Skip to main content

Celebrating Advent - Lesson 2, by Pastor Kevin

By

Sing: O Come Let us Adore Him

Reading: Matthew 1:2-6a

Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king.

Summary: This portion of the genealogy records Abraham to David. You will notice that in Hebrew thought, only the heads of the house were recorded to trace lineage. However, if you take a close look, three women were mentioned even though it wasn't customary to do so (Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth). What is even more interesting was the fact that these women were controversial. Since you are talking to your children you may not want to point out that this family tree includes things most families would rather cover up such as rape with Tamar or prostitution with Rahab. What you can say is that God chose the Israelites and people like Rahab and Ruth were not Israelites...yet they were included in God's family line because they had faith. This points us to the fact that Jesus was coming to complete the family of God and anyone can be a part of it if they have faith in Christ! You didn't have to be an Israelite!

Questions/Responses:

Do you have any relatives? Think of as many relatives as you can. Can you name them? 

 Our relatives help us understand how we got here. Do you think knowing something about our relatives will help you to understand something about yourself? Perhaps if you see lots of creativity or a hard work ethic in your family heritage it might give you a sense of those things...

 In the last lesson we discussed how Jesus would complete God's family. What can we learn about God's family from this genealogy? That people who were not Israelites could still be in God's family because they believed in God and trusted him.

 Can you get into God's family? Yes!

 How do we get accepted into God's family? Are we born into it? Do we earn it by doing more good things than bad things? NO!

 How then? We are accepted into the family of God by believing in Jesus Christ. See John 1:12-13

 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

That's right. Ruth and Rahab were not Israelites but God considers them his children because they put their faith in his power to save! God is a wonderful God!

Prayer and Ending


Father in heaven, we praise you for your awesome plan to build a family in Jesus. Thank you that all we have to do is to admit that you are God and believe that you can save us from our sins and we are your children. Help us to keep believing in you and trusting that you are our Father who loves us dearly. AMEN!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord, by George Muller

By Anonymous
To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord By George Muller “It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost for more than fourteen years. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. “I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God—not prayer, but the Word of God. And here again, not the simple reading of the Word of God so that it only passes through my mind just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what I read, pondering over it, and applying it to my heart. To meditate on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed. And that thus,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reflective Glory: How the Moon Displays the Mercy of God

By
Our sun is a fitting metaphor for the glory of God. In the context of our solar system, it is massive, bright, beautiful, powerful, self-sufficient, heat-producing, life-giving, and dangerous. It is, by far, the dominant feature of our solar system and without it the system would fling apart and all living things therein would die.  On the other hand, our moon is a fitting metaphor for human beings, especially for those who believe in Jesus Christ. First, compared to the sun, the moon is tiny and dim. The sun is 400 times larger than the moon, its mass is 27 million times greater than the mass of the moon, and from our perspective its light shines 450,000 times brighter than that of the moon. The sun is so much greater than the moon that it’s difficult to quantify and express the difference. Likewise, the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is so much great than each and all of us that it’s impossible to quantify or express the difference. Indeed, the Lord is very great and greatly...
Post a Comment
Read more

When Children Say "I'm Bored" By Julie Lowe

By
This Article is written by Julie Lowe and was originally posted on the CCEF blog.  I highlighted the areas of particular interest. I had already prepared a blogpost on dealing with boredom from a Christian worldview and then came across this. There is much overlap between the two, perhaps this one is more concise while my work attempts to explain the connection between the ability to think and the ability to be happy. You can visit the original blogpost in the link provided below.  https://www.ccef.org/resources/blog/children-say-im-bored   We have a common crisis in our home; it is the calamity of boredom. Our children might even consider it a catastrophe. “I’m bored” is repeated so often it would not be an overstatement to say that these words echo continuously throughout our home especially during any break from school. These are children with limited media time but still children with a Wii and Xbox system, a pool outside our door, multiple games, toy...
Post a Comment
Read more