JOY "God's Call: Our Excuses: God's Answers" October 1, 2014

October 1, 2014

God’s Call: Our Excuses: God’s Answers

Exodus 3:1-4:31

I       The Excuse of Inability

II      The Excuse of Inadequacy

III    The Excuse of Inferiority  

When I was a teenager visiting Dale’s church, ( Racepath Baptist Church in Ellenboro, NC ) which I did every Sunday night,,1.) because that was one of our date nights, and  2.)because that was what was expected of us, 3;)and because I genuinely liked going with Dale to church ( realized Sunday , I’ve enjoyed hearing him sing hymns in my ear for 41 years) and 4.) I liked that church, I wound up joining eventually, but that’s another story for another time….

Anyway, there was a lady there, Carol Dry, the wife of the music pastor, and Nana and Papa’s best friend’s, at the time. (Nana was the piano player and Papa did anything they asked him too, whenever they asked…)

I loved Carol’s voice----it was a rich, robust alto, the voice I wish I had, (that I’m gonna ask the Lord why He didn’t give it to me , when I see Him…)and she sang solo’s a lot. She sang so many wonderful songs from that era…. that when I hear them today, it’s Carol’s voice I hear….and one of the songs that I especially loved and still especially love, 

is “Holy Ground”…

God used that song as a way of teaching me early in my life, that He can speak to us anywhere, and He can use any method that He wants to, just like He did with Moses and the burning Bush, to get our attention. The whole world is His anyway, so wherever we go; whatever we’re doing; whomever we’re with; we’re standing on Holy Ground----- and when we least expect it, but right when He’s ready, God will call out our name…and we need to be prepared to answer Him, with the answer He’s looking for….

Holy Ground goes like this…

“When I walked through the doors I sensed His presence

and I knew this was a place where love abounds

for this is a temple, Jehova God abides here

We are standing in His presence on Holy Ground

We are standing on Holy Ground

And I know that there are angels all around

Let us praise Jesus now

For we are standing in His presence, on Holy Ground

In His presence I know there is joy beyond all measure

And at His feet, sweet peace of mind can still be found

For when we have a need He is still the answer

Just reach out and claim it, for we are standing, on Holy Ground

We are standing on Holy Ground

And I know that there are angels all around

Let us praise Jesus now 

for we are standing in His presence on Holy Ground”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

That day in the country of Midian, 40 years since his escape from everything Egyptian and everything Hebrew, while he was tending his father-in-law’s sheep, Moses found himself, standing on Holy Ground, face to face, with the God of His heart, the God, his mother Jochebed must have whispered in his ear about, day and night, for the 3 years, he was in her care. (the early years in a child’s life are crucial in so many ways and spiritual development is one of them----parents cannot start too early teaching their children about the love of the Father and the son ….and they need to be intentional about it ----It’s amazing what little children can understand…just this week Mary Kathryn told me that Winnie….).... It had been 80 years since Moses had sat at his mothers knee so he wasn’t prepared for instruction from the Lord---it took him by surprise, and he argued with God, which either took a lot of courage or a lot of ignorance…..I’m not sure which, ….but I do know, that after that encounter with Almighty God, Moses was never the same again, he was a changed man….

Let’s pretend, for just a minute, that one of us could be God---we would be the creator of the universe and would possess all the power that there is, within ourselves. And our chosen people are being held as slaves, and we are tired of it….. and the time has come for them to be delivered from their bondage…..Who would we choose to handle this great work? A brilliant military leader, who has many successful victory’s under his belt? A skilled politician who gives such heart-stirring speeches that hard-hearted men’s emotions, would yield the way to freedom. Or would we choose Moses????

Looking at it from the world’s perspective, if we had the whole population of earth’s people at our fingertips, I doubt seriously that we would choose Moses-----he was 80 years old; he was a fugitive on the run, for murder; and trying to hide it; Egypt, the place he was running from, was the very place he needed to go back to;  he was well-educated but that had been 40 years ago; he had been well connected politically, but that had been 40 years ago too…

But that’s why we can’t even pretend to think like God, much less be like Him, because His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts……because, when it came time, to send a deliverer to the Israelites, Moses is the exact person he chose. God had been grooming him for the task, for his entire life----- everything that had happened in Moses’ life, up until that point, and beyond, was allowed by God, for the purpose of preparing him for the task that God needed to call him to…It’s the same for us------there is nothing that comes into our lives, that has not, first been filtered through Jesus’ nail-scarred hands, so that He can use it for some greater purpose, for the kingdom, for our growth spiritually and for His glory… To us it makes no sense, but to God, it’s all a part of His big picture, a part of His plan of redemption and salvation, for His children.

