Please now turn in your Bibles to our scripture text for today, which comes first Chronicles 1
Chronicles are Shortly before the book of Psalms if you find Psalms to turn turn to the left and The Bibles that are going to see it's that's on page 282
Book of Chronicles is a great book that has a great message for us as a church today Problem with the book of Chronicles is that it starts out with nine chapters of genealogies We're going to be looking at those over the next a couple of weeks and I've seen why God saw fit To inspire the scripture for the benefit of his people for all ages We'll begin in verse one and we're gonna we're gonna hop a little bit here As we go from all three chapter one and then into the first couple of verses of chapter two So just keep your finger on it. And I'll say now jump down to verse five or whatever and jump down with me as we read along This is God's word eternally true from first Chronicles chapter one beginning in verse one Adam, Seth, Enoch, Keenon, Mahalo, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lemek, Noah, the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth Look down to verse eight The sons of Ham, Kush, Nisraim, Putt, and Keenon Look down to verse 17 The sons of Shem Elam, Asher, Arfaksaid, Bud, and Aram The sons of Aram, Us, Hul, Geather, and Minshek Arfaksaid was the father of Shalala. Shalala was the father of Eber Two sons were born to Eber by the way Eber is probably where they get the name Hebrew
Two sons were born to Eber One was named Pelleg because in his time the earth was divided. Pelleg means division His brother was named Jokhtown Look down to verse 24 And it gives us a summary there of that post-Noah Selection that's being revealed here Shem, Arfaksaid, Shalala, Eber, Pelleg Rue, Sarug, Nehore, Tara, and Abram That is Abraham Verse 28 The sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael Verse 34 Abraham was the father of Isaac The sons of Isaac, Esau, and Israel Look down to chapter two verse one
These were the sons of Israel Ruben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Isaacar, Zebulin, Dan, Joseph, Benjamin, Naftali, Dad, and Asher Here is the reading of God's word for us eternally true. Let's respond to him in thankfulness the word of the Lord Let's pray Our God and Father, we are thankful to you that your word does not return Boy, it doesn't return without having had an impact, an effect We know this because your word is living and active in sharper than any two-edged sword And does surgery on our souls
We ask that you by your spirit, Lord, would or would illumine this word to us that it would become clear to us Why you had these things written down for our benefit Jesus, we ask that you would preach to us this morning that you would change us by your spirit. We ask in Christ name Amen The title of our sermon this morning is responding to supernatural supernatural selection Some of you may recognize a ring of familiarity in that and as you grew up and learned in junior high in high school And and perhaps you can college the concept of of natural Selection the concept of natural selection was Something that was a theory of a man named Charles Darwin who who wrote and Is famous work the origin of species in about 1865 Somewhere around there. Well, don't worry I'm not gonna talk about Darwinism here this morning and don't worry. I'm not gonna go on a tirade against Darwinism Either I'm not gonna explain natural selection But what we're talking about here is something Similar but very very different The first nine chapters of chronicles as I mentioned are all genealogies and book of chronicles was written After God's people had returned from Babylon They had been in exile along with a characters like Daniel And they had been released in the year 538 by a Persian king who had just conquered the Babylonian world Conquered the capital itself and we'll see this occur in the book of Daniel right after the writing is on the wall For Babylon Babylon's king that's where we get that expression the writings on the wall In other words, you can tell what's gonna happen It's from the book of Daniel and and God's hand writes on the wall Letting the king of Babylon know his kingdom was finished Been weighed in the balance and and declared wanting And at very night the king of Persia Cyrus also known as Darius Depending on what language you're speaking and at that time if you're like me you weren't speaking either Cyrus as part of his policy releases the captives of the Babylonian Empire and tells everybody go back to your homelands It's a God's people are released in 538 BC And they go back to to Israel and they they come back to the ruins of The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar from about the 100 years before The temple is torn down The walls of Jerusalem are flattened On the city itself that there's there's been burning and pillaging that that occurred years and years before and this is what they They come back to So God inspires these couple of books first and second chronicles In this time frame So let us people know what they should