So have any of you ever researched your ancestry? Perhaps through one of the resources like Genealogy.com or just trying to look into your family tree or DNA tests or anything like that? Yes? Yes, you've done yours? So why did you decide to do it?
It's nice to know. You're right. It is nice to know because we humans tend to care about where we came from, right? Names, stories, connections. Sometimes there are particular points of interest to our church.
For example, I was taking a family counselling course and for that course I had to research my family history to find out whether there were common issues throughout the generations, like addictions and stuff like that. I found out all sorts of things I never knew. And then there was even more because there was a woman that really got into doing genealogies and I was too cheap to pay for the full thing. And at one of my churches this woman loved doing people's genealogies and so she did mine and found out all sorts of stuff that none of my family knew. So pretty juicy too.
But for others it's simply a desire to know about their past. Who are the people that helped make us who we are? So even today we may have different reasons for putting together our family tree. Now as you know, the Bible is full of genealogies. Everybody's looking at me going, "Oh, I can't believe this is what we're looking at today." And if we're honest, we're often tempted to skip them.
And I put myself in that category when I come to the genealogies. Not anymore after this, but when I would come to genealogies I would often just skip, yes, I know all the names in this, and I would just skip over it. I am guilty of that sin, but not anymore. Have you not done the same thing, or are you all better Christians than I am? You're all more, what was that?
You're all more spiritual than me.
So we tend to skip them because they seem like they're just long lists of names. Most of them are hard to pronounce. Easy to overlook because we don't even know who a lot of them are. But those genealogies are actually doing far more than just recording history. There are actually different kinds of genealogies in Scripture and they serve different purposes.
So as much as we might be tempted to skim past the names, we should avoid that temptation because they're actually doing important work. So some of the genealogies are about inheritance. Showing who belongs where and what has been passed down, like in Numbers where the people are counted so the land can be rightly distributed. Other of the genealogies are about identity, like in 1 Chronicles where a returning people are reminded, "This is who we are and we are still connected to God's story." And many of the genealogies are about promise, like Matthew tracing the line from Abraham to David to Jesus, showing that what God spoke generations ago is still unfolding. And together they remind us that we are not here by accident, that we're not disconnected, that we belong, we are known, and we are part of God's story, a storey that he is faithfully continuing to carry forward.
Now the Hebrew word often used for these sections is toledot, which doesn't just mean family line, which is what we tend to think of when we think of family tree. It carries the idea more of what comes from or the storey that unfolds. In other words, genealogies aren't just about where people came from, they're about what God is doing through them. They move the storey forward. And when you begin to understand that, you start to read them differently.
Because the genealogies in the Bible are not in fact just boring lists of names. They are shaped with intention and they are selective. They highlight certain people and sometimes leave other people out. This is what scholars call telescoping. Not every generation is listed because the goal isn't completeness, it's meaning.
The writer is trying to show you something. That's why genealogies can look different depending on the book. In Chronicles, for example, genealogies are often grouped and structured to tell the storey of Israel's history and to connect the tribes together. But in Ezra and Nehemiah, genealogies— thank you— genealogies serve a different purpose. They help to establish legitimacy.
They answer the question: who truly belongs? Who has the right to lead, to serve, to return? So even within Scripture, genealogies are often being used in intentional, thoughtful ways. And this wasn't unique to the Bible. Other ancient cultures used genealogies too, not just to record names, but to establish identity, authority, and belonging.
Who you came from determined your place in the world. So your storey was tied to your lineage. Anyone ever been out to Newfoundland?
And so were you ever asked, "Who your father?" 'Who's your father?' When they meet you, they don't say, 'What's your name?' 'Who's your father?' Because that's their way of asking what family you're from. I can't do it with the accent, but it's much more fun when they ask you. So it's similar in a way. So that's why something else begins to stand out when you read biblical genealogies, when you read them carefully. Because most of the time they focus on men.
Women are not often named. Not because they weren't important, but because genealogies were typically tracing a specific line of her— inheritance. So when a woman is named, it's not unusual for effect, it's because her role matters in the storey that God is telling. At the same time, genealogies are also communicating status. For example, children of concubines were considered lower status than children of wives.
So listing the mother can help clarify family structure, who belongs where, who has standing, and how the family is ordered. And that matters because in our passage today from 1 Chronicles, the chronicler isn't just copying lists from earlier texts. He's compiling and shaping and expanding the material, drawing from earlier genealogies, but also weaving in additional details like military records, Geographical connections. In other words, this is carefully constructed. So sometimes genealogies move quickly, just name after name after name.
