HE brings good out of evil…

romans 8.28 (nlt), GOD causes all things to work together for good. 

can GOD bring good out of evil?  you bet HE can.  we are celebrating that fact this week.  you think that, say, the crucifixion any good came out of that?  just the salvation of the world.  it was evil to nail JESUS to a cross.  to torture HIM, to stab his side, to do all that.  it was evil.  but GOD brought good out of evil. 

let me give you an example.  in matthew 1 there’s the genealogy of JESUS, the family tree, the history.  in hebrew culture you always trace the genealogy through the male, the man.  so in the genealogy of JESUS from adam all the way to JESUS.  it goes and this guy had this son and this guy had this son and this guy had this son…  if you ever get insomnia, read matthew 1.  it’s just a bunch of names. 

but then all of a sudden in this hebrew jewish genealogy which is supposed to be male only four women pop up in the line of CHRIST.  every one of those women have a painful story to tell.  every one of them had a hurt.  yet GOD used that hurt in their lives resulting in, ending in the birth of the MESSIAH. 

the first woman listed in matthew 1 is tamar.  you know who she was?  she had two husbands.  they both died and they were both jerks.  absolute jerks.  they both died and then her father in law seduced her and she became pregnant and had a baby through her father-in-law.  you say that’s not too good.  no it’s not.  she ends up in the lineage of JESUS. 

the second woman mentioned is rahab who was a prostitute.  she was a streetwalker.  she’s in the lineage of JESUS.

the third woman mentioned was ruth who wasn’t even jewish.  she was a moabite and married a jewish man illegally.

the fourth woman mentioned is bathsheba.  and we all know her story.  she had an affair with david. 

GOD even uses our mistakes and our hurts and the things we feel most shameful about. 

just a thought from the front porch…