Grow Strong in God’s Grace: Learning How to be a Faithful Farmer for God’s Harvest!

“The Faith that Gives You a Limp!”

Hebrews 11:21 (NASB)

God is in the business of transforming stories through the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are to grow strong in God’s grace as active participants in the world He created. God has entrusted His creation to His people to work as His Harvest workers – “All the world’s a field, and all the disciples of Jesus Christ merely farmers!” Therefore, let’s be faithful farmers by following the four-step strategy of a hard-working farmer: 1) cultivate people with faith; 2) sow the good seed of God’s grace (the gospel) into their hearts and minds; 3) care for them as their stories are transformed into fruit-bearing plants; and 4) reap a harvest of praise as the church of Jesus Christ.

This strategy must be empowered by the Holy Spirit because apart from God we cannot bear any good fruit (John 15:5)! Therefore, harvest workers of God’s kingdom are called to grow strong in God’s grace. Let’s take the first step by learning from the transforming stories of the Hall of Faith, found in Hebrews 11.

STEP #1 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: CULTIVATE THE SOIL WITH FAITH

Today, I have the privilege of telling you the story of Jacob, but to tell his story I also must tell you about his twin brother, the older twin brother Esau. Their story is found in between last week’s teaching on verse 20 and today’s Scripture lesson found in verse 21. Everyone loves a good back story to fill in the gaps, so let’s read both, Hebrews 11:20-21, which says, “By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even regarding things to come. By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.”

Jacob’s story happened between the blessing he received from his father and the blessings he gave to Joseph’s sons, as if they were his own sons. Essentially, his whole adult life (between being a young adult and becoming elderly) is missing in Hebrews 11. His full story is behind the scenes of Hebrews 11 but aren’t the truest and most important parts of our stories often happening behind the scenes, in the gaps of our public lives. Jacob’s story is an encounter with God, which forever changed his story from selfish pride and self-sufficient scheming to graceful humility and faith.

Is this your story too? This is the story of what God’s grace can do in a person’s life, but you must be willing to leave today with a limp for it to become true in your life. Are you willing to learn how to lean on God, just like Jacob had to lean on the top of his staff when he blessed his grandchildren? Are you willing to pray that Proverbs 3:5-6 becomes a reality in your story, just like it did in Jacob’s story, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” You can’t lean on God if you are still leaning on yourself! Let’s pray for God’s grace to prevail over us today, cultivating the soil of our hearts and minds so that his good seed of grace can be planted deep in us, just like when God wrestled with Jacob, humbling him so that he would live a life for someone more than himself.

STEP #2 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: SOW THE GOOD SEED OF GOD’S GRACE

Last week, I contrasted Jacob and Esau by how they valued the promises of God in their own lives. Jacob highly valued and prioritized the promise of God that was passed through his father’s blessing. The birthright and blessing were rightfully Esau’s (the first born), but through Jacob’s trickery and scheming, Esau sold his birthright for a single meal and then despised it. Last week, we read this story from Genesis 25:27-34 and highlighted its implications from Hebrews 12:15-17. This would not have been possible if it weren’t for Esau’s complete disregard for spiritual things; his focus was on the temporary pleasures and opportunities of the world.

Selling his birthright flowed out of Esau’s calloused heart, just as tricking his brother for his birthright flowed out of Jacob’s desperate heart! Esau and Jacob are three-dimensional people – warts and all. If you thought Esau was an easy target, you don’t have to look hard to find the character flaw that threads throughout Jacob’s story and eventually this flaw in his personhood becomes the point of why Jacob is such an important biblical character to whom we all can honestly relate. Then, by God’s grace for God’s glory, Jacob’s story can become our story, and all our stories can tell a better story – the story of God’s grace and faithfulness! Through Jacob, we learn how to live strong in God’s grace today!

Jacob was a self-centered sinner to the core of who he was from birth! In fact, this was so obvious in Jacob that it’s why he was named Jacob. His name means “heal-grabber” and carries with it the implied meaning of being a cheater or deceiver. From the womb, Jacob wanted what he believed to be his: the blessing and birthright of the first-born son (Genesis 25:23-26). You know Jacob’s type – everything is about them, their preferences, and how it impacts them. I know the type because I am a recovering self-centered sinner too. To be redeemed, I had to have an encounter with the God of grace, learning from faith to walk with a limp!

