“Sabbath” – Part 2 – Hebrews 4:1-11

Some of you are tired this morning. It may be that you stayed up too late last night watching TV or playing on your phone and you are paying the price for it today. Some of you didn’t sleep good last night because of the problems in your life and now today you are mentally and physically tired. That’s a rough place to be. I know. We’ve all been there.

You may be mentally tired because you spent all of last week at work trying to figure out what to do and how to do it and today you just want to put your brain in neutral for a while. I get it. Some of you are spiritually tired. You are wondering if your faith is real or if it is something else. You are wondering if God is real and if so, how long before He makes this life “worth it.” Where are all the promises that you have heard about for so long? That, too, is a place most all of us have been and it’s hard.

Some of you are just flat tired of this old life. You don’t have a death wish or anything like that but you are just tired of dealing with the problems of this nasty, old sin-sick world and I don’t blame you one bit. This world is hard and mean and it is getting worse by the day. Good grief, don’t turn on the news or you might just go running down the street screaming.

Well, I have good news for you. If you are physically, mentally or spiritually tired or if you are all three, this is the right place for you for several reasons. This is the right place to be if you are tired because our church doesn’t have any rules and if you want to come in and go sound asleep you are welcome to. We even have pillows and blankets in the back if you want them. Now, you need to know that I have a Sharpie and I will most definitely draw a little Hitler moustache on you while you sleep but you just relax and don’t worry about it.

This is a good place to be if you are tired because this is a peaceful place. It is peaceful on Sunday mornings and peaceful all through the week. Not long ago, a lady in the community called and asked if she could come up here during the week and just spend some time alone praying. She said she knew she could pray at home but with her family around, it was hectic there and so she came up here and just prayed for a long time. This is a peaceful place and good for that.

This is also a good place to be if you are tired because, as we learned last week, this is our Sabbath. What is a Sabbath? Do y’all remember? What does it include? A Sabbath means a time to stop, sit, celebrate and worship. It is a day set aside to be holy and different and set apart from the others to reflect on who God is and what He has done, is doing and is going to do. This is our Sabbath rest.

But as I alluded to last week, there is more to the Sabbath than just resting from work on Sunday. In fact, the author of the book of Hebrews reminds us that there are actually four different kinds of Sabbath rest. Now, don’t worry if you haven’t been observing all four. Nobody has. One of them happened thousands of years ago and one of them will happen in the future, so it’s okay.

Turn to the fourth chapter of the book of Hebrews. Hebrews is between the books of Philemon and James in the New Testament. Good luck finding Philemon. It’s tiny. But Hebrews is towards the back and it’s okay to look at your glossary. It’s after the three “T’s” – Thessalonians, Timothy and Titus.

Hebrews was written to the Jewish Christians after Jesus had ascended back to Heaven to reassure them that the Gospel that they had heard was true and still the only way to Heaven. The author of Hebrews, whoever he was, speaks to the Jewish Christians in words and with illustrations that they could understand. So, if you read through Hebrews and get a little confused, it’s because it wasn’t originally written to American Christians in 2020. We can, though, glean bushels of truth from what is written if we take time to study it.

I was glad when I read John Piper’s study of this passage. Piper is a famous pastor and NASA smart and usually able to write a commentary on a passage rather than read one so I was glad when he said about Hebrews chapter 4, verses 1-11, “This is hard to understand.” That made me feel better because after reading this half a dozen times, I was still thinking, “This is hard to understand.”

We won’t do it justice today but we can learn about the kind of Sabbaths that God wants for us as we read it and study it so let’s do that now. Hebrews 4:1-11 says, “Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. ² For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed. ³ Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, “So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.” And yet his works have been finished since the creation of the world. ⁴ For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “On the seventh day God rested from all his works.” ⁵ And again in the passage above he says, “They shall never enter my rest.” ⁶ Therefore since it still remains for some to enter that rest, and since those who formerly had the good news proclaimed to them did not go in because of their disobedience, ⁷ God again set a certain day, calling it “Today.” This he did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” ⁸ For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. ⁹ There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; ¹⁰ for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. ¹¹ Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.

To know what is going on here, you need to know the back story and that comes from the book of Numbers, chapters 13 and 14. Instead of reading both chapters, I’ll just give you a quick Reader’s Digest summary of what happened. The Hebrew people, who had been slaves in Egypt for 400 hundred years were finally and miraculously delivered out of slavery by God. He got them out of Egypt miraculously and parted the Red Sea miraculously so they could cross on dry land and then their enemies were drowned.

Then when they get to the other side, God said, “Okay, great! Now, I have good news for you. I have a wonderful place for you to go. I have it all prepared for you and it’s just down the road a little way. Just walk over there and enjoy it. It is a land flowing with milk and honey and I want you to go there and just rest as my people. I will be your God and you can just rest there.”

So, the people get right to the edge of the Promised Land and look it over and say, “Uh, God, we can’t go in there. There are people living there. And they are big people and scary.” And God said, “Oh, don’t worry about them. I delivered you out of Egypt and I am delivering you into Israel. This is my plan, now go on and just rest.”

“Uh, but God, those people are really big and mean and we’re scared. We can’t do that. Just take us back to Egypt. We want to go home.”

“What? You ungrateful, unbelieving little…I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you just wander around in the desert for 40 years and see how that works for you!” And they did. Instead of accepting God’s gracious gift of rest, they did doughnuts out in the desert until that whole generation of unbelieving Jews died.

So, now, 1500 years later in the book of Hebrews, the author says in chapter 4, verse 1 that God’s promise of rest still stands. Let me read the first part again and we will see the first kind of rest or Sabbath that the author talks about. “Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. ² For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed. ³ Now we who have believed enter that rest.”

Stop right there. That rest, that Sabbath is the rest we today have in our relationship with God through His Son Jesus. It is available to anybody and everybody but you still have to trust God for it and what a rest it is! It means we no longer have to work and try and toil to please God enough that He will let us into Heaven. It means that our good deeds don’t have to outweigh our bad deeds because God doesn’t even look at that scale. We are saved by grace and through faith, not works. (Ephesians 2:8-9) So we don’t have to work and worry that we aren’t going to make it. What rest there is in that!

