Thank you so much for listening to Riverbend Church's podcast.
Riverbend Church exists to bring people to Jesus, grow
generations in Jesus, and send disciples for Jesus.
We hope that you enjoy this message.
Well, good morning Riverbend. My name is Nathan Evans and I'm
the next Gen. pastor here Riverbend.
And if you're a guest with us today, I want to say thank you
for being here. I'm excited that you're here.
I'm excited that we get to worship together.
And I would also say that you're in good company because my
family and I, we are also new to Riverbend.
So we've only been here for about 6 months and I've got a
picture to show you of my family.
We maybe you've seen us in the halls, maybe you haven't had a
chance to meet us. But it's my wife Stephanie. her
and I have been married for 19 years and our three kids, we
have Clay who's 13 and Peyton who's 11 and Caroline who is 6
years old. So it's been a lot of answered
prayers getting us to Riverbend and it's just been a blessing
just to see how God has been working and moving in this
church and in our lives. And we're just excited to be a
part of the Riverbend family. So today I get the opportunity.
Pastor Ben has trusted me, whether wise or not, to kick off
the series for Christmas called Presents.
And so this series is going to be focusing on the heart of God,
really focusing in on how the heart of God is revealed for his
people throughout the Christmas season.
And so if you received notes this morning in your packet, we
have our big idea. So the big idea for this, for
this series that's going to be going with us for the next few
weeks is that Christmas isn't just the story of Jesus's birth.
It's the story of God's heart. And how true that is.
The Christmas isn't just about Jesus's birth.
It's the story of God's heart. This week we're going to look at
some of Jesus's family and we're going to really see how the
presence of God really shaped the next generation.
And as you know, I don't have to tell you anything that you don't
know, but family is very a unique thing.
It's times very chaotic and very complicated.
And when we get to the Thanksgiving and Christmas, that
holiday season, it just seems to kind of add to the complexity of
that dynamic. And I think some of you probably
can relate that when you think of family, you just like, Oh my
goodness, like family. Like if you just knew family and
you're thinking of the chaos and you're thinking of the craziness
that goes on in your family, you know, thinking about maybe the
last time the police were called during Thanksgiving.
I don't know. It's just it's one of those hard
things to think of, of like, why was God?
Why did he put me in this family?
And you just kind of have to chalk it up to God's sense of
humor at times. And then there's others of you,
you're like, Nah, I don't, I don't get that.
Because my family, we are best friends.
We do everything together. We have we, we have
Thanksgiving, we have Christmas, we have every other holiday, we
spend time together and it's just perfect.
And everybody else thinks it's perfect too, because of all your
pictures that you put put on social media.
And it I would say it's not necessarily that it's all
perfect so that you're just really good at covering things
up. Because the truth is, is that
all families have their issues. All families have their dark
side. And sometimes others are better
at covering up than some. But family is just complicated.
And today, as we look back at Jesus's family, we're going to
see that Jesus's family was no different than ours.
There were issues that they faced, their problems and sins
that marked their past and how God was able to work through
them. And Matthew really shows us in
Matthew chapter 1, he really shows us that God is able to
work despite the sins of our past.
You know, Matthew, he was, he was writing to a Jewish audience
and as he wrote, he was breaking barriers, cultural barriers and
gender barriers and, and racial barriers all by just listing
people as a part of Jesus's family.
And like I just said, Matthew was used by God to show us that
despite the issues that our family face, our families today,
that God can still use us despite our sins of our past.
So if you will just turn with me to Matthew chapter #1 and if you
don't have your Bible with you today, that's OK.
We have the scripture that'll be on the screen behind us.
And I want to just kind of set the stage as you're, you're
turning in your Bible. So in, in ancient Israel, when
Matthew was writing this, he, he understood the cultural norms
and he understood that your pedigree mattered.
So what family you're a part of it.
It really mattered. So if you had nobility or
royalty in your family, then your status in the community was
and everybody revered you and they had respect for you
automatically because of what family you came from.
If your family was shepherds and handmaids, then you just didn't
have really much respect in the community.
Nobody really trusted you very much.
But Matthew was was showing us and he was speaking to us and
showing us that it doesn't matter what family we come from.
He understood those cultural norms.
