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.

 

Never bet on another man's trick

 Read Genesis 30

Have you ever seen a really good card trick?

Never bet on another man’s trick.  The secret to a good card trick is to make it look like you messed it up until the very end.  Then the hook has been set and you just reel in your catch.

Remember this part:  Never bet on another man’s trick.

Jacob is ready to go west to the land promised to Abraham’s descendants, and now to his own descendants. He talks this over with Laban. Laban knew that he had been blessed to have Jacob in his service.  He knew that the Lord blessed Jacob.

So here’s the plan. Jacob would take all of the imperfect animals—spotted, speckled, or dark in color as his.  The pure ones will be Laban’s.  How could Laban argue with that?  The deal was struck.

Jacob even through in some quality control.  You can check my herds any time to see if I have any animals that are yours.  This implied that Jacob could do the same.

Herds were separated by outward appearance and separated by space.  Laban was in charge of the sorting. That should have settled the matter, but Jacob had other plans beyond what he shared with Laban.

Listen to what Jacob did, beginning in verse 37.

Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond, and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.

I don’t know all of the particulars, but apparently, Jacob did.  The flesh of these trees—what was beneath the bark had something that impacted genetics and produced streaked or speckled animals.  Jacob was increasing his flocks and Laban was none the wiser.

Jacob was careful to target the healthiest of animals when the female was in heat.  He not only grew his flocks in number but in the quality of the stock.  Jacob was still deceptive but he was also shrewd.

Do you remember how we began?  Never bet on another man’s trick.

At this point, Laban and his sons suspected that everything was not above board.  We end this chapter with Jacob having great wealth and the need to depart Laban’s company very, very soon.

In the first part of this chapter, Jacob was growing his human flock with the help of 4 women. There is some soap opera material there for sure, but in this section, we see Jacob obtaining great wealth.

God had blessed Abraham with great wealth.

God had blessed Isaac with great wealth.

And now God had blessed Jacob with great wealth and a very large family. 

None of these men that God had chosen to be a part of this Father of Many Nations business had obtained their wealth by what we would call respectable means.  Abraham and Isaac were less than honest about their wives and Jacob was just outright deceptive.

Jacob deceived his father. Laban deceived Jacob with Leah.  Jacob got back at Laban with this livestock scheme.  Do you ever wonder what a family reunion would look like among this bunch?

The whole time, God was growing the line of Abraham. God didn’t just pick the best stock and say, good luck. He took Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with all of their flaws and deficiencies and prospered them to create a people he had already chosen when he called Abraham.

You might be thinking, that’s just some screwball stuff right there and the first half of the chapter is just as off the wall. 

Remember, this line of people gets us to a Chosen People who will enter a Promised Land with the Law given through Moses.

This line of people also leads to the Savior of the world.

God will use you with all of your imperfections.  Don’t believe me?  I will wrap up with something very familiar. You have seen it on the internet and on the back of tee shirts.  Consider it this morning.

Noah was a drunk

Abraham was too old

Jacob was a liar

Leah was not good looking

Joseph was abused

Moses had a stuttering problem and was a murderer

Gideon was afraid

Samson was a womanizer

Rahab was a prostitute

David had an affair and was a murderer

Elijah was suicidal

Isaiah preached naked

Jonah ran from God

Naomi was a widow

Job went bankrupt

Peter denied Christ

The Disciples fell asleep while praying

Martha worried about everything

The Samaritan woman was divorced many times

Zacchaeus was too small

Jesus called the disciples dull--slow

Judas would betray him

Paul was too religious

Timothy had an ulcer

Lazarus was dead

Don’t think that God won’t use you to complete his plan.  Be ready to respond to the leading that God’s Spirit places on your heart.

If God was looking for reasons to disqualify you from doing his work, he could find them without much effort, but that is not his thing.

He chose you—with all of your flaws and defects—to do his will, to live out his plan.  He chose you in spite of everything that you might think reasons that he wouldn’t.

