God’s Dysfunctional Family — Rich Wilkerson Jr.

i wanted to draw your attention to matthew chapter one matthew chapter one as you're turning there i'm really proud to announce that starting in january we're kicking off a collection get ready this is a six-month collection if you say collection what do you mean well it's not really our collection but rather we decided as a team and as a staff that stepping into january that we're going to take six months diving in to the new testament gospel of mark and for six months we're going to begin to examine the book of mark mark is really a a book and a gospel account of jesus in action today we're going to read matthew 1 we're look at the genealogy of jesus when you get to mark jesus is already full grown he's just like he's the man and we're going to of course break some of these apart and and have different topics as we go into it but this one even as we get ready you know next week is reflex sunday i can't wait for that but then as we jump into the new year it's 21 days of prayer and fasting and we're going to take the first six months and as a church we're going to study one book of the bible and we're going to believe as we read god's word come on now god's word is going to read us as we look at the life of jesus come on we're going to look more like him act more like him think more like him and we're excited about that and so today though i want us to look at matthew chapter one and uh we're gonna read i'm gonna read the first seven verses and i'm gonna skip down to the bottom portion matthew chapter one starting in verse one it says this a record of the genealogy of jesus christ the son of david the son of abraham get ready abraham was the father of isaac isaac the father of jacob jacob the father of judah and his brothers judah the father of perez and zara whose mother was tamar you have a pen or something to underline maybe underline that right there whose mother was tamar perez the father of hezron hezron the father of ram ram the father of amidab amidab the father of nahashan the hashem the father of salman salman the father of boaz whose mother was rahab maybe underline that line as well boaz the father of obed whose mother was ruth underlying that one obed the father of jesse and jesse the father of king david david was the father of solomon whose mother had been uriah's wife underlined that part as well solomon the father of rehoboam rio baum the father of abijah abhijah the father of asa we could keep going but i will keep mispronouncing these names why don't we skip down to verse 16 and jacob the father of joseph the husband of mary of whom was born jesus who is called christ verse 17 thus there were 14 generations in all from abraham to david 14 from david to the exile to babylon and 14 from the exile to the christ i just thought today on christmas sunday i would take a few moments and i want to preach from the subject god's dysfunctional family god's dysfunctional family and i just thought on this christmas sunday some people could use some encouragement out there anybody can use a little bit of encouragement around your crazy family i think the holidays have the ability right at times to of course help us focus on all of the great things that we have and celebrate and have a heart full of gratitude for all that god has done but i've also learned about holidays like thanksgiving and of course like christmas that holidays also behave like a magnifying glass and many times they begin to expose the hurt the pain the shame the regret the abuse in fact research has shown us for many many years that times like christmas that things like mental health begin to get worse in fact things like suicide oftentimes even increase around what most of the people call the most happiest time of the year i don't know what your holiday plans look like this year i know that there's many that are tuning in from all over the world and in different parts of the world there's new rules and new restrictions of how we gather but no matter how we gather something tells me that all of us are gonna have to confront the fact that there's people in our life people around our life that when we think about them when we consider them at times it can bring about shame at times it can bring about how on earth can i move forward if i'm attached to that or if i went through this over here you know i really believe there's two types of families there's the family of origin which is your natural family which you were born into how many know none of us get to control that i think some of us at times wish we could control that uh but we don't we just were born into that but equally as powerful to your family of origin is what i call the family of choice that every one of us as we grow we get to pick and choose the people that we put in our life i think it's so important that you surround yourself with healthy people who you surround yourself with is who you become like that's one of the reasons why i love church so much because church is my family of choice it's not just something that i do like an event that i go to or a place that i show up in i don't just come to it to get content i don't just come to consume no this is my family of choice i get to give i get to be a part i get to be in this family i don't know this christmas season what it's going to look like around your tree i don't even want to begin to assume that i could even understand some of the hurt and some of the pain that some of you guys have experienced when it comes to your family of origin i do know this i love the quote from socrates he says the secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new i think one of the most beautiful things about the birth of jesus christ is that when jesus was born how many of you know that gave all of us a pathway to be born again what a beautiful truth today that those of us who are on the outside those of us who've