I can’t say that I have ever actually watched the game show Jeopardy, but I still somehow know who the host is. I heard Alex Trebeck say the other day that he doesn’t believe in any certain God but if there is a Heaven that he knows he will go there. How Alex? How do you know? Where is your assurance? I’ll take “Bad Theology” for $1000, Alex, because that’s not how it works. How scary it must be to not have the blessed assurance of God’s promise found in places like John 3:16 that says if we believe in Jesus – and we know that belief means a changed life – that we will inherit eternal life in Heaven with Him. But because we have that assurance, we can rest – Sabbath, Shabbat – in Him.

Hebrews goes on to tell us in verse 4 of another Sabbath and it is the one that we talked about last week so I won’t spend a lot of time on it now. Now, when I say, “We talked about it” some of you are thinking, “Yea, YOU talked about it last Sunday morning and we all sat here bored as mummies.” Well, I want you to know that WE all talked about it Sunday night sitting around the tables in the Fellowship Hall while eating ice cream and cake and if you missed it, you missed out on some wonderful, encouraging study – and ice cream and cake.

We talked about what a Sabbath really is and what it should look like in our lives, how it should be more than just another day that we decide if we are going to go to church or not and how we ought to want to please God and take a special day to honor Him and rest from our work at the same time. That is a true Sabbath and we need it.

I’m also not going to spend a long time talking about the Sabbath found in verse 8 because it is the Sabbath that God wanted for the children of Israel but they lacked the faith to go in and take it. They saw big people and God looked too small to them when all along, the Creator of those big people and everything else had a plan to give them the land and a Sabbath rest in it. What a shame they didn’t see their God as big so their enemies would have been small. A wise person might see a lesson to be learned there as well even today.

Ah, now we get to the really good stuff. Not that the other wasn’t good, but when Hebrews 4, verses 9-11 talks about the next kind of Sabbath, my ears perk up. I get excited. I can’t wait for this future Sabbath. Let’s all read it again. I hope you still have it there in front of you because I want you to see it. I don’t care what’s going on in your life. I don’t care how bad it’s getting or how crazy this world is. When you turn on the news and see major cities all over the nation literally on fire, you can rest. When the virus is turning your world upside down and your kids are acting the fool and your health is deteriorating and the list just goes on and on, you can read this and rest, knowing that God is in control and He loves you and has a plan for you for all eternity. And it doesn’t have anything to do with what lives this world thinks matter. It doesn’t have anything to do with who is President or if you wear a mask or what China is doing or what your bank account is doing or not doing or anything else.

Read Hebrews 4:9-11 again with me. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; ¹⁰ for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. ¹¹ Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.

Do you know what he is talking about there? That’s Heaven. That’s our Promised Land that God has prepared for us and wants for us and all we have to do is take it. Accept it on faith. That’s it. Now, I hear ya. What about that last part that says we need to make the effort to get there? Well, you know what that effort is? This is it. *Sits down*

“Lord, I have to admit that it is all I can do to just sit here and trust you because it’s hard. It’s hard because so many things don’t make sense. They aren’t fair. I don’t understand. Heaven sounds too amazing to be true and the price to get in sounds too amazing. But I trust you. I trust you because you have proven yourself to be trustworthy. I love you because you have loved me first. I ask you to forgive me of my many sins and to come into my life and be Lord of every aspect of it. But you are going to have to help me with that. I’m still human and I know I will still struggle to make wise choices and so I’m thankful that your Spirit will live in me and guide me.”

“But I look forward to the day when I can truly rest in you in Heaven. I can’t wait to see my loved ones again. I can’t wait to run and not grow weary. I can’t wait to sing with Mary and talk with King David and eat enchiladas with Paul! I can’t wait to sing your praises for all eternity and worship you with billions of other people but the thing I look forward to most is just resting in You and with You by your grace and mercy.”

That’s the Sabbath I look forward to. It’s the Sabbath my Mama looked forward to all of her life and is enjoying right now. How about you? Do you have the blessed assurance that you will be there? You can. Pray with me right now.

 

 

“Sabbath” – Exodus 20:8-11

How many of you have a “smart phone”? How many of you have a not-so-smart phone? If you have a smart phone, you know that sometimes, for no good reason, they just don’t run right. They start running really slow. It takes forever for an app to come up or a video won’t download. Maybe your email doesn’t update timely or you start missing phone calls. So, what do you do? Do you just keep pressing the button? Maybe screaming at it will help, have you tried that? Maybe a good tap with a hammer will solve the problem.

My iPhone has Siri installed in it. I don’t know how it works but most of the time it can be pretty helpful especially while driving. But sometimes I say, “Hey Siri, call Mama” and Siri says back to me something like, “Calling NASA.” “NASA? No! Not NASA! Call Mama! Can’t you understand plain redneck Texan English?” “This is NASA. How may I direct your call?” “Is my Mama there? No? Then I guess Siri is stupid, huh?” And then I feel bad for calling Siri stupid and that’s when I know it is time for me and Siri and my phone to take a break.

What do you do when that happens? You just turn it off for a few minutes, right? You hit the reset button. You give it a break so it can get back to normal and whatever was bothering it usually just goes away. And what happens if you don’t give it a break; if you don’t let it reset? Does it get better? No. It always just gets worse.

Do you ever wish you had a reset button on you that you could just push and what had been bothering you would just go away? Don’t you wish you could just relax and take your mind off all the craziness of the world and take a break? It seems like God should have programmed us (to use computer language) to need a reset button. You would think He would have provided such a thing, huh?

Well, actually He did. In the Old Testament they called it the Sabbath. In the New Testament they started calling it the Lord’s Day (Rev. 1:10). Our grandparents called it the Holy Lord’s Day. Our parents called it Sunday. Most people today…call it the weekend.

It started at the creation of the world. In Genesis 2:2 it says that God rested from all His work on the 7^th day. Now, God being God, He wasn’t tired. He was modeling for us what we would need to do. That word that we translate “rested” is “shabbat” (shaw-bath) in Hebrew. It means to rest or to cease. It does not mean Saturday or the 7^th day. My concordance tells me that the meaning includes to sit, to stop, to celebrate and a day of worship, rest, refreshment and enjoyment. It’s a reset button.

