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"Keep Your Eyes on the Promises of God!"
I read an author a few years ago who seemed to have his
finger on the pulse of the challenge of reading the Bible.
He put it this way: "a few years ago I tried to read the
Bible from cover to cover. Unfortunately, somewhere along
in the Book of Leviticus, I boggethed down!" I
believe this is true of all readers of the Bible at one
time or another.
It might even be true for you today. We have reached the
seventh week of our year-long sojourn through the Bible
called Thy Kingdom Come, and it just might be that
you are beginning to boggeth down a bit. So let's
take a moment or two to wade through the bog. The key is
where we place our focus. In baseball, the key is to keep
your eye on the ball. In the Old Testament, the key is to
keep your eye on the promises of God. If you attempt to keep
your eyes on the people of God, they will let you down every
time, but if you keep your eyes on the promises of God you
will see that he is faithful every time! So, let's start
with Adam and Eve. Remember them? This couple has everything
you can possibly imagine, but instead they decided to do
the one thing which God asked them not to do. Yet, in the
middle of this mess which they created and passed down to
you and me, God makes them a promise. He promises in Genesis
3:15 that one day one of their descendents would crush the
head of Satan and provide salvation for them and for you and me.
Next, we focused on Noah and the Flood, Genesis 6-11. The
chilling part of this narrative was found not so much in
the waters, but rather in the fact that when God looked
into the hearts of his people, what he saw resembled a bad
reality show entitled: "All Evil, All the Time!" Yet in
spite of all of this, God promised that he would never
again destroy the Earth by flood and he sealed that promise
with a sign that is as beautiful today as it must have
been when Noah saw it for the first time, the colorful
rainbow that so often follows rain.
Our journey led on to Genesis 12 where we meet for the
very first time a man named Abraham. The promise which
God makes to him is the most important promise in the
entire Old Testament. God promised Abraham that he
would bless him, that he would be a blessing, and that
through his descendents all the nations of the world
would be blessed. Then last week, we journeyed to
Genesis, Chapter 22 and we watched as God, who had
finally given Abraham and Sarah a son, and now he asked
for him back. Amazingly, Abraham did what the Lord
commanded and in a story which would challenge any
thrill on the Borders shelf, God stops Abraham at the
nick of time and promises him again that is descendents
would be more numerous than the sands of the seashore
and that through them all the nations of the world could
indeed anticipate a blessing.
Today our story continues with descendents of Abraham and
God's promise to them. What we can't help but notice is
one of the most important truths in the Scriptures: just
because God makes a promise to his people, that doesn't
mean they are perfect, far from it in fact. Today we
meet a family which Vicar Jurchen, in our Kingdom Page,
imaged could easily have gotten air time with Dr. Phil.
They are, to say the least, a dysfunctional family. As
we pick up the narrative we find Isaac and his wife
Rebekah and their twin sons, Esau and Jacob. We find
them doing everything a family should not. The mother
seems to have learned how to get what she wants by
deceiving her husband. The two sons come out of the womb
fighting and they don't ever seem to stop. The parents
don't help matters much when Isaac favors the older
son and Rebekah the younger.
But what is most startling is the way they all seem to
treat the promises of God. Jacob, who has been promised
that he will carry on the line of his grandfather Abraham,
tries to get this place by trickery and deceit. Esau,
on the other hand, treats this promise with such contempt
that he is willing to trade it for a bowl of stew.
It would be the kind of story that would have us shaking
our heads in disbelief if it just wasn't all so true to
life. The truth is that no one in this room is a stranger
to a dysfunctional family. As my good friend and colleague
Pastor Arp is fond of saying, if you want to see a dysfunctional
family, all you have to do is marry a papa sinner to a
mama sinner and let them bring baby sinners into the world,
and voila, one dysfunctional family.
We all know how it feels. Now matter how good you imagine
your family life to be or have been, the characteristics of
Isaac and Rebekah's family sound all too familiar. Have
you ever found yourself jockeying for position in your
family or elsewhere in your life. What were you willing
to do to get ahead, so to speak, are there any tricks, or
quiet schemes in your distant or not so distant past? Have
you ever found yourself saying or doing what other person
wanted, not because it was good for them, but because it
was good for you? Have you ever hurt anybody else as you
strived to get what you wanted?
And what about favorites - has this ever been an issue in
your life? Were there favorites in your family growing up
or in your own family now? What about in your workplace?
Have you always treated others equally, or have some gotten
a bit more? Or perhaps you are still harboring an old hurt
because of favorites often got what you would like to have
had?
But the hardest truth of all, far from the concerns of
trickery and favorites, is the reality that we, like
this family of old, often treat the promises of God
with contempt. We tend to treat God as if he is to be
there when we need him or to be there to take the blame
when things don't go our way, but the rest of the time
we would rather prefer that he would stay out of our way.
How often have we heard of all the things that God has
done for us, and yet imagined there are far more important
bowls of stew out there upon which we would like give our
focus and attention.
As we read through the Old Testament, time and time again
we will find that Abraham and his descendents do not deserve
the promises of God, and neither do we. So I guess the real
question is, what is God doing all the while Isaac, Rebekah,
Jacob, Esau - oh, and you and me - are busy trying to get
what we want? The answer is simple, and life-changing ...
he is busy keeping his promises anyway, in spite of everything.
We see this few places better than in the life of Jacob. He
has tricked his brother out of his birthright, and then he
has done so again, joining in the schemes of his mother to
cheat the aging Isaac out of a blessing and promise that will
ultimately lead to a manger in Bethlehem. No surprise,
Esau - who has treated his birthright with contempt - is now more
than a little angry with his brother and seeks to kill him.
When we meet Jacob again, we do so during a fitful sleep.
Listen to what happens next: Read Genesis 28:10-17.
It seems so incredible. After all that Jacob has done,
God keeps his promise anyway. And it is right and proper
for us to thank God that he does, because in the fulfillment
of this promise comes our salvation when Jesus travels down
the stairway from heaven, you might say, into our world and
into our lives. Jesus is received no better than we might
have expected. The world into which he came is one which
was treated him and the promises of his father with contempt.
The people of his day were far more interested in being
favorites and getting all of the recognition for the same.
Along the way, they had managed to reduce God to a list of
do’s and don’ts for which they patted themselves on the
back. Finally, to secure this comfortable place they had
to place a cross upon the back of Jesus.
Jesus traveled to the cross to fulfill the promises that
God has made to his people and to you and me from the
beginning of time. There on the cross he did what endured
what we deserved to give us what we do not. For on the
cross and in the tomb Jesus earned for us the forgiveness
of our sins and the promise that one day he would come
again to take us up that ladder to heaven to dwell with
him there forever.
It has been a long time since Jesus’ life, death, and
resurrection. It is no real surprise that our world around
us and we ourselves have become so often boggethed down and
perhaps lost sight of God and his promises. So let’s focus
on them again for a moment or two. In this account, we are
reminded that God always keeps his promises, in spite of
everything. In your daily life and mine, we can celebrate
the fact that while we are far from perfect, God works
through us anyway.
In the meantime, it is right and proper that we might glean
something else practical for our lives today. Please take
out your Kingdom Page (reference the Actively Engaged section).
Do one or all of these this week.
The key to this life, and especially to the next is to keep
your eyes on the promises of God, and remember, one day you
will see them, when you see him face to face!
In Jesus' Name! Amen.
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