But other times they kind of slow down, not with a full story, but with a detail here and there. More names, more connections, more clarity. It's the text's way of helping us to see that these aren't just names. They're real people in real families with a place in what God is doing. So genealogies show structure, but sometimes moments of faith are highlighted within that structure.
Now because genealogies are never just preserving information, they are communicating purpose. They show how God is working through history, through families, through generations to accomplish his plans. Which means when we come to a passage like 1 Chronicles chapter 2, we shouldn't just read it like it's background noise. We should read it like a map, looking for what stands out, what shifts, what the writer wants us to notice. Because sometimes in the middle of a long list of names, there's a name that changes everything.
So if I can get the scripture on the screen. Thank you. So I'm starting at— not at chapter— at verse 42 of chapter 2, and I'm going to go until verse 50. And yes, there's a lot of names and they're hard to pronounce, so I literally wrote them out phonetically for myself. I will admit that.
So the sons of Caleb, the brother of Jeremiel: Mishah, his firstborn, who was the father of Ziph, and his son Mereshah, who was the father of Hebron. The sons of Hebron: Korah, Tepua, Rekem and Shemah. Shemah was the father of Rehum, and Rehum the father of Jorkiam. Rekem was the father of Shammai, and the son of Shammai was Me'on, and Me'on was the father of Beth-zur. Caleb's concubine, Ephah, was the mother of Haran, Moza, and Geziz.
Haran was the father of Gezaz. The sons of Jeddai: Regeem, Jotham, Gishon, Pelet, Ephah, and Sheaph. Caleb's concubine Maacah was the mother of Shibbur and Tirahayna. She also gave birth to Sheaph, the father of Madmana and Sheva, the father of Makhbena and Gebea. Caleb's daughter was Aksah.
So these were the descendants of Caleb. So now that you know how genealogy works, what stands out for you here?
Say again? He has a lot of descendants, yes.
No, mostly male descendants.
'Cause it was always the father of and the son of, but, I'll leave a but there.
Yes, you jumped ahead, but yes. Because before that, there were two other women named. Right, so it had Caleb's concubine, Machah, who was the mother of Shebur and the other one, and then there was Aphah. Now there's two Aphahs listed, and just to really mess with your mind, one of them is a woman and one of them is a man. And somehow you're supposed to figure that out.
So, yes, his daughter is mentioned specifically as his daughter, Aksah. So Makah and Aphah help us to understand the structure of the family, who came from where and how they're connected. That's part of what the genealogies do. They organise people and they trace the lineage. So they make sense being mentioned there.
But in 1 Chronicles, they actually do even more. These names were written for people who were rebuilding their lives after the exile, reminding them not just how they were arranged but who they were. And these genealogies aren't primarily about hierarchy. They're about identity and belonging. They say that you are still part of God's people.
Your storey is connected to his. So mentioning those two women in particular reinforce the genealogy's purpose here. But why mention Aksah? Who is she other than Caleb's daughter?
Nobody knows, right? 'Cause either did I, and that's why I got into this whole genealogy thing, because her name popped out at me. So, We know that she's important because otherwise the Chronicler wouldn't have bothered mentioning her. But who was she and why was she important enough to be included? To find her story, we have to leave 1 Chronicles—I know, you're devastated—and move over to the Book of Joshua, chapter 15, verses 16 to 19.
And it's also told in Judges in the first chapter, 12 to 15.
We'll do that in a moment when I'm going to summarise. But let's first just recognise that in a passage that is focused on lineage and structure, the writer included a name that carried remembered significance. He didn't need to retell the storey then. He just needed to put a reminder in his account because he knew his audience would have a remembrance of that name. So sometime in the middle of a list of names, one name stands out not just for where they fit but for what they did.
Aksah isn't remembered only because she belonged, she's remembered because her storey mattered. So as we come to this part of the story, God's promise is becoming reality. The land is being divided among the tribes of Israel, each receiving its inheritance just as God had said. And right in the middle of the moment, we meet Caleb. Caleb is a man who has trusted God for a long time.
He was one of the few who believed God would give Israel the land when others doubted. He was one of the spies. So now, years later, he is living in that promise, but Caleb doesn't just settle. He continues to step forward in faith. And here's where he makes an interesting move.