He chose you.

Amen.

Trust God's Plan

 Read Genesis 29

Last time we talked about the vision that Jacob had while sleeping on a rock and renaming that place Bethel.  Jacob had an epiphany and it was that he was a part of God’s plan—this whole Father of Many Nations business would go through him and his offspring, of which he had none at the moment.

I’m sure his father had told him of his grandfather and the promise of being the Father of Many Nations, but now this was very real to him.  God’s plan for his life was taking hold of him.

Jacob continued his journey and arrived at the lands of his eastern relatives.  Like the servant who traveled to find his father a wife, he arrived at a well.  This was the place to be. This was where the herds of sheep would soon be watered.

Jacob talked with the men waiting to roll the stone away from the well and water their sheep and he confirmed that he was in the right place and that his uncle Laban was doing well. As Jacob was speaking with the men at the well, Rachel, Laban’s younger daughter approached.  She was beautiful.

She was also a shepherd and brought her father’s sheep to be watered.  Jacob, being a little less than subtle, rolled the stone away from the well so her sheep could be watered, and then walked up to Rachel and laid a kiss on her.

He had told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and a son of Rebekah. So she ran and told her father.

As soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister’s son, he hurried to meet him. He embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his home, and there Jacob told him all these things. Then Laban said to him, “You are my own flesh and blood.”

Things were off to a good start.  Jacob’s thoughts of being murdered by his brother had surely given way to thoughts of love.  He was in love with Rachel.

He had stayed with his uncle for about a month and Laban said that Jacob shouldn’t be working for nothing.  He should name his wage.

When you don’t show up with a caravan of camels loaded with treasure and want a wife, what do you do? Jacob said that he would work for 7 years in exchange for receiving Laban’s younger daughter, Rachel, as his wife.

Laban thought, she could do worse and agreed.

The 7 years seemed short as Jacob was in love with Rachel.  Finally, the time came for the wedding and guests were summoned.

There was a feast and that probably meant some wine, but finally evening came and it was time to be with his new bride.  Laban brought Leah to Jacob and they made love.

When Jacob awakened, he discovered that he had been with Leah, the older daughter. He confronted Laban.  What’s up with that!  That wasn’t our deal.

Laban explained that in these parts, the older daughter must be married first.  What’s done is done.

The deceiver had been deceived, but this was still part of God’s plan.  The offspring from the line of the Father of Many Nations was going to increase rapidly and the community of peoples, which would be manifest in tribes, was happening.

Jacob probably did not realize this at the time, but the family tree was about to branch out.

Jacob was still in love with Rachel.

Laban said that if Jacob finished the bridal week, he would give Rachel to Jacob in exchange for another 7 years of service. Done deal!  You want to see the original spin on sister wives, well, here we go.

Jacob obviously loved Rachel more than Leah, so God leveled the playing field.  Leah conceived 4 times but Rachel could not.

The 4 sons by Leah were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. That’s pretty much where we wrap up this chapter.  There will be more kids from more women in the next chapter, and not just from the 2 sisters.

But what do we take from this week’s reading?

How about, making sure you have the right woman before you jump in the sack with her.  That’s an enduring lesson.

How about, if you are not running for your life because your brother wants to kill you, maybe Dad will give you enough for a dowery and you won’t have to work to get a wife.  That doesn’t apply much these days.  I can’t tell you how many guys—I’m not going to say men—that I deal with who have no job, no car, and no prospects for income but have shacked up with a woman as the financial support for the household.

I hope we haven’t seen the end of the days when the man provided for the wife and family, but in 2023, it’s not looking too good.

But surely that’s not all we can take out of this chapter, is it?

This is going to sound familiar.  It should.  God is very consistent in his ways and his ways must become our ways if we want to know abundant life. This whole, he will direct our paths business is for real.  We just have to trust that he has given us the best path for our lives.

