The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 6: The Sovereignty of God in Our Posterity

Episode Date: August 13, 2017

Amen. Amen. Amen. Hope a well, church. Hey, we are in week six of a six-week journey through the book of Ruth. And if you've missed any of the previous five weeks, Pastor Jobi and Pastor Adam have done an unbelievable job helping us unpack this beautiful little love story right in the middle of the Old Testament. And it's been a great journey. I've loved walking through it. And I have the honor to close us out with the last installment of our Ruth series today. But before we dive into that, I want to recognize and appreciate and pray. for some people that are very special to us. So if you're here and you are a teacher, you would teach in public schools or private schools or homeschools, if you commit your time, full time, to the development of the next generation through education, would you go ahead and stand up? If you're at Bay Meadows and Mandarin, if you're a teacher, if you would stand up, we would love to pray for you and appreciate you as you start school back and as you go back to school. Hey, let me pray for us.

Join with me, church, as we pray for our friends. God, thank you so much that you call us all to special and unique things and different professions by which we can walk as a testimony to your grace. And, Father, I pray for my friends that are standing right now. I pray that you would empower them with the spirit of perseverance and with patience. I pray that you would fill their hearts with love and their minds with wisdom and peace. And, Father, I pray that they would be a shining light in areas where there may only be darkness. I pray that through encouraging words and through hugs and through.

developmental stages, Father, that they would speak life into students all over our city. And, Father, we pray that you would use them in a mighty way this year to make yourself known in our school systems and beyond. We pray a special blessing on them as they march out into their mission field in these coming days. We love you. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Amen.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Hey, if you have your Bibles or your notes, we're going to be in Ruth Chapter 4 in the last few verses of Ruth. And we're going to dive right in. Ruth chapter 4, verse 18. Here it goes. Now, these are the generations of Perez.

Perez fathered Hezron, and Hezron fathered Ram. And Ram fathered Aminadab and Aminadab fathered Nassian and Nassian fathered Samin and Salmon fathered Boaz. We've heard his name a lot through this series. Boaz married Ruth. Boas fathered Obed. Obed fathered Jesse and Jesse fathered David.

Now, you may be sitting there thinking as we read through that the exact same thing that I was thinking when this text was handed to me. How is it possible that he's going to preach the phone book? What are you going to do with all these names? Where are you going to go? And so when I first received this text, I thought, no, Pastor Jobie, that kidder. You know, he's just kidding. And then I realized he was not kidding. And so I sat and I chewed through this and here's what I was reminded of.

I was reminded that every word in the Bible is inspired by God. And that every word God has something for us. And so we're going to unpack these handful of verses word by word. Let's start with the first one. Now, anytime you see the word now in scripture or the word but or the word yet or the word therefore, those things are there for a reason. They are pivot points. Anytime you see that kind of word, the author is saying, all right, get ready, something special is coming.

And in the case of the book of Ruth, when the author writes the word, now, what he's saying is, now that we've told the story, now that we've laid the landscape and we've set the construct, let me tell you what the point of all of this is. You see, in the Old Testament, the story you're reading is never the point. It's full of great truths and it's full of a lot of wisdom that we can learn from. but the story itself is not the point. What that story is pointing toward, that is always the point in the Old Testament. So the author of the Book of Ruth says, now, now that we've set the stage,

let me tell you what all of this was about. You see, in the Old Testament, the New Testament, in our lives, my life, and your life, there are two storylines at play. And we saw this over and over again in the book of Ruth. There are two threads, if you will, the thread of grace and the thread of sin. You see, the thread of grace tells God's redemption,

of story and God's redemptive work on behalf of his people. The story of grace is that God rescues people. And the story of sin is the story of this cosmically destructive force that is singularly focused on overthrowing God and destroying God's people. And we've seen this play out throughout the entire book in the life of Naomi and the life of Ruth and the life of Boaz. And we see these two story threads play out in our lives every day. You see, the story of life plays out through people.

