September 24, 2014
Snapshots From the Lives of the Patriarchs
I Abraham Tested; Proven Faithful Genesis 22:1-19
II Isaac Dug Wells; Proven Faithful Genesis 26:1-34
III Jacob Found God, In Unexpected Places; Proven Faithful
Genesis 28: 10-22
My Grandpa Hill, was a remarkable person. He was a preacher of the Gospel, for over 50 years, the night watchman in a Textile Factory, my grandmother’s adoring and adored husband, the loving father and grandfather to his 5 children and 15 grandchildren and
too-many-to- count great-grandchildren, the willing to adopt a motherless, two year granddaddy, even as his heart broke over the loss of his eldest daughter, a friend to anyone who needed a friend, a gentleman gardener, a part-time fisherman, the loyal brother to 8 siblings, a dutiful son to his godly parents, a self-educated man, smartest I’ve ever known, and he only went to school till the 3rd grade, but he could hold his own with anybody, the reader of God’s word the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night and any time in between if he sat down, the Saturday granddaughter dress-buying granddaddy once a month, the Christmas morning visitor, to every grandchild’s home to see what they got for Christmas, the every Sunday morning candy-buying pastor, for all the children in his church, the say yes when he could and no when he had to, disciplinarian, the peeper through the window guardian angel, just to make sure all my dates were g-rated, the gentle guide of the souls of his loved ones, till he saw them all saved, one by one…. And the hands-down, no questions asked, avowed, revered and honored Patriarch of our large extended family… If I could, I would show you snapshot after snapshot of the times and the ways, that he influenced my life, some would be happy and some would be sad, some would be serious and some would be funny, but they every one would be teaching some truth that I learned at his knee or from his heart. He was a wonderful man, and I miss him every day, since he passed away, 34 years ago, now. I’ll never forget that one of his preacher buddies said to me, “I hope you understand what a legacy you’ve been given,” while we were still in the cemetery after his funeral-----at the time, l was a newly-wed, only been married for 6 months, and I didn’t understand the legacy I’d been given….but over the years I’ve come to value, the immeasurable worth, that I was given, through nothing I did, or nothing I deserved, to be raised as I was, as a child of privilege, not in a monetary way, at all, but in a much richer way…I was raised to the light, to be a child of the King.
The Patriarchs, in the Old Testament, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, have done the same thing for our spiritual family, down through the ages, that my grandparents did for our physical family, they have passed their legacy of faith, that they guarded with their lives, down to us, generation after generation----it has never been diluted, it has never been changed, it has always been the truth-----and the snapshots of their faith, when it was strong and when it was weak, are just as vibrant and vivid, today, as they were, when these Patriarchs lived and walked the earth. As we’ve studied this week, we’ve seen snapshots from each of their lives, and if you’ve read the commentary, you’ve seen a few more, and I’ve chosen some of my favorite ones, to share with you as the wrap up-----and in every picture we can see that these people were not perfect, by any means, but it is clear that there faith was in Almighty God, the maker of heaven and earth. And their legacy to us, is based on believing and trusting in God’s Sovereignty and His faithfulness to keep His promises, His covenant, His prophesies and His Word., and to remain unchanging, in an ever-changing world. Their lives testify to us, that in the middle of living in a sinful, self-centered, morally corrupt, power-hungry society, we can still believe God’s words, and we can still live a life of faith following Him, and pass it down, still intact, to the next generation.
As we study these Patriarchs and the other people we are going to talk about this year and look at their snapshots together, we need to individually ask God the question, “Lord, what do you have for me, for my life right now, what can I learn from this study, and from the lives of these men, how can I make a difference today for myself or someone else? We aren’t the same people we were a year ago, or even months ago---the situations of our lives are constantly changing, only the Lord knows what tomorrow will bring…..so we need to ask Him to prepare us today, for what tomorrow may bring And we need to trust Him, as our days unfold, because He is taking the snapshots of our lives that we are leaving for future generations, and we want them, as imperfect as they may be, to tell the story of a life of faith, in God the Father.
I Abraham Tested: Proven Faithful Genesis 22:1-19
This passage of scripture about Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac, is one of the most gripping, of all the snapshots, that are provided to us, in the whole scripture….
