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

The Faith that Elevates You Out of the Pits!

Hebrews 11:22 (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. Today’s story is about Joseph, found in Hebrews 11:22, “By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel, and gave orders concerning his bones.” To be clear, this passage in the New Testament is not referring to  Joseph the husband of Mary; rather, it is pointing to one of the most famous Old Testament stories – the Genesis account of Joseph, the eleventh son of Jacob. His story inspired the long enduring Andrew Lloyd Weber musical, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Jacket.” This is a story that has found a bridge into our culture and has inspired generations of Jewish and Christian people to live with integrity and to put their trust in a sovereign God during injustice and suffering. The problem is that it has been made into a “feel good” story without revealing the true depth of the story. We need to look at the depths of Joseph’s story, in all its gore and glory, for it to be more than a moralistic platitude.

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

A decade ago, I was in Chicago at the Moody Bible Institute’s Pastors’ Conference when a celebrity pastor, who has since fallen from ministry notoriety because of toxic leadership practices, stated that every day in church ministry a pastor either becomes bitter or better. In that moment, the Holy Spirit convicted me: I had allowed myself to get bitter at some people and situations that had occurred over the years of my pastorate and that bitterness had started to form a hard, cynical place in me. It had started to inform the way I viewed people and situations, and those people and situations needed a fresh wind of God’s Spirit through me, not a stale wind of human hurt from me. In that moment, I did the only thing I could do, I honestly yielded to the Holy Spirit by crying out for God’s presence and power in me.

Each of us has a daily decision to make; it’s a choice: to choose better or to become bitter! The choice to allow bitterness to grow in our soul or to actively take steps to be transformed into a godly person through the circumstances of our lives is not just for pastors. The choice to embrace spiritual transformation is for every person who is faced with disappointment, discouragement, despair, and/or depression. This is for every person born under the sun, who experienced childhood, navigated friendships, went to school, has worked, has been a part of a church, has dated, has married, has kids, has faced medical issues. This is part of the human experience for all people regardless of human labels. This is about:

The legacy event of Joseph’s childhood was at the age of 17. It was caused by a mixture of his father’s favoritism, his brother’s hatred and jealousy of him, his own boastful and prideful ways, and a divine dose of providential circumstance. Joseph was a 17-year-old spoiled brat, his father’s favored child to his favored and deceased wife. Insanely jealous of Joseph’s favored position and blindly enraged by his boastful dreams, the older brothers plotted to kill Joseph; to throw him into a pit to be left for dead. But at the last minute they pulled him from the pit to sell him into slavery to a passing caravan of Ishmaelites headed through the fertile crescent to Egypt (Genesis 37:26-28). As the brothers go back and lie to their father about their little braggart of a brother, the Ishmaelites “sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, Pharaoh’s officer, the captain of the bodyguard” (Genesis 37:36).

In that one decision of his older brothers, Joseph becomes a powerless victim of vicious circumstances! He is thrown in the pit. He is emptied of his status as favored son to become a feeble slave, but it is what happens next that has caused his story to be told for nearly four-thousand years. Joseph’s legacy was shaped not by the horror of his childhood and his brothers’ bitter choices, but by his own choice of how he would respond to his circumstances. The first pit most of us must work through is an imperfect upbringing – our family of origin and childhood experiences. Even the patriarchs of our faith were all messed up and so were their families.

We aren’t perfect people, nor do we have perfect families. Let’s be honest, there is no such thing on this side of Heaven. The church needs to come to grips with this reality, and instead of having impossible expectations of one another, what we need is to love with truth and grace as we imperfectly live with one another, trying to tell a better story of God’s work in our lives. The Bible is filled with flawed people and flawed families on purpose, so that we realize it is only by the power of God’s grace, the Spirit cultivating the soil of our lives and planting the good seed of God’s Word, that we can be transformed into fruit-bearing people that reflect Jesus Christ.

Do you need permission to get off the treadmill of performance, or to give up the anxiety of perfectionism? Learning to live strong in God’s Grace is the answer for you and your family, for us and our church, for our communities and nation! God loves you so much He gave His one and only Son so that your story would be transformed to tell His story!

Never forget that each of us has a daily decision to make; it’s a choice: to choose better or to become bitter! When life has thrown you harsh circumstances, what do you do? How do you handle the pits of childhood trauma and dysfunctional family systems? Just because you came from a broken family doesn’t mean you must be broken. Just because we have had traumatic experiences doesn’t mean we need to live like victims. Many people feel held back by an experience that happened in the early years of life, whether something that happened in our families or by someone who hurt, betrayed, and/or abandoned us.

The early years of our lives do have the power to shape us, but they don’t have the power to stop us from living the promised abundant life of Jesus Christ (John 10:10). That is why we must take the next action step of a hardworking farmer – there is a process of maturation that we must walk in. Your circumstances don’t shape you; your decisions in your circumstances do!

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

If having bad childhood experiences and a broken family of origin wasn’t enough, Joseph was rescued from the first pit only to be thrown into the second: difficult and disappointing adult life experiences. After being bought by Potiphar at the age of 17, Joseph becomes the all-star slave in Potiphar’s household, given charge over everything in Potiphar’s house except one thing, Potiphar’s wife. She was a cougar, but Joseph would not compromise, not even for momentary pleasures. When solicited, Joseph asked of Potiphar’s wife, “How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9).

