Surprising Family

Christmas surprises. That is the title of our December message series. We already got a great surprise this morning with an amazing total for the second harvest food drive. And again, my deepest thanks to you as a pastor. That is just so encouraging because I just see that as the fruit of the spirit just blossoming forth in your lives. Again, I'm René, one of the pastors here. Super glad that you're joining us. And if you want to follow along with the message today, you can look at your notes. And if you're joining us on the live stream, you can just go to TLC.com. TLC.org/notes.

This series is about the Christmas story as told in the gospel of Matthew, which is full of one surprise after another. But before we get into that, I just want to share a little bit about my Thanksgiving. Erica was saying earlier that she fed 30 people at her Thanksgiving. So I was at a Thanksgiving meal of our family and there were 120 people there. Let me just show you this picture. We were actually in South Texas with my wife's relatives. They had a big Thanksgiving family reunion and most of the people in this picture are my wife's cousins. And so I am related by marriage to all of these people. I spent four days with my wife's relatives. I'm super glad to be back at work. Those two sentences are not related. No, just kidding. We, uh, we had a great time.

One of the coolest things was my wife's mom June is an expert in family genealogy, for family history. And she brought this huge tube that she had put together of one giant architectural piece of paper after another, just taped together. They had to put three tables together to unroll this thing. It just went on and on and on and on and on. And what she did was she traced back the family history all the way back on one side to the 1100s. And as you can imagine, there's some interesting people that it turns out my wife is related to. For example, she's related to Patrick Henry, the famous founding father who said, give me liberty or give me death. So that's pretty cool.

Also, they're related to the family of Anne Boleyn, who was one of the wives of Henry the eighth, you know, who was beheaded. So obviously they're not related to her directly, but they're actually related to her aunt, her mom's sister. And yes, there is a family castle. Knowing this a few years ago, we took the kids to England and we went to this castle, Hever Castle. It is actually the ancestral castle of my wife's family. And so it was amazing visiting. I asked them if they would do a house swap one summer with us, but they said no, but still, it's pretty cool.

Now, when most people are looking through their family history, let's be honest, this is what they're hoping to find, right? They're hoping to find the family castle. Nobody is hoping to discover I'm related to like some axe murderer or something like that. Yet we find something like that in the family tree of Jesus Christ, both royalty and the axe murderers. You see, 2000 years ago, when a follower of Jesus named Matthew wrote the very first gospel in the New Testament of the Bible, and he's telling the story of Jesus, he actually starts with Jesus Christ's family tree. And there are some famous people in there. There's some royalty in there, but there's also some people in there that you probably would not have mentioned if you were putting together your own family tree. I know I wouldn't have. And yet Matthew includes them.

And so what I want to do this morning as we start the Advent series is literally start with verse one and look at verses that people often skip. And I think it's a shame because I think these are some of the coolest parts of the whole Christmas story, yet one of the least known parts of the Christmas story. This may change the way you perceive the meaning of the entire Christmas story. Are you ready to dig in here? Here's the way it starts. Verse one, chapter one of the New Testament. This is the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah, and his brothers Judah the father of Perez and Zera, whose mother was Tamar. Perez, the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, and on and on and on.

And let's be honest, show of hands. How many of you, when you read the Bible, just skip this part? Let me see that show of hands. You can't lie, you're in church, let me see your hands. And you call yourselves committed Christians. Why start with a genealogy? To our modern minds it's just boring. Well first, Matthew, the author, is Jewish, remember, and he is writing to an audience that is Jewish, and he's trying to make the argument that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. And so right out of the gate, Matthew needed to answer the very first question that would have been on the minds of his readers about Jesus, and that's this, was he a direct descendant of King David? Because they believe that the Messiah would only come through this ultimate royal lineage of David.

Yet, Matthew then, after he proves this, he also does something very, very unexpected, very surprising. He also includes some very R-rated stories. And here's why this is a Christmas surprise. In the days when the New Testament was written, histories, especially royal histories, empire histories, they were written by hired historians, kings, hired professional writers to write the family histories, and they basically said, "Make me look good." And here's what that meant. Play up my victories, play down my defeats, play up my good ancestors, play down my weird ancestors. And then we come to this ancient document, and in this genealogy of the Messiah, Matthew goes out of his way to emphasize the exact opposite kinds of people that the other historians would emphasize in their family histories. Scandalous people, sketchy people, sinful people.

