Sermon preached on Sunday, December 23, 2012 at Garden Valley Chapel during our worship morning service based on Matthew 1:2-17.

Take your Bible if you will and open it to the book of Matthew, Matthew chapter one.

Last time together, if you recall, we asked ourselves:

Who would have expected that a tax collector would become an apostle of Christ, a top leader in the church, and a preacher of the gospel?

Tax collectors were the most despised people in Israel. They were hated and vilified by all of Jewish society.

It is beyond amazing that an unlikely man for discipleship gets up and follows Christ! Not the man you would expect, but then again who would we expect to follow after Christ?

Has He not come to preach the Gospel to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed (cf. Lk 4:18)?

In the sovereign plan of God, God chooses Matthew to be the writer of the greatest news the world has ever heard, the writer of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

An unlikely disciple becomes the writer of the life and times of Jesus Christ!

And in the wisdom and ordered plan of God, Matthew´s Gospel begins with the royal line of the Messiah proving that Jesus is the rightful King to the throne of David.

CONTENT

This unlikely disciple is given the task of writing the royal family tree of the Messiah - one that we shall see is an unlikely royal family tree.

"Unlikely" not because it is not true, but for anyone reading this genealogy, they would doubts in their minds:

Would our long-awaited Messiah
come from such a family tree as this?

I want to highlight the wisdom and ordered plan of God in this most royal family tree.

One Supernatural Birth
Two Men of Ancestry
Three Eras of History
Four Outcasts of Questionable Character

We begin with the most notable element in Matthew´s genealogy...

One Supernatural birth (v. 16) -

16 Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.

His birth was not like any other in the line of David.

Matthew is careful in his words to reveal important theological truths, seen in the Greek text that show that Jesus is no ordinary king in the line of David.

For He was the legal son of Joseph but was "conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary" (cf. The Apostles Creed).

His birth was no ordinary birth and Matthew writes in greater detail the birth of our Lord in vv. 18-25 - a miraculous birth.

Not only do you see one supernatural birth in this Unlikely Royal Family Tree, but you see...