While we think about this, lets think about something else too…right now, we are living in the midst of a world that is being held in slavery to sin---people are perishing daily and they desperately need to be reached with the truth about the Lord Jesus….again, if we were God, who would we send to tell them the message----it would be the brightest minds and the most skilled orators we could find-----it wouldn’t be sinners, saved by grace, I can assure you….but that’s exactly who God calls to the task, he calls those who know about that grace, those who know what they’ve been spared, to explain that grace to those who are lost and hurting…

He has saved each one of us to serve, to be his workers, to be his feet and his hands and his arms-----if that weren’t the truth, then He would have taken us home the minute we were saved….

Moses tried to put God off with 3 excuses, and God, in no uncertain terms let Moses know what He thought about His excuses-----and in spite of himself, God took Moses and made him one of the greatest hero’s of the faith and one of the greatest leaders of all time…

Unfortunately, way too often, when we realize that the Lord’s calling us to a task, we start thinking of every excuse in the book, that would keep us from answering His call… we come up with a myriad of reasons  why we can’t possibly be the one He needs for the job…But God handled Moses excuses and He will handle ours too-----we can see in this passage, Exodus, chapters 3 and 4, a wealth of encouragement for any one of God’s children who wants to do God’s will, but doesn’t feel capable….

As we’re wrapping up this lesson, let’s think about how often we find ourselves standing on Holy Ground, using these exact same excuses….we should be afraid, but unfortunately, we act just as bold and brash as Moses did….

The Excuse of Inability:

Moses’ first concern was that he was a “nobody”, which, made him feel like he was unqualified to go to Pharaoh, to demand the release of the Lord’s people. 

And there are times that we all feel that same way! We don’t think we’re as qualified as another person might be, we don’t think that we have the credentials or the experience or the words that another person does…….we think we don’t have the ability to get the job done properly… So, in haste, out of fear or trepidation or lack of faith, we give up before we even get started----but when we do this, we’re forgetting one thing----Almighty God is choosing us -----so to say we aren’t able to do the job, is also saying that God doesn’t know what he’s doing----and who are we to say that we know better than God….Job 38:4 says, ”where were you when I laid the foundations of the world….” Where indeed were we!

But God’s response to Moses and to us, was to give a pair of precious promises----first He promised Moses, “I will go with you.” This is the promise of His presence. He never, ever, sends us somewhere alone…He always goes with us…..

and His second promise was, that after Moses had accomplished the task----God would meet him and the Israelites, for fellowship  and worship, on the very mountain they were standing on…It was the glorious promise of a certain reunion someday…..for us, that reunion will be in heaven…..and the rest of the promise is, that He will neither leave or nor forsake us, until that day comes… 

And with these promises in mind, there is an application that can be made to our lives----the Lord God knows us intimately, He knows every hair on our heads, every thought we think, every heartbeat and every breath----if He calls us to a task, He calls us with full knowledge of our strengths and our weaknesses and our abilities and our inabilities----He will never call us to a task that He won’t equip us for, and He knows that we can accomplish anything, that He calls us to, with His power, which He grants us, right when we need it. (Phil. 4:13 says, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”) It is true that in and of ourselves, we are incapable of doing anything godly and good, but in and through the power of God, we can do anything!!!

2.)The Excuse of Inadequacy:

After telling God about his inabilities, Moses proceeded to expound upon his inadequacies-----but what I think Moses is really saying is that He really didn’t trust God, because he didn’t know enough about who He was-----he didn’t know Him and His ways---didn’t know enough about His character, or His word, or His faithfulness, to step out to the task He was calling him to…does that sound familiar to us, we just don’t’ know the Lord or His word, well enough, to trust Him with the inadequacies that we know that we have…to get the job done…God’s response to Moses was great!!!! He told Moses all he needed to know….He told him His name!!!............ “I Am”, nothing else needed to be said, God’s name says it all…Moses might have been inadequate and we might be inadequate, but the God who calls and equips us, certainly is not! God calls us to trust Him enough to do what He says, and He will show us more of Himself, as we need him too…