come from a place that maybe we're not proud of or a place for us that we many times that feel like has held us back one of the great powerful truths of christmas is that when jesus was born in that manger it was the announcement to all of us that each and every one of us no matter where you come from no matter what's happened to you no matter what you have done you are invited to be born again into the family of god let me just prophesy of your life where you have been is not in charge of where you are going where you have been is not in charge of where you are going i want to speak to your future today i want to encourage you in this christmas season i don't know what pain you are having to confront but i know this i know that your purpose is greater than your pain and god has a plan for you today i thought it would be fun just for a moment i i want to preach the christmas story and you know what on christmas eve i'm going to i'm going to give you more of the christmas story i'm going to read from luke chapter 2 and just give you the christmas story but i just thought today on christmas sunday instead of just telling you the story of jesus's birth i thought it would be helpful for us to go backwards a little bit more how many of you know that we all come from somewhere we all have four fathers we all have an ancestry we all have a background whether you're proud of it or celebrate it we all came from somewhere and i thought today we would go backwards a little bit and we would discover some of jesus's ancestry we'd discover some of where jesus came from and how he got to the place of his birth see matthew chapter one is what we know as a genealogy now most of us if we're being honest if we ever do like one of those one-year study plans or if we do a soap journal and it gives us our assigned reading when we get to places like matthew chapter one a lot of us just go i'm done there we go we just we just tend to skim it right this passage is not really like very provocative when you just read it at at a glance it's not really full of much depth when you just kind of skim over it when you sort of see it that's why many times you don't hear a lot of sermons based upon matthew chapter one the genealogy yet i think why this genealogy is different from every other genealogy is right there in verse one this genealogy starts out by saying this is a record of the genealogy of jesus christ the son of david the son of abraham and can i just encourage you anything that has to do with jesus has power attached to it and rather than just glance over it can we just take a moment to dive in and discover if there's any truth for our lives today in 2020 i got good news for you there is it's important that you understand that matthew who's the writer of this text matthew is writing to jews maybe even better yet he's writing to at least jews that have converted to christian christianity so matthew as he's writing his letter he he has a a jewish mindset in his mind as he writes it's important because once again as you're reading this genealogy you might go this is just kind of boring or kind of lame i don't really know why this is relevant but really what matthew is doing is he's mimicking the book of genesis when you get into genesis you'll see these different portions of scripture that adam beget this person and that person be get that person and you just see these long records of genealogies and so matthew as he begins to write he knows that his audience is jewish and so as they're beginning to consume this this is a tip of the hat that this all of a sudden is a connection point for those that are reading and as he starts writing really those that are reading this they would have grown up in jewish homes and honestly as a jewish little boy growing up part of your studies or part of your tradition is that you would memorize the torah the torah is genesis exodus leviticus numbers and deuteronomy can you can you imagine that i mean walking around having that memorized and so as matthew starts going he starts to share this and starts to to give these points and as he does it everybody who's reading it these names that he starts listing they would have known these names some of these names maybe you're like i don't know what any of those names are but to those that were reading it they would have quickly gone i'm resonating with this i'm connecting with this i i understand this and matthew he's a good storyteller really what he does is he gives you three kind of famous names and he separates them the first name is he gives the name of abraham those of you that grew up in church like me that was one of the best worship songs ever i just i always think that we should put a drum beat to that thing and see if we can get the church going father abraham had many sons had many sons had father abraham i am one of them and so are you so let's just praise the lord write our it's just like it's the hokey pokey for christians it's powerful stuff we got to bring we got to bring hand motions back we got to get body language into it you know by the end of it you just look crazy you know but father abraham is the first famous name and he is the patriarch of judaism now i just want you to see this like everybody who's reading this would have taken pride in their culture and they would have taken pride based upon how they were born that's really the hebrew faith was i was born into this and as i'm born into this there's this sense of we're elite we're separate we are god's chosen people and so matthew just starts drafting off names the first time he gives abraham then he gives he does 14 generations past and then he gives maybe the most famous king that king's name is david and everyone knows dave and everyone wants to be like david then he says another 14 generations go by when they find themselves in the exile this is when the hebrew people were in captivity under the babylonian empire the