From the Pastor's Study
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We have come to the final turn in our story of Genesis. We’ve been on quite a journey. We have seen how God has been faithful to three generations of Abraham’s family, and now we turn the corner to see how the story of Genesis concludes. At first glance, it would seem that now we are going to look at the life of Joseph as the main character going forward, but that would be a mistake. For sure, Joseph is going to be featured prominently in the chapters to follow, but the story really is about three men, not one. By keeping that fact in mind, we are going to have a much better idea why God includes the details that He does in the upcoming chapters. Today, we are going to take an overview of the section ahead of us, and because it is Father’s Day, we are going to look at it through the lens of three fathers, Jacob, Judah, and Joseph. They are going to compare and contrast in general, and we will see deeper details as we much through in the coming weeks. We are going to look at two points today that while addressing fathers in particular are nonetheless applicable to everyone. Fathers have a deep impact on their children yet Our impact is not beyond God’s mercy and control. Fathers have a deep impact on their children Let’s take a look at our first father, Jacob/Israel. In contrast to what we saw last week, Jacob is not a mighty conqueror. Here he is living in tents, traveling around Canaan. He isn’t conquering Canaan. He is just living his quiet life, waiting on the Lord. In this moment, it looks like things are finally at peace. We’ve found a place to settle for the most part. The people of the land aren’t trying to kill them. He has his sons; life is good. Yet Jacob has this nagging sin that keeps coming up, one that he learned from his father, favoritism. Isaac wanted to bless Esau instead of Jacob as God had told him, and this, at least in part, led to the consequence of Jacob having to flee the land. Now, we see Jacob doing the same thing. He’s been doing this for a while, as we noticed his making sure Rachel and Joseph were the last to be threatened when Esau was coming up. Jacob could have always said, “Well, someone has to be last in line,” but now it is pretty undeniable. He literally made an expensive and obviously better coat that he didn’t make for the rest of his sons. Hard to get any clearer just how Jacob feels. Now, in comparison to the other things Jacob has done, this would fit on many people’s scales as lesser. Certainly, most of us would think the lack of response when his daughter was abused by the locals would be the main thing keeping him up at night. With a dozen sons, one would think that at least a couple of them he’ll be closer to than the others. Yet this seemingly small sin sets the stage for the rest of his brothers hating him. Now, this doesn’t mean that the brothers are not responsible for their anger. They are. What they are doing is sinful as well and don’t get to blame their father for their sin. They are still choosing the wrong reaction to their father’s sin when they could have chosen the right one. Nevertheless, Jacob isn’t an island. His sins have an effect on his children. His sin is helping set the stage for what comes. Have you ever caught yourself talking and hear one of your parents come out? The way you hold your steering wheel, some of the attitudes you hold, or even some of the things you say you have picked up from your parents. It isn’t something you set out to do; it just happens. Its even scarier being on the other end of the relationship and watching it happen to you. I’ll hear my children complain in a certain way and recognize myself. If they can pick up how I talk, they can pick up how I sin. They are still responsible for sinning, yet I acknowledge my part in shaping how they sin. You may say, “Well, Mark, that’s inevitable. I’m a sinner, too.” And I would agree with you wholeheartedly. But doesn’t it give you another reason to cling to God harder? The point isn’t to pressure you into sinlessness, because that won’t happen. It isn’t to make you paranoid, but it is meant to make you prayerful and humble. You have an effect positive and negative, so take that into account. You know how we rightly treat pregnant women with care because there are two lives in her frame? What happens to the one has an effect on the other. Do you think about your spiritual life that way? Praying for two, as it were? Even if you don’t have children, your life has an effect on others. Pursue God with other souls in mind, not just your own. Now, you may tell me, “Look, I’m way past paranoia. I’ve messed up so badly, there is just no hope of positively affecting my children or family.” For you, let’s look at our next fatherly failure, and critically important character in the rest of this book, Judah. His story we aren’t as familiar with because it doesn’t make a good children’s Bible story. After all, he is the one who comes up with the idea to sell Joseph. Granted, the others wanted to kill Joseph, but Reuben got them to the point of just throwing him down into a hole. It was Judah who decided to make a profit off of his brother. Can you imagine how calloused you have to be to sell your brother? I mean, what are you even going to buy? Not only that, but they all kept the ruse going for twenty years never telling their grieving