Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus. the founder and perfecter of our faith. When reading the Bible, some people skip long genealogies, lists of names they can't pronounce and don't really understand. The most crucial list like this tells about the line that brought us Jesus. This genealogy makes it clear that the King of Kings has a legal right to the throne of Israel.
from the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Wind with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, you're teaching about a king is born and why being the king is central to the story of Jesus. Before you tell us about the king's family tree, let me ask this. Why is it important that Jesus had a legal right to the throne?
Dave, before I answer your question, I want to comment on a remark I heard by a missionary. who said that in a primitive culture where he was serving, the genealogy was most important. People needed to know how people were connected in the past. And you're right, some people skip the genealogies, actually to their detriment. But in answer to your question, it's simply this, that Jesus needed that legal right in order to fulfill the promise that God made to David.
And that of course was also clarified when the angel spoke to Mary.
Well, as all of us know, the end of the year is near. And some of you are contemplating gifts to various ministries. We would like it if you were to consider and pray about the possibility of sending a gift to Running to Win. And in order to bless you, in response, we're making available a devotional called Running to Win. And it's actually authored by me and by Dwight L.
Moody. Imagine beginning each day with a verse of scripture. And then of course a commentary from both of us. We believe it will be a blessing. For a gift of any amount, we're making it available.
You go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-1. 218. 9337. Even as you pray about your year-end giving, we hope that running to win will be included.
Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218. Mm-hmm. And now let us go to the pulpit of the Moody Church. Dysfunctional families are everywhere. If you think that you know a family that isn't dysfunctional, you probably don't know the family very well.
Brokenness exists across the landscape.
Sometimes, in the most unlikely places, we find it. Take, for example, in our families a 40% divorce rate. 20 million children tonight will go to bed with only one parent in the home, probably the mother. And you think of the devastation. In fact, recent surveys and Psychological studies say that a child might be able to accept the death of a parent more easily than a divorce.
Where mommy and daddy now hate each other and can't stand each other. Imagine the devastation. Single parenting, of course, is there, and single mothers abound, and all of these children born out of wedlock to single mothers. Rebecca and I know someone who is greatly abused by her father and. She now has, I believe, three children by three different fathers.
Let me ask you a question. How can children like that grow up with a sense of well-being and acceptance and nurturing? Can God be in the midst of such devastation and pain? The question on the table today is simply this: Does God bless only those who are wanted children? Only those who are really blessed and have the benefit of a father and a mother who are loving and caring?
Does God only bless people like that? Or does the grace of God encompass the brokenness of the world? That's the question that's on the table. Today's message is directed to all of us, but there are some of you who are listening, and it is particularly for you. And if you think that the message isn't exactly for you, it is for somebody whom you know.
And that's why this message is so important. You know that at Christmastime we have parties. As a matter of fact, the elders had a get-together last night, and one of the elders, and his wife had to leave early because they have another get-together somewhere else. And some people struggle, especially if they have children, with whether or not they should even expose their children to their relatives. Because sometimes, well yeah, you know, you're laughing, but Sometimes, you know, there are those who are very, what shall we say?
They're bad role models, to put it mildly. I had other words chosen, but. I simply settle for bad role models. People who perhaps their morals, their language, and so forth is very unhelpful. Again, I'm being very diplomatic here.
Now, the question I want to ask you is this: what if Jesus Christ Jesus, Mary, and Joseph decided to have a family picnic, shall we say, or a family get-together. And they decided to invite all of the relatives, all of the ancestors of Jesus. Who would show? Let us suppose that these ancestors were raised from the dead and they show up in Jesus Christ's genealogy, in his history, in his background. They are there.
What kind of a party? might it turn out to be.
Well, we're going to find out who Jesus Christ was related to. In the flesh. Who was Jesus Christ related to? And the passage, of course, is Matthew chapter 1, where we have the genealogy of Jesus, and we'll find out who his relatives really were. Matthew 1, and we begin there, and we begin with somewhat of a surprise because it says Jesus Christ.
The son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham lived centuries before David. Why does David appear first?