As a kid, Christianity seemed like a long list of thou-shalt-nots and don’t do this and don’t do that. But as I grew up, I started to realize and I continue to realize that all those commands that God gives are for our benefit. If you have ever had a toddler, you know that they think you as a parent are the worst person in the world because you won’t let them stick that fork in the electrical outlet. You don’t know what you are talking about. That lion at the zoo wants me to go into his cage and you not letting me go is just cruel. But mommy, I want to take my bath tonight in the dishwasher. Why won’t you let me? A sign of maturity is understanding that parents have rules for the good of the child, not because they hate the kid.

We say around here that we don’t have any rules and we don’t. Although some of you seem to want to be the reason that we make some rules but so far, we don’t have any. We don’t care what you wear or what you drive or how you worship. We might eat brownies or ice cream on Sunday mornings sometimes. We don’t have any rules but we do have some commandments. In fact, I think there are like ten of ‘em and they are all found in Exodus chapter 20.

I understand that a few weeks ago in children’s church they were studying the 10 Commandments. Anna asked the kids if following the 10 Commandments would get you to Heaven and they rightfully all said no. Anna said, “Well, what do I have to do to get to Heaven?” and one of the little girls said, “Well, first you gotta die.”

So, there is that. Technically that is correct, I guess, but the 10 Commandments, while not the way to Heaven, are important. They were given to Moses by God Himself on Mount Sinai to give to the Hebrew people after they had escaped from Egyptian captivity. They were given for the benefit of the people, not because God didn’t like them. He loved them and wanted to protect them. He didn’t give them just to be mean or because He didn’t understand their situation. He gave the commandments to protect the ones He loved. We need to remember that.

Let’s read just one of the ten this morning. Skip over to verse 8 and let’s read 8-11. Exodus 20:8-11 says, "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

Now, settle down. It’s okay. I hear you. I hear you screaming at me in your minds and you are screaming that you are not under the Law. You are under grace. The 10 Commandments don’t apply to you. Well, I have just one thing to say to you about that. You are absolutely right. When the children of Israel were going into the Promised Land, God gave them the Law and the 10 Commandments were part of that Law. The Law was part of His covenant relationship with them. 

But after Jesus came, many Jewish Christians wanted to know what role the Law should continue to play in their lives. Were Christians obligated to keep the Law? If not, what was to keep them from living sinfully? The apostle Paul boldly claimed that Christians “are not under law but under grace” (Romans 6:14). But we need to remember that Paul was writing to Jewish Christians. You and I have never been under the law.  No Gentile has ever been under law.  We can’t apply this literally to us.  We can learn from Israel’s history the importance of the Law, but we can’t say that we were under the Law.  That would have fit the Judaizer’s goal - that all Christians be Jewish first and under the Law. (Thanks, Randy)

Paul explained in Galatians 3 that the Law of Moses was a “paidagogos,” which is translated schoolmaster, tutor, or guardian. In the Greco-Roman world, the son of a wealthy man would be cared for by a paidagogos, a slave who was given the responsibility of watching over his master’s son. This guardian would watch over the boy constantly, taking him to school, keeping him out of trouble, guiding him, guarding him, and teaching him. In the life of a young boy, a paidagogos was a good thing. However, when the boy became a man, he no longer needed a paidagogos. He was set free from this tutelage. https://radicallychristian.com/why-christians-are-not-under-law-but-under-grace

Paul said that until Jesus came, “we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. 24So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. 25Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.” (Galatians 3:23-26) So, basically Jesus brought the Jewish people out from under the Law of Moses and therefore they were not bound by the 10 Commandments and neither are we.

Now…I hear you screaming at me that if we are no longer under the Law, why would I use one of the 10 Commandments as our text for today’s message? Oh, just wait. It gets better. Okay, so we are not bound by the Law but when the teachings of the Law are echoed or also taught in the New Testament then we are under those teachings. If Jesus or Paul or Peter or James or any other biblical author says something is a sin, then that is a word from God who inspired the writing of it and should be taken as such.

When the 10 Commandments say not to murder, that is also taught by Jesus in Matthew 5:21 where He says, “You have heard that it was said to the ancients, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.” So, Jesus doubles down on murder and says not only is murder wrong, but anger or hating is the same thing. And all the 10 Commandments are also taught in other places of scripture in the New Testament…except one. Want to guess which one? I told you it would get better.

The only commandment not also taught in the New Testament is the 4^th commandment which is to keep the Sabbath day holy. And…now you are screaming at me again, right? Why would you bring up that one law if we are not under that one law? Well, because it is important and I’ll tell you why. The only part of that commandment that is not backed up in the New Testament is the word “sabbath” which the Hebrews called Saturday.

The New Testament church, the first church there in Jerusalem commemorated the resurrection of Jesus by meeting on Sundays instead of Saturdays to honor the fact that Sunday was the day Jesus was resurrected. And the resurrection of Jesus changed almost everything!

So, with all that being said, nothing about the 4^th commandment changed except the day. We are still to abide by what the commandment says. We are still to keep a day holy because it was taught and modeled by the first church. So, what does it mean to keep the day holy? That’s the million-dollar question and that’s where so many people get confused. Some people take it too far and some don’t take it far enough.

I remember my mother telling me about when she was a little girl and her daddy was a pastor. She said every Sunday the pastor’s family would go eat at somebody’s house, a habit my mother called “horrible.” She said the host family would prepare the whole meal on Saturday and put it on the table and cover it with a tablecloth for the next day because they wanted to keep the Lord’s day holy. She told me that she had a Sunday School teacher that didn’t allow them to use scissors to cut things out because that was considered work to her.

So, where do you draw the line between keeping it holy and being legalistic? Well, let’s talk about holiness first. What does it mean to keep something holy? It means to keep it set apart for God’s work. It means it will be different than all the other days. If you work a job five or six days a week and Sunday is one of them, is Sunday holy? Is it different than the others and set apart for God’s work? No.

What about me? Now you’re screaming at me in your mind that preaching is work and you are right. But is Sunday different than all the other days and set apart for God’s work? Yes, Sunday is way different for me. What about cops and doctors and…okay, let’s talk now about legalism. Think back to my illustration of Jesus teaching about murder in Matthew 5. Jesus made it an issue of the heart. He said that if you hate a man, it is the same as murder and murder is wrong.

Matthew chapter 5 helps us a lot in this regard. In Matthew 5, Jesus is preaching the Sermon on the Mount and He absolutely rocks some peoples’ theology here. This whole sermon is so counter-cultural, so mind-blowing that it says at the end of this sermon in chapter 7 that the crowds were amazed at His teaching because He taught as One who had authority. And in this sermon He addresses quite a few issues.