But he still listed the good and the bad and the ugly characters
of Jesus's family. And now I know you're probably
already looking at Matthew chapter 1 and you're thinking,
ma'am, like this is not really one of my top 10 passages.
If you, if you look at it, there's a lot of really weird
names. And we're going to read the
whole thing. We are we're going to commit to
it. We're going to get through every
name that's listed in the 1st 17 verses.
But what we have to remember, this is just amazing to think
of, is that God had been silent for 400 years, and this is what
He chose to break His silence over.
This is what He used to break into this world and to really
speak to His people once again. So if you will look with me at
Matthew chapter #1 as I read and we'll start in verse #1 it says
the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David,
the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac,
and Isaac the father of Jacob. And Jacob the father of Judah
and his brothers. And Judah the father of Perez
and Zerah by Tamar. And Perez, the father of Hezron.
And Hezron the father of Ram. And Ram the father of Aminadab.
And Aminadab the father of Nishan.
And Nishan the father of Salman. And Salman the father of Boaz by
Rahab. And Boaz the father of Obed by
Ruth And Obed the father of Jesse.
And Jesse the father of David the king.
And David was the father of Solomon, by the wife of Uriah,
And Solomon the father of Rehoboam, And Rehoboam the
father of Abijah, And Abijah the father of Asaph.
And Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat.
And Jehoshaphat the father of Joram.
And Joram the father of Uzziah. And Isaiah the father of Jotham,
And Jotham the father of Ahaz. And Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,
And Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, And Manasseh the
father of Amos, And Amos the father of Josiah.
And Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the
time of the deportation to Babylon.
And after the deportation to Babylon, Jeconiah was the father
of Sheltiel, and Sheltiel the father of Zerubbabel, and
Zerubabel the father of Abayud. And Abayud the father of
Eliakim, And Eliakim the father of Azor, And Azor the father of
Zedek. And Zedek the father of Achim.
And Achim the father of Achim. And Azor, the father of Zezar,
the father of Zadic and Zedek, the father of Achim and Achim,
and, and the father of Jacob. And Jacob, the father of Joseph,
the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called
Christ. So all the generations from
Abraham to David were 14 generations and from David to
the deportation to 14 generations and from the
deportation to to Babylon to the Christ, 14 generations.
That is a lot. So I hope you got all that
because we're having a quiz before you leave today.
I'm just joking. I'm just joking.
At first glance, when you go through all of these names, it's
pretty easy to pick up on a, on a few of the names that you know
of that are that are royalty, that are noble in that day.
But the theme that you see that repeats itself all throughout
this lineage right here is this. The cost of repentance is
cheaper than resistance. The cost of repentance is
cheaper than resistance. I want us to kind of let that
sink into us as we go through just a few of these, these
people in Jesus family. So many we look at, we know
their sins right off because we remember them through stories
that we've been told in Scripture that we've read of how
they sinned and they messed up really bad.
But so many were willing to repent and confess those sins
before God and he forgave them and was able to use them despite
their sin. But there's others in this list
that continually resisted the presence of God and their lives
continually pushed back on God. And we'll talk about some of the
destruction that came along with that.
Now, this list is a, it's a miracle in and of itself that we
have this list and this lineage of Jesus, because in Jesus's
days there there had been several conflicts and different
wars that had happened where many of these scrolls that that
contained all of this information have been destroyed.
So for Matthew to be able to pull it together and be able to
have it is just a miracle in and of itself.
But Matthew also knew who would be reading this passage.
He knew who would be reading this lineage.
He knew the religious leaders of the day would be looking at
this. They would be vetting this list,
they would be investigating to make sure that Jesus is who he
says he is. It's, it's kind of, almost like
Matthew was kind of provoking these religious leaders saying,
hey, prove me wrong and causing them to have to go back through
scripture and to really prove and see who Jesus is.
What Matthew was trying to do, he was trying to pull them into
the light and show them really who Jesus was.
You know, those religious leaders, they still exist today.
We see them in churches all over and, and you, you know who they
are. They're those that, that they,
they grew up in church. You know, we don't call them
Pharisees and Sadducees anymore. That's that's something that the
ancient Jews use those terms. But we see them today.
It's that person that they wear their religion on their sleeve.