assyrian empire the persian empire but then he says 14 more generations passed by and then the messiah jesus shows up on the scene so i want you to see what he's doing um when i was younger i i come from i love my ancestry i i'm i'm privileged that i was born into a four-generation pentecostal home and my dad would put me to bed at night and he would tell me stories of my forefathers in many ways i feel like i am my forefathers uh dream come true i think many of the things that we're getting to do today as a church was their prayers and their dreams from from decades and decades ago and my dad would tell me stories about my great uncle mark buntan and mark buntan was a missionary in calcutta india and in his 20s he he left america and he went to calcutta and he gave his life to calcutta as a missionary they built a world-class hospital they had feeding programs that would feed tens of thousands of people daily i mean just a man who just was of the people serving and giving his life for the gospel and so when my dad starts talking about uncle mark i just met him one time as a kid but as soon as he says his name i start to feel confidence i start to feel faith or or maybe my dad would tell me the stories of my uncle david wilkerson who david wilkerson in the 50s left his country pulpit and went to the heart of new york city and began to preach a revival to to gang members and to prostitutes and their stories of david wilkerson that while he was preaching gang members coming and picking fights with him but he never backed down he always operated in courage he always operated in bravery and from his life and from his ministry ministry continues to happen today even though he has passed away so in many ways what matthew is doing is is matthew is putting confidence in the people going i just want to remind you of of your of your ancestry i want to remind you of your history i want to remind you of where you came from so they hear names like abraham and they go i'm a risk taker man abraham stepped out into the unknown not knowing where he was going i can do that too he starts talking about dave and everyone's like i want to be like david david was the warrior poet he was the renaissance man right he was the guy who could write he was the guy who could battle i want to be like david he talks about solomon well everybody wants wisdom like solomon he's building confidence in the audience about where they came from but one of the most fundamental things that he does that's very very fascinating that everybody back then would have caught quickly is that when you study the genealogies from genesis and deuteronomy typically the way that you would begin a genealogy is that you would start with the most established and famous name you would start that way because that name would give credit to all of the other names the significance of the list of all the names would come from the name that everybody knew and recognized um for instance um we do this sometimes in society right like for instance probably my favorite rock band of all time is youtube uh stay out of the comments if you don't like it but if you know some songs put them in the comments right now i want to see yeah streets have no name i still haven't i still haven't found what i'm looking for you can worship to that i mean it just and and the front man is this guy named bono who i just think even like in his 60s is still the coolest guy ever you know but let's just say that like i wanted you know you to know that me and bono are best friends forever you know like that we're so tight um so let's just say okay in order to validate that i'd have to give a list of how i'm somehow connected to bono and so um um um bono's best friend um goes to uh to to a barber that um that my cousin uh goes to sometimes um so like you know uh me and bono are super tight because bono's best friend goes to a barber that my cousin goes to what up y'all i'm getting ready to be in a rock band well it's not exactly like that but it's kind of like that it's it's trying to to give validation to your connection this is how they would do the genealogy they would start with the strongest title yet what i want you to catch the reason why matthew 1 verse 1 is so important for us especially in christmas season is matthew flips the format up matthew flips the entire script up he gives all of these patriarchs of the jewish faith but he does not start with all of their names instead he starts with jesus's name as if to say jesus's value does not come from his family but rather his family's value comes from jesus oh friends this is our story as well that each and every one of us that our story doesn't have value because our name is front and center no your story has value today when jesus is placed at the top of the list when he becomes the priority matthew flips the format and it would have been provocative matthew is saying all of these names that you have heard about all of these names that have been building your faith all of these names that have been giving you confidence all of these names that you have been trying to represent and and follow in their footsteps they all pale in comparison to the name of jesus in fact all of judaism has come to this moment right here it all hinges on the birth of jesus christ oh baby christmas is powerful it's the power of christmas that we get our significance from jesus christ the messiah born in the manger and friend today it is true for you and i whether your past is good or your ancestry is bad the significance of your life is not based upon your merit or your pedigree it is based on the person of jesus jesus christ is the one who provides significance you start to go through this list of course there's these famous names but i suppose the thing that is so encouraging but also so scandalous about this list of all these forefathers that went before jesus it's not the strength of the people in this