Sermon Tone Analysis

*A Perfect Family?*

Shaun LePage, Matthew 1:1-17

I.       INTRODUCTION

A.    Children’s Sermon:* *[Invite children to come up and sit on platform and floor.]

1.

Is everyone getting excited about Christmas?

Does your family have any traditions—things that you do every year to make Christmas special for your family?

Do any of your Daddies read the Christmas story?

2.      Pretend for a minute that it’s Christmas morning.

You’ve opened all 47 of your presents and your Dad says, “Okay, children, it’s now time to remember the greatest gift of all—let’s read the Christmas story.”

So everyone sits down and gets real quiet and your Dad opens up his Bible.

Then, he reads this: Matthew 1:1-17.

3.      Is that the Christmas story?

Yes!

It is part of the Christmas story.

Who are all these people?

Jesus’ ancestors—his grandpas and great grandpas and great great grandpas.

Who is your Dad’s Dad?

Your grandpa.

Who is your grandpa’s Dad?

Your great grandpa.

See how it works?

Did you know the great, great, great, great grandpa of Jesus was King David—the same David who killed Goliath?

Did you know the great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandpa of Jesus was Abraham?

4.      Why do you think we need to know all this stuff about the family of Jesus?

Because it tells us about who Jesus is.

A long time before Jesus was born, God told Abraham that He would bless the whole world through one of Abraham’s children.

Matthew wants us to know that Jesus is that child.

And a long time before Jesus was born, God told David that He would make one of David’s sons a great King—a King who would reign over the whole world forever and always.

Matthew wants us to know that Jesus is that King.

5.      So, when we celebrate Christmas, we celebrate that Jesus is a special gift from God—the best gift ever given by anyone anywhere.

He came to bless the whole world and be the King of the whole world.

Who do you know that lives in the world?

You!

So if you believe that Jesus is that special one sent from God and you put your trust in Him you will receive the best gift ever given—a life with Jesus in heaven always.

6.      Pray and send children to Children’s Church.

B.     In a 1999 national survey by Reuters~/Zogby, Americans were asked this question: “Given the names of more than sixty sitcom families, which TV family would best describe your home life, and which would be the model for which you would wish?”

The sitcom family that most families */wanted to emulate /*was the Huxtables on The Cosby Show.

Second place went to 7th Heaven, with Home Improvement and The Waltons following in third and fourth place.

Fifth place went to The Simpsons.

When asked which family */is most like your own/*, Home Improvement took first with The Cosby Show finishing second.

Third place belonged to The Simpsons and 7th Heaven came in fourth.

Ward and June Cleaver of Leave It To Beaver secured fifth place.

For all of the dysfunctionality displayed on TV, it’s significant that the majority of Americans see traditional TV families as that which best describes them, and that which represents the type of family they desire.

(Houston Chronicle, July 7, 1999, p. 2D)

C.     Dr.

Henry Cloud has a humorous method for helping people understand that, because of sin, all families have a certain level of dysfunction.

During a lecture he will ask everyone who did not come from a dysfunctional family to stand.

He then tells the rest of the crowd to look at those who are standing so they can see what a person in denial looks like.

The ever-popular practice of blaming our families for current personal struggles would be greatly reduced if more of us would accept the reality that a perfect family is impossible this side of heaven.

(An Interview with Dr. Henry Cloud, Seeds Tape Ministry, May 11, 1997)

D.    What seems like—on the surface—one of the most boring passages in the New Testament is actually one of the most astonishing.

Matthew, chapter 1, gives us the genealogy of Jesus.

Since Jesus Himself is perfect, we might look at this list expecting to see a perfect family.

Doesn’t that make sense?

II.

Body—Matthew 1:1-17

A.    Let’s take a close look at these opening verses of the New Testament.

1.      *“The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham*” (Matthew 1:1, NASB95).

a.

As Gentiles far removed from the first century, we simply can’t appreciate the significance of the very first verse of the New Testament.

It is the perfect bridge between the Old and New Testaments.

In fact, the entire book of Matthew is a perfect bridge.

The core message of the Old Testament is “Messiah is coming!”

The core message of Matthew is: “He came!”

b.

This first verse of the New Testament is like a trumpet blast!

Matthew isn’t soft-selling his belief.

He just lays the whole message right there on the table.

He gives the bottom line up front then spends the rest of his ink explaining why Jesus (the carpenter’s son from Nazareth) is the Jew of Jews, the King of the Jews, the Messiah, the heir to the throne of David.

c.       *“genealogy” (v.1).

*

1)      A “genealogy,” of course, is a family tree.

A list of the ancestors of Jesus.

The Greek word is γενέσεως (genesis).

This word literally means “birth or origin” but that doesn’t mean this was Jesus’ beginning—as though He was just a man.

This is one example of how the four gospels fit together perfectly and give us a more complete picture.

John’s gospel, in chapter 1, makes it clear that Jesus was no ordinary man.

His humanity began here, but His deity is eternal, according to the first three verses of John’s gospel: “*In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.*”

(John 1:1-3, NASB95)

2)      Of all the various types of literature contained in the Bible, I think few would choose genealogies as their favorite reading material.

It’s like reading the phone book.

You don’t sit down in a cozy chair and start with the A’s and read the phone book for enjoyment.

You read the phone book for specific information about a person.

A genealogy is similar.

You read it for a purpose.

Matthew wrote the genealogy of Jesus for a purpose: To explain who Jesus is.

His identity is closely connected with His ancestry.

d.      *“Jesus the Messiah” (v.1).

*

1)      “Jesus” is literally “Yeshua” or  “Joshua”.

2)      “Messiah” is Hebrew and “Christ” is the Greek equivalent.

“Christ” and “Messiah” both mean “Anointed One”.

It’s a title—by the way—not Jesus’ last name.

This title grew out of the ceremonial anointing of a new king.

When Samuel “anointed” David, for example, in 1 Samuel 16, the text says he “took the horn of oil and anointed him…” He poured the oil on his head.

The oil of olives was thought to have healing and preservation qualities, so the ritual was a way of saying, “Long live the King!”

3)      The prophecies about the Messiah are scattered throughout the Old Testament.

Sometimes this Messiah was referred to with different terms such as the “Seed” in Genesis 3:15 or the “ruler in Israel” in Micah 5:2, whose kingdom would be eternal.

(a)  Daniel 7:13-14 describes the Messiah as “the Son of Man”: “*I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him.

“And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of every language Might serve Him.