Disclaimer: Please forgive any typographical, grammatical, and/or content errors in the following notes. They are not meant to be an exact transcription, but rather a helpful guide for those who appreciate the written word along with the spoken word. If you have any questions on what was taught, feel free to reach out on our ‘Contact Us’ page.
Today we’re going to be all over the bible. Like I said last week, not necessarily my favorite style of preaching, but it’s an appropriate style when we’re looking at the family tree of Jesus and as we’re preparing for the birth of our King and I’m looking forward to that celebration on Christmas Eve Eve. Niko is going to be encouraging us from the word of God as we look at Jesus directly and leading up to that point we’re taking some glimpses at individuals within his family tree that point to Christ and encourage us who maybe have some similar stories or experiences that Christ redeemed through his tree and will certainly redeem in our lives. Amen?
Last week we looked at Jesus’ tree of trust where we looked at the patriarchs as the Lord was faithful to them—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and how He worked in each of their lives. They were very different people. The Lord used each of them and was ultimately faithful to all of His promises. Praise God! Today we are going to look at Jesus’ family tree of triumph and in particular we get to look at who the Jews would have said were the black sheep of the family. How many of you would consider yourself the black sheep of your family? Maybe when I say that you immediately think of someone else in your family. You know, that person who is always getting into trouble or perhaps they’re just not making good decisions or they’re just someone you don’t even want to spend time with or someone that doesn’t even want to spend time with you. We kind of each have our own definition and understanding of a black sheep. Well, to the Jews who were very, very big on genealogies and family history and keeping meticulous records of their heritage, they oftentimes sought to write out or make a footnote of those who were the proverbial black sheep within their line.
Well, God doesn’t do that. In fact, He puts those black sheep front and center and highlights them to show His grace and His mercy and His uncanny ability to bring beauty from ashes. That’s what He does. That’s what He did. He is a God of redemption and whereas the world does not usually celebrate black sheep. The Lord does. When you read through the genealogies of the bible, most of the time you will read that so-and-so was the son of some Jewish guy who was the son of some Jewish guy who was the son of some Jewish guy. And this Jewish guy did this thing which was pretty cool but he was the son of this Jewish guy who was the son of this Jewish guy who did this other thing which was pretty cool. And that’s how the genealogies go. We are looking at the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew chapter 1 and while there are certainly the typical types of how to write a genealogy here, there are five names that any Jew reading this would immediately look at and do a double-take over. If you have your bibles open with me, we’re not going to read through the entire genealogy, but in chapter 1 verse 3, 5, 6 and 16 we see these names.
We know that Jesus is from the tribe of Judah and we pick up in verse 3 that Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. Perez and Zerah’s mother is Tamar. Perez, of course, is the one who is in the line. We continue down to verse 5 and see Salmon, the father of Boaz by Rahab (we’ve studied a lot about her already) and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth. Skip down to the second half of verse 6: and David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, otherwise known as Bathsheba. And then ultimately verse 16: and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.
In the ancient near east, in particular Jewish culture, Gentiles would never have been mentioned. In the ancient near eastern culture, women would have never been mentioned. In all of the ancient near eastern culture, people who were involved in scandals, in particularly sexual scandals would never be mentioned. Well, guess what we have here. We have 5 ladies who are mentioned in the genealogy, at least two of whom are certainly gentiles – Rahab, who we know was a Canaanite of Jericho, and we have Ruth who was a Moabite. Then we have Tamar, the first one mentioned who Jewish tradition tells us was Syrian, a convert to Judaism, and then we have Bathsheba and we don’t really know what her history was because the text gives two different names of her father and one of them was a Jewish name and one of them wasn’t a Jewish name-ish and she also married Uriah the Hittite who was not a Jew, so it’s unclear what history and heritage Bathsheba was. But we know Mary was a Jew. And so we know that of these five women, 1 of them with certainty was Jewish, two of them, three pretty confidently were gentiles and on top of that as already mentioned, each one of them was involved in some sort of sexual scandal.