list come on how many know the real encouragement is the list of the weaknesses of the people in this list in fact if we're really being honest today as you start to study the history of jesus and his ancestry you cannot deny the simple fact that the ancestry of jesus is jacked up people and if this christmas you're having to confront the pain the trauma the abuse the depression the anxiety and if it's coming from the fact that you were born in a place that you're not proud of or that you wish you could escape i want to encourage you on this christmas sunday there is one who can sympathize with you for there is no doubt that there are men and women in this list who did great things but friends their strengths and many times are outweighed by their weaknesses i mean abraham was amazing no doubt he took a risk but abraham also did some jacked up stuff you know that abraham put his wife into a harem twice all because he was afraid i mean that's that's kind of crazy in fact he got rich from pharaoh because pharaoh was so pleased with his wife another time abraham because he couldn't conceive children and because he couldn't wait on god's timing and god's promise he tried to speed up god's timing he slept with his maidservant hagar she gave birth to a son named ishmael but as the son came abraham cast hagar and ishmael outside of the camp i don't know about you but this is the father of faith but you could also say this dude was a jerk this was 20 20 he'd be canceled i mean go through the list judah like judah's on that list i'll tell you his story in a moment but this joker slept with his daughter-in-law you heard it his daughter-in-law jacob his name means deceiver like he cheated his brother out of his blessing he was a liar david murderer had an affair i just want you to understand that the people in jesus's genealogy are jacked up just like you are and just like those that have gone before you i i want to introduce you to god's dysfunctional family and i wonder today if god's dysfunctional family can bring you and i any sort of hope any sort of encouragement any sort of recognition that his grace and his love and his mercy has not left us but he's right with us i i suppose the thing that's the most scandalous on the list and maybe this won't hit you that hard because it's 20 20. the thing that's the most scandalous about this list is as matthew was writing remember matthew's writing to a jewish audience and everything he's writing is on purpose he's drafting off of the book of genesis he's copying that flow but as he's doing it he starts with the greatest name on this list is jesus it's not abraham it's not jacob it's not judah it's not solomon the greatest name is jesus but then what he also does which is never before done in jewish genealogies is that he includes five different women you say it doesn't seem like that big of a deal but you've got to understand that middle eastern culture that women were completely undervalued they were seen as property they were treated in so many cases like trash they were discarded they didn't have a voice they weren't unable to teach yet somehow matthew chooses to include the women in this list and as you study this woman everyone say five i just keep being drawn to things that have five in the scriptures five-year-old five years of church five is the number of grace it just keeps jumping up at me but all five of these women they all have unique stories and i just i don't know if you know their stories because once again you might just read past you're like i don't really know like why that why is her name in there and who is she well the first woman that he names is is tamar everyone say tamar tamar if you've never heard a story before it is a crazy scandalous story tamar is the daughter-in-law of judah judah is one of the 12 sons of joseph and and judah has a son his name is er er that's pretty dope er how are you my name's er okay emergency room no er okay um er passes away as er passes away tamar is left now in that culture when a husband dies the father-in-law is supposed to give another son because everything back then was about passing on a legacy about having more children but judah doesn't do right by tamar instead judah the father-in-law lies and promises her that he's going to give her his youngest son but as the youngest son gets older he never fulfills his promise and so tamar is left without creating a legacy for judah here's the story gets really really strange judah's wife passes away as he gets older and one day he goes to another town and in that town tamar hears that he's going there so tamar if you can believe this disguises herself like a prostitute and as a prostitute she gets her father-in-law to be tricked and she sleeps with her father-in-law he has no way to pay her in the moment and so she convinces him to give his seal and his staff and he says i'm gonna send a goat this is bible times you know a goat yeah it was a lot of money back then i'm gonna send a goat and i want you to send me my seal and staff back well what happens is is that he goes away sends the goat but when he sends the goat no seal or staff comes and he's like what just happened where'd this prostitute go no one knows where this woman's at three months later tamar shows up on the scene and now she's pregnant when judah sees that she's pregnant he wants to have her killed for being a prostitute and before she's about to be killed she comes and she presents the staff and the seal and she says oh the one whose child i am carrying these are his items judah repents before god and recognizes his sin that he was going to have this woman accused for his very sin i just want you to see this woman is one of the great great great great great great great great grandmothers of jesus but the story is there's other rahab is on the list do you know who rahab is rahab is a prostitute and a canaanite woman the canaanites remember