I have shared this story a few times over the years.  In 1974, while a senior at Mangum High School, I was at the Burns Flat Relays.  The team needed a 4^th for the mile relay.  I always threw the discus, but there was no discus event at the relays and the guys knew I could run a quarter mile in under a minute, so there I was.

I waited and waited for the event.  I was bored.  I looked all around me and said, “Nobody would live here on purpose.”  As far as I was concerned this was a penal colony in the Outback, or the Gulag.  Who would live here, really?

In the early 90’s after coming back from Iraq, we packed up the family in South Carolina and headed to Camp Pendleton, California.  Along the way, we stopped in Burns Flat, America.  I looked around and thought, we could buy a house for what I just paid for our new car, and we did.

In 1999, I retired from the Marine Corps and we moved to Burns Flat.  Nowhere in my plan for my life was the metropolis of Burns Flat even a speck on the map and yet here we are.  Even if I knew back then that Burns Flat would have all 3 colors on its traffic light and a Dollar General and a Dollar Tree, would I have put this place on my life map.

As humans, we still think in terms of Point A to Point B in terms of a straight line.  We think that this thing—whatever it is—is our goal and it is a straight line from where we are to where we want to be.

God’s A and B might not look straight to us.  In fact, his directions might seem a bit confusing. They might seem very confusing. Sometimes, we might think, what is God thinking?

Really God, Burns Flat?

It seems like he might have given us a couple wrong turns, missed an exit, turned off the GPS, routed us through a wormhole, and made a left-hand turn from the right-hand lane.

This whole business of the Father of Many Nations and Abrahams's sons and grandsons makes you wonder about God’s plan.

But instead of wondering about the sanity of God’s plans, we should be in wonder at the mighty works of our sovereign God.  He is sovereign and he has good plans for us and if those plans don’t line up with our map, it’s time to get a new map.

Perhaps we need to pay less attention to the map and more to the divine compass we have been given.  I’m not going to expand that metaphor or analogy, but we need to trust God’s direction for our lives.

That doesn’t mean go out and do stupid stuff, but even if we do, God will take even our mistakes and use them for good for we love him and are called according to his purpose.

God has good plans for you.  Enjoy the ride from here through Joseph as we navigate Genesis, because there is some stuff coming that our finite human minds might say, no way God’s plan included that, but it did and it does.

One day, perhaps on this earth, perhaps in the heavenly realms, we should expect an aha moment or two, or three, or three million for what we do not understand now will make perfect sense to us.

We think the best plan is the one along the path of least resistance.  God does not always concur with that line of thought.  Sometimes there is more iron sharpens iron than we would have included in our own version of a divine plan, if we were consulted on the matter.

Sometimes we look around at what’s happening in our world and wonder if God took a couple weeks or decades off, but that’s not the case.

We are moving to what will be a glorious day.  There will be trials and tribulation along the way.  Jesus promised we would have trouble in the world, but he said to take courage, take heart, he has overcome the world.

Today, more than ever, we must trust that God is sovereign.  We must be assured that God is in control.  We must know that God has good plans for us and will never leave nor forsake us.

Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, even when you don’t comprehend the whole plan, even when you don’t understand the next step.  Just take your next step in faith.  God’s got this.

Trust him.

Amen.

Sleeping on a Rock

 Read Genesis 28

We shortchanged Esau a little in last week’s message but will do a short catch-up now. So Jacob has his father’s blessing and Esau is really ticked about it.

Esau asked his father if he didn’t have another blessing.  He did, but it didn’t quite live up to the first.

His father Isaac answered him,

“Your dwelling will be

    away from the earth’s richness,

    away from the dew of heaven above.

You will live by the sword

    and you will serve your brother.

But when you grow restless,

    you will throw his yoke

    from off your neck.”

This whole the older will serve the younger and selling his birthright thing was being manifested right before Esau.  Esau was not a happy camper.