That’s how the Lord works in our lives, He leads us to follow Him, by faith, and we may know very little about Him or His ways, but as each task and each need arises, God proves Himself faithful and adequate to every challenge…..then, His great and wonderful name becomes a statement of fact----and it tells us that God is who we need Him to be at every moment of our lives. There are no surprises with “I Am”, there is no situation that we could ever find ourselves in that He doesn’t hold the solution to. “I Am” is able and He enables us, no matter the task…

Following the Lord, can be scary to us----often when we look at the size of the task, and we compare our finite abilities or skill to it , we see ourselves lacking in the ability, that is needed for success, so we panic and chicken out…..but this is leaving God out of the equation…when the great “I Am” is factored in there is no telling what the answer to 2+2 might turn out to be….

We should never allow a lack of education, lack of money, lack of skill or lack of time, stop us from answering any call that the Lord has for us…All through the Bible….God’s people have been placed alongside obstacles against which they looked and felt inadequate, but with God’s power working through them, they were able to overcome the insurmountable, every time…

Noah probably felt  inadequate beside the ark; and David must have felt pretty small beside Goliath; and Shadrach and Meshach and Obednego must have felt the heat of that fiery furnace and Daniel surely could see the size of the Lion’s teeth as he faced their den….but then, each one figured God into the equation and their faith grew exponincially as well as their ability to perform the task… So when you are measuring yourself against a task, always remember to measure the task against the one who flung the stars in the sky and holds the ocean inside its boundaries….and be faithful to obey Him, because He’s called you and placed you in His work….and that’s a privilege and a responsibility for us to answer… 

3.)The Excuse of Inferiority:

After the Lord handles Moses’ other excuses, Moses’ comes up with one more….it is that if he tells people that he had a personal conversation with God, that the people would think he was either nuts or lying, he was scared that either way, they wouldn’t believe him….

A lot of believers are scared of the same thing----afraid of the response they will get when they admit a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. Unfortunately, people are scared sometimes, to even explain to a non-believer what having a personal relationship with Jesus is, and they are especially scared to tell them that it is the most important thing that there is, in life or death….…And a lot of believers are really nervous to tell people that they talk to the Lord and that He talks back to them… through His word, through music, through other people, through circumstances, through nature, in our thoughts and even audibly, if He chooses to….

God’s response to Moses was to let him know, that when the Lord got through working in and through him, there would be no doubt in anybody’s mind about the truth of Moses’ story…

And this is true in the life of every one of God’s children----when the Lord comes in saving power, He brings with Him, life-changing power------no life can be touched by salvation that the Lord Jesus offers us, and stay the same---that resurrection power recreates us into His image, never to be the same----that’s not to say that we won’t mess up from time to time, but if there is truly salvation, then that child of God will be unmistakably changed, and the world will know and believe it!!! 

When we are saved, we become children of the King, 

bought-with-a-price, -children, of the living God. That makes us special, people of greatness; people with ability and skill; people with a story to tell……we need to answer God’s call with obedience so that a lost world can see His power in us and know that He saved our souls, and if He saved ours, then He will save theirs too…. 

In on last ditch effort, to escape the cumbersome task that God was calling him to, Moses tried to use some kind of speech impediment as his excuse for God to excuse him and call somebody else---could have been a stutter, or just slow speech….we don’t know….but whatever it was Moses tried to use it as permission for not doing the will of God… 

A lot of us are like Moses----we look at lack of education, or a physical handicap, or age or illness or socioeconomic differences, or just plain laziness and self absorption, as an excuse for not serving when we’re called…but the truth is, there is no excuse for not serving the Lord, I don’t think it matters whether you’re 5 or 95, the Lord can use us all and He wants to use us all…We just need to yield all that we are, and all that we have, to the Lord and let Him use us any way He wants to….

God’s response to Moses was that He had made his mouth and he had made his mind and that He was able to give him what he needed when he needed it, so he just needed to go and God would do the rest…

But then Moses went to far and He asked God to send someone else-----and this stirred God’s anger…not in a white-hot – I’m-gonna blast -you -to -smithereens -kind –of- way, but in an ok-I’m -gonna give- you -what -you -ask -for -kind -of -way…

So, God promised that Aaron, Moses older brother, who was also a priest, could be his helper and spokesperson---God would instruct Moses, Moses would instruct Aaron and Aaron would instruct the people…(.I know Moses was still blessed by God, but I can’t help but wonder what blessings he missed because of his outright disobedience….)