It's kind of like a, a badge of honour.
You know, their, their parents and their, their grandparents,
They, they served as leaders of the church and they've kind of
lean on that and they're trusting in the works of their
parents and of their grandparents.
They're trusting in their own works.
And they're living at a very high moral standard.
But there's a problem. The problem is, is that morality
and work is not the qualifier to get to heaven.
It's not the qualifier to get access to our loving God.
It's not the qualifier to be able to come into the presence.
Repentance and believing is, as I said, these self-righteous
people that we experience. Maybe we have.
We can identify that in our own lives.
At times they're neglecting the fact that they need a personal
relationship with Christ. Matthew was trying to show these
religious leaders and kind of bring them into the light out of
the darkness so they could clearly see who Jesus was.
So I want you to write this down the the grace of God shines
brightest in the darkest places. The grace of God shines
brightest in the darkest places. There's several dark and very
sinful moments that were brought to light through Jesus's family
tree, so I wanted to show us just a few of those this
morning. We'll start and begin with
Abraham. Abraham was the founder and he
was the first Jew. God chose him out of the region
of Mesopotamia, and he said, Abraham, if you'll just follow
me everywhere you walk, everywhere that your foot
touches, I'll give you that land.
And if you follow me faithfully, then every one of your seed will
bless. Every one of the nations will be
blessed by your seed. And Abraham had great faith and
he followed God. But Even so, he still was human,
just as you and I. He still had a sin nature, just
as you and I, and he had an issue sinning.
And he liked to lie. At least we see it several times
in Scripture when he was in front of the high priest
Mechezdek, and when he was in front of Pharaoh, he lied.
He said that Sarah was his sister, not his wife.
And for some you may think, well, that's what's the big
deal. Well, Abraham was trusting or
was fearful of what would happen to him if they found out that
Sarah was his wife. He was afraid that the high
priest or that Pharaoh would have him killed because they had
the power to do so, so that they could take Sarah as their wife.
So instead of trusting God in those moments, he chose to lie.
If we go down just a few generations, we have Tamar.
Tamar's not even a Jew, she's a Canaanite.
How? How strange is that, that just a
few generations in and we're already at somebody who's not,
who doesn't fit the mold, somebody who's different.
She's a Canaanite. Not only that, she has a very
dark past. See, Tamar committed incest with
her father-in-law, Judah. Now you've heard the name Judah
before. If you know of the children of
Israel and the tribes of Israel, you may have heard of Judah as
one of those tribes. And this is that Judah they're
named after. Tamar veiled herself and she
went in committed incest, and through that still comes the
lineage of Christ. There's still grace in those
moments. It was culturally inappropriate
for Matthew to have included her in this lineage, but he did
anyways. In fact, he didn't just include
her, he include five women total in Jesus lineage to break these
cultural norms. The next person we look at is
another woman, another Canaanite.
This time it's the prostitute Rahab.
She was a Jerichoite. She she hid the spies, the
Israeli spies that were going to, to gather Intel on Jericho
to be able to come back and to be able to, to conquer the city.
And so she hid them in her home when the soldiers were coming by
looking for them. And because of that, God's grace
just was poured over her and over her family.
And she was saved in the moment when Jericho fell.
Another few generations down. We have Ruth, another woman, a
Moabitus from the country of Moab, an accursed nation, as
Scripture says. This was Scripture says that
that Moab was born out of incest and it was accursed.
That means that the Jews were to have no dealings with these
people. But yet here we are, and we have
Ruth as a part of this lineage of Jesus.
Then we get to the highlight and the pinnacle of Jewish history
and we have David, King David. You know him well from stories.
You know about his his God using him to defeat Goliath.
You hear about his the Psalms that he's written.
He's called the apple of God's eye.
Such an amazing person in scriptures, one that's so highly
revered, but yet his life is marked with adultery and with
murder to cover it up. Then there's and then there's
Bathsheba. She's unnamed in this, but is
she really unnamed? I believe Matthew gives us a
very kind of a unique way of listing Bathsheba in this
lineage. He calls her the wife of Uriah.
