Why does God include rather than airbrush the failures in His official record? How does this change the way you view your own failures appearing in your story?

The sermon emphasized: "Matthew is not hiding the family history. He is parading it... He frames the picture to show the cracks on purpose."

What does it tell you about God that He deliberately wove these specific people into His Son's lineage? What does it suggest about who God wants in His family?

The sermon's central truth: "God's grace is bigger than our family history."

How does Jesus' family tree predict and announce the kind of Savior He would be? Where do you see this same pattern in your church, are we welcoming the kinds of people who assumed there was no room for them?

The sermon said: "The genealogy was not an accident of history that Jesus had to overcome. It was a preview of his entire ministry."

How does it change you to know Jesus carried all of that, including yours, to the cross?

The sermon said: "Jesus did not just descend from that broken family. He carried it. He absorbed the very brokenness that runs through his own genealogy, and ours, and nailed it to a tree."

Why is the resurrection essential, not just the death of Jesus? What difference does it make in your daily life that "the same power that raised Jesus out of that tomb is the power that is on offer" to you?

The sermon said: "The grace he offers is not wishful thinking. It is not a feeling or a philosophy. It is backed by an empty grave."

The Whole Family Tree Was Leading Here

Nate Frederick
Jun 29
8 min read

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y-o-kpt2U4

How Would You Start the Story?

If you were going to write the story of the most important person who ever lived, how would you start it? You probably would not start it the way Matthew did. He could have started with the miracles. He could have started with the teaching. He could have started with the manger. Instead, Matthew opened the story of Jesus with a list of names. Seventeen verses of who was whose father, going back two thousand years.

Most of us, if we're honest, skip right over it. It reads like the part of the Bible you're supposed to endure to get to the good stuff.

But those names are important. Abraham, who laughed at God's promise. Jacob, the deceiver. Judah, who sold his own brother into slavery. Rahab, the outsider from behind enemy walls. Ruth, the grieving widow. David, the shepherd king who became an adulterer. Every one of them is a link in this chain, and the chain leads to Jesus.

And here's what Matthew wants us to see. The family history of Jesus is a mess. It is full of liars and outsiders and adulterers and failures. And God ran the rescue of the entire world straight through the middle of it anyway. That is not an accident. That is the point. Because the whole series has been building to one truth: God's grace is bigger than our family history.

The List of Names

Matthew 1:1-3: "This is a record of the ancestors of Jesus the Messiah... Abraham was the father of Isaac. Isaac was the father of Jacob. Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers. Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah (whose mother was Tamar)."

Matthew did not have to include Tamar. Genealogies in that world were lists of fathers. The women got left out. But Matthew reaches into the story and names the woman Judah wronged, and he puts her in the family tree of the Messiah.

Matthew 1:5-6: "Salmon was the father of Boaz (whose mother was Rahab). Boaz was the father of Obed (whose mother was Ruth)... David was the father of Solomon (whose mother was the wife of Uriah)."

Rahab. A Canaanite prostitute living in the wall of a city God was about to destroy. Ruth, the foreigner from Moab. David, the man after God's own heart who committed adultery and arranged a murder to cover it up.

Notice how Matthew names David's son. He does not say "whose mother was Bathsheba." He says "whose mother was the wife of Uriah." Matthew deliberately reminds us, right there in the genealogy, of the worst thing David ever did. He will not let us forget that this royal line runs straight through David's most shameful chapter.

Do you see what Matthew is doing? He is not hiding the family history. He is parading it. Most of us, when we tell the story of our family, we lead with the highlights. Matthew does the opposite. He frames the picture to show the cracks on purpose.

The family tree of Jesus is not a trophy case of impressive people. It is a rescue record. It is proof, written into the very first page of the New Testament, that God specializes in working through exactly the kind of people the world writes off.

Who This Person Is

So who is this person the whole family tree was leading to?

Matthew 1:21-23: "And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins... 'Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means God is with us.'"

The Bible claims something staggering about Jesus. Not that he was a good teacher, though he was. The Bible claims that Jesus was God himself, come to earth as a human being. That is what Immanuel means. God with us.

He got tired. He got hungry. He wept at funerals. He felt the sting of being misunderstood and the ache of being betrayed by people close to him.

Everything you have ever felt, he has felt. Every hard thing you are carrying, he understands from the inside, not from a distance.

What He Taught and What He Did

When Jesus grew up, he spent about three years traveling and teaching. He kept telling people that the ones who thought they had it all together were further from God than they realized, and the ones everyone else had written off were closer than anyone thought. He ate dinner with the kind of people respectable folks would not be seen with.

Of course the line had Rahab and Ruth and Judah in it. The genealogy was a preview of his entire ministry. A Savior for outsiders. A Savior for failures. A Savior for the ones whose worst chapter everyone still remembers.

But Jesus did more than teach it. He proved it. The way Jesus saved his people from their sins was not by giving us better advice. It was by taking what we had earned. Every name on that list carried something. Judah carried what he did to his brother. David carried what he did to Uriah. And the cross is where all of it went. Jesus absorbed the very brokenness that runs through his own genealogy, and ours, and nailed it to a tree.

And then, three days after they buried him, the tomb was empty. The same power that raised Jesus out of that tomb is the power that is on offer to every person reading this right now.

