After Helene Talbert of Wahpeton, North Dakota, completed her first semester at a Christian college, she had a lot to tell her family. Just before the end of the semester, they had an open house in her dorm – one of the few times men are allowed in the women's rooms. When her family came to visit, she wanted them to check out the huge closets.
“We can fit four or five in the closet without clothes,” Helene bragged to her parents, brother, and the other guys who were visiting.
After a stunned silence, her mother exclaimed, “Without clothes?”
Helene immediately clarified things – the closet was stripped bare, not the bodies in it. (Helene Talbert, Wahpeton, North Dakota. “Lite Fare,” Christian Reader; www.PreachingToday.com)
I can relate to that mother. When our children leave home, we hope and pray that they pursue purity on their own even without their parents’ supervision.
The question is: How can we encourage our children or grandchildren in that direction? How can we create an environment where they want to pursue purity on their own? How can we create an environment where they want to live in obedience to Christ, not because somebody is forcing them to, but because that’s what’s in their heart?
This is a good question to ask not only in the family at home, but also in the family of God, the church. How can we create an environment where people want to follow Christ? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Genesis 27, Genesis 27, where Isaac and Rebekah have that same concern with their son, Jacob.
Genesis 27:46 Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I loathe my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women like these, one of the women of the land, what good will my life be to me?” (ESV)
Esau, their oldest son, had married a couple of these Hittite women (Genesis 26:34-35), and it grieved Rebekah. They worshipped different gods. They were part of a decadent, immoral culture whose fertility cults were baser and viler than any other in the ancient world, and they were turning Esau away from worshipping the True and Living God. Rebekah didn’t want to see the same thing happen to her youngest son, Jacob.
Genesis 28:1-2 Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him, “You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women. Arise, go to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father, and take as your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother. (ESV)
Isaac is sending Jacob 400 miles away to find a wife among his cousins. That way he won’t be corrupted by any of the local women. Their concern is for Jacob’s purity. They were concerned for the purity of the Hebrew line. But more important than that, they were concerned about the purity of the Hebrew faith. They didn’t want their descendants following after the false gods of the Hittite culture.
So how do Isaac and Rebekah encourage such purity in their son? Well, Isaac begins by blessing his son. Did you see that in verse 1? “So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him.”
This time, he does it knowingly and legitimately. Before, in defiance of God, Isaac had tried to bless Esau, but he was tricked and ended up blessing Jacob without knowing it. Now, Isaac blesses Jacob willingly and knowingly, and look at the blessing he gives Jacob!
Genesis 28:3-4 God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham!” (ESV)
This is the same promise God gave to Abraham two generations ago – a promise of land, seed and blessing. It’s the same blessing which has been passed down from Abraham to Isaac and now to Jacob in the third generation. Isaac blesses Jacob.
Genesis 28:5 Thus Isaac sent Jacob away. And he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban, the son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother. (ESV)
In response to Isaac’s blessing, Jacob went to Paddan Aram. In response to Isaac’s blessing, Jacob went where his father told him to go. In response to Isaac’s blessing,Jacob obeyed his father and began pursuing purity, at least in his choice of a wife.
The pursuit of purity begins with a blessing. The pursuit of purity begins with a blessing. That was true not only of Isaac’s family. It’s true for our families today, whether it is our families at home or our church family. The pursuit of purity begins with a blessing.
So if you want to create an atmosphere where people WANT to pursue purity, where people WANT to follow Christ, then…
BEGIN WITH A BLESSING.
Start with unconditional love. Start with favor freely given before there is any obedience. To put it simply, if you want to create an atmosphere of holiness and purity, start with grace.
I like the way Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol, and John Lynch put it in their book, True Faced. There, they say, “When grace introduces us to repentance, the two of us become best friends. When anything else introduces us to repentance, it feels like the warden has come to lock us up. But when grace gets involved, the truths of repentance reveal a fabulous world of life-freeing beauty.” (Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol, and John Lynch, True Faced, Navpress, 2003, p. 155; www.PreachingToday.com)
Grace makes us WANT to obey Christ. The law just makes us feel trapped and confined with a desire to escape and rebel as soon as we can.