Jacob was a self-sufficient schemer! Jacob was so desperate for what he thought should be his (and not his brother’s!) that he took matters into his own hands. He worked hard! He was stronger! He was more than capable of making his own way in the world! You know Jacob’s type – they don’t want help or even admit that they need help. This is the self-made person that thinks they are better than others because they’ve worked for everything they have. I know the type because I am a recovering workaholic. To be redeemed, I had to have an encounter with the God of grace, learning from faith to walk with a limp! The mystery of God’s grace is that until we have an encounter with God that causes us to trust Him, rather than trust ourselves, we will never get off the ground. There must be a seed planted, for there to be a fruit-bearing tree!

Jacob’s story is all about the faithfulness of God: God unrelentingly pursued Jacob! By God’s grace, God spoke over Jacob’s life from his mother’s womb in Genesis 25:23, “The Lord said to [Rebekah], ‘Two nations are in your womb; and two peoples will be separated from your body; and one people shall be stronger than the other; and the older shall serve the younger.’”

In the same way, God knew us before we were born. All of us have been born self-centered, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). God knows the truth about us and that we deserve eternal separation from Him, yet He still loves us and chose to bless us through His Son – “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). I know this is true about me! You can’t move on to the next step until you believe this truth – the seed of faith through God’s grace must be planted if you are going to be transformed into a fruit-bearing tree! Do you believe it is true about you?

STEP #3 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: CARE FOR THE MATURING PLANT

By God’s grace, when God should have struck Jacob dead for his scheming and trickery, he met him in the wilderness as he ran for his life the first time. When Jacob’s self-centered, self-sufficient scheming finally caught with him and what he deserved was death, God met him and showed him grace in Genesis 28:10-22:

Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and spent the night there, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head, and lay down in that place. He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” So Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on its top. He called the name of that place Bethel; however, previously the name of the city had been Luz. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I return to my father’s house in safety, then the Lord will be my God. This stone, which I have set up as a pillar, will be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.”

In the same way, God meets us in our circumstances with His grace, as Romans 5:8 states, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” I know this is true for me! Do you believe it is true for you?

By God’s grace, twenty years after God met Jacob in his escape from Esau, he was running again, this time from his father-in-law Laban. He had not repented of his ways, but continued in his own self-sufficiencies and pride, finding Laban to be his equal in self-focused snobbery and self-consumed scheming, lying, and deceiving. Yet, God did not forsake nor leave Jacob! God met Jacob, so desperate, so fearful, so lost in himself, that it took God Himself to show up on the scene to intervene for Jacob. This story is found in Genesis 28-32.

Sound familiar? God has shown up once for all to intervene! As Jesus said in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” What does it take for a person to realize that they are so lost they can’t save themselves? There was Jacob on the run again for his life, from Laban going back to Esau, from whom God had rescued the first time. Jacob was uncertain of his own future, and in his anxiety and fear, can you guess what he did, yet again. He schemed, still not trusting anyone but himself, still not believing the very promises of God that he had stolen from Esau, because all this time he still didn’t get it. Jacob still thought it was all about him. He had gone so far, but still had so far to go. What would it take to get through to this man?  That brings us to the last action step because every farmer expects to experience a harvest of praise from all that hard work of cultivating the soil, planting good seed, and caring for the maturing plant!

STEP #4 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: REAP A HARVEST OF PRAISE

It all changed in one night, the night before he was to be confronted by Esau. Jacob was rightfully scared, fearful for his own life as his brother had pledged to kill him all those years ago. Esau was coming out to greet him with an army of 400 armed men. Jacob devised one of his brilliant plans, his scheming was found in about every detail of it, figured for everything, but, once again, He left out one main factor: God’s transformative power over Esau’s heart! Little did Jacob know, in the same way that he would be greeted with love and acceptance the next day by his brother, that very night God was going to give him a limp that would forever transform his story. Genesis 32:22-32 captures this life transforming moment in Jacob’s life:

Now he arose that same night and took his two wives and his two maids and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream. And he sent across whatever he had. Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” But he said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” He said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him and said, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And he blessed him there. So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved.” Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Penuel, and he was limping on his thigh. Therefore, to this day the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew of the hip which is on the socket of the thigh, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew of the hip.

