Missing out on Rest

 Read Hebrews 4

We talked before about Jesus being greater than Moses. That wasn’t much of a challenge for those of us living in this modern century. Most of us started with Jesus and then had to look back at the full biblical witness to know about Moses and others.

Jesus is greater than Moses is not a stretch for us. It was surely not the challenge it might have been for the Hebrew people two millennia ago.

Now the author references Joshua and the rest of entering the Promised Land in juxtaposition to the rest of entering into the grace of God that we know in Christ Jesus.

The Promised Land offered a sort of rest for God’s Chosen People. They had been slaves for all of their lives as were their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents before them.

The trek through the wilderness took a bit longer than the couple of weeks it should have taken because the people just wouldn’t get with God’s program. Yes, this is the God who delivered them from bondage in Egypt.

Yes, this is the same God who parted the Red Sea so the people could cross on dry land.

Yes, this is the same God who stopped holding back the water when Pharaoh's army tried to cross as well.

Too many liked being slaves to disobedience and rebellion. They were complainers. They found comfort in complaining against Moses and God.  They were not ready to enter into the Promised Land or enter into God’s rest.

And they didn’t.

You might be thinking, are we in the same boat? Is it really once saved, always saved? The Bible doesn’t use those words, but we believe that we cannot undo what God did for us. It makes sense, but there has been some stern language thus far and more to come.

We talked about rest before when we wrapped up our series on the words of Jesus.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Let me tie this chapter to the full biblical witness. We can rest from the fear of separation from God and eternal destruction and the flames of hell in our genuine profession of faith.  What do I mean by genuine?

We professed what we truly believed: JESUS IS LORD! We believe that God raised him from the dead.

We have what we might call or sing, blessed assurance.  We can rest in our salvation.

But do we have rest in our discipleship? Are we confident that we are doing what God made us to do? Can we experience the rest for our souls that Jesus promises?

There is rest as in a nap or a good night’s sleep.

There is Sabbath rest as in a day set aside for us to rest from our labors and commune with God. The dishes and weed eating can be done in advance or they will wait.

There is rest for our souls that we can only enter into by taking on the yoke of Jesus, learning his way, and then living his way. That comes with peace and hope, and yes, rest—really, really good rest.

This is the blessed assurance sort of rest that we all need in the here and now.

And there is eternal rest. Once this life is done and we are in the hereafter, rest will be so much easier as we will not contend with sin or a sin-filled world.

You will get the same meat in the next service. It will just be sliced a little differently.

The more that you work for the Lord, the more you will rest in him.

The more that you seek God and his kingdom and his righteousness, the more you will rest in this world.

The more that you sacrifice now, the greater your rest later.

The more you help others with their burdens, the more God lifts your burdens from you.

The more we take on his yoke and learn from him, the closer we draw to rest for our souls.

Of course, you have to get Tom’s mantra.

You were designed with rest in mind.

In the context of Hebrews, realize that some died in the wilderness and never knew the rest of the Promised Land. Those who entered rested from their sojourn and from war.

Those who entered the Promised Land had not yet realized the ultimate rest that God has in store for us. That rest comes only in Christ.

In this world, we need to rest from our labors.

When we enter into and live in the Kingdom of God, we rest from temptation, lust, coveting, and the things that desire to pull us away from God.

You know about inertia. A body at rest tends to remain at rest. A body in motion tends to stay in motion.

That law governs bodies in this world but in the Kingdom of God, a body in motion that is putting the words of Jesus into practice will stay in motion but enjoy rest at the same time.

The more we draw near to God, the more that he draws near to us and he brings his perfect rest with him.

So, what do I give you to think about for the rest of the week?

Take his yoke.

Learn from him.

Put his words into practice.

Receive rest for your souls.

Rest in the fulness of your salvation that we know as discipleship.

The more you follow Christ and put his words into practice, the better your rest.

Amen.

 

Abraham Catch Up

 Abram Catch Up

Read Genesis 11-19

Note:  Genesis chapters and verses are noted not linked.