Mom overheard Esau ranting that he would kill his brother.  Rebekah told Jacob to flee to the East and to her brother Laban.  Before he left, his father blessed him again.

Isaac also admonished Jacob not to take a wife from the Canaanite women.  My dad wouldn’t approve.  I don’t approve.  Your mother can’t stand the women from this land, and you shouldn’t want anything to do with them.

Take this time while you are laying low to find a wife from the house of Bethuel and the daughters of Laban.  It will be for the best.

Isaac also included in his blessing something that would pass on this Father of Many Nations mantel to Jacob.  He would be a community of many peoples.  That’s a step up from the father of twins, one of whom wants to kill the other.

Look at a community of many peoples as a stepping stone to many nations.  The story continues.

Somehow, Esau learned what Isaac had told Jacob about the local women.  Did he also know his mother’s thoughts?  Possibly.

He might have heard it from Jacob himself.  They were brothers and they probably still talked even though Esau wanted to kill Jacob, but he wouldn’t do anything until after Dad died.

We don’t know how Esau knew what and when he knew it, but he knew that his two local wives were a sore spot with his father.  Considering the disgust that Rebekah expressed to Isaac over Esau’s wives and what she would do if Jacob took a wife from them, I doubt she could have kept that sort of contempt to herself.

Give Esau credit for one thing.  He was a man of action.

Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac; so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had.

These were children of Abraham’s line.  It was a step up, right?  I’m not sure what the first two wives thought when Esau claimed what he thought would be his trophy wife.  There’s got to be a soap opera in there somewhere.

Now the story shifts back to Jacob.  He is heading east.  This Father of Many Nations thing that his grandfather was picked for is about to get very real.

Yes, he is staying out of his brother’s crosshairs because he knows that the only thing restraining Esau’s killing rage is that Isaac is still alive.  But he also knows that if he is going to find a wife that Mom and Dad would approve of, living or not, she will have to come from the area of in which his mother had come.

Previously, we had to wonder if Abraham’s servant went directly to Paddan Aram, meaning some tough desert travel, or if he went via the Fertile Crescent.

This time we don’t have to guess.  We are told that Jacob went towards Harran.  That means he went north following the Fertile Crescent.  Harran is where Abraham’s father stopped and the place from which God called Abram into what would be the Promised Land.

For now, just know that Jacob is taking the longer, but the more judicious route to Paddan Aram.  He has to stop along the way.  It is near a city called Luz.

This is the place in the scripture that touches a crusty old Marines's heart.  Jacob took a stone to rest his head upon.  Despite all the deception up to his point—all of which kept him on track with God's plan, but being known as a deceiver just wasn’t too cool—in spite of all that, using a stone as a pillow makes Jacob my kind of people.

You have seen all of these ads for beds with different settings—sleep numbers is the term, I think.

There is a picture of a Marine sleeping on a rock on a mountainside titled:  Sleep Setting Marine.

Jacob is my kind of people

As you might expect sleeping with a rock as a pillow, Jacob had himself one doozy of a dream.

He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

This whole Father of Many Nations thing, this Promised Land thing, and this universal blessing thing were not just stories that were handed down.  These were from God himself.

Now God had come to visit Abraham but this might be the first time anyone got a glimpse of heaven, albeit from the bottom of a ladder.

When Jacob awoke, he knew that the dream was not a result of the Canaanite street tacos he ate from the roadside stand the day before.  The Lord was in this place.  How awesome is that!

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

Jacob took the stone that was his pillow and made a pillar of it.  I don’t know if that means he stood it with the long part of the rock vertically or put it atop others, but he poured oil on it and named the place Bethel which means House of God.

Then we see a vow from Jacob.  It might sound conditional, but I think it’s more of an affirmation from Jacob to himself on the order of, If I really am a part of this incredible plan—and it seems that I am—I will give a tenth of everything I have to God.

We saw the tithe with Abram and Melchizedek and now we see it with Jacob at Bethel.

