God will accomplish his plan

 Read Genesis 33

Do you want to know where you stand in your family?  Who is the favorite?  Who is the black sheep? Who is the no-filter uncle?

It was easy in Jacob’s family.  Everyone was on a track to meet Esau and his 400 men.  He had already divided his estate into 2 camps in case Esau attacked.  Maybe some could get away.

But the time had come to meet his brother and see what the future held.  Jacob was up front, but he was followed by his two servant wives and their children.

Behind them were Leah and her children.  Finally, there was Rachel and Joseph.  If they were attacked, maybe Rachel would get away. Maybe she could safely find her way to one of the camps and survive with Joseph to continue the line in fulfilling this Father of Many Nations business.

Remember, this whole 20 years in Paddan Aram began with Jacob wanting Rachel as a wife.  He ended up married to Leah first, but he really loved Rachel. In all, he worked 14 years to get Rachel as his wife.

He stayed there a total of 20 years, but the last few were just growing his flocks.

So here we are coming face to face with Esau and his 400 men and Jacob is totally unsure of how this will go.  He had sent gifts to try and appease his brother, but anger is anger and we might ask, did 2 decades soften it or intensify it?

Really, who shows up to meet their brother with 400 men? This might not go well, but it did.

Esau ran to greet his brother.  He asked him about all the flocks and herds, and then told Jacob that was not necessary.  Esau had plenty. Jacob did not need to give him anything.

Finally, Esau accepted the gifts.  Jacob did not want to go back with his brother right then.  He said the herds with mothers and their offspring couldn’t go further without rest.  It wouldn’t be so easy on the human kids either.

So Esau returned home.

Jacob did not follow.  He went to a place that would be called Sukkoth near the city of Shechem and settled there.  Sukkoth means shelters.

Why is any of this important?  Was Jacob back to his deceptive nature? Was this just practical?  Really, Jacob showing up at Esau’s place with everything he owned and saying, “Mind if we stay a while, would be a bit overwhelming.”

We don’t know all of the particulars, but we know that Jacob bought some property in  this area and settled down. Again, what is the significance?

The place where Jacob settled was part of what God promised Abraham.  The place where Esau settled was not.  It was just outside the Promised Land in present-day Jordan or perhaps as far as Saudi Arabia.

Edom—the land of Esau’s descendants—would be part of the southern border of the Promised Land.

So was Jacob—now called Israel—back to his deceptive ways or just being practical—the whole this town ain’t big enough for the both of us sort of thing?

In any case, the story that would take all of Jacob’s family into Egypt would move forward from this place in the Promised Land.

God was with Jacob as promised.  Esau did not destroy him.

Jacob did not live on top of his brother.  He put some space between them.  They were still neighbors in one sense, but each would live their own lives.

Jacob had not married from the local pagan girls.  Esau did, plus he had one wife who was a descendant of Ishmael.

These two brothers, both descended from Abraham, had different callings in life. Jacob’s family would save the known world through Joseph, produce God's Chosen People, receive God’s law through Moses, return to the Promised Land under Joshua’s leadership, and produce the Savior of the world.

Esau’s family would be known as Edom.  Remember that Edom means red.  Esau was reddish and harry when he was born and he sold his birthright for a red-looking bowl of stew.

Edom means red and so the Edomites are named after a red person.  Have you ever heard anything like that before in your life?

Anyone take Oklahoma history?  Oklahoma means red people.  I don’t think there is any biblical significance in that, but it’s a nice rabbit trail.

Edom is involved in more biblical history, but most of the story follows Jacob’s line. Jacob’s family would leave the Promised Land for Egypt and in something over 400 years, return to it.

This was God’s plan. You are part of God’s plan. Your job or next job, your education or your dropping out of school, your perfect game or your game with 4 errors are part of his plan.

It is sometimes hard to see at the moment, but we are being molded like clay into the creature—the new creature that God wants us to be.

Almost 10 years ago, I was sitting in my office as part of a ministerial alliance meeting.  Two of the pastors were going on mission trips.  Both said, we can always use another pastor.  It’s easy to find people to give out food and Bibles but a little more difficult to find someone equipped to preach, teach, baptize, and pray without notice.

I said, “I’ll know when God calls me to go.” This discussion did not seem like a call to me, but it preceded one.

The next week, I received an email from someone in Kenya claiming to be a bishop and wanting me to come to preach to and teach pastors and church leaders.  After some due diligence—I have also received those emails that say for just $1000 charged to my Visa, an imprisoned Kenyan prince would give me half of his multimillion-dollar fortune—I answered his email.

