Matt 1:1-2
The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren;

Although it’s not the first written book of the New Testament, it is the first Gospel after the Old Testament book of Malichi.
Almost everyone has some memory of the “begats”, which seem boring on the surface, being a list of name that mean very little with only a few that are recognizable.
The Gospel of Luke also gives a list of begats.
All of us are part of our own begats, that is, all of us have a genealogy. That ancestral line makes us genetically who we are. If you could see photo’s of your family through the past 500 years, you would probably see many looking amazingly like you. And that is a large number of your ancestors – 500 years ago you had around 1,000,000 ancestors. Yes, that’s one million!
Some were nice, some were mean. In the group are liars, thieves, drunks, blasphemers, ministers, atheists, agnostics, religious, and perhaps adulterers and murderers.
Jesus’ list of begats contains much of the same.
Jacob was a bigamist. David an adulterer and murderer. Judah had children by his own daughter-in-law. Rahab, the wife of Boaz, was a prostitute.
And the list goes on.
My own family contains adulterers, moonshiners, alcoholics, blasphemers, a suicide, wife-beaters, agnostics, along with many good and decent individuals. They all had something in common. They were are sinners and passed down their DNA and genes to me.
I am a sinner with the traits of them all.
But I do not have to live in the bondage of those traits.
Jesus came and broke the traits of His own family and He offers the same to you. In Christ, you are a new creation – not the same old relative!