We have nothing to fear when God calls us, He has given us a helper too, in the person of the Holy Spirit, and He is ever with us and will teach us what we need to know along the way---

And we cannot forget that God is still God,  He will always be God, the great I Am, and He can still take our minds and our mouths and use them for His glory and to Praise His glorious name…

(this summer I had an experience that had such a profound impact on me that I will never be the same---I witnessed a life transformed like I never have before and there is no doubt that God did it and everyone can see the truth of it… the story of Noel)

JOY "Snapshots from the Lives of the Patriarchs" September 24, 2014

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 3^rd 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.

.

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”

                                                                                                     

       

JOY "In the Beginning" September 17, 2014

September 17, 2014                                                                                          

In the Beginning……

Genesis  1:1-12:3

I              God the Creator      1:1-31

II            A Marriage Made in Paradise  2:18-25

III          God’s Grace After the Fall     3:1-24

IV          Obedience Saves Lives      6:1-10:17

V           Forced to Scatter  11:1-9 

I’ve told this story before, but it had such a profound effect on me and is such an elementary beginning, to understanding the Gospel of the Lord Jesus, that it fits, for me to tell it again, 

here in the beginning of our walk through the Old Testament…

,

When my daughter Mary Kathryn was in the 9^th grade, which believe it or not, has been 18 years ago now…. I went with her and the youth group, on a mission trip to New Hampshire. Our purpose for being there, was to lend man-power and support, to two fledgling church plants in the area, by going door to door, inviting people to join them for Sunday Worship… ” 

I learned a valuable lesson on that trip, which always happens when we least expect it. I had never realized just how true the words of 2^nd Timothy 3:16 are, which say… that “all scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching and rebuking and correcting and training in rightousness.”  

As believers, when we’re trying to lead someone to a saving faith in the Lord Jesus, we’re taught, to use the scriptures found in Romans that build on each other, called the Roman Road….but I learned that day, that the Holy Spirit , since He is the author of the Word, can take any passage He wants to, and use it to reveal Almighty God to us.

Every day the bus would take us to specific areas and drop us off. We would canvas the area, then it would come back and pick us up and take us to a new area. We had been warned, to expect anything, because we were invading people’s privacy, so even though we allowed the teenagers to go to the doors, two by two, we made certain sure that there was an adult close by….

On this particular day, I was partnered with two shy, not very wise, in the ways, of the world, young girls. But we were doing great, until we got to one particular house……and then, I sensed trouble the minute the young man opened the door, in his short terrycloth bathrobe.

So, I headed, at a sprint, up the driveway, as the girls started their discourse…and I got to the door, just as he was shocking them, by stating that he was an atheist. It didn’t take me but a minute to take over the conversation, thinking I knew exactly what to say to him…. I wore out the Roman Road, with no results,……because he was smart and very articulate, and he had an answer, for every argument I threw at him.

I remember, finally, I asked him, what do you think happens after you die,,,,and his reply was, “Nothing, you live and then you’re buried…It’s over… the end.”

 That’s when my heart broke, the emptiness in his eyes and voice, brought tears to my eyes----

and then, I looked up, at the beauty of the White Mountains, surrounding us…and thank goodness, that’s when the Holy Spirit took over, because I was botching it, in my own strength. 

Because, without any more argument, I raised my arms up, and just simply said, “what about this?” 

And then, Praise the Lord, finally, with candor and openness and vulnerability, he said, “that’s the one thing I can’t explain….so, then… I said , what I never, would have thought of, on my own….’then that’s where you start,” and I handed him a bible, and said “you start at the very first verse, Geneses 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth….” 

He took it, I told him we would pray for him, and we left. There wasn’t anything else to say.

All these many years later, I don’t know what happened to him…

But, what I do know, is that the God who gave him physical life, gave him the promise of a new life, that day, as the Father, Himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit, took him back, so that he could get the big picture…..back, to where it starts for each one of us, back, to where it always starts, back, to “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

I      God the Creator    1:1-31

“Abraham Lincoln said once, “I never behold the heavens filled with stars that I do not feel like I’m looking into the face of God. I can see how it might be possible for man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.”

The word genesis means beginning or origin----the fact that the first book in the bible is named this, is significant because it tells us about the beginning of the world, about the beginning of mankind, about the beginning of sin, about the beginning of sacrifice for sins, about the beginning of redemption and about the beginning of God’s special relationship, with the people He created for Himself.