All the names on this list are people by which the story of grace and the story of sin are at war with each other. So now that the stage is set, the verse goes on and says, these are the generations. These stories of grace and the story of sin is playing out generation after generation after generation. And there's a story of grace which produces faithfulness and a story of sin which produces pain and ruin and hardship and heartache and all of the destructive things that it does. Faithfulness and sin are telling their story from generation to generation. I'm here today as a walking testimony that generational faithfulness is a real thing. I believe generational faithfulness to be contagious. I mean, as I stand here on this stage today, I'm, I'm not.

I lived my life as a testimony to God's faithfulness from generation to generation. When my parents first fell in love, they were high school sweethearts. And when they first fell in love and they began to plan their life together, they began to pray a very specific prayer. And they began to ask God from early on, before they were even married, they began to ask God that one day they would have two sons. And that those two sons would become pastors. And that they would serve faithfully in the local church for all of their lives.

and as I stand here today on the stage here at 1122, my older brother stands on a stage preaching the gospel at the church that he's the lead pastor of on the north side of Atlanta called Bethlehem Church. And today, he and I will have the opportunity to preach to more than 13,000 people across two states. Now, is that because we're awesome? Let's be honest, guys. Is there anything up here that you remind you of awesome? It's just not, it's got nothing to do with that.

My brother, he's not awesome either. He looks just like me and talks just like me and walks just like me. Technically, he's older. And so I walk and talk like him, but I've been trying to steal the birthright for years. But that's a whole other sermon. It's not because we're awesome. It's because God is faithful. And it's because God answers prayers.

You see, my parents, they warred and they petitioned God on behalf of my future. And I get to live the testimony of grace, which is the answer to those prayers every day. I believe that faithfulness is something that can be seated and shared from generation to generation. You see, in God's sovereignty, somewhere along the way in my grandparents, grandparents, hearts and mouths, God, by a work of grace, began to put some specific prayers and began to put some specific Bible verses on the hearts of somebody somewhere along the way, and they began to pray. And these prayers and this life of generational faithfulness began to produce a work in my family on the Britside and on the Massachusetts. and on the Maxwell side on my mother's side, and over years, countless generations of godly businessmen and women,

godly husbands and wives, people walking in faith and in fear of the Lord, people seeking God's word and trying to live by it over and over and over and over again. God has proved himself to be faithful in my family. I mean, I remember when I was a kid, I walked, my grandparents lived right up the road, and I would spend a lot of time there, and one time I walked into the kitchen where my grandfather would sit at the table and he would read his Bible on his magnifying glass reader. You see, he had terrible eyesight from an accident that I may or may not have been a part of. And from an accident, he couldn't hardly see.

And so he had this massive magnifying glass by which he would read books. And I walk in and he's sitting there at the table and he's reading his Bible. And I ask him, we call him Nanny and Pop. And I said, Pop, what are you reading? and he said, well, boy, I'm reading the book of John. I said, well, why are you reading the book of John, Pop? And he said, because that's where I most often see Jesus, and he's who I'm looking for.

And I remember that as a little boy. And it just stuck on me, the faithfulness of him doing what he does. I mean, I over the last 10 years or so, I've had the opportunity to travel all over the world by God's grace and to preach the gospel in some of the craziest places you've ever even heard of. And almost every time before I leave to go out of the country, I'll call my nanny and just check on her. And I'd be like, hey, nanny, hey, just wanted to call and check on you and see how things are going and let you know I'm going to be gone for a couple of weeks. And just wanted to make sure you didn't need anything.

And she talks real slow. She's a southern bell. And she'd be like, oh, hey, sweetie, where are you headed? And I'm like, oh, nanny, you know, I'm headed to Africa or the Middle East or wherever I was, I'm going at the time. And she said, oh, I don't know if I like you going to all those dangerous places. I'm like, oh, nanny, it's going to be fine. There's nothing to worry about. You know, it's going to be good.

Jesus said go. And so I got to go. And she said, well, there's a lot of people in America who need to hear about Jesus too. And pretty much the same conversation, like 50 different times this has happened. And I'm like, no, no, I'm going to tell all them too, but I got to go. And she's like, I'm like, just want you to pray for us and pray for the team. And she's like, oh, I always pray for you. you don't even have to ask and I pray for you every day.

