When the Expected Happens in an Unexpected Way, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Matthew shows us that God's ways are unexpected, but they are wonderful. You know, nobody saw this coming, right? They thought he was going to come as a mighty conqueror. They thought he would come as a judge to end all oppression. But if that's how Jesus had come, if he had come like they expected, he could not have helped us.

He would have crushed us. Well, welcome back to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer.

I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. If there's one part of scripture that most of us skip over, it's the genealogies. You know, those long lists of names about who begot who. And let's be honest, you started reading through, say, Matthew, and you kind of skimmed and skipped ahead until you got to the good stuff, right?

But today on the program, Pastor J.D. explains that those lists are actually critical to understanding God's plan. We're looking at the genealogy of Jesus, learning how God has been working through all of history to reveal the plan of salvation. It's part of our teaching series called The Whole Story.

And as always, you can catch up on previous messages or study the transcripts when you visit jdgreer.com. But right now, let's dive back into the message we started yesterday called When the Expected Happens in an Unexpected Way. Matthew, chapter one, verse one, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Notice, verse one, that Matthew is going to call his whole gospel the book of the genealogy. In other words, all the rest of the gospel of Matthew is an explanation of what he introduces in the first 17 verses.

Then he points out at the end the organization pattern, and that's important, too. He says there are three sets of 14 generations. Now, 14 is two sevens, and seven is the biblical number of completion or perfection. But he presents it in this way, according to these three sets of 14, to show that God has superimposed his perfection onto world history, shaping it entirely and perfectly around Jesus, which is number one. Matthew is trying to show you that though it often does not seem so, Jesus is the center of history. Matthew shows you that despite what it looks like on the surface, God is guiding all of history according to his perfect plan with Jesus Christ right in the center. And what that means for Matthew in his day, and what it means for us in our day, is that despite what it looks like on the surface, the powers of the world, those who think they control everything, are really an illusion. The book of Proverbs explains the king's hand is like a river in the hand of the Lord, and then he turns it whatever way he chooses, and the way he chooses to turn it is in pursuit of the great commission with Jesus at the center.

A sign of Christian maturity is when you begin to view everything in your life, every blessing, every teardrop, every heartache, and how it can be used to help the great commission, the mission of Jesus, which brings me to point number two. Matthew shows us that God is working even in the chaos and the junk of your life. This genealogy is unusual because typically genealogy is only listed out the father's names. That's the way they kept record. The reason that he mentioned Zara and Tamar is because he wants you to think about that story. The story is found in Genesis 38. There's a man named Judah, and Judah has three sons. One of his sons, his oldest son, is married to a girl named Tamar, but his oldest son dies, leaves Tamar as a widow before they can have children.

And so in those days, the law was that if your brother died and his wife didn't have children, that you were supposed to take his wife into your house and you were supposed to give him children through her, and that's the way you would continue the family line. So Onan, who is the second brother, refuses to have kids with her, so God gets mad and kills him. So now the custom is Tamar is supposed to go to the third son, right? But Judah, the dad, is like, okay, this girl Tamar has been married to two of my sons and they're both dead.

I'm starting to think this girl's bad luck. So he stalls and like, you know, can't pay for the wedding. Well, Tamar gets really ticked off about this because she figures out, you know, I'm never going to get married and never going to have kids.

And so she takes matters into her own hands. So she goes to the place one night where Judah likes to go to the bar and waits till, you know, he gets a little tipsy. She gets him crunk and then seduces him to sleep with her. He doesn't realize it's his daughter-in-law because, you know, he's so crunk. So they sleep together and she gets pregnant with Perez and Zerah.

Okay. So three months go by, she starts to show that she's pregnant. So Judah says, my daughter-in-law is pregnant. She obviously got pregnant out of wedlock.

Doesn't realize it's his babies, of course. So she's got to be stoned. So they dragged this girl out to stone her. And right before they stoned her, she reaches inside of her pocket book and says, wait, I've got the belt of the man whose babies they are. And she pulls out Judah's belt.

Now talk about an awkward moment, right? Are you feeling better about your family yet? This is some messed up stuff. God, here's what Matthew's trying to show you. God arranges even all of this messed up dysfunctional stuff into his perfect 14. And I share that because there's a lot of you that got some messed up dysfunctional families of your own.

Isn't that right? But what you should see is that God has one overriding purpose in your life. And God stamps his perfect 14 on even the chaotic mess of your life. Here's the third thing he shows you. Number three, he shows you that the gospel is for the outsider. Here what Matthew does is he shows you that four women, all of whom have a shady past, are going to be a part of Jesus's line. And just in case you miss the fact that there are these chaotic stories, he puts in detail.