Well, the reason is because God wanted to say right from the get-go, Matthew wanted us to understand that Jesus Christ was a legitimate king because it was to David, you see, that the prophecies were given that he would have a son who would rule forever over a territory that God had given him. And Jesus, Matthew is going to argue, is the fulfillment of that prophecy. And therefore, right from the beginning, he wanted to understand, have us understand that Jesus was the Son of David. He's going to fulfill the covenant that God made with David in 2 Samuel chapter 7.
So we find there in the text that David comes first. Jesus is obviously related to the Jews. Jesus obviously is related to the Jews. He is the son of David. He is the son of Abraham.
Abraham is the man to whom God gave the covenant, the beginning of the covenantal people. And God said, Abraham, I'm going to make you a great nation, and I'm going to bless you, and through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. And the coming of Jesus is really a fulfillment of that prophecy. Even though there are some prophecies that God made to Abraham. That haven't yet been fulfilled, and some of us believe they still will be literally here on earth.
So you have Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Jesus is related, obviously, to the Jews. I remember when Pastor Schwartz was here at the church. He was on staff. He was a Messianic Jew.
He said that when he was growing up in Judaism, he didn't know that Jesus was a Jew. He said that he always thought that Jesus was a Christian. And so the question was: how could Jesus possibly be a Jew? But Jesus, of course, was very Jewish. Not only in his background, not only in his ancestry, but very Jewish in the customs and the Tenets of the Old Testament that he meticulously obeyed, though he gave them a deeper meaning in the midst of a society that was bound in legalism.
So at this get-together, there'd be many Jewish people, obviously, because Jesus was a Jew. He has Jewish relatives. in his background. But now we get to a surprise, and Matthew really does surprise us, and we don't fully appreciate this surprise as Westerners. But now, suddenly, Matthew begins to want us to understand that Jesus not only has Jewish relatives, but he has Gentile relatives too.
That's a bit of a surprise, but what really surprises us is that women are included in this genealogy.
Now, you can look through the genealogies of the Old Testament and you'll discover, to my knowledge, not a single woman ever listed. Because tragic though it may be, women were considered to be the possession of the man, and so they were not listed in genealogies. It always went from man to man to man to man, and the women were not a part of it. And so Matthew surprises us by including four women, but. In addition to that, he shocks us.
by the women that he chose to put into this genealogy. Matthew is not trying to make the point that every time you mention a woman, she's a woman that has a questionable character, as most of these women do. I think he deliberately chose these women because what Matthew wants us to understand is that God's boundaries are much broader than we may consider them to be. David Hume, the famous skeptic, said that he thought that it was immoral for God to limit salvation to one people and to give it only to the Jews and through the Jews.
Well, of course, David Hume, that involves a lot of philosophical and theological issues if you want a complete answer. But part of the answer to David Hume is found here in the text. God is saying I do broaden salvation and it doesn't only include the right kinds of people, it includes women, most of whom have a very seamy reputation. With that, let's look at who Matthew included. First of all, you'll notice that.
He includes a woman by the name of Tamar. I'm actually in verse 3. And Judah, the father of Perez and Zerah, by Tamar. What a story there is there. Genesis chapter 38.
Very briefly, Tamar. is a woman who marries a son of Judah.
Now get this clear, Judah is her father-in-law. This son turns out to be evil, and God kills him basically. She then does what is supposed to happen. She is to have a relationship with his brother, and that doesn't work out either. And God is angry with both brothers.
And Judah says, I'll give you my third son if you just wait around for him to grow up.
Well, he grew up, and Judah didn't keep his promise, so Tamar played the part of a prostitute and actually disguised herself, keeping herself totally veiled. And Judah. Fell for it, had a relationship with her. Three months later, she shows up and she's pregnant. And Judah is very angry.
He says she should, in effect, be burned. And then she says, Well, the man who is responsible for my pregnancy, I happen to have his staff, I happen to have his cane. Because during the interchange, that was given as kind of a pledge. And Judah realized that he is now the father of this child. And uh He had a relationship with his daughter-in-law.