In the course of emails and phone calls, I asked him how he came up with me.  He said that he read one of my articles.  I think it was the one about love being the strongest force in the universe.  That’s when he contacted me.

I went to Kenya twice.  Most of you remember that, but I wrote that article with you as my target audience.  It was connected to a sermon a dozen years ago.

God will do what God will do and he will direct our paths to accomplish his will.

If you took some time to contemplate all of the seemingly insignificant things in your life, you might just see God at work.

So, your challenge for this week is to do the Psalm 46:10 thing and be still.  Know that he is God and reflect upon what is happening in your life.

Some of it might be to show you the path to which you are called.  Some might be to let you hit rock bottom so you trade in your own understanding for trusting God. Some of it is just too logical.  Some is not.

This morning’s message is that God will use your decisions to accomplish his will and finish the good work that he began in you. Make the best decisions that you can always seeking to please God, but remember, his plan will be accomplished.

You might mess up, make a complete mess of everything you thought you were accomplishing, and even find yourself at rock bottom, but you can’t mess up God’s plan, and that includes God’s plan for your life. 

You are not that powerful!

Because you have received Jesus as Lord, you are his and he won’t lose you.

Never give up for God never gives up on you.

Amen.

What do we believe

 Read Genesis 33

Esau lived in an area that is present-day Jordan or Saudi Arabia.  By the chapter’s end, we see there is no bad blood between Jacob and Esau.  If you choose to keep on reading not only Genesis but the rest of the Torah, you will see that Esau’s descendants did not continue this warm reception.

Let’s look more than 400 years down the road.  The Israelites have been liberated from slavery in Egypt.  They were in the wilderness and much of it was near the land of Esau’s descendants—Edom. Moses had wanted to pass through Edom but Edom denied them passage and even brought forth an army to say that they meant business in this matter.

Edom—the land of Esau’s descendants—would be part of the southern border of the Promised Land.  Esau’s descendants were still descendants of Father Abraham, but not included in the land promised to him.

In today’s chapter, we see that all of Jacob’s worry was for nothing.  His brother did not intend to harm him.  His brother did not need his offerings of livestock and took them only at Jacob’s insistence.  His brother was not out for blood.

Some say that time heals all wounds.  I lean more towards God uses people—imperfect people—to accomplish his good and perfect plan.

Esau and his 400 men would not destroy Jacob and his family.  God had special plans for Jacob—Israel—and those who would come from his line.  So is that it?  Is that the story of this chapter?  Pretty much, but I want us to think on God’s plan, at least the part that has been revealed to us.

To do that, we spend a little time in Isaiah.  Isaiah is still a few centuries down the road in man’s time, but the word of the Lord is revealed through him and that word is for all time. Listen to verse 46:10.

I make known the end from the beginning,

    from ancient times, what is still to come.

I say, ‘My purpose will stand,

    and I will do all that I please.’

I am pretty good at forecasting the future.  Any time that alcohol is being consumed and the words hold my beer are interjected into the situation, I can forecast that business will be good in the emergency room.

Anytime that there is a group of young Marines who are unsupervised for the moment and there is a red button on a wall with at least a dozen sign’s that read DO NOT TOUCH or TOUCHING THIS BUTTON WILL DETONATE A NUCLEAR DEVICE or anything along those lines, at least one of them will go touch the button.

I am pretty good at forecasting the future.

If I look at an online ad for lawnmowers, in short order my Facebook feed, my email, and the text messages on my phone will be blown up with ads for lawnmowers.

I am pretty good at forecasting the future, but God knows the future from the beginning.  In fact, just so we know that he is God, he tells us what’s coming.

It’s not like he is going to email me next week’s lottery numbers or who is going to win the World Series.  He does tell us as he told Abraham that he would be the Father of Many Nations. 

He did promise a land to a specific people and just to make sure that the children of Abraham would not be fighting the children of Abraham by God’s design, he parked Esau on the other side of what would be one of the borders of the Promised Land.

God will accomplish his plan.  Sometimes it makes sense to us.  Sometimes it is contrary to our own understanding.  Sometimes we are completely oblivious but God will do what God will do and we are often blessed that he tells us what that is.

When Isaiah spoke these words of God to his people, it was as if to answer the question, “Is the God of all the universe still there?”  His answer is that there is no other god of substance.  There are none like me. I am the one true God.