The 11 am service will have the main story from chapter 20, so for now, I want to do a quick flyover of the 9 chapters about Abraham that we have covered so far.  Don’t miss the 11 am service as it will address what happened in chapter 20.  I will put a few questions in here for those who remember the story. Here we go…

Abram comes from the line of Shem one of Noah’s sons. 11:10-26

Abram’s family lived in the land of the Chaldeans.  This was pagan country. 11:27-28

Abram’s father was named Terah . 11:27

Here’s a question for you. Abram’s father, Terah, had three sons.  Two of them were Nahor and Haran.  What was the name of the third son? Abram.  11:27-32

Lot was Abram’s Nephew.  Haran was his father. Haran died while everyone was still living in Ur in the land of the Chaldeans.

Abram’s father took his family from Ur in the land of the Chaldeans and moved north to a place called Harran. 11:27-32.  Terah, Abram and his wife Sarai, and Terah’s grandson, Lot, made the journey. We don’t hear anything about Nahor.

While in Harran, God called Abram to leave Harran and his father’s household and go to a land that God would show him. This is what will come to be known as the Promised Land, but that’s yet to come at this point. 12:1-3

How old was Abram when he left his father’s household? He was 75 years old.  Imagine living at home until you were 75.  If mom keeps doing your laundry that might be a sweet deal. 12:4

What other male relative came with Abram? Lot.  We don’t see that God called Lot to go with Abram, but he went anyway and will be part of several stories in the chapters ahead. 12:4

Abram next went to Egypt.  Why? There was a great deal on an AirB&B—No, that’s not it.  There was a famine in the land.  Turn your biblical clocks ahead to the story of Joseph and think on that one for a while. 12:10

In Egypt, Abram tried to pass his wife off as his sister for his own safety. 12:10-20

Pharoah discovered the deception as a result of serious diseases inflicted on him.  He sent Abram and crew packing but with great wealth. That’s quite the trick.  You deceive the Pharoah and surely are not much of an ambassador for the one true God, but you make out like a bandit. 12:10-20

Now we come to a point where Lot and Abram went separate ways.  Both seemed to be successful and had many flocks and their servants were always fighting over who got what pastures.  So Abram said to Lot:  You go where you want and I will go somewhere else. Who settled in the land around Sodom and Gomorrah?  Lot did.  It was that greener pastures sort of thing. 13

Here’s a cool fact for you. Abram had an army.  How many men composed his army? There were 318 men in Abram’s army and they defeated 4 undefeated armies.  Why did Abram go to war?  Because Lot was captured and taken away by these armies as part of the spoils of war. 14:1-16

To whom did Abram make a tithe following his victory? The tithe was made to God but Melchizedek was the priest, and also the king of Salem, which you know better today as Jerusalem. 14:17-20

Following this meeting and blessing, to whom did Abram say he would take nothing from him? The king of Sodom. Abram somehow knew that this whole Sodom business was ugly and he wanted no ties with it.  He probably couldn’t figure out why his nephew still wanted to live there. 14:21-24

Abram had been in the land for a while and still didn’t have any kids. He was worried that his estate would go to Eliezer of Damascus because Abram was childless. 15:1-3

God told Abram that his heir would be of his own body.  Abram believed God and God counted his belief (faith) as righteousness. 15:6

How was the Promised Land defined in this covenant? God promised Abram many descendants and told Abram that they would reside in a land promised to them. What land?

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.” 15:17-20

I think he left out the gigabytes and terabytes and the smaller tribes of the megabytes and kilobytes.

What creative solution to this childlessness business did Sarai and Abram concoct? Sarai told her husband that he should do the deed with her maidservant and make a child.  He did and Hagar, Sarai’s servant, got pregnant.  Hagar started pressing her luck and there was animosity between her and Sarai.  Sarai came to Abram and told him it was all his fault. Abram told Sarai to do what she wanted with her servant.  She mistreated Hagar and she ran away. 16

What name was to be given to this child? Ishmael.16

Was this the child of the promise? No.  God will fulfill his promise.

Did God tell Hagar that she was on her own? No.  The angel sent her back to Sarai but promised to provide for her and her son. 16

How did the angel describe this child that was to come? A wild donkey of a man. 16:12

Was Abram circumcised? Not until chapter 17.  This was not a medical procedure.  It was a sign in the flesh between God and Abram and all his Abram’s household and all of Abram’s descendants.  The covenant was that God would make Abram the Father of Many Nations.