they are the people that stood in the way of the israelites inheriting the promised land if you remember the story joshua takes up leadership he sends two spies into jericho to scout out the land when they get there there's this woman named rahab and she happens to hide the spies and she protects them and they say thank you for protecting us our life for your life because you protected us we're gonna spare you and so rahab's like great they say put out a scarlet red cord outside the window and we will know that's you when we come to take down the city rahab the prostitute is part of jesus's genealogy what i want you to notice about both of these women is both of these women are considered outsiders but these outsiders in many ways behaved more faithful than the insiders please understand this about god that god is not pleased with your efforts and god is not pleased with your righteousness god is pleased by your faithfulness god is pleased when you choose to put him first ruth is on the list most of us know the story of ruth she has a whole book in the bible named after her but do you know where ruth is from ruth is a moabite woman you talk about an outsider ruth is she's an outsider do you know where the moabites were enemies of the israelites but do you know how the moabites even came to be it's just you gotta these stories are interesting and they weave together the moabites abraham had a nephew named lot there's a beautiful story of abraham and lot and as they step into the land that god was promising them they look out and abraham says okay lot you pick a or b which land do you want and one land was beautiful and gorgeous the other land didn't look so good and lot of course he played the short game he's like i want that beautiful land and lot goes to that beautiful land that land was called sodom and gomorrah what i love about god is that so many people so often they don't recognize that god's blessings the scripture says the steps of a righteous man are ordered by god meaning that when you're in christ jesus people get so confused about what's god's will is it a or b is it left or right don't get me wrong there are moments you have to make the right decision but i just know this about god that when i'm in christ jesus when i'm listening to the holy spirit it doesn't really matter if i go a or b it doesn't matter if i go left or right he's going to order my steps blessing is not on a place the blessing's on a person [Applause] abrahams i'll go to the land it doesn't look so good and guess what abraham becomes the father of a nation if you remember the story of lot god is angry at sodom and gomorrah crazy stuff was going down in sodom and gomorrah and god says lot you got to get out of town i'm going to spare you and your family and god said the only condition is don't look back don't look back you want to you want to you want to change don't focus on the past where you have been is not in charge of where you're going don't look back look forward the apostle paul said one thing i do i forget what is behind and i press on towards the mark but what happens lot's wife looks back this is like some full-on chronicles of narnia stuff she turns to a pillar of salt and lot is left with his two daughters in a cave if you know the story i mean you just can't this is crazy stuff that took place in the bible the women they can't have children because there's no one there and they need to have a legacy because that's where the value came from so what do they do they looked around and there was no one i always think it's interesting sometimes people so desperate for a relationship they look around and there's no one in sight so they just choose the only thing that's inside and they got their father drunk and they both slept with their dad and lot's son-in-law his name was moab hence the moabite people and ruth is a moabite woman who praised god she was faithful to an israelite woman named naomi naomi was a widow ruth became a widow and naomi caught a sense of god's will it's time to go back home to the place where god has blessed us and she said to ruth ruth you stay back you've already fulfilled all of your duties and obligations to me but i love ruth who says no no no no when i made a commitment my commitment doesn't change with a circumstance so wherever you go i'm going to go your people are now my people and your god is now going to be my god even though i'm a moabite i'm having my family of choice i'm choosing to be faithful to you ruth is the great great great great grandmother of jesus but it's not just ruth there's another woman's name in there in fact her name is not even put in there instead it says you're the wife of uriah the hittite the wife of uriah the hittite is a woman named bathsheba i don't know if you know bathsheba's story but bathsheba her name bathsheba she's famous for taking a bath it's a true story she's famous bathsheba is famous for taking a bath i don't know how that happened but she is bathsheba if you know the story of bathsheba the scripture says that when the kings go off to war david stayed back david maybe the greatest king that israel ever saw in fact when the stories were being told it's like wow david's incredible and it would have it would have built faith yet there's this little part of david's story and it's uriah the hittites wife hittites once again people that don't belong they're outsiders bathsheba one day was taking a bath and david noticed her it's amazing that when you don't do the things that you're committed to doing that you've you've declared david was supposed to be at war with the men but instead he stayed back season of laziness temptation caught him and he saw her and took her as his own she became pregnant of course and david now had to had to get rid of the husband so he had uriah who was a great soldier in david's army he put him on the front lines on purpose so that uriah would be killed in battle