You see, I believe it because I've seen the fruitfulness of it in my life. You see, from generation to generation, I believe that generational faithfulness is contagious. There's no guarantee that if you walk in faithfulness, your family will catch it, but the chances are far more likely that if you do, they will. I believe it's generationally contagious. And I believe that generational faithfulness over time, anywhere that there's a family or a relationship or a person operating in the spirit of faithfulness that you will see three things.

You may see more than these three things, but I guarantee you you will see these three things at work being cultivated. You will see these works of grace growing out of people's lives of faithfulness. These three things. I provided a graphic in your notes so that you can follow along. You'll see three things, prayer, presence, and repentance. I'm going to quickly talk about each one of these. The spirit of prayer amongst generational. faithfulness. You see, as a parent and as a husband, I pray for my wife and I pray for my kids. I pray with my

wife and I pray with my kids. Why? Because my dad prayed for and prayed with me. And his dad prayed for and with him. You see, prayer is the spirit of prayer. I don't just pray random prayers. I pray very specific things, things that I distinctly remember being prayed for me. The first thing I pray for for my children, specifically in the context of parenting, is salvation. You see, I don't just pray with words. I was taught from a young age that you should pray Bible verses, because if you're praying Bible verses, then you know you're saying the right thing. In Romans 10, Romans 10, 9 says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord

and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you shall be saved. And so I pray that for my daughters. I pray that God would do such an amazing work of grace among them, that he would awaken their hearts to his grace in his faithfulness and out of their mouth, where they would declare Jesus is Lord, and they would love Him far more than they love the things of this world, that God would save them. Pray for salvation, just like salvation was prayed for me.

I pray for wisdom. I mean, is this the heartbeat of us all? Proverbs 910 says that the beginning of knowledge is the fear of the Lord. And so I pray that my daughters would walk in wisdom, that they would see God for who he is, the holy and just and righteous and pure, the one God who rules over all the universe that they would see him, And they would be in reverence of him and in awe of him, and they would be amazed at who he is in his works and that they would live their lives accordingly to who God is.

And James 1 tells us that if we pray for wisdom, that God gives wisdom liberally to all who ask. And so God wants to give his children wisdom. And so I ask for that wisdom for my children, that they would make wise decisions, that they would walk in faithfulness, that in their relationships they would use the wisdom according to the Spirit of God in His Word. And thirdly, I pray for power. You know, the Hebrews 214 says that Jesus rendered death powerless on the cross. You see, often I think that we spend a lot of time praying for protection from the fight when we should be praying for power in the fight. We spend a lot of time trying to avoid the fight and the spiritual warfare

when the truth is we need to be praying for God to enable us with his power while we're in the fight. I remember when I was a kid we had a guest preacher at the church I grew up in and he talked about demons now I grew up Baptist and man we don't do demons we do God the Father we do God the Holy Spirit and God the Holy Word

we don't do demons and so I was scared I was like I went home and I'm like Dad I was really scared and I remember my dad he puts his hands on my shoulders and he says son let me pray for you Dear God, would you make Ryan so powerful in your spirit than when he walks into the room, the demons flee? Amen. What's up? What's up now? You know? But power that we would walk in a spirit of power. You know that when God dwells you with the spirit, when we place our faith in Jesus and he breathes into us the breath of life, which is the spirit of God, he gives us all the power that is in the kingdom of God. He empowers us with all of his authority. He hands us the keys to the kingdom of God. We do not have to walk defeated in this life. We do not have to walk defeated in this. life. We can walk from a place of power. I pray power over my children, that they would not be

afraid, but they would be powerful. Anywhere grace is in its rightful place, meaning the generational faithfulness is operating these ingredients of faithfulness. You will see them and they will be there time and time again. The first one is prayer. The second one is presence. Now physical presence matters a ton in relationships where the grace of God is in its rightful place for sure, but I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that. But what I would offer to us today is, that there's something more important than physical presence, which is an emotional presence. Anywhere where grace is alive in,

in relationships, you will see an emotional availability, specifically among the men. And I've got to be honest with you, I struggle here. I struggle here. Now, I know church is no place to be honest, and pastors aren't supposed to struggle. But I do.