God did one more thing that was a sign of things to come in short order.  He gave Abram and Sarai new names, names appropriate for the Father of Many Nations and his wife.  They were Abraham and Sarah. 17

Three visitors came to see Abraham.  They were the Lord and 2 angels.  They said that Abraham and Sarah will have the promised child in about one year.  Sarah laughed.  God heard her.  She said that she didn’t laugh. God said, “Yes you did.”  Imagine getting into a back-and-forth about what you did or didn’t say with God. 18

The two angels headed towards Sodom and the Lord told Abraham that he would destroy the city and surrounding area because of its wickedness.  Abraham bargains with the Lord for the city, asking will you destroy the righteous along with the wicked.  Abraham asked the Lord if he would spare the city if there were 50 righteous men in it.  The Lord said for the sake of the 50, he would spare the city.  A negotiation of sorts ensues.  What about 45. OK.  What about 40. OK.  At the end of this dialogue, the Lord said if there were 10 righteous men in the city, he would spare it, and he left. 18

We might wonder why Abraham cared about Sodom.  When he met with the king, he didn’t want to have anything to do with him.  Why did he care?

We don’t know for sure, but it might be because Lot lived there, and he had a family now.

Little did Abraham know that God had already set in motion a rescue for Lot and his family, at least those who were willing to be rescued.

The short version of this story is that Sodom and Gomorrah and much of the surrounding area were toast.  Burning sulfur started raining down at sunrise.  On that day, the best part of waking up might have been Folgers in your cup because the rest of the day was nothing but destruction.

The two angels had rescued Lot and his wife, plus the two daughters that were unmarried and lived at home.  There may or may not have been other daughters that were married.  Genesis only tells us of the two.

During the night, the angels grabbed these 4 people and got them out of the city, then set them loose with instructions.  Run for the hills (actually the mountains) and don’t look back.  Both parts of this instruction were important.

Lot convinced the angels that he couldn’t survive in the mountains and they let him take shelter in a small town near the mountains which would be named Zoar, which means small town.

Lot’s wife ran away for a while but at some point, after dawn, she looked back and became a pillar of salt.  There is plenty of speculation on why she looked back and why she turned into salt, but from this chapter we just get the account.  She looked back and turned to salt. 19

Most people remember the story up to this point, but there is a little more.  Lot and his daughters moved to the mountains.  That was where the angels originally wanted to send them, but Lot thought Zoar would be better.  As it turned out, he was afraid to live there.

So, they moved to the mountains and lived in a cave.  Apparently, they had no neighbors.  The solitude might have been good for Lot, but the 2 young women felt it was the end of the world.  They had no prospects for husbands or for children.

They could do something about the second part, so on consecutive nights, they got dad drunk and had sex with him and conceived.  Apparently, Lot was oblivious to the process.  That must have been some wine!

The older daughter had a son and named him Moab and the younger had son and named him Ben-Ammi. 19:30-38

And that little soap opera brings us up to chapter 20 and a story that sounds a lot like one we heard before.

So, that is the 10,000-foot overview—a quick flyover of 9 chapters with the son of the promise and the testing of Abraham’s faith yet to come.

Keep on reading.

Amen.

Belief credited as Righteousness

 Read Genesis 15

So sometime after Abram’s victory over the 4 marauding armies and after his encounter with Melchizedek, Abram received the word of the Lord in a vision. The vision came with 3 main points.

First, don’t be afraid. We see those words from the Lord and his messengers a lot.

Second, God is your shield, your protector.  You think Abram might have figured part of this out after defeating 4 armies with 318 men.

Third, God told Abram that he had very big rewards for him.

And Abram said, thank you, thank you, thank you, Lord! Not exactly.

The conversation in this vision probably went more like this.

Are you kidding me?  I have no children.  You have given me no children.

One of my servants will inherit everything I have.

The Lord’s reply came again with 3 main points.

Your servant will not be your heir.

Your heir will be of your own flesh and blood.

Your descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky.