Imagine Abraham, with tears rolling down his cheeks, knife poised high in the air, hovering over the body of his only son strapped to the altar-----------doing what God had asked him to do, but praying that, the compassionate ,heavenly Father, that he’d come to know, would stay his hand at the last minute. I don’t think any of us are mature enough or faithful enough to do what Abraham found himself doing….I know me, where my children are concerned, I would have caved….
but not Abraham…he obeyed without question….one night God told him to go to Mt. Moriah, a 3 day journey from where they were camped, and sacrifice Isaac. So, without question, the next morning, Abraham and Isaac ,and the servants that they took with them, hustled about getting ready for the trip and gathering their supplies, including cutting the firewood, for the sacrifice… and without hesitation set out on their journey…
When they got to the base of Mt. Moriah, Abraham told his servants to wait there, that he and Isaac would go on alone and would be back when the sacrifice was over. The scripture tells us that they obeyed, and it doesn’t tell us that they questioned anything…
The fact that Abraham told the servants….. that he and Isaac would both return, is our first clue, that Abraham didn’t know why or how, but he knew that God wouldn’t take Isaac------it’s our first indication that Abraham believed that God always keeps His promises, and since Isaac, was a child of promise, even if Abraham had to kill him and resurrect him, they would both return to the servants...
V When believers act in faith, really in faith, they rarely question God’s methods, and they never assign to Him. what His method of achieving his promised goal is going to be. They just trust and obey Him, even if its with trepidation, and concern, or disappointment and sadness, they just struggle to obey.
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The person that has always amazed me is Isaac. He was probably between 14-16 years old, either his faith in God was as strong as his daddy’s, or his faith in his daddy was strong, or both-….and as he carried the wood up the side of the mountain, and he wondered where the lamb of sacrifice was---he must have to allow himself to be tied down to the altar of sacrifice….must have taken all the courage he had-----he must have been terrified. Especially with his father’s words, “God Himself. Will provide the lamb, ringing in his ears….But yet, he didn’t run away, and we aren’t told, that he even struggled -----it seems, that he too, obeyed without question….
At any point, in the awful journey, God could have stopped Abraham, because it was obvious that his faith was sufficient. He had proven that he was willing to do whtever the Lord asked him to… But Abraham didn’t know that his faith was being tested, and God wasn’t proving Abraham’s faith to Himself, he was proving Abraham’s faith to Abraham…
Only when Abraham was about to plunge the knife, did God stop him, by calling his name, and when Abraham, who had been single mindedly, obedient turned around to answer him, he saw the ram, of sacrifice, caught by his horns in the thicket, that had possibly been there the whole time… When our timid faith becomes tested faith, it can turn into triumphant faith….but it all begins with Jesus taking our place on the cross, as our substitute….
This passage draws a clear parallel between the sacrifice of Isaac and the sae golf course….the Lord used this passage to guide and direct us and to grow our faith in a powerful way….)
This passage crifice of Jesus. Abraham offered his son, and God offered His son, but the major difference is tha there was a ram caught in the thicket for Isaac, and Jesus, was the ram caught in the thicket for us….
I can never think about the willingness of Abraham offering up his son, without thinking about Jesus offering up His son Jesus. You and I have our life, and our salvation, and our hope in eternity, because of what Jesus did for us on the cross… and the only way this is world will ever come to know the salvation that we know, will have a lot to do with how faithful we are, in front of them….
Abraham had already reached a high level of maturity, or he would
Never, have been able to go through with God’s unspeakable command,
And God knew the maturity level, of Abraham’s faith, or He would never have given Him the command----God doesn’t try to set us up for failure, He tries to set us up for success…God didn’t need a human sacrifice , nor did he want it, human sacrifice was abhorrent to him, because of how he feels about the sanctity of life…he wanted Abraham to see his willingness to give God his most cherished possession…
Abraham’s obedience to God, in the offering of his son, is the greatest single act of submission in the bible apart from the submission of the lamb of God, to the cross…And we are blessed to see the depth of Abraham’s faith…
(This passage holds another significant meaning for Dale and me, for a different reason, because the Lord used it to take us from his job of 16 years,, where he was advancing at a very quick pace, to a tiny little struggling company that nobody knew whether it would survive the next year, or not. The new little job, was the willingness to step out in faith, and the old one turned out to be the sacrifice , caught in the thicket.-----and even though it was less money, we’ve never been sorry…..Dale has been able to fulfill his obligations here at church; he coached all of Griff’s baseball teams till he got to high school, he made the girl’s soccer and volleyball games, their dance recitals and horseshows, even if he was late, or had to come off of th
II Isaac Dug Wells: Proven Faithful Genesis 26:1-34
On Saturday, May 21, 1927, a New York evening paper contained an expert’s elaborate demonstration of the impossibility of flight across the Atlantic…The funny thing was, somebody had not proofed that paper, because flung across the headlines of the front page of that same paper, with the accompanying article, side by side, with the Atlantic Crossing impossibility article, were the words, in bold print, “Lindberg Has Arrived!” which Described Charles Lindberg’s first transcontinental flight. While the experts were pontificating how it couldn’t be done, Charles Lindberg just did it, he flew across the Atlantic Ocean.
