Sunday Morning Service 8:30AM-

citizens instead of bright well good morning church family it's good to see you guys i'm glad you're here glad you glad you can make it out on this cold morning hope you guys are staying warm if you guys want to stand with us we'll pray and we'll kick things off here father we come before you this morning we just thank you for allowing us to be here lord god thank you for uh for those that can make it for those that couldn't make it this morning pray that you'd be with them lord and and uh just keep them warm keep them safe wherever they're at whatever they're doing lord lord we just want to glorify you this morning help us to focus focus on you and lavish praise

upon you this morning god and may your word go out with power and we ask it in jesus name amen but we just thank you for another day lord we thank you for this time that we can come to worship you lord and worship you freely lord god without fear of persecution lord and and so lord we just ask your blessing upon this time now as pastor ryan comes or may your holy spirit move mightily this morning which wants you to be glorified in jesus name amen let's take some time and greet one another good morning if you could begin to locate your seats grab a bulletin we'll get ready to go over some announcements welcome to calvary chapel i'm glad that you have joined us this morning a handful of

things to take note of uh in your bulletin um as always things in the middle sec or as things on the left hand side uh going on throughout the week lots of places to get plugged into if you have any questions about any of those uh you can see the group leaders there on the side you can talk to them i'm over in the middle section of your bulletin a few things to take note of first of all fellas no men's breakfast this saturday um too many of us are going to be out of town doing family christmas things we will pick that back up again in january um directories will be able to be picked up in the next couple of weeks she's getting ready to get started on printing all

those up we did all the final corrections at least to the best of our ability on those and then uh christmas eve candlelight services um make sure to plan for the next couple of weeks and we'll see you in the next couple of weeks and we'll see you in the next couple of weeks and we'll see you in the next couple of weeks to join us for one of those at either 5 30 or 7 p.m on christmas eve and then over the weekend uh let's see friday and saturday we went down to operation christmas child and so there's a handful of pictures this is this is all of us there together we had a pretty good group of us there uh in front of the christmas tree there and one of those planes we were trying to decide how

many of those it would take to haul all of the boxes that we pack but that's one of the planes that that goes out on i don't know what all pictures we have on there but we're going to up here so oh there's uh one of the stations where we work there you can see you have to inspect the boxes that come in uh and then you see he's wearing an orange thing that's the scanner that's how if you do the little thing to tell where the box goes you scan that scan the box so that you can find your box and then i think one more picture oh there's a little happy family there and uh that's how many boxes we packed while we were there um 55 375 so um yeah pretty awesome right and for the was it for the week that they had that they had packed

800 000 by the time we left so 800 000 boxes by the time we left there friday night is how many uh got got sent uh got sent out from that distribution center which is pretty amazing it's pretty cool because you know we put them in a big box after they've been inspected and taped up and all that kind of stuff and then all of those big boxes go in the back of the semi and we got to see two or three boxes and we got to see two or three boxes and we got to see two or three semis leave while we were there so it's pretty cool only the the only unfortunate thing about the semi this is the only unfortunate thing about the semi is they put off this air horn when the

semi gets ready to leave and and i think we lost three people during that time but um it's okay we revived them but when you hear it the first time you're like what just went wrong because there's they have like security all over the place and you're thinking did something really go wrong while we were there but anyway it was a great time is that our last picture must be all right so yes welcome very good so it was a great trip so if you uh just know all of those boxes that we packed here they're about to go really cool places and and i will say um i didn't get to do a lot of the inspecting actually i'm the i'm the scan gun guy i have been every year i've gone for whatever reason

they don't trust me to do anything but that um and quite frankly i like my job so it's okay uh but but i did get to see occasionally some little notes and i talked to my van on the way back i'm like okay so what's some of the cool things that you saw they got included they talked about some notes and some pictures and and some people were like oh my god i'm gonna go to the like hey this is how if you want to send me a letter this is all the information for you to be able to do that uh they said somebody colored an entire scene uh christmas scene on the inside of one of the boxes which i thought was kind of cool as well so so lots of neat things that you get to

see when you're a part of that so all right those are the things that are going on if you would make sure that your mobile device is silenced and for our responsive reading this morning we are going to be in psalm 14 psalm 14 look at the new american standard if you need a copy should be one in a row around you and as you are turning to psalm 14 if you are able please stand in the honor of the reading of god's word i will read the odd verses if you will follow along with pastor allen and the even verses psalm 14 for the choir director a psalm of david the fool has said in his heart there is no god they are corrupt they have committed abominable deeds there is no one who does good that's on me that's my fault i'm sorry yes

he's looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand who seek after god they have all turned aside together they have become corrupt there is no one who does good not even one do all the workers of wickedness not know who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the lord there they are in great dread for god is with the righteous generation you would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted but the lord is his refuge and read verse 7 with me oh that the salvation of israel would come out of zion when the lord restores his captive people jacob will rejoice israel will be glad and lord we praise you that the salvation not only for israel

but the salvation for the world did come out of israel lord and that's what we celebrate in this season and so father as we begin this morning to uh to zero out the sin of the Lord and to throw in on the reason why we gather and the reason why we celebrate this time of year lord would you turn our hearts back to our savior and lord give us a clear picture of jesus so father we just pray these things in jesus name amen you may be seated if you would open up in your bibles to the book of matthew chapter one matthew chapter one every year around this time i got to decide what i'm going to do for the christmas message and i kind of stress over this it's funny because i

watched previous years which by the way is not as easy as it used to be but um but on youtube you can go back and watch previous years christmases uh and i give this exact same introduction every single time because after you do about four or five uh christmas messages you can only make the story so original right because the same thing believe it or not the christmas story never changes so which is good because you know god is unchanging and his story is unchanging but i do need to try to present it in a in a fresh new way so that you're not like wow that's the exact same story as last year and so that's what i stress about every time i do one of these you can ask my