While we see a cordial reunion of brothers and camps separated by enough distance that the relationship might stay that way, the story here is that God will do what God will do and when he tells us what he will do we should believe him.

But what do you believe?  God is real.  God sent his Son to save us from sin and death. You must use the King James Bible?  Tom should work on his jokes more.

What do you believe?

This morning, I am going to ask us to state together what we believe.  We might call these core beliefs.  We might differ on what we eat or what day we worship, but we do have some beliefs common to most Christians.

You remember Proverbs 3:5.  I know you know it.  It gets most of the attention when it comes to the verse that follows.

Sometimes, especially today, we need that sixth verse. We need to acknowledge verbally and in the presence of others the ways of the Lord.  We need to acknowledge what we believe.

Most of you know this as the Apostles’ Creed.

I believe in God the Father Almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

and born of the virgin Mary.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died and was buried;

he descended into hell.

The third day he rose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

 

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy church universal,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting.

 

Amen.

 

God will accomplish his plan.  We are well served to live in accord with his plan and less by what we think we understand that is contrary to his plan. This is our Christian maturity.

We get there by growing in God’s grace.

To you, this might just be Old Testament history, but if you have eyes to see, it documents the things that God said he would do long before they happened.

Why is this important?  When we step out on faith, it’s more of a step than a blind leap for we know that God does fulfill his promises.  God does what God does and we are blessed when he tells us what he is going to do.

We are blessed to trust him.

Trust in the Lord with all of you heart…

Amen.

Wrestling with God

 Read Genesis 32

And so we come to one of the most unique stories in the Bible.  If you have subheadings inserted into your Bibles, most of them probably say: Jacob Wrestles With God.

I’m thinking that’s not a fair fight.

I wrestled for about 30 seconds in high school.  The assistant football coach had been a Marine and had gone to college on a wrestling scholarship, probably in conjunction with the GI Bill.

I was in the weight room one day in the spring.  The coach was there and there were some mats in the corner of the weight room.  He said, let’s wrestle.

I said I don’t know anything about wrestling.  I was bigger than the coach but really had never wrestled.  The school didn’t have wrestling and I was already playing 4 sports, so I doubt that I would have been a wrestler anyway.

He said, just do your best.

We both got on the mat and he said “Go!”  I think I got lucky because I got my arm around his neck and started choking him from behind. He was really choking.  I thought, how hard can this wrestling stuff really be?

Coach managed to squeak out, “That’s not legal.”

So, I let go.  In that instant, he grabbed me and threw me against the wall.  The wall was made of cinderblocks and they were not padded.

I think I said, “That wasn’t legal either.” I didn’t know for sure, it I didn’t think it was.

We didn’t wrestle anymore after that, but that was the extent of my wrestling experience, other than as a kid when you wrestled with classmates and cousins.

But Jacob wrestling with God, and that just seems bizarre.  Here’s the scripture.

That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.

Was it God? Was it an angel?  Was it a man sent by God?

Jacob was convinced that he had been face-to-face with God.  He didn’t say that he held his own.  He said that God spared him.

Jacob—now Israel—lived to tell about this.

Now God had walked with Adam and Eve.  He had visited Abraham, but most of the time, God spoke in dreams and visions.

But here we see God or someone with supernatural powers wrestling with Jacob and when the match was a draw, he touched Jacob near the hip and twisted it to the point that Jacob would walk with a limp.

Jacob didn’t cry out, “That’s not legal!”  He focused on the fact that he had been face to face with God and God had spared his life.

It’s still a crazy story about wrestling with God, except that we do this all of the time.  We don’t wrestle physically, but we wrestle in our decisions.

Trust in the Lord or trust my own understanding?

You think by this point we would do more trusting than leaning, but the wrestling matches continue and it seems that God lets us win every once in a while.  We get to do things our way.

Most of the time we limp away from doing things our way. Sometimes the limp doesn’t show up until later. In hindsight, we realize the wisdom of God’s way.

Our human nature leads us to wrestle with God again and again in spite of directions that we know and have memorized and should be written on our hearts.

I think that sometimes, God lets us walk with a limp for a while whenever we rely on our own understanding over God’s promises.  That’s my take on it.

What I can tell you with certainty is that God is faithful even when we are not.

Even when God permits us to have our own way—and that brings us briefly to 2 words not used together in the Bible:  Free Will—he is faithful to his promises.  One of those is that he will never leave or forsake us.

Sometimes in hindsight, we wish God had just body-slammed us into the right way, but we do get to choose how we respond to God’s great love.  Sometimes we wrestle with that response.