We’re going to talk about each one of these ladies today and while I am not going to be explicit with anything, we’re going to talk about the things they were involved in. It’s in the bible so we’re going to talk about it and praise God that these things are in the bible because it’s rea life and we all perhaps either have experiences something or know someone who has experienced someone who has experienced something like this and praise God that He meets us there, ministers to us and ministers through us in the midst of that brokenness. Praise God.
The first woman we meet is Tamar. You can read her story in Genesis 38 and Tamar is married to the oldest son of Judah. Judah has three sons by a Canaanite woman and the oldest son who marries Tamar, his name is Er, he’s a wicked man. The bible doesn’t tell us how or why he’s wicked, it just says that he’s evil in the sight of the Lord and therefore the Lord put him to death. Not much background other than, bad dude, the Lord brought judgment. So according to the culture and later on because the law had not yet been given, later on the Lord further defines what a kinsman redeemer is, if you want to read about that you can read about that in Leviticus 25, that’s where the Lord articulates the concept of a kinsman redeemer and essentially if you are unaware of what that is, a kinsman redeemer is a relative whose job it is to redeem what was lost. It could be land, freedom, or it could be someone’s name and what I mean by that is preserving their name so that it is not lots i.e. have children for my brother so that the name is not lost. So if you were an unmarried brother to someone who died and left a widow. It was actually your job to take the widow as your wife and provide children for your brother, kinsman redeemer.
Well, the second brother to Judah was Onan and he took Tamar as his wife but was also wicked. He would not give her children because he knew they wouldn’t be his and so the Lord put Him to death. The Lord doesn’t equivocate much in Genesis. He’s pretty clear with things and throughout scripture when there is clear direction and clear wickedness, the Lord will bring judgment. Now Judah sees that this woman, most likely gentile woman, has been (perhaps he would see it this way) the cause of death of his two older sons and his third son, he says he’s going to give him to her, but first she should go back and live with her father, and when he’s old enough then I’ll give him to you. Of course, that doesn’t happen, the son grows older, Tamar sees that Judah is not giving her the son whom he promised to give her. And then Judah’s wife dies and Judah, after he goes through his mourning period, he gets along without his wife and continues his business and he goes to shear his sheep.
And so Tamar hears that he’s going to shear some sheep and she travels on ahead of him. She gets on the road right where he will pass with the sheep and she changes her clothes, out of her widows clothes and dresses herself up as a prostitute. Judah comes along and sees her and wants to engage her services and promises her a goat, how’s that for payment? And so she accepts, although the goat is not there so she says I need your ring and the cord and I need your staff. She takes those three things and Judah goes on her way and she leaves. Judah’s servant comes back to give the goat and she’s gone and they go to the people of the city and they tell him there was no prostitute there, what are you talking about?
Three months later, Judah hears his daughter-in-law has been immoral. He’s like, I’m so angry and righteously indignant, let’s burn her at the stake. A little aggressive and extreme. So they bring Tamar before Judah and she says she is pregnant by the man who gave me these – the ring and the cord and the staff. His reply to her was, “You are more righteous than I am.” Why? Because he was withholding his promise, his son, in upholding the responsibility of the kinsman redeemer. So she pursued that for herself, using perhaps some trickery in the process, but ultimately accomplishing what the law afforded to her to protect her and provide for her. So lest we think Tamar was doing something wrong, she was going after the rights that she was owed according to the laws back then.
Tamar ultimately gives birth to twins. We see that theme with Jacob and Esau. When the first baby comes out, he puts his hand out and they tie a cord around it and he pulls it back in and the second one jumps on through in a manner of speaking. If only it were that easy, right? And so Perez is delivered first but technically determined to be the second born because brother came out with his hand first. And we see throughout scripture that the Lord loves using those second borns. Why? Because that’s not the conventional way, that’s not the way of culture, the way that the world does it, the Lord does it differently. We don’t really read anything more about Tamar in Genesis 38.