There are always people, who think that they are experts, who, whenever we attempt something worthwhile, for the kingdom, will say, “you can’t do that, or, “that won’t work.” Or “don’t even waste your time….”There will always be people who oppose us, even good people, godly people, can’t help but criticize what they don’t understand, or what they don’t like, or what they feel envious of….
and our enemies, especially, the world,……..will try to fight us and stop us from doing what we know that the Lord has called us to do, every time.
The question is…. what should we do, as believers, when outside opposition comes? What should we do when critics try to shut us down? What do we do, when our detractors try to thwart and discredit what God wants to do, through us?
We need to take a lesson from Isaac and pick up a shovel and dig a well.
During famine time, when water was the hottest commodity going,
Isaac, the meek and mild-mannered gentleman, often lost in the larger shadow that his father and sons cast, used digging wells, as his way of being obedient to God the Father, and as his witness, about the Father, to the world around him.
During this famine time, Isaac found himself in the city of Gerar, right smack dab in the middle, of Philistine country, during the reign of King Abimelech. And during this time, God prospered Isaac, to the point that he was more wealthy than the king, and the Philistines were so jealous, that they filled in his wells with dirt, trying to force him to leave,and when that didn’t work, then finally, the king ordered him to leave and take all of his possessions with him.
So, Isaac, instead of fighting and arguing, simply moved on and reopened the wells that Abraham had dug years before. Isaac was trying to peacefully establish his presence and God’s presence in the land….and he was also claiming his father’s wells, by right of inheritance ,that’s why he named them the same names, that Abraham had named them.
And as Isaac continued to move from place to place, he would have his servants dig another well, they would hit water, and he would build an altar, dedicate it to the Lord and then worship Him there.
Each well that they had to dig was given a name of significance, and the wells served as an encouragement to him, to keep pressing on with the Lord God, never giving up, just to keep putting one foot in front of the other and moving forward….and this is a lesson to us because with each new well we can see Isaac’s relationship with the Lord deepening….
There were 4 new wells in all and their names were:
Esek—it means contention or dispute----the herdsmen of Gerar argued with Isaac over who it belonged to….and spiritually, for us…..in our walk with the Lord, this is the first well that had to be opened. It’s the place where we started our faith journey, it’s our early struggle days, where we had to contend with satan and with right and wrong and good and evil, where every day seemed to be a battle, and living for the Lord seemed to be a difficult task, and sometimes, discouragement seemed to weigh us down. But we didn’t stay there very long, because in the midst of growing us, the Lord moved us own, to dig a new well.
Sitnah----then Isaac and his servants dug another well, but there was quarreling over it too,,,,so it’s name means separation….spiritually, it’s the great well that every believer has to dig…..it is the one that separates us from the world, we are called to be different and the world hates us because of that, so we have to dig the well of separation. It’s a hard one to dig, because it means we are casting our lot, once and for, all with the Lord Jesus, never to turn back, choosing to go against the world’s standards and follow the Lord’s. We’re at a different level of strength and knowledge and obedience at this well…and at this well, things and people have to be left behind. There are struggles here too, but we are wise enough to tell the devil that we recognize who he is and we’re not playing his game, he may have filled our wells in before, but he will never do it again.
Rehoboth---this means---the well of room---the Lord has made room for us….no one fought with Isaac at this well, his family and herd could spread out and enjoy the fruits of their labor----spiritually, for us,…at this well there is no more fighting, we understand who we are as witnesses, to the world, of the goodness of God….this is the well of maturity, it is the well for those who have made it through many struggles, but they have reached a place of work and service and contentment. This is the place where we walk in victory, not defeat----instead of the enemy dogging our heels, we have him on the run….it’s where we recognize that every where we go, we’re standing on Holy Ground.
Many believers never reach this place because they give up or burn out. as they are digging wells, cause the work is so hard. But God has promised this place to us----- if we live by faith and keep pressing forward, we will reach Rehoboth….
Shebah------this means. the -well -of seven-fold blessings…..this is the well of peace and the 7-fold blessings are beyond our comprehension]
the Philistines finally left Isaac alone and he could rest with no worries…. and a city was able to grow up around Isaac’s well…it was Beer-shebah
Spiritually, for believers…
1.) this is the well of rest….
2.)it is the best and last well…..
3)We are aware of God’s presence with us continually…
4.)God will increase our blessings, we will walk in plenty…
5.)The enemy will be afraid of us, but we won’t fear him
6.)Every tine we dig a well, we will find water, living water, it is a place of satisfaction----we will draw near to God cause He’s already there…
7.)our well will become like a city on the hill, people will be drawn to the Lord, through us-----this where the Lord reminds of His past promises and His future promises….
