What God Did Not Say
Scriptures: Genesis 12:1-3; Exodus 3:10; 1 Samuel 16:12-13
Introduction:
Have you ever questioned or had doubts about something you believe God told you to do because you ran into problems when you started your journey to fulfill it? There are times when we begin to act on what we believe God has told us to do with all of the motivation necessary to complete it to the best of our abilities. But there are other times when we come to a point when while we are doing what God has told us to do and things happen that make us question if we truly heard God correctly. You see, somewhere along the way we have come to believe that if God has told us to do something that it will flow perfectly and those helping us will be in total agreement with it and life would be good. There is an expectation that when we act according to God’s will that things will go as planned and if there are ever any struggles then it must mean that we have missed the boat at some point. This morning in part one of this series I’ve titled “What God Did Not Say” we will begin our search to understand how the things that God chooses not to tell us will often strengthen our faith as we are walking towards the completion of what He has told us to do. Remember, when we walk with God, we walk as blind men/women allowing God to totally dictate our steps and path.
Before I get into the heart of the message, I want to remind you of Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.” If you focus on the last part, the things not seen, it gives us the first glimpse of how there will be things that we do for God that will require that we walk without knowing everything that is going to happen. In our daily lives there have been many times that we needed the answer to everything before we would take an action. If we were going out, we needed to know where, the time, directions, how long we will stay out, etc. We had to make arrangement for a baby sitter if we had kids and make sure they knew everything that was going on also. This is how we operate in our lives on a daily basis but in our faith walk, this is impossible. God tells us what He wants us to know and then He allows us to make the decision to act on that knowledge without having or even knowing the rest of the story. We do not know how it will end or who all of the players will be, but what we have is a limited perspective of what our role will be. Once we know this we begin to take steps to walk with God…..until!
I. Old Testament Followers
In this message we will examine three Old Testament followers of God. Next week we will examine two New Testament followers of God. Turn with me to Genesis 12:1-3.
Abraham. Genesis 12:1-3 says “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth 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.” We read what God told Abraham: to leave his family and go to a strange land; that God would make a great nation of him and bless him and bless or curse those who blessed or cursed Abraham. This is what we know that God told him and we know that Abraham did just as God had told him – he left his home country to go to the place where God led him. Now, let’s consider what God did not tell Abraham at the time He told Abraham to go.
o That his nephew Lot would come with him and would eventually split from him to a city that would eventually be destroyed.
o That he would have to go into battle against other kings to rescue lot.
o That his wife would get so frustrated with not having a son that she would give him her handmaid to him so she could bear him a child in her stead.
o That his wife would get angry at her handmaid and send her and Abraham’s son away.
o That he and all of the males would have to be circumcised as a sign of the covenant between God and him.
o That a King would try to take Sarah as his wife believing she was Abraham’s sister.
o That once he had a son that he would have to sacrifice him on an altar.
None of these things did God tell Abraham about when He told Abraham to go. Abraham could have thought the journey would be easy since he was doing exactly what God had told him to do, but it was not. As Abraham faced each situation (plus many others that I did not mention) he had many opportunities to consider going back because the way was not smooth. Every time something did not go just as he thought it would, he could have thought that he misunderstood what God had told him, even though in his heart he knew that he had not. When God calls us, He never says it will be easy; He just expects us to follow Him until we have completed the journey. Let’s examine another prominent Old Testament follower of God - Moses. Turn to Exodus 3:10.
Moses. Exodus 3:10 says “Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.” When you read down through the fourth chapter, you will find that God told Moses several things about what he would face. Even though Moses tried to get out of the assignment, he finally gave in and accepted the calling that God had placed on him. Although God did warn Moses about some things, He did not tell Moses everything. For example,
o God did not tell Moses that the people he would lead out of Egypt would constantly gripe and complain about coming out of Egypt.
o He did not tell Moses that he (Moses) would get so mad at the people that he would disobey God and not be able to enter the Promised Land.
o God did not tell Moses that when they left Egypt, that Pharaoh would follow and they would end up crossing the Red Sea.
o God did not tell Moses that his brother and sister would turn against him and question his leadership.
o God did not tell Moses of all of the battles that he would face with other nations while at the same time dealing with the fears of his own people.
o God did not tell Moses that they would be in the wilderness for 40 years because the people refused to go into the Promised Land.
Now place yourself in Moses shoes. You heard directly from God what He wanted you to do, and then you had to deal with these people. We would have left those people in the wilderness and snuck off to the Promise Land by ourselves leaving them “in God’s hands”. Thank God Moses was not like us. Although he did not know everything that he would face, he did what God had commanded him to do. It would have been nice to know ahead of time some of the things he would have to deal with, but walking with God requires a blind faith that says even though I do not know, yet I will follow. Had Moses been given a heads up on everything he would face, he probably would have made different choices and we would be reading a different history. Instead, we read about a man who had the same issues we all have when we decide to walk with God without knowing the fullness of where God is taking us. Moses did not question if he had truly heard God or not based on the trials and failures he experienced; he walked with God in spite of them.