Jacob was never the same after encountering God! God does for Jacob that which Jacob could not do for himself: God touched him with His grace, a power that overwhelmed him and broke him of his scheming and self-sufficiency. God’s grace changed Jacob’s name to Israel. A person’s character is found in his or her name. When God asks Jacob his name, it is not because God did not know his name, it is because God was asking Jacob to confess his true nature as a self-centered, scheming man. But it took the severe mercy of God’s touch on Jacob’s hip to bring him to the end of his own self-sufficiencies. And at the confession of his own name, Jacob acknowledged his own character and his own desperate need for God, becoming Israel, which means, “He who strives/wrestles with God.” Jacob was no longer defined by his sin, but by his relationship with God! As Paul taught in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

God’s grace restored Jacob’s relationship with his brother Esau (Genesis 33:1-11). In the light of having experienced the grace of God through personally wrestling with God, Jacob now saw the face of God in the very man he had once treated as an obstacle to the promises of God! Don’t miss the miracle: Jacob had a new outlook on life! His story was transformed by grace!

In the same way, God changes your worldview when you have been saved from self by God’s grace; people are no longer obstacles to your plans and schemes, but now they are the objects of our affections and actions. You are now a minister of reconciliation; Paul taught us of our new purposes in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19:

Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

God’s grace healed Jacob’s desperate heart. We see this at the very end of his life, when Jacob passed on the blessing to the next generation with peace in his heart because he had learned that day to trust in God and not in himself, “By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff” (Hebrews 11:21). It’s amazing to me that the Bible highlights his limp by emphasizing his need to lean on top of his staff. We watch Israel limp across the river and into the unknown future, not perfectly but by God’s perfect grace to tell a different story, no longer his own, but God’s story of grace.

In the same way, we are commanded to proclaim the story of our limp in 2 Corinthians 5:20, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” We each are touched by grace to give us a limp so that wherever we go, we will be reminded that God’s grace is our only sufficiency. According to 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Paul had a thorn in his flesh and through his limp, found true life in God’s grace:

Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me – to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

Paul had a thorn in the flesh given to him by God. Jacob had a limp also given to him by God. What’s your limp and how does it remind you to lean on God’s grace as your sufficiency?

You can watch this video by clicking HERE.

Learning How to be a Faithful Farmer for God’s Harvest!

The Faith that Blesses!

Hebrews 11:20 (NASB)

God is in the business of transforming stories through the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are to grow strong in God’s grace as active participants in the world He created. God has entrusted His creation to His people to work as His Harvest workers – “All the world’s a field, and all the disciples of Jesus Christ merely farmers!” Therefore, let’s be faithful farmers by following the four-step strategy of a hard-working farmer: 1) cultivate people with faith; 2) sow the good seed of God’s grace (the gospel) into their hearts and minds; 3) care for them as their stories are transformed into fruit-bearing plants; and 4) reap a harvest of praise as the church of Jesus Christ.

This strategy must be empowered by the Holy Spirit! Therefore, harvest workers of God’s kingdom are called to grow strong in God’s grace. Let’s take the first step by learning from the transforming stories of the Hall of Faith, found in Hebrews 11.

STEP #1 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: CULTIVATE THE SOIL WITH FAITH

Today, we are telling the story of Isaac, based on Hebrews 11:20, which says, “By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even regarding things to come.”[1] From Isaac’s story, we are going to learn the faith that blesses.

How did you come into the faith? What is the starting point of your transforming story? Kimberly and I both came to know Jesus through outreach ministries to the military; we were both young adults out of high school and in the beginning of our military service. Maybe you were blessed to come from a home filled with godliness and faith, and you have been a Christian as long as you can remember. What a privilege and joy! That is our prayer for our three children and for all the children of our congregation. Regardless of how or when your story began, in Christ we each have the power to bless another generation. Though the story of Isaac and his twin sons, Jacob and Esau, we are going to learn the power and choice of blessing people by planting the good seed of God’s grace in their lives through faith.