I struggle here. Season after season, after season, after season, after season. It is a fight for me. I saw it in my father. I see it in my brother. You see, up here in my head, there's a lot going on. It's just a very busy, busy place, and the busyness of the mind creates an emotional distance between me and my kids. And in the not-so-distant history, my wife comes to me and she sits down with me and she says, hey, we need to talk.

I'm like, okay, you want to talk? Let's talk. and I'm getting my self-defense ammunition ready and I'm rearing up in pride and I'm ready man I'm like oh you want to talk my daddy prayed that I could whoop demons so let's talk you know and I'm just gearing up for a fight you know

and I sit down with my wife and she is so gracious and she says to me she says hey there's something I'm seeing and it's that our daughters are trying to get your attention and they're saying your name

over and over again and they're trying they're repeating themselves often to you and you're here but you might as well be a million miles away because you're here but you're just not here she goes on to say i know that's not what you want i know that's not the way you want to live and i know that's not the place you the home you want to cultivate so that something's got to give something has to change and as she's talking i just feel the conviction the spirit of god and i just look at my wife and i just say I'm so sorry. And later that night, I walk into my oldest daughter's bedroom, and I sit down with her, and I'm like, Anna Catherine, baby, Daddy needs to talk to you. Well, what do you want to talk about, Daddy?

Daddy just needs to say, I'm sorry, and ask your forgiveness. You see, I know there's times where you're trying to get my attention, and you're trying to get me to pay attention to you, and I'm being very distant, and I'm not doing what I should, and I'm just so sorry. Will you forgive Daddy? She says, of course, Daddy, I love you. And I ask Anna Cathha and I say, Anna Cathay, will you help Daddy? See, Daddy's a broken man. He's not perfect.

He's going to mess up a lot of times in life, and it'd be awesome if you would just help me. If you're ever talking to me and it feels like I'm not paying attention or I'm being distant, will you just touch me? Will you help Daddy? We just reach out and touch me, and that way I'll get tuned in, and she does, man. So even like just this week, she's talking and I'm being distant, she just walks up, she just grabs my face.

She holds on, you know, or we're riding down the road and she'll reach up and she'll touch my shoulder. You see, my God in his faithfulness is sanctifying me and grace through my children. He's using my children to help me be the man that I want to be. You see this idea of prayer and presence and are things that are very real in relationships where grace is in its, rightful place and there's also repentance, which is confessing sin and turning from it, turning away from self and turning toward God. You see, repentance is this picture of us saying there is something bigger than us, that we are not the point of our own lives, but that we mess up and that we're failures and that we're not perfect and that we sin and repentance is confessing those things and turning

away from them and turning toward God and pointing at him. I've shared with you one story of repentance. It's amazing in Romans chapter 2. that the Apostle Paul pens, it is God's kindness that leads us to repentance. He doesn't say it's God's perfection. He doesn't say it's God's holiness or God's wrath or God's anger. He says it is God's kindness that leads us to repentance. And so if it is God's kindness that is the relational currency

that produces healthy fruit in our lives, then our lives in our relationships as a picture best operate under the currency of kindness. And so if kindness is the currency of a healthy relationship, we have to ask ourselves, what is kindness? You see, I've learned over time in the relationships that I walk in that kindness is not an intention, kindness is an expression. Kindness is not what I say, it's how I say it. It's a tone of voice. It's a body posture. You see, people who are marked with repentance are people who very quickly,

are ready to say, I am sorry and I was wrong. Pride is a killer. Every relationship that we have, whether it be work relationship, family relationship, every relationship that we have is under attack by pride. Pride is what destroys relationship. And if you want to know how to measure pride in the human heart, the question you would always start with is, how quick am I to say, I'm sorry and I was wrong?

because the inability to do those things is absolutely wrapped around the axle of pride and the human heart. So families where grace is in place and generational faithfulness is being practiced, you will see prayer, you will see presence, and you will see repentance. See, this truth that generational faithfulness is contagious, is something that I believe and I can walk, I walk in and testify to it every day. The story of grace through my family is nothing short of a miracle. and I am so thankful to God for it. But the story of grace is not the only story at place.

