Trust and Obey
Genesis- Final
For this morning’s message, I take no specific text. Instead, I invite you to reflect on the material that we have surveyed in our brief excursion through the first book of the Bible. My desire in this series of messages has not been to explain every mystery or to defend every word of the book. I have tried to present it as the great story it is! A book like Genesis must first be understood as the whole, before it is dissected into its parts.
Ex.- What sense would one gain in dissecting a heart if he had no idea of a complete body and the function of the heart in that body? When someone appreciates the centrality of the heart as the blood pump for the body, he can then go ahead and dissect it and appreciate its chambers, valves, and complexities.
Genesis is a story, a sweeping epic, that tells us about God’s creation, God’s covenant, and His mastery of history! The book quickly carries us from the opening grand statement...
"In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the earth," to the story of the choices of Adam and Eve that severed our intimate relationship with our Father Creator, and into the story of a man who was chosen by God to reveal Himself and His ways to the world.
In the unfolding of the plot, we learn details of Abraham’s family; both rogues and saints, about their seemingly random choices that had effects none could anticipate, and that ultimately God used it all to accomplish His plan.
It’s a story of order emerging from chaos under the guiding hand of the Lord. It’s the stories of people who endured famines, battled enemies bent on their destruction, and shot themselves in the foot over and over with dumb and/or sinful choices. In the process they were kept and guided by God, though many of them did not see His hand at the time.
Joseph emerges at the end of the book, a true hero. He foreshadows the coming of the Savior, Jesus, hundreds of years in the future. His righteousness, his survival in the faces of unbelievable opposition, his graciousness to those who tormented him, and especially his consistent faith in God are high points in the book. Hopefully, his righteous obedience inspires us to the same!
Genesis does not put a nice summary at the end to explain it all. That is left to us. The question we must ask in order to glean instruction from this story is: Why did God preserve the story and what is He teaching us by telling it?
John Walton wisely observes: "Biblical narrative is often content to show us what God is like without detailing what we are to do about it." (1)
Certainly, some parts of the Bible story are more easily understood and applied than others.
The parables and teachings of Jesus are surely much easier to grasp with understanding than are the complex laws recorded in Leviticus.
The Psalms that call us to worship are easier to own than is the apocalyptic vision of the Revelation written by John.
Never the less, we learn that
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17
With the revelation of the Holy Spirit and the diligence of study, we can know what God desires of us, even from an ancient story like the one that unfolds in Genesis.
As I thought and prayed this week, I asked: So what does this story ask of us?
IF we read Genesis as a declaration of God’s mastery of chaos and His development of His redemption plan, then our first response must be: Submission.
Bear in mind that it is our LIFE that is the RESPONSE.
We cheapen the concept of submission by reducing it to a moment when we raise our hand at the end of a church service while the music plays and the pastor pleads! To think that a person has totally submitted his/her life in such a gesture is the height of folly and self-deception. That is not to say that moments of decision are unimportant. It is critical that when our hearts are stirred and our minds are challenged, that we say and unequivocal "YES" to God, but the moment’s choice has lifetime ramifications!
Likewise, to think that submission is simply having a moment of insight that moves us to a higher level of spiritual awareness, that helps us to tune in to the ’other’ realm, again is to miss the mark. A spiritual buzz can be found in a lot of places. A generation ago, Dr. Timothy Leary suggested that tripping on LSD was a way to expand one’s sense of the mystical spirituality of the world, but I don’t think any of us would suggest that Leary lived a life that was submitted to God! I fear too often we Christians seek the same kind of buzz but by using safer methods of emotional stimulation and/or psychological manipulations. As long as we can ’feel the Presence of God,’ we think we are living a life approved by Him. Wrong!
Submission is the total commitment of life to God, literally come hell or high water! I am not speaking of a life that is devoid of joy and fun. I am not calling on us to read of God’s mastery of our world and move into the monastery! Submission, as a response to the revelation of a God who plans and who is Master, is an ongoing choice - in the decision to accept Christ’s Lordship and saving grace, and then day by day. It was this kind of submission that Jesus points to when he teaches us to pray, "May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done here on earth, just as it is in heaven." Mt 6:10
Submission is the abandonment of self-will, the embrace of God’s will. Easier said than done, isn’t it?
How many of us have made a commitment to God only to descend into doing our own thing days or weeks later. That’s exactly what we see in so many of the lives of the patriarchs, yet God pulled them through and His plan survived. That brings such JOY to me today! God’s purposes will survive me and my best intentions!