Instead, the next lady we pick up on is Rahab in Joshua 2. I’m not going to spend much time on Rahab because we spent two weeks over the summer studying Rahab and I would encourage you to go back and listen to the Joshua series parts 6 and 7. One of them was preached by Niko, it was wonderful and you can hear all about Rahab and the woman of faith she was. In very short, Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute who lived in the city of Jericho in the walls of the city. When Joshua sent out the spies to spy out the land, she received them and she acknowledged their God as the God. She said she’d heard what He had done to the Egyptians and I want to help you. In exchange for me helping you, you’re going to save my family. Niko did a wonderful job at explaining that exchange and she said she’d show the spies loving kindness and I want you and your God to show that to me. They agree and she hides them underneath the flax on the roof when the soldiers come by and then when night falls, she lets them out her window and keeps a scarlet cord tied in her window so that when the armies of Joshua and the people of Israel came marching around Jericho and the walls came tumbling down at the power of the Lord, her house in the walls and all the people in it with that scarlet cord tied there remained.
And the people of Israel, you can jump ahead to Joshua 6 to see what the people of Israel do. They put Rahab and her household outside of the camp. All the other people of Jericho are put to death for their wickedness, of course, she is saved due to her faith in the God of Israel. We read ultimately at the end of chapter 6 that she and her family are allowed back into the camp. Why would that happen? Because they submitted to Yahweh as Lord. So we have Rahab with tremendous faith being exercised in the face of that attack and despite her position and trade, the Lord used that and redeemed that for His purposes as He always does. Amen?
The next lady we read about is Ruth. Ruth is a Moabite. There is a Jewish man named Elimelech with his wife named Naomi who move out of Israel during a famine. There was no food that they could eat so they went to Moab. They have two sons and they marry their sons to Moabite women which is interesting because in the book of Deuteronomy the Lord specifically says that no Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord, even to the 10th generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever. That’s pretty aggressive. So these folks, led by Elimelech, move out of Israel, which there’s all kinds of stuff with that that I won’t get into. Essentially they’re not showing faith in Yahweh. They’ve moved away from the land of promise seeking food in a foreign land that the Lord has said is not good. They marry their sons off. Well, it’s no surprise. They die as is often the case with sinful, rebellious, wicked people. So Naomi is left with her two daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah. Orpah stays back in Moab but Ruth says your people will be my people, your God will be my God. She exercises faith and commitment not only to Naomi, her mother-in-law, but to the God of Israel.
So they return, back to Israel and they specifically return back to Naomi’s homeland of Bethlehem. When they return to Bethlehem, they settle down and Ruth starts gleaning in a field which by law, those who were poor were afforded the right to gather food for themselves from the outside of the wealthy’s land and crops. The person who they glean from, his name is Boaz. Boaz is the son of a gentile woman. You know her name, Rahab. Boaz has some compassion on this gentile Moabite who the law says he shouldn’t have anything to do with. In fact, he tells his servants, leave extra so she can get all that she needs. As the harvest season goes on, Ruth continues to glean and provide for her and Naomi and Naomi comes along at the end of the season and says that Boaz is legally your kinsman redeemer if he is even aware of who you are.
So Ruth, and here’s the part that perhaps is a bit scandalous, Ruth gussies herself up and goes to Boaz while he is sleeping on the threshing floor, wakes him up, explains that he is her kinsman redeemer and she asks him to marry her. He recognizes his duty and responsibility, but also recognizes there is someone closer in line, another relative. The next day, Boaz goes to the elders and explains the situation to the other relative that Naomi is selling her land to have it redeemed. The other relative wants the land but not Ruth. To the relative’s credit, he does the right thing. So then Boaz marries Ruth and the people of Israel bless that union and they say in Ruth 4:12, “and may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman.” Interesting reference because they go back to Boaz many times great grandmother and grandfather, Perez, and Ruth and Boaz have a son named Obed who is the grandfather of King David.
