.

Before we

see what he

does,

God is

calling us

to lift

our eyes

and understand

that he

can and

will do

more than

we've

begun to

dream of.

This is

not a

message from

God to

come and

fix our

problems.

The baby

in the

manger is

God

himself,

showing

up,

drawing near

to people

like us,

people who

have

ignored

him,

treated

him like

he didn't

matter.

So why

start here?

Why include

these people?

Why this

particular

resume for

Jesus?

Well,

last week I

got to meet

my nephew

for the

first time.

My older

brother had

a little

boy called

Xavier.

He's

tiny.

He was

born,

well,

he's

relatively

tiny compared

to my

boys,

but he

was born

at three

kilos,

he's now

about

3.7

and that's

smaller than

my boys

were even

born.

So when I

was holding

him,

I was really

nervous.

I'm like,

I'm a dad,

I've had two

newborns,

I've held

many of

your newborns

and I was

freaked out

that he was

going to

break.

He had

the tiniest

little arms

and legs

and when

they're

newborn and

they just

have that

squeaky

cry and

you just

sit there

and go

the slightest

thing and

this could

be all

over.

He's so

helpless and

he was really

cute as

well but

there was a

big bit of

just nervousness

whenever I was

holding him

because he's

not even

mine so I

can't even

sort out the

mess later

in life if I

do something

wrong so I

kept giving him

back to my

brother and

saying thanks

for the

short hold.

the reason

that we

start here

the reason

we find

out who

Jesus is

going to

be the

reason we

find out

his credentials

before we

meet that

little baby

in the

manger is

so that we

don't look

and see what

I saw when

I met my

nephew.

We don't

look and see

a helpless

little baby.

When we

come to

Christmas when

we come to

Jesus even

as the baby

in the

manger we

need to look

and see the

one who

brings hope.

We need to

look and

understand that

even in a

baby God

is still in

control.

Even though we

would have sent

a warrior this

baby is the

means by which

God will

bring blessing.

This baby is

the means by

which God will

provide forgiveness

and love to

people like

Rahab,

people like

you,

people like

me.

we start

here because

we need to

know this

Christmas and

every Christmas

the baby is

real.

It's not just

any baby.

This is the

baby that brings

hope.

This is the

baby that

changes everything.

this is the

baby that

brings all

of God's

blessings to

people on

earth.

Let's pray.

Let's pray.

Father God,

we want to

just thank and

praise you

for all that

you have done

throughout history,

for the way you

have persevered and

been patient with

your disobedient

people,

for your

commitment to

and your

faithfulness to

your promises.

promises.

We want to

thank you that

even though we

sometimes have

different plans or

different ideas of

what should be,

that your plan is

always better.

That in spite of

our complaining and

whinging sometimes that

you're not doing what

we want, you

continue to give us

better than we

deserve.

Father, please open

our eyes so that

this Christmas and

every day of our

lives we see not a

helpless baby,

but we see a

significant act where

you entered our

world.

We see hope on

offer.

We see the

beginning of your

work to ultimately

take our shame and

our punishment.

Father, this

Christmas we pray for

ourselves and we pray

for those who we

know and care about

who don't know you

yet.

Help them to see

you in the manger.

help them to see

the love that you

offer.

Help them to

recognize that

Christmas is an

invitation.

It's an opportunity

to taste your

blessing, your

goodness, to know

your incredible

love.

Father, may we

taste afresh this

year.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.