He starts by saying, “Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets.  I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”  And then over and over again, He says, “You have heard it said…” and then He goes on to quote some part of the Law but then He adds a little something to it. He said, yes, murder is wrong but so is hate. He said, yes, adultery is wrong but so is lust. He takes it a step further with divorce and taking vows and getting revenge making all of them about where your heart is, not just the outer action.

He doesn’t mention in this sermon anything about the Sabbath but how do you think He would have handled it? Do you think Jesus would have said, “You have heard it said to keep the Sabbath holy but I tell you, eh, it’s not that big a deal”? “You have heard it said to keep the Sabbath holy but I tell you if you have to go to work then go ahead. No big deal. If you really want to go do something else then okay. If your favorite episode of Gunsmoke is on, then I’ll make an exception.” Does that sound like how Jesus would have preached?

Look, we don’t know exactly what Jesus would have said because it is not recorded and when you start asking, “But what about this case or this issue?” then you start sliding toward legalism and you miss the point. The point is the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath as Jesus said in Mark 2:27. The point is that God designed us to need a day of rest. For some people that work in a cubicle and read all week, rest may mean you work in the garden. If you work in the garden all week as part of your job, then maybe you need to go sit in a cubicle and read as part of your Sabbath day rest.

The real question is, are you keeping that day holy? Are you keeping it separate from the others as a day of rest? Remember what I said earlier. It is to be a day to sit, to stop, to celebrate and a day of worship, rest, refreshment and enjoyment. It’s a reset button. We actually hit the reset button every day, don’t we, when we go to sleep? Every day we have to take a few hours to unwind and sometimes we even take a nap during the day. That’s a good day, isn’t it?  Then every week we take a one full day to unwind. And if we don’t then bad things start to happen. We are not able to use our gifts to their full potential.

Then on top of that, we sometimes get to go on vacation. That’s always fun. But the problem with vacations is so many times we come home from vacation needing a vacation because we are exhausted from the vacation. Vacations away from work are good and healthy but our bodies, our minds and our spirits are designed to need rest and refreshment and if we don’t get that then none of that works right.

How many of you have ever had a conversation with Linda Pierot? What is the hardest part about having a conversation with her? Is it because she is so mean? Is it because you know she is going to scream and cuss at you and call you names? Hardly. The hardest thing about having a conversation with sweet Linda is hearing her. She is so soft-spoken. She is definitely made in the image of God because God also speaks in a still, small voice and every day we need to put ourselves in position to hear Him. Just like having a conversation with Linda would be difficult in a busy factory with lots of background noise, having a conversation with and hearing from God is hard when we are busy so we need to put ourselves in position to hear from Him. We need to do that every day but that’s a big part of what the Sabbath rest is for.

Every day we need to take some time to hear God. Every week we need to spend some extra time and every so often we need even more than that. I have felt for a while that is where I am. I want more. I need to hear from God better and deeper. I need to rest my body, my mind and my spirit and hear what God wants to tell me and so I’m going to put myself in that position to hear Him better.

A couple of months ago, I asked the church Leadership Team if I could take a short sabbatical. Next year will be ten years I have pastored and I just want to know where God wants our church to go spiritually in the coming years. I am not burned out. I don’t need a vacation. I’m not spiritually frazzled or out of God’s will necessarily. I just need to put myself in position to hear God speak to me better. So, I’m going to take a sabbatical for most of August.

After much prayer, I have four men lined up to preach and teach for four Sundays starting August 2. I’m going to go to different churches those four Sundays. I don’t want to miss out on my Sabbath rest during my sabbatical. And I have lots of things that I hope to accomplish during that time. I want to read. I want to write. I want to rearrange that sock drawer finally. But my main goal is just to get myself in position to hear from God in a way I never have.

I want to sit, stop and celebrate for an extended time, not just one day. I want to worship and rest and be refreshed and come back excited about what God has told me and I’m not needing to be heard. I just want to hear Him. We all need that every day. We do it for a little longer on Sundays and sometimes we need an even longer period of time to just be still and know He is God.

This world has gone absolutely crazy. The global church is full of false teachers and wolves that want to come in and tear the church apart. We are watching so many prophecies come true in our lifetime and I expect Jesus to come back any minute now. But if He waits, I want to make sure our church is doing what we are supposed to be doing, going where we are supposed to go and saying what we are supposed to say.

What about you? Are you doing what God wants for you in your life? Are you being obedient to what He wants you to do? He has rules for us because He loves us and wants to protect us. Do you even know Him? Do you have a personal relationship with God through His Son Jesus? All you have to do is believe that Jesus died for your sins on the cross to pay the debt the Father said was due for our disobedience. Ask Him today to forgive you and He will. He will come into your life and change you. Then you can enter into His rest forever as a co-heir with Jesus to all the good things God has in store for us in Heaven. Do it right now while there is still time. Let’s pray.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Joseph” – Genesis 50:15-21

I have what I think are some fun questions to ask you. If you could be God for just a few minutes, what would you do? If you had all the power and resources of the universe and the ability to make or change or create or destroy, what would you do? Would you make yourself a billionaire? Would you kill your worst enemy? Would you do away with sin or poverty or would you cure all cancer or other disease? Would you make Mexican food calorie-free? Send the Cowboys to the Super Bowl? What would you do?

My next question is, if you were God for those few minutes and your time was up but you could then give that power to somebody else, who would you give it to? It is your decision who you want to be God for a few minutes, who is the person you would choose? Would you choose a politician? An athlete? Your spouse? That’s probably a harder question than the first one because you have to completely trust that person, don’t you? You don’t want to give that kind of power to somebody that might be mad at you or would hurt you in some way.

Several thousand years ago there was a group of brothers that were grateful that another brother was not God. These brothers had done their other brother wrong years before and through a wild course of events, they now find themselves at this brother’s mercy. What is interesting is that the one brother has the power to kill them or make them slaves or just torture them or ignore them. But, like God, the brother chooses to forgive and to show kindness.