The main thing that I want you to see is Jacob’s epiphany that he is part of God’s plan.

Now I want you to realize that you are a part of God’s plan.  We talk a lot about God’s plan but sometimes we make it sound like some government program that we don’t qualify for.

God’s plan is really personal.  It was personal for the Father of Many Nations.  It was personal for Isaac.  It was personal for Jacob.

It is personal for you.  You have a part to play.  Your part is not to build an Ark.  That one was taken.

Your part is not to be the Father of Many Nations.  That part was already taken.

Your part is not going to be to go to the top of Mount Sinai and get God’s law in writing.  That one is taken as well.

Your part might be to talk to that person in line in front of you who is upset with life. 

Your part might be to start a home Bible study.  It might be to manage our food supply that we help so many with.  It might be to help in the nursery.

It might be to answer God’s call to ordained ministry.  He doesn’t just call high school and college kids; I know from my personal experience and from 9 years on the Presbytery Committee on Preparation for Ministry.  God calls people from all walks of life, including some old-timers.

It might be for you to minister to children as a teacher in a public school.

It might be that you are the one who is going to introduce your neighbors to each other and see who can help whom.

It might be to take one of these lost children who have no godly direction at home and invest in them more than the hour or so a week that we see them.

It might be to be here at 5:00 pm every Wednesday to welcome kids to the basketball court and gaga pit instead of it just being a dumping ground for parents who zoom away.

Do some of the parents of this community need Tom to take them out behind the barn?  Probably so, but that’s not the part of the plan we have been given.

When God tugs at your heart—we don’t see too many cases of sleeping on rocks and having visions in our dreams these days—but when God’s Spirit tugs at your heart, don’t think if I don’t do this, God will just get someone else.

Think instead, God could choose anyone he wants to but he chose me.  He chose me.

Don’t think your part is too big or too small.

Like it or not, we are part of God’s plan.  Don’t fight it.  Enjoy it.

Let me put it this way.  Who do you think has come up with a better plan for your life, you or God?

For the person who is still leaning on their own understanding, the answer is our own plan.  We understand it.

For the person who has learned to trust in the Lord with all of their heart, the answer is unequivocally God’s plan.

It’s not what Tom is telling you is God’s plan for your life, though you might get an affirmation from me.

It’s not what the elders of the church are telling you is God’s plan for your life, but they might have a conversation or two with you that strikes a chord.

It is the Spirit of God that is within you leading you—making your path straight—to whom you should give your full attention. The body of Christ might just affirm that calling—that part of God’s plan.

Yes, it’s happened again.  Proverbs 3:5-6 jumped into the sermon.

Trust in the Lord.  Trust that you are part of God’s plan and that your part of his plan us exactly what it should be.  It’s not up to you to decide if your part is big or small.

OK, so Tom wants me to redirect my life based on what God is telling me through his Spirit.  I’m not convinced that some of these odds and ends sort of things are part of God’s plan. 

God picks big things for big people.  This little stuff that I am called to do can’t be from God, can it?

Let’s leave Genesis for the moment but we will stay in the Old Testament, specifically 2 Kings 5.

This will be the short, it’s time to wrap up this message version.  Naaman was the very successful commander of the army of Aram, but he had leprosy. The VA in his country couldn’t do anything for him, but Naaman’s wife had a slave girl that had been captured in a raid into Israel.

She told her master who told her husband that there was a prophet in Samaria who could cure him.  He wanted to go but couldn’t just take a week’s leave and hear to Samaria in Israel.  Aram and Israel were frequently at war, even if it was just a raid or a skirmish here and there.

If he went by himself, he could be captured and ransomed.  If he took protection, it could be deemed an invasion and an act or war.  He had to go to his king.

His king said to go to Samaria.  He would clear it with the king of Israel.  So Naaman loaded up some animals with plenty of valuables, ready to pay whatever it cost to get him well.

