The Ancestors of Jesus

Matthew 1:1-17, Luke 3:23-38

My ancestors are David Ralph Stuart, Dean Lewis Stuart, and all the way back to maybe a king in Scotland and way beyond that to people who came from Rome and way beyond that to people who came from someplace else. I don't know if the king of Scotland part is true and I don't know where the Garden of Eden was but that's my basic ancestry.

Matthew and Luke both felt led to include in the beginnings of their gospels a genealogy of Jesus. The both kind of made a point with their genealogies. Matthew said Jesus was related to all Jews by tracing his ancestry back to Abe, and Luke said Jesus was related to all people by tracing his ancestry back to Adam and his dad, God.

Here are some people Jesus came from (in chronological order):

God: This guy made everything, and He's been around forever. He's perfect. He's my best friend.

Adam: He's the apple of God's eye: his first kid, the first person. Unfortunately, Adam just sat there and watched his lady Eve get deceived. He didn't stand up and speak when He knew He should of, and it's safe to say He regretted it for a long time.

Noah: He was the only guy in the whole world who walked with God, and he did a remarkable thing: he built an enormous ship in the middle of dry ground. Imagine being the only person in the world who knew God as a friend, and then spending a year building a huge boat in the middle of dry ground, no water for miles and miles. That would be a year of mocking and scoffing. No imagine that after that one year you kept on working for 119 more. That was Noah's faith.

Shem: When his dad got drunk and fell asleep naked in a tent, Shem and his brother Japheth walked into the tent backwards and laid a cloak on their father. He honored his father even when his father didn't honor himself.

Abraham: "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."1 So anyone walking around in self-righteousness, they're confused. There are a lot of confused people walking around--I'm one of them half the time. But it is only in believing the stuff our best friend tells us that we're considered righteous--and wouldn't you consider a best friendship that didn't have trust and belief at its core a pretty messed up relationship? Righteous is just a "right" with God.

In the sight of God, Abraham is the father of all who believe God.2 And to God, Abraham was more than a creation--he was a friend.3

Isaac: Isaac was born to a mom who was 90 and a dad who was 100--he was a miracle kid.

Jacob: From Jacob's loins came the 12 tribes of Israel. He was a determined lover, working 14 years just for the right to marry his beloved. Jacob's life can best be described as stressful--he was constantly struggling for something. Finally, his stress peaked when he met a stranger near a riverbank and wrestled him all night. Did you ever get the urge as a kid to just wrestle your best friend? That's what Jacob was doing when he wrestled the stranger, who turned out to be God.

Jacob showed us that God is always up for a good wrestling match with a buddy.

Judah: He was one of Jacob's kids. He slept with his own daughter-in-law, thinking she was a prostitute.

Tamar: She slept with her father-in-law, pretending she was a prostitute. She wanted to seduce Judah so she could mother his oldest line. Judah wanted to have sex with the prostitute because he was lustful.

Rahab: She was a full-time prostitute living on the edge of a city that Israel was about to destroy. We love to look down on those who are homeless, who are prostitutes or porn stars or homosexuals. Rahab ended up fearlessly saving lives, and she's the second prostitute in Jesus' lineage.

Lord, may we never look down on anyone again.

Boaz: This guy's words to anyone were imbued with kindness. He had a strong tendency to do the right thing, thinking of others before himself. God, please give me that tendency. He was a man of his word, with a sharp sense of integrity.

King David: God described David as a man after His own heart. That's awesome, to have a heart after God's. Awesome. David was the man, a passionate lover of God; his love poetry to the Lord stands fresh after millennia.

Bathsheba: David had a great friend named Uriah--he was part of David's posse, the Mighty Men. One time David's army was out fighting a war someplace, and David was chilling in the palace. He went up to the roof and saw a beautiful woman bathing through a window. Had he been of a decent mind, the king would have simply looked away, embarrassed. But David was bored, his boredom led to lust, his lust led to having the woman (Bathsheba) brought to him, and the rest was history. Bathsheba got pregnant, and David, unwilling to own up to his immoral choice, instead had Uriah come home from the war, lay with Bathsheba, and then go back to a war with a message telling his commander to have Uriah killed on the front lines.

Bathsheba was the mistake of David's life--and yet, even after making himself an adulterer, a liar, and a murderer, God described David as a man after His own heart.

Solomon: When given the chance to have anything in the world, Solomon, just a kid, asked God to give him wisdom so he'd know how to govern God's people. This pleased God. Unfortunately, Solomon showed us that wisdom from God and having the will to apply that wisdom are two separate things.

Rehoboam: He was the son of Solomon and a fluctuator between following God and abandoning Him. He refused wise counsel, seeking instead counsel that agreed with him. Bad idea, Reho. He was the last king of united Israel.

Asa: He was so money until he made one mistake (bribing another king for allegiance rather than trusting God), which he stubbornly held onto until his death. He is a cautionary tale to all of us who pridefully rationalize our mistakes instead humbly confessing our error.

Jehoshaphat: Asa's kid turned to God for the tough stuff but trusted in himself on the stuff that seemed easy. That "easy" stuff turned out to be the root of his ruin.

Zerubbabel: He had the gusto that many of us feel at the start of something big, but, like many of us, a few setbacks or doubters built a fear and a hopeless in him that derailed the project. For 16 years Z didn't do a thing on his project--then, once he was encouraged by a couple great dudes, he went to town and finished the project in a four quick years.

Mary: She was an ordinary person who made herself available to God. Once God told her what He wanted to do through her, she said, "I'm your servant--may it be to me as you have said."4

Lord, give us wisdom in place of foolishness, humility in place of pride, truth in place of lies, vision in place of blindness and hearing in place of deafness.

Thank you, God.

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1. Genesis 15:6
2. Romans 4:16-17
3. 2 Chronicles 20:7, Isaiah 41:8, James 2:23
4. Luke 1:38