I think he did that on purpose so that he could continually
bring us and the Jews back to remembrance of the atrocities of
David, but also to show us the grace that God supplied even in
those dark moments. And we learn of the birth of
Solomon. Solomon was likely, or Solomon
was the wisest man before Jesus. He was one of the greatest kings
of Israel, but Even so, at his death his heart had been turned
away from God because of his love for women.
And things just continue to get to get darker for Israel at that
moment. We go down several generations
and we get to Manasseh. Now this is not the Manasseh
that we talked about a few few weeks ago in our Joseph Serie,
but this Manasseh was, was wicked.
His God was not the king of kings and the Lord of Lords.
No, his God was sorcery and was witchcraft.
He's accused of filling Jerusalem with innocent blood.
He's the man that had the prophet Isaiah's son and two, so
God had a response for him and he sent it through the prophet
Jeremiah and he said because of your sin, the Kingdom will be
destroyed. Then we have Josiah, another
sign of God's grace. Josiah became king at 8 years
old, not because of his qualifications, not because of
his family stature. No, they were wicked kings.
He became, he became king because his father and his
grandfather had been assassinated and he was the only
one that was left at 8 years old.
I couldn't imagine taking on that that role, but Josiah was
different than his father's. Josiah loved God and he did
everything in his ability to turn the nation of Israel back
to God. If we look through Scripture,
we'll likely we'll see that Josiah's likely the godliest
king since Solomon, and unfortunately it didn't stay
that way. Then there's Jeconiah.
As somebody you probably haven't heard of, it's a very a very
unknown king and if David was considered the pinnacle of
Jewish history, then the reign of Jack and I would be
considered the the lowest point of Jewish history up to this
point. The reason was is because the
Kingdom fell while he was in power.
But what was God to do? He had no option at this point
other than to discipline his children for their
unfaithfulness. If we go through history, we'll
see time and time again God called out to his people, sent
prophets to his people saying repent, repent, repent.
And each time all they did was harden their heart and say no, I
want nothing of it. So God was faithful and he did
what he said He would do and he gave them over to another
nation. The last one we'll look at this
morning is Mary, the mother of Jesus, the one that found
favour. In the sight of God because of
her pureness and her cleanness and her devotion to the Lord.
That's not what her neighbors said of her.
There were rumors spread about Mary, about how she became
pregnant. Many of her neighbors would have
thought she would have fit really well on the TV show on Mt
VS Teen Mom because she was such a young lady and she was single
and had a child. So by the time Jesus came on the
scene, this family was looking for a break.
Seemed like destruction followed them everywhere they went.
Everyone listed in this lineage had skeletons in their closet.
But nevertheless, God was faithful throughout all of Jesus
family. Even in the bad times, God's
faithfulness never wavered. Many of these that were listed
that we've talked about this morning, and even others would
have been excluded from worship in the Tabernacle or in the
temple because they had sinned against the Law of Moses and
they had done so wrong in their life.
They would not have been welcomed into the presence of
God at that time in these moments that they had to follow
the Law of Moses. But I believe Matthew listed
these people here on purpose, and he did so, so that he would
show us that the barrier of exclusion was broken.
Now that Jesus has come, men and women, Jew and Gentile, were all
now welcomed into the presence of God.
And here's the key. God accepts each and every one
of us just like we are. He's not asking us to clean
ourselves up. He's not asking us to go do this
or do that to be able to be welcomed into His presence.
No, no, no. He's saying, hey, come into my
presence and when you get here, I'm going to clean you up.
I'm going to make you more like me.
I just need you to come to me. I know.
Also, going through this list of people probably brings back some
memories, some that may be painful, Some of that you can,
some of these people you can probably relate with or you know
you have family that can relate to some of these stories.
There's pain associated with a lot of those memories and maybe
you're at the point where you're just ready for a change.
I've seen this so many times throughout the years where
people just feel as though if I could just get away from my
family, maybe I could just move to a new city, get a fresh
start, start a new life and I'll just forget about who they are.
And I'll just start from where I'm at and just start moving
forward. And just everything is going to
be different from this point forward.
But here's some hard truth. You can't escape your family,
but you can choose to be different right now in this
holiday season. It may seem hopeless.
I know there's many that just feel so isolated from their
family. You believe in God, you've
placed your faith in him, you're living for him and and your
family just wants to have nothing to do with them.