dad what happened. At least he could have been given some hope to go look for him. Not only that, but we get another uncomfortable chapter in chapter 38 all about Judah’s family sexual misadventures. It includes his own relationship with his daughter in law. Though he just thought she was a prostitute, it doesn’t redeem the act all that much. We might conclude that such a man as Judah might as well just give up. He’s too far gone. From our perspective, yeah, that would be it. And yet, and yet by the time we get to the end of the book we will see Judah utterly transformed. The one who once sold Joseph into slavery becomes willing to sell himself into slavery in order to spare his father. Never discount the love and grace of God. Not only did He change Judah like that, He also blesses the line of Judah with the Lion of Judah. That’s right, Jesus is going to ultimately be born from Judah. Never think that God is done with you. He might have you in different work, but He’s never done with you. That doesn’t mean that consequences from the past suddenly go away. Our sins do, as we saw earlier, cause real problems. But failure doesn’t have to be final. Look to the God who rescues. Look to the God who transforms. Again, transformation doesn’t work overnight. If you’ve been a jerk to your kids for years, don’t expect that going to church one Sunday fixes you or the relationship you have with them. God doesn’t guarantee to fix all your problems right here, right now, but He is the only place of hope. Our impact is not beyond God’s mercy and control. We can see this second point most clearly in the like of Joseph. Jacob unintentionally favored him into this mess. Judah intentionally sold him into this mess. Joseph, of all people, could have grown up to be an incredibly bitter man. It wasn’t even like once he got to Egypt things improve. Yes, he got to be the head of the slaves, but he was still a slave. And after doing the right things for years, doing one more right thing got him sent to prison. Yet God never left him and gave him the strength of character to honor him no matter the circumstances. That is God’s grace. That isn’t simple maturity. God was with Joseph, and despite all that his family had done to him, God overruled them. Though they meant evil, God meant it for good. That shows to us that God can use not only our faithfulness but our failures for His purposes. That doesn’t mean we just sit back, sin, and let God sort it out. Sin always has negative effects on the user. But yet even despite the sin, God will use it to do amazing things. I mean, could God have gotten Joseph in control of Egypt in some other way? Of course he could have. He used a small boat in a river to deliver Moses into the royal family. Yet God is showing here that He isn’t dependent on faithfulness. He loves to use it and often does, but He will work despite your efforts just as easily as through them. So where does that leave us? Anyone who has done anything in life for any length of time has a few things that they regret. You are allowed to feel bad about your sin. You should. You should grieve those things that have offended God and man, but don’t fall for the lie that those things are now more powerful than God. Have hope that God is bigger than your sin. Again, this isn’t meant to minimize sin. I know everyone in the following chapters will have wished things went differently. Yet because we serve a sovereign God, we can know that God is able to work all things for our good and His glory. Your sin is horrible, but the cross really does wipe those things from your record. You don’t have to make an identity through them. Judah could have worn the badge of sibling seller and adulterer, yet he is the grandfather of Royal David’s Son, Jesus. And no matter what label the world might want to cling to you, Jesus’ forgiveness allows you to become a child of that Heavenly King. So if you are here today thinking that you don’t see a way back from your failures, you’re right. You are on your way forward from your failures with Christ’s righteousness covering you. You might feel enslaved to your old life, but Christ can set you free. In your own way, you can be study the life of Joseph to see what God can do within the limits imposed by sin. We might have thought that the best Joseph could do was just make it through the day. For him, following after God, he will be the best slave and then the best prisoner for God. If you have gotten cut off from family, done seemingly irreparable damage, start living every aspect of your life for God’s glory. And maybe after a while, people may see your change. God may be at work in their own hearts. The span of time we will cover to get to from a coat of many colors to reconciliation with the family is twenty years. You might have to wait and serve God just as long. Some won’t get to see the effect, but God is good and can do a lot with a little and even less. Go from here ever more dependent on that God. Rejoice in what He has done in your life, and trust Him for whatever lies ahead. Practically, if you’ve failed a lot or a little, repent and just start doing. Don’t announce to people what you are doing. Just do it. Apologize where you have been wrong, and take steps to make it less likely to happen again. I know that I get more prone to anger when I haven’t slept, so I need to work on getting to bed on time. If you notice a consistent pattern in your life, try to trace it back to something that you can solve for.
