Nov. 30, 2025

In this powerful first-Sunday-of-Advent message, Pastor Bill invites us to take a closer look at something we often overlook: the family tree of Jesus in Matthew 1. While genealogies may seem boring at first glance, Pastor Bill reveals how this long list of names tells a remarkable story about God’s mercy, faithfulness, and plan to save His people.

With honesty, humor, and pastoral insight, he walks us through some of the messy, dysfunctional, and deeply flawed individuals in Jesus’ lineage—people marked by deception, immorality, idolatry, brokenness, and sin. Yet Matthew includes every one of them on purpose. Why? Because Jesus stepped directly into the real, sinful human story to redeem it from the inside out.

Pastor Bill reminds us that our own family histories can contain dysfunction, pain, or shame—but Jesus came for families exactly like ours. At just the right moment, God grafted a new branch into humanity’s broken tree: His Son, who would save His people from their sins.

Through Christ’s death on the tree of the cross and our baptism into His name, we are grafted into His family, covered in His righteousness, and made brothers and sisters in Him. No matter our past, we now belong to the family restored by grace.

🌿 “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”