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living for today with an eye
for tomorrow this is the voice of vision broadcast Now, here's our teacher, Pastor
J.D. Hatfield. Well, hello there,
friends. Once again, this is Pastor J.D.
Hatfield of the Riverside Christian Fellowship in Hernando, Florida. As always, you can find us on
the web at voiceofvision.org. And if you hear a creaking chair
there, I've got a creaking chair. So forgive me for that. I'm moving
around, looking at my Bible. Looking at our transcript here,
and today's message is, they mean something. So those noises
mean that I got a squeaky chair. But if you hear the pages turning,
that's the Bible. And you can find the text that
I'm talking about right there on the front page of voiceofvision.org
the day that you hear this. If it's a rebroadcast, you can
go into the where it says Vision Radio across the top at the home
page there. Click on that and you'll find
the archives there. Click on those and you'll see
the teachings titled right there and you can listen to them again.
If you'd like to see the text from those, go back to the home
page and press on where it says Daily Blog and there you can
find the text and the audio right there at Voice Vision Auto-RG
again hit daily blog also you can find sermons a lot of these
teachings will be sermons broken up into sermon points like if
we had three points we'll break them up into three posts that
type of thing and you'll hear them on the radio in three different
days but A lot of times this is brand new teaching or things
that aren't included in our sermons and so you can get some little
extra there and I try to be practical and kind of just talk to you
here on this broadcast. If you want to email me with
some suggestions or prayer requests, make sure that you leave your
own email address within the post itself and that's pastorjd
at voiceofvision.org. If you'd like to support this
ministry with prayer or financial support or If you have any ideas
or anything like that, we'd be glad to hear you. And if you'd
like to come by Riverside sometime, you can go right there on the
front page and there's a button there that says Riverside Christian
Fellowship. Click on that and you can find our directions.
There's a Google map there and service times and there's some
videos, all kinds of things to do right there at voiceofvision.org. teaching today was calling it,
they mean something. Now what am I talking about? Well, I'm talking about one of
the most difficult things in the Bible that you might not
think is one of the most difficult things until I mention it, and
then you will definitely. There won't be a person listening
to me today or hearing me recorded some other time that wouldn't
agree with me. One of the most difficult things in the Bible
is having to go through the lists of names without speeding through
them or not paying attention or just doing them as your duty
or thinking, why are these things in there? eventually as we mature
in Christ and or we know our Bibles better, which should be
the same pace in a sense, but a lot of times it isn't, but
we see these lists and we find some people we see in other places
in the Bible or we put things together or someone brings a
good teaching that brings it all home for us. But many times
we just look at that and go, oh boy, man, why is this in here? Well, friends, the main point
I wanna get across to you today is that they do mean something,
and I'm gonna lead into something at the end here, which I'll save
for you. But at 1 Chronicles 1.18, we see Arphaxad begot Shelah,
and Shelah begot Eber, and on and on and on it goes. And you
find that in many places in the Old Testament, or the Book of
Numbers. You know why they call it the Book of Numbers, friends?
Because it's about numbers. Because it was about a census
and numbering the people. You see in Chronicles too, you
see these endless genealogies as they are. You know, it can
be tough sometimes, especially when we're trying to be honest
with ourselves and we're committing at the beginning of our year
or whenever we are, it usually hits at the beginning of the
year, we're gonna read our Bibles through, you know, all the way
through, not skipping a word and we're tempted to wonder why
God saw fit to include some things like these genealogies or the
details of travels. Why are these in the Bible at
all? Well, before we can answer all
that, and we're not really going to answer all that today in a
15-minute broadcast, but we can be sure of one thing. What's
that? We can be sure they're there
for a reason. All scripture is God-breathed
and is profitable. But the truth is that not all
of it is equally valid for equal, you know, in certain things,
but they are there for a reason. Perhaps we won't know all the
richness of why in this life, but I wanna give you some things
to think about today. When we study to find out certain
things, they have their rightful place
in being included. We begin to understand that to
see the overall big picture, some of these things that didn't
need to be paid attention to, we thought, were really actually
very important. I like to think of the lug nuts
on a car. You think lug nuts on a car?
Yeah, I like to think of the lug nuts on a car because when
your car runs out of oil or is low on oil, you'll have an oil
light. When your engine is having some kind of trouble, you'll
have the engine light pop up. and the lug nuts are coming loose
you don't know you know you gotta make sure there's no give room
with the lug nuts there's no light that tells you lug nuts
are loose but let me tell you friend those lug nuts get loose
that tire falls off you reckon you could die at least with the
oil light you have a chance to pull over with the check engine
light you can bring it in But some things are very important
even though they don't seem like it. Just like it tells us in
1 Corinthians 12 and 13 and 14 that all the parts of the body
of Christ are important. Romans 12 tells us the same thing
and of course Ephesians 4. There's lots of gifts in the
body of Christ and these things are important even though they
seem like it says in 1 Corinthians 14 like the less necessary parts. Sometimes those less necessary
things are more important. Like we see Ruth and Boaz and
we see that that's the line of David. and David, you know, being,
you know, the line of Jesus. And the thing is, there's a lot
of things that we don't understand, but they're in there for a reason.
For instance, notice that the two different genealogies in
Matthew and Luke point to two different lines of Jesus through
Mary and Joseph, but both of them have their roots in David.