be concentrating on To reveal to them what their identity is and was and still is and what it will be So he reminds them from these genealogies who's important and what's important and where their heritage Is from God shows us in in this section that we're in Several things shows us one that If a Natural selection were part of the picture that that we wouldn't be a part of heaven If God just chose us according to how good we were none of us would bank it to be with him I heard this past week of the Canadian Stephen Wright He's always been one of my favorites. He's the guy with the deadpan face and Curly hair bolt head he wears a hat now, so he can't see his baldness And he's the one that came up with the the phrase it's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it All his comedy is is that it's one liners And he's half asleep when he talks, but he said on Wednesday night or whenever it was that I saw him He says I was driving down the highway the other day and I saw a guy who looked like he's hitchhiking on the side of the road He'd assigned there on the side of the highway. It said heaven So I hit him. I think he's probably there. He looked like a good guy to me
Funny and what we typically think Most people in churches Most people that aren't in churches think that if you're a pretty good guy or a pretty good woman You'll make it But God is very clear that that's not the case It's not natural selection here. It's not selection according to what we would buy nature guests We would buy nature guests that if somebody's a pretty good guy, they'll make it to heaven if somebody's pretty good woman They'll make it to heaven But in God's case in this whole scenario It's not natural selection. We're talking about that super natural selection as you fill out blanks there if you like to do that What most believe if they're pretty good. They'll make it they'll make it to heaven But because we all sin We won't We won't It's not natural selection, but super natural selection that's going on here That's your whole introduction because we sin we won't make it to heaven It's not natural selection, but super natural selection that God reveals to us Is what's going on as people are gaining entrance or non-interference into heaven First of all this morning God communicates to us through this Genealogy that we have in the first chapter in the beginning of the second and first chronicles that the Father chose you The Father chose you from everyone out of everyone out of everyone he could have chosen he chose you to receive his blessing So you're two blanks there chose you to receive His blessing out of everyone he could
Many of you know one of my favorite shows that was on for one season only was a show called Freaks and Geeks and and this was Refreshed to me a couple of weeks ago when I watched the Dateline NBC John Stossel special on In crowd it was called and it used Freaks and Geeks clip Freaks and Geeks clip to make its point and it shows the scene. I remember this episode where All these kids are they're in PE class or in phys ed gym class and they're outside on the softball the baseball fields Out there There's the gym teacher and they're the kids and the gym teacher picks the most athletic the best looking guys to come out and be captains The two captains and these two captains are going to do what You know You know pick teams you know like you like you did in PE or recess or whatever you pick two captains are usually the best players Best guys most popular and then they pick two teams and they show the selection go on and the Geeks that are non-athletic they haven't developed yet the freshman in high school You see them just grown when they see this whole scenario come up because they know what's going to happen They're going to be the last one selected and sure enough they are The last one selected and even the guy that's second to last being selected when he gets selected He's pumped you know because he wasn't the last one You know the guy that's the last one there just kind of walks over to his team Unselected unwanted the very last one. What happens by the end of the show the Gen teacher has been told he needs to reverse the order of things And so what he does is he he picks the two guys that are last selected as captains And then these two guys that were following last selected start picking teams and they pick all the guys that never got picked first before And they're rejoicing and they're celebrating because they had been picked out selected from all these people that could have been chosen to be on this PE class softball team They got picked out and so they celebrated in this and and rejoiced and jumped and kind of skipped to their their captain for this team And that's what guys showing us here this morning That you've been selected Through a long selection process has been going on since the foundation of the world when God created man and woman Adam had descendants, but not all Of them were blessed by God. That's your blank Adam had descendants, but not all of them were blessed by God But some were and here's the line we see through this genealogy the ones that are highlighted here are Noah Shem Abraham Isaac and then lastly Israel otherwise known as Jacob The Old Testament summarized by by the young deacon Stephen as he is preaching before his his Jewish brethren in act seven and he says this in excerpt area. I'm sorry in exe 1317 it reviews what Stephen had spoken