Actually, she had twins, and both of them are listed here. It was Perez and Zira by Tamar. If you made a movie of her life, it would be at least an R. She was the kind of a woman. With this kind of a reputation, and that's the way in which the family.
conducted itself. What a story. What a story. So first of all, you have You have Tamar, who is listed. And all that went on in that dysfunctional family.
Then, secondly, as if he isn't finished yet, you'll notice that Matthew goes on and he lists Rahab. This is now in verse 5. And Solomon the father of Boaz by Rahab. Yeah, that's the woman. You remember the Heidi Fleis of Jericho?
She was there, and the spies go into the city of Jericho, and they want to spy out the land, and they don't know where to spend the night. And somebody says, There's an inn over there run by a woman by the name of Rahab. And they go and they spend the night there, and there's no evidence that they took any advantage of her in terms of the favors that she was giving to the people of the city. But in the encounter, they discovered something that she feared the true God. She said, You know, I heard of the miracles that God did on your behalf, and I was afraid, in effect, because I want to believe in God.
And then she let them down by a basket over the wall. And when the secret service of Jericho came and tried to find these spies, she actually misled them and told them to go the wrong way. And so she helped the spies. And lo and behold, she was saved when Jericho fell. You remember that story?
And she marries into the Jewish line, and there she is, Rahab. She is listed as one of the members of Jesus Christ genealogy. She would show up at the gathering that Jesus and his family would have, and she's mentioned twice in the New Testament. The big chapter of the 11th chapter of Hebrews, where all of the Hebrews and the heroes of faith are listed, there's Rahab, along with Joshua and Samson and all of the other greats. And then she's also mentioned in the book of James, prostitute.
She'd be at the party that Jesus was throwing.
Well, we continue to move on, and now we have Ruth, and this happens to be in verse 5. You'll notice the story of Ruth, who is actually related to David, as we'll see in just a moment.
Now, we have to understand who the Moabites are. I know that this is somewhat What shall we say? These are terrible stories of immorality. impurity and incest. It's really what happened.
Lot was leaving Sodom and Gomorrah. His wife turned back. And she became a pillar of salt. I have a friend who says that his wife was driving the car and she turned back. and hit a light post.
But in the case Of Lot's wife, she turned back and turned into a pillar of salt. There's Lot now with his two daughters. They make him drunk over a period of time. They don't have any husbands. They don't see any possibility of continuing on with their family line.
And so Lot has a relationship with his own daughters. And one of the children that is born is known as Moab, and the other is Ammon. And that's why you have the Ammonites and you have the Moabites. They were a race that was really begun with an incestuous relationship. And you know what kind of a curse that can be on a clan or a community or families.
What happened is that there was a famine in Bethlehem, and Naomi goes into the land of Moab, she and her husband and her two sons. Her husband dies. The two sons marry Moabite women. They're not supposed to. The law was very clear in Deuteronomy chapter 7 that you should not intermarry with the people of the land because you might end up worshiping their gods.
But they do it anyway. It's sort of a marriage that should never have taken place. And then later on the sons die and there are two daughter-in-laws that Naomi has and as they're on their way back to Bethlehem, Naomi tries to convince both of them to stay. Ruth will go with her and Ruth will believe in her God. Where thou goest, I will go.
Where thou diest, there will I die and be buried, and thy God shall be my God. What an amazing story of faith on the part of Ruth.
Well, Ruth comes back to Bethlehem. She, of course, marries Boaz, and she is the grandmother. of David. As a matter of fact, Ruth ends up with a baby by the name of Obed. Obed is the father of Jesse.
Jesse becomes the father of David.
So there's a Moabitis. in the family line of Jesus Christ. And then we come to another story, and that is Bathsheba.
Now, Bathsheba's name isn't mentioned. The thing about the Bible that is so amazing is that it does not gloss over any sin. You know, when you write a biography of somebody today, you really try to spin it to make it look a little better than it is. You hate to tell it exactly like it is, and so. Here you have an instance in which the biography is so accurate.