Joseph’s story is fascinating for several reasons. It is fascinating just for the fact that it takes up so much room in scripture. God uses less than one chapter to describe the creation of the entire universe but for the story of Joseph, he uses fourteen chapters! His story is fascinating because other than being a little arrogant when he was younger, nowhere in all those chapters does it mention Joseph actually sinning. We know he did but there is no mention of it in scripture.

It is fascinating because his is the ultimate rags to riches story. He was sold into slavery by his brothers, put in prison for something he didn’t do, lied about, forgotten about and then raised literally out of the pit and into the palace to be just about the most powerful man on the planet at the time. As we have seen going through the book of Genesis lately, Genesis can be short on details and sketchy on what we think are important issues but for the life of Joseph, there is a lot to read.

There is a lot to read but the very last chapter of Genesis is really the pinnacle, the peak, the dénouement of the book and of Joseph’s story as well as the story of the Hebrew people up to this time. It explains in a nutshell the story of God’s promise to Abraham and his family and to the world. It is the reason, the explanation for how and why God allowed His promise to hang by the precarious thread of certain people’s actions and yet God showed Himself to be faithful all through Genesis and the climax of that is in this story and in the words of Joseph in the last chapter.

Turn to Genesis 50 and let’s read verses 15-21. For context, you need to know that Joseph is now second in command only to Pharaoh here in Egypt and Egypt is basically the center of the world at this time. Most of you know this story but I want you to think about this. In all the years of captivity and slavery, in all the years of being forgotten and abused and slandered and oppressed, Joseph has proven himself. He has proven himself to be helpful. He has proven himself to be a hard worker. He has proven himself to be honest. He has also proven himself to be right.

In chapter 41, Pharaoh has a dream and Joseph interprets that dream correctly when nobody else could and it leads to the salvation of the nation of Egypt. It was a bold prediction and Joseph got it exactly right and in chapter 41, verse 16, Joseph makes God look good and gives Him the glory for being able to do it.

In all of this and even later, as we will see, his brothers have proven themselves to be deceivers, liars, greedy and petty. Now, here in the last chapter of the book, Joseph is the man in charge. He’s the big king kahuna and whatever he says goes. This is Joseph’s chance to make things right.  Their father, Jacob, has died so there is no reason for Joseph to show any mercy. They don’t deserve mercy. They don’t deserve grace. They don’t deserve forgiveness. They don’t even deserve to live. Let’s look at what Joseph does. Genesis 50:15-21.

When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?" 16So they sent word to Joseph, saying, "Your father left these instructions before he died: 17'This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.' Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father." When their message came to him, Joseph wept. 18His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. "We are your slaves," they said. 19But Joseph said to them, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21So then, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children." And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

Have you ever watched an old western movie and the good guy and the bad guy have a shootout with their six-shooters? So many times you see the bad guy finally get shot and wounded pretty bad and as he lay in the dirt of the street dying, you see the good guy come over and stand over him with his gun cocked and pointed right at him. The bad guy has shot the other man’s mom. He stole his woman. He kicked his dog! Then they have this long, stupid conversation about what is right and what is wrong and the good guy drops his gun into his gun belt. And the whole time, what are you screaming at the TV? If you are like me you are screaming, “Shoot him. Shoot him! Just do it and quit talking!” Right?

That’s sort of the situation we are in with Joseph and his brothers. He has them dead to rights and has the gun pointed at them with his finger on the trigger and then puts it away. I want to ask the question of “why” here in just a minute but let’s think back to how we got here. It all started with Joseph’s great grandfather, Abraham. You remember a few weeks ago we looked at the story of Abe and how God promised him he would be the father of a great nation and how anybody that cursed him would be cursed and those that blessed would be blessed. Now think of all the problems God had to overcome to make that promise come true in Joseph.

First, Abe and his wife were old and couldn’t have kids but God overcame that in a miraculous way. Then his son, Isaac, and his wife couldn’t have kids but God overcame that and the fact that the first born was not the one through whom the promise would be kept. Then Jacob did all kinds of things to jeopardize the promise but God overcame all of those including saving him from his brother Esau. Now, that promise has really been tested with the imprisonment of Joseph. It looks like there is no way that God’s promise is going to be able to be fulfilled. Joseph has been forgotten in prison. This is horrible! It’s impossible! And then God said, “Excuse me. I’ve got this…”

So, here we have Joseph, in control of all Egypt, with his family in front of him, with the promise of Almighty God upon him, with the hand of All-Knowing God guiding him, the sovereignty of God paving his way, the presence of God giving him peace and the provision of God making it possible. With all that we see Joseph make a choice to forgive and to protect and provide for his family.

Now I want to ask, “Why?” Why would Joseph forgive them? They had done nothing to deserve it. They had done nothing in the past to deserve it for sure but look what they did even now. It says that they sent a note to Joseph that was supposedly from their father asking him to forgive the brothers. All of you that believe this was really a note from dad, please stand on your head. They were trying to deceive him even now to save their own hides. Joseph knew and I think that is why he cried. He was disappointed in them even at this point.

A friend of mine posted on Facebook the other day that he got a call from his son’s school. His son is in the third or fourth grade or so. He got the call and he knew it wasn’t going to be good. It never is from the school. But the nice teacher that called said she assumed that the father had not received his son’s latest report card. The man said he had not. How did you know? The teacher said the little boy brought the report card back and it was signed, “Daddy.”

That’s kind of what we see with Joseph’s brothers right here. But none of that mattered to Joseph. He was determined to forgive them. Why do you think he forgave them if they didn’t deserve it? What was in it for Joseph? They had no money and besides Joseph was rich beyond all they could have imagined. They had no power especially to the second most powerful man in the land. They had proven they didn’t deserve it. Was it just because they were family?

Family Schmamily! They never wanted Joseph to be part of their family. They had not treated him like family. They treated him like their worst enemy. Besides they hadn’t even seen each other in decades. But look at what Joseph tells them. This is one of the most beautiful and powerful verses in all of scripture. If we could wrap our minds around this, it would change everything about us.

He tells them in verses 19-20. "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done.” At some point in Joseph’s life, and we are not told where, but at some point, he came to have a life-changing relationship with God. He knew God. He had an experience with God, probably somewhere between slavery and imprisonment, he had come to understand that God had a plan for him, a plan as God said in Jeremiah 29:11 to prosper him and not harm him and because he had been forgiven by God and could see that God had allowed or even caused all this to happen for his good and the good of his family, he could forgive his brothers that had once tried to kill him.