wife i drive her nuts with this every year i i've actually made her go back well i didn't make her go back and listen but but but i went back and listened i'm like okay is it too much like this one is it too much like this one and she always says the same thing to me she says ryan no one memorizes your messages and it's and it's true you don't even remember what i say in the announcements right so so you don't memorize the messages it's okay so this year uh what's kind of been on my heart is is this title that i've put up there which is the unexpected birth of the unexpected savior because when jesus came along the world did not look for him to be the savior as a matter

of fact they really weren't expecting him to be the savior they should have been and the matter of fact i gave a message a few years ago about the anticipation that was building historically for the first coming of jesus but no matter how much anticipation was building in history and that god had made a promise of the first coming of jesus his first coming was actually incredibly important nobody besides a handful of shepherds took notice of the fact that jesus had arrived in bethlehem because it was an unexpected arrival of an unexpected savior jesus is who this season is all about and yet people are still not really expecting jesus to show up in this christmas

season and i don't just mean jesus to show up bodily in his second coming i mean they're just not looking for jesus to show up and do anything in their hearts and their lives in this season they're looking at another mundane christmas season where he'll do the same things that you've done every single year and yet i believe that every year jesus wants to show us a fresh revelation of who he is through this christmas season and so hopefully that's what we do here this morning and so over the next uh two sundays and then christmas eve we will look at three things we will look at the the story of the unexpected birth of the unexpected savior in three ways number one we

will look at the unexpected family number two we will look at unexpected circumstances and then number three we will look at an unexpected birth this morning we will look at an unexpected family and so what i want to do this morning is i i want to look at the genealogy of jesus now most people don't really enjoy reading genealogies as a matter of fact there's a story in the book of esther where a king was not able to sleep and so what did he have someone do he had someone read the genealogy to him that's a legit story in the bible right so i'm not trying to put you to sleep for a christmas nap this morning but i do think there's some incredibly fascinating things about the background of jesus's story that paint a

beautiful story of grace through this unexpected family of jesus and so we start off in verse one and it says this this is the record of the genealogy of jesus the messiah the son of david the son of abraham abraham was the father of isaac isaac the father of jacob and jacob the father of judah and his brothers before we get to the first three guys that i want to talk about this morning i want to point out how matthew starts this off of course matthew was written to a primarily jewish mindset so so his his gospel is very jewish in nature he points out an incredible amount of prophecy if you were to go through the book of matthew you would find that there's an incredible amount of prophecy proving

that jesus is the jewish messiah and so so as he starts off his genealogy he points out two things about jesus that are really important to pay attention to and we'll talk about the significance of this verse so first of all first of all we have a sign in the book of jesus the son of abraham and it says that he is the messiah which means that he is the messiah which by the way means that he is the christ it means the chosen one the one who would be the savior of the world and by the way scripture says if you don't believe that jesus is the messiah then you can't be saved so you have to believe that jesus is the messiah you have to believe that he is the chosen one to take away

the sins of the world otherwise you don't really understand jesus otherwise you're not really saved so this is just an important thing to point out but he points out two things about this messiah of the Jewish faith. Number two, that he is the father of David, the greatest king that Israel had ever had. So he, if you will, gives the pedigree of Jesus before he gives the genealogy. And then he goes on to say that Jesus was the son of Abraham and he was the son of Isaac and he was the son of Jacob. Those are the first three guys that I want to point out to you that I think are

important for us to pay attention to. Because these three guys present for us the failure of the flesh and the triumph of faith. So Abraham, of course, we know the story pretty well. If you've been around for a while, you know the story of Abraham. But I'm not going to take for granted that you know that story. Abraham, of course, was called by God to do something very spectacular.

He was called by God to leave his homeland and to go to a land that God would show him. Pack up the minivan, pack up the Honda Odyssey. Actually, he was driving a sports car at the time because Abraham had no kids and he was rich, right? So pack up the BMW and I want you to head to a place that I'm going to show you. And stop when I tell you to stop. So Abraham makes it to the promised land and God says,

do you see all of this land? This all is yours. This is your land and I'm going to give it to you and to the generations after you forever. And I'm going to make of you a great nation. The only problem with making of Abraham a great nation is that Abraham and Sarah were barren. They were not able to have any kids. Particularly Sarah was barren, his wife. They weren't able to have any

kids. But he was able to have any kids. And he's living on this promise that God's going to make of him a great nation. Well, pretty soon, Abraham begins to become fearful. As a matter of fact, there was a famine in the land and Abraham goes down to the land of Egypt, even though God had not told him to. He goes down to the land of Egypt because he's scared of the circumstances around him. And when he goes

down to Egypt, he takes a look at Sarah and he says, listen, you're a 10 out of 10, okay? I'm a one out of 10 at best. So I need you to do me a solid. I need you to lie and tell everybody you're my sister, which was sort of partially true. But not really true. She was like his half adopted sister, right? And so he says, I need you to do me this solid and tell the lie for me. Well, eventually they get found out. And Abraham, the father of

faith, also is a liar, right? Well, so they come back and God kind of disciplines them and brings them back. And Abraham is still living according to this promise that God's going to give him a son. But God's not fulfilling the promise fast enough, right? Have you ever been there? You ever been like, man, I know this is what God wants and he's not moving fast enough. So I'm going to do me a

for him. I think surely God has messed up somewhere along the line. So I'm going to figure out a plan B. Listen, anytime we come up with a plan B, it's a bad plan, right? So they come up with a plan B. While they were in Egypt, they picked up a handmaid by the name of Hagar. And so they come back and Sarah says, listen, I can't have any kids. I think clearly I'm the problem.