He says, "I will give my daughter Aksah in marriage to the man who attacks and captures that city." So we're going to turn to Joshua 15. I'm going to read from verses 13 all the way to 19. So in accordance to the Lord's command to him, Joshua gave Caleb son of Jephunneh a portion of Judah, Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron. From Hebron, Caleb drove out the three Anakites, Sheshai, Hamon, and Talmai, the sons of Anak. From there he marched against the people living in Debir.
And Caleb said, 'I will give my daughter Aksah in marriage to the man who attacks and captures what used to be called Debir.' Athniel son of Kenaz, Caleb's brother, took it, so Caleb gave his daughter Aksah to him in marriage. One day when she came to Athniel, she urged him to ask her father for a field. When she got off her donkey, Caleb asked her, 'What can I do for you?' She replied, 'Do me a special favour. Since you have given me the land in the Negev, give me also springs of water.' So Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs. So we don't know all of Caleb's reasoning.
We don't know how much say Aksah had in this decision of his to hand her over in marriage. But it's not hard to imagine that Caleb, who was a man of faith, desired a son-in-law who would live with that same kind of courage and trust in God. And perhaps he believed that any man willing to step forward into the challenge would be a man of faith. We don't know his reasons, but we do see the result. So Othniel steps forward and takes the city.
And the text doesn't tell us all of his motives. Maybe he was— maybe it was the challenge itself that was tempting, or maybe he wanted to marry Oxah. We don't know. But this much is clear: he was willing to act. So in a moment when God's people were called to take hold of what had been promised, Othniel didn't hold back.
Whatever else was in his heart, his actions aligned with trust. He stepped into the risk and he did what needed to be done. So he takes the city, Oxah becomes his wife, and it might seem like At this point, the storey's over. But it's not. Because the land that she now has from her father as part of her marriage is in the Negev, which is a hot, dry region in the southern part of Israel that would get less than 8 inches of rainfall each year.
And land without water is a land without a future. And Aksa knows this. She recognises the limits of the land that she is living in, And instead of passively accepting what she's been given, she boldly asks for what is needed for it to truly flourish. She goes to her father and asks for more, not out of greed, but out of wisdom. She asks for springs of water, what is necessary to make the land livable and sustainable and fruitful.
And Caleb grants her request. He gives her both the upper and lower springs. The upper springs were sources of water that were located in the higher elevations of the highlands. Water from these sources would flow downhill, naturally irrigating her fields. The lower springs were water sources located in the lower valleys, and these gathered the runoff from the higher ground and provided a steady year-round water supply for her household and livestock.
So Aksa's storey sits within a larger movement that we see in Scripture, because later in Numbers 27, The daughters of Zelophehad, sort of like sofa bed, Zelophehad, will formally argue for inheritance rights. Women arguing for inheritance rights. And God will affirm them, establishing it as law in Israel. Now, Aksah's moment comes earlier, but it points in the same direction. So she may not be making a legal case, but she is shaping her inheritance.
She is participating in what God is doing, not just receiving it. But there's more happening here. Her marriage to Othniel keeps everything within the tribe of Judah. The land remains within the covenant family, and the household they form will become significant because Othniel will later rise as Israel's first— yes! That was— I was very excited.
Which means that this moment, the request for water, does more than just solve a practical problem. It contributes to the stability of a household that God will use in the life of his people. And all of this comes from a woman who at first glance could be easy to overlook as just another name in a very long list. But just because she seems like a small name in a long list, it doesn't mean that she's insignificant. Because when something is done in alignment with God, even something that seems small, it can have an impact far beyond what we see in the moment.
And that's how God works, through ordinary people in ordinary moments to accomplish extraordinary purposes. Now the text doesn't tell us that Akhsa stopped to pray before she went to see her father. It doesn't say that she sought God in that moment, and we shouldn't read into what's not there. But what we do see is this: she acts with wisdom, with clarity, and in a way that does align with what God is already doing among his people. She recognises what is needed for life, and she steps forward and asks for it.
And that gives us a place to reflect on our own lives, because unlike Akhsa, we are consistently invited again and again in Scripture to bring our decisions before God. To seek him, to ask for wisdom, to trust that he is not just giving us something to manage, but inviting us into something that he is doing. And the truth is, we don't always know the ripple effect of our choices. We don't always see what God might be building through a step of obedience or a question that we ask or a decision that we make, which is why we don't want to move ahead on our own wisdom alone. We want to be people who go to God first because we know how easily we can miss what he is doing.