This is sort of the Old Testament version of Romans 8:28 that says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” This does not mean that bad things won’t happen. God may allow or even cause you to go through great poverty or sickness or extremely unfair situations. Yes, you are loved and highly favored but you will often go through great difficulties in this life that you won’t understand.

Joseph was blessed to be able to see in his lifetime how all the horrible things that happened to him was not the world falling apart but God’s plan falling into place. You may or may not be blessed like that to be able to see it but whether or not you can see it or not, it is still true. Yes, it takes faith to be able to see it in the midst of your tragedy but without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6).

Notice that Joseph never downplayed his pain or what happened to him. He never said, “Oh, don’t worry about it. It didn’t bother me. It didn’t hurt. It’s okay.” No. In fact, I think that is why he said in verse 19, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God?” Because if he was in the place of God, he probably would have thumped them off the planet and straight into the pits of hell. They had tried to ruin his whole life and Joseph was aware of that but he was also aware that God was and is in control and had used even their wickedness and meanness to bring about a promise He had made hundreds of years ago to Joseph’s great grandfather.

They had intended to harm Joseph but God used that situation for Joseph’s good and for the good of their whole family and, more than that, to bring about and continue and fulfill His promise to Abraham. It was just going to take a while to see it.

On May 11, 1996, Demingo Pacheco had a major problem. He was on a tight schedule to catch his plane out of Miami when the left rear tire of his Cadillac blew out on the Palmetto Expressway. For more than hour he sweated under that broiling Florida sun changing that tire. Just as he finished changing the tire, he got a call on his portable phone. It was his mother. She said, "Where are you?" He said, "I’m stuck on the freeway, having just changed a flat tire, and I have missed my flight." She shouted, "Turn on your radio and thank God. The plane you were supposed to be on just crashed!” (sermoncentral.com)

In stories like that it is easy to see that God provides and protects and sometimes allows us to go through difficulties for our own good. But sometimes it takes a little longer than the hour that Pacheco spent changing his tire. Sometimes it takes years and the circumstances are much worse than a flat tire and a messed-up schedule. Sometimes we never see how any good comes out of it at all and we won’t see it until we see Jesus face to face in Heaven.

Why do some people have to spend their lives in a wheelchair? Why do some people get cancer or lose a child or come down with the virus? You know what I would like to ask God when I see Him? I would like to ask what good came out of the Holocaust? God allowed millions of His special, chosen people, the Jews, to be tortured and murdered and I don’t get it. I really don’t. I don’t understand. But I don’t have to understand!

Am I in the place of God? Thank God I am not and since I am not, I don’t have to understand His ways. I don’t have to know His thoughts. I don’t have to even believe it is true that all things work together for the good of those who know God. All I have to do is know God!  The whole point of this sermon series is for us to know God better and all I have to know is that God is sovereign. He is just. He is creative. He is faithful to provide. He wants to reveal Himself to you and to me and His presence is enough.

When I know God, I don’t have to understand everything He does or causes or allows. All I have to do is believe it. All I have to do is believe His Word and either God’s Word is true when it says “all things” or it’s not true and if it is true then it is true in the darkest days. It is true when I have a flat. It is true when the doctor gives me a bad report. It is true in death, in hardship, in sickness and in divorce and if you can’t believe it when those times come, and they will come, then keep your mouth shut in the good times because you don’t really believe it.

Let me close by saying that one of the things I love about the story of Joseph is that he is a type or a picture of Jesus. I’m not saying he is God or that we should worship him or anything like that. It’s just that there are a lot of parallels between Joseph and Jesus. Both were loved by their fathers. Both were rejected by their brothers. Both were tempted. Both suffered innocently. Both forgave those who hurt them and both were put in glorified positions. There may be more parallels but that’s enough for now.

Why did Joseph forgive his brothers when they did not deserve it? Why didn’t he kill them? Why did he protect them and provide for them and their families? It’s the same reason that God forgives us and protects and provides for us and our families. He loves us. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

We don’t deserve it. We have all proven over and over again that we don’t deserve His grace or His mercy or His forgiveness, let alone His generosity and favor. But He loves us and that is how people will know that we are followers of Jesus when we act like Him and love others.  Jesus said Himself in John 13:35, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." How do you prove you love somebody? Is it love when you love the folks that are lovely? No. You prove your love by loving and forgiving and protecting and providing for them when they are the most unlovely. We know that’s what God does and we know God and are His followers so now we have to act like Him.

For those of you that are true Christians, who is God calling you to love today? Who is He telling you to forgive or protect or provide for? Now, for those of you that are not true believers, don’t worry. God doesn’t expect you to love like that. You can’t. That is only done through the power of God living inside of you through the Holy Spirit.

Maybe you aren’t a Christian today but you want to be. Maybe you want to be able to love like that. Maybe you want the kind of peace that scripture says is beyond all of our understanding (Philippians 4:7). Maybe you want to know God and live forever with Him in Heaven for eternity instead being alone in Hell. All you have to do is go to Him and honestly say just what Joseph’s brothers said to Him. They said, “We are your slaves.”

Now, let me just tell you that if being a slave to God doesn’t sound like what you want, I understand. But you are going to be a slave to something. That’s just how we were created. You will either be a slave to God or a slave to sin. There are no other choices. Some people think they want just part of God. They want just enough to keep from going to Hell but they don’t really want to give everything they have. They think of Christianity as a nice buffet where they can pick and choose. They want peace here and provision over there and maybe throw in a little worship when it’s convenient but that whole being a slave to God thing is a hard pass.

But it doesn’t work that way. Choose you this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house we will serve the Lord (Joshua 24:15). Give it all to God today. Admit you are a sinner. Ask Him to forgive you and He will. Then allow Him to change your life. It is a process that will take all of your life in every way. Do it right now. Let’s pray.

 

 

 

 

“Jacob” – Genesis 35:1-7

How many of you like to go fishing? How many of you are good at fishing? There is a difference. I love to fish but I can’t catch a fish to save my life. I fish quite a bit but all I have learned so far is what not to do. The problem is that everything is a factor. It matters what rod you use, what reel you use, what line you use. It matters what the wind is doing, what the moon is doing, what the barometric pressure is doing. It matters what lure you use and even what knot you tie the lure on with. It’s just too much.