And Stephen said the God of the God of our people chose our fathers Scriptures very clear that God is one that chooses people chooses people to be his people Old Testament israel was selected that's your blank old testman israel was selected from all the people to the earth
They were blessed and protected by God He wasn't the descendants of ham or ishmael or issaal That were selected even though they came from the same father as one that was
Israel today is the church And it's composed also of people that God whom God has selected selected to make up his beloved protected and blessed people Where do we see this in the New Testament? Well, we see that in the the passage that Dan read for us this morning from Galatians 3 Abraham believed God and it was credited to credited to him as righteousness Understand then that those who believe our children of Abraham Abraham was chosen out of all the people in that city of Error next to the Persian Gulf and he was chosen and called out to come from among his people to be God special person the father Of many nations, but one special nation in particular in particular israel And God tells us that the church today are the chosen people the sons of Abraham John the Baptist when he was challenged by Jewish leaders
They said Essentially we're children of Abraham so we've got it made And John pointed out no, it's not by just natural uh progeny, but rather God can take these rocks these stones and make children of Abraham God can choose to make a child of Abraham out of anyone He wants to and the message for the church today is that every member of the church who professes faith God has made one of the children of Abraham one of the members of God's group that he protects his people The New Testament also talks about the fact that God's people The church are ones that he chose ones that he has chosen This is very evident through scripture Matthew 22, Luke 18, Romans 8 And several places Ephesians 1 Paul writes for God chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight And love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ and accordance with the pleasure with his pleasure and will In him we were also chosen having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purposes the purpose of his will We see this chosen concept in Colossians 3, 2nd, 10th, 2, Titus 1, 1st, Peter 1, 1st, Peter 2 It's all throughout the New Testament scriptures that God's people, the church, the members of his church are those that have been chosen and formed into a people for himself So what does this mean for us as we look as people of God to the fact that God has been selecting Throughout history a people for himself not everybody being included but only a selection of people being included This means that we can rejoice we can rejoice because you can rejoice because God has chosen you He selected you out from all the people of the world to be here this morning to be a member of his church He's picked you out here so blank to show you his kindness He's picked you out To shower his kindness upon He's granted you forgiveness for your sins. He's granted you eternal life And we're to remember that his choosing us To believe his granting to us a faith in him is a reminder to us that he loves us
He chose you out to believe And that reminds us that he loves us He loves you. He gave you faith He's called you to be a part of the people that he protects and shepherds The father chose you from everyone to receive his blessing Secondly this morning we look at this this passage of scripture and we're called to consider something That's your that's your point to there You're called to consider your heritage H-E-R-I-T-A-G-E Consider your heritage and act Inline with it This is the message message for God's people who had come back from Babylon. They were to consider their heritage consider their privileged position They weren't descendants of ham They weren't descendants of Esau father of Arabs They were descendants of Jacob of Israel out of all the tribes of the earth that they could have been in They were in the tribe of Israel And with that concern responsibilities and and privileges
Our identity our heritage does that to us There's certain responsibilities we have based on who our parents are Or or sometimes there are responsibilities that we have or privileges We have based on who we we work for number of things like that Move the lion king and always brings home a lot of Scriptural truth and one of the truths is when Symba the The boy the son of the king Mufasa has been living for years apparently Just with the insects or with lower rodents and eating bugs And not taking his role as king over the pride But has been sureking his responsibility and just
Akuna Matata. Is that right?