So why don't you take my maid Hagar and she will be a surrogate for me. And so I want her to bear a child on my behalf. And so Abraham agrees to the plan and they have a child and they name that child Ishmael. And God says, hey, Abraham, that was a bad idea. And Abraham says, no, Lord, let Ishmael live before you. And of course, Ishmael has been causing problems ever since, right?

And so God says, no, Abraham, I'm going to give you a son. That son's name is going to be Isaac. You're going to have that son one year from now. And I just want you to believe. And ultimately, Abraham finally believes the promise, but not until he has both lied to protect his own rear end and gone his own way to try to help God with this plan. You see, you have the failure of the flesh,

but then you also have the victory of faith. Well, his son, Isaac is born. And of course, Isaac grows up and marries a woman and it's a beautiful thing. But Isaac has the same problem that Abraham had. He had a hard time with the truth. And he finds himself in the same situation where he looks at his wife and he says, listen, you're a 10 out of 10. And I'm a two out of 10

at best. He thinks he's a little better than Abraham. I made that part up. He doesn't actually say that in the Bible. But he does tell his wife to lie for him. He says, lie and tell everybody that you're my sister. I wonder where he heard that, right? Like where'd that idea come from? He says, lie and tell everybody that you're my sister so that they don't kill me to take you. Well, one day, according to the

scripture, he was, I'm trying to think of how it words it, because I love the way it words it. He was like showing affection to his wife, like they were making out, right? That's just all that there is to it. There was a situation going on. And the people of the land are like, that ain't your sister. If so, we have bigger problems to deal with. He says, you're right. She's my wife. And I've told

her to lie for me. And while Isaac finds himself in that place of the failure of the flesh, once he gets back on track, God reinstates the promise to him. And we see the victory of faith. Well, Isaac has two sons. Their names are Jacob and Esau. Esau was the son of the flesh. And Jacob was the son that nobody would have chosen, but God did. God chose Jacob to be the son of the flesh.

The one through whom the line was going to come, through whom he was going to bring about the Messiah. But the only problem with Jacob is Jacob was a con man, right? Like there's no other way to put it than he was a con man. I was writing this all out earlier. And I'm like, were they all three liars? It's like Jacob was a liar, but Jacob was a really, really good liar, right? Like he was a

con man at best, right? He conned his dad into giving him the birthright, or excuse me, he conned his brother into giving him the birthright, and he conned his dad into giving him the blessing. My favorite thing about the fact that he conned his dad into giving him a blessing, this is a sidebar altogether, is that Esau was an incredibly hairy man, right? And it says Jacob was a smooth-skinned man. And so in order for him to

con his dad, who was blind at the time, into believing that Jacob was Esau, Jacob had to take goat skins and put them on his arms. And all I can think in that moment is, how amazingly hairy do you have to be that it takes a goat skin to convince dad that you're your brother? Listen, all I'm saying is, I'm not a goat skin, right? Like that's intense. Anyway, that has nothing to do

with anything other than the fact I think it's funny. So Jacob is this con man, and he's a con man until one moment in his life. One moment in his life, he's on his way back to the promised land. And while he's on his way back to the promised land, he once again is trying to establish a plan to protect himself and protect his family instead of trusting God. And one night he was all by

himself next to the river. And it says, the angel of the Lord showed up and he wrestled with him. He wrestled with him all night long. And after he got done wrestling with him, the day was about to break and the angel says, you need to let me go. He says, I won't let you go until you bless me. He says, what's your name? He says, my name is Jacob. Now, why in that moment does he ask for his name? You ever ask

yourself that question? Why does the angel of the Lord show up and bless me? Why does the angel of the Lord tell Jacob, what is your name? Well, it all has to do with what Jacob's name means. See, what Jacob's name means is supplanter. We don't know what that means, right? Like, we're all like, supplanter, what's that supposed to mean? Gail Irwin gives the best

translation of his name, that his name means dirty, rotten, sneaky thief. Basically, his name means deceiver. He says, what is your name? He doesn't ask him that because he doesn't know his name. He asks him that because he wants to own up to who he really is. And so in that moment, Jacob owns up to who he really is. He says, my name is Jacob. And he says, not anymore. Now your name is Israel. He who fights with God, but also he who God fights

for. He says, that's who you are from now on. And he touched his hip. And in that moment, his hip went out of socket. And for the rest of Jacob's life, he walked with a limp. And every time he took a step with that limp, he was reminded that he was no longer Jacob, he was now Israel. He was now one who God fights for. And I just wonder, and I don't know why I feel

like I need to say this, but I just wonder if there's someone here this morning who has been going their own way, and you've been trying to work out your own plan. You've been trying to work out your own thing, and you've been in your flesh failing over and over and over again. And God wants you to do two things. Number one, he wants you to own up to who you really are. In this

moment, he wants you to say, I'm Jacob. I'm a liar. I'm a thief. I'm a con man. I'm a sinner. And I've absolutely been blowing it in every part of my life. And he wants to say, not anymore. Because I want to make you brand new. And he may put a limp in your step. He may put your hip out of socket. But in that moment, you will be reminded every day how Jesus has made you new.

And if that's you this morning, then today's the day that you need to own up to who you are and let Jesus change who you are. Well, so in those three men, we see the failure of flesh, but we also see the triumph of faith. It goes on from there to say, middle of verse two, and Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers. And Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. Perez was the father of Hezron and Hezron, the father

of Ram. The next two people that I want you to pay attention to that I think are important for us to know for this unexpected story, unexpected family of the unexpected. And we're going to talk about the story of Judah and Tamar. Jacob would go on to have 12 sons. We would refer to them as the patriarchs or the 12 tribes of Israel. One of those sons was a guy by the name of Judah. Judah was a fantastic character in the

Old Testament, partly because sometimes he was a fantastic character for evil, sometimes because he was a fantastic character for good. Judah would go on and marry a wife and have three sons. And for the oldest son, he would take a woman. He would take a woman by the name of Tamar to be his wife. So she marries Judah's oldest son. Only Judah's oldest son is such an evil man that we are told that because of his evil, God struck him dead.