On top of that, I’m a total klutz with a fishing pole. Every time I go out, the words, “How is that even possible?” come out of my mouth. If the lure can possibly get stuck in something (besides a fish) it will. I pick up the pole and realize the lure is wrapped around the line and so I try to get it fixed and one of the hooks gets stuck in my hand. So, in trying to get it out another hook sticks my shirt. In trying to get that out, the first hook snags my pants. So, I sit down to get that one and sit on another lure which is another big problem and it’s just too much!

Sometimes I wonder what God is trying to teach me through fishing. Is it patience? Is it attention to detail? The other day after I lost one lure to an electrical line that was 30 feet behind me (How is that even possible? Right?) and then another lure got eaten by a tree on the bank and then another lure just went sailing half way across the lake because it wasn’t tied on right. I thought maybe God was trying to teach me that fishing just isn’t for me. I don’t know but it was just too much!

Life is like that sometimes, isn’t it? It’s just too much! You get in trouble over here so you try to fix it but make it worse and then something else happens before that problem is solved and then the wind blows and causes twelve other problems and pretty soon you find yourself in a tangled mess and you are frustrated and you want to just give up when all you really wanted was to just have a little fun. But now life’s not fun and it’s a big mess and it’s just too much. Have you ever been there?

We have probably all been there. I see people in that spot lots of times and it looks like to me it must be rock bottom for them but they keep on digging. They are determined that they can fix it. Years of making messes on top of messes and yet they think they if they just had a little help or if they could just catch a little break…and then they catch a break and they still can’t fix the problems they have. It happens all the time because life is too much and too hard for us to do all alone. I hear people say sometimes that God will never give you more than you can handle. That sounds good. That sounds biblical but it’s just not true. We need help and it has always been that way.

Jacob lived nearly 4,000 years ago and even he wasn’t the first to make his life a mess but his is a fascinating story that we see as we continue our study of Genesis with a focus on knowing God better. Turn to Genesis chapter 35. This is a little-known chapter and could easily be skipped over without much thought but it actually tells us a lot about Jacob and a lot about God and a lot about ourselves. Last week we looked at a much more famous passage where Jacob’s father, Isaac, was almost sacrificed by his father, Abraham. That obviously worked out to where nobody got killed and now Isaac’s son, Jacob has his own family but it’s not working out too well for him right now.

All of Jacob’s life, he has lived up to his name which means “deceiver.” You remember he deceived his father, Isaac, and stole his brother’s blessing. He deceived his brother, his father, and his uncle. Then his uncle deceived him so he then deceived his uncle again and then deceived his brother one more time years later. Now, all that deception is catching up to him.

While you turn to Genesis 35, let me give you a brief run down on what has happened to Jacob so far. Early on, Jacob manages to cheat his older brother out of his birthright and his blessing. And obviously Esau wasn’t too happy about that so in Genesis 27, we read that “Esau hated Jacob” and planned to kill him as soon as his father Isaac died. So, his mom tells Jacob to go to Paddan-aram to the home of Laban, her brother, to find a wife.

On his trip, Jacob stops in Luz, where he falls asleep and has a dream in which God repeats the promise He had made to Abraham and Isaac to bless all the families of the earth through Jacob’s offspring. When Jacob wakes up, he is afraid and makes a vow to God: “If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house. And of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you.” (Genesis 28:18-22 ESV)

On the surface, it looks like Jacob makes a sincere vow to God, but Jacob is actually doing the same thing many of us do when we find ourselves in a tight spot – he plays “Let’s Make a Deal” with God. He knows that his brother Esau has promised to kill him as soon as Isaac dies, so he makes a deal with God – “God if you’ll protect me, then this place will be your house and I will give you a tenth of everything I have”. But for the next 30 years of his life, even though God keeps his part of the bargain, Jacob pretty much forgets his promise.

At the beginning of chapter 31, God comes to Jacob and tells him to return to the land of his fathers and promises to be with him. So, Jacob takes his family and livestock and leaves Paddan-aran. But instead of going home to the land of his people as God had commanded, Jacob stops in the city of Shechem and buys a piece of land there and pitches his tent. That is like God telling you to move out of Oklahoma and go to Bridgeport. So, you pack up your family and move to…Decatur. Close but not obedience.

That turns out to be a poor decision because there in Shechem, Jacob’s daughter is violated by the son of the prince of the land. And in his usual “hands off” approach to life, Jacob hears about this atrocity, but really doesn’t do anything to address it. But his sons devise a plan to seek revenge and Jacob’s sons kill all the males in the city. Now Jacob is afraid that the Canaanites and Perizzites are going to come and attack him for what his sons did. That brings us to this morning’s passage in Genesis 35. So, finally, let’s read Genesis 35:1-7.

Then God said to Jacob, "Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau." 2So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, "Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. 3Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone." 4So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem. 5Then they set out, and the terror of God fell on the towns all around them so that no one pursued them. 6Jacob and all the people with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan. 7There he built an altar, and he called the place El Bethel, because it was there that God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.

If you didn’t know anything else about Jacob, you might read this and think he was being obedient to God’s call just like his old granddad, Abraham, did. God told Abe to get up and go and immediately he got up and went. Can you imagine coming from that kind of heritage? Can you imagine being the grandson of Abraham, the father of their religion and ours? He was also the son of the great Isaac who also showed great faith and through whom God’s plan and promise was being carried out. Then…there’s Jacob…the deceiver.

Jacob’s kids were acting like out-of-control hoodlums. He had been in trouble himself many times and still had people that wanted to kill him. He had made so many bad choices he didn’t know what consequences he was suffering from what choices anymore. His life was a mess. But God wasn’t through with Jacob yet. God called Jacob and Jacob heard. But this time is different. I’m sure God had spoken to him before and I’m sure Jacob was sensitive to it. He heard God speak and he knew he needed to get right with God but sometimes that’s scary and so Jacob would vow to himself to try harder. He’s gonna turn over a new leaf. He will be better and try harder and really do right this time. But it never worked. It only got worse.

But this time it was different. This time he decided to just be obedient. He had tried everything else. He had tried to be good and tried to make wise choices but it was just too much. He needed help. He had not been a very good father or husband in the past but this time he was obedient to what God called him to do and to go where God called him to go. Before, he had tried to do it all himself. This time, with God’s help, he is leading his family in the way of the Lord.