Abram believed the Lord and the Lord credited Abram with righteousness because he believed.  Abram sure couldn’t see how any of this would happen, but he believed the Lord.

Abram had lots of questions, but he believed.

But the Lord had more in store for Abram.

He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”

Abram was old and childless, but he was not blind.  He knew that there were many people already living in the land.  It very much seemed to be the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”

And Abram had one more question for the Lord.

How can I be sure of this?

God had just credited Abram with righteousness for his belief, but he still had questions.  God, of course, had his answer, but God answers as God answers.

He did not give Abram an advance copy of the history of the next 500 years. Here you go, read this, and check the copyright date before you start.

God did not give Abram the details of his plan and the when and where each piece would unfold.

God did not give Abram a vision of armies and peoples running from his descendants in fear of the army that was preceded by the Lord.

God answered in his own way.  He told Abram to prepare a sacrifice and prescribed the animals to be used.  After fighting off some scavenger birds, Abram fell into a deep sleep.

We are told that a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.  That’s some imagery—thick and dreadful darkness.  I went back to look at some of the original language and the best straightforward definition that I could find was that the darkness was terrifying.

Understand that Abram slept through the darkness, so I think it means that the terror invaded his sleep.  Why such darkness.

God’s message was the good news, bad news sort of thing.

Yes, you will have descendants as I promised.

But they are going to do a stint in slavery, about 400 years.

Take heart, I will deal with their captors. 

God did not stop with answering Abram, he made a covenant with him concerning the land promised to him and sealed it with the fire passing through the middle of the sacrifices.

The Lord had made reference to giving this land to Abram, shortly after Lot had departed. Now, even though it was centuries down the road, this whole Promised Land business was a done deal.

This covenant process was a tactile and kinesthetic thus saith the Lord.

So, the story of Abram continues.  He is still childless but has God’s promises that he will have children and grandchildren and more great-grandchildren and…

He still doesn’t own all the land around him, but God told him that one day his descendants will and his belief in everything that God told him was credited to him as righteousness.

God told Abram that he would live to a ripe old age and die in peace.  I’m thinking that peace would come from knowing God’s promises to be true.  Abram had some more living to do in the meantime, and some more lessons to learn and share with us.

For now, understand that we can believe God and still have questions. We can not understand and still have faith.  We can fail to understand the what or why of God’s ways, but still be his child and a faithful follower of Jesus.

It’s sort of like we know that God has good plans for us even when we don’t always know the plans.

Our human nature wants to put God in a box so we can understand everything.  God wants to take us beyond our own understanding so we can be blessed by steps that only he knows are good for us.

It’s ok to have questions, just keep the faith.

It’s ok to wonder how is God going to take care of this or of me or of my loved ones, just don’t doubt that he will.

It’s ok to have a conversation with God about difficult things, just listen more than you speak.

It’s ok to have more questions than answers, just know that you know the One who is the answer.

I saved the rabbit trail for the end.  God had just explained how his descendants would go into captivity and be slaves for a long time. Then we get this statement from God.

In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

What does it mean that the sin of the Amorites had not yet reached its full measure?

I can find no direct explanation for this phrase, but think that I have some understanding.  God is righteous and will judge.  He judged some in Old Testament times.  Consider the flood.  That was judgment on a big scale.

Consider what happened to Sodom.  That’s a couple chapters down the road, but that’s judgment. Think about God’s desire to spare Nineveh if they would repent.  Jonah didn’t want to hear that but God got his attention.

Now consider that God is not rushing to judgment.  He is patient.  He desires all to come to repentance and profess Jesus is Lord and know eternal life.

Now to the Amorites.  They were sinful.  They would receive judgment in this age.  It would come at the hands of Joshua and his army.  It was a solid defeat by Joshua’s army, but the Lord threw in some hailstones at the end that killed more than the soldiers did.

Don’t read this account if you don’t like Daylight Saving Time.  What?  Now you have to read it.

So what do we take from this somewhat obscure statement?  How about God will judge the earth, but he is not in a big hurry to do it.

Nonetheless, we should have an urgency in the fulfillment of our commission.  We should take the good news to the world like there will be no tomorrow in this age, only in the age to come.