So is the story of sin. And you and I sit here today, and we all know all too well that generational sin is a real thing, and it is devastating. It is a real thing, and it is devastating. You see, I believe that the enemy, John 10 tells me that I have an enemy, and so do you, and that that enemy wants to kill you, wants to destroy you. And I believe that 10 generations ago, the enemy planted seeds of temptation and habitual behavior somewhere along the lines in my family

in order to destroy me in my faith in God and destroy my children and their faith in God. I believe he's so strategically devious that he has been working from generation to generation to generation trying to destroy the work of God in my family. And there are many areas where grace has been alive but sin too. in my family, specifically two areas, that I have seen pass from generation to generation to generation. Number one is fear. Pastor Jobi says all the time that the opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is fear. And specifically in the context of my house is the fear of man's approval.

You see, I watched my father struggle with it his entire life. I see it rear its ugly head in my brother's life all the time. And if I'm honest with you today, as I stand here, in front of you, it is creeping around the dark corners of my soul in every crevice that it can find. It's the fear of the approval of man. It's something I've seen passed down from generation to generation, but not just fear. Also self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is, it smells a lot like religion.

It smells a lot like something that could be viewed as Christianity. Self-righteous is something that has plagued. my family. I'm talking about some seriously legalistic Pharisees. Is where we are bent to walk for sure, just judging folks. It's alive and well in my heart as well. Self-righteousness is easy to

pick up if you know what to look for. It often sounds like what I call is the Christian comparison game. And it goes something like this. This would be a self-righteous conversation that could sound something like Christianity, but is far, far from God's heart. Self-righteousness sounds something

like this at a family gathering. It's like, oh, hey, how you doing? Oh, I'm doing great. Doing great. Life's good. You know, just working hard. I've been serving at the church. Oh, that's so great. You've been serving at the church, man. That's awesome. Tell me about it. Oh, yeah, you know, we're just serving through the holidays and just trying to do

our best, trying to work for the Lord. Oh, man, that's so great. I'm glad that your family's doing well. You know, over this past season, my family and now, we started sponsoring a child. We started sponsoring a child in need. And, man, you just wouldn't believe what has happened. I mean, our kids, when they see how poor that kid is compared

to all that they have, it's just been a crazy thing to watch. It's like, oh, y'all started sponsoring a kid? That's great. That's great. Well, we're going on a mission trip next year. Oh, you are. You're going on a mission trip. That's incredible. Good for you. Yeah, you're going on mission. Well, we're selling our house so that we can give more to the church. Oh, you're selling your house so that you can give more to the church. Yeah, you know, we just figured Jesus was homeless. And so. we'll just be homeless too because we'll just wait on our mansion in heaven and that's good enough for us. Oh, bless the Lord. Bless him.

God's so good, man. You're homeless. That is just so radical. You're so radical. It's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're homeless. Okay, okay. Well, you know what? The other night, my wife and I, we were talking and, you know what, we decided to be celibate.

Because intimacy with Christ is really what it's all about anyway, right? Some of y'all are like, hold on. Hold on. You got to draw the line somewhere. You see, self-righteousness is this trap of Christian comparison. Look at me. Look what I've done. Look what I'm about.

Look what I'm doing in the name of God. And self-righteousness is very, very sick and very, very destructive. And it rears its ugly head in my life every day. Maybe it's not as subtle and as easy to hide in your life as it has been in mind. Maybe it's shown itself through addiction. or abuse or hate or greed or racism. Maybe it's shown itself generationally in a far different kind of destructive path than what I've walked. But regardless of how it's shown its ugly head, no one is immune to it.