i i just i'm taking time i know these are like a lot of different stories at once and you're saying why are you telling me all these stories i just want you to see this picture you got tamar who sleeps with her father-in-law and you've got rahab the prostitute and you got ruth the moabite woman and you've got bathsheba the woman who had an affair and it's just it's confusing and it's like yo this is this is some dysfunctional stuff but one of the things i so love about the bible and so love about god is that god is not afraid of our humanity [Music] let me know if you're like writing a book which is meant to help establish and start a religion there's probably some things that you should leave out if you're trying to write a manuscript to recruit people to say this is the way to do it i would probably try to only showcase all of its leaders and forefathers in their best state in their most beautiful state but not god he doesn't shy away from the fact that we are born broken he doesn't shy away from the fact that we are fragile he doesn't shy away from the fact that we mess up royally and he's not afraid to be associated with us god's family is dysfunctional not just because the genealogy proves it but because i prove it have you had someone look at you and say how on earth could you find yourself being associated with that person i think the answer is really simple because jesus choose to associate with me i i don't know what you're going through today but like matthew 1 before it even gets to his birth the story was beginning a long time ago and the story didn't stop because of people's mistakes because of people's downfalls because of people's mishaps the story continued i think on this christmas sunday as i look at for these women it's like don't lose your present to your past i don't know what is about god but god always runs to those that are broken god is always for the outsider god is always for the one who feels excluded who feels cut out it's like he runs towards that place towards the disenfranchised all of these women have a different story and they all got to that place in many ways not because of what they chose but because of what chose them and you and i i don't know what this christmas season looks like but some of us we keep living in the past and we keep rehearsing it over and over again and it's like every christmas we come together all it is is this moment for us to look at all that we've lost all that we've missed and i just want to speak today that christmas is powerful because as jesus was born he was declaring that your present doesn't have to be stopped because of your past there is a bright future and a story that continues to move forward your family is dysfunctional so is god's but i love these women because it's just simple they didn't let others around them define where they were going and i would just say to everybody who's watching around don't let the rejection of others override the approval of god [Music] don't do it don't don't do don't let other people who say you don't belong make you for one second think that you don't belong all four of these women they were told they didn't belong they were from different nations there from different tribes they were women this is like scandalous stuff anybody today who doesn't believe that women are valuable that women can do all the same things that men can do don't actually study what god is saying here because god places value on women 2 000 years ago you belong you belong i suppose the biggest thing i learned about these four women is that god he's honored by faith not fame he's honored by faith not fame you might not have known these women's stories they're not necessarily the most famous women you know you don't go to people's houses and see a statue of tamar there's not a lot of rahab statues around but they were faithful they didn't give up they didn't quit [Music] what's amazing is that there's these four women but then there's this fifth woman everyone say five five the number of grace and this fifth woman well it's the name mary you say why would matthew be sharing all of these women in these stories because when these young children and when these older men and women read this genealogy account they would know the stories and why are these stories being inserted into this moment i think in many ways it's because he's getting ready in matthew chapter one to introduce another scandalous story yo anybody who looks at the christmas story and just thinks it's peaches and cream haven't taken the time to consider deeply what exactly is going on mary a 15 year old virgin try that story sometime has to come home to her fiance joseph hey i'm having a baby it's god's son what this is crazy you don't think people were talking you don't think people were wondering yet i believe that matthew was building a case because as you get into matthew one and two you start to see the record of jesus being bored you see the christmas story unfold and it looks like the story is starting but the story had begun a long time ago and the story has been built upon not perfect people but rather faithful people people who were obedient when i think about mary she was obedient how will this be and the angel says the spirit of the lord will come upon you and may i encourage you today for every how you have in your life for every challenge that is in front of you how will it come to be the spirit of god will come upon you and empower you if you'll just stay faithful i know but rich i got some dysfunction around me i got some problems and i got some weaknesses apparently so did jesus unlike the rest of us is the only one who lived a spotless and sinless life and because he lived a sinless life he becomes the perfect sacrifice for you and i [Music] god's family is dysfunctional because you and i are in god's family but this is the message of grace that god doesn't choose perfect people he's simply