We want to be part of his purposes, not working at cross purposes with them, not getting in the way, but stepping into the flow of what he is already accomplishing. Because when we place our decisions before him, even the small ones, we may find that what seems ordinary becomes part of something much bigger in the hands of God. So what Aksa does in the moment may seem small, but its impact was anything but. Because of her request, the land she received is no longer just a piece of territory. I mean, it was useless pretty much.
It was just, "Here, you can have this," basically just because they had the land, but it wasn't doing anything. But because she asks for something,— it becomes livable, it becomes sustainable, and it becomes fruitful. And without water, the land would have remained limited— technically hers, but practically unusable. But with the springs, everything changes. Now it can support life, now it can produce, now it has a future.
And that means that this decision doesn't just affect her, it affects those that come after her. What she secured in a single moment becomes a long-term blessing. Because the water would sustain not only her life, but the generations that followed. She doesn't change the promise, but she does shape how fully it is experienced. And this is the key.
Akhsa doesn't alter what God had given. She stepped into more of what was already available. The land was already hers. That was settled. That was given.
But she recognised that there was more within what had already been promised, and she had the wisdom and the courage to ask for it. And that's often how God works. There are promises God gives, things that he places in our hands, but stepping into the fullness of those things sometimes requires faith-filled action. It requires awareness. It requires the willingness to ask, to move, to respond.
It's unlikely that Aksa had any real sense of the far reaching impact of what she was asking for. She was simply dealing with what was right in front of her in that moment. She stepped forward, she took initiative and made a request without knowing how her father would respond and without any guarantee of the outcome. So on the surface, it seems like a small thing, doesn't it? And yet that one small step of action carried a far wider impact than she could have imagined.
And the text doesn't tell us that Aksah's request was the reason Othniel becomes a judge, and we shouldn't draw a straight line between those two things, but it does show something important. Her decision helped establish a household that could thrive, and later from that broader story, God raises up a leader for his people. It's a reminder that small, wise actions don't just shape a moment, they help shape the kind of context from which God often works. And this is where it comes home for us, because our actions don't need to be big or impressive or dramatic for God to use them. Often it's the small faithful steps that matter most: the quiet obedience, the simple prayer, the timely word, the beautiful card, the willingness to act when something is needed.
What Akhsa does is not presented as a spiritual spectacle or a formal moment of prayer. It's a practical everyday request. She sees what is needed and she asks for what will make what she has actually work. And that in itself is striking. Because some of the most meaningful moments in life don't look dramatic at all.
They are simply faithful responses to what is right in front of us. And yet even there, God is still at work. He's still weaving small actions into something larger than the moment itself. So perhaps the challenge for us isn't to make everything big or profound, but to recognise that small, faithful steps of wisdom and courage and initiative can become part of a much larger storey in God's hands. What she did was simple.
What it produced was lasting. And that is often how God builds his story—quietly, consistently, through moments that don't always look significant at the time. But small actions, when placed in God's hands, become part of something much bigger.
Akhsa isn't one of the most well-known names in Scripture, right? None of us knew who she was. She doesn't lead a nation. She doesn't stand on a battlefield. But her storey reminds us that most of life is not lived in big dramatic moments.
It's lived in the small ones. In a conversation you choose to have, a prayer you take the time to pray, a step of obedience that no one else sees, a word of encouragement that lifts someone who was all ready to give up. These things can feel so small and so ordinary and so easy to dismiss, and we often think we aren't really doing anything at all. But never underestimate what God can do through a moment that seems small. Aksa simply asked for water, that's it.
But that one act brings life to the land, stability to her household, and becomes part of a much bigger storey that God is writing. And that leads us to something even deeper. Because just as Aksa recognised that what was needed for life, and she went to her father to ask for it, we are invited to do the same with God. We come to him not just with what we want, but with what we truly need because we cannot provide it for ourselves. And God doesn't just give land, he gives life.
In Jesus, we're offered something greater than springs in dry ga— ground. We are giving— given living water, water that doesn't just sustain for a season but brings eternal life, an inheritance that doesn't fade, doesn't dry up, and doesn't ever run out. So when we come to him, we ask, we trust. And as we go from here, the question isn't whether your life will have impact, because it will. The question is, where might God be inviting you to take a step?