We're not even told what he did wrong, just that he was so evil that God struck him dead. And so there's Tamar left without a husband. Now, in the times when the Bible was written, there was what was called the kinsman redeemer. So what would happen is if the oldest son could not produce children, through his wife, and if he died before they were able to have kids, especially a son, the next youngest brother would marry the wife to produce a son, to carry on the family name, not only the name of the oldest son, but the name of the father, and ultimately to help care for the wife that had been left behind. Everybody follow me on that? So Judah's oldest son dies because

he's so evil and God strikes him dead. And so the second oldest son marries Tamar. And there's a whole story that I won't tell you about because it's kind of rated R. There's a whole story that you should go into Genesis and read sometime about the fact that Judah's next oldest son ends up being struck dead by God. And so now here's Tamar. She's either 0 for

2 or 2 for 2 with husbands, all depending on how you look at it, right? Either way, she's out of luck right now because the second one just died. And Judah's looking at Tamar and going, listen, at some point in time, I feel like this is on you, right? Like at some point in time, maybe you're the problem. He says, I want you to wait until my next son is old enough to marry you.

When he is, I'll text you, okay? You hang out. And so Tamar goes and she hangs out wearing her widow's garments. Time passes. His next son becomes of age that he would be able to marry her. And she realizes Judah ain't texting, right? I am never getting that message. And so she realizes if I'm going to have a son to not only care for me, but to carry on the family name, I'm going to have to

take matters into my own hands. And so she takes off her widow's garments. She puts on the garments of a prostitute. And she goes, she stands on the corner waiting for Judah because she knew something. Judah's wife had passed away. And after Judah's wife had passed away, he went, he got past the time of mourning. And it was the time of the shearing of the sheep. And after the

sheep were sheared, they would have a big celebration. And so Judah was on his way to this big celebration. And she knew that, which is the time when she took off her widow's garments and she put on the garments of a prostitute. And Judah saw her by the roadside. And he propositioned her. And the price was right. And she said, what do you give me? And he's like,

I don't know, a goat and three chickens or something like that, some sort of livestock. And she said, what will you give me in pledge? He said, I'll give you my signet ring and my staff, which were incredibly specific to that individual. He said, I'll give you these. So the transaction takes place. Time goes on. He goes back home and he sends by the hand of his

servant, the livestock that he was supposed to send to make the payment. He goes to the place and he's asking around and everyone says, I have no idea who you're talking about. And at some point in time, it became embarrassing. And so he just left. He said, dude, I tried to go find her, but she was not there. And he goes, well, I guess if I've lost my signet ring and my staff,

it's okay. I'm not going to keep looking for a prostitute today. So time goes on. Word comes to Judah. Your daughter-in-law is pregnant and she's pregnant out of wedlock. And he says, this is perfect. My problem is going to be solved. Let's put her to death. So at the trial for his daughter-in-law, they say, who's the dad? And she says, whoever owns this staff and whoever owns this signet ring, he's the father. And Judah goes,

oh, that's me. And in that moment, he realizes his sin. Isn't it great that in the line of the Messiah, the unexpected line of this unexpected savior, you have incest and you have sin. And you have sin. And you have sin. And you have sin. And you have sin. And you have sin. And you have sin. And you have sin. And you have sin. And you have sin. And you have sin. And you have sin. And you have

prostitution. Why is that great? Because God's grace is bigger than our ultimate failures. Isn't that amazing? That his grace does not stop what should have stopped that line, but by his grace, he continued on. Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. Perez was the father of Hezron. Hezron, the father of Ram. Verse four, Ram was the father of Amminadab. Amminadab, the father of

Nashon. Nashon, the father of Salmon. And he was the father of Amminadab. Amminadab, the father of Salmon. Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab. Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth. And Obed, the father of Jesse. The next family that I want to point out to you is the family of Salmon and Rahab. Salmon and Rahab. Because it's another fascinating story. So fast forward, Judah and his brothers

end up moving down to Egypt, where Joseph had been. The nation grows into a nation. What started off as 72 grew into a nation of over a million there in Egypt. They got put into bondage by the Pharaoh. And they ultimately are set free by God. That's the book of Exodus. Well, then in the book of Exodus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, they are tracking their way through

the wilderness. And right before you get to the book of Joshua, you see that Moses passes away and Joshua is given the reins of the nation of Israel. And under Joshua, they're at the edge of the promised land. They go into the promised land, but Joshua, being a good military leader, sent a couple of spies in because God said, the first city you're going to take is the city of Jericho. Jericho is the

linchpin to the rest of the land. And it's the linchpin to you understanding victory by faith. So Joshua sends in two spies to check out the city of Jericho, find their weak spots. It was sort of a moment where God gave some grace. Well, these two spies ended up being hidden by a woman named Rahab, who once again was not only a, Gentile woman, but she is also a prostitute. So she takes them and it says, yes, I'll hide you here.

And in the process of time of her being, of them being in her house, she says, I need you to know something. I know that your God is the one true God. I know that he has given this land into your hand. And I just want to know one thing. What can I do to be saved? What can I do to be saved from the destruction that's about to come on this land? And they said, listen, you protect us.

We'll protect you. Okay. She says, how will I know that you're going to protect me? They say, you're about to let us down this window with a scarlet rope. When you let us down that window with that scarlet rope, keep that rope. Because on the day, when we attack this city, if that scarlet rope is hanging out of the window of your house, we will know to protect your house. And anybody that's inside the house

will be protected. And that's exactly what happens. They protect Rahab and Rahab goes on to marry this guy named Salmon, who ends up ultimately producing, another son that's in the line of Jesus. Isn't it beautiful that here this Gentile, this woman, this prostitute is once again used in the line of Jesus because God redeems really bad stories, right? Well, so we go on from there and it says that Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab.