One is to see the father's line, even though Joseph was not the
natural father, but it places him in David, and so does the
line of Mary places in David. So those seem a necessity in
a sense, right? Now, again, what about those
genealogies in the Old Testament book? You say, pastor, they just,
you know, I don't get it. Well, when we see those endless
names, think about the fact that God cared enough to put them
there. Then think about this. When you're
nothing but a name to everyone else, you're still important
to God. Important enough to be included even if no one else
thinks you're worth the time. When you see where the Bible
talks about the travels of the old timers and said they pitched
a tent here or there and then here or there again and so on,
think about the fact that when no one else cares where you are,
God knows exactly where you are. And he does care every step of
the way. God is interested in individuals. Looking at Romans 16 here, I
just wanna read just a little bit of this. We have some time,
and in chapter 16, verse one, it talks about Phoebe. Then in
verse three, it says, greet Prisca and Aquila. And then it says,
greet the church in their house, greet my beloved Epaetus, greet
Mary, greet Andronicus, and Junia, verses 7, I'm looking at there.
And just going on there, it says greet Ampelitus, greet Urbanus,
my beloved Stachys, greet Apelles, Greet those who belong to the
family of Aristobulus. Greet my kinsmen Herodian. Greet
those, Lord, who belong to the family of Narcissus. Greet those
workers in the Lord, Trifinian, Trifosa. Greet the beloved Peirces. Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord,
also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well. I mean,
think about that. If Paul said that, I mean, just a little teeny
thing there. It just catches my eye even now. Greet Rufus,
chosen of the Lord, because I'm recording this for the day after
Mother's Day, and it says, also his mother, who has been a mother
to me as well. Greet Asyncretus, Phlegon, Hermes,
Petrobus, Hermas, and the brothers who were with him. Greet Philogus,
Julian, Nerys, and his sister Olympus. Think about all these
people when they saw that, that Paul named so many of them by
name. Think if you were one of those.
Wow, look, I'm in the Bible, right? Greet one another with
a holy kiss. Timothy, my fellow worker, greets
you, so does Lucius and Jason. Suspitor, I, Tertius, wrote this
letter. See all these things here. When
we see the personal greetings of Paul to all these certain
individuals, think about the fact that although we don't have
much information, more than their name, they were obviously important
to Paul. Look at what it says again about
Rufus' mother. She was like a mother to me. You see, you need to show
respect and concern. I'm speaking to pastors now as
well as people that are trying to witness and just in your family,
they mean something. Just that little acknowledgement
that they matter is a big blessing. I think that's something the
Bible's teaching us right here. They matter. Think about all
these people when they saw this letter to the book of Rome. They
knew who Paul was. And now it's scripture. Think about that. I'd like to
meet some of those people out there. I did a sermon not too
long ago called God's Toothpick and it says, Shamgar defeated
600 Philistines with an ox goad. And we think, you know, okay,
he was a judge of Israel, but man, that's not much to go on.
And there's a lot more there than we think, but the truth
is that it mattered. I'd like to meet Shamgar someday.
There's a lot of Shamgars out there. There's a lot of Rufus
and his mother out there, people that don't seem to be very significant. They don't have the big television
ministry. They don't have the big ministry in the church. They're
not, they're just the old lady in the back of the pew, but they
matter. I think of the ladies that were my mother's friends
that kind of prayed me back into the kingdom of God after those
years that I had went astray. Think about all those people
that might have been praying for the prodigal son to come home and come to
his senses. They're not even listed in the Bible, but they
mean something. They mean something. Again, we might not have a lot
more information than the names here, but they were important to Paul.
They were important to God. They got their names in the Bible.
Don't you wish that that were you, right? I mean, besides the
book of life, that's where I want my name. The Bible is the one
book I'd want to get a recommendation in, right? It's better and more
prestigious than any who's who's list you'll ever get on the earth.
When someone takes an interest in you and your details, whether
they know it or not, they're acting like Jesus. He has your
hairs numbered, even if you're bald. He counted each one as
it fell off your head. Now you need to use that head.
You need to realize that those words in the Bible don't just
skip over them. They mean something. You may
not care, but God does. I may not ever know what all
those names mean, but I know this, God wanted them included. And you know what, friends? God
wants you included. He wants you to be put in a book
where maybe a whole lot of people don't know who you are, but God
knows who you are. And he wants to place your name
in the book of life, the book of life. You may not matter a
whole lot in this life to a whole lot of people, but if you're
in the book of life, you mean something to God. You mean that
you were redeemed and let the redeemed of the Lord say so.
God wanted these names included. and he wants you included. So
be glad that God wants your name included when no one else even
seems to think that you're worth the time. I think about God and
his character and the more I think about the names that are in here
and the things that seem so insignificant, I know that that means when I
seem insignificant to other people, when I feel insignificant to
myself, because of Jesus Christ and because he's invested himself
in me, I matter to God. And friends, That means something
to me. I really want you to think about
that. You need to ponder that. And when your children say, this
doesn't seem to matter, this doesn't seem to matter. When
people, all they want to talk about is turkey and brass tacks. You know
what I mean? The bottom line. You've got to get there somehow. So all the details, they mean
something. Marfexad, we got Shelah. Shelah,
we got Eber. And all the chronicles there,
they mean something. Paul, naming these names means
something. And you mean something to God.
That means something to me. Well, we'll talk to you next
time. This is Pastor J.D. Hatfield. God bless you. Oh yes,
I'm glad to know my life is here with Jesus.
They Mean Something
Series Voice of Vision Radio
When we are committed to reading our Bibles through, all the way through, not skipping a word, we are tempted to wonder why God saw fit to include some things. Like the genealogies, and the details of travels, why are these in the Bible at all?
| Sermon ID | 5710832320 |
| Duration | 15:04 |
| Date | |
| Category | Radio Broadcast |
| Bible Text | 1 Chronicles 1:18 |
| Language | English |
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