Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] This is the genealogy of Jesus, the messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
[00:00:12] That's how Matthew starts his gospel.
[00:00:15] That's how Matthew begins his account of the life of Jesus, our savior.
[00:00:21] His genealogy, if you don't know a genealogy, is basically Jesus family tree. It would have just been a list of his descendants, ancestors, opposite way.
[00:00:33] And that's how Matthew decides to start his account. If I'm going to be honest, when I read the Bible, this is usually the section I skip over because it's all the names that I can't pronounce. Can I get an amen here? Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. But today I thought it was important that we examine that. Today I thought it was important that we dug a little deeper and looked at the genealogy. Why would Matthew include this? Why would Matthew have all these names that are so hard to pronounce?
[00:01:00] Because there's a story, there's a deeper story that's found in this list of the family of Jesus.
[00:01:08] And we're going to look at a couple of those family members today.
[00:01:12] We're going to see that they all have a story of redemption, that they were broken people just like us. But God used them in big ways to be a puzzle piece and his master plan to bring Jesus to the world.
[00:01:27] Would you pray with me?
[00:01:31] Heavenly Father, I thank you for your goodness.
[00:01:34] I thank you for our gift that is worship.
[00:01:38] I thank you that we can all be here today to worship you, to seek you with all of our hearts.
[00:01:45] I pray that the thing that has been defining us would define us no longer, that we would know that we are your children, and that we are part of a bigger story, that you are a God that redeems us.
[00:02:00] Lord, thank you for who you are in our lives. Thank you for your son Jesus, and the way that he's brought redemption to each one of these souls. We love you. We praise you in your holy name we pray. Amen.
[00:02:15] Most likely to become class president. And most likely to become president. Those were the superlatives I won in elementary school. I feel like I'm all over the place right now. Sorry. I started with really serious, and now I'm off to my jokes, but most likely to become president was when I was in fifth grade. I got voted that superlative. It was this title that I got to carry, and I was really proud of it. Now I know that that would probably never, ever happen, you know what I mean?
[00:02:40] But it was something that told a little bit about my character. I believe that this label that I was given said something about who I was, and I believed it. It made me think that maybe I was a bit of a leader, that maybe I talked a little bit more than I should have, argued a little bit more than I should have. Maybe that I was persuasive, that I was independent, whatever it might be. It felt like this title defined who I was. And while it was just a short period of time, even into high school, I remember someone signed my yearbook and they said, I can't wait to vote for you. And that gave me a good laugh. But it really goes to show how silly labels like that really stick, right? Because it feels so true of our character. I think, in our lives, we label ourselves and we label other people, maybe based off their accomplishments, maybe based off their circumstances, and maybe even based off their mistakes and their failures.
[00:03:34] I think we all want to be labeled positively in this world. We want to be labeled for our accomplishments. But once we slip up, a name sticks for us. We all have that friend in our friend group who we labeled. We nicknamed something, and it's just stuck forever. They'll never get rid of that nickname. That's how it feels in life sometimes, that as soon as you make a mistake, as soon as you slip up, that's all anyone will remember you by.
[00:03:57] I think some of us maybe have this label of disappointment. We feel like we just disappoint people. Maybe we feel like we have a label of being a failure. Maybe we let our circumstances define us. We let the fact that our parents are divorced feel like a labeling and defining factor of who we are. We feel like our relational status defines us. Maybe we label others as poor or snobby, as fake or the troubled kid.
[00:04:25] How often are we using labels in our own lives and the lives of other people?
[00:04:30] How are we letting that identify who we are?
[00:04:34] And why does it feel like when we get these labels, we can't shake them, that we just can't get rid of them?
[00:04:41] Well, today, I started with the genealogy of Jesus, and there's a lot of names in Matthew one, but I want to look at a couple. I want to look at three, specifically, Matthew one, five, six. It says Sam, and the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab.
[00:05:02] I'm going to stop right there really fast. I know I didn't get far, but whose mother was Rahab? For Matthew to have included a woman was a big deal.
[00:05:11] Ancestries, genealogies like that would not have included women. So there's something special here, because Matthew doesn't just include Rahab, he actually includes four women.
[00:05:22] Rahab was important, but she would not have felt important in her time.
[00:05:28] We learned about Rahab, her story, and Joshua, too.
[00:05:33] Rahab was a canaanite woman.
[00:05:37] For the Israelites, that was their enemy.
[00:05:40] The people in Canaan would have been their enemies to the end. They were in their promised land. And when the Israelites were coming into the promised land, they were going to have some conflict, have some war over that land.
[00:05:53] Not only were the enemies, but the idols that they worshipped would have had them doing acts that would have been despicable.
[00:06:03] So Rahab, being a canaanite woman, would have been labeled as the enemy, as being evil, as being wicked.
[00:06:10] Not only that by outsiders, but she lived in this city called Jericho.