Now, why in the world does he do that if he's trying to make a case that Jesus Christ is the Messiah? Like, if you were running for Congress and Charles Manson was your uncle, you probably wouldn't put that on your campaign brochure. But that's exactly the kind of thing that Matthew does here. He sort of circles and highlights the very types that the other historians left out. It doesn't seem to help him with his case at all. Or does it? This morning, very quickly, I want to tell you four surprising stories in the family tree of Jesus. And here's how I know that Matthew wants us to pay attention to them. He draws our focus to them by doing something very surprising in those days. Matthew mentions four women. And in a patriarchal society that was sort of rigged against women, this would have been very surprising. Like, why would he even mention that? But I believe he does it because each woman is tied to a surprising story that makes an... And each one of them makes the same interesting point.

So here's four stories for you this morning. Story number one. Verse three says, "Judah was the father of Perez and Zera, whose mother was Tamar. Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram." So Judah and Tamar. Their story is out there. Like way, way out there. Here's just a summary. Judah is one of the 12 brothers of Joseph and he and his other brothers throw their youngest brother Joseph into a pit. You might remember that story. And then they plan his murder. And then Judah says in the middle of murder planning, "I actually have a better idea. Why kill him when we can make money off of him by selling him into slavery?" And so they do. He sells his own brother Joseph into slavery and just looks on coldly. And he and his brothers decide to keep what they just did totally secret. They split the money among them and they tell their father he was killed by wild animals. And they just look on so cold as he grieves and grieves and grieves. But they say, "This is just between us. Nobody will ever know."

Eventually he gets married. He has three sons. His first son marries a woman named Tamar but dies with no kids. So she marries the second son. That's the way it worked in those days. And he dies, still no kids. So Judah says, "Well, why don't you wait until the youngest son grows up, then you can marry him." And Judah, at rather Tamar, waits and waits and waits. And slowly it dawns on her, "Judah is never going to keep that promise." And she really wants to have babies. And she is driven because of the way that society was put together to do this. She disguises herself as a prostitute. And she sits next to a particular road leading into the city waiting for Judah. That tells me she knew his habits and she knows he will fall for this.

Judah doesn't recognize her through her disguise and he offers her a goat for her services. Now he doesn't happen to be carrying a goat around with him. This is why they invented money. And so she says, "Okay, I need your signet ring," which was like your legal ID card in those days, "and your walking cane to guarantee that you're going to come back with the goat later." And so Judah says, "Okay." And he spends the night with Tamar, goes home, brings back the goat the next day in exchange for his ring and walking cane. And this prostitute is nowhere to be found. He never can find her. And Tamar keeps what she did secret until three months later people run up to Judah. He's become like the village elder and they say, "Oh, your daughter-in-law Tamar has been immoral. We don't know who the father is, but she's expecting a baby." And you know what Judah does? He becomes so despicably self-righteous. He says, "Well, she must be punished for her immorality." In fact, believe it or not, he says, "Let's make a real impression on all those other sinners out there. Bring her out and burn her alive."

And as the mob is leading her out to be burned, she stops and she says, "Wait." She waits for this moment. The whole village is gathered around. Everybody's waiting to see this. And she says, "I am pregnant by the man to whom this belongs." Anybody recognize this ring? And she shows Judah's ring and staff and everyone's head swivels around and looks at Judah. And Judah says, "Did I say burn her? I meant learn from her. Learn from her." No, what he says is, "Spare her, for she is more righteous than I." Is this a crazy story or what? So everybody's now cool with Tamar. As a single mom, she gives birth to twin boys, Perez and Tamar, and they become part of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. But Judah still has that other big secret. Remember that one? He sold his own brother into slavery, never plans to admit that one until he's eyeball to eyeball with Joseph years later and discovers, "Yeah, little brother not only survived, but he's now second in charge of the Pharaoh of Egypt."

And only when he's busted, only when he has to, only when he's begging for his life, does Judah finally come clean. And God reaches down and chooses Judah and Tamar to be the great, great, great times about 30 grandparents of Jesus Christ. I kind of feel like God said, "Okay, I'm going to bring my son of the world to bring grace to the whole world. So who in this generation needs my grace the most? I think these two characters. And so I'm going to make sure the Messiah comes through their lineage." It's so powerful. And I think Matthew highlights this story because you know what this story shows to me? God's grace is greater than my secrets. God's grace is greater than my secrets. You might have big secrets about your past too. And you are terrified that they're going to leak. But God sees them and he loves you. Somebody said, "Jesus loves the non-Instagram version of you." The part that's not so carefully curated to be admired, the secret part.

