So I rode my bicycle for a year in 2010 from Canada to Columbia. And as part of that journey, I discovered that basically a billion people in the world didn't have access to clean drinking water. So I began this journey and did some higher level education and then on a series of trips with my friends in the last six years. That's all led us to this spot now we've become very interested in small scale decentralized desalinization projects. It's really the future of water.
Hi and welcome to today's beach talk. Today, we'll be looking at Matthew chapter one. Now, I'm thankful that you're with me today as we go through each chapter of the Bible one day at a time. It's my hope that you'll learn every word of God in the word of God and that God will speak to you through these. Now our objective is simple. It's disciples making disciples who plant churches that plant churches. We want to multiply. So we want to begin in Matthew chapter one, verse one.
Matthew presents Jesus as the fulfillment of prophecy talked about in the Old Testament. Now he begins with the account of the life of Jesus. And in the Greek text, it's difficult to tell what the book of this genealogy refers to Matthew is a book of genealogies. It starts out the first two words of Matthew are maybe translated a record or origins or a record of history. This is important to understand because the Bible is a historical book.
Now as a former tax collector, Matthew or Levi was qualified to write an account of Jesus's life and teachings. He was a tax collector. And we knew that he would be well organized and literate well educated as one of the first disciples of Jesus. Now we might say that when Matthew followed Jesus, he literally left behind everything except for his pen and his paper to write the story of Jesus's life.
A Bible commentator named William Barclay said that he used his literary skill to become the first man ever to put together an account of the life of Jesus. Now we know that he was a tax gatherer and that he must have been a bitterly hated person just like they are today for the Jews hated members of their own race who'd entered into the civil service of their conquerors. And that's what was happening here.
Now the son of David or the son of Abraham, this is a way of explaining Jesus's connection with the beginning of the Bible. Like with Abraham, Matthew will show us that Jesus's lineage actually went way back to the father of the Israelites, Abraham, in that patriarch. Now most of the New Testament scholars believe from the account of Matthew that it was the first one written and that's why they put it at the front.
Now there are many reasons why Matthew belongs first among these stories, one of which is because it connects to the Old Testament. In the early days of Christianity many people thought that the Gospel of Matthew and they saw it as important because it was a fuller version of the Sermon on the Mount. We'll get to that in chapters 5, 6, and 7, Jesus's greatest teaching. And now Matthew is known as Levi, was a tax collector before he started to follow Jesus.
We all have a past before we start to follow Christ in our lives. And Matthew had a past and his was being a tax collector. He was not very well liked. Now Matthew's account has a Jewish flavor in it. What does that mean? It means that it's put at the front because it was a transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament. That's why it's the first book in the New Testament. Now the Jewish character of this gospel is evident in many ways.
There are many indications Matthew doesn't translate Aramaic terms. He doesn't refer to Jewish customs by explaining them. He doesn't explain the genealogy that well. So he would assume that his reader knew all about what had come before it. The first 39 books in the Bible, otherwise known as the Old Testament. So he also uses a lot of Jewish phrases like the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God. And we'll learn more about those as we go along.
And Jesus commanding his followers to become disciples of all nations. Now Matthew was trying to paint a connection to the Old Testament but also show a path forward for how the followers of Jesus were going to live in the future. Now it was a message for the whole world. So Matthew is deeply critical of Jewish leadership and the rejection of Jesus. And to say that Matthew is pro-Jesu, Jewish isn't right. It's more like he was pro-Jesus.
He represents Jesus as the Messiah, the person who was being looked forward to as the promised Savior of the world. Now Matthew presents Jesus as the kingly Messiah who descended from the line of David. Now the Old Testament prophesied that the Messiah would be the son of David. In the very first sentence Matthew points to Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Matthew not only connected Jesus to David but back yet further to Abraham.
Jesus is the seed of Abraham in whom all nations would be blessed in Genesis 12.3. Now in verses 2 through 16 we look at Jesus' genealogy. It goes from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Judah to Perez to Zerah to Tamar to Hezron to Ram to Minadab to Nishan to Sammon to Boaz to Rahab to Obed to Ruth. To Jesse to David to Solomon. Then he had a son Rehoboam and then Abijah and Asa and Jehoshaphat. Joram, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah, Jeconiah.