looking for available people and faithful people and people who say i'll get back up i'll go again he's just looking for girls like mary that would say i'll just trust you at your word he's just looking for men like joseph that would say this is crazy what you've called me to but i'm going to trust your word over my situation and i'm going to believe that your grace will empower me forward so this christmas if you're thinking about quitting [Music] if you're overwhelmed with the pain of the past if your current situation does not look like the dream destination [Music] i would say don't give up i would say don't quit now i would say hang on tight because it's from this lineage and it's from this dysfunctional story that the greatest miracle came about i wonder what type of miracle could come out of your dysfunction today i wonder what god could do amidst the pain that you've been walking in you know last week i told a miracle story you got to go back you got to watch the message to hear the entire story but essentially five years ago vue church started and simultaneously as we were starting to form this community a woman named rajni about 10 blocks from us in the design district one of the most expensive portions of real estate in miami was constructing a building for god's glory five years ago neither one of us knew each other but five years ago we were both being faithful we were both being obedient didn't mean that we didn't have problems doesn't mean that we didn't make mistakes but we were just being obedient and faithful and five years into it god brings both parties together for a miracle story that we're now going to own our own piece of property a piece of property that is a long-term real estate play that is worth millions and millions of dollars today we couldn't afford it on our own but people were faithful and people were generous and people brought their best and we're gonna own this property for god's glory [Music] yeah here's what's amazing telling that story today doesn't require any faith [Music] telling that story today is just an observation that leads to gratitude because it's already happened you know what a better way to view that moment a better way to view that moment is thank you god for what you started five years ago and now today lord as i'm standing here in december of 2020 i wonder what miracles you have waiting for me in five years i wonder even though i feel like things are dysfunctional around me what could be awaiting me in 10 years if i'll if i'll stay faithful i think one of the most powerful things here is what it says in verse 17. thus there were 14 generations in all from abraham to david 14 from david to the exile to babylon 14 from the exile to christ remember jesus is the one that brings significance to all of it they would have known this ancestry in this history but matthew breaks down the math a little bit he shows us that there's three portions of 14 generations so it's 14 generations times 3 which equals 42 generations a generation is typically defined as any portion of time from 20 to 40 years let's just go with 40. so 42 times 40 equals 1 680. what i want you to understand is that when god made a promise to abraham it didn't take a month it didn't take two months didn't take a year didn't take five years didn't take 10 years didn't take 20 years some of us right now we're giving up because in one year it hasn't gotten better some of us are quitting because it hasn't turned around yet for us in five years but i wonder if you could see yourself in the genealogy of jesus not as a perfect person but as someone who would recognize i'm dysfunctional i got some problems but thank god for his grace i'm just going to stay faithful i'm just going to stay committed i'm just going to stay obedient i'm just going to stay on course because if christmas tells me anything it tells me that god's promises although at times they feel delayed they are never denied just ask abraham it was just 1 680 years before the real promise the real promise that jesus christ the one that would invite the world into the dysfunctional family of god up until jesus you had to be born into it but now those of us who choose jesus it might not have been our family of origin but it now becomes our family of choice [Music] i choose jesus i pick jesus and like the apostle paul says i am grafted in to this legacy i am grafted in to this lineage i am grafted in to this genealogy i am no different from tamar i am no different from bathshema i am no different from ruth i am no different from mary i am just like a man just like a woman but i have chosen the one category that i will be just like them is imma remain faithful imma stay the course there's no telling what god can do not overnight but over time because i'm gonna play the long game even though things around me seem weak even those things seem challenging even those things seem dysfunctional i'm going to believe in a god who's the author professor and finisher of our faith [Music] hey rich wilkerson here i want to say a big thank you for watching today's content believing and trusting that it impacted you and if it did help you or and encourage in any way i would love for you to like it and share it with some other people make sure to subscribe to the vu church youtube page where you can get more content just like this and while you're there go peruse the gallery as they say and see past talks and pass content that i believe is going to help you i love you best yet to come

Channel: VOUS Church

Views: 14,201

Rating: 4.9615383 out of 5

Keywords: vous, vous church, rich wilkerson, rich wilkerson jr, dawnchere wilkerson, miami, church, live stream, worship, church live, live stream church, sermon, miami fl, miami chuch, preaching, the gospel, good news, the message of jesus, jesus

Id: MsJjLmd-1yU

Length: 49min 0sec (2940 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 20 2020