 The truth is, without understanding the 1^st 11 chapters in Genesis, the rest of the Bible wouldn’t make any sense-----these chapters form the foundation for the rest of the scripture…Everything in scripture is built around God, and His plan, and His work---not man, contrary to what we think sometimes. That’s why God is the subject of the very first words in scripture…

And I can see 4 reasons that jump out, that can teach us the full import of what this should mean to us….

God formed the world…He created it, out of nothing and He owns it; it belongs to Him….. we may all be actors on the grand stage of life, but God owns the stage…He owns the props …and He owns us! What we think and believe to be true, about anything and everything in our world shapes who we are----and if we believe that we’re worthless with no purpose or value, then that is how we will live our lives, and if we believe that we are the cherished children of God, with all the blessings that entails, then that’s how we will live our lives…Everything that you can see and touch and hear in this world belongs to God.  And once we figure out that it is all his anyway, that He is always sovereign, no matter what….it frees us to love Him with reckless abandon and to trust Him, with any circumstance,,,,good, bad or scary...

Over and over again, in scripture, God tells us that He loves us and has a purpose and a plan for our lives…we need to believe it and cling to it and let the truth of it envelope us in a deep awareness in the goodness and sovereignty of our great God…

It is God who gives value to our lives, because, glory of glories, He has stamped His own image on our souls  …..making us precious to Hum, and worthy of His love and care and worthy of  the responsibility He places on our shoulders  to go tell the world about him.                                                                                                                                                                                          

  

3.) God created the world and then went to great lengths to prepare  it for us…

Genesis 1:26 says, “let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” That’s was our first commission from God, to be the stewards of this world----   to take care of God’s creation... to give our life’s service to it and to the people who populate it ….. 

God was very particular on how He built our environment ---there is such a fine balance of chemicals, minerals and gases that if they aren’t combined in a perfect order, in a way that only God could do, 

there would be an annihilating explosion,  of epic proportion….

if earth were 1 degree closer to the sun, we’d fry, 1 degree further away, we’d freeze…

If the moon were any closer or larger, the tides would destroy the coast lines. If the moon was any smaller or further away, the oceans would die from lack of nutrient movement.

If the earth’s service gravity was any stronger, it would retain too much ammonia and methane and we wouldn’t be able to breathe. If it were any weaker, earth’s atmosphere would lose too much water and we wouldn’t have the necessary liquid to survive.

If the earth’s crust were any thicker, it would absorb too much of our oxygen and we wouldn’t be able to breathe. If it was any thinner ; the earth would move or shake beneath our feet and would make life impossible.

I could go on and on about this planet that God created just for us….and I haven’t even said a word about the miraculous inter-workings of the human body----but in the interest of time, I will leave it to your imagination. Suffice it to say…….God created the world and everything in it, it did not happen by chance.

            4.) God Created Light….

On the first day, God created light----not the sun, moon and stars kind, they were created 3 days later….this was a divine light that  came directly from God, to light our world…

*****….and there it is……. on the 1^st day of creation God’s plan for us was being revealed---He wasn’t just creating light for us to be able to see and grow and thrive physically, He gave us light because He was revealing His plan of redemption, for us, from the very beginning of eternity----from eternity to eternity, God’s plan of redemption was the right one----the Gospel was always planned, it wasn’t Plan B, because we messed up---God knew we would mess up and He created us with free-will, anyway…..  I was always Plan A….God always intended to go to the cross for us, in the person of Jesus…..that light represents His perfect love!

When God created the world, He lit the world with His divine light….it’s the same light, that the book of Revelation tells us, lights heaven….there has never been any other light for the world------without that divine light, the world would be in complete and total darkness….and without that light, no life could have been sustained, even for a minute….. Jesus is that divine light---- without Him, the world would be in total, complete and utter darkness-----no hope of living -----but Praise the Lord, from the beginning, God showed us, from the 1^st day, that Jesus is the only way, to live a life in the light, so that we don’t die in the darkness.

There are many ways to Jesus, but from the beginning, there has only ever been, one way to the Father. Jesus said in John 8:12 “I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me, will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. “

II     A Marriage Made in Paradise    2:18-25

Once upon a time, there was a marriage made in Paradise, that has been the model for every marriage, down through the ages, since that first one in the Garden….When God married Adam and Eve, to each other----- there was no sin in the world, everything was perfect, the marriage rate was 100%, there was no divorce, no widowhood, and nobody was single. Then, disobedience entered the picture, creating the free-fall from grace, that we’re still living with….. and sin came into the world. And with it, came all the problems, that we see in our world today….but that being said….we have to  understand and embrace the fact that God hasn’t changed and God’s plan hasn’t changed and God’s intention for marriage hasn’t changed ----times change, people change, styles and trends change…but God still wants us to live in our marriages, 

in the same way, that we would, if they had been created in Paradise.

