Jesus: The Greatest Plot Twist {DWITW 365}
Here we are with another 365 post….and friends, if you fell asleep reading all those genealogies throughout Chronicles, then this is your alarm clock!
There are times throughout the Biblical record where everything seems to stop. The authors press pause. They slow things down to retell the story of our God. It all feels very “meta-narrative,” or pointing to the grand story. I think God gives us these mic-drop summaries because He knew we would need some re-awakening. He graciously reminds us who He is and what He has done, because He knows that we, like the national of Israel, are quick to forget.
Psalm 78 is one such chapter, and Asaph is one such author, inspired by God. Asaph doesn’t just call his people to remember it, but to sing it. He calls his people to sing the anthem of their God.
The Endless Cycle
In Psalm 78 alone, there are over 50 direct references to God’s sovereign actions - these are actions of His provision, His protection, and His justice. This song reminds God’s people that He is in control, He alone is God, and that He is the main character of the story. How do the Israelites respond?
“In spite of ALL this they still sinned; despite His wonders, they did NOT believe.”
- Psalm 78:32
And God’s response to them? Compassion.
“Yet He, being compassionate, atoned for their iniquity and did not destroy them; He restrained His anger often and did not stir up all His wrath. He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again.”
- Psalm 78:38-39
We’ve heard this before, right? The Israelites’ sin, God confronts their sin, they see God’s goodness and then… they forget God and sin again. YET God still loves them, has compassion on them, and forgives them. It certainly points us to need for a more permanent solution - the need for a Savior.
Need for God’s Compassion
If you are as incredulous as I am at the immense testing God put up with from the Israelites, remember with me that we are just like them. We are now God’s chosen people! And we, too, need great compassion from God! Humbling, am I right? In Psalm 73, the psalmist goes through his own humbling process, from judging others to waking up to the reality that he, himself, was the brute beast to God. In verses 22-26, He cries:
“I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.
Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
`but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
God’s compassion changes hearts back towards him. It changed the Israelites countless times, and it can change us today.
A “Nevertheless” Kind of God
I remember studying Nehemiah 9 last summer study, and finding yet another place God recounts His story to His people. Although it is another author and setting entirely, it is the same story—our compassionate God giving a nevertheless attitude to his unfaithful people. Nehemiah 9:31 reads: “Nevertheless, in your great mercies you did not make an end of them or forsake them, for you are a gracious and merciful God.”
On and on the cycle goes, in the Israelites’ story, and in our own. Throughout the genealogies in 1 Chronicles, we find generations of people in need of a deliverer, in need of a Messiah. God, in His mercy, gave them countless “nevertheless” moments. And we, too, might as well add our names to the lists. We, too, need a deliverer who can save us from ourselves. So the genealogies are not meaningless, but rather, they point us to the biggest nevertheless moment of all time...
Enter Jesus
You see, these genealogies focus heavily on David’s history, from the line of Judah, as well as they trace mankind all the way back to Adam. From these specific lines would come the only way for all of our “nevertheless” moments would come to pass—Jesus. As we now know, all of history hinges on Jesus life, death, burial, and resurrection. All generations salvation’ throughout time depend upon the promise of the Messiah.
Jesus’ death and resurrection makes it so that our story ends differently, once and for all.
In Matthew 1:1-17, the genealogy of Jesus is recorded back to Abraham, and in Luke 3:23-38, the genealogy of Jesus is recorded all the way back to Adam. You see, all these people in these genealogies had the same problem of sin, and cycled through the same story as the Israelites, BUT Jesus’ death and resurrection makes it so that our story ends differently, once and for all. He has saved us. He has atoned for our sin. He is victorious over our past, present, and future.
He has changed the story’s ending.
Throughout time and from generations long past, God had a great plan of redemption in mind - the greatest story of compassion and mercy. He always had Jesus in mind for you and for me, from the beginning. Jesus is the greatest plot twist of all time.
A Generation that Seeks God
What will the generations after ours say about us? What will be our legacy - one of cyclical sin OR of a broken dependence on our Savior? What story will the future genealogies tell?
So, sister, if you are asleep in your faith, retell the story of God! Tell of His everlasting love for you from generation to generation! Confess your arrogance and your wandering and come back to Jesus. Testify how He has turned you from brute beast and object of wrath to be precious children of Godand co-heirs with Christ! Let’s be a generation who proclaims His nevertheless kind of faithfulness, compassion, and mercy to ours and others wayward hearts.
So, with every moment of our lives, let’s sing a new song of Jesus’ love for us, and of gratefulness to the Author and Perfecter of our faith - Jesus!
“Oh God let us be
A generation that seeks
Seeks Your face
Oh God of Jacob”
- Give us Clean Hands, by Charlie Hall
Jillian Vincent loves Jesus. She's a wife, mother of two boys and a Dayton enthusiast. Jillian currently is a stay at home mama and spends nap times writing and discipling other women. She would (almost) die for an avocado, a cup of coffee made by her husband, a novel that makes her cry, and a bouquet of sunflowers.