No worries Just live in life as it comes free of responsibility
And Symba comes into torment at one point and realizes that maybe he shouldn't have been doing this And he hears the voice of his father at James Earl Jones The voice of Mufasa saying Symba You have You've forgotten me You're more than what you are You're more than what you've become You remind Symba that as his child A child of the king that Symba had responsibility to behave in line with that And to go back to the pride and exercise rulership and kingship Over the people so that the kingdom would be safe again In the bundling Well the writer of Chronicles Gives us in highlights several biblical characters And it's God's people looked at this and they looked at this chronology there to be reminded of the words of Moses In the book of Genesis and that the distinguishing features of each of these people And you see them Listed here for you first we have Adam What Adam tells us is to expect that you blank expect the world that has a mix of the blessings and the curses of God Adam fell and so that the curses came into this world and we live now in a world that's a mix of blessings and curses We deserve all curses But because of Christ he choose God has chosen us to Chosen to bless us to we deserve curse, but God has chosen to bless us too Have we gone to Seth Something's noted about Seth and Genesis 426 it says that Seth was one that called upon the name the Lord Now it doesn't sound like much But in the Old Testament this whole and it's carried out into the New Testament this whole idea of what the significance of the name of the Lord was brought great meaning to the fact that Seth called upon the name of the Lord the name of the Lord defined and as it's used in scripture Talks about the power name of the Lord defined and as it's used in scripture talks about the powerful presence I think that's a couple of what yes, it is a powerful presence of the Lord And so when someone called upon the name of the Lord when they were going into battle An israelite king would call upon the name of the Lord He's calling on God to come down in his powerful presence win the battle for him
In the same way where to be people like Seth that called that call upon the name of the Lord We call upon God's powerful presence to win the victories before us To protect us to defend us to be our conquering king we call upon his name We're lying not upon ourselves. That's your blank not We're to people that were to be people that don't rely on ourselves And in the church We're to rely we're to call upon the name of the Lord to call upon his powerful presence For us to do what we're supposed to do as a church to to gather People who don't know Christ that they would know Christ And to mature those that do know Christ To gather in the language of the Westminster confession to gather and perfect the saints
We won't do that by human methods God uses means and uses us to do that, but it's his power. It's his name his powerful presence Which accomplishes the purposes of the church before our eyes Next we have Noah Noah was one that was chosen to survive the flood out of all the people that could have been chosen Noah was chosen to survive the flood Those during that the days when the Chronicles was written they had just survived a flood of judgment In Babylon Today we looked at our own lives and realized that we have been chosen to survive a flood of judgment through what Christ has done So we sit in the shoes so to speak of Noah People that have been chosen to to escape the destruction that comes upon everything else
But with Noah to were to remember something when Noah survives This this destruction of all things this great judgment upon the world. What does he do when he gets out of the boat besides plan of anger the worships Sets up an altar any worships and where to remember that part of our heritage Besides expecting a world of mixed blessings and incurses Part of our heritage besides being people that call and God's powerful presence and rely upon him to accomplish his purposes Part of our heritage too is that we're worshiping people We've been saved from the flood of judgment so like Noah we worship Shem Shem is an interesting person. He's one of Noah's three sons Shem Ham and J-Feth were the three sons and it's told of Shem A couple of things or a couple of functions that Shem would have in society and worldwide society It's told that he would conquer Ham and Ham's descendants a part of Ham's descendants were the Canaanites Um Canaan was a son of Ham and we see that in the days of Joshua God's people conquer the Canaanites How is Sam the Shem a descent or an ancestor for us someone that that identifies who we are as a people Well, we don't have we don't have armor and and swords like Joshua and his people had we're not in a physical Battle for the for the holy land that land of Palestine rather we're in a spiritual battle today What are we fighting for the church With the sword of the spirit which is the word of God the words the gospel And through the words of the gospel we are conquering we are putting to death prideful men prideful women who previously saw no need for God and we're living in rebellion to his kingship And through the message of the gospel we the church conquer We conquer with the gospel the souls of men and women boys and girls and we bring Through the gospel people to submit to our king Those are your blanks there. We we conquer non-believers with the gospel that they may now submit to our king That is why they're while they're submitting to our king their citizenship transfers it transfers from the kingdom of man To the kingdom of God Colossians 320 you're now a citizen of heaven Paul declares to the church