YET, there is also plenty of evidence throughout the Bible, and even in the book of Genesis, that transformation is possible! As we present ourselves to God, responding to revelation of His mastery of our history and His revelation of covenant love, His work begins in us! And we have a responsibility to cooperate with Him in that work.
What does He ask of us?
Some would insist that we are simply passive people on whom He acts, but that ignores the story of Genesis and the clear word of the Bible record.
A. Transformation begins with REVELATION of Truth.
1. "And God said," is a powerful phrase that precedes His creative work in the opening chapter.
2. "The Lord said to Noah" begins an account of great personal transformation and salvation.
3. "The Lords said to Abram" opens the pilgrimage of faith that changed history.
What has God said to YOU?
By the Scripture, by His Spirit, through the counsel of godly, Spirit-filled people He is revealing His Truth, His will. This is a work of grace. He is not obligated to tell any of us a thing! He is not compelled by anything or anyone greater than Himself.
But the revelation of Truth, as we all know too well, does not guarantee transformation of our life. Most of us know we ought to live better than we actually do. Most of us have learned to ignore those words of God that speak to our pet sins. We pretend not to understand, but in fact, we do not do what we know to do. IF we persist in this selective hearing, the fact is that a creeping blindness and deafness overtakes us and leaves us in darkness of sinful disobedience!
B. Transformation continues with a desire for it to happen, a desire nearly always born of deep sorrow and /or pain!
Abraham experienced his greatest moments of transformation when he obeyed God without question or reservation. Sadly, it is not until we are BROKEN and/or CRUSHED by life that many of us come to the point where we REALLY want transformation. What’s the old adage?
"We will not change until the pain of remaining the same exceeds the pain of change!"
Self is a strong opponent to the work of God in our lives. Consider all the kinds of ’self’ that hinder our obedience.
Self-will
Self-sufficiency
Self-indulgence
Self-reliance
Self-satisfaction
Self-congratulation
Self-preservation
Self-centeredness
Self-conceit
Need I go on? Paul knew the power of SELF when he cried out, "What a wretched man I am, who will deliver me?"
But no amount of self-hatred, self-improvement, or self-denial can transform our stubborn heart into one that is joyful in the will and purposes of the Lord God! Those things, though held up by religion and admired by many, are really just extensions of SELF!
There will be no transformation until SELF is over-shadowed by God’s Presence and Provision. We must, like Abraham in his ascent to the peak of Moriah where he was to offer up his beloved son, Isaac, come to the place where we say - Yahweh Yireh - "The Lord is my Provider!"
John Walton says it eloquently: "We are consumed by neediness, overwhelmed by unworthiness, and then filled with AWE. We cannot break ourselves. Only God can break us."
C. S. Lewis calls this His severe mercy. His prevenient grace works to bring us to the end of ourselves, so that, at the end of SELF, we can discover His total sufficiency! Yes, it is a work of the grace of God that allows us to taste the bitterness of our own self-will and sin. The resulting true guilt is not to be ignored or excused, but to be embraced as the gift of God. The choice in the moment of guilt can be that of Adam and Eve who hid from God, or it can be a moment of humility that runs to the embrace of the God of love.
We must never forget, both saint and sinner suffer! Life is hard and all experience the crushing effect of sorrow, of disease, and disappointment. After all this is a fallen world, full of the fruit of sin, both ours personally and the accumulated effects of sin through the ages. The purpose of the Bible and a book like Genesis is to throw us a life-preserver in the storm! The record teaches us to reach up to God, to hope in the redeeming love of our Father, rather than to just die in despair!
As we catch a glimpse of His work through the ages, of the unfolding of His purposes. and of His patience with those who have gone before, faith is born new. He who is Creator, Covenant Maker, and Master of History will hold us safe until we are home in His Heaven. The grand story leads me to hope and humility.
I can only pray that it does the same to you!
The eloquence of John Donne’s prayer for salvation closes our reflections.
Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labor to admit you, but O, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
but is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy.
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor even chaste, expect you ravish me.
Holy Sonnet 14 (2)
_______________________
amen
1. The NIV Application Commentary, Zondervan, John H. Walton © 2001
2. http://www2.wku.edu/~vanzekm/sonn.htm
Jerry D. Scott © 2004
(with great thanks to the NIV Application Commentary and the scholarship of John Walton)