And when it comes to generational sin, we really only have two choices. We can either ignore it and act like it doesn't exist or we can fight back with the gospel. And I have good news, church, that wherever sin runs deep, the grace of God runs deeper. Wherever the grip of sin is strong, the mighty right arm of God is stronger. You see, as believers, we have the most powerful weapon in all of creation to combat the wiles of sin, which is the blood of Jesus. As believers, we fight back and we fight back with the blood of Jesus. It is the blood of Jesus that is the chain breaker.

It is the blood of Jesus that heals sick hearts. It is the blood of Jesus that stops the cycle. We don't war with our own devices and petition with our own behaviors. We fight back with the blood of Jesus. We plead the blood of Jesus over our futures. We plead the blood of Jesus over our past. We stake the victory of the cross in front of us. We stake it behind us.

We stake it to our right and to our left. We pray the blood of Jesus over our kids, over our children's children, and over their children's children. And we play the blood of Jesus because it is the most powerful weapon in all of creation. When Jesus Christ stretched out his arms and he pushed himself up on that cross and he cried out, it is finished. He meant it. He meant it.

And he defeated death and he rendered death powerless. And by his blood and by the grace of God that shows us its power, we walk by faith. We walk by faith. We claim the blood of Jesus. What can wash away our sins, church? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. There's this word that you'll see time and time again in this text, and this word is fathered. Fathered, fathered, fathered, fathered, fathered, fathered, fathered, fathered, fathered, father, father.

And I say this, dads, we have been trusted with an immense responsibility. The role of the father in the home is God designed. God uses that to paint a picture for children of what he is like. That is our role, dads. Our role in the home is to paint a picture for our kids of what God is like. There is no question about it that the way I see God is directly correlated to how I see my earthly father. And there's no doubt about it that the way my daughters will see God will be absolutely directly correlated to the life that I live in front of them. You see, dads, we've been trusted with an immense amount of responsibility.

And the day that we decide to get married and or have kids, what we are doing is we are laying down all of our rights and we are picking up a bunch of responsibilities. We are saying that we are no longer going to live life for selfish gain, but we are going to live life on a road that is marked with one thing and that one thing is self-denial. That is the role of the father in the home. Fathers play an imperatively important role throughout history. Some of us here today are first generation followers of Jesus. We didn't have a model before us. We didn't have an example. showed us what faithfulness looked like. And if you're here today and that's you and you would say, I'm a first generation

follower of Jesus, whether you're at Bay Meadows and Mandarin or you're here at San Pablo, if you were here and you were a first generation follower of Jesus, which means you were the first person in your family that you know of to have surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and to try to walk faithfully under his leadership, will you just raise your hand if you were a first generation follower of Jesus? Amen. Amen. Glory to God for you. Hey, look, you have no idea what hangs in the balance. You have no idea what hangs in the balance and what God is going to do in the future generations

because of his work of grace in your life. We give God glory to you. You see, all of these people and all of these names, they're not the point. They're all pointing towards something. They're all pointing at something. A bigger picture. The whole point of the Book of Ruth is not here. It's painted later in Matthew, Chapter 1, where all of these lives.

are laid out for us in the story that they are told. The story, a different genealogy is laid out in Matthew 1 where we see what God is up to. We see the point. And when Matthew writes, he takes history all the way back to Father Abraham. And so we're going to run through it really quick and we're going to focus in on a few points. What you will see throughout the history of God telling his story through people is you will see faithfulness and you will see sinfulness. Time and time again, you will see the storyline of grace and you will see the story. storyline of sin and how it works generationally. We go back to Abraham. Abraham had a son named

Isaac. Now Abraham and Isaac were men of faith. They walked faithfully with the Lord, but they struggled. They would trust God and then not trust God. Trust God and then not trust God. Trust God and then not trust God. And then Isaac has a son named Jacob. Jacob's this big deal. But Jacob was a liar and a deceiver. And if it were not apart from God's work, God's grace in Jacob's life, he would have trained wrecked at all. And then Jacob has a son. Jacob's this big deal. But Jacob was a liar. And Jacob was a liar. And then Jacob was a son, Judah and has a son named Judah and Judah marries a woman named Tamar. And in regards to this story, look, can you just say train wreck? Look, this is one of the most jacked up stories you will ever read in your life, just wrought

with sexual deception, with lies and murder. I mean, it is just awful. What was faithfulness turned very quickly into faithlessness with Judah. And then Judah has a son named Perez. Now, this is where we pick up in the book of Ruth. Perez has Hezron. Hezron has Ram. Ram has Amidab.