STEP #2 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: SOW THE GOOD SEED OF GOD’S GRACE

The context of this whole Hebrews 11 passage is that one word: faith! Hebrews 11:1 teaches us that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” It means to put your whole trust in someone or something. In this case, and throughout the Bible the object of our faith is in God, who is trustworthy and true. In fact, the purpose of highlighting the people and their stories is to teach us more about who God is and that He is faithful. God is worthy to put all our weight on Him, just as we learned last week through the Abraham-Isaac story. The stories bring to life these doctrinal truths through illustration, illumination, and inspiration!

We have been learning about the faith and obedience of Isaac’s parents, Abraham and Sarah. Though far from perfect as a man and woman, above all they modeled a real relationship with God. Truly, they imperfectly put their full trust in God and God’s grace perfectly sustained them. They believed and they acted upon this belief because they are people of the promise, and Isaac’s very life was the fulfillment of God’s promise to them. We learned of God’s faithfulness and trustworthiness through the very existence of Isaac. Isaac was a miracle baby!

Here is what we know about Isaac: his birth was foretold, longed for, and miraculous (Genesis 21:1-3). He was circumcised by the very hand of his father Abraham on the eighth day as a sign of the covenant that God had personally made with Abraham (Genesis 21:4). Isaac’s mom died at 127 years old, when he was approximately thirty-seven years old, since he was born when she was 90 (Genesis 23:1). She died approximately twenty years after the climactic event of Genesis 22, when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his one and only son as an act of worship (check out last week’s teaching). I can only imagine how for thirty-seven years Sarah loved Isaac and spoke of why he was named, “Laughter.” With a smile on her face, she would recount her own lack of faith in God’s plan to give her a baby at 90, and how Isaac shouldn’t make the same mistake: God had proven time and time again, through Isaac’s birth, his experience with her crazy husband on the mount in Moriah as a teenager, that God is a great provider and worthy of all his trust. This would have been a mother on a mission to make sure her son knew he was a miracle, chosen by God, and blessed by his parents, for a purpose.

What is amazing about Isaac is his rich faith heritage. When many focus on the speculation of his psychological damage caused by being a teenage boy who was almost slaughtered at the hands of his father Abraham, their musings miss out on the one thing that is the point of this ongoing story of the people of God’s promise; that is the powerful influence of one generation’s faith on the next generation. Isaac’s family blessed him to be a blessing to others! That is the promise of Genesis 12:2-3, given to Abraham, passed on to Isaac, “I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing… in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

How can your home be a place of faith where the next generation is not indulged, but rather blessed so that they will be a blessing to others? When I serve my children, I tell them that I do it  so that they will learn to serve others. I bless them so that they will learn to be a blessing to others! That takes us to our next action step.

STEP #3 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: CARE FOR THE MATURING PLANT

Isaac may have been a second-generation follower of God, but he believed in God’s promises for himself. His father’s God was His God. His mother’s God was His God. His faith was His own! Isaac was blessed to live in a family with faith, but even as a member of that community, he had to know God for himself. The promise of Genesis 12 had to become his own, just as all the promises of God through Jesus Christ must become our own. The faith of the previous generation is passed on to us so that we can make it our own, passing it on to the next generation.

God provided a faithful wife to Isaac in Rebekah (see Genesis 24). Isaac was 40 when he was married and 60 when Abraham died. Before his death, God blessed Isaac with great abundance; Genesis 25:5 says, “Now Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac.” Interestingly, the Bible makes it clear in Genesis 25:11 who was really doing the blessing, “It came about after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac.” After Abraham died, God adopted Isaac as his own son; He did not leave Isaac as an orphan! Jesus said in John 14:18, “I will not leave you as orphans.” God tends to the maturing plant through the presence and power of His Spirit!

So, like Abraham before him, Isaac was blessed with everything, except the one thing that was necessary to keep passing on the legacy – a child! For twenty years they had tried to conceive a child (Genesis 25:26), then when Isaac was 60, God blessed them as Genesis 25:21 records, “Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived.” Isaac had a faith that blessed! He learned this from his mom and dad, but he had to make it his own!