So this genealogy right away, it's like this giant birth announcement that says, "Here ye, here ye, here ye, everybody who has mistakes, secrets, and regrets." Good news because the family of Jesus has people just like that. And that means the family of Jesus can continue to have people just like that, just like you. But guess what? The stories get weirder. Next story. Judah, the father of Perez and Zera, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Abinadab, Abinadab the father of Naishon, Naishon the father of Salmon. Salmon, I always think that sounds like a Santa Cruz kid's name, doesn't it? These are my kids River and Forest and Salmon. Anyway, so they go on Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, and Matthew just put up another stop sign because it's the second time he mentions a woman. This time it's Rahab.

And Rahab has a nickname in literature and in the Bible. A lot of people in the Bible and in life have nicknames like John the what? John the Baptist. In fact, let's do a little quiz. This is so common. Shout out the answer if you know Alexander the Attila the Conan the Barbarian, Buffy the very important historical character. Okay. Rahab has something similar. She is often called Rahab the harlot prostitute. Kind of a pejorative name about what she did, you know, for a living. So how is she a good person to deliberately include in the genealogy of the Messiah? Remember back in those days it was only expected that you would do the lineage patriarchally. And so Matthew's going out of his way to say, oh yeah, and the mom here was Rahab. How is that a good idea?

Well, here's the story. Book of the Bible called Joshua. Two Israelite spies sneak into Jericho. You might remember the story to spy out the city and they hide in a house of ill repute that belongs to Rahab and she hides them. And they must have been terrible spies because almost instantly the enemy soldiers know where they are and they knock on the door, "Bring out the spies!" And she says, well they went that way. You just missed them. And the soldiers go off and Rahab turns to the spies and says two things. "I believe and save me. Have mercy on me." She says, "I believe the Lord your God is the Lord of heaven and earth so please spare my life and the lives of my family. I believe. Save me." And they say okay and she lets them down through a rope in her window and hangs a red thread so when they come back they know whose family to spare. And after the battle she and her family become part of the Israelite family and part of the family tree of Christ. Rahab the harlot is the great times 30 grandma of Jesus the Messiah.

You know what this one shows me, God's grace is greater than any labels. People labeled her. I mean she was Rahab the mom. She was Rahab the woman. She was Rahab the faithful. But they labeled her Rahab the harlot. Let me ask you to think about something here. Is there a label associated with your name? Maybe you kind of suspect when people in your family look at you they think let down, loud mouth, black sheep, loser, disappointment. Maybe they wouldn't say it out loud but you still think that of you. Well the good news is this. Jesus came for people with all kinds of labels. He looks past the label to let you know you can be included in his family too. The circle God drew is big enough for you and big enough for Rahab.

All right story number three. Rahab marries one of the soldiers and they have a son named Boaz and he has a son named Obed and then for the third time Matthew mentions a woman. And again every single time he does it to point to an unusual story. He says Obed whose mother was Ruth. And here's Ruth's story. So good. Ruth was an outsider with zero cultural status in her society. Why? Well she was a woman, she was a widow, she was poor, she was a refugee and worst of all she was a Moabite. I think on every country's borders there is a country from whom refugees are despised looked down on and for the Israelites it was Moab. In fact so despised there was actually a law no Moabite can ever become a citizen of Israel. That was a law and Ruth was one of those people. They were the most despised ethnic group in ancient Israel. We're talking a thousand years before Jesus.

Well Ruth's husband had died and there's this prolonged famine in Moab and Ruth becomes a climate refugee to Israel. She crosses the border and goes to Bethlehem where it's there's a lot of grain and fields. There's underwater springs that water the valley there so it's always verdant even in times of drought. And the cool thing is this the Israelites actually left the corners of their grain fields unharvested so that after the main harvest these corners would be unharvested and the poor people could go in there and get their food from those corners. That was part of their culture. That's pretty cool isn't it? By the way do you know what they called that? The second harvest. And that's originally where second harvest food bank got its name historically. Well these refugees would come and they would harvest the food there and Ruth was one of them and this particular field was owned by Rahab's son Boaz and Rahab and Ruth love story. They get married and Ruth becomes one of the ancestors of Jesus Christ.