and Menadab, Nashon. Now, these brothers were under slavery in Egypt, and Nishon was a military leader who helped lead the conquest out from under Egyptian rule and into the promised land. And as the people of Israel cross into the promised land, they see God's faithfulness, and they begin to tell stories and testify that God is good, and he has a son named Salmon. And Saman means a woman named Rehab.

Rehab was a prostitute in the city of Jericho. So when the people of Israel overthrew the city of Jericho, she was the only one who lived, and God grafted. her into his story. And Rehab's this remarkable story of God's grace. And then she married a fish and then they had a son named. Y'all are keeping up. I like that.

Good. She marries, they testify to God's redemptive work and his grace and his faithfulness. They cultivate an environment where faithfulness in God is on center stage. And they testify to God's glory and grace. And they have a son named Boaz. And we saw how Boaz walked faithfully through the Book of Ruth. And what he did as a sin. symbol of redemption. And he marries Ruth. And then Ruth, they have a son named Obed. And Obed

sees the faithfulness of his parents and he hears the stories of his grandparents. And he cultivates an environment by which faithfulness and grace is on center stage. And he has a son named Jesse. And Jesse looks to his father and hears of his grandparents and their parents. And he also cultivates an environment of faithfulness and grace. And then he has a son, King David. King David walks with God. He is known as a man after God's own heart. But David was not a perfect man. David was a warrior. He was a mighty king, a mighty man of battle. He was a prayer. He walked in the spirit of power, but he also struggled. He struggled hard. And he made some terrible decisions. He committed adultery. He had a man murdered. He was faithful because every time he sinned, he would repent. and returned to the Lord. But he was not perfect. He struggled.

And he marries a woman named Bathsheba, and then they have a son named Solomon. And what Solomon watched his daddy struggle with, Solomon turned into a sport. You see, David struggled as a womanizer, and Solomon turned it into practically a religion. And Solomon, the older and older, he got. He was an incredible man, one of the greatest men who have ever walked on the earth,

no question about it. But he struggled with faithfulness, especially in the later years of his life, and his struggle with sin began to choke out the faithfulness of his fathers. And then he begins to live entitled and rich, and he raises an entitled and prideful children. And Rehboem is his son. Rehoboam had a brother named Jeroboam,

and they were prideful sons of guns, and their pride killed their relationship with each other. And they ended up splitting the kingdom of Israel, and faithfulness was all but lost. And they ended up having sons. Abihah and Asaph, and Jehoshaphat, you don't even want to know how that brother died. Jorham, Jo Ram and Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasa, Amos, and Josiah.

So ultimately what happens post-Solomon is faithlessness, faithlessness, the story of sin is waging war against the story of grace, and it is choking out faithfulness. And you see, faithlessness over time and time and time and time and time again. This guy, Amos, is such a tyrant. His servants rebel against him, and they kill him. His son Josiah, who's eight years old at the time, becomes the king. Now, when Josiah becomes the king, he had never even heard of God's faithfulness. He had never heard of what God had done on behalf of his people.

He didn't even know that there was a thing called the Torah where the spoken word of God's was written down, and he stumbles onto it into a temple. And he gets so hammered with God's grace, and he gets so hammered with God's story that he is actually a gentle king, a good king in behalf of Israel. And for all intents of purposes, Josiah was the first generation believer. as far as he knew. And he began to walk out faithfulness where it had been lost.

And then he had a son, that guy. And then they started having a son, Sheetil and Zara Babel. Zerababal is kind of the last whisper that a Messiah is coming. And then shortly thereafter, the Lord goes quiet for 400 years. And we have a bunch of nobodies.