Matthew doesn't want us to forget the fact. that Bathsheba actually belonged to Uriah. And you know that whole horrid story there. It says, And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. Of the story of Bathsheba and David.
And Bathsheba becomes David's wife after adultery and murder. to cover it up. Is that a marriage that should have happened? Absolutely not. And yet, look at who they have: Solomon.
The Lord says, I'm going to love Solomon because of David's sake. I'm going to put my blessing upon Solomon's life. And Solomon, even though he ended up with a whole host of women, he built a great temple. And Solomon also became a wise man, and one of the books of our Bible, most of it was written by Solomon, and we call it today the book of Proverbs. And we talk about the legend of Solomon and the wisdom of Solomon.
Solomon. You're not even supposed to be here. There was no way in the world that this was a good marriage that should have happened. But there you are, and what happens? God's grace comes along and says, Solomon, you're also going to be in the genealogy.
of Jesus. The great writer Jerome, the Bible translator, looked at these women and says, everyone, and here he means everyone in the whole genealogy. Everyone here is a sinner. This is a chapter about grace. They could not have saved themselves.
A more contemporary writer by the name of Hendrickson says, Through such a channel of iniquity the Savior, according to his human nature, was willing to pass from the glories of heaven to the incarnation and the crucifixion. Jesus is related to all of these people. Legally, of course, he came through the line of Joseph. And because Jesus was virgin born, it is in the book of Luke that we actually have Mary's genealogy. But Jesus Christ has all of these people as his relatives, all of them in the background of his existence.
Now, I find it very interesting that if Jesus were to have such a get-together as we've been talking about, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. You say, well, at least there would be one non-dysfunctional family in the crowd.
Well, yes, but even that family wasn't perfect. You know, in the seventh chapter of the book of John, the Bible says that Jesus was on his way to a feast. And his own brothers said to him, why don't you go there and do some miracles so that your own disciples see and hear you do those things publicly? And it says, and neither did his brothers believe on him. Can you imagine that?
Growing up with Jesus, and you don't believe that He's the Messiah? You say, well, that really sounds strange.
Well, maybe not too strange. Let me ask you a question: Would you believe that your oldest brother was the Messiah he claimed to be? Yeah. I know for sure I wouldn't have believed my older brother that he was the Messiah if he claimed to be that. You say, well, Jesus was different.
Of course, he was different. We can always imagine what it was like in that home. Judah, did you steal the cookie? No. James, did you do it?
No, I think Jesus did it. No, no, not Jesus, right? You say, well, did they eventually believe? They eventually believed. Acts chapter 1.
It says that in the day of Pentecost, when they were there in the upper room, the 120, it says Mary was there with the brothers of Jesus. They eventually believed. And James, of course, a brother of Jesus, ended up writing a book in the New Testament. But it took a while. My point is simply this: that it's in the midst of such brokenness that God's will and God's purpose.
is completed. Yeah. I don't know about you, my friend, but I love that. The humanness of Jesus. And we're reminded of that, of course, as we anticipate celebrating Bethlehem.
and the birth of our Saviour. And yet there he was, God. in the flesh. We here at Running to Win are deeply appreciative of those of you who participate with us in this ministry. And even as we think about the new year and you are contemplating perhaps giving to special ministries, we hope that you will pray about the possibility of including running to win.
I'm going to be giving you some contact info in a moment, but I want to remind you. that we have a devotional for you. It's actually one that is written by D. L. Moody and by me.
And at the end of every devotional, readers are invited to pray and to act specifically on what they have learned. We think that this will be a wonderful way for you to begin the new year and of course every single day of the new year. Here's what you do very quickly. Go to rtwoffer.com That's rtwoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-1. 218 9337.
Let me give you that contact info again. RTWoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-1888. 218-9337. You can write to us at Running2Win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Pastor Erwin Lutzer has begun a message on the King's Family Tree.
Why Jesus is legally the future king of Israel as well as the king of kings.
Next time, more about the line that came before Jesus. Running to win is all about helping you understand God's roadmap for your race of life. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