So, we will probably have a few more wrestling matches with God in our remaining years.  Hopefully, we wrestle less and trust more, but remember that God still has good plans for you.

So what do we take into our week?

Trust more. Wrestle less.

Amen.

Mitigation Strategy

 Read Genesis 32

Jacob was nearing the place where Esau lived.  It was time for action.  Jacob put together some very substantial gifts—flocks and herds.  They were enough to appease almost anyone’s anger, hopefully, that included that of his brother, Esau.

The servants who delivered these gifts were given specific instructions as how to present them. Think of your most humble words and then be 10 times humbler.  Jacob would accept Esau’s seniority.

Maybe between the gifts and humble speech, Esau’s anger would be appeased. The gifts were delivered as prescribed.

A servant informed Jacob that Esau was coming to meet him.  That part was encouraging, except he was accompanied by 400 men.  That part was probably a little disturbing.  Who needs to travel with 400 men. 

Maybe, Esau just said road trip and everybody jumped on board.  Not likely.

God had told Jacob to come to this land.  He said he would be with him.

Go and I will be with you.

Jacob had received God’s promise of prospering and having many descendants.

Jacob could not envision how that would play out if Esau wiped out him and his family, and that’s what it looked like was about to happen. So, Jacob devised a mitigation strategy. 

He divided his entire estate—which was mobile at this time—into 2 camps.  Wives, servants, children, flocks, and everything else were divided.  If Esau attacked one camp, maybe the other would escape.

That sounds reasonable on the surface, but you don’t escape with herds and flocks.  A group of 400 men would overtake them in no time, but that was Jacob’s plan nonetheless. It was his mitigation strategy. It was how he would reduce the effects of an attack by Esau.

So, Jacob and everything that belonged to Jacob began moving toward Esau.  Jacob was not expecting a joyous reunion.  He has planned for exactly the opposite.  He was moving forward but all the time thinking about how to escape.

So as people and flocks are crossing a river and moving in their assigned corridors, Jacob finds himself alone—or almost alone.

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

So we see the tension building.  Esau and 400 men were moving toward Jacob.  Jacob had implemented his 2-camp mitigation strategy.  Both groups were moving towards each other and we get this interlude of a wrestling match between Jacob and a man or an angel or God himself.

I’m a little skeptical about this being God himself.  My money would have been on God for a takedown and a pin in about half a second.  God could have spoken a victory into existence.

So, was it an angel?  Was it a man?  Jacob—the deceiver—might have had some slick wrestling moves and taken down an angel.  Maybe?

Why is this story here?

First, Jacob gets a new name from someone who remains unnamed.  That new name was Israel. It means God strives.  It can just mean struggle, but God strives seems most appropriate.

God would strive to accomplish much through the people named Israel.  God used those who would come from Israel to make himself and his way known in the world.

But why the wrestling match?  Was it really with God?  Why is this story at this point in the story?

God told Jacob—who we can now call Israel—to go and that God would be with him.  God promised to prosper this son of Isaac.  God told him that his descendants would be too numerous to count.  God promised all these things to Jacob.

For these things to come true, it would seem that Jacob would have to survive his reunion with his brother, Esau. But Jacob implemented a mitigation strategy.

What is mitigation?  What is it to mitigate?  COVID and 2020 obliterated the meaning of this word, but to mitigate is to reduce the effects of something.

Whatever it is that is of concern may still happen, but you take measures to reduce its effects.  The hurricane is still coming, but you sandbag your house and board up your windows.  You reduce the effects of the storm’s damage.

The storm still came through, but you reduced its impact upon you or your property.

Do you remember flatten the curve? That was a mitigation strategy.  It was never designed to stop the COVID virus only to reduce the rate of its spread in the early stages. 

How would that mitigate anything?  In theory, the hospitals would not be overwhelmed all at once so early in the course of the epidemic.  The virus would continue to spread but hopefully, the curve would not be as steep as if there had been no mitigation strategy.

Such a mitigation strategy would allow the nation to mobilize more assets for treating the illness.

We will never know if it helped or not.  Because of the money attached to COVID, everything became COVID.  But understand that flatten the curve was a mitigation strategy.

Jacob thought that his brother might be coming to exact vengeance, but perhaps half of the people might escape. That was a mitigation strategy.

The gifts and humble language were meant to appease his brother.  Dividing into 2 camps was mitigation in case that didn’t work.