But notice what he tells them to do in verse 2. Okay family, time to go but before we do, I want everything that you value more than Jehovah God. Give it to me right now. Put it in my hand. Every idol, every statue, every trinket that represents something not of God has to go. Give me those earrings with the cute little popular designs on them that represent other gods. Give me the jewelry with false gods represented on there. We’re getting rid of all that stuff once and for all.

For once, Jacob stands up like a man and becomes the spiritual leader of his household like God intended for all men. 2 Corinthians 11:3 says, “Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.” That’s not Todd talking. That is God because God is a God of order and that is to be the order in a home. God the Father is over Christ. Christ is over the man and the man is over the woman. We have talked about this before. It has nothing to do with who is better or who is more worthy or more talented. It’s just God’s order of things and when it is followed, it works well.

Men, it’s time to take your place. Your wife needs you. Your kids need you. Your country needs you now more than ever. What we are seeing in the news today and for the past couple of months especially is what happens when the men of this country don’t follow God’s rules of order in the family. When mothers have to raise the kids by themselves because the man is always at work and only comes home to relax and sleep, you can expect the family to suffer and that’s bad.

What’s worse is when the father has no presence in the child’s home at all. Now the woman has to raise the kids and work full time which means the babysitter and the TV are really raising the kids. I’m going to say something that is very unpopular right now but it is truth. Everybody is on the news crying about racism. Everybody wants their rights. The LGBT community is upset because they don’t have the rights they think they deserve. Let’s pull down statues and paint graffiti on the streets and loot the stores we used to shop in. All of this is the result of the so-called sexual revolution.

With the sexual revolution that started in the sixties and seventies, we started to glorify sex outside of marriage. It became cool for men to have multiple partners. It was how they showed their manliness and it was a lie of Satan. It led to men having children with any number of women but marrying none of them. It was all about the chase not about the consequences. Well, now the consequences are burning down our country and blaming it on everybody and everything except where the blame belongs.

The black community is disproportionately affected by this. According to the U.S Census Bureau, “the percentage of White children under 18 who live with both parents almost doubles that of Black children, according to the data. While 74.3 percent of all White children below the age of 18 live with both parents, only 38.7 percent of African American minors can say the same.”

“Instead, more than one-third of all Black children in the United States under the age of 18 live with unmarried mothers—compared to 6.5 percent of White children. The figures reflect a general trend: During the 1960-2016 period, the percentage of children living with only their mother nearly tripled from 8 to 23 percent.”

For all races, when there is no father in the house the CDC and the US Department of Health statistics show that 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (US Dept. Of Health/Census) – 5 times the average. 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes – 32 times the average. 85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average.  (Center for Disease Control) 80% of rapists come from fatherless homes.

Whether or not you have a father present in the home is the greatest determiner for whether you commit crime, smoke, drink, do drugs and have sex before marriage. It is the greatest predictor of whether kids will stay in school, go to college or run away. I can bore you for hours with statistics if you want. (I have read them.) But this country has turned away from God’s plan for the family and we are paying the price.

Jacob finally stood up and I am sure that it was a hard decision. But he stood up and told his family basically what was said later in Joshua 24:15. “But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."

God had revealed Himself before to Jacob. Look at verse 6 again. He called the place Bethel which means house of God but in verse 7 he slightly changes the name to El-Bethel which literally means God of the house of God. He called it Bethel because he was impressed with the place. Later on he called it El-Bethel because he was impressed with the God of the place. God had revealed Himself to Jacob before but this time it was after so many mess-ups. He had failed so many times. His kids were adults now and he had never really done what he was supposed to do but now God is giving him a second chance. Or maybe more like a 200^th chance.

We didn’t read it before but I want to read verses 11-13 to you now. Genesis 35:11-13 says, “11And God said to him, "I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will be among your descendants. 12The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you." 13Then God went up from him at the place where he had talked with him.”

God called him out of a dangerous place where he never should have been and God called him because He wanted to bless him. God wanted to reveal Himself to Jacob so He could bless Jacob but Jacob had to be obedient and had to do exactly what God said, leaving anything and anyone behind that was going to hinder that from happening. Hebrews 12:1 says, “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

Throw off that sin that tangles us up like a fishing lure. Throw off the idols. Throw off the remembrances. Throw off the way of life that we used to live. Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” You have tried what seems right and best and wise to you. Now, just stop and let God guide you. Do what He has been telling you to do all along.

This is truth for everybody but I am speaking, or rather God is speaking mainly to men today. Guys, all you have to do is turn on the news for five minutes. That’s about all you’ll be able to handle anyway. But what you’ll see is what Paul told Timothy 2,000 years ago and it is more true than ever before. He said in 2 Timothy 3, “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”

If that’s not 2020 I don’t know what is. Paul said that’s what the end times are going to be like. I wake up every day surprised that Jesus hasn’t come back yet. I don’t know when that will be but I guarantee it won’t be long. Men, you don’t have much longer to get your life straight and then lead your family in the way of the Lord. It is show and tell time for your kids and grandkids. You need to tell them the Gospel and show them the Gospel. You need to tell it – often – and live it – always! If you don’t, who will???

I’m out of time. There is so much more to say. What are your idols? What way is God calling you out of and what way is He calling you into? We will talk more about that tonight. Let me just say that I don’t know how people get through this life without a relationship with God. At some point in everybody’s life, you realize this life is just too much and you need help. Where do you turn if you don’t have Jesus?

I want to encourage you this morning that it is not too late. It is not too late to start leading your family in the way of the Lord. It is not too late to be obedient to God and if you don’t truly know God and have a relationship with Him, it’s not too late to do that.

Jesus was asked what a person had to do to get to Heaven and Jesus said all you have to do is believe. That is all you have to do but so many people misunderstand what that word “believe” means. It means to truly devote your life to God. It means to be obedient to what scripture says. It means to have a life-changing relationship with God through His Son Jesus.

This morning right where you are, whether you are here in person, watching on Facebook or reading this in print, go to God in prayer and start by asking Him for forgiveness of all your many sins. He knows what you have done but you need to admit it and own it. Then ask Him to come into your life in a way that changes you from the inside out. I would love to talk with you more about this and pray with you. Do it right now. We aren’t guaranteed another breath.