The lesson from Isaac, when we face opposition, is to not fight back…..he just picked up a shovel, just moved on to a new place, and dug another well----he didn’t fight back and he didn’t get frustrated-----we should do the same thing, even when the resources are scarce, even when we have to endure criticism or ridicule, even when the enemy tries to shut us down…… by faith, we just need to keep moving. We need to remember God’s promises and hold on to them, and persevere----We need to keep on doing what the Lord wants us to do, walking in the way that He wants us to walk…..until the presence of God is so apparent in our lives, that even our enemies have to respect us. When somebody throws dirt in our well, we just need to trust God, pick up a shovel and dig ….
III Jacob Found God in Unexpected Places: Proven Faithful
Genesis 28:10-22
It’s funny to me, that we think that God just shows up unexpectedly, when the reality is God is always there, it’s just that from time to time, we open up our spiritual eyes, and we’re able to catch just a glimpse of Him, and we’re amazed! It’s happened to me numerous times, and I’m always amazed and delighted and filled with joy----so I’m looking forward to the day when it’s not a surprise, anymore, when I see Him, it’s an expectation-----and I’ll still be amazed. (I’m going to tell another story that some of you have heard, but it just goes so well with this snapshot of Jacob, that I have to tell it again, so bear with me, if you have heard it…..) Back when Lizzie was a junior in High School, so probably 7 years ago now----I was president of the PTSA at Millbrook High School, and that, afforded me the opportunity to be at the Winterfest Talent Show, early one Friday morning. Several of our FCA kids were performing, and I couldn’t wait to see and hear them…They were scattered throughout the program, and they all performed Christian songs,,,,,so I was really proud of them,,,,,and really proud that the Lord had been represented well. I was feeling pretty smug about our Christian influence, until The Lord made Himself visible and knocked me flat on my face, in awe…I’m still awed….it was like He was saying-----yes, these kids did a good job and I’m proud of them, but let me show you my power; let Me show you what I can really do…..
A young girl, the very last performer, that I didn’t know, with a beautiful voice, stood up to sing…..the song was “Carry Your Candle” and I’ll tell you the words in a minute, but as her voice soared to the rafters in that dark gym,,,,in the far left corner, of the bleachers, a light flickered and stayed on, and across from it, on the right side, in the middle of the bleachers, another light answered, and stayed on----this went on while she was singing, until the whole gym, was alight with cehll phone lights, to be sure, but the kind of lights was a never-mind, because you could feel the power of the Holy Spirit so strongly, in that place, that you could have reached out in any direction, and touched Him. When she finished singing, the lights hovered for just a minute in silence, then they went off, and the applause was deafening-----and I cannot tell you how many young people came up to me and said….”what just happened?” and I was able to say, “The Lord is alive and well at MHS.”
That was one of those profound moments that changes you in an instant---my faith and my awe of Almighty God, grew exponentially, on that early morning……
And the same thing happened to Jacob, early one morning, that had even greater inpact on him, and consequently, the world.
Jacob was running for his life! He had tricked his daddy and cheated Esau out of his blessing and his birthright so when Esau threatened to kill him, his mother sent him away to stay with relatives, till everything calmed down….little did Jacob know that it was going to be 20 years before he went home again, and that God would use that time, to grow him into a man, who was ready and able, to father a great nation.
At sunset, alone and scared, exiled from home and cut off from his family, Jacob found himself at a place called “Luz.” It was located in the desert between Beersheba and Haran, and was little more than a spot in the road, a hilltop of barren rock, with hardly a name. It was the kind of place where only a very weary person would stop to rest.
We can identify with him, can’t we, we’ve all been in Luz, at some point in time, some of us may be there right now----it’s a lonely, desolate place, marked by regrets and worries----it’s a replay of wrong choices, filled with, “I might have’s, I should have’s, I so wish I hadn’t’s---Luz is a place of sadness , and of grief, guilt and despair…It’s a place where our minds won’t stop churning and our pillows feel like rocks and we toss and turn, plagued by anxiety and uncertainty.
And in his troubled state, God came to him in a dream, that was really more reality, than the life Jacob was living…In his dream he saw a passageway open into heaven. We call it a ladder, but it was actually, probably a ziggurat, a tower-like structure, with a ramp wide at the bottom and narrow at the top. It was a common sight in his time. Priests used it to climb symbolically, from the earth, where people dwelled, to the heavens, where God lived. In Jacob’s dream, angels were ascending and descending, going about the Father’s business----and Jacob heard God speak to him.