You have to go beyond this chapter to see how the encounter between Jacob and his brother went.  I’ll give you a hint if you have not read ahead.  There is no vengeance exacted by one brother upon the other.

The mitigation strategy was for nothing.

The gifts and humbling language were to appease the brother that wanted to kill him 20 years ago. Dividing everything that belonged to Jacob into 2 camps was mitigation in case appeasement didn’t work.

But God had told Jacob to come to this place and that God would be with him.  Some of us think that we should throw in a couple oh yea of little faith editorials to go with this story.

C’mon Jacob, c’mon Israel, God said he would be with you.  Why this mitigation strategy? Is God is not enough?

We could point some condemning fingers here. Jacob, dude, how could you not trust that God would provide for you?

Israel, man how could you not see that God is striving to work through you?

We could jump all over Jacob, at least until we had to look in the mirror.  How many times have we second-guessed God?  How many times have we wondered if we understood him correctly?

I think I will just pretend that what God told me to do was garbled in transmission. It’s not true but it’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

How many times have we implemented a mitigation strategy in case the worst happened and we had to go through this thing—whatever it is—without God?

God strives to accomplish his will through us.  Sometimes we resist.  Sometimes we doubt.  Sometimes we prepare for the worst.

There is nothing wrong with an emergency fund.  That’s good planning.

There is nothing wrong with a contingency plan.  That’s the application of sound thinking.

There’s nothing wrong with gaming a scenario or situation.  What if?  What if this? What if that?

But when we start to mitigate what we will do as if God will not deliver on his promises, that’s a problem. When we think we are in this thing called life without God, that’s a problem.  That’s when we expend energy without producing a return on our investment.

If God has told us that he will deliver us from something but our plans are based on the fact that he probably won’t do what he said he would do, that’s a problem.

Now if you don’t make your car payment for 6 months but you have asked God to make it for you, don’t be surprised when the tow truck finally arrives at your house to take your car away.

If you shouldn’t have had those last 2 drinks at the bar but you asked God to get you home safely after you started the car, don’t be surprised when you are standing before the judge being arraigned for DUI.

When you didn’t study all semester but you ask God to help you ace the finals, don’t be surprised when your grade reflects your effort.

But when God promises you life, life abundant, and life eternal but you think you had better get all you can for yourself as often as you can because you are not so sure about this eternity thing, that’s a problem.

When God tells you not to be anxious for anything but to receive his peace instead, but you have 2 or 3 or 300 things that you just won’t turn over to God, don’t expect his peace.

When God promises you that you are in good company because you are persecuted because of him, but you decide to please the world and take the path of least resistance, that’s a problem.

You may or may not have read the next couple of chapters but Jacob—Israel—did not need a mitigation strategy.  God said he would be with him and he was.

Jacob would have been blessed to have memorized Proverbs 3:5-6 before he embarked upon this journey home. Had he visited the Burns Flat Cumberland Presbyterian Church en route—a slight detour in time and geography—he would have known Proverbs 3:5-6 even though it wouldn’t be written for another 700 years.

How many times has our own understanding prompted us to create a mitigation strategy because we are not trusting God? When will our Christian maturity emerge in the form of trust and faith and tangible belief in what God has told us?

We see that God did not kick Jacob to the curb because his faith was weak.  God continued to bless Jacob and fulfilled his promises to him, but consider the peace that Jacob forfeited because of his doubt.

Consider the opportunities for pure joy that were missed because of doubt. Jesus told us to be known as his disciples by our love, not by our doubt, but we choose doubt over faith and trust so many times.

Consider the human legacy that we pass on to our children and their children when we doubt. Our legacy should be composed of faith, hope, and love not doubt.

We should continue to do prudent things.  God gives us the thumbs up on wisdom. Some of those prudent things include different courses of action and contingency plans but these should be in accord with what God has promised us, not because we are not sure if he will fulfill his promises.

God is faithful even when we are not.

This week’s lesson comes from Jacob’s mitigation strategy.  He didn’t need it.  If it was just Jacob and Esau, such a strategy might have been prudent, but God was with Jacob.

That’s a game-changer.

That’s our lesson.  Don’t mitigate when God has told you that he is with you. 

God is with us.  Trust in his promises. Live by faith not sight. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart.

Amen.

 

 

Go and I will be with you

 Read Genesis 31

Jacob took advantage of his older brother and got his birthright for a bowl of stew.  We don’t see that sort of deal until Europeans arrive in the New World and purchased Manhattan Island for $24. That’s the story.  Revisionists now estimate the purchase worth closer to $1000.  In any case, it was the deal of the century.