So you'll think about it. Verse five, you got Rahab, another prostitute, the second prostitute in Jesus's line, a Gentile that God saves from Jericho. Then you got Ruth, the Moabite homeless girl. Verse six, you got David and the wife of Uriah. Why would he say wife of Uriah and not just give her name? Her name is Bathsheba.

Well, because he's trying to make you think of the story. She's not just Bathsheba, she was David's best friend's wife. And David slept with her and then had Uriah killed to cover it up.

And all that is supposed to give you a very clear message. Jesus came to include you. You see a friend of mine says it like this, these names are included in the line that leads to Christ so that you and I can be assured that our names can be included in the line that leads from Christ. Christ coming as King, perfect King, would have crushed us. Had Jesus actually come as the fair judge to repay all evil the way these disciples wanted, that would have left us all without hope. But a Christ that came with the blood of adulterers and murderers and Gentiles flowing in his veins, that's a God who can identify with us and save us. He took our sins and our sorrows, we say, and he made him his very own. He took on our sinful flesh. He bore our burden to Calvary and there he suffered and died alone. Because he was made sinful flesh like mine, he can identify with sinful flesh like mine and he can not just judge, he can redeem and he can save. And see that means two things about us. Number one, it means that even if your personal history, the story of your life reads like this genealogy.

If it's filled with embarrassing mistakes, it means that God can still redeem it all into his perfect 14. You might think your life is over this weekend. You might have come into this church, the marriage just dissolved, the divorce is final. The kids will no longer speak to you. Maybe you lost your job again.

Maybe you got kicked out of school. You think your life is over. This genealogy shows you that Jesus may just have begun his greatest work in you. He is a savior who specializes in the broken and the weak.

That means that he can help you. Second thing, it shows us some of churches that our message at this church is primarily for the outsider. We have always said that we do not want to be a church that simply puts on a better show than the other churches in the area so that we can attract bored Christians from other churches who can come and be a part of our club. We know that the ministry that God has given us is primarily to be focused on those that are outside of the community that you and I would be a part of. Because we are not trying to do, we don't do that because it helps the attendance at our church. We do that because we know that people who have been impacted by the gospel become like the gospel.

And we know that Jesus came for the outsider and that means our focus also was going to be on the outsider. The fourth thing this genealogy shows us, Matthew shows us that Jesus is our long-awaited rest. Now it shows you at the beginning that this genealogy is three sets of 14. Right? I know it's been a while since you've been in math class but three 14s is the same as six sets of seven.

Fair? Which would make Jesus the seventh seven. Seven is the most significant biblical number.

It is the number of completion. It signifies rest. God rested on the seventh day. That's the Sabbath. Every seven years in Israel, according to the book of Leviticus, the farmland was supposed to rest.

They let the soil lie fallow so that the nutrients could replenish. And then on the year of the seventh seven, the 50th year, that was called the year of Jubilee. That was a special time in which all debts were forgiven in Israel and all indentured servants were freed. When Matthew shows you that Jesus comes as the seventh seven, he is trying to say that Jesus is the ultimate year of Jubilee. He is the ultimate Sabbath.

The ultimate rest. In him all debts will be forgiven. All slaves will be freed. He came not just to redeem what is broken and dysfunctional.

He came to set the prisoners free. And I know that every week into this church we got people that are under bondage of all kinds. We got some that are under the bondage of addiction. Some that are under the bondage to relationships that you know they shouldn't be in their lives but they can't shake them. Some that are under the bondage of just a destroyed self-image. Some that are under the bondage of being controlled by money or controlled by the praise of people. Some are overwhelmed by the burden of of trying to please God or trying to please others.

Some feel crushed by the burden of trying to sustain themselves, to take care of their family, to provide for themselves, to make life work. Jesus proclaims in Matthew, come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. This is what I wish I could get some of you to see about the Gospel because you think of it exactly the opposite. You think that coming to Jesus takes you from a place of rest, moral rest, to where you got to feel guilty all the time and you got burdens on you and my job every week is to tell you how bad you are at doing them and make you feel guilty and put more burden on you. That's not the Gospel. The Gospel is that it begins in rest. It begins in rest by me proclaiming to you that the price for your sin has been paid not one ounce by you but all by Jesus. That God gives you his favor not in response to how well you do, how much you pray, how much you read the Bible. He gives his favor to you as a gift in Jesus Christ. Yes you work as a Christian. Yes you'll find Christians are often very busy people but we do it not in order to earn the favor of God.

We do it in joyful response to having been given the favor of God and that's a totally different kind of work. One leads you to weariness because it's never enough. The other leads you to overflowing joy where you just say I love doing what I do because it's the overflow of my heart. There are many of you that are overwhelmed by this burden of trying to please people. All your life you've tried to earn the acclaim of others.