Now King David was a ruggedly handsome young man, we know his story, not going to into it. He was a pretty good dude until he became king. Then he was a loser. But he was a loser who repented and so the Lord said you’re my loser. I do not have a high opinion of David when you study the word of God, but I do have a high opinion of his humility to repent and praise God for that. Perhaps the story that typifies his kinship the most is the one with Bathsheba. David does not do his kingly duty and go off to war with his men. He stays back at the palace and while his men are fighting the bible says he was walking on his rooftop (which if you break down the Hebrew basically means that he’s bored) just kind of wandering around, finding something to do. And what does he find? A beautiful woman bathing on the rooftop below. He enquires that the woman is Bathsheba, one of the men off fighting, one of your mighty men who fought with you for years, loyal to you, and again the genealogy is a bit unclear because of the different names of her father but it could possibly be the granddaughter of his closest advisor. If you read through the Samuel narrative, his closest advisor ultimately joins the rebellion against him later on, a lot of people believe because of what David did to his granddaughter.
What did David do to his granddaughter? Well, once he learns who she is, the text says he sends a messenger to her and takes her. Now lest you read any commentaries of folks who try to blame Bathsheba for seducing David in any way (which they are out there) the text does not give any indication whatsoever. The Hebrew word for take is more closely translated to “seize” or “compel.” So David takes her and they sleep together. Nathan comes along and tells him he has stolen an innocent little lamb. I’m paraphrasing this story. You are that man. David to his credit, acknowledges it and repents. Praise God! But in the best light this is David exercising and abusing his kingly power—in the worst light, he raped her. Of course, Bathsheba becomes pregnant and David tried to cover it up and bring her husband, Uriah, home. He refuses any of the luxury afforded to him because he wants to stay in solidarity with his brothers on the battlefield. David doesn’t know what to do and so he has him killed and he dies. After he dies, David marries Bathsheba. This was against the law of God, a king was not to have more than one wife and the son that she bore dies because of David’s sin. The text is clear—David’s sin.
The Lord is merciful to both David and Bathsheba and blesses them with four more sons. The oldest of which is Solomon who becomes king after David, after much travail. It’s interesting that when you read Solomon’s writings, he talks often how good it is to have a godly mother and wife. Many people believe that King Lemuel in Proverbs 31 is just a pseudonym for Solomon, we don’t know, it’s unclear, but Proverbs 31, ladies and men, you likely know, is this Proverb that talks about an amazing, godly woman. Many commentators believe it is a description of Bathsheba. From Bathsheba there is a long line of kings, from David, of course, as well, which we’re going to study, Lord-willing, next week that Christ fulfills.
Through that long line we come all the way down to Joseph and his betrothed bride, Mary. The last of the 5 ladies. By all accounts, Joseph and Mary are good Jewish kids, if we can call Joseph a kid. He was probably a little older. Mary, likely a little younger, if Jewish convention is followed, has an angel of the Lord appear to her. He says you are favored by God and He has chosen you to fulfill the prophecy that was given in Isaiah that the savior of the world is going to be born to a virgin. She’s understandably confused and speechless, but ultimately says, I am a servant of the Lord, whatever He wants, I’m going to do it. She knows the scandal that it would be for a betrothed Jewish lady to be pregnant. The betrothal process is basically their form of an engagement so a family would typically arrange a marriage between their son and the other family’s daughter and they would be betrothed for 12 months, engaged for 12 months, and during that time it was the son’s responsibility to go and build a home, prepare a house and at the end of that time they would have the marriage ceremony and the homecoming.
Mary is pregnant before any of this happens. That’s a big deal, a big problem and so Joseph sees this and the text says that Joseph is a good man who wants to do right so he decides he is going to divorce her quietly and not make a big deal about it and cause a fuss. An angel of the Lord returns to Joseph and explains the truth that Mary will give birth to the savior of the world. Joseph, to his credit, says let’s do this. (I’m just imagining that response.) Joseph and Mary make their way to the little town of Bethlehem. The same town that Ruth made her way to, settled down in a manger and the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ, the one who was above every name, is born in the lowly manger as the heavens opened up and sang praise. I can only imagine the wonderment of that and Mary becomes the last in a long line of faithful, godly women who despite the scandal about them were used mightily for the Lord for His purposes.
