Sermon highlights from Dr. Ramsey’s mp3 sermon below:
- A person’s identity is tied to his family tree: it tells a lot about who he is and who he is not
- Matthew chapter 1 is a record of Jesus’s family tree:
- He is a man like us; a real human being, born into a family at a specific time and place in this world
- We know that He is God, therefore, it might be easy to forget that He is also human
- God the Father and the Holy Spirit do not have a family tree, they are eternal, with no beginning; when Jesus incarnated, he also inherited a specific ancestry
- The MYSTERY of the INCARNATION is that GOD took on HUMAN flesh, becoming a human being: as God, He is infinite; as human, finite; as God, eternal; human, he has a beginning, a birth, ancestors
- In looking at Jesus’ family tree, you can see that He has a worldly family – they are fallen people with a heritage intermingled with sinfulness that made up their individual reputations; for example, Ahaz sacrificed his own son in the fires of Moloch – the sins of various others cited also
- Four women were in Jesus’ ancestry: Tamar, a Canaanite who acted as a prostitute to beguile Judah; Rahab, a prostitute from Jericho; Bathsheba, a Hittite adulteress; and Ruth, a Moabite
- In modern terms, Jesus’ ancestry were a dysfunctional family
- Furthermore, they were not royalty, but had been under the yoke of slavery…
- Jesus was a man like us, but not some no-name; He was the Son of David; the Son of Abraham
- The Bible indicated that the “Son of David” was the coming Messianic King who would rule the world (see Luke 1:30ff)
- Jesus was the Son of Abraham: God had given covenantal promises to both Abraham and David that Jesus would fulfill
- God the Father’s faithfulness can be seen in that it took 2000 years for these covenantal promises to unfold [Abraham was born in 2166 and died in 1991 BC according to the NIV Study Bible timetable]
- The pattern in Matthew’s genealogy changed in verse 16: “the husband of Mary,” which brought attention to the fact that Joseph was not Jesus natural father – He was conceived by the Holy Spirit…He was born the Son of God; Immanuel, God with us
- Summary: He is a man just like us; He is the Son of David; the Son of Abraham; the Son of God; the Christ – who came to save us from our sins, death, misery and the Evil One
- Praise God and rejoice in Him for He worked salvation for us through His Son
To hear other sermons by Dr. Ramsey in this blog, see: Archives:
- July 8, 2020 — The Christian’s Most Important Question, part 2
- July 7, 2020 — The Christian’s Most Important Question, part 1
- June 9, 2020 The Holy Spirit
- June 7, 2020, Ascension of Christ
- May 24, 2020, Faith is NOT
- May 3, 2020 – Dealing with Fear;
- April 26, 2020 – Godly Instruction for Dealing with Sin and Guilt;
- October 2019: The Lord’s Supper; and
- July 8, 2019, Saving Faith.
Dr. Ramsey can be heard at sermonaudio by clicking the following link:
https://www.sermonaudio.com/source_detail.asp?sourceid=nashuaopc