Perhaps you recognize the name Boaz. Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth. Boaz and Ruth. What a great story, right? Every time I try to decide what book I'm going to read, I'm going to read a book that's going to teach next. My wife always gives me one suggestion, the book of Ruth, because she loves the book of Ruth, right? It's kind of the girl book, right? Everybody, girls love the books of

Ruth and Esther. And listen, there's an incredible amount of biblical redemptive truth in the book of Ruth. I'd actually highly recommend that you read it. But in the book of Ruth, we learned that there was a family living during the time of the judges. And that family during the time of the judges was facing famine in the land. And so rather than sticking it out, they,

they flee to the land of Moab. Now there's one problem with the land of Moab. When the children of Israel were on their way through the wilderness, back in the book of Numbers, God had cursed the people of Moab for two reasons. Number one, he cursed them because they had given Israel such a hard time. They had, they had not given them bread or water in the wilderness. They hadn't

done anything to help them. But the second reason why, why they, why Moab was cursed is because Moab hired a guy by the name of Balaam. And if you don't know the story of Balaam, highly recommend you look that up in your Bible and go read the story of Balaam. It's a fascinating story. They hire Balaam to try to curse them. And ultimately a curse does come upon them because

Balaam says, I can't actually curse them because God won't let me, but I can show you how to harm them from within. He said, send in the women and the women will compromise their morals. And they at that point in time, God will have to curse them because sin will be in the land. And so after all, of that was dealt with in the book of Numbers there, God said, cursed be the Moabites. They

shall not be a part of the, of the nation of Israel up to the 10th generation, which my understanding was somewhere around the time of Ruth. Pretty cool. But they go to the land of Moab, which is a cursed land. And ultimately the, the two boys end up marrying girls there. Only the husband and the two boys end up dying. And the only ones that are left are now the mother

is Naomi and the daughter-in-law whose name is Ruth. And Ruth says, your people are my people where you go, I go, your God is my God. Well, they come back to the land and in order for them to provide for themselves, the welfare system is at that point in time was that the poor people would glean the fields. And what that means is this, when a farmer would harvest his fields, sometimes there would be some left either in the corners of the field or, or maybe some that was missed.

And so, so the poor of the land would be able to go into the fields and they would be able to what was left over. As a matter of fact, they were told to leave the leftovers in the field for the poor of the land. That was the, that was the welfare program at that point in time. Ruth, in order to care for her and her mother found a field to glean in. And she found the

field of this guy by the name of Boaz. And Boaz ended up being a kinsman redeemer. Again, I highly recommend you go read the book of Ruth. It's a fascinating book. And so Boaz, Ruth finds favor in the eyes of Boaz, as well as Boaz finding favor in the eyes of Ruth. And he says, I want to be able to redeem Ruth. And they say, I want to be able to redeem Ruth. And they say, I want to be able to redeem Ruth.

And they say, well, the only way that you can redeem her is if you buy the field. And so Boaz bought the field so that he could have the bride. There's a whole other story that goes into it other than that. But what I want to point out to you is this. Ruth came from a cursed nation, a cursed Gentile nation. And so now in this line of Jesus, what we see is we see, first of all,

that very opposite of genealogies at this point in time, we see four to three different women mentioned so far. Two of them were prostitutes. Two of them were prostitutes. Two of them were one of them was cursed. And so God redeemed not only bad stories, but he redeemed a cursed nation through this. And so we see the story of Boaz and Ruth. Well, now we come along from there

and it says at the end of verse five, it says, and Obed was the father of Jesse. And Jesse was the father of David, the king. And David was the father of Solomon by Bathsheba, who had been the wife. Of Uriah. Well, you know, I'm going to have to stop here for a minute. It's interesting because in the new American standard, it says David was the father of Solomon through Bathsheba,

who had been the wife of Uriah. That's not actually the way it is in the original. In the original Hebrew, which it puts in the ESV, the new King James and the old King James, it says this. It says, David was the father of Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah. This was such a scandalous moment in Israel's history that when Matthew wrote the genealogy,

he did not. Even include the name of Bathsheba. She was simply known as her who had been the wife of Uriah. I believe to protect Bathsheba. And so David and Bathsheba is quite a story. David, of course, was called by God at a very early age. Saul had been king and through a series of disobedient actions on the part of Saul, God said, Saul can no longer be king and his line is going to be cut

off. I have to choose a man that is after my own heart. And so, Samuel goes out to the household of Jesse to choose a king. I always love this story. It doesn't have too much to do with what I'm about to share, but I always love this story. All of these young men start being presented to Samuel and Samuel goes, now that one looks like a king. That's what I would expect a king to look like. And God said, nope. And after all of the

sons were presented that all look like kings and were expected, the expectation of what a king would look like, Samuel says, none of these. And God says, remember, I don't see what you see. You see what's on the outside. I see the heart. So Samuel goes and he goes, anybody else? God told me to come here. He said no to all of these guys. Is there no one else? And they were like, oh yeah, that's right. David. Dude, how bad is your life

when your dad and your brothers forget that you exist, right? They're like, bring all the boys in. That's all of them. No more. Shoot. I do have one more. He's in the field right now. Have you ever felt that way? You ever felt forgotten or abandoned? Listen, I need you to know something. If you feel forgotten or abandoned, it wasn't by God. It wasn't by God. And so they bring David in and David, it says was ruddy,

meaning his face was really kind of sunburned because he was out in the sun all the time, taking care of the sheep. They bring in David, this teenage boy, bebopping along, guitar in hand. It was actually a harp. Hand, shaggy haired, hippie guy, right? Smelled like the sheep. And God said, that's the one. And Samuel's going, that's not what I expected. And God said, I know, but he's the guy.