This foreigner who supposedly was never supposed to be included in Israel actually becomes one of the great great grandmothers of the Messiah and her story shows me God's grace is greater than my status. You know maybe you come from a group with little status in our culture. Maybe like Ruth you can feel excluded because of your ethnicity because of your citizenship because of your language maybe because you're single or because you're a widow maybe like her you're an immigrant. Ruth's story is your story because Matthew put this in the genealogy to say welcome in. Are you starting to see what all these stories have in common? Okay one last story and this one's the most intense. Ruth and Boaz get married and their baby Obed has a son named Jesse and Jesse has eight sons and the very last son is a little guy named David. Matthew 1 verse 6. David was the father of Solomon and look how Matthew writes this. Whose mother had been Uriah's wife and when he says that like uh yeah you know his mom was married to another guy.

He just purposely surfaces this mountain of dysfunction and again you might remember it starts when on the roof of his palace one day David sees Bathsheba who's married to his one of his best friends and one of his best generals in his army and she's bathing and he uh sleeps with her that night and she sends word later I'm pregnant and David does not want that secret to get out either and so he arranges things in a battle so that her husband Uriah is killed seemingly accidentally but it's all a setup so David can take Bathsheba I'm gonna take care of this poor widow oh and she's expecting a baby I'll take care of the baby. Well he thinks it's all secret until somebody figures it out and confronts him and he confesses and repents before the whole country but the damage is done the sons have a civil war that just brings so much bloodshed to the country yet God still redeems this mess and this shows me God's grace is even greater than my sin. God's grace is greater than my worst sin and your worst sin.

God redeemed what happened with David and Bathsheba not by the way because David's goodness outweighed his badness or something. David didn't like overrule his bad karma by doing some good karma this is solely because of God's grace God just says I'm just gonna forgive you and grace you. Well Matthew drops a lot more names but they all funnel down into this skip to the last verse in the genealogy and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary and Mary the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah. God takes these messes and brings forth the Messiah and that means you know if you go wow you know I can tell you from being with 120 family members this last Thanksgiving weekend you know we're all at different places in our spiritual journey and some of the some of the folks there at that family reunion are are at places where you know maybe they've just gotten sober or or they need to get sober or where they're in a place where they're walking away from their faith or they're walking into faith.

Everybody's at different places do you have waywardness do you have weirdness do you have wounds in your family history guess what so did Jesus and that means there's room for you in his family too and don't start telling me about how bad you are I'll tell you these weird stories all over again look at this verse from the book of Luke where we find the other record of the Christmas story in the Bible Luke 2:10 and listen to what the angel says you've heard this a thousand times but listen to it through this new filter I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people not just the good people not just the people who think they're better than other people not just the religious people all the people say all the people all the people.

You know something interesting about those four women that Matthew mentioned all four were not Jewish inserted into this Jewish genealogy Tamar was a Canaanite Rahab Canaanite Ruth Moabite Bathsheba Hittite all outsiders minorities and they become some of the Messiah's great grandmas all the people not just majority culture people not just the chosen people all the people say all the people again all the people today in the town of David a savior has been born to you to you even the circumstances of his birth reflect the surrounded you know by misfit shepherds.

So I pray I pray that every time you hear this verse at Christmas you reflect on what this means it's good news for all the people see there's another reason I think Matthew started his gospel with this genealogy this way for Matthew this was personal because for Matthew this was also his story one day when Jesus just started his ministry Matthew writes about it this way as Jesus went on from there he saw a man named Matthew that was me he says sitting at the tax collector's booth and it's interesting because tax collectors then were seen as the lowest of the low the scum of the earth they were the worst of the worst nobody would even hang out with them except for other tax collectors and so-called sinners namely prostitutes that was when the bible describes tax collectors the only people who are their friends are prostitutes and other tax collectors because the tax collectors were seen as traitors because they were taxing the people on behalf of the Roman Empire that's who Matthew was no one talked to him and now the Jewish Messiah who's gathering followers passes him probably in his tax collector booth and he turns and he looks at him well that's a first and he goes up to him and he's about to say something and Matthew's probably wincing like he's gonna curse me out like everybody else does and he says follow me welcome in.