I want to draw out two quick points of application from these amazing women who the Lord brought triumph out of scandal from. In their stories the scandal is sexual as unfortunately, tragically was often the case with women in the ancient world. Even more tragically, it is still often the case today. But these points apply to any tragedy, scandal, or difficult situation that we may go through. Praise God that the principles are the same.
- God uses the black sheep.
The first one, and I know we know this, but the enemy is so good at getting us to forget, especially in the midst of a culture that is constantly trying to prop up and put on a pedestal the “great” people around us. Those who are not the black sheep. Those who are the pristine, cream of the crop. Praise God that He loves to use the black sheep, those who we’d least expect, those who we’d write off because they don’t have what it takes. Those are the ones that the Lord will come alongside of and show His power in and through to accomplish His work. Guess what, Church? That’s every single one of us. We’re all pathetic. Smart, strong, tough, rich guy who thinks he has it all together. You’re pathetic apart from Christ. And the word of God says that. I Corinthians 1:26 says, “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.” Why does it say “not many”? Because those people were probably those who felt they had it all together and didn’t have the humility to submit to the King of Kings. They want to be their own kings. Praise God for our black sheepiness because that often is what creates the humility to submit to the Lord. Praise God for the brokenness He works in our lives so we don’t think that we’re hot stuff and have it all together.
1 Corinthians 1:27-31 says, “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” The bible tells us to boast, but boast in the Lord. It’s okay to recognize the gifts and things He’s given you, the transformation He’s done in your life, but we always direct that to the source. It is never within us, it is always from Him. Amen? That’s our God and that’s the heart of humility that He seeks, that He produced within us and if it shifts and changes and that pride begins to grow, He loves us enough to pop our fat heads. He loves us enough to do that so that we remain in that place of humility, that mindset of lowliness in ourselves and the fact that we are princes in Christ. Our value comes through Him, not from ourselves. As long as we remember that, the scandals we have been through mean nothing. It doesn’t after what my life has been. Yes, I experienced that; yes, I made that choice; yes, that was done to me and it was awful, but none of that defines me because I am a child of the King and He gives me value because He has chosen me and that gives me purpose and a future and a hope, despite all of my failing or things that I’ve experienced. I am found in Christ and I am going to be used by God for His glory. Amen? That’s what God does. He will take those who we least expect and He will do mighty things through them as they walk in humility before their God.
- God turns scandal into triumph.
Secondly, and right alongside with the previous truth, and here is the title of our sermon. God loves to turn scandal into triumph. Our God is a God of Redemption. Our God is a God of second chances who brings life from death, emerges light through the darkness. Isaiah 61:1, 3 says, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, […] to grant to those who mourn in Zion—to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.” It all comes down to the glory. That’s what our God does. He takes our situations and circumstances, those things perhaps that you are not proud of or those circumstances you lived through, those horrible things, God will bring beauty from those ashes. He will turn that sorrow and mourning into triumph, it’s what He does.
How does He do that? 5 ways. Sometimes it’s all of these and sometimes it’s one but one of these ways will always be part of the purposes for that scandalous, difficult trial or tribulation that you have gone through.
- The Lord will use it to strengthen your faith. It might be horrific to experience but if you allow the Lord to work in your heart and you allow the Lord to work through you, it will strengthen your faith. Look at the example of the women that we just talked about. All 5 of them in some way, shape, or form exercised tremendous faith even when things were being done to them they exercised faith. Some of them made their own choices. Praise god Rahab exercised faith when it counted and she was saved by our King. Amen? Some women had the worst of it. Bathsheba, and she exercised faith continuing to be a godly mother to Solomon, imparting wisdom and truth to him and pointing him to the Lord. Their faith was strengthened through those times and it didn’t just happen in an instant, there’s a process for that. There’s grieving and mourning and repentance and all types of things that our heart has to work through. In particular if something was done to you, you might go through that whole process of grief which usually starts with anger and working through that which will have a vertical orientation. The Lord’s big enough to handle that anger. He’s big enough to handle that with you. So engage that with Him and go through the process. I promise you if you are honest with the Lord and able to go through that process He will strengthen your faith as you see His hand at work.