When the people complained, he dealt with it. When the people wanted to kill him, he dealt with it. When his brother and sister spoke against him, God dealt with them and then Moses forgave them. When the people refused to go into the Promise Land and they had to stay in the wilderness for 40 years, Moses was right there with them. He never lost sight of what God had told him to do. Now get this, even though he did not get to go into the Promise Land, God allowed him to see it and then God brought him home to be with him. But it does not stop there. We were taught that when people die they sleep until the day of the second coming of Christ. Well that is not true. They are in God’s presence doing stuff. I do not know everything they are doing, but they are at peace, happy and busy. Moses, even with his failure to go into the Promise Land, was held in such high regards by God that God sent him and Elijah to have a meeting with Jesus prior to Christ being crucified. You see, if God was ashamed of him because of his failures I do not believe he would have sent him to in my opinion to encourage Jesus. Moses accomplished what God had called him to do, the Children of Israel made it into the Promise Land. Let’s look at one more Old Testament follower. Turn to 1 Samuel 16:12-13.
David. 1 Samuel 16:12-13 says “So he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, with beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance. And the Lord said, ‘Arise, anoint him; for this is he.’ Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. And Samuel arose and went to Ramah.” When God removed His anointing from Saul, He placed it on David. He accomplished this through His prophet Samuel. When God told Samuel to anoint David, God did not give Samuel a lot of detail about what David would do. He did not tell Samuel about David and his future encounter with Bathsheba. He did not tell Samuel what type of King David would be. He did not tell Samuel that Saul would attempt to kill David. All Samuel knew was that God told him to anoint this young teenager as king and that is what he did. When we examine what Samuel could have done it would be easy to see him asking God if he was sure since David was just a young boy, but Samuel knew better. He knew that if God said it, there was no questioning of it.
Now consider something we do not think about often. God had told Samuel to anoint Saul as King. Saul started out as a good king but he changed. Samuel was there to witness the man he had anointed as king at God’s command and how he turned out. Samuel was the one that God called upon to “undo” some of the things that Saul did which went against what God had told him to do. Samuel was the prophet was witnessed the rise and fall of Saul and could have wondered if he (at God’s command) had made a mistake in anointing Saul and if another mistake was being made with David. Samuel could have had all of these thoughts and we will never know because he did what God told him to do. He did his job and let the rest be. He did not try to be king and tell Saul or David how to rule, he followed God and did what God told him to do – even when it was unpopular. We forget sometimes that we are following and serving God, not man. We forget that it is doing God’s will that should override everything else that comes our way.
We have often thought God had told us to do something and we start off excited and motivated. But the first time we run into any type of obstacle, we begin to question if what we were told was truly from God. We measure our ability to know God’s direction when everything falls into place and go smoothly. How many testimonies have you heard when someone stands up and says that they knew God was involved in the outcome of the situation because everything worked out. They knew they were following God because the ending was good. They knew they had it right because when all was said and done, things “just worked out for the best”.
Well what about those times when things do not go smoothly. Certainly you can look at the examples I read from the Old Testament and wonder if Moses missed the boat. I mean, God called Moses to lead the people into the Promise Land. Moses was originally supposed to go in with them – but in the end he got to see it but he did not get to go in. Did Moses miss the boat with God? Absolutely not, but other circumstances caused him not to go into the Promise Land. Now if that was one of us today, we would say that maybe the person did not really hear from God because the end result was different from what we had announced that God said they would be. If the road we’re traveling is not clear or the way easy we question whether or not we have heard the direction clearly enough. Our ability to believe that we have heard God clearly is often defined by the hardships we face as we walk with God, not by the results that come when we finish what He has called us to do.
We like things easy and we do not want to be stressed or pushed to a level of being uncomfortable. We want our faith walk with God to be 70 degrees at all times, with no harsh winters or summers. We want God to tell us everything we will experience so that we can prepare for what is ahead and not necessarily walk by faith into the unknown. We want God to make the way smooth for us to accomplish what He has called us to do and then once we are finished we can stand proudly and say “Look at what I did for you God!” But it does not work that way. We often must start down the road with just the initial word from God saying “Go”. He may or may not reveal other things to us as we start the walk, but as long as we are faithful and listen to what He does choose to tell us, the results that God wants will be met.
Next week we will go to the New Testament and examine both Elizabeth and Mary and what God told them about their journeys and what they had to learn as they walked with Him.
Before we leave this morning, I want to remind you of the email that I sent to each of you yesterday. As you can see from the work that is being done downstairs, we are getting close to being done. But as you know, we stated that we would pay as we go and that we would not consider taking out any loans to complete the renovations. Once the funds we have on hand runs out, the work stops. That being said, the building committee has let me know that we will need an additional $3000 to complete the work. Although I know times have been hard this year for many of us, I am asking that you make a sacrificial gift this month so that we can complete the work. Each of you knows that I do not beg for money and I am not with this request. What I am doing is letting you know that the need exists and if you are willing to give that sacrificial gift over and above your normal tithes and offering, this is the time to do it. Just remember that a sacrificial gift is something you give that is a sacrifice for you to give. It you have $100 in your pocket and you can “afford” to give $50, that is not a sacrificial gift. A sacrificial gift is one that hurts when you give it because you’re walking in faith as you give it. I thank each of you today for what you are able to give. May God continue to bless and keep each of you.