Back to Jacob.  He traded a bowl of stew for his brother’s birthright.

Jacob deceived his father, Isaac, and received the blessing reserved for the older son.

Jacob was deceived by Laban and ended up married to Leah instead of Rachel. 

Jacob convinced Laban to give him as wages all of the spotted and speckled animals and then devised a scheme so most of the herds were spotted and speckled.  Laban might have vacillated between spotted and striped, but whichever it was is what the flocks bore as offspring.

Jacob’s flocks and herds grew, but eventually, Laban and his sons realized that something was amiss.  Their flocks were shrinking.  Jacob’s were growing.

Jacob got that feeling that it was time to leave town.  You might call it the 20-year itch.

Remember, that Jacob had left his father and mother to flee to relatives in the east because his brother Esau wanted to kill him.

Now Laban would like to put Jacob in a headlock and get even, whatever form that would take. Surely, he wouldn’t kill him…

It was time for Jacob to get out of Dodge.

We see no discussion or meditation upon the thought that the last time he saw his brother, Esau wanted to kill him.

Was it that the risk of remaining with Laban was greater than that of returning to his brother?  We see that Jacob had many reasons to leave, but he did not leave until one more thing took place.

What was that defining event?

God told Jacob to return to the land of his fathers.  But what about Esau?  Would it just be a long trip to walk into a murderous trap?

Listen to what God told Jacob.

Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.”

God told Jacob that he would be with him.  Go and I will be with you.

Go and I will be with you.

Had Tom drafted this chapter, he might have said this instead.

Another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Ollie.

Jacob was between a rock and a hard place.  Laban was angry with Jacob and did not treat him well but Esau might kill Jacob on sight.

          Another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Ollie Jacob.

But God was delivering the instructions.

Go and I will be with you.

While all the human reasons told Jacob that he needed to part Laban’s company; it was the direction of God that led to action.

He told his wives to get packed.  They were leaving right away.  They didn’t object much.  In fact, they seemed to resent the way their father had treated them.  They were property.  They were treated as foreigners in their father’s household.  They were ready to go as well without any convincing required on the part of Jacob.

They were ready to go to a place that none but Jacob had ever seen.

Among the things that the girls gathered for the journey were Laban’s household idols.  Rachel took her father’s idols.  There is all manner of discussion as to why she took them and as to their significance.  Many are convincing but none are conclusive.

What is conclusive is that these people from which Abraham’s children would get wives were not quite attuned to the thought of no other gods and no graven images.  Those commandments were centuries down the road, but Laban knew God’s voice when he commanded him not to say anything to Jacob good or bad.

The word for household idols is teraphim (ter-aw-feme') – תְּרָפִים.  This one word seems to mean household idol.  I was expecting one word for the modifier—household, and another for the noun—idol.

But it was all rolled into one Hebrew word—teraphim. 

Why should anyone care?  Think about it.  There is one word for household idol.  One word.

Let me take this to Oklahoma.  Hey!  Who wants a Coke?

Of course, someone will say yes, so the reply is what kind?

Dr. Pepper.

Now the connoisseur of soft drinks knows that those are two separate drinks, but the evolution of our language lumps them all under the category of a Coke. It’s part of our language now.

Household idols was one word in the Hebrew language.  It’s almost a proper name.  It’s one thing.

Again, why does anyone care?

The term--the word--household idols was just a thing.  Everyone who was anyone had household idols.  What a crazy time. The one true God spoke to Laban and Laban knew who was talking to him, but Laban had household idols.

He knew the one true God and he had household idols.

In the mid-1990s, Florida was in a drought.  It rained all of the time in Florida except this one year.  When it doesn’t rain in Florida, it’s different than when it doesn’t rain in Oklahoma.  Years' worth of vegetation form a thatch.

That is, there is layered fuel for the fire all around.  There may not be a tree in sight, but there is fuel.  The fire would burn and continue to burn through these layers sometimes unseen until it hit trees or other above-ground fuel.

There were several months when we listened to reports of fires moving to different areas.  Then one day I was at my desk in my office and one of the ladies in the office came in to tell me that the fire was moving towards where I lived.

I jumped in my truck and headed home.  There were some detours enroute due to the fire.  I finally got home and after watching the fire seem to retreat and head out towards the sea, the sun went down and the wind changed and the fire was again headed towards us, this time with a bit more passion.

