THE WORD 4 ev 1

Today’s Reading: Matthew 1

Good morning everyone! Are you ready for this new venture—reading through the very word of God? Actually, this will be an “ad”-venture. Perhaps you have never thought much about this word, adventure. What exactly is adventure? When I was in college, me and some buddies of mine would periodically go on what we called “adventures”—road trips to Destine, Florida; Lake City, Colorado; Grand Canyon, Arizona; Rachel (Area 51) Nevada; and San Diego, California. For us, these trips were meant to be exciting and thrilling, leaving the boring humdrum of college life behind and driving off into the sunset. We would take turns driving through the night, always determined to make the next horizon. However, for our parents and girlfriends, our running off like that on “adventure” more likely worried them half to death. The truth is, adventure is always a mixed bag of emotions. Its technical meaning implies both thrill and hazard.

So here we find ourselves this morning beginning a new adventure. However, it is more than just a read through the New Testament (which, I admit, doesn’t make for much of an “adventure”). No… rather, today we read of God’s great adventure. How He took an incredible risk sending his Son into this world, into the flesh, to save you and me. We see the very history of the ancestry of Jesus; a history of real people, some of whom were a far cry from the holiness or righteousness that we would expect of the ancestors of God’s Son. In Mathew’s genealogy of Jesus we see prostitutes, liars, adulterers and more. However, the fulfilled prophecy in this list of names reminds us that God keeps His Word, even when it seems unlikely that he will do so. He promised that Christ would come, and He did!

It happened again in a small town in Palestine. A young couple committed to marriage suddenly finds themselves in an adventure not of their own making. No doubt the righteous individuals of Nazareth thought this to be just another example of ungodliness. Mary and Joseph face disgrace and shame. But true righteousness prevailed. Despite how it may have looked, Joseph took Mary home to be his wife and she gave birth to a son and he was given the name Jesus. Who would have thought that God’s adventure had been working all this time, even in the lives of such unlikely people?

… but the rest is history!

The adventure goes on and we are a part of it. It certainly is easy to look around today and wonder about God. Where is He? Why is he allowing such evil things to happen? However, we can read Matthew chapter 1 as an answer to these questions. God is not absent. He is working to bring about his promise—the coming of his Savior/Son, Jesus. God will work salvation today, tomorrow, and for all time—even in the most unlikely situations—even in the lives of you and me. And on some future day you and I will be able to look back, as we have today through the genealogy of Jesus, and see God’s adventure written across the pages of time.
I pray God blesses your day today as you live out your adventure in Christ.

Pastor Aaron