I’m going to list some principles and goals of God’s intentions for marriage….. that I wish I could expound upon, but we don’t have time, so maybe we can re-visit them at a later time…But they will go a long way, if we pay attention to them to divorce-proof our marriages…

The Lord’s Intention

God’s intention in making the woman and giving her to the man was to complement and complete him----God’s intention was to unite two halves of a whole. And it still works that way today…

The garden was a place of unspeakable beauty and God declared that it was good----- but as the animals paraded by Adam to be named, God saw that Adam was alone, the only one of his kind and He declared that that wasn’t good…. (If your single, for whatever reason, don’t get the wrong idea-------it isn’t always God’s will for everybody to be married----the truth is, sometimes there are times and circumstances where God has decided that he can better use someone when they are unattached and single. So don’t struggle against singleness, embrace it and see what the Lord Jesus can do through you….) God gave Eve to Adam so as to

complete him-----not just to keep him from being lonely, not just to help him complete his tasks, not just to give him somebody to talk to and share things with, not just to have somebody take care of him when he’s sick,,,,,although, all of these are good reasons to share your life with somebody, they aren’t the most important thing-----God gave Eve to Adam to make him holy----to help him be the best person, created in the Lord God’s image that he could be.

The Lord’s Intervention

God passed the animals in front of Adam, so that he would realize what he was missing and so that it would create a desire in him for a mate to share himself and his life with….a desire for companionship, and for physical and emotional intimacy. God has created the desire for intimacy between a man and a woman and He met that need by giving us marriage ----the only place for intimacy is between a husband and a wife within the marriage vows. 

Our God is a God of order, so there was a process in bringing Adam and Eve together, and God still uses that process----

God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep (sometimes, we just need to sit back and go to sleep, and just wait on God’s timing, things will be so much better, all the way around, if we let God orchestrate things, not us…..) We live in a fast paced, instant world------we need to learn how to be patient and to wait. Sometimes impatience reveals a lack of faith------faith and trust are  precious commodities ,that needs to be developed in each of us, not just for our marriages….but for living our lives every day-----the truth is if we can trust the Lord with our salvation, then why in the world do we struggle with trusting him with our mates, and our children, our friends and our day-to-day walk as well….

Then, while Adam was asleep, God took his rib, made Eve and then woke Adam up….and gave her to him----and just like, how surgery causes pain, thanks to sin in the world, trouble can rear its ugly head,,,even in good marriages, and cause pain….we just need to be prepared, so that we won’t be enticed by satan,  so that we allow him to rob us of our peace and joy….. 

God intended the process to paint a picture of how Adam and Eve were to go forward----and of how the marriage relationship is supposed to be for us….it can be summed up by a quote written by Matthew Henry…”Eve was made by God, not out of Adam’s head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, from under his arm to be protected by him and from near his heart to be loved by him.”

The Lord’s Invention……

Marriage is God’s creation, his intention for a man and a woman, who come together in a love relationship…and we shouldn’t let our politicians monkey around with it.  There were 3 aspects in that first marriage ceremony made in Paradise that would go a long way in helping our own marriages resemble Paradise…

Marriage requires a response from both the husband and the wife----- you need to be engaged every day…. Once you’ve chosen to enter into the marriage relationship, then that’s your choice----you commit yourself to that one person----and you might fall in and out of love with them in your lifetime, a thousand times, cause we do get annoyed with each other, but we have to choose to love all the time… 

Marriage Involves a Responsibility to each other….

We have to leave and cleave ----this means that every other relationship in our lives should take a lower priority to our mate----except the Lord-----as believers, the hierarchy  in our lives, is that the Lord is first, our mates are 2^nd , our children are 3^rd and then everything and everyone else falls into place under that. Outside of our relationship with the Lord, there is no relationship that is more important than the one with our husbands.  

And  learning to cleave takes a lifetime, it doesn’t happen over night----it means total and absolute commitment and it comes about through effort and through the choice to cleave, no matter what…---and it means that two people are glued  together so well, that they can’t be torn apart without grievous harm to both….