Every generation must embrace faith as their own because God does not have grandchildren; He has children! In the same way that Abraham and Sarah wandered through the nothingness of infertility, so did Isaac and Rebekah. For twenty years, they had to wrestle with their own faith and trust in God; to believe God to keep His promises. To learn that God is good! Faith becomes your own when you have personally had to put your full weight into God. You see, you can’t bless someone with a future promise that you yourself don’t believe in. Sure, you can give them a family name and maybe some money and stuff in an estate, but you can’t pass on to the next generation what you don’t have yourself! Brothers and sisters, what matters is that you pass on the name of Jesus! The name that you have learned through life’s hardest circumstances is trustworthy and true! It is only by the name of Jesus you will have an eternal legacy.

Do you believe? One day, when each of us must stand before God to give an account for our lives, it will be just you and Him. No pastors, no parents, no excuses, no ATMs, just God and you… Do you know Him? Do you trust Him? Are you reaping the good fruit of a life of faith by having plenty of seed-rich fruit to hand to those in your life? That brings us to our last action step in the hard-working farmer’s strategy.

STEP #4 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: REAP A HARVEST OF PRAISE

Jacob and Esau are real people in real history; they are the twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah, the grandchildren of Abraham and Sarah. These miracle babies, a set of twins that Jacob blessed according to Hebrews 11:20, represent so much more than who they are. We cannot spend as much time with these brothers as I would like, and prefer as a Bible teacher, but for today’s purposes allow me to draw an important contrast between them. Genesis 25:27-34 says a lot in a short space:

When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field, but Jacob was a peaceful man, living in tents. Now Isaac loved Esau, because he had a taste for game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. When Jacob had cooked stew, Esau came in from the field and he was famished; and Esau said to Jacob, “Please let me have a swallow of that red stuff there, for I am famished.” Therefore his name was called Edom. But Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright.” Esau said, “Behold, I am about to die; so of what use then is the birthright to me?” And Jacob said, “First swear to me”; so he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew; and he ate and drank, and rose and went on his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

Here is the contrast: Jacob highly valued the birthright of the promise of God and Esau despised his because of his own foolish decisions. Jacob and Esau both have some glaring character flaws, but what matters is that they both made a choice: Jacob for the promise of God and Esau for the pleasures of the world.

You have a choice: every generation must choose whether they will be a Jacob or Esau.

Esau violated the covenant of God, married many foreign wives (Hittites and an Ishmaelite) representing his compromises away from the promises of God and yoking with the world, and he fathered nations who war against God’s people, just like Ishmael fathered great nations who still war against God’s people. Listen to the summary of Esau’s bitterness at rejecting his own birthright and choosing foreign wives, from Genesis 26:35, “They made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah” (ESV). “Esau” passes on bitterness and grief (NASB), generation after generation.

Bitterness begets bitterness! What are some examples in our everyday lives of how we choose Esau: the bitterness of the world? To put it plainly; it happens when we choose to be doomsdayers! When you choose to be negative and nitpicky, as if you are always looking for what is wrong rather than choosing to see what is right, on the verge of anger most of the time, ready to go on the defensive and build a case for your own point of view, living in blame and accusation, critical of others instead of looking for ways to build up and edify, never satisfied rather than living in contentment, never trusting another, but putting yourself first because your worldview as a doomsdayer demands that you protect the glass house you have constructed.

There is a way out of bitterness and the consequences of choosing the mindset and lifestyle of a doomsdayer. Jesus sets the prisoners free; He heals the brokenhearted; and He uproots bitter roots! In short, Jesus is our living hope and transforms us from being doomsdayers to being hope-bearers! Church, we are the hope of the world! We are to reap a harvest of praise – declaring the hope of the blessing of God, given to us through Jesus Christ!

Jacob’s legacy is the twelve tribes of Israel through whom the Savior – Jesus Christ – was born to carry the promise of Genesis 12 to all the nations. Jacob passed on to us blessings and peace. Genesis 28:3-4 records Isaac’s blessing to Jacob when he sends him back to Rebekah’s people to find a wife and to protect him from his enraged brother Esau, “May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. May He also give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your descendants with you, that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which God gave to Abraham.”