And God. renewed and called Jacob, back into the covenant, that He had made with Abraham and Isaac. He renewed all his promises,,,,and then , for extra measure, just because He could, just because He’s a good God, He blessed him even further, by telling him, “know that I am with you, and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I’ve done what I promised you.”
This passage is amazing to me, our faithful God, gave unfaithful Jacob, a faithful promise….”I will be with you, I will keep you, I will bring you home again.” There is such hope here for us…God doesn’t stop being faithful to us even, when we’re unfaithful to him…He binds Himself to us, and doesn’t let us get too far away from Him, thank goodness, cause we will wander off, in a heartbeat…
In the early morning, Jacob woke from his dream and in amazement, declared, “surely the Lord is in this place; and I didn’t know it,” and he renamed it Bethel, which, in Hebrew means, “the place where God is”----(the place of regret had become the place of praise).
There are several lessons we can learn from this:
Luz is Bethel: the place where nobody would choose to be is often where God is found, the place where you would least likely expect Him to appear, there He is…God doesn’t wait until we have it all together, until all the messy parts of our lives have been put right, He meets us right where we are, and takes the circumstances of our lives, whatever they are, painful or joyful, good or bad, and fills them with His grace and blessing. In that pitiful place called Luz, Jacob came face to face with the Living God, the future that he thought was lost to him, was reshaped and given back to him, and his relationship to the Lord God was redefined and would forever be changed. All of a sudden, he found himself facing a world filled with eternal possibility, and He could embrace it because God was in control.
God uses the least likely people: Looking at Jacob’s track record, up until this point in time, , you would think that he would be God’s least likely choice to be a friend, much less a patriarch of the faith---he was a liar and a cheat and a first-class schemer. He was weak and cowardly and easily tempted----but God’s ways are not our ways, and God’s thoughts are not our thoughts…and He looked beyond the obvious, saw a heart that could be molded and grafted and changed. So Jacob didn’t get what he deserved, he got what he needed. And it wasn’t dependent on what Jacob had done, thank goodness, it was dependent on who God is. It was determined by God’s nature, not Jacob’s. God doesn’t love us because of who we are or what we do, He loves us because He has chosen to, from the foundations of the world.
God came to Jacob: God chose t o come to Jacob, and He chooses to come to us. God finds us in our dusty, filthy rags and enters into the harsh stony realities of the world that we live in, and works His will and purpose in and through us. When Jacob woke up and exclaimed that the Lord was there, and he hadn’t known it, what Jacob didn’t understand, but we need to, is that God wasn’t just in that geographical place, He was in Jacob’s life, and had always been, and that’s what Jacob didn’t realize. The Lord God dwells with us and in us. Our lives is the place that He makes Himself known to us and to the world. Our circumstances are rarely transformed, but we always are. God comes to our ordinary places and, makes them extraordinary. He makes us extraordinary….
How many of us need to dream a dream like Jacob’s and wake up to a new truth, of the reality of God’s presence always being with us.
If we did….We would look at ourselves, our lives, one another and our good God with different eyes. We would stop struggling so hard, for the wrong things and punishing ourselves when we don’t get them. We would be able to see God’s holiness all around us. We would live with the expectation of God’s blessing, and be more trusting and less fearful. We would see life as a celebration, of a gift of grace, instead of something that we have to endure, while we plod wearily through.
If we empty ourselves, of self, and submit ourselves to the Lord, then God’s goodness will happen to us in ordinary moments, in ordinary places.
When we’re lost, God will find us, , when we’re confused, God will direct us when we’re; empty, God will fill us. God comes to us when we’re worshiping, when we’re standing at the kitchen sink, when we’re studying at our desk, when we’re walking with a friend, when we’re fidgeting with paying bills, when we’ve got small handprints everywhere, when we’re on the golf course, or tennis court or the baseball sidelines, or when we’re driving an infirm friend around or putting wash into the washer, or taking care of an aged parent….when we most need Him and when we least expect Him, He comes to us, and gives us Himself, in a word, in a blessing or a promise.
There is a ladder to heaven and it’s name is Jesus, and every rung is made out of the Father’s love……… but we don’t have to climb it, because God came down it to us.
In our lifetimes, we will journey from Luz to Bethel many times and hopefully, we will discover sooner, rather than later, that there’s no place God can’t find us, no burden He can’t help us carry, no sorrow that He can’t ease, and no moment that He can’t transform.
We will lie down in the darkness, and we will wake to the light. We need to learn, that right where we are, wherever we are, is the gate of heaven and it’s Holy ground, because our good God is already there.
“Go Light Your World”