Where might he be inviting you to speak up, to ask, to ask, to act? To encourage. Because what feels small to you may be deeply significant in the hands of God. So, just as a personal story, I remember back in my very first ministry position, I was trying to create opportunities for intergenerational connection in the church, right? I tried all sorts of ideas, and I had bought all these programs, and I was trying them.
Nothing would stick. Nothing really worked. Nothing was getting traction. So eventually, I smartened up, and I stepped back, and a simple idea came. Just have a dinner.
Nothing big. Just a dinner between the women from the WMS group and the youth group. And for those of you who may not know what a WMS is, it stands for Women's Missionary Society, and at this church, it was a group of about 12 women, and none were younger than 70. Okay, they met monthly, they supported international missions, supported a missionary, and they were a driving force behind much of the prayer of that church. They prayed for all the kids in youth group every day.
They each had a particular kid, but they also prayed the names, but they had never met the kids. So they arrived to this dinner knowing that there, knowing there was no big agenda. It was just corn chowder and biscuits. And I honestly did not expect many of the ladies to come. I mean, here are these women over the age of 70, and I'm inviting them to a night with a bunch of teenagers that they didn't know.
Every single one of them showed up to that dinner. The teens, on the other hand, arrived not knowing what was planned, and they were not thrilled about having dinner with a group of older women they didn't know. But I placed them alternating. Women, teen, women, teen. Yep, and I got some dirty looks, but something happened around those tables because at the end of the meal I had teens coming up to me asking, "Which one is mine?
Which lady is my lady? Which is the one that prays for me?" And over the next few months those relationships started growing and the teens started sitting with their lady on Sunday mornings because those kids all came to Sunday, but their parents didn't. And they would always clump together before this. But they didn't sit with each other anymore. They would sit with their lady.
And then the ladies, on the other hand, came to me saying it was so wonderful for them to have a face to go with the name that they had been praying for all this time. Then came what we called the Cupcake Blitz. I went to the ladies and I said, you know, the youth are very good at a lot of things, but baking ain't one of them. And we would really love to bless the community with cupcakes. Would you bake the cupcakes?
And they agreed, but there was a condition. So the ladies baked 250 cupcakes and then together with the teens they decorated them. That was their condition, that they got to decorate them with the teens. And then the teens ran them all over the community delivering them, thanking people for the work that they did in the community. And it didn't stop there.
The teens eventually gave the women all hand-painted t-shirts as a sign of shared mission together. All of that from one small decision to host a simple dinner. It didn't look like much at the time, and it certainly was not meant to be strategic on my part. It wasn't meant to be impressive. I don't even— obviously it wasn't me that came up with the idea.
It was planted in me. Because God took that small step and turned it into something that rippled outward impacting relationships and the church and even the wider community. And that's the point. Never underestimate what God can do through a moment that seems small. You never know what ripple effect your faithfulness will have.
So are you all thinking of small actions and things that you're gonna think of now? I'm looking at how many people were like all of a sudden, are you guys like all looking up to see? Who AXA is, because I noticed a lot of phones coming out. I was like, is everybody checking up on me today? I love it.
Okay, we're going to move into a prayer exercise. So it's true that even in the small moments, those moments can have a lasting impact. So one of the most significant things that we can do right now is to actually just slow down. Become still and bring our own lives to God. Because we don't want to just hear the message and then just go on with our day, right?
We want to respond to it. So Aksa went to her father with clarity about what was needed, and in the same way we come to our Heavenly Father, not with many words, not with polished prayers, but with honest hearts.
So in just a moment, I'm going to invite you into a time of quiet prayer. There's no pressure to speak out loud. There's no need to find the right phrasing. It's just you and God.
And as we do, you might want to think about this: What is the water that I need right now? What is the thing in my life that feels dry or uncertain or unfinished? And what would it look like to bring that honesty before God?
So just be quiet and still with God and reflect on that for a couple of minutes.
Let's pray together. Father, we come before you quietly and honestly, just as we are. You see the dry spaces and places in our lives, the places, that feel empty, the places that feel uncertain or in need of your life, God. Like Aksa, we come asking for what is needed. We come to you now to ask that you give us what we cannot provide for ourselves.
Speak into what is dry and bring life where there is lack. And as we trust you with the small things, teach us to see your hand at work in ways that we might otherwise miss. We ask this in the name of Jesus, the one who gives living water. Amen.