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How do you think about your enemies? It can be a complex question. On the one hand we are to be kind to our enemies, bless those who curse you and all of that. But how do you get to that point? How are you able to bless your enemies, even if they come from your own family? This passage doesn’t directly answer that question, but the rest of the story that this chapter sets up, does. We will look at two points today: Your enemies are under God’s control and Your enemies can be made family in Christ. Your enemies are under God’s control In order to understand this text properly, we are going to have to remind ourselves of where it all began back in Genesis 27:39–40 “Then Isaac his father answered and said to him: “Behold, away from the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be, and away from the dew of heaven on high. By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother; but when you grow restless you shall break his yoke from your neck.”” In that passage, we see a sort of anti-blessing that Isaac puts on Esau after Jacob “stole” the patriarchal blessing from him. Of course, Jacob was always supposed to receive it from God’s order. These divine words spoken over Esau set up pretty much the rest of the Old Testament in terms of the relationship between the Israelites and the Edomites (Esau’s children). In the first few verses of our chapter today, we are given the first steps of how Esau came to form a separate people. It begins with a reminder of Esau’s multiple, foreign wives. As we remember, this was something that the people of God were not supposed to do. Already, Esau was intermarrying with the cursed line of Canaan, and therefore was already separating himself from the people of blessing. Next, we see that although the prophecy is that he would be away from the fatness of the land, his association with Jacob still grants him blessing. After all, ever since Abraham, those who bless the Abrahamic line will be blessed. And Esau is indeed. In fact, there are so many possessions, that the land aint big enough for the two of them…and their stuff. Rather than reduce and remain, Esau chooses to leave for a land of his own. Esau arrives in a place called Edom (which means “red” after the stew he traded the blessing for, it also is a place of red hills). However, as we see later on in our chapter, it was already occupied by a people called the Horites. These people are replaced by Esau, which shows that Esau is a mighty hunter and conquerer. The family grows a lot and becomes a fixture of government, ruling over the land. This sets up a real contrast to Jacob and family. As Ross points out, when you get to verse one of the next chapter, Jacob is still just, well, settling in Canaan. There aren’t any major lists of kings, and in fact nothing is really going to happen in terms of any sort of authority until Joseph comes along. It can be tempting to look at this situation and think that having God’s blessing doesn’t do much. It would seem that Esau has just as many children as Jacob does, and he has even more wives than Jacob has to produce more children. All of those children and grandchildren go on to become powerful themselves, so much so they are taking over other areas of the land. Do we not sometimes see our enemies prosper and wonder about it? (Ross, 588). The land that they ruled over was, as God said, away from the fatness of the land. According to scholars, in the Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible “The land of Edom was, on the whole, inhospitable though there were areas where farming could be undertaken, particularly in the northeast. Here too herds of animals could be grazed. Edom’s wealth, however, came largely from the caravan trade which came up from the south and brought goods from India and South Arabia to the Mediterranean coast and Egypt.” To help explain such success, we actually find out later that this land was given to them by God. Look at Deuteronomy 2:4–5 (172) “and command the people, “You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers, the people of Esau, who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. So be very careful. Do not contend with them, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as for the sole of the foot to tread on, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.” The land, low-fat though it is, is there’s by divine gift. Interestingly, there is an expectation that this land, again, close to Israel’s possession, would allow the Edomites to know and love God. Later on in Deuteronomy 23:7–8 (195) we find this,““You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a sojourner in his land. Children born to them in the third generation may enter the assembly of the Lord.” This seems to expect at some level that the Edomites would have the opportunity to come to the Lord. Do you see the mercy of God here? Esau, adamantly not in the covenant, nevertheless his children will have the opportunity to enter the temple and worship God. After all, Esau is the brother of Jacob. He is legitimately from Isaac’s seed. There is hope for him. This was always the plan. “Now wait a minute,” you may say, “I thought that Esau was going to be serving Jacob. How does that play out?” First of all, good on you