And Matthew had to be just weeping with joy as he writes these words and as he remembers what happened to his life that day the day he heard Jesus say this and the entire trajectory of his life changed and by the way do you know what happens next Matthew's like okay where do we go next and Jesus says well I was kind of thinking about your house and it's so great because the bible says Matthew throws a party he gets so excited and he invites all of his friends this is in the bible this is in the bible but the only friends he's got are prostitutes and tax collectors and Jesus goes and when the religious people you know show up at the party to call him out on it Jesus says you guys just don't get it do you I'm here for these people these are my people and Matthew understood maybe better than any of the other gospel writers Jesus came at Christmas because it's a story about God drawing mirror to those who had drawn away about God leaning in to those who'd leaned away.

You know as a pastor I hear it again and again people say I'm drawn to God but I feel like I just don't belong maybe it's all these churchy people Matthew's saying no you're exactly the kind of people who belong Matthew writes this account to say you think you don't belong in the family of Jesus let me tell you about the family of Jesus and it continues to this day. I'll close with this seven years ago during one of our actually was like 15 years ago now during our one of our Christmas concerts a woman stands up in the middle of the concert so she's sitting right over here and during the concert during the music she starts yelling at the top of her lungs swear words at God cussing out God cussing out Jesus and the ushers rush over man man please sit down I will not and by this it's clear that she's either drunk or high and then I come over there and myself and pastor Jim Jocelyn escort her out into the hallway here and and it eventually got so bad we actually had to call the sheriff and then I look up and here comes her daughter who's only maybe 18 or 19 years old at the time and she's crying and she says I'm so embarrassed I'm so sorry and before they leave with the sheriff pastor Jim leans over and looks them in the eyes and he says I want to ask you to do something for me would you please come back I hope I see you next weekend here at church because God loves you so much and so do we and I want to make it clear that was pastor Jim that said this I was still mad but pastor Jim was that nice.

Well a few years later after another Christmas concert there's a woman walks up to me who I don't recognize at all and she says do you remember that time at that Christmas concert that woman stood up and just started like cussing out Jesus I said I sure do she goes that was me and she says me and my daughter had been coming to Twin Lakes Church because you guys she says I don't remember much about it but I what I remember is this I was so mad at God because my husband had just died and by the way that tells you there's always a story behind every one of these incidents and I'd gone back to the bottle and and and I don't have a lot of details in my memory about that night but I do remember this she says you and all the pastors gathered around us and you looked at us and you said you loved us and could we please come back and I didn't have the heart in why she was telling me this to say that wasn't me that was Jim she says but but we did come back and then it was like God's grace did the rest and she said and and my daughter had a baby and were all three of us come here every single week it was such a wonderful story of redemption and wholeness and being feeling welcomed into the family no matter what we've done in the past that there was somebody standing by with a with a phone and I said would you just take our picture quick and here's the picture from back in the day there we all are uh there's the woman that's Lori and there's me and there's her daughter Tamara and uh Tamara's daughter Athena now this was several years ago but to me that is a great picture of God's grace Tamara is now on staff with us here at Twin Lakes Church and her daughter Athena attends school here and you've seen her uh and her daughter up stay on stage here as our Christmas readers and in some other contexts and in fact they're right here in the front row you guys why don't you stand up would you stand up for me this is so good there they are that's so good no I love you so much what a great story but here's the thing their story is the Christmas story these families are in that family tree of Jesus Christ and Matthew's saying I want I want you to hear my story and I want you to hear Ruth's story and David's story and Tamara's story and I want you to hear Ray Hab's story because you may be drawn to Jesus you may be feeling like but I just don't fit in because of all this stuff in my background and I just don't know Matthew's like no you're it you're the reason it happened so come on in don't be afraid these stories are a reminder of what Christmas is all about but they're also an invitation to come into the family of God that he took all these lengths to prepare for you some of you you don't even know how you ended up here some friend invited you or something I think that was God saying I got a spot in my family tree for you too so let's remember that and let's welcome him into Christmas and into our lives right now in prayer.

Let's let's bow our heads together as we prepare our heads and heart for communion I would just love to invite you as your your heads are bowed your eyes are closed to to pray this prayer with me do you remember how Ray Hab basically said two things I believe and save me can you just say those two things now Jesus I believe save me I believe save me Jesus you you came to be what Matthew presented you to be that the forgiver of us all the redeemer of us all of all of us and your grace is more powerful than our secrets than any label than our worst sin than any status people try to assign to us and Jesus died to cover all of that and give us a new label beloved forgiven accepted now teach us to live our lives in accordance with who you say we are in Jesus name we pray amen amen.