[00:06:15] And in Jericho, everyone knew who she was.
[00:06:18] She would have been labeled as a prostitute, and that label would have defined her. So not only did she feel labeled by being an enemy, by being wicked, but she would have been labeled by being a prostitute in her own city, in her own community.
[00:06:33] And she would have felt like she was worth nothing more than this label.
[00:06:38] Like this lifestyle that she lived was her only defining factor, the only way she had value.
[00:06:45] But God saw her for something more.
[00:06:48] He looked past this label of prostitute, past this label of canaanite woman, and he saw a family member that would lead to Jesus.
[00:06:59] We read about this story where the Israelites, they send two spies into Jericho. Jericho is a fortified city.
[00:07:07] They don't know what's going on inside those walls, but they need to get the inside look. So they send two spies, and this would have been very dangerous for them. And they ended up staying with Rahab. These two men, by God's divine hand, end up in Rahab's home.
[00:07:22] And you know how easy it would have been for her to maybe get some glory and get some fame by turning these men over?
[00:07:30] But she didn't.
[00:07:34] Although she was in Jericho, she had a faith in God, not from a personal experience, but because she heard what he could do, and she raised her expectations for what he could do in her life.
[00:07:47] In Joshua 211, she tells the spies this. Rahab says, when we heard of it, and by it, she means the miracles and the mighty works that God had done for the Israelites. The splitting of the red seas, them winning battles that when all odds were against them, they came through victorious. It was those acts that she heard of. And she says, our hearts melted in fear, and everyone's courage failed because of you. For the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.
[00:08:19] When all that the people in her town could see was a prostitute, when all that these Israelites would have probably thought her as was an enemy, a canaanite woman, a wicked woman. God saw her heart, and he saw a strong woman of faith.
[00:08:35] He saw her as a partner in this master plan he had.
[00:08:40] She goes on to say, please swear to me by the Lord that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you.
[00:08:47] Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and that you will save us from death.
[00:08:57] And this blessing that she asks for, that her family would be safe, goes so much farther than this.
[00:09:04] We know now that it goes so much farther than this. But Rahab had no clue what God had in store for her. A generation later, in a town over in the city of Bethlehem, we learned about this woman named Ruth. And I think her name would be a little bit more familiar with all of us. Ruth gets a whole book for her. And Ruth was also a bit of an outsider. She was a moabite, which is also one of israelite's enemies.
[00:09:29] And so she would have been labeled as the misfit, as the outsider. Her family might have been looked at as traitors, because as a moabite woman, she actually ended up marrying an israelite man.
[00:09:41] But her husband died, and now she has this label also as widow.
[00:09:46] She probably felt lonely, misunderstood. And she was living in Bethlehem with all the other Israelites who wanted nothing to do with a moabite woman, who all they could see was this label of her circumstance, of her ethnicity.
[00:10:01] But God had something bigger planned. He saw Ruth's heart. He saw that she was someone of loyalty. Ruth stuck by the side of her mother in law and provided for her. And at one point, it was time for her to get remarried. See, in this culture, it was important that the widows would remarry someone in the family to keep this family inheritance going. But there were no more brothers, and so she had to look to the closest family relative. They called it the kinsman Redeemer.
[00:10:30] When this man found out that Ruth was a moabite, he said, no way. He said, I'm not doing that. He didn't care how much money or land he was going to get. He was not going to marry a moabite woman. That just goes to show our own pride, doesn't it, what we're willing to do and sacrifice because of the label of how we perceive someone else?
[00:10:49] Well, there was also this man named Boaz.
[00:10:52] Boaz was a man of compassion and generosity.
[00:10:56] And I believe he grew up learning what it meant to look past people's labels and look into their hearts.
[00:11:02] Boaz had a mother whose name was Rahab.
[00:11:06] I believe that Rahab would have taught her son what it looked like to go past the label that the world is trying to convince someone has and look into their heart. And that's what he did for Ruth.
[00:11:17] So Ruth and Boaz got married. And when they get married, we get this important verse, if I can find it, where the elders and the people at the gate say this, we are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the family of Israel. Listen.
[00:11:39] May you have standing in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem.
[00:11:46] These witnesses at this wedding of Ruth and Boaz have no idea how famous Ruth and Boaz would be when all that the people could see of Ruth was this foreigner and this misfit and this widow.
[00:12:02] God saw a woman of loyalty who would become a member of Jesus family, who would be a piece in the puzzle of his grand plan in life.
[00:12:12] Ruth and Boaz have this son who's named Obed. And Obed has this son named Jesse. And Jesse has this son named David. And I'm sure we all know who David is.
[00:12:23] David was the great king of Israel, and he was the one that God made a covenant with, a special relationship, with a promise with, that he would fulfill through Jesus Christ.
[00:12:34] It is through David's story where we hear this verse.
[00:12:40] The Lord does not look at the things that people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. And I think in all of these stories, we see that.