And he 14 generations in all. All the way through Zerubbabel and Eliakim and Azor and Zadok and Acham and Eliezer and Mathen and Jacob and Joseph. And those were his parents. Now genealogies were very important because they established Jesus' claim to the throne through David which was promised. Now this is through the legal lineage of Joseph, his father. Now we should remember Paul's warnings about striving over genealogies and not getting into arguments about them.
1st Timothy 1. But there is a genealogy in the Bible. Charles Spurgeon, the greatest Bible teacher of the 19th century, one of my favorites said that without one or two exceptions these are the names of persons of little or no significance. The later ones were persons all together they were obscure and insignificant. The Lord was a dry root out of the ground shot forth from the stem of Jesse. He had small earthly greatness.
The Bible also mentions three women here and we really want to point that out. Now they show how God can take unlikely people and use them in great significant ways. Now Tamar sold herself as a prostitute. Genesis 38. Rahab was a Gentile prostitute in Joshua 2 and 6. And Ruth she was from Moab. She was a Gentile. She wasn't even Jewish. And until her conversion where we talk where we learn about that Ruth. Now Bathsheba was had an affair with David.
So these genealogies don't list perfect people. I don't know about you but that makes me really thankful. I am far from it. And these women demonstrate that Jesus wasn't royalty according to our perception and that he doesn't come from an aristocratic background. Now verse 17 says that Jacob brought forth Joseph and Mary and then Jesus was born. Matthew wanted to make it clear that Joseph was not the father of Jesus rather he was the husband of Mary. There is a distinction there.
So all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations. They're listed. Matthew's made it clear that this genealogy is not complete. There were actually 14 generations that were listed there. But he's trying to tie this to the beginning part of the Bible to see some continuity in it. Now verse 18 says that the birth of Jesus was as follows. After his mother Mary was married to Joseph before they came together she was found with child by the Holy Spirit.
Matthew doesn't really tell us about the birth of Jesus. Luke does that. Matthew instead tells us where Jesus came from. Jesus came from and he tells it through the story of the eyes of Joseph. Now there were essentially three steps to marriage in the Jewish world of Jesus's time. One there was engagement. This could happen when the bride and groom were quite young and it was often arranged by parents in that culture. And then there was the betrothal.
Now this was made the previous engagement official and binding during the time of betrothal. The couple were known as husband and wife and betrothal could only be broken by divorce. Betrothal typically lasted about a year. And then there was marriage. Now this took place after the wedding after the year of betrothal. And it says that she was found to be of child with the Holy Spirit. Now Matthew plainly without great detail presents Jesus being born by a virgin.
However the virgin birth was difficult for people to believe back then just as it is now. Now we should consider what a great trial this was for a young godly woman like Mary and for Joseph trying to explain this to everyone. Their situation was distressing and humiliating and they were misunderstood. Nothing but the fullest consciousness of their own integrity and their confidence in God make it made it possible for them to persevere through being misunderstood.
Now in verse 19 Joseph's her husband and he didn't want to embarrass her so he had made it a point that he wanted to divorce her quietly. Now in the previous verse Mary was married to Joseph. This comment shows that even though they were betrothed they weren't formally married. Joseph was still considered Mary's husband. Now being a man of integrity he didn't want to make a public public example of her.
Joseph knew that if Mary had been unfaithful to him it would be impossible to go through with the marriage. Yet this is a he wanted to win her any unnecessary embarrassment or hardship. Now Jesus Joseph made the understandable decision to seek a quiet divorce. Now to put her away secretly this refers to breaking an engagement by divorce in Jewish culture. At that time a betrothal was binding and one needed a divorce to break that arrangement.
Charles Spurgeon again said this when we have to do a severe thing let us choose the tenderest manner to do it. Maybe we shall not have to do it at all. Talking about divorce now verses 20 and 21 an angel speaks to Joseph in the dream convincing him not to divorce Mary. But while he thought about these things an angel came to him and appeared to him saying now Joseph don't be afraid. I want you to take Mary as your wife for what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She's going to bring forth a son and you should call him Jesus for he will save the people from their sins. Save you and I from their sins. Now behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. What does that mean? Well the dream came while he thought about these things. Joseph was understandably troubled by Mary's mysterious pregnancy. Any guy would be her future how she was going to be what it was going to hold for her. This is very hard for him.