Marriage Involves Righteousness …

Adam and Eve were naked and they weren’t ashamed----they had nothing to hide from each other and sexual intimacy was given to them by God, as a gift, within the bounds of their marriage. The sizzle should never be allowed to fizzle and it won’t, if everything is kept innocent, healthy and lovely between the two of you---- happiness is a by-product of marriage, God’s real intention is to make us holy…

III       God’s Grace After the Fall

When Adam and Eve disobeyed and fell from grace, the whole human race was plunged into darkness, sin and death. In that terrible moment when man sinned against God, mankind died, and became spiritually separated from Almighty God….and spiritually helpless, in his ability to get back in a right relationship with God…

But, in His great goodness, from the moment Adam and Eve fell, taking all Mankind with them…..God implemented His eternal plan, to right their relationship with Him….in his grace, He sought them out, to attempt to re-establish a relationship with them…

He came to them-----Adam and Eve had sinned against God, creating a great gulf between God and them…..God’s custom had been to join Adam in the cool of the day for fellowship and communion-----God had every right to kill them or turn His back on them, but instead He came looking for them. That is grace…..

He called them----- God didn’t just come to look at them, in their misery----He called out to them and He called them by name. A sinner can only be saved if God calls his name.  It is  pure grace that God would call any one into a love relationship with Him…

He confronted them-----God challenged Adam on the basis of his sin---He knew what they’d done. But Adam, out of guilt, laid blame on God. And God still challenged them. He wanted them to repent------that’s what He does for us----He points out our sin and calls on us to repent. It is grace that shows the sinner the error of his lifestyle. And at first, it may be painful to see ourselves as we really are, but until we see ourselves as sinners, we’ll never see the need to be different, never see the need for Jesus.

He chastised them-----He meted out their punishment to them. Even that was grace----He could have killed them; He could have separated them; He could have cursed them with no hope----instead He gave them the promise of redemption, in the middle of their guilt and he let them have the comfort of each other…

He covered them--------Their sin became very real, when God had to kill the innocent animal to cover their nakedness---this was grace in action,,,,,there is nothing that we can do to be saved, ……our salvation is free, but it is anything but cheap----it cost Jesus everything He had, including  His life…  

He commanded them------Casting them out of the Garden, was grace laced with compassion…. because if they had eaten from the tree of life in their sinful state, they would have been eternally damned. Adam thought that ejection from the Garden was the worst thing that could happen to them-------but it was God’s grace protecting then from something that could hurt them a lot more than being given a new lease on life, even if it was a hard life. The Lord knows what’s best for us, and its His grace that stops us before we step too far in the wrong direction

IV     Obedience Saves Lives       6:1-9:17

Noah was a successful father… because he raised his family, during a very difficult time in ancient history; and during  a time of extreme violence during a time of extreme wickedness; and during a time when God and his ways were being ignored; and every single member were saved because of his influence…

And this was because …..

Noah Walked with God:’

He was converted-------- there is no doubt that Noah was saved, because  scripture says he was a just man-----the word, just, as it’s found in the scripture----means to be right with God, to be right in His sight….  And Noah, the only one in his generation was right in God’s sight…

He was Consecrated----Noah practiced what he preached---his behavior was consistent with his words. 

He was Consistent-------Noah walked with God is what the scripture says, not sometime, not every once in awhile, not when he felt like it or when he needed comfort----but consistently---because the scripture simply says,”Noah walked with God.” Just walking steady with the Lord in a world of constant change, says more about a person than 1000 verbal testimonies---it makes people want to follow you and to have what you have.

Noah Witnessed to Others

Through his Conduct----Noah was a lifestyle evangelist----his life was so different from the people around him that his life was a living, breathing witness to everybody he came in contact with. The Lord wants his children to stand out like sore thumbs---He wants us to draw attention to Him, by drawing attention to ourselves….not in a negative, bombastic way, but in a winsome, turn the other cheek, talk freely about the Lord’s goodness… kind of way…

Though his Conversation---- Noah didn’t just live right while he worked for the Lord--------he also told everyone who called out to him about what the Lord was fixing to…Telling the lost about Jesus Christ…..……..