Blessing begets blessing! What are some examples in our everyday lives of how we can choose Jacob: the blessings of God? This is where you declare, right now, out loud for everyone to hear you: I AM A HOPE-BEARER! God has called you to be a person of faith, hope, and love! God has given you the sufficiency of His grace so that you can live strong in God’s grace! God has given you forgiveness through His Son Jesus Christ so that you can forgive others as God first forgave you. God has given you the Holy Spirit, so that you may reap the fruit of the Spirit for all taste and seed that God is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). A hope-bearer endures to the end, show resiliency when knocked down, is faithful to God and His mission, and is humble – reaping a harvest of praise to the glory of God!

It’s a choice! I present to you today a choice between generational blessings and generational curses. Jacob and Esau’s sibling rivalry has become regional and national conflict today, millennia later, continuing to breed bitterness and grief. But they also represent the choice each person must make to receive between the blessings of God and the bitterness of the world. Hebrews 12:15-17 confronts us with this choice of bitterness or blessing:

See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled; that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.

Do you want to have a transforming story? It’s a choice between blessing and bitterness. The time ran out for Esau; it was too late to get back what he had rejected for the world! But you are here today, there is breath in your lungs, and there is still time for repentance: REJECT BITTERNESS! Don’t be a doomsdayer! Grow strong in God’s grace and live your life as a hope-bearer! God’s grace is available to you today personally. Until the Lord Jesus returns or you take your last breath on this earth, you can receive the promises of God as yours through faith in Jesus Christ.

Jesus came into the world as the light of God to show the way to God’s blessings. The gospel invites you today to accept Jesus Christ and to receive the promises of God, as John 1:11-13 promises:

He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

You cannot rest on your parents’ faith, your faith heritage, or you church affiliation. The most important decision of your life is what you do with Jesus Christ. This is a holy moment of decision. Today can be the first day of your eternal legacy… Today, you are being invited to receive the faith that blesses. It will bless you, then it will bless through you!

You can watch this message by clicking HERE.

FOOTNOTE:

Grow Strong in God’s Grace: Learning How to be a Faithful Farmer for God’s Harvest!

The Faith that Passes the Test!

Hebrews 11:17-19 (NASB)

God is in the business of transforming stories through the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are to grow strong in God’s grace as active participants in the world He created. God has entrusted His creation to His people to work as His Harvest workers – “All the world’s a field, and all the disciples of Jesus Christ merely farmers!” Therefore, let’s be faithful farmers by following the four-step strategy of a hard-working farmer: 1) cultivate people with faith; 2) sow the good seed of God’s grace (the gospel) into their hearts and minds; 3) care for them as their stories are transformed into fruit-bearing plants; and 4) reap a harvest of praise as the church of Jesus Christ.

This strategy must be empowered by the Holy Spirit! Therefore, harvest workers of God’s kingdom are called to grow strong in God’s grace. Let’s take the first step by learning from the transforming stories of the Hall of Faith, found in Hebrews 11.

STEP #1 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: CULTIVATE THE SOIL WITH FAITH

Faith is defined in Hebrews 11:1-2, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men [and women] of old gained approval.” Today’s transforming story confronts us in our belief in this definition of faith: What happens in life when all we have left is faith?  

A woman finds a lump and finds herself with more doctor visits in the coming months than she has had in the last decade. She prays and prays, has her family, friends, and church pray, only to hear the ‘C’ word. Her mind goes blank as she finds herself walking out of the doctor’s office not remembering anything said to her after she heard the word “cancer.” Her vision clouds over as the tears start falling… Only God knows what’s ahead of her!

A man has just lost his job. He is in his late-forties and has been at the same company since his twenties, and now he’s left with no job, nothing to show for over twenty years of loyalty. His kids are still in college. His 30-year mortgage, twice refinanced, heavy on his shoulders. His mind races out of control as he carries a cardboard box filled with family pictures and worthless tokens out the side door for the last time, heading to the parking lot, heading to his car as he fights back the tears… Only God knows his next steps!