When you have Jesus's favor, when you have Jesus's favor you find yourself relieved of the burden of always trying to prove yourself to everybody. Early on in my ministry I realized I was tired. I wasn't tired because I was working too hard. I wasn't tired because the demands of this church were too much. I was tired because I was always living for the approval of different groups of people and it never seemed to be enough.

You'll never realize how tired you are from trying to earn the love and the attention of others until you've been freed from it for even just a little bit. Two Olympic divers from the United States who won the silver medal. How many of you saw this?

David Badaya I think and Steel Johnson if I got their names right. So they get the silver medal and the NBC reporter goes up after they win and she asked a couple of questions and then she asked, I think it was David, she said, so she said you know were you really nervous for this last dive knowing that this was it? Like you know like this would determine whether or not you would get a medal?

And she puts a mic in his face and he said no. He said because we know that our identity is in Christ not how well we do on this platform. And that means that whether we get a medal or not our identity is fixed and we don't depend on this or placing in the we don't depend on that for our identity it's in Christ. Watch this other interviewer where he was explaining he said you know if we belly flop we get a perfect 10 we come down with the same identity we were up on the platform with and that identity is in Christ. The interviewer was like turns to the other guy puts in his face and this guy was like he's like well I'm gonna say my friend David said it exactly right our identity is in Christ not in how well we perform. Do you understand the confidence that can give you in life when you are relieved of the burden of trying to prove yourself by how pretty you are when you no longer feel like I gotta be the prettiest girl in school I gotta weigh this or I gotta look like that or I gotta make this much money or I gotta dress like this in order to earn people's approval it just suddenly becomes freeing because I now have the opinion the highest opinion of the only one whose opinion really matters and that frees me from tyranny to your opinions. Some of you are under that bondage and what Jesus says is I can give you rest from that and then what's even more when you know that you're his favorite child when you really realize you're his favorite child the worries of the world lift off of your shoulders because you start to say things like Paul what then shall I say to these things if God is for me who could be against me he who did not spare his own son but freely gave him up for us all will he not also whip him graciously give us all things it won't be one Jesus said who won't the one who knows how many hairs are on your head and knows when one sparrow falls out of the sky won't he also care for you why should I be discouraged why should the shadows come why should my heart be lonely and long for heaven and home because Jesus is my portion my constant friend is he his eyes on the sparrow I know he watches me you'll find that there is a rest that goes with being a child of God that is freeing like nothing else kind so Jesus says come unto me all you who labor in a heavy laden and I will give you rest and that is what some of you most need this weekend is you need rest from trying to find acceptance rest from trying to prove yourself all the time rest from bearing the weight of the world on your shoulders that rest is in Jesus lastly and this is probably the big point for today that pulls them all together number five Matthew shows us that God's ways are unexpected God's ways are unexpected but they are wonderful you know nobody saw this coming right they they thought he was going to come as a mighty conqueror they thought he would come as a judge to end all oppression but if that's how Jesus had come if he had come like they expected he could not have helped us he would have crushed us would have crushed us so he came in a totally unexpected way but that wasn't for our frustration he came in a totally unexpected way for our salvation and here's what I want to ask you listen if that's what God did back then if he saved them in an unexpected way if he came unexpected because he was trying to save them not frustrate them is it not also possible that when God does something unexpected in your life today that it doesn't mean that he's forgotten you it doesn't mean he's neglected you it means that he is working on a better grander plan that you just don't see yet doesn't the coming of Jesus teach you at least that there's a verse that Christians love to quote Isaiah 55 8 and 9 you probably have heard it quoted my ways are not your ways my thoughts are your not your thoughts for as high as the heavens are above the earth the heavens are above the earth that's how much higher my thoughts are than your thoughts and we apply that to a situation where we don't understand most people don't know that that verse was written primarily about God's plan of salvation go back and read the context God was saying my I'm going to come in a different way and save you differently than you expect because my thoughts and your thoughts are not the same I understand more than you do what I ask you is is trying to show you is if God's plan of salvation happened in an unexpected way doesn't it make sense that God will continue to do things in your life that might confuse you but it doesn't mean that he's forgotten you it just means that he's weaving all of this according to his perfect 14 a better plan than you would have originally thought of for yourself anyway there are how many of you just out of curiosity how many of you are what we would call planners I mean like I mean like OCD I make a plan to have a plan kind of planner go ahead go put your hand up just put it up there all right how many of you what we call spontaneous right put your hand up you you like to think of yourselves of adventurous but you're the ones that us planners are going to be taken care of when you're old okay just so we know um I am a total planner actually truth is I hate to plan but I hate even more than I hate planning I hate not having a plan and what I most hate is when things don't go according