So, I left my vantage point and returned to the house to evacuate.  When I returned, I found a big stack of photo albums waiting for me.  These were supposed to go in my truck.

We had to take our household gods with us.

You might think that I would have first loaded my golf clubs, but those household gods were always in the truck ready to go.

We and the house we lived in survived the fire.  It came within a hundred yards or so of where we lived before it found better fuel and turned, so I got to unload all of our household gods.

The photo albums were important. They weren’t really gods.  They were stored in a closet most of the time. They did not really occupy first place in our lives, but sometimes simple things do seem to come before God.

So by way of a personal challenge, I ask us all to think now if we have any household gods.  Do we have things that come before God or are equal to God?

What about our jobs?  What about our kid’s sports? What about our favorite actors or musicians? Do we idolize them?

Have we put something before God? It might not be so easy to recognize.  It may be a household god.  It’s always there.  It’s always present.  Sometimes it preoccupies our minds, and then our hearts, and the entire process often goes unnoticed.

Here is a household god that we see more and more today.  We see it more because of social media, but it is the household god of being right.

Have you seen people online who can’t just accept that other people might have different opinions than they do?  They must argue every point with everybody.  They must be right.

Learning in the course of discourse has been discarded for having to be right.  I think having to be right is a long-time household god that has come to prominence in the last couple decades of this age because of the technology available in this age.

If we truly look at ourselves, I think that most Christians will find that we have one or two or many things that come close to being household gods.  Some may clearly have surpassed the one true God as far as being important in our lives.

Why do I focus so much on the term household god?  They are subtle.  They seem to go unnoticed most of the time.  We have to deliberately look at them and decide where they stand in our lives.

Sometimes we think that we are under attack by the Evil One and he is leading a mighty army against believers when the biggest battles that we fight are those subtle ones that disguise themselves are just household things—regular things—ordinary things.

Sometimes a regular thing is just a regular thing.  Sometimes it might be a household idol.  Think about it.  Examine your lives.  Only you know what is most important, but you have to issue the BOLO in your household.

Be on the lookout for household idols—for things that compete with God’s place in your life.

Here’s the catch.  If something in your life is more important than God, it becomes so easy to rationalize that it’s also necessary. 

Satan may attack you head-on.  Call upon the name of Jesus to defeat him.

Household idols—household gods—use guerilla tactics.  They don’t launch a frontal attack.  They may already be within your lines.  They subtly attrite your weaknesses.

Be on the lookout for household idols.  They burn like an underground fire.

Let’s leave Tom’s metaphors and get back to Jacob.  There’s a bunch going on between Jacob and his wives and between Jacob and Laban, but this is what I hope you take into your week.

God told Jacob to go and that he would be with him and Jacob went.  He just picked up his estate and left town. He went. He went at once.

What if we were told to do that?

Have we been told to do that? Let’s consider the end of Matthew’s gospel.

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Jesus told us to go and that he would be with us.

Go and I will be with you.

He told Jacob to go and that he would be with him. We are not moving back to where we fled 20 years ago.  We are moving into the world and bringing good news and God is going with us.  God is with us.

So, consider the story of Jacob returning to the land of his fathers and everything that goes with that story.  Now consider our story which is still in the making.  We both have the same directions and support from God.

Go and I will be with you.

OBTW—don’t pack your household gods for the trip. Just pack God’s directions.

Go and I will be with you.

Amen.

Trusting God in Deceptive Times

 Read Genesis 31

Jacob’s nom de guerre was deceiver and it seemed that he lived up to that nickname. He deceived his father.  He deceived Laban after Laban deceived him, and so we must consider this whole striped and speckled animal business.

Was Jacob really so smart as to deceive Laban into surrendering most of his flocks?  Jacob said he would take the odd balls—the darker, spotted, or striped animals from the herd as his wages.  Then without explanation as far as Laban knew, more and more newly born animals fit this description.  Laban had to be thinking, the fix was in, but how?

We might be thinking that Jacob was just a shrewd dude, and there would be something to that.  He did put the branches in the water and more and more animals were born spotted or speckled or somehow less than perfect in appearance.

But now we see in something of a literary flashback, that God had told Jacob that this would happen.  Did he tell Jacob to speed the process along by putting the branches in the water?  We don’t know, but it gives us a little better perspective of Jacob.

I will stay with the assessment that he was shrewd but I will not go so far as to say he was conniving.  Why?  Listen to what the Lord said to Jacob.