so like Shem Having our heritage from Shem we still conquer today we conquer the unbelieving world Not through the sword not through not through armor not over land not over and with political means But rather we conquer with the gospel and bring people into submission To our king as we call upon the name of the Lord his powerful presence To do that in the hearts and minds of non-believers around us Second function of Shem it's all that he will be a source of blessing to his brothers at brother jetheth They would not be at war with jetheth, but they would a jeth and his descendants would would experience blessing Because of Shem and his descendants There would be spillover From the descendants of Shem and that describes our role today as Christians and society Through our love through our kindness to people through our respecting people because they bear God's image
They experience blessing Second second function of the Christian the church is to love that's your blank to love all around us This isn't something that's done real well by us The church today we'd rather we'd rather judge folks we'd rather say oh you don't believe like I do and then tear them down We'd rather boycott them and Hope that they are destroyed economically if they don't Advertised during the programs that we approve on TV But we're to have a role where we love people around us where there's blessing Granted to those around us They're either coming to faith and experiencing blessing because of that or if they don't experience the blessing of coming to faith and being a part of God's people They experience blessing because we treat them with kindness and love and respect We do what's good for them because they bear God's image We're to show here your blanks. We're to show non-believers kindness. We're to be a blessing to them not a pain in the in the you know what We're not to be people that they say oh no You know, I've got this Christian boss and You know he's always doing this We're to be such the people that people say you know what I have this boss and he's great And he's a Christian and he treats me so kindly He sacrifices for my benefit Goes out of his way for me You know, and I don't believe like him and I've even criticized him for his belief, but you know what he's kind to me He treats me well, and I like working for him We're to have that chimite kind of influence on people Next we have Abram Abram later known as Abraham and Isaac Abraham and Isaac remind us that we're to be people who trust in the promises of God great promises We see that in and Genesis 12 great promises are given to Abraham and Abraham believes And we're to be like that trusting in the promises of God And then lastly we have Israel Israel was son of Isaac he was also known as Jacob Israel or Jacob was a sneaky man in the first part of his life his name Jacob meant the supplanter The one who was sneaky and God's stuff kind of illegitimately And Jacob reminds us that we should be humble about who we are because we're not too different from him We're sneaky when our interests are concerned We can be dishonest to when our interests are concerned when when we're threatened Not to be completely truthful and this brings about in us a humility where to be humble That's your blank or to be humble remembering that the one who who names us is real is real today is the church The church is Israel and the one that that we're named by was one that was sneaky One that was dishonest and where to be reminded of that so that we don't get proud
But secondly Jacob had a characteristic about him that was very good He was a person that that wrestled with God and he gets the new name Israel Which means one who strives with God and overcomes and this was a this was an honorable name So this was in the name where it emphasized that Jacob wanted the blessing of God said to the angel of God He was wrestling with I will not let you go until you bless me And so Israel is an example to us of it to be a people that would seek to be pleasing to the Lord That's your blank to be pleasing to the Lord people who would diligently seek with all efforts striving To be blessed by God Through our following Through our following of him through our following the commands of his written words We're living our lives the way he would want us to live them
This is our heritage. This is who we are We seek God's blessing Remember we remember who we are like Jacob Sneaky and so we're humble While we seek his blessing We're people who trust in the promises of God where people who call upon God's powerful presence to be at work in and around us We're to be people who bless others as sat We're to be people who are are spreading the message to the gospel Killing the rebellious souls around us making them submissive souls to the gospel And we're to be people like Noah people of worship People who see that we have been rescued from a flood of judgment Get out of the boat so to speak and offer to our guy the worst the worth the praise the thanks that he deserves Let's pray Our Father we are thankful to you because out of all of people the world that you chose to be part of your people You chose us Causes to to understand deeper and deeper How deep your love is for us
Causes to see that you loved us so much that you chose us to spite all our sin And cause us as well to be people that live according to our heritage of men like Abraham and Seth And Adam and shim Isaac we are setting christening. Oh man