04/22/2024
Professor Laban
God lets Jacob learn through the School of Hard Knocks. Professor Laban is an excellent teacher if you want to learn first-hand how unfair life can be when you live among amoral and self-centered people. Jacob learned some important lessons about himself as well: the trickster was forced to deal with the consequences of working for the Master Trickster. Yet God allows Jacob’s tutorial to go on only so long. God says, in the chapter 31, “I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you.” God doesn’t miss a thing. After all, God’s been with Jacob every step of the way. And it is as if God is saying, “If you’ve learned your lesson, then it’s about time for you to come home and begin to fulfill your destiny.”
Alas, Jacob is a slow learner—as are many of us. In words of the apostle Paul, he continues to do the things he doesn’t want to do and doesn’t do the thing he wants to do. Jacob’s spiritual growth might remind you of your own. It was certainly one step forward then one step back. But stay tuned. Next Sunday we’ll take a look at the meeting between God and Jacob—an epic struggle in which God finally makes some serious headway in changing the heart of his servant.
God is in the change of heart business. Just because Jacob is one of those chosen to keep and share the covenant or promise of God, it doesn’t mean he’s anymore exempt than we are from callousness and impatience. In scripture, as it is in life, growth is all that matters. It may come suddenly or may take a lifetime. But life without growth is a life God never intended us to live.
(I had intended to use portions of the above as the benediction Sunday, but only got out bits and pieces at 9 a.m. As we say, whatever doesn’t make the final cut on Sunday morning is fair game on Mondays!)
Archived Posts
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If Not Higher
Here’s a story I wanted to use when talking about ‘what you do when no one is looking’ yesterday. It’s a wonderful illustration of what Jesus was saying in Matthew 6:1-6—do what you do because of who you want to be, not so that others will take notice and praise you.
The Perfect Church
There is an old joke about the perfect church. We talked just a little about the perfect pastor, but turnabout is fair play. It goes like this:
The Clothes You Wear
Sunday I talked about Joshua the High Priest having his filthy clothing replaced by a cleaned and beautiful garments. I also used the illustration of a boy becomes a dragon—who ‘wears’ dragon scales—and is stripped of those scales in order to be restored to a boy. In fact, I could have done the whole sermon around all the clothing imagery in scripture.
What just missed the cut for Sunday’s Sermon
Naaman’s servants may actually become one of the hidden gems of the sermon. They say, essