Grow Strong in God’s Grace (Wk 14)
Learning How to be a Faithful Farmer for God’s Harvest!
The Faith that Blesses!
Hebrews 11:20 (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! 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, we are telling the story of Isaac, based on Hebrews 11:20, which says, “By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even regarding things to come.”[1] From Isaac’s story, we are going to learn the faith that blesses.
How did you come into the faith? What is the starting point of your transforming story? Kimberly and I both came to know Jesus through outreach ministries to the military; we were both young adults out of high school and in the beginning of our military service. Maybe you were blessed to come from a home filled with godliness and faith, and you have been a Christian as long as you can remember. What a privilege and joy! That is our prayer for our three children and for all the children of our congregation. Regardless of how or when your story began, in Christ we each have the power to bless another generation. Though the story of Isaac and his twin sons, Jacob and Esau, we are going to learn the power and choice of blessing people by planting the good seed of God’s grace in their lives through faith.
STEP #2 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: SOW THE GOOD SEED OF GOD’S GRACE
The context of this whole Hebrews 11 passage is that one word: faith! Hebrews 11:1 teaches us that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” It means to put your whole trust in someone or something. In this case, and throughout the Bible the object of our faith is in God, who is trustworthy and true. In fact, the purpose of highlighting the people and their stories is to teach us more about who God is and that He is faithful. God is worthy to put all our weight on Him, just as we learned last week through the Abraham-Isaac story. The stories bring to life these doctrinal truths through illustration, illumination, and inspiration!
We have been learning about the faith and obedience of Isaac’s parents, Abraham and Sarah. Though far from perfect as a man and woman, above all they modeled a real relationship with God. Truly, they imperfectly put their full trust in God and God’s grace perfectly sustained them. They believed and they acted upon this belief because they are people of the promise, and Isaac’s very life was the fulfillment of God’s promise to them. We learned of God’s faithfulness and trustworthiness through the very existence of Isaac. Isaac was a miracle baby!
Here is what we know about Isaac: his birth was foretold, longed for, and miraculous (Genesis 21:1-3). He was circumcised by the very hand of his father Abraham on the eighth day as a sign of the covenant that God had personally made with Abraham (Genesis 21:4). Isaac’s mom died at 127 years old, when he was approximately thirty-seven years old, since he was born when she was 90 (Genesis 23:1). She died approximately twenty years after the climactic event of Genesis 22, when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his one and only son as an act of worship (check out last week’s teaching). I can only imagine how for thirty-seven years Sarah loved Isaac and spoke of why he was named, “Laughter.” With a smile on her face, she would recount her own lack of faith in God’s plan to give her a baby at 90, and how Isaac shouldn’t make the same mistake: God had proven time and time again, through Isaac’s birth, his experience with her crazy husband on the mount in Moriah as a teenager, that God is a great provider and worthy of all his trust. This would have been a mother on a mission to make sure her son knew he was a miracle, chosen by God, and blessed by his parents, for a purpose.
What is amazing about Isaac is his rich faith heritage. When many focus on the speculation of his psychological damage caused by being a teenage boy who was almost slaughtered at the hands of his father Abraham, their musings miss out on the one thing that is the point of this ongoing story of the people of God’s promise; that is the powerful influence of one generation’s faith on the next generation. Isaac’s family blessed him to be a blessing to others! That is the promise of Genesis 12:2-3, given to Abraham, passed on to Isaac, “I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing… in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
How can your home be a place of faith where the next generation is not indulged, but rather blessed so that they will be a blessing to others? When I serve my children, I tell them that I do it so that they will learn to serve others. I bless them so that they will learn to be a blessing to others! That takes us to our next action step.
STEP #3 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: CARE FOR THE MATURING PLANT
Isaac may have been a second-generation follower of God, but he believed in God’s promises for himself. His father’s God was His God. His mother’s God was His God. His faith was His own! Isaac was blessed to live in a family with faith, but even as a member of that community, he had to know God for himself. The promise of Genesis 12 had to become his own, just as all the promises of God through Jesus Christ must become our own. The faith of the previous generation is passed on to us so that we can make it our own, passing it on to the next generation.
God provided a faithful wife to Isaac in Rebekah (see Genesis 24). Isaac was 40 when he was married and 60 when Abraham died. Before his death, God blessed Isaac with great abundance; Genesis 25:5 says, “Now Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac.” Interestingly, the Bible makes it clear in Genesis 25:11 who was really doing the blessing, “It came about after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac.” After Abraham died, God adopted Isaac as his own son; He did not leave Isaac as an orphan! Jesus said in John 14:18, “I will not leave you as orphans.” God tends to the maturing plant through the presence and power of His Spirit!
So, like Abraham before him, Isaac was blessed with everything, except the one thing that was necessary to keep passing on the legacy – a child! For twenty years they had tried to conceive a child (Genesis 25:26), then when Isaac was 60, God blessed them as Genesis 25:21 records, “Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived.” Isaac had a faith that blessed! He learned this from his mom and dad, but he had to make it his own!
Every generation must embrace faith as their own because God does not have grandchildren; He has children! In the same way that Abraham and Sarah wandered through the nothingness of infertility, so did Isaac and Rebekah. For twenty years, they had to wrestle with their own faith and trust in God; to believe God to keep His promises. To learn that God is good! Faith becomes your own when you have personally had to put your full weight into God. You see, you can’t bless someone with a future promise that you yourself don’t believe in. Sure, you can give them a family name and maybe some money and stuff in an estate, but you can’t pass on to the next generation what you don’t have yourself! Brothers and sisters, what matters is that you pass on the name of Jesus! The name that you have learned through life’s hardest circumstances is trustworthy and true! It is only by the name of Jesus you will have an eternal legacy.
Do you believe? One day, when each of us must stand before God to give an account for our lives, it will be just you and Him. No pastors, no parents, no excuses, no ATMs, just God and you… Do you know Him? Do you trust Him? Are you reaping the good fruit of a life of faith by having plenty of seed-rich fruit to hand to those in your life? That brings us to our last action step in the hard-working farmer’s strategy.
STEP #4 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: REAP A HARVEST OF PRAISE
Jacob and Esau are real people in real history; they are the twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah, the grandchildren of Abraham and Sarah. These miracle babies, a set of twins that Jacob blessed according to Hebrews 11:20, represent so much more than who they are. We cannot spend as much time with these brothers as I would like, and prefer as a Bible teacher, but for today’s purposes allow me to draw an important contrast between them. Genesis 25:27-34 says a lot in a short space:
When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field, but Jacob was a peaceful man, living in tents. Now Isaac loved Esau, because he had a taste for game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. When Jacob had cooked stew, Esau came in from the field and he was famished; and Esau said to Jacob, “Please let me have a swallow of that red stuff there, for I am famished.” Therefore his name was called Edom. But Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright.” Esau said, “Behold, I am about to die; so of what use then is the birthright to me?” And Jacob said, “First swear to me”; so he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew; and he ate and drank, and rose and went on his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.
Here is the contrast: Jacob highly valued the birthright of the promise of God and Esau despised his because of his own foolish decisions. Jacob and Esau both have some glaring character flaws, but what matters is that they both made a choice: Jacob for the promise of God and Esau for the pleasures of the world.
You have a choice: every generation must choose whether they will be a Jacob or Esau.
Esau violated the covenant of God, married many foreign wives (Hittites and an Ishmaelite) representing his compromises away from the promises of God and yoking with the world, and he fathered nations who war against God’s people, just like Ishmael fathered great nations who still war against God’s people. Listen to the summary of Esau’s bitterness at rejecting his own birthright and choosing foreign wives, from Genesis 26:35, “They made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah” (ESV). “Esau” passes on bitterness and grief (NASB), generation after generation.
Bitterness begets bitterness! What are some examples in our everyday lives of how we choose Esau: the bitterness of the world? To put it plainly; it happens when we choose to be doomsdayers! When you choose to be negative and nitpicky, as if you are always looking for what is wrong rather than choosing to see what is right, on the verge of anger most of the time, ready to go on the defensive and build a case for your own point of view, living in blame and accusation, critical of others instead of looking for ways to build up and edify, never satisfied rather than living in contentment, never trusting another, but putting yourself first because your worldview as a doomsdayer demands that you protect the glass house you have constructed.
There is a way out of bitterness and the consequences of choosing the mindset and lifestyle of a doomsdayer. Jesus sets the prisoners free; He heals the brokenhearted; and He uproots bitter roots! In short, Jesus is our living hope and transforms us from being doomsdayers to being hope-bearers! Church, we are the hope of the world! We are to reap a harvest of praise – declaring the hope of the blessing of God, given to us through Jesus Christ!
Jacob’s legacy is the twelve tribes of Israel through whom the Savior – Jesus Christ – was born to carry the promise of Genesis 12 to all the nations. Jacob passed on to us blessings and peace. Genesis 28:3-4 records Isaac’s blessing to Jacob when he sends him back to Rebekah’s people to find a wife and to protect him from his enraged brother Esau, “May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. May He also give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your descendants with you, that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which God gave to Abraham.”
Blessing begets blessing! What are some examples in our everyday lives of how we can choose Jacob: the blessings of God? This is where you declare, right now, out loud for everyone to hear you: I AM A HOPE-BEARER! God has called you to be a person of faith, hope, and love! God has given you the sufficiency of His grace so that you can live strong in God’s grace! God has given you forgiveness through His Son Jesus Christ so that you can forgive others as God first forgave you. God has given you the Holy Spirit, so that you may reap the fruit of the Spirit for all taste and seed that God is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). A hope-bearer endures to the end, show resiliency when knocked down, is faithful to God and His mission, and is humble – reaping a harvest of praise to the glory of God!
It’s a choice! I present to you today a choice between generational blessings and generational curses. Jacob and Esau’s sibling rivalry has become regional and national conflict today, millennia later, continuing to breed bitterness and grief. But they also represent the choice each person must make to receive between the blessings of God and the bitterness of the world. Hebrews 12:15-17 confronts us with this choice of bitterness or blessing:
See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled; that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.
Do you want to have a transforming story? It’s a choice between blessing and bitterness. The time ran out for Esau; it was too late to get back what he had rejected for the world! But you are here today, there is breath in your lungs, and there is still time for repentance: REJECT BITTERNESS! Don’t be a doomsdayer! Grow strong in God’s grace and live your life as a hope-bearer! God’s grace is available to you today personally. Until the Lord Jesus returns or you take your last breath on this earth, you can receive the promises of God as yours through faith in Jesus Christ.
Jesus came into the world as the light of God to show the way to God’s blessings. The gospel invites you today to accept Jesus Christ and to receive the promises of God, as John 1:11-13 promises:
He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
You cannot rest on your parents’ faith, your faith heritage, or you church affiliation. The most important decision of your life is what you do with Jesus Christ. This is a holy moment of decision. Today can be the first day of your eternal legacy… Today, you are being invited to receive the faith that blesses. It will bless you, then it will bless through you!