God’s Heart Revealed Through The Generations | Presence: Christmas at Riverbend (Part One)

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

Matthew 1 · chapter mention

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,

Matthew 1 · chapter mention

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.

Thank you for listening to Riverbend Church's podcast.

To find out more about this message or Riverbend Church,

connect with us online at Riverbend Church dot live.