I’ve seen this time after time with children raised in strict, legalistic homes. More often than not, when those kids leave home, they throw off the constraints of their childhood and run wild. But those children raised in homes where they know they are loved, where mom and dad express that love unconditionally, and where mom and dad bless their children no matter what, those are the kids that leave home wanting to follow the God of their fathers.
Does this mean there is no discipline in those homes? Absolutely not! Jacob is about to experience 20 years of discipline under the hand of God. Jacob is a deceiver, so God gives him a job working for a deceiver and cheater 10 times worst than Jacob himself. Yet even in discipline, Jacob’s blessing was never in jeopardy. Jacob never lost the assurance of God’s favor. Jacob never lost the blessing passed on to him from his father.
So it is with believers in Jesus. Ephesians 1 says, “God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing,” and those blessings are never in jeopardy. God loves us unconditionally. That means he accepts us just the way we are, but He loves us too much to let us stay that way. That’s why discipline comes into our lives. But even then, we never lose God’s blessing; we never lose God’s favor.
How about your children or grandchildren? Do they know you love them unconditionally? Do they know they have your blessing even when you have to discipline them? Do they know that their relationship with you is never in jeopardy no matter what? When was the last time you told them that? If your children and grandchildren know that they could never lose your blessing, then you are creating an atmosphere where they will WANT to follow your God.
Several years ago (August 2010), CNN did a report on Kim Shin Jo, a gentle pastor from South Korea, who used to be a trained killer.
In January of 1968, Jo and a team of assassins descended from North Korea, slipping through the woods in a daring attempt to kill the president of South Korea. The team of 31 commandos made it to within a few hundred meters of the president's residence before they were intercepted. A fierce battle ensued, killing 30 South Koreans. All of the North Korean soldiers were killed, except one who escaped and Kim Shin Jo, who was captured.
After months of interrogation, and through a surprising friendship with a South Korean army general, Kim Shin Jo's hard heart started to soften. Later he would confess, “I tried to kill the president. I was the enemy. But the South Korean people showed me sympathy and forgiveness. I was touched and moved.”
The South Korean government eventually released Kim Shin Jo. Over the next three decades he worked for the military, became a citizen, and then married and raised a family. Finally, he became a pastor.
Today Jo's life serves as a symbol of redemption for the entire country of South Korea. Reflecting on the day of his arrest, Kim Shin Jo commented, “On that day, Kim Shin Jo died. I was reborn. I got my second chance. And I'm thankful for that.”
Kim Shin Jo found a new birth and God's grace through the power of Christ. But his encounter with Christ came through the unexpected, surprising love of other people. Despite his betrayals and sins, an army officer accepted him, befriended him, and believed in him. At one time he was the enemy of the South Korean people, but in the spirit of Jesus Christ, they surprised him with the startling gifts of belonging, forgiveness and even citizenship. (South Korean pastor is also a trained killer, CNN Religion blog, 8-9-2010; www.PreachingToday.com)
That’s what God did for us! “God shows his love for us in that WHILE WE WERE STILL SINNERS, Christ died for us!” (Romans 5:8). We were His enemies, but God accepted us, forgave us, and even made us citizens in His kingdom when we trusted Christ as our Savior.
Grace is what changes people’s lives! Grace is what makes people want to turn their lives around and follow Christ. Romans 2:4 makes it very clear: “God’s kindness leads you towards repentance.”
Matt Woodley, a pastor in East Setauket, New York, says, “God unleashes tremendous power for good when his people surprise the world, especially unlovable people and even our enemies, with unconditional love, friendship and forgiveness.” (Matt Woodley, East Setauket, New York; www.PreachingToday. com)
If you want to create an environment in the home where people WANT to pursue purity, if you want to create an environment in the church where people WANT to follow Christ, then create an atmosphere of grace. In a word, start with a blessing; start with unconditional love.