A teenager’s parents are fighting more than ever; the word divorce being thrown around more and more. His grades are suffering, his friends are inviting him to go to parties, he is having a hard time focusing as his world seems to be crumbling around him. Is there really a God, and if so, how could He possibly be good, and does God even care about people like him? He heads out the front door confused, angry, with hopes of ending up somewhere better than here… Only God knows where!

A young couple, recently married, is so excited to have become pregnant in hopes of starting a family together. Three months later, with a nursey under construction, a baby registry filled out, names being discussed, and invitations in the mail, the wife calls the husband from work crying as something terrible is happening, as the EMTs are putting her in the ambulance. She needs him to meet her at the hospital as she won’t stop bleeding. His world starts narrowing and the next breath is too hard to take as he races out the door… Only God knows why!

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, “In Isaac your descendants shall be called.” He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.

We learn and apply Scripture by watching how the people in His story respond to their situations based on what they believed about God. Faith is a good seed designed by its architect to bear the good fruit of the Spirit in your life. Truth about God leads to life application, which is why we are to plant it like a good seed and tend to it like a maturing plant, so that we may reap a harvest of praise to the One who chose our hearts and minds as His harvest fields.  

STEP #2 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: SOW THE GOOD SEED OF GOD’S GRACE

Hebrews 11:17-19 highlights the greatest test of Abraham and Sarah’s faith. They were able to obey God because they trusted Him to keep His promises. The seed of faith was planted deep into their hearts and minds! Turn with me to the book of Genesis and let’s read their story is from Genesis 22. To focus our time, I will read verses 1-2, 7-8, 10-12, and 15-18:

Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.” … Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” And he said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together. … Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” … Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

This very well could have been one of the last things Sarah experienced in her life, as her death was soon after recorded in Genesis 23:1-2. She had walked with God, and her husband, on a very long journey, passing the greatest test of all at the end of their lives together. She trusted God for His promises and from her barren womb, opened through the power of God’s Spirit, came the promises of God to the nations. She has received the reward of her faith even though she did not live to see God’s promise fulfilled through her son Isaac, as described in Hebrews 11:13-16:

All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.

What do we learn from this dramatic story of faith? We learn that God is trustworthy and true, worthy of our trust! God keeps His promises and provides for that which He promises! God is consistent to His own character and will never violate the integrity of His character, as revealed to us in His Word and through His Son Jesus Christ. If we had time, I could share with you literally dozens of other Bible stories that testify to these truths about God. If we had all day, we could have testimony after testimony that this is true about God. Instead, let’s move to the next action step so we can learn how to live our lives according to this truth.

STEP #3 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: CARE FOR THE MATURING PLANT

This next step, the step of life application, is the hard one! If you believe that God is trustworthy, then what do you do when all you have left is your faith in a trustworthy God? This is the climax of Abraham and Sarah’s transforming story with God. They have been on amazing journey, chasing after God’s promise and the fulfillment of that which caused them to leave their homeland in search of God’s Promised Land, found in Genesis 12:1-3:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

For forty-five years, Abraham and Sarah spent time with God causing them to know His attributes and character (read Genesis 12:4-21:34). When God asked them to return to Him the precious gift, which He had given them (Isaac), they trusted God for who they knew Him to be – trustworthy in character and true to His promises!

The Bible doesn’t say it was easy for them; it just records them doing it! At the heart of this story is a man and woman who had a personal relationship with God. This elderly couple said “yes” to a painful offering: they offered their teenage son to God because He asked it of them; they did not understand His command or know if they would ever get him back. They trusted God, which allowed them to make a painful offering!

Have you ever made a painful offering to God? Maybe God wants you to give your kidney to someone else who needs it. Maybe God wants you to donate blood on a regular basis. Maybe God wants you to give your extra car to someone who needs a car. Maybe God wants you to give your time to visit lonely people or help those who can’t do what you can. Maybe God wants you to move, sell your house, quit your job, use your talents more, be generous with what He has provided for you. Maybe God wants you to help someone in need. God asks of you because He knows more than you do. He knows what you need, and He knows what is for your good!