Azor and Zadok and Akem and Elute and Elyzer and Mathan and Jacob. People you've never heard of. And there's not much of. it's written about because God was just not speaking out loud amongst his people anymore. And then all of a sudden, we run into Joseph and Mary. You see, all of these people, their lives are not the point. They're pointing towards something bigger, towards something better.

And then Jacob and Joseph and Mary, who are ultimately too insignificant nobodies, God sets them apart by his grace. And he calls them out in a special way. And with Mary, he does this immaculate work. of perfection by which he drops the redemptive work of grace literally in her lap. And from Joseph and Mary come the point of all these stories. Here comes Jesus. You see, Jesus is the point. Jesus is the point of the book of Ruth. Jesus is the point of the Old Testament. Jesus is the point of the New Testament. Jesus is the greater story. He is the greater

Boas. He is the Redeemer. He came to forgive and to cancel out by faith all the sins of his fathers and their fathers and their fathers and their fathers before them. And just like Jesus came to forgive their sins and redeem the family line, Jesus had came to forgive our sins and redeem the family line. He came to make the story of grace accessible in a part of our lives and to cancel out the story of sin on our behalf. You see, Jesus is the point.

You see, sin would have us live our lives as though we are writing a biography. Sin would have us try to live our lives as though we're telling our own story. You see, a biography is a story about me. It's a story where I'm the point, my accomplishments, the things that I've done or the failures that I've had, where I am the center of the story. That's what the story of sin wants me to live life as though I'm writing. a biography, but grace,

Grace has a different agenda. Grace does not want me to write a biography. Grace wants me to live a testimony. You see, a testimony is not something that I have done. It is something that I have seen and that I have heard that I am testifying to. It is something that has happened on my behalf that I am giving testimony to. Sin wants us to write a biography. Grace wants us to live out a testifying.

testimony, a testimony about Jesus. And that he is the point of all the little lives from those lives to these lives, that grace wants us to give testimony to how faithful God is. So in your notes, I'll close like this. In your notes, there's an exercise I want us to walk through as a church. And the exercise is simply this. It's a timeline of your life. And I want us all to do it.

So everybody grab your notes. Even if you're not into notes, no problem. Do it anyway. It's going to be awesome. In your notes, I provided something called the timeline of your life. And here's what I want us to do. I want us to go back to your birthday on one end and write it down. And then write today's date on the other end.

And what I would ask you to do is to chronologically map out the events, two or three major events of your life from that day to this day. They could be significant events or they could be insignificant events. It doesn't matter, but chronologically, that you would map out your life in two or three major events. And as you're working on your timeline and you're thinking through the chronology of your life, I would ask you this question. Where is Jesus? In the timeline of your life, where is Jesus? At what point did Jesus invade your timeline?

At what point did your life stop being about you and start turning in the direction of God through Jesus? At what point did you realize that life lived for selfish gain as a life full of disappointment and you repented and confessed that and you began to turn your life toward God in his plan and what he's up to? See, maybe for some of us it's a specific date and time and we very clearly remember the day that we realized that we were sinners and that we were separated from God's grace and that the only way for us to be in right relationship with God is by placing our faith in Jesus. For some of us, that happens in a very specific day. For others of us, that happens over a season. But regardless of the time frame at some point in our lives,

our lives go from being about us by faith to being about Jesus, if we are walking faithfully with Him. So as you weigh through the timeline of your life, church, I have to ask you, where is Jesus? Let's pray together. Father, we thank you that you give us the opportunity to walk under your grace. Lord, I pray that right now as we have chewed through some really difficult things in regards to faithfulness and sin and the story that they're telling God,

I pray that you would convict us deeply and that you would remind us that by your grace, we have access to forgiveness and redemption and that we can come boldly into your throne room. And Father, I pray that as we think about our timelines, God, that we would very clearly see and be encouraged by where you entered our lives. And where our life stopped being a biography and they started being a testimony. Father, we thank you for your grace on us. We thank you for sending Jesus. We thank you that we can live for something greater than ourselves. We thank you that the point of our lives is not our life, but the point of our lives is your faithfulness and that we can tell that story that you would be.

because you love us so much. Father, we give you all the glory for all the things you've done on our behalf. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.