What This Means for Us

So what does this mean for us? It means the rescue God ran through that ancient family tree is on offer right now.

Maybe we came in carrying a family history we are not proud of. Maybe we grew up assuming that church is for a certain kind of person and we are not that kind. Maybe we have made enough wrong turns, or come from a hard enough house, that some part of us decided a long time ago that we are disqualified.

If that is you, then you are the exact person this whole series has been for. There is room at this table for you. There has been a seat with your name on it the whole time.

Think back over this whole series. We never once met a person who earned their place in that line. Not one. Every single name in that genealogy is there by grace, not by merit. Which means if you are sitting here thinking you have to become a certain kind of person before God would want you, the entire family tree of Jesus is shouting the opposite. Nobody in it qualified. They were all chosen. They were all rescued.

The Invitation

Jesus asks you to believe that he is who he said he is, the Son of God who died and rose for you. He asks you to turn away from the life you were running and turn toward him. And he asks you to be baptized.

Baptism is a picture of the very thing we have been talking about. Going under the water is like being buried with Jesus. The old life, the old family history, all of it going down into the grave with him. And coming up out of the water is rising into a brand-new life with him.

When you come up out of that water, you get a new family tree. You get grafted into the family of Jesus himself. Your family history stops being the thing that defines you. His does.

There is nothing in your past, nothing in your family, nothing you have done, that is bigger than the grace that is reaching for you right now. The whole family tree was always leading here. To this Jesus. To you.

Small Group Questions

When you tell stories about your own family, do you tend to lead with the highlights or include the cracks? Why do most of us frame the picture so the cracks don't show? What might we gain by being more honest about our family stories?
Looking back over this whole series ("Broken Branches"), which person's story stuck with you the most and why? Whose story did you see yourself in? Whose story surprised you most?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Matthew opened the New Testament with seventeen verses of genealogy, a list of names most of us skip over. The sermon said: "The family history of Jesus is a mess. It is full of liars and outsiders and adulterers and failures. And God ran the rescue of the entire world straight through the middle of it anyway." Why do you think Matthew chose to start with the messy genealogy rather than the miracles or the manger? What was he trying to tell his readers from the very first page?
The sermon emphasized: "Matthew is not hiding the family history. He is parading it... He frames the picture to show the cracks on purpose." When David is mentioned, Matthew calls Solomon's mother "the wife of Uriah" rather than Bathsheba, deliberately reminding readers of David's worst sin. Why does God include rather than airbrush the failures in His official record? How does this change the way you view your own failures appearing in your story?
The sermon's central truth: "God's grace is bigger than our family history." Looking at the list, Rahab the Canaanite prostitute, Ruth the Moabite widow, Tamar the wronged daughter-in-law, Judah the brother-seller, David the adulterer/murderer, Solomon the cycle-starter, what does it tell you about God that He deliberately wove these specific people into His Son's lineage? What does it suggest about who God wants in His family?
The name Immanuel means "God with us" (Matthew 1:23). The sermon said: "Everything you have ever felt, he has felt. Every hard thing you are carrying, he understands from the inside, not from a distance." How does Jesus' full humanity (getting tired, hungry, weeping at funerals, feeling betrayal) change the way you relate to Him? What hard thing in your life right now do you most need to know Jesus understands "from the inside"?
Jesus' ministry consistently showed "there is room at this table for the people who assumed there was not." The sermon said: "The genealogy was not an accident of history that Jesus had to overcome. It was a preview of his entire ministry." How does Jesus' family tree predict and announce the kind of Savior He would be? Where do you see this same pattern in your church, are we welcoming the kinds of people who assumed there was no room for them?
The sermon explained: "The way Jesus saved his people from their sins was not by giving us better advice. It was by taking what we had earned." Why is the cross necessary? Why couldn't Jesus simply teach us better, model good behavior, or inspire us to be our best selves? What does the cross say about the seriousness of sin AND the depth of God's love?
The sermon said: "Jesus did not just descend from that broken family. He carried it. He absorbed the very brokenness that runs through his own genealogy, and ours, and nailed it to a tree." Picture what Jesus carried to the cross, Judah's betrayal of his brother, David's affair with Bathsheba, Solomon's divided heart, your worst chapter. How does it change you to know Jesus carried all of that, including yours, to the cross?
The empty tomb is the claim the entire Christian faith stands or falls on. The sermon said: "The grace he offers is not wishful thinking. It is not a feeling or a philosophy. It is backed by an empty grave." Why is the resurrection essential, not just the death of Jesus? What difference does it make in your daily life that "the same power that raised Jesus out of that tomb is the power that is on offer" to you?
The sermon stated: "We never once met a person who earned their place in that line. Not one... Every single name in that genealogy is there by grace, not by merit." Why is it so hard to accept that we don't have to earn our place? What "earning" are you still trying to do that the family tree of Jesus says is unnecessary? What would change in your life if you fully believed grace was a gift, not a wage?
The sermon's final invitation pointed to baptism: "When you come up out of that water, you get a new family tree. You get grafted into the family of Jesus himself." Whether you've been baptized or not, what does it mean to be defined by Jesus' family rather than by the family you were born into? What old identity, family history, label, or self-definition do you need to release in order to fully claim your new identity in Christ?