King David said, “I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God which cost me nothing” (2 Samuel 24:24). Obedience is an outflow of trust! The good seed of faith begets faithfulness and putting your faith into practice causes you to know God more and trust Him for who He is and not for who you wish Him to be. Christianity is not about your choosing when to obey, calculating when to make sacrifices, or doing religious activities like putting coins in a vending machine, hoping God will give you what you want. That is self-serving. We must live with a constant willingness to obey, ready to respond when God asks. It is about trust!

Jesus concludes the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 7:24-27, making this specific point:

Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell – and great was its fall.

CHAIR ILLUSTRATION Speaking of falling, allow me to share one of my favorite evangelistic illustrations in hopes of bringing this together: SHOULD I PUT MY FULL WEIGHT IN THIS CHAIR?

John Paton (1824–1907), a Scot, had travelled to the New Hebrides (a group of islands in the south-west Pacific) determined to tell the tribal people about Jesus. The islanders were cannibals. Nobody trusted anybody else. His life was in constant danger. He had come to tell them the good news about Jesus. He wanted to translate John’s Gospel into their language, but he discovered that there was no word in their language for ‘faith’, ‘belief’ or ‘trust’. One day, when his indigenous servant came in, Paton raised both feet off the floor, sat back in his chair and asked, ‘What am I doing now?’ In reply, the servant used a word that means, ‘to lean your whole weight upon’. This became the expression that Paton used. Faith is leaning our whole weight upon Jesus.[1]

You don’t trust God until you have had to put your full weight upon Jesus! You can’t proclaim the faith that “God is good all the time” until you have found Him good in your own life and circumstances! Otherwise, it is truth divorced of reality. Your life of putting your full weight upon Jesus gives meaning to words such as faith, belief, or trust, which have lost meaning in today’s cancel culture. Your trust in God proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ! This takes us to our last action step.

STEP #4 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: REAP A HARVEST OF PRAISE

God did for Abraham and Sarah what they could not learn on their own; He gave them an opportunity to put their full weight onto Him! We know God for how He has revealed Himself to be to us – His character, His attributes, His actions, and His judgments. But the only way we can discover that God is who He says He is, trustworthy and true in all that He says and does, is by putting our trust in all that we know about Him as being true! This is what we learn by watching Abraham and Sarah as the people of the promise. As Genesis 22:8 quotes Abraham responding to Isaac, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” Here is where our text from Hebrews 11:19 helps us understand the depth of Abraham and Sarah’s faith: “He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type [it foreshadowed the resurrection of Jesus Christ].”   

Their faith allowed them to trust God in the worst of circumstances! With Isaac being taken from them, trust in God was all they had left… Not trust that God would give them what they wanted or fix their circumstances; but trust that no matter what may come, God was with them. Did you know that Willow is our fourth child? When my wife and I went through the miscarriage of our third child, Skyler, it was heart wrenching, but God was true to His promise: Immanuel – “God is with us!” His presence comforted us and assured us. He still does today!

I am inviting you to join with me in trusting God! I am asking you to believe and putting your faith in Jesus Christ. Faith is scandalous in today’s world; just as trusting another person is risky business, but that ends up being the point: you must risk trust to learn how to trust! You don’t really know what you think you know until you live it! You must pass the test of faith to experience the promises of God, then you reap the harvest of praise!

CHAIR ILLUSTRATION: Can you really know what a chair is unless you have put your full weight into a chair? It’s just an abstract concept until it is tested! Just like faith, which is exactly why James says, “faith without works is dead” (James 2:14-26). That’s like saying there can be a plant without a seed being planted! As Paul said in Galatians 6:7, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.”

Do you know God as trustworthy and true? Jesus gave it all on the cross so that whosoever puts their full weight onto Him “shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Will you trust Him with your life and circumstances? Will your faith pass the test of trust?

Only God knows the next step:

Bring chair down to response area: I invite you to symbolically come down and take a moment to put all your weight in this chair. Jesus invites you today from Matthew 11:28, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” Let’s pray and ask God, “Lord, help me to respond to Your gracious invitation so that I can put my full weight onto You today. I come to You today and confess, ‘I trust You. Help me with my mistrust.’ In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

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