You just feel isolated. You feel alone.
You've prayed for them for years.
You've, you've taken time and you have poured into them and
you have witnessed to them all just to be met with resistance
and they're just pushing you away.
If that's you, let me encourage you this morning not to give up
because change will come. It's in these moments that we
have to lean into the presence of God and allow him to give us
comfort and give us peace and encouragement in these moments.
I know there's many here this morning.
You come from a broken family or you're in a broken family now,
and let me tell you that the only one that can replace that
absent parent in your life is the presence of God.
The only one that can soothe that pain that you're
experiencing because of your family is God.
The only one that can heal those deep wounds that have been
created is God. By this time in history of what
we've been reading and talking about this morning, by this time
God had been silent for 400 years.
That means no prophets were prophesying.
That means there were no visions and there were no dreams.
God was quiet. He didn't say a word for 400
years. What the world didn't realize in
this moment, God was preparing them for the greatest change the
world would ever experience. God was saying, I'm not willing
to send someone. I'm not willing to create
something different. I'm willing to go myself to
clean up the mess that sin has created and to bring hope to a
lost world. And the coming of Jesus changed
everything. Let me say, the God is able to
make the impossible situation possible, and He is able to
change your family's dynamic. And here it is.
It begins with you. Hebrews chapter #11 is often
considered the hall of faith. Some of Jesus's family, Abraham,
he's one of the top on the list of men and women who had
extraordinary faith. This doesn't mean that they
didn't sin. It doesn't mean they didn't mess
up at times. It means that means that they
repented when necessary and they moved forward with God with
great faith. And God was able to use them and
be able to do the impossible through them.
And when we look at Matthew chapter #1 I believe we could
easily call it the hall of grace.
When we look at the the the imperfections of these men and
women, yet God was still able to use them to advance His Kingdom
because of how great and how mighty and how wonderful His
grace is. Matthew tore down the argument
that the presence of God is only available to the moral elite.
The fact is, is that no one deserves the presence of God and
and Paul reinforces that in Romans when he said in Romans
323 that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of
God. There is none of us that will
live good enough, be good enough to come into the presence of
God. It takes Jesus.
So here's the reality. God did not make a mistake in
placing you and your family. I know that's hard for some of
us to grasp and to hold on to that.
God did not make a mistake placing you in your family.
He knew exactly what He was doing and He was putting you in
a place so that your family could experience the change that
they needed. See, when we read through
Jesus's family tree and we see all these different people and
we see all, the, all the, the messiness of sin that's in their
life, we don't see Jesus rejecting them, do we?
No, we actually see the the contrary.
We see that Jesus embraced his family and he sought after
people that were just like his family so that he could bring
them the hope that they didn't even know that they needed.
Later on, Matthew continued to write about Jesus and he he even
says that that some call Jesus a friend of sinners.
That self-righteous crowd that we talked about earlier, those
are the ones that were trying to make fun of Jesus, calling him a
friend of sinners, but they were actually giving him a title that
was greater than any other. So let me leave you with this
story. Today I'll tell you about a a
guy named James. By 14 years old, James was a
drunk. You say, well, that that's kind
of weird. Like maybe he started drinking.
No, I'm saying by James's own testimony, by the time he was 14
years old, he was a drunk. His family wanted nothing to do
with God. They had no use for religion.
It just wasn't their thing. So they didn't.
He he very rarely if ever went to church by this time in his
life and he started a spiral downward.
By the time he was 17, James has gotten married and the very next
day he joined the military. Now you would think with the
structure of the military that maybe it would help James in his
addiction to alcohol, but actually made it worse because
of the combat that he saw. It just drove him more to
alcohol. And so when James came home, he
came home a changed person. He, he was so addicted into
alcohol and, and the experiences that he had through combat, just
putting those together, it just made things worse.
And he continued in this lifestyle.
James had two children and still was not interested in anything
and involving God or church or any of that stuff.
But James had a friend. His friend loved James.
He prayed for James for years. He prayed for James and he, he,
he saw out every opportunity he could to just tell James about
Jesus and what God was doing in the church and would try to
witness to him. And every time James would just
reject him and say, man, I just don't want to hear that.
Just keep that stuff to yourself.