[00:12:50] I think in Rahab, we see the way that he looked past the label of prostitute and looked at her as a woman of strong faith.
[00:12:58] And at Ruth. He looked at past the misfit, the misunderstood, the lonely. He looked past her circumstance, and he called her a woman of loyalty to be part of his plan.
[00:13:09] And I'm not going to forget David because David was not a perfect guy.
[00:13:14] David could have been labeled much worse, okay?
[00:13:18] He could have been labeled as a liar, as an adulterer, cheater, as a murderer.
[00:13:26] And yet we remember him today as the man after God's heart.
[00:13:33] Now, that's how you rewrite a story. Okay?
[00:13:37] God rewrote David's story so that he didn't have to wear this label of cheater and adulterer and liar. He gets to wear a label as the man after God's heart, that's a redemption story.
[00:13:50] God looked past David's circumstance and the mistakes and the way he fell, because he fell, and he called him to something more.
[00:13:59] He said, I'm not done with your story yet. I have bigger plans for you. And his name will forever be remembered as the man after God's heart.
[00:14:08] And he is a piece, an important piece in the puzzle that brought Jesus Christ to this world.
[00:14:16] And when the world looked at Rahab, when the world looked at Ruth and at David as these people with labels that they couldn't shake, they couldn't see anything past their circumstance and their failures and their mistakes, God saw the heart he created and knew it was meant for something more.
[00:14:37] He saw their worth and their value, and he wanted to partner alongside them to show them what they were worth.
[00:14:48] In one John, chapter three, verse one, we get this really awesome.
[00:14:55] See what great love the father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
[00:15:09] We're fighting off these labels constantly. We're fighting off the labels that define that we feel define us, that define our worth and our value, when really we've already gotten our label, we've already gotten our title. We've already been claimed. We've been called children of God.
[00:15:28] That's the only label I want to worry about.
[00:15:32] That's the only title I want to be working towards.
[00:15:36] How much does he love us that he would still call us his children amidst our failures and our mistakes, amidst our circumstances? If those three people today in the line of Jesus, if those three people taught you anything, I hope that we would learn and see a little bit of God's love and grace, of God's redemption story in all of us.
[00:16:00] If I can promise you something, it would be that you can't out sin God's plans for your life.
[00:16:08] You can never out sin his grace.
[00:16:11] There's no circumstance that you're in right now that he wouldn't want to partner with you in.
[00:16:18] No matter what failure, mistakes, slip up situation you find yourself in, I promise God still wants you, and he'll never stop wanting you.
[00:16:29] And he calls us his children.
[00:16:33] I would hope today that we can go forward in this confidence that we don't have to wear these labels of the world because the creator of our hearts calls us something more.
[00:16:44] He's already defined our value and our worth because he calls us his children.
[00:16:50] And the times we do slip up and we do fall the times we do feel lonely or like we're in a situation we'll never get out of, what the enemy has meant for evil, the Lord will turn for good.
[00:17:04] Let's look at Romans 828. I just want to leave us with this verse.
[00:17:09] Cause we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him and who have been called according to his purpose.
[00:17:17] I want to raise my expectations for what God's going to do in my life. I want to have a faith, an unwavering faith, in what God will do, like Rahab did.
[00:17:26] I want to have a loyalty in the Lord, like Ruth did. When Ruth could have turned back and went back to her home country of the Moabites, she stayed firm and strong in what the Lord would do when she was in Bethlehem. I want to have a loyalty to him like that.
[00:17:43] I want to have a desire for God's heart, where people remember me as the woman after God's heart.
[00:17:51] Because whatever the enemy is doing for evil in your life, where you feel trapped to a label, I promise you that God is going to work it out for good.
[00:18:02] God has a mighty plan, and he wants to take these labels and throw them out the window because he's called you his child.
[00:18:13] When you seek him with your heart, you can see a lord and a father and a savior and a friend who calls you to something more, who calls you to a life of partnership with him.
[00:18:26] Would you pray with me, Father? We thank you.
[00:18:35] We thank you that we can't run far enough away to ever escape you, that you will still come chasing us down.
[00:18:42] We thank you that you pursue us amidst our struggles and our situation and our circumstance and our failures. I pray that the hearts in here that feel like they're too far gone, that feel like they've fallen too short, that you would lift them up and say, I have called you my child.
[00:19:00] I pray that we would turn back to you consistently seeking you with all of our hearts. Cause it's then that you will turn what the enemy meant for evil, and you use it for your good. I pray that we could partner with you in this grand scheme of life, that we could be like Rahab and Ruth and David. Stories of redemption we already get to witness the greatest redemption story ever told in your son, Jesus Christ. We thank you for your forgiveness and the blood that he shed for us.
[00:19:28] Lord, let us partner with you, Father. Let us come to you and seek you with all that we are and turn these wicked things in this world for your good.
[00:19:38] Amenity.
