Jesus’ Family Tree

Matthew 1:1. Not a footnote or side note or appendix, but Matthew 1:1.

You’d think that God would be a bit reluctant to publish His Son’s pedigree right there in the opening lines of the New Testament. And that He would at least have dressed it up to make it sound as classy as possible. But He intentionally went out of His way, used extra ink to expose what we wouldn’t think God would be very proud of… more than a few black sheep in the family lineage.

But we are talking about the God Who gets more excited over recovering a wandering sheep than over ninety-nine who give Him no trouble at all. Who spent far more time on the sinful and the lost than on proud Pharisees with noble bloodlines and papers to prove it. Who later inspired Paul to list the flawed but faith-filled patriarchs and proclaim, “Therefore God was not ashamed to be called their God”… (Heb. 11:16 NIV).

Do you sometimes feel like He must be ashamed to be called your God? Perhaps you can’t imagine Him being proud to list your name as one of His own, as a spiritual descendant of Abraham and an heir to all that His Son owns. Your past disqualifies you. I love what W. Tozer has to say:

“Now, on the basis of grace as taught in the Word of God, when God forgives a man, He trusts him as though he had never sinned. God did not have mental reservations about any of us when we became His children by faith. When God forgives a man, He doesn't think, 'I will have to watch this fellow because he has a bad record.' No, He starts with him again as though he had just been created and as if there had been no past at all! That is the basis of our Christian assurance--and God wants us to be happy in it.”

It’s all a part of the “good news of great joy which shall be to all people.” Nobody’s disqualified by their past. Everyone has the opportunity to be made a new creature, to start with a clean record, to find forgiveness for every relapse, to cooperate with the Spirit in forging a faith that makes God proud to be called our God.