There’s more to this story, but I cut to the chase.  Elisha the prophet knew that Naaman was coming.  Naaman pulled up in his chariot with all of his treasure ladened animals in trace.  He went to the door.

So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”

Naaman stormed away from the door and he was ticked.  The prophet couldn’t even come out to see him.  Was there no red carpet?  Couldn’t they sit down for tea?  No!  A servant came and said go wash in the Jordan 7 times and your flesh will be restored.

Could this prophet have not at least come out and called on the name of his God and waved his hands a couple times?  C’mon, I’m the commander of the army of Aram and he sends a servant.

Besides, the Jordan is a dirty river.  We have clean rivers closer to home.  Naaman was steaming.

Do you know what Naaman had other than Leprosy?  He had good and faithful servants.  They had the backbone to talk to him while he was still steaming.

Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.

If the prophet had come to the door and told him to run 100 miles with 100 pounds on his back, Naaman would have done it.  But such a simple thing as washing 7 times in a dirty river didn’t seem like it came from anybody’s God much less this prophet who was supposed to be a prophet of the one true God.

And yet when Naaman did what the Lord commanded through his prophet, his skin was as clean as that of a young boy.

What a crazy thing to tell this man to do, but it was God’s plan and it worked out great for this commander who thought himself above receiving a message from a servant and was blessed that he heard messages from many servants.

Back to Genesis.

Jacob renamed the place Bethel because the Lord was in that place.  Today I remind you that the Lord is in you.  Learn to hear him speak through the Spirit of God.

We don’t need a dream or a vision.  We don’t need the prophet to come to the door. We don’t need a burning bush.

We need to listen to the quiet voice of the Spirit of God that lives within us. Sometimes it may just be a whisper, but if we are in constant communication with our God, we will know his voice.

We don’t need to see our part as grandiose to consider it a part of God’s plan.  We don’t need to see our part as so unique that no others are called to do the same thing.  We don’t need to see our part of the plan delivered on stone tablets to know it’s our part.

We need to trust that God has good plans for us and he knows exactly what he wants us to do.

Trust your part of his plan is exactly what is best for you.  You are part of God’s plan. 

Don’t run from it.  Don’t hide from it. 

Embrace it.  Enjoy it.

Amen.

 

A Wife for Isaac

 Read Genesis 24

The chapter begins not by telling us that Abraham is old but by stating he was very old.  He was also tremendously blessed.  Abraham had himself some stuff and a trusted servant to manage everything.

He had the son that God promised him but his son had no wife and the prospects for finding the right wife in the land where he lived were zero.  This was pagan country.

Those who surrounded Abraham surely knew of his God and perhaps even feared his God but they had no relationship with the one true God.  Abraham was something of an enigma.

He was a powerful man blessed by a powerful God, but the people around him did not seek this God.

Though they had many idols and knew not to mess with the God of Abraham, they were essentially godless people.

In the first service, we looked at the oath taken by the servant and his sojourn to the well in northern Mesopotamia.

We learned about the servant’s prayer and how the answer to that prayer singled out Rebekah as the woman most likely to be Isaac’s wife, but the work of the servant was not yet done.

Just who was this girl?

She was the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Nahor and Milcah. Now it was time to meet the parents, but first, it was time to pray again.

Then the man bowed down and worshiped the Lord, saying, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not abandoned his kindness and faithfulness to my master. As for me, the Lord has led me on the journey to the house of my master’s relatives.”

God was still blessing Abraham, now through his servant in the land of his brother’s family.  His brother’s family also knew to show hospitality. 

The servant and his caravan would be put up at the home of Rachel’s parents.  She also had a brother named Laban.  Watch out for that rascal when Isaac’s son needs a wife but for now, he welcomed the servant.

“Come, you who are blessed by the Lord,” he said. “Why are you standing out here? I have prepared the house and a place for the camels.”

