Grow Strong in God’s Grace (Wk 15)
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?