I don't need that stuff. I don't want it.
But his friend was persistent, continually prayed day after
day, even to the point to where there was days that he spent
fasting in prayer, praying for James because he knew that God
could change his life. Finally, one day, James gave in.
He's like, man, if you will just leave me alone.
If you'll just stop asking, I'll go to church with you.
This just this one time, if you'll just leave me alone.
So that day James went to church, he and his his wife and
at that time he had two daughters.
He was there in the church and something happened.
God started speaking to James, and James never had experienced
the presence of God before and it made him so uncomfortable.
He was just, he was just looking and counting down the minutes
like when is this guy going to be done?
So I can just hit the door, I can leave, I can be done with
this place. I never have to come back.
And sure enough, the preacher finished.
James hit the door. But what he wasn't counting on
is that the presence of God went with him.
James left that day done with church, but God wasn't done with
him. James hadn't.
He didn't know what to do. The presence of God was so real
on him. He was under such heavy
conviction. All he knew to do was go back to
the bottle that had that he had continually went back to.
So James by his own testimony said that he went back and he
started drinking as much as he could that day.
But the problem was is that God wasn't allowing him to get drunk
and he couldn't get away from the presence of God.
For a week James wrestled with the presence of God till finally
he gave up. He said, Lord, I'll follow you,
Lord, I'll trust you. I'll go all in with you.
And James gave his life to Christ.
Now I know for many of you, you're like Nathan.
That was that was really good. That's a good story of of James
about a giving his life to Christ.
I've heard it before. It's wonderful.
I love it. Never gets old hearing about
somebody coming to trust Christ. And you're right, it doesn't.
But for me, this is personal. James is not just another
person. To me, James was my granddad
James. His life changed so radically
that it didn't just affect him, but it affected generations to
come. My mom was one of the two 2
girls that went to church with him that day and my mom was 12
years old later when she got saved.
My grandparents ended up having 5 girls.
They made a commitment after that day.
A week later, my grandmother gave her life to Christ and they
made a commitment that they would raise their children not
just to go to church, not just to know Scripture, but to have a
real relationship with God. And they taught them how to live
in the presence of God. So when my mom and dad got
married, they made that same commitment to teach me and my
brother and my sister to live in the presence of God.
When Stephanie and I were married, we had children.
Even before we had children, we had made the commitment.
If God gives us children, we will commit to raise them to
live in the presence of God. I can say just a couple weeks
ago, since we've been at Riverbend, my youngest,
Caroline, Stephanie, came down with her late one night.
They're supposed to already be asleep.
And she's like, hey, Caroline wants to tell you something.
And Caroline comes in the room and she tells me about how she
just gave her life to Christ. You say, well, Nathan, that
could have happened any anyway, maybe so I'll believe God used
James. James was 23 years old, gave his
life to Christ, defected him and his children and his
grandchildren and his great grandchildren.
And I have cousins that have children.
So there's five generations that I know of right now that have
been affected because of the witness of James.
So I'm going to leave you with this this morning.
What is holding you back from experiencing the presence of God
in your life? Your past may seem hopeless, but
your future could have an eternal impact, all because of
the presence of God in your life.
So just a second where the altars are going to be open.
We'll have pastors on either side if you need somebody to
talk to. I encourage you to follow what
God is calling you to do in this moment and respond according to
how He is calling you. I'm going to pray for you, and
then the band's going to come back and there'll be a time of
response. So let me pray for you this
morning. Father, thank You for Your
presence, but thank You for how Your grace is shown throughout
all generations. Thank You of how when we mess
up, You don't reject us and cast us off, but yet You pull us in
closer and You show us that You'll love us even more.
I pray for those that this morning that may be struggling
that You would just pull them in close, that You would apply Your
grace to their life. And if somebody needs salvation,
I pray that you would grant them salvation this morning.
If somebody needs to get back into a relationship with you and
then they need to renew their commitment to you, I pray that
that would happen. Lord, if there's those that are
praying for family, I pray that you would encourage them and
help them continue on in their faithfulness to you and to
praying for their family. Lord, we're excited for what
you're going to do and how you're going to move through
this service in Jesus name, Amen.
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connect with us online at Riverbend Church dot live.