The servant came into Bethuel’s household and dinner was served, but the servant would not eat until he explained his business. The servant was on a mission and the success of the mission was looking good, but he wasn’t home yet.

He was compelled to tell the story from the beginning—Abraham and Sarah having a son in their old age, the oath he took to bring Isaac a wife, the release from the oath if she would not come with him, and the fact that God was in this every step of the way.

He recounted how he had prayed and God had shown him Rebekah, just as he had petitioned.  He told of the gifts he gave to Rebekah and the praise he lifted up to the Lord.

As you read this, you might have thought, didn’t I just read this?  The answer would be yes, but the servant was not acting of his own will or authority but by the authority of his master, Abraham, who was fulfilling the will of God.

Bethuel and Laban said that all of this is from the Lord.  We don’t really have a say in it.  Take Rebekah and return to your master.

There were gifts galore given to Bethuel’s household.

The servant ate, drank, and spent the night, but by morning, the family was reconsidering the haste of their decision.  You might compare this to buyer’s remorse—a big decision followed by second thoughts. They wanted her to remain with them for 10 more days.

But the servant was on a mission from his master.  He had some momentum going. He didn’t want to take a break when things were going so well.  He needed to go and go now.

Instead of an impasse, the family asked Rebekah to decide.  She chose to go.  The family chose to send her with a blessing.

And they blessed Rebekah and said to her,

“Our sister, may you increase

    to thousands upon thousands;

may your offspring possess

    the cities of their enemies.”

It seems that the family embraced this Father of Many Nations blessing given to Abraham.  Rebekah was now to be a part of this.

And so, they headed back to Abraham. Rebekah was not without some means.  She had a nurse and some maidservants.  It’s a good thing that they unloaded the gifts for the family because Rebekah had some luggage.

I know the experience.  When we go on a cruise, I ask my wife the same question each time.  For how many people and how many months are you packing?

So here is the love story.  The caravan arrived near home.  Isaac was out in the fields in the evening time meditating. Rebekah asked the servant, who is that man?  He replied, that is my master.

Rebecca covered her face and the servant recounted the entire experience to Isaac. Isaac took Rebekah into the tent and made her his wife.  He loved her. She comforted him.

But what about the wedding invitations?  What about the feast?  What about the ceremony?  Was there even a priest around? What about premarital counseling?

Years ago, I was at Montana Mikes in Clinton.  A young couple recognized me as the pastor for the Burns Flat CPC.  They asked if I could do counseling before they got married.

I told them we should set up a time to talk and if it looked like some counseling was appropriate, we would set up a schedule.

They were disappointed.  They were hoping I could work it in between the appetizer and the main course.  I guess that would have been more counseling than Isaac had.

But Isaac was also on a mission from God.  He was part of this Father of Many Nations business.  Rebecca would be his wife.

Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah.

Isaac was sad that he had lost his mother but comforted that he now had a wife. The Lord will provide. It wasn’t too long ago that Isaac was to be a sacrifice and burnt offering, but the Lord provided the sacrifice.  Now the Lord has provided a wife.

Abraham wouldn’t have much more time on this earth.  The story would shift to Isaac.

What should we take from this?

How about it’s good to have top-notch servants, wealth, and camels.  You never know when you might need to fetch a wife for your son.

Premarital counseling might be overrated.

Who needs wedding invitations and a select venue when mom’s tent is available for a right-now wedding.

 Maybe there is something else.  How about the Lord will provide.  Could you imagine being on a mission like the one Abraham gave his servant?

Find my son a wife.  This is the most important thing I have ever asked of you.  Swear to me you will get it right.

OBTW—the angel of the Lord will precede you.  There is a 100% difference between do this thing that is beyond comprehension and do it, the Lord is with you.

The servant had seen how the Lord had blessed his master.  The Lord provides!

How can I take the longest chapter that we have read so far and reduce it to the Lord provides?

Let’s go with this.  Know the story but know that the Lord provides.

The Lord provides.

Amen.