Potiphar’s wife lied about Joseph and Potiphar threw his young slave into prison to rot. Another pit! Another betrayal of his trust! Another abandonment by someone Joseph served with his whole heart! He finds himself as a powerless victim of injustice again! Did Joseph choose better or become bitter? In the pit of prison, Joseph stayed close to God and was transformed into the all-star prisoner, as Genesis 39:21-23 states:

But the Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him, and gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer. The chief jailer committed to Joseph’s charge all the prisoners who were in the jail; so that whatever was done there, he was responsible for it. The chief jailer did not supervise anything under Joseph’s charge because the Lord was with him; and whatever he did, the Lord made to prosper.

Joseph makes me think of a diamond. Formed under years of pressure and showcased behind a black velvet backdrop to bring out its brilliance and beauty. Neither the years of pressure nor the darkness of the backstory is beautiful, but the diamond is priceless. “Simply put, diamond formation occurs when carbon deposits deep within the earth (approximately 90 to 125 miles below the surface) are subject to high temperature and pressure.”[1] Everyone wants to shine like a diamond, but no one wants to go through the process of becoming one!

Each of us has a daily decision to make; it’s a choice: to choose better or to become bitter! Your decisions while in the pits of hard adult circumstances shape you by forming your character and determining the direction of your life. Is there a situation in your life that is not going the way you planned? What is the circumstance you would change right now if you had the power to do so? What would you push fast forward on if you could? Maybe, just maybe, God cares more about your character than your circumstances, and in fact, is using your circumstances to shape your character. How can you choose better in your life so that you can reap a harvest or praise, bearing the good fruit of your relationship with Jesus Christ? That brings us to our final action step.

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

You may find yourself in a pit, but that is where God does some of His best work to press you, shape you, prepare you to be showcased. God has a plan for your life and the pits you have experienced, are experiencing, and will experience, may be exactly what are necessary to prepare you for the palace that is ever before you. God wants to glorify His name through your life!

Earlier in his life, before his brothers abused him and betrayed his trust, we saw in Joseph a special connection with God through dreams (Genesis 37:5-11). His lack of maturity as a 17-year-old caused him to share his dreams without discretion or humility, but now that he has been put in the pressure cooker of life experience for a long enough period, this diamond in the rough was being shaped with the precision of a master gemcutter. This is a life-long process!

Then in Genesis 40, Joseph was given the ability to help two prisoners by interpreting their dreams and his interpretations proved correct. He asked them to remember him and to put in a good word for him, but “the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him” (Genesis 40:23). Forgotten in the pit again! Two whole years of being in the prison until one day, at the age of 30, after fourteen years of pressure cooking, something happens. Joseph had learned in the pits that spiritual gifts, leadership capacity, and physical charisma were not about him; his characteristics and giftings were all from God. The gifts of God are to be used for God by loving and serving other people. Joseph learned all this before we get to the climax of the story. These lessons were not words in a book study or classroom instruction, but experiences forged into his soul. Joseph was shaped like a diamond, then excavated from the depths of the pit, and then cut by a master gemcutter to be displayed on the backdrop of black velvet. Let’s watch him shine!

In a dramatic turn of events that only the Master Storyteller could orchestrate in the life of one of His faithful servants, Joseph goes from a condemned slave to a celebrated prime minister in the blink of an eye. Genesis 41 captures the pivotal moment. Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, has been given a dream that no one in the land could interpret, but the king’s cupbearer remembers that Joseph could accurately interpret dreams. After being discarded in the pit, Joseph now stands before the most powerful man on earth. A condemned slave, sold by his own brothers who wanted him dead, forgotten by all but God Himself, stands before Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. When Pharaoh asks Joseph if he can interpret his dream, what does Joseph say, “It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer” (Genesis 41:16). [emphasis added]

That is the climax of the story: At a moment when Joseph should have begged for mercy and told Pharaoh he was an innocent man sold into slavery by his brothers, falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, thrown into prison and forgotten about, what did Joseph do? He declared his faith in God: “My God, in whom I trust, can do anything!” Joseph put his whole trust in God and gave God glory! He chose faith when everyone would expect begging and bitterness!

God transforms Joseph’s character so that he can be a part of His plan to save many and shine His glory to the nations – to reap a harvest of praise! For the rest of the story, Joseph shines to God’s glory and the entire world sees and recognizes God in Joseph as many lives are saved through his leadership. It begins with the pronouncement of Pharaoh in Genesis 41:38-41:

Then Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find a man like this, in whom is a divine spirit?” So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has informed you of all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over my house, and according to your command all my people shall do homage; only in the throne I will be greater than you.” Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.”

From this moment in Genesis 41 until the last recorded moment of Joseph’s life in Genesis 50 we see that Joseph is the real deal – he is a priceless diamond on display! In his old age, Joseph didn’t abuse his position of power for selfish ambition or vain conceit; rather, he chose to bless his family when they were dependent on his favor and forgiveness. He saw that the pit experiences and the palace experience weren’t about him at all. Joseph learned through it all that his life was about God being able to use every part of his story to tell His story of salvation! Joseph made this clear in his last recorded words from Genesis 50:19-21:

But Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive. So therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.” So he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

For all time, Joseph’s story points to the importance of putting our faith in God through the pit and palace experiences of life – the ups and the downs! Along the way, Joseph had many off ramps to become who God made him to be. By God’s grace, in each crossroad moment, in each circumstance, in each forgotten moment in the pits of his life, Joseph had the choice: better or bitter! The difference between Joseph and others is found in a single word: Faith! Joseph seized the moment, trusted God and didn’t take the off ramp of bitterness. God placed Joseph into the palace because God knew he could trust Joseph with the power and authority. It was in fact his faith through the pit experiences that formed and shaped him for this great responsibility in the place, which was also the ultimate test of His character! God still does this today for those who will trust Him with their whole hearts and choose to get better.

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FOOTNOTE:

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?

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