The angel says to him that this is from God and it seems that Mary had not told Joseph that she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit that God actually told Joseph. Now this shouldn't surprise us. God does miracles. Now this angel's message to Joseph was persuasive. He said you should call his name Jesus. The name Jesus is the salvation of Yahweh which was fairly common in that day. Josephus a Jewish historian mentioned the name of Jesus but it's supremely blessed in our day.
The Apostle there's no other name under heaven by which we can be saved Jesus Christ for he will save his people from their sins. The angel delivered this message eloquently to Joseph. He said God is in this and I want you to trust me for the outcome right at the beginning of the New Testament. We see the themes of humility and perseverance and God wanting trust from his early followers even Jesus' parents. Because Jesus was going to free us from the power of sin and the presence of sin.
Now salvation from sin is an element in the Old Testament talked about in Isaiah 53 and Jeremiah 31 Ezekiel 36. That's not the dominant one. The dominant theme in the Bible is forgiveness and liberation. Many people today want a national leader that will save them. It'll never happen. That's why God sent a savior to the whole world not just to one country.
Now it says his people if it had said God's people we might have thought it was reserved for the Jewish people alone but it wasn't belonging to Abraham what brings salvation from sin. It is belonging to Jesus that God forgives us. Verses 22 and 23. So all this was done that it might be fulfilled that which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet saying behold the virgin shall be with child and bear a son. He will call him a manual which means God with us.
This is the first use of this important phrase which will become familiar throughout the whole New Testament especially in Matthew. Now Matthew understood that the supernatural conception of Jesus was prophesied about actually in Isaiah 7. It says that the title of Jesus refers both to his deity God with us and his identification to be near us.
It shows how God came down to us that he added the nature of his own creatures his divine nature that he accepted our weaknesses and our frailties and our dependence and that he wanted us to know that we could have that he had empathy for us and everything that we would face in life because he became flesh and he walked and talked among us. It shows the compatibility between our fallen nature and God's divine nature and how God shows this theme from the beginning of the New Testament.
It shows that we can come to Jesus if he because he has come to us and we can come to him. Isn't that beautiful. I love that God reaches down and shows us that we can always reach up and reach out. Jesus is a manual God with us. Even right now as you watch this God can encourage you in your life and be there for you. Now verse 24 and 25 says that Joseph woke up from this dream. The Lord commanded him to go to his wife to name him Jesus and they did. Joseph's obedience is notable.
He didn't doubt. He didn't waver. He instantly understood the truth and the importance of what God was trying to say to him. He did not know her until he brought forth the firstborn son. The words did not know her imply that Joseph and Mary had normal marital relationships after Jesus's birth. This emphasizes that Jesus was conceived miraculously but they had a normal physical marriage after Jesus was born.
So this isn't to elevate Mary into sainthood or elevate Mary to make her better than all of the human beings. She's an example of obedience but she's not to be elevated above that. And they had a normal biblical relationship and marriage modeled for us. And so God wants us to have a normal biblical marriage like Mary and Joseph did. So again this nuance is included in the beginning of the New Testament. So God wants us to lean into these things and he wants to see the example that he said.
So his name was Jesus and they did they called him this. It was a common name at that time but it had a genuinely great meaning and it would come to be the greatest name the name above every name. The name that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. You know maybe you've never done that in your life. Maybe even now as you see this you want to say Jesus I humbly come to you and I ask you to forgive me. I kneel before you now.
I receive you into my life and I ask that you would do something with every second minute and day that I have left living for you. And I ask for your help in Jesus name. Amen. If you believe that we believe that you're a part of God's family. Now one last thing we're going to be going on a lot of trips in the next 12 months. We'd love for you to be a part and go to our website and find out information about that. God bless you today and thank you for joining us for today's.
Thank you for your time. We would love to partner with you. Water is a global problem. It's going to take as many partners as we can to help solve this problem. We'd love for you to partner with us. You can go to our website at www.Oceanwater.com. That's O-C-N-W-T-R dot com. We'd love that. Thanks.