for remembering that, and second, yes, his descendants do end up serving Israel. Despite having kings first, Edom is eventually conquered by King David. Saul was the first to go to war with them, but David was the first to bring them under his rule. This arrangement lasted, interestingly enough, for as long as they had a faithful king on the throne. When the kings of Israel and Judah obeyed God, Edom served them. When they disobeyed God, they would break out and rebel. This once again shows the comprehensive control of God over all people, not just the covenant family of Abraham. Edom ends up being condemned a number of times in the prophets for the way that the treat the Israelites later on. For example, Obadiah condemns them for taking advantage of Israel when they were fighting foreign enemies. Obadiah 1–4(918) “The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom: We have heard a report from the Lord, and a messenger has been sent among the nations: “Rise up! Let us rise against her for battle!” Behold, I will make you small among the nations; you shall be utterly despised. The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, “Who will bring me down to the ground?” Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord.” History seems to confirm that this is exactly what happened to Edom. According to one commentator, Babylon eventually came in and after conquering the rest of Judah, probably swallowed up Edom as well. There is some evidence to suggest that the people endured, but they took on a new identity, Idumeans (Matthews). Fascinatingly enough, there was one famous person in the gospel who, as told by secular history, was an Idumean: Herod the Great (Matthews). This is the Herod that tried to kill Jesus at the very beginning of his life! My! How the tables turn! A son of Esau attempts to kill THE Son of Isaac, yet is unsuccessful thanks to yet another early warning and flight from the promised land. Your enemies can be made family in Christ. Is it meant to always be this way? Are some people just destined to be enemies forever? It can sure feel that way. It seems as though Jacob and Esau, despite the patriarchs of the respective families reconciling, the kids that remain carry on the grudge. Where’s the hope? It turns out, like a lot of things, the hope actually begins in the Old Testament. Another famous prophet named Amos talks about some hope for Edom: Amos 9:11–12 (916)““In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name,” declares the Lord who does this.” Did you catch that? God is saying that in the midst of the Edomites, there will be those who are elect! There is hope for Edom! We see the seeds of that hope manifested in Mark 3:8 “and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him.” Did they listen? Look at Acts 15:15–18 Paul and Barnabas reports what the Lord is doing amongst the Gentiles and they quote from Amos! “And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written, “ ‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.’” The Gentiles stand in as a representative of the Edomites. That means that Edom as well as the rest of the nations have been brought near in Christ! So what does all this have to do with how we view our enemies, even the ones who hate us specifically because we follow Christ? We are called to love them, decry their hatred of Christ’s church, but always pray that they may become our brothers. You may remember the story of Jim Elliot, a missionary who wanted to reach out to a specific tribe in Ecuador. He, along with his friend, Nate Saint, were speared to death upon first contact. Their death’s launched a movement of missionary work, even amongst that very tribe. In fact, the very men who stabbed the missionaries came to Christ and became life-long friends with Nate’s son, Steve. By the way, the wife of Jim and sister of Nate went back to the tribe within two years of their relatives’ death. Enemies can become brothers again. What does this mean for you? Don’t ever count someone out. Even the most Calvinistic person can never say, “Well, that person is definitely not elect, definitely will never go to heaven.” That can never be said. The Edomites found a place in the kingdom and so can your enemies. Maybe you might even think you are beyond hope. You’ve hated God for as long as you can remember. You are never beyond God’s grace. We all, including the man you are now listening to, were once God’s enemies. That is a very scary place to be, an enemy of God. But God is so kind and gracious that He will bring people who were once His enemies and make them His adopted Children. Jesus is the friend of sinners, so come to Him today. Don’t be an enemy. 