This does not mean you don’t discipline when necessary, but discipline must always be done in the context of unconditional love. People must know that you will not stop loving them no matter what. Begin with a blessing if you want to see your children and others follow Jesus from the heart. Start with grace.
DON’T LAY DOWN THE LAW.
Don’t insist on self-effort and outward conformity to an external standard. Don’t insist on making people earn your blessing or your love, because that never works. It didn’t work for Esau.
Genesis 28:6-9 Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he directed him, “You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women,” and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to Paddan-aram. So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac his father, Esau went to Ishmael and took as his wife, besides the wives he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth. (ESV)
This is Esau’s pathetic attempt to earn his father’s blessing. He tries to make up for his bad marital reputation by marrying someone closer to home, someone from his grandfather Abraham’s family – Ishmael’s daughter. But Esau was still the un-chosen son of Isaac marrying into the un-chosen line of Ishmael. His own self-effort brought him no closer to God’s favor and blessing.
It didn’t work for Esau, and it doesn’t work for you and me either. Nothing you do in your own self-effort can bring you any closer to God’s favor and blessing. In fact, it only drives you away until you realize that you are helpless in and of yourself and throw yourself on God’s mercy, who promises to bless you unconditionally when you put our trust in Christ.
Laying down the law does not make you a better person. On the contrary, it incites you to sin even more! Romans 5:20 says, “The law was added so that the trespass might increase.” And Romans 7:8 says, “Sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire.” Laying down the law does NOT encourage repentance; it incites rebellion.
William McDavid, in his book Law and Gospel, asks his readers to imagine you are twelve years old again, and you love baseball. All your heroes are baseball players, all your extracurricular time is spent either with a ball glove in hand or watching a game on television, and, regardless of the season, it's been that way as long as you can remember. It's not that you're particularly good or particularly bad at baseball, you just love the game—the smack of the bat after a line drive, the smell of the grass, the feel of sliding headlong into second base. You've never had to defend it or describe it that way, but that's what you feel. And you can imagine one day having a jersey with your name on the back.
Things have begun to feel a little different this season, though, because twelve-year-olds have to try out for JV teams at the end of the year, and you get the feeling that not everyone makes the cut. You suddenly find yourself comparing your fielding skills with the other infielders and with players from other teams, and you start to count the number of times you miss balls that are hit to you. You keep track of how many strikeouts you get in each game.
Your coach has a way of calling you out, too. In one particularly bad stretch of the season, your coach calls across the field after you make yet another missed fielding play, “That's four times this game! Keep your head down!” You don't keep your head down, though, and after the fifth ground ball makes its way between your legs, your coach demotes you to the outfield. You replay his voice in your head. At your next at-bat, you strike out quickly, and you wonder if baseball is your sport after all. (William McDavid, David Zahl and Ethan Richardson, Law & Gospel, Mockingbird Ministries, 2015, pages 39-40; www. PreachingToday.com)
That’s the nature of the law. At best, it discourages people. At worst, it causes people to rebel.
But here is the good news! You don’t have to earn your place on God’s team. You don’t have to earn God’s favor. All you need to do is trust Christ with your life. And the moment you do that, God grants you His favor and puts you on His team.
I urge you, if you haven’t yet trusted Christ with your life, do it today! Put your faith in Christ, and enjoy God’s unconditional love.
That’s what will motivate you to serve Him. That’s what will motivate you to give Him your best effort. You don’t do it to earn his blessing. You do it because you already have it!
That’s the way life works! So it is if you want to encourage people pursue purity and follow Christ, begin with a blessing; don’t lay down the law.
Catherine Booth, who along with her husband William Booth founded the Salvation Army, discovered this principle working with people on the streets of London. She said, “What the law tried to do by a restraining power from without, the gospel does by an inspiring power from within.” (Catherine Booth. "William and Catherine Booth," Christian History, no. 26.)
Or as John Bunyan put it:
Run, John, run. The law commands
But gives me neither feet nor hands.
Better news the Gospel brings;
It bids me fly and gives me wings.