So he anointed David as king. And so David had a lot of lessons to learn, not the least of which was trusting God as he wandered through the wilderness, fleeing for his life from Saul and trusting that God was ultimately his protector and what it really looked like to not just care for the sheep, but to care for the people. That God would provide for him. And he earned and gained the heart of a shepherd. Well, David had

such great victory in his life and everything was going really great until this one moment. And we're told in the book of second Samuel, that it was the time of the year when the kings went out to war, but David did not go to war. He was on his rooftop one evening and he saw a woman bathing sidebar growing up in the church. I always thought her name was Bathsheba because he saw her bathing.

Anybody else there? You're with me. Anybody else that grew up in the, it's absolutely not. It was just, it's a, it's a, it's a happenstance, right? It just happened to be that way. I have learned more since then that I was a little immature at one point in time. So he sees her bathing and he says, I'd like to talk with her. And they said, that's the wife of Uriah. And I believe in that moment, there was a real warning

that came to David and he didn't heed the warning because they warned him. That's not only someone else's wife. That's the wife of one of your most. You see, David had this group of elite warriors called his mighty men. And if you want to know anything about his mighty men, you can go both to the end of second Samuel, the beginning of first chronicle, might be the end of first Kings, the beginning of first chronicles. And you can read

about the exploits of David's mighty men. All you have to know is this. These are guys you don't jack with, right? Like these are ultimate special forces for David, because everything that you read about them tells you that they can take out multiple hundreds of people by themselves. And that's the guy's wife that David decides to have an affair with. It's like clearly not using

the right head in this moment, right? And so David ends up having an affair with her. And as he has an affair with her, he thinks everything's hidden and no one knows the difference. Only one day he receives a message. And the message that he receives is this, David, I'm pregnant. XOXO Bathsheba. And he's going, well, that's not good. How am I going to figure this thing out? He goes, no problem. I'll bring Uriah back from the battle.

He can go and spend the night with his wife and no one will know the difference. So he brings Uriah back. Hey, how are things going in the battle? It's a hard battle, David, but you know, we got you. Great. Why don't you go home and see your wife? Only Uriah is about as honorable as you can get. He says, no, if my men are out there fighting, I'm not going to know the pleasure of spending time with you.

I'm going to spend the night with my wife. I'll sleep on your porch. And so for three days, David tried to get Uriah to go home to be with his wife and Uriah was too honorable to do it. So David had to come up with another plan. And the other plan was much more devious. He wrote a note. He said, dear Joab, I'm sending you Uriah. When the battle is the hottest,

I want everyone to pull back to where the only one left facing, the battle is Uriah. Signed, David. XOXO. He folds that note up and he hands it to Uriah. And Uriah takes his own death warrant in his hand to Joab. That's an honorable guy that won't read a note, even though it's the note that signed his own death warrant. And so in the heat of the battle, they pulled back and Uriah was killed. And we're told that no one knew about it, but God was unhappy.

So ultimately, God dealt with David and there were consequences that went along with it. But David repented of his sin. God forgave him of his sin. And after his first child with Bathsheba died, God gave him another son. And that other son's name was Solomon. Because God redeems really bad stories. And God redeems really broken families. And so we have now seen the fourth woman

who is a Gentile. And we've seen the fourth time now, or another time now, where infidelity and sin is in the line of Jesus. Because that's what Jesus does. He redeems sin. When we go on from there, it says Solomon was the father of Rehoboam. Rehoboam, the father of Abijah. And Abijah, the father of Asa. Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat. Sidebar, that's a fantastic name for a son.

Keep that in mind. We know people having babies. Pass that along to them too. Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat, the father of Joram. And Joram was the father of Uzziah. Uzziah was the father of Jotham. And Jotham, the father of Ahaz, who by the way, was a terrible king. And Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah. Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh. Manasseh, the father of Ammon. And Ammon, the father of Josiah. Three more kings that

I want to point out to you that are really important that paint the story of this unexpected line of Jesus. The first one is Hezekiah. Hezekiah was actually a really good king. He was a bright spot in what was really ultimately a line of really bad kings. Ahaz was probably the worst king. Manasseh was probably a really close second to him. We'll get to Manasseh in just a second.

But Hezekiah was a great king. Hezekiah came along when the nation of Israel was somewhat apostate. They were turned against God. They were worshiping idols. And Hezekiah comes along during this time of worshiping idols. And Hezekiah begins to clean house better than anybody else before him. It says that he walked in the ways of the Lord like his father David.

And so he began to clean house and get rid of all the idols and all of the high places. And great things began to happen. Other than a moment of pride in his life, he's one of the greatest kings that Israel had ever had. But if he was one of the greatest kings Israel had ever had, Manasseh was probably the worst. Again, the only one that might have been worse than him

was Ahaz. But Manasseh comes along and he was a terrible, terrible king. Matter of fact, it says he led Israel into idolatry unlike any other king before him. It tells us in the book of 2 Kings that he even caused his son to pass through the fire. If you don't know what that means, there was a God that they worshiped at that point in time named Molech. And Molech was a God who sat with his hands out like this. The way that Molech was

worshiped is that they would, he was the God of convenience basically. They would take the unwanted babies and they would eat them. And they would eat them. And they would eat them. And they would put his hands up white hot and they would place the baby in the white hot hands of Molech and they would offer that child as a sacrifice. That's right. One of Israel's kings in the line of Jesus

was guilty of human sacrifice. And God said, matter of fact, I just read this in Jeremiah this week. God said, you have done things that I have never even thought of. And I think it specifically says has not even come into my mind. Things that I've not even thought of like child sacrifice. And the valley of Topheth. So things were so bad with Manasseh that God said, I have to judge.

