Sojourning Under the Sun: Our Sabbath Jesus (Matthew 1)

The name Jesus is a name that we have heard before in this series because it is the same name as Joshua.  Joshua was a great military leader and reformer in the midst of Israel.  He called Israel to look to their God, to serve their God exclusively, and to set the tone for their houses to serve the Lord.  Israel fell pretty far from this as a new people.  Their priests lost sight of their God, and the people lost sight of the priest’s significance.  The priest was supposed to bring them to God rather than being some sort of good luck charms to manipulate the true God.  So, is the Lord able to redeem such a people?  If the Lord can redeem such a people then who has to be the redeemer?

Christmas Generations (Matthew 1:1-17)

When we summarize  our history we tend to avoid the embarrassing people in our family line.  We all have those relatives that we do not like to talk about because of what they have done or what they are currently doing.  So, when our Lord lays out the genealogy of Chris you would think that He is going to call to our attention the good people and ignore the embarrassing ones?  Well, if you look at the genealogy some of the most embarrassing skeletons in the closet are brought out front and center.  Why would our Lord do that?  Why would our Lord even give us a genealogy at all?