So Jacob sent word to Rachel and Leah to come out to the fields where his flocks were.  He said to them, “I see that your father’s attitude toward me is not what it was before, but the God of my father has been with me. You know that I’ve worked for your father with all my strength, yet your father has cheated me by changing my wages ten times. However, God has not allowed him to harm me. If he said, ‘The speckled ones will be your wages,’ then all the flocks gave birth to speckled young; and if he said, ‘The streaked ones will be your wages,’ then all the flocks bore streaked young. So God has taken away your father’s livestock and has given them to me.

“In breeding season I once had a dream in which I looked up and saw that the male goats mating with the flock were streaked, speckled or spotted. The angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob.’ I answered, ‘Here I am.’ And he said, ‘Look up and see that all the male goats mating with the flock are streaked, speckled or spotted, for I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you. I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now leave this land at once and go back to your native land.’”

It seems that Jacob was not swindling Laban out of anything.  God saw fit to reward Jacob—one of his chosen in the line of the Father of Many Nations—and punish Laban.  Both were a bit on the deceptive side, but Jacob had been given a mission by God. Jacob was faithful to God.

Jacob would put this Father of Many Nations thing into high gear and God would continue to bless him.  The whole putting branches in the water may have just been the part that God gave Jacob to do. It may have been a test of faith and the branches didn’t really impact the genetics.

The sequence of events suggests that this was Jacob’s idea, but it is a common literary tool to present one scene and then offer the explanation sometime later.  I think that’s what we see here.  God was blessing Jacob.  God was redeeming the years of service to Laban with blessings from above.  Those blessings just happened to be born with speckles or streaks.

I’m thinking that I will go ahead and claim 2 Ukrainians and 4 illegal immigrants as dependents on my taxes and hope that God sends me a message that this is how it’s supposed to be.  It might not work that way.

This screwball deceiver of a man was chosen by God to accelerate this Father of Many Nations business.  He, with the help of 4 different women, did just that, and God blessed this knucklehead.

Sometimes, I look around and think things couldn’t be more screwed up than they are in our time, but…

What if all the self-destructive things that our government is doing, gets us closer to that glorious day that is coming?

What if, all this trans gender, pick a gender, and gender blender stuff just gets us closer to the coming of the Lord?

What if the fact that kids just can’t make change any more without a computerized register moves us closer to the end of this age and the beginning of the age to come?

What if all of the nuclear chest pounding just moves us a little closer to the battle to come at Armageddon?  That part sort of stinks.  The whole world going to war in one place and I’m left to guard the north end of Burns Flat.  But what if all of the insanity in the world just gets us to not only the end of the age but to the reward, the inheritance, the abundant and eternal life stored up for us?

Maybe, it’s time to understand that the ways of the world are the ways of the world but God will use them for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Maybe, I need to understand that God will use the most hard-headed of hard heads to do his work. That one hits close to home

If I ever meet Jacob in heaven, I’m not going to transact any business with him.  I’m not making any deals with him.  I’m not buying his stew or letting him manage my livestock.  I’m not going to try my card tricks on him either.

I’m not having any dealings with that guy, but God used him with all of his short comings and with his deceptive nature to advance this Father of Many Nations business.

I think that I had better learn to trust in the Lord with everything I have more now than ever before.  I need to practice walking by faith not sight more in this time of deceit than ever before.

George Orwell once wrote that history ended in 1936.  He said it because in the Spanish Civil War battles were reported that never occurred.  Casualties were recorded in battles that didn’t happen.   

We saw the same thing in Vietnam with enemy body counts.  We see that fake news is just the norm in so much of our century. 

The Spanish Civil War put this fake news business into high gear and that was almost a century ago.

We live in a world of deceit, but God will not let the deceptiveness of the world cheat us out of what he has promised.  God rewards those who trust him and seek him and obey him.

So, where does that leave us?

Know the story of Jacob and Laban, Jacob and his wives, and Jacob and his God, but live trusting that God will use us with all of our flaws in a deceptive world that is doing everything it can to deny that God even exists.

God loves you as you are.  He doesn’t want to leave you there.  He wants you to grow in his grace, but he loves every broken part of you and will use you fulfill his plan and bring glory to his name.

Know these Old Testament stories.  They are important to your growth.  But know and live in the certainty that God loves you as you are.  He wants you to grow in his grace but he loves every broken piece of you.

He even uses hardheads to advance his gospel. I know that one for sure.

God loves you just as you are and will use you to bring glory to his name.  Trust him all the more in an age where it’s hard to trust anyone or anything.

Amen.