Through his Commitment----For 120 years, Noah worked and preached----and after all that effort, the only converts he had were the members of his own family…I’m sure there were times of discouragement and frustration, but he didn’t let it deter him----he didn’t waver in his commitment to the Lord…What a wonderful testimony----one of the strongest proofs to the validity of our testimonies is a consistent commitment to live for the Lord, when everybody around us seem to be doing what they want to do, not what the Lord is calling them to.

Noah won his family (His Greatest Achievement)

a. He won their respect----Noah’s family followed him into the ark, because they trusted him----they knew his walk with the Lord was real----they believed in what he believed in because they believed in him….they respected the man that he was…

b. He won their response-----

Noah ‘s sons and their wives, and Mrs. Noah followed him into the ark, so that when the rains fell and the rest of the world perished, they were saved. Because of Noah’s lifetime of obedience he saw his children saved----he didn’t save them, but his influence certainly led them in the right way…this was Noah’s greatest accomplishment----to see each of his children walking with the Lord. There is no greater blessing than this….

V       Forced to Scatter                 11:1-9

After God opened the doors of the Ark and Noah and His sons came out, God promised Noah that He would never destroy the world’s people like that again and He placed the rainbow in the sky as a symbol of that promise-----then God told Moses and His sons to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and they did--------but then, there came a generation that wanted to build a city and a tall tower so they wouldn’t have to be scattered from each other-----But the entire foundation of their plans was in direct violation to God’s commands., so God had to intervene, and interrupt their plans.

Ever since the fall, mankind had been seeking to find a way back to the perfection of the Garden, What they couldn’t understand was that God already had prepared the only way back to Him, and obedience was their only hope…In true human fashion, the longing in our hearts and minds, is always for what we’ve lost…and the quest for heaven on earth, and a desire to return to the Garden hasn’t ended and won’t end until the Lord comes back again…

God’s purpose for man has always been for us to be about His business, and go out and do His will. We can only be complete in Him and we can only be satisfied in the center of His will. Too often, we try to deny it, but only God, alone, can satisfy our hearts and our minds. Things and activities and even people will let us down, but the Lord never will….

Even believers get sidetracked being about our Father’s business, by seeking to live in our own self-contained little world. We surround ourselves with church people, we send our children to Christian schools and enroll them in church camps and sports teams…and we have church functions as the center of our social activities. But, this isn’t good because it directs and keeps the focus on ourselves rather than on God’s purpose for our lives. The average Christian cuts off  most non-Christian acquaintances within a few months of becoming a believer. But the truth is, Jesus, didn’t cut off His ties with the people in the elieve, high-ways and bi-ways of the world…and we’re not supposed to either. There is a line that must be drawn between living in the world and living for the world. We should cut off contacts that are destructive to our faith or cause us to sin, but we shouldn’t isolate ourselves, or the church, into a separate culture. We are supposed to be salt and light to the world---not salt for ourselves and light to those who are already enlightened. 

God used the persecution of the early church to get it out of its isolated state and into the culture around them, so that their light could shine and impact the world. God doesn’t bless us so that we can languish in his blessings. God blesses us so that we can bless those around us. He equips us so that we can go out and do His will and touch the lives of others in His name. By nature, we are self-centered. When the church gets a self-centered world-view, it lose sight of God’s plan. When we become self-centered, we want to be isolated from anything that will interfere with our little world. Fearing to lose what we have, is why people resist branching out and reaching out to others. God commands us to go into the high-ways and the bi-ways to share with everyone we can, the Gospel. God’s command to go, often interferes with our desire to keep our preferred group together. We get content when our church home, or our Sunday school class or our small group or even our group of friends, get the way we want them to be. Then we get complacent or zealously protective and we isolate ourselves from the world.

Out of a self-centered view of life, the people of Babel, made the decision to leave God out of the equation, and to build their own Utopia. Their goal was security and preservation. Until a person sees the bigger picture of God’s plan they will cling to their own life and seek their own works. 

So God, in His mercy, intervened, to save the people from Babel, from themselves, because the only thing that restrains the evil of men’s hearts, is accountability. When a group thinks and acts as one, outside of God’s plans, the result is always tragic. The confusion of the language at Babel, was an act of mercy, it saved them from themselves, because  his life was the only one they acknowledged. 

But that isn’t what God has called us to do, instead He wants us to live the life we’ve been given, with an eternal perspective, in view. In order to live a righteous and purposeful life, then we have to step outside ourselves, and be willing to go and do, whatever the Lord calls us to, striving to make the work of our hands and hearts, on every given day, count for the kingdom.(Griff’s story)