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How do you meet with God? How do you have a soul satisfying, hopeful relationship with God in this world? The question of hope and happiness has never seemed more elusive in a culture as prosperous as ours. We have never had more of our immediate needs taken for granted as we do today, and yet we find ourselves in the midst of the most anxious, psychologically burdened generation we’ve ever seen. Every day I am seeing best selling books and articles acknowledging this problem, sounding the alarm that all is not well in a world that just 150 years ago would have been considered a paradise. This revelation is a mercy from God. It’s a mercy because we now have the surest evidence that we can stop wasting time thinking we are just one more discovery from finding hope. The answer to hope is found in God’s Word, and we will see how this chapter displays that for us. Wonderfully, that hope is found in the midst of real life. As you no doubt noticed in the back half of the chapter, there isn’t a ton to be happy about. The hard things of dying in child birth and a scandalous son cannot overshadow the hope that God offers. No matter how modern we get, these are among the worst problems we can imagine. Yet God’s promises ring through even this and point to how we, too, can have a hopeful relationship with God. Let’s look at this together in our two points Hope in God requires exclusive worship of God and Hope in God requires eternal waiting for God. Hope in God requires exclusive worship of God In the first verse, God commands Jacob to leave Shechem and go to Bethel as Jacob promised that he would. As we saw last week, Jacob’s settling outside of Bethel near Shechem produced a disaster. Simon and Levi became terrorist vigilantes that will have an effect on their lives later (as we will see near the end of the book). Dinah’s life is forever changed and traumatized in the true sense of the word. Yet God visits and calls the family up to Bethel, the house of God. Even after all that, God invitation to worship isn’t rescinded. Responding to this invitation requires surrender. Jacob tells his family that they must put away the foreign gods that are among them. How did that happen?! One scholar thinks that these gods would have been part of the plunder that Simon and Levi took from Shechem (Matthews). They are rounded up and buried under a tree, possibly with the goal of desecrating the area so that no worship happens here again (Matthews). We are to worship only one God. We cannot bring any other god to the relationship. Jesus says that no one can serve two masters. Paul compares our relationship with Jesus to a marriage in which only one spouse is allowed. Where does your worship go? By worship, I mean hope. If you are struggling to find your hope in God it is almost certainly because you think hope comes from life going your way. Even the secular artists understand these things. I’ve come across one song recently of a guy singing about this women he is in relationship with. She’s perfect in every way, yet there is this haunting line part way through the song, “But there’s no man as terrified / as the man who stands to lose you.” The chorus asks God (he’s a former Mormon, Benson Boone) to please not take “these beautiful things that I’ve got.” Perhaps you’ve expressed that sentiment. Maybe it is disguised as a joke when you say, “Well, things are going well, so I’m going to knock on wood/ brace for the other shoe to drop.” Why do we talk like that? Because our hope is in the thing we fear to lose. This isn’t a call to some sort of Buddhistic disattachment to things. The Buddhists think that pain comes from being attached to things that eventually die, so the solution is just to never attach. That’s not caution; it’s just cowardice. That’s just looking at the world in terms of dangers to you. It is never losing beautiful things because you never received any beautiful things to begin with. God’s call is much more profound. He reveals Himself to you in such a way that losing beautiful things—even dying—as gain. HOW? Through His promises. First, look at the safe journey the family has on the way. “A terror from God” not the sons’ swords, mind you, protects the family as they go. Second, when they arrive, look at what God promises to the family. A scholar points out that while these promises are very familiar, there has been some building here. The language takes on new significance. Look at the word “nations.” This is appropriate because Jacob has a new name, Israel. As such, he represents a new nation-state, a world-recognized authority in a region. This isn’t just a clan, it is a government entity. As such, it is appropriate that we emphasize “kings” coming from this family (Matthews). Of course, thrown in there is the long-standing promise of descendants and land. But in the midst of all of that, there are notes of tragedy, as God so often waits until those times to reiterate these promises. In the midst of this chapter we see some key deaths. The first mentioned is Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse. To be clear, this is Jacob’s mother’s servant that is dying here, not to be confused with Rachel’s servant. This woman would have been there from the very beginning with Jacob, so her death would have been a significant loss. It is pointed out where she is buried, in a place named “oak of weeping.” Promises are received despite tragedy and heartache. What’s more, some promises are received through tragedy. In verses 16-21 we are given the heart-wrenching story of the death of Rachel, Jacob’s wife of his passionate youth. This is the woman he sought so hard to protect and favor, yet he could not save her from death. Rachel asked for one more son way back when she was competing with Leah. Here that prayer is answered, but it will cost her her life (Ross, 582). She names him “son of my sorrow” as she recognized that she was dying. Jacob instead names him “son of my right hand,” a name of favor (Matthews). Here God fulfills the promise of descendants even through the death of Rachel. Does