to my plan right by the way if you're single and that's you don't have children definitely don't take them overseas for seven weeks we'll just leave it at that um in a sense I think all of us whether you consider yourself a planner or not I think all of us are like that nobody likes to have their plans changed they don't like to have their expectations unmet right doesn't doesn't the phrase there's been a change of plans doesn't that just make you cringe but nothing good ever comes after that right like we were gonna go out to dinner tonight but there's been a change of plans that's always bad I want you to realize listen that the greatest things that God did in the bible always happen when God deviated from the plans everything about that they always happen when God deviated from the plan the thing about Mary we're talking about the birth of Jesus Mary was not planning on getting pregnant was she when Gabriel shows up and said hey I know you're not married but you're going to be pregnant that was a change of plans Mary was planning on a wedding but God was planning to change the world God's plan was better there are things that happen in your life that are unexpected and unplanned and God is not doing it the way that he obviously should do it Matthew says it's always for your salvation you see there is a genealogy that leads to Christ that is filled with randomness and chaos and dysfunction and confusion but it was a perfect 14 that led to Jesus there's also a genealogy that leads from Jesus and it also is filled with randomness and chaos and dysfunction and confusion but at the end you'll see God flip it over and it's all done according to these perfect 14s and it's all going to be done with Jesus at the center you see if you're not a Christian listen to this if you've never met Jesus everything in your life up to this point has been designed to bring you to Jesus it's been God trying to reveal Jesus in you to bring forth Jesus from you if you are a Christian then everything ad after Jesus in your life is designed to reveal Jesus through you because God is writing the plan for history it is according to a perfect 14 and Jesus at this is at the center so let me say it one more time if you're not a Christian everything in your life up to this point everything every good every bad part of it has been designed to bring forth Jesus in you have you ever received him if you are a Christian everything in your life from that point has been designed to reveal Jesus through you because he's the center let me ask you to bow your heads if you would all of our campuses bow your heads let me ask let me state that last thing in the form of a question if you're not a Christian do you realize maybe he's been speaking to you and your blessings making you thankful he's been trying to wake you up through your pain telling you you need him have you ever surrendered to him y'all the good news salvation is easy it's simple simple because Jesus did all the work he paid it all he came as the savior the redeemer all you have to do is receive him you could receive him by saying something to him and receive him by saying something to him like this lord Jesus i believe that you're the savior i believe you came for me say it to him in your in your heart i receive you as my savior i surrender to you as lord if you've already done that you know that you're a follower of Jesus maybe right now you just say to him lord Jesus help me to trust you that in the good and the bad you're revealing Jesus through me to others to my children to my neighbors to my parents god we pray we pray according to matthew one we pray that your perfect 14 would come through in our lives and that we would trust you every step of the way reveal Jesus through us to others and reveal Jesus in us we pray in Christ's name are you trusting Jesus to reveal himself to others through you are you offering yourself as a living sacrifice if not you can start today you're listening to summit life with pastor jd greer and a message from our teaching series called the whole story if you tune in a little late today or if you've missed any previous programs in this study you can find them all online at jdgrier.com and when you give today we have a unique resource that we'd like to send you to say thanks it's a set of books of the bible cards and you know jd one of my favorite things about this teaching series that we've been in lately is how you're challenging us to take a fresh look at these familiar bible stories yeah you know i think sometimes especially for those of us who've been in church for a while we can get so familiar with these bible stories that they almost start to sound a little bit cliche they're right like like we're no longer looking for god to use them to speak to us so in this series i'm hoping you'll be able to to set those preconceived notions aside and just see these stories through the new lens in a fresh way and show you maybe this is the greatest thing show how they all point to to the cross to go along with the series and to help with that we've got the perfect resource simply called the books of the bible cards it's a set of cards that'll help you as you read books of the bible to connect that book with the context of the original audience and maybe even more importantly the overall scope of the one story the bible is is telling they give you details about who the book was written to and when it was written three key truths that are gleaned from the book where the book points to jesus some reflection questions um i can promise you you want to keep these handy and as you're into books of the bible and you're like who is this for what are they saying you can pull out this this card and it'll help you connect on what you're reading to the the bigger picture of what god is saying join us by giving today and remember to ask for your copy of the books of the bible cards you're welcome to request it when you support this ministry with a donation of twenty five dollars or more call eight six six three three five fifty two twenty that's eight six six three three five fifty two twenty or if it's easier you can give online at jdgrier.com i'm molly vidovich inviting you to join us tomorrow as we look at the ministry of john the baptist see you wednesday on summit life with jd greer today's program was produced and sponsored by jd greer ministries