- The Lord will teach us more deeply what forgiveness really means. Either you will learn how much you have been forgiven if you are a proverbial Rahab or you will learn how to put forth God’s forgiveness to others if you are the proverbial Bathsheba. And neither of those situations are easy to learn and the latter in particular can be very, very difficult and that is a long process to work through but praise God He will work that in us if we humbly go before Him and He will teach us the depths of His forgiveness for us even as He teaches us slow and sure to be able to forgive others who have wronged us. That is a beautiful thing to understand the forgiveness of our God because forgiveness is really just an expression of what love really is.
- The Lord will show us what love really is. It’s at our darkest times when we are most open to true love, God’s love. We’re at a point where we’re at the end of ourselves. What we have defined as good, worthy, acceptable, loving, is often finally revealed to us as being a fallacy, a mirage. We’ve not understood clearly. So the Lord uses the dark and scandalous places to show us what love really is. How the Lord is going to move, intervene, perhaps forgive, heal, and work in you and through you, but the Lord will show you His true, unconditional love. Not dependent on anything from you. It is simply poured out. Because that’s who our God is and He will draw you to Himself so that you might experience that power, presence and hope that love brings so that you can heal, grow, mature, and ultimately share that love with those around you.
- The things of this world will grow less important. When I have put my hope in a thing and it has let me down, when I have made a decision that has a bitter consequence, when I have been wronged so deeply that I can’t even describe it and I see how broken this world is, it is going to cause me to not hold on to this world as tightly as I once did because my eyes are opened to the reality that is still here. It should move us away from the goals, standards and hopes of this world, what the world says you should want, pursue, and be to the reality of God’s plans and purposes for us. And it should create within us a desire for the justice of the Lord to be brought into the brokenness of this world. I’m not talking about a social justice that is empty of the gospel, I’m talking about a justice that is through the gospel, that is through the saving work of Jesus Christ alone. When we experience that and being in a place where we want the Lord’s truth and light into a dark situation and that is powerful because it brings meaning into what you have experienced. Because the Lord brought you from this place into this place you are a more willing and prepared vessel to do His work. The Lord will loosen those bindings and ties to the world so you are ready.
- He will use your experience to minister to others. It’s just what He does. Some dark thing in your life that perhaps you never wanted to talk about. The Lord slowly over time matured you enough to be able to talk about it and healed you until one day, it’s not only that you were able to talk about it, you now were able to engage with someone else who had that very same experience and by God’s grace you had the wisdom and the insight and the knowledge to be able to minister to someone else who is going through that process. That’s what our God does. It’s 2 Corinthians 1:3-5: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” This is what we’re called to do and it’s no coincidence that the 5 scandals from these women are all sexual in nature because oftentimes the ord will use some sort of sexual sin as a gateway into the brokenness of the world because the enemy uses sexual sin to trap so many. It’s just the reality of things. The Lord uses and redeems what the enemy would have you fall into. Joseph said, what the enemy intends for evil, God meant and uses for good. In my own life, you know that I got my high school sweetheart pregnant when we were 19 years old. I’m not proud of that but I am boasting in that because the Lord redeemed it for His purposes. By God’s grace, 20 years later, I have the most amazing wife, she keeps me in line and the Lord has blessed us as we repented and turned to Him in worship. And that didn’t happen overnight, it was a process. I was just a punk kid. I still am that most of the time and so the Lord continues to work in my heart and refine me and mature me. Praise God! The Lord has used that more times than I can count to be able to relate to people who have had similar struggles. Praise God! Now if I would walk in my shame and stay in my little closet trying to keep it secret, God gets no glory out of that. Remember why is He doing all of this, bringing mourning into joy, oaks planted by streams of living water? So that He can be glorified so that when we are willing, humble enough to say I screwed up or that awful thing was done to me, but God redeemed it. That brings our King glory. Amen? And that is where we cannot keep it hidden. As the Lord heals us we don’t just announce it to the world, we wisely with discernment share it in the situations where the Lord gives us opportunity to speak truth into and see good fruit come out of and glorify the name of the Lord. That’s what our God does. He brings triumph out of tragedy and scandal to the glory of His name!