the thing you hope in provide through tragedies like that? No! But why do we do it anyway? Because we aren’t patient. We want things to provide us hope now; we need to see results now. I want tangible expressions of joy and security before I will risk hope. But to get God’s blessings, you have to wait. Hope in God requires eternal waiting for God. The promises of God aren’t instant. True, they cannot be touched by anything, but they will also not be rushed by anything. Look with me at this quick verse in 22. Here we are given a glimpse into yet another failure of Israel’s sons, Reuben. He has relations with his father’s concubine, but there isn’t any real reason or response given. We have to do a little speculation here, but it is possible that Reuben (the firstborn) is making a challenge to Israel’s authority. King David’s son commits this exact same crime as a challenge to David’s throne, and it is very likely the same thing is going on here. God has promised that there would be kings and descendants to Israel, so from a worldly perspective, how do you get that? Take the wife of the king! Produce descendants yourself! Don’t wait for a blessing to be bestowed, take what you can. And there’s a certain logic to that. The world agrees that it is full of trouble and no guarantees. So the solution is to take whatever happiness comes your way for however long it lasts. Don’t wait for happiness from God; inject it. Don’t seek a faithful spouse to experience marital intimacy and joy; just find whatever happiness you can in the backseat. Don’t patiently endure proper discipline of the children, just scare them with yelling. The world is full of false promises. This was just as true of Jacob’s family as it is yours. Let me ask you, what did the Shechemites offer? They offered the same things, actually, as God did (opportunities of descendants of other nations and land) but they just couldn’t actually fulfill it, because the Shechemites need Jacob just as much as Jacob would have needed them. Further, you know what stopped them from fulfilling such a promise (if they ever really intended to anyway)? Death. The promise of the Shechemites died with them, as will everything else that makes promises to you in life. Everything in this world is vulnerable. There is no such thing as a foolproof investment. No matter how beautiful a thing is in your life, you will lose it. So if all of this is true, how do you find a satisfying relationship of hope like I asked in the beginning? Worship and wait on God alone. Why? God’s promises not to leave, the promise to forgive, the promise to unconditionally love you cannot be stopped. Romans 8:35–39 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That’s hope. That’s what endures. It doesn’t make you be unmoved by attachment and love in this world. These beautiful things that you’ve got serve as reminders not of what you can lose but what you will one day gain in its fullest form. The joy and security you feel being lost in the eyes of your spouse is meant to point you to the ultimate security and love that is yours in Christ. The comfort you feel after working hard to earn provision for your family is meant to remind you of the provision you have now and will one day experience in its fullness in heaven. You won’t get this any other way. So practically, how do we worship and wait on God? For starters, be regular in public worship on Sunday. That is the bottom rung of the ladder of hope. Whatever you skip Sunday for is your hope and that thing is vulernable. This isn’t meant to guilt you but guide you. Do you want joy in Christ? Then gather in the place that is Christ’s own joy, the Church. He loves Her. Be a part of that. And yes, I get it, people get sick, bodies break down, traveling for family is a real thing, but is your physical absence from church, any church, on Sunday a measure of last resort, or is it the first thing on the chopping block? If it’s the first to go, then no wonder you don’t have hope! You’re cutting off your weekly dose of hope! Don’t do that to yourself! Second, be regular in private worship, your prayers and Bible intake. This world won’t let you coast on yesterday’s hope. Your own sin won’t let you coast. Stillness is stagnating. Take the time to slow down, meditate on what it is you have in Christ. I remember some months ago in the fall, I was looking outside my office through the bare trees lit by the sunset. Seasons and times remind one of the fact that all things come to an end, even me. I remember thinking about my death, as we’ve witnessed it a lot here lately. I remember thinking, “If I were to die suddenly at this age but was given the chance to say one last thing, but only one last thing, to Abby, what would I say?” A peace came over me as I realized that there is only one right answer to that question for the Christian: “Everything is going to be ok.” That doesn’t mean everything is going to be easy. Or that there are going to be no tears, or that there aren’t going to be real, painful struggles. But I mean one day, for sure, because I have God’s own sworn promise to me sealed by His very blood, that everything will work together for my good and His glory! That’s a promise worth clinging to, a promise worth letting go of whatever is in your clenched fist to get. God will not disappoint. You just gotta wait. |
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