Back to Abram. Abram didn’t do much in this chapter.  He had a conversation with God and made a sacrifice.

God, on the other hand, did big things.  He made a covenant with Abram and formalized his promise to give Abram the land in which he now lived, with borders that went far beyond what he could see. Check out the First Light message for some provocative thoughts on the boundaries of the Promised Land.

God did another really big thing too.  He credited Abram with righteousness because he believed God.  Abram had questions and Abram could not comprehend how God could do what he said he would do, but Abram believed God.

God counted this belief as righteousness.

Do we see this anywhere else in the Bible?

How about in the words whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

How about what Jesus said later in John’s gospel.

Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.

Those who believe—who have faith in God and in his Son, Jesus Christ—are made right with God.

God promised Abram countless descendants, a land just for them, and that he would die peacefully at an old age.  Abram believed him.  God counted Abram’s belief and faith as righteousness.  God knew that Abram would still have struggles ahead of him, but God blessed Abram for believing.

God has promised us life, life abundant, and life eternal.  He has told us that one sacrifice made with the blood of Jesus made us right with God. We still have struggles ahead of us but do we believe God and do we believe his promises to us?

Do we believe?

If we don’t, this whole course of study is an exercise in futility, but if we do, we have received something that we could neither comprehend nor achieve on our own—right standing with God.

Believe God and believe his good news.

In our belief, God credited us with righteousness.  The righteousness came from Jesus who fulfilled the whole law and went to the cross as an unblemished lamb, but it is imputed to us in our belief.

God credits our belief in Jesus as righteousness.

Believe!

Even when we don’t understand, believe.

Amen.

Boundaries of the Promised Land

 Read Genesis 15

In the just wondering category, have you ever wondered about what defines the Promised Land?

If you have followed history for the past 100 years, you know that Israel’s boundaries have moved more than once.  Sometimes this is the result of a war and sometimes a war results from moving the boundaries.

But what are the boundaries?

In this chapter of Genesis, we see them defined.

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, and others…”

So what is the wadi of Egypt?  Most would say the great river of Egypt, but that is the Nile, and it is well within Egypt.

What about to the great river—the Euphrates?  That river is north of what we think of today as Israel.  It’s north of Lebanon and into Syria.  We have never seen the kingdom of Israel stretch that far, have we?

Well, that’s just one account.  God could have refined these basic boundaries later.  He did.

I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River. I will give into your hands the people who live in the land, and you will drive them out before you.

So maybe the western boundary is the Red Sea and not the Nile River, but the eastern boundary still appears to be the Euphrates River. That’s a lot of territory that present-day Israel does not occupy today.

But if we go to Ezekiel, we see what is surely a prophetic dividing of the Promised Land among the 12 tribes for the land was already divided when Joshua entered the land following the time of slavery in Egypt.  In Ezekiel’s account, the Promised land goes north of Damascus. It goes all the way to the Euphrates.

We have seen the Israeli Army fighting in the Golan heights area, especially in the Yom Kippur War, but that doesn’t get close to the Euphrates River.

So why does no one ever bring this up?  Why does no one note the discrepancy?

Perhaps it is not a discrepancy of geography but of time.  It seems that Joshua may have never claimed all that God set aside for his people.

It seems that in the mid-20^th century, the land returned to God’s Chosen People was not the full amount described in Genesis or elsewhere in the Bible.

It could be that the entire Promised Land will not be delivered until the end of the age or perhaps in the millennial reign.

As we have seen much biblical prophecy fulfilled so far, so too is there much to be fulfilled. It’s food for thought.  Nothing in this line of discourse affects your salvation.  Nothing impacts your abundant life.  Nothing here upsets your right standing with God.  That is very much intact.

But for those who are interested in more than being a workman approved to rightly divide the word of God—that is to put God’s words into practice—this might prove an interesting course of study.

Our charge as Christians is to put the words of Jesus into practice, but for some of you, you might be called to study more.  Here is one of those tidbits that scholars don’t give too much attention.  So, if you have plenty of time on your hands, and you want to venture into an area that has not been over-explored, this invitation might be for you.

Let me know how it comes out.  I’m on to chapter 16.

Amen.