Now here's the really beautiful thing about Manasseh. There's a bright spot in his story. When you read the end of his story in the book of 2 Chronicles, you do find that he repents. But his sin was so bad. And he led the nation of Israel into sin that was so bad that God had to judge them. And that's ultimately when the deportation of Babylon began to work its way into

motion. And yet this king who was so bad that God had to judge him. And that's ultimately when the king who was so bad that God said, I have to judge the nation is still in the line of Jesus. Well, after Manasseh comes a really good king. And that king's name is Josiah. Now, Josiah became king when he was eight years old, which is always a fascinating thought to me

because I have kids and I wouldn't put either one of them in charge of a kingdom. I love them dearly, but they're older than eight. And I still don't think that they're ready to be in charge of a kingdom. They're barely ready to be in charge of their room. So, so, so Josiah becomes king at eight years old. And of course he had advisors and people like that,

that took care of things. And in about 18 years into his reign, he had begun a process of cleansing the temple, but remodeling it, bringing everything back up to snuff the way that it was supposed to be in the temple. And while they were remodeling the temple, getting rid of all of the idols and bringing everything back to where that it should be, they found a copy of the law and they read the copy of the law. The guy that read the copy of the law went, Oh, Josiah needs to see this.

Can you imagine that at that point in time, they did not know what the law said. They were just operating off what they knew was to be right. And Josiah was even doing what he knew to be right, but not to the level that it really should have been yet. And so this guy shows up to Josiah and he says, okay, let me give you a quick update on the temple. Uh, things are going well. Workers

are being paid. Everything's operating as it should be. We should be done by about you name the date. We should be done by about here. Everything's moving along swiftly. All the paint colors have been picked out. Everything's looking great. Oh, by the way, we also found a copy of the law and I think you might want to read it. So he unrolls a scroll and he begins reading the law and every

line that he read in the law broke his heart just a little bit more. Every line that he read brought a heaviness upon him that he didn't know how to handle until finally at one point in time he stood up and he tore his clothes because he knew how desperately far they had fallen. From what God's righteous standard had said. He said, I want you to go and I want you to seek God.

I want you to find a prophet of God because we need to hear from God right now. So a prophet of the Lord showed up and he said, this is what God says. Judgment will still have to come upon this land because of the sins of Manasseh, because those sins were so desperately wicked. He said, but because of the way that you handled things, because your heart was broken over sin, that judgment will not come in your lifetime.

It will come afterwards. And so Josiah proclaimed a revival in the land, unlike anything that had been seen up to that point in time. And in this moment, there was a bright spot in the nation. Well, after Josiah, after Josiah died in battle, things went back downhill again. It was a short lived revival. And we come to a guy by the name of Jeconiah. It says, Josiah, verse 11, became the father of

Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon. Jeconiah is another interesting character in and of himself because Jeconiah, of course, is in the line of David. He's in the line of Solomon. And as you follow this down, if you were reading with us in Jeremiah, that's where I am right now, because I'm really far behind in the daily Bible reading. That's on

me. But if you read in Jeremiah, you know that there was a portion of scripture where God said, none of the sons of Coniah, that's what he calls them in Jeremiah, none of the sons of Coniah will ever sit on the throne again. Cursed is the line of Coniah. Now, at that point in time, we have what we call a problem because David is the one through whom the Messiah is supposed to come through the line of Solomon. You have a curse with this guy, Coniah. How is this going to be solved? How can

Jesus still be born of the line of David when Coniah has been, when Jeconiah has been born of the line of David? Coniah has been cursed. That's why that's pointed out here. Well, I'm here to tell you right now, there's a really interesting fix that God had for this. You see, David had more than one son. The book of Matthew gives us the genealogy of Joseph. The book of Luke gives us the genealogy

of Mary. And as you follow Joseph's line down, it goes through Jeconiah. But as you follow Mary's, when it gets past Josiah, or when it gets, before we get to Josiah, you find that there was another son that David had. His name was Nathan. Nathan was named after the prophet Nathan who confronted David with his sin and his sin with Bathsheba. And so David had another son. He named him Nathan. Mary was a descendant of Nathan. And so Jesus was

still born of the line of David, just not through Solomon. It came through the line of Nathan. Isn't God good the way that he works these things out? Well, as we follow it down through, we see that Josiah became the father, verse 11, of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the deportation of Babylon. After the deportation of Babylon, Jeconiah became the father of Sheltiel. Sheltiel became the father

of Zerubbabel. Again, just throwing that out there. Zerubbabel was the father of Abihud. Abihud, the father of Eliakim. Eliakim, the father of Azor. Azor was the father of Zadok. And Zadok, the father of Akeem. Akeem, the father of Eliud. Eliud, the father of Eliezer. Eliezer, the father of Matan. And Matan, the father of Jacob. And Jacob was the father of Joseph.

The husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who was called the Messiah. The next name I want to point out to you is the name Joseph. Joseph, of course, is Jesus's earthly father. We know very little about Joseph, other than a couple of little stories in the New Testament. One here in the Gospel of Matthew, and then one in to the Matthew or Luke, where he goes to the temple. We know very

little about Joseph, other than that. The thing I want to point out to you is about this verse. It says, Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Now, that's a fascinating thing for Matthew, especially in his time frame to put, because usually genealogies were only men. And yet, Joseph is not referred to as the father of Jesus. He's referred to as the husband of Mary.

Kind of an interesting thing. Here's the beautiful thing about God and his word, is that God elevates women to the place where they're supposed to be. And that's on a level playing field with men. That there's no difference as far as like who's superior, or who's inferior. Like God elevates women to have that place of honor that they deserve. And one of the places that you see that here is in the genealogy. So, it says that Jacob was the

father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born. That phrase, by whom, is really important in the Greek. You may not realize that, but that phrase is both feminine and singular. Ryan, why do I care that that phrase is feminine and singular? It's feminine, meaning that Jesus was born of a woman, but it's singular, meaning that Jesus was born of a woman.

Only of a woman. Not of a woman and a man. That's what that phrase means. Why is that important? Well, because Jesus was born of a virgin. Now, we know enough about having babies in this church, or maybe you've taken that class before, that you know it usually requires a woman and a man to have a baby. And yet, what Matthew put right there is both feminine and singular, meaning that Jesus was only born of a woman. Meaning that Jesus

was born of a virgin. Why is that important? Well, you see, we are told in the book of Romans, chapter 5, that Jesus was born of a virgin. And we're told that Jesus was born of a woman. And we know that the ihram dominates this one text, it says that sin passed through the man. Adam sinned and passed into all of us and we pass the sin nature on fellers to our kids. Therefore,if Jesus was to be born sinless, he had to be born of a woman,

but he could not be born of the seed of a man.. Therefore, it was a miracle of the Holy Spirit that Jesus was born of a virgin. And right there, we're told in the Greek language that that's exactly what happened. The second reason why this is important in It comes to us, and you might just write down Isaiah 9, 6. Isaiah 9, 6. This is really important because this shows us the fulfillment of this prophecy.

Isaiah 9, verse 6 says this. For unto us a child is born. And maybe you've heard this before. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. The word born speaks of natural birth. The word given speaks of adoption. That's what those words mean in the Hebrew. And so Jesus was both born of natural birth of a woman, but he was also given an adoption to Joseph.

And so Jesus was both born and given. Unto us a child is born, unto Mary. Unto us a son is given, unto Joseph. Pretty cool how God works all those things out, isn't it? Well, as we track through this whole genealogy, I bet you're asking yourself, Ryan, why do I care about this genealogy? Why is this important for me to know? Well, there's three points that I want to make

that I think will drive you through this. Drive home why I shared this entire genealogy about the unexpected family of Jesus. Number one, the unexpected story of Jesus is an unexpected story of grace. The unexpected story of Jesus is an unexpected story of grace. You see, what makes this time of year so magical, as you see in all the commercials today, is not that he went to Jared,

but that, or that you got some brand new car. Yes. If my wife shows up with a brand new truck, I'm A, not going to necessarily be bad, but B, I am going to go, should we have talked about that first, right? Anyway, that's neither here nor there. The unexpected story of Jesus is an unexpected story of grace because the magic of this time of year is the grace of God.

Because God saw humanity. I've been sharing this with somebody here recently. God saw humanity, and God saw that humanity was desperately separated from him because of sin. And in the moment that humanity, became desperately separated from him, he already had a plan in place for how he was going to deal with it. And he wasn't going to deal with it in any other way than personally himself.

By laying aside his glory, by coming down to dwell among us in order to be a sacrifice for us. And in order for him to come down and dwell among us and be a sacrifice for us, he had to be able to relate to us. And part of his being able to relate to us in his grace is coming from a family that was incredibly jacked up. A family history that was incredibly screwed up.

And so he identifies with all of the screwed up people of this world. Not because he had to, but because he chose to by his grace. The unexpected story of Jesus is an unexpected story of grace. Number two, the gospel redeems broken families. The gospel redeems broken families. Did you notice that almost every single one of these families had brokenness in it?

There was brokenness because of incest. There was brokenness because of adultery. There was brokenness because of selfishness. There was brokenness because of lying. There was brokenness because of deception. All of these families had some form of brokenness. It almost sounds like our culture today, doesn't it? Because I bet there's people in this room right now

who came from families where adultery caused brokenness. I bet there's families in this room where incest has caused brokenness. I bet there's families in this room where deception and lying lying, and selfishness has caused brokenness within your family. And you probably think to yourself, God can't ever redeem that. I just come from this broken family and that's just always

what I'm going to be, the guy that comes from the broken family. And God takes broken families and he redeems them. And he makes it into something beautiful. You may never see that redemption on this side of eternity. You may never see that redemption in your lifetime. But God is able to do it. And we can rest in his ability to do it. Because what this shows us is that broken families

are nothing new to God. Brokenness in your family is not something new. He's not like, well, I've never seen this situation before. God's like, it's okay. That's what Jesus came from. And so when you experience that, Jesus can go, I get it. My entire family history is screwed up. Right? Sometimes the tree doesn't branch out as well as it should. And I understand that. And so when you come to Jesus,

you know that he's the God who redeems broken families. Number three, God redeems broken people. Number four, God redeems broken people. And I know that in this world, there's a lot of broken people. Sometimes people are broken because of things that they've done. Sometimes people are broken because of things that have been done to them. And they still have questions about it.

I know people that are like, I don't understand where God was in this moment. Why wasn't God there for me in this moment? And all I can say is, I don't know. I can't answer that for you. God can answer that for you. But you won't get the answers unless you come to Jesus and let him redeem your brokenness. And once you do, he may give you answers on this side of eternity for why

that happened. He may never give you answers on this side of eternity for why that happened. But he will give you the answer to what he wants to use it for. He will give you the answer of what he wants to do with it as he redeems the brokenness of your life. Because that's what Jesus does. It's so beautiful to see that Jesus came from such an unexpected family. Because that unexpected

family gives hope to all of us who have come from brokenness. Amen? Let's all stand. And if you'd bow with me. Father, we come to you now. And Lord, I praise you that you are the God who redeems. I praise you that you're the God that takes all of the garbage and all of the ugliness and all of the things that we say, Lord, I don't know what you're ever going to do with this.

And you do something beautiful with it. And so, Lord, I pray that for everyone that's here this morning, that you would move in their hearts and lives. And Father, that we would be able to see Jesus, even in the midst of the things that we're experiencing in our lives. So, Father, move in our hearts, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.

Welcome, all ye faithful. We're here to see you this morning, and we just thank you for your word this morning. I ask your blessing upon us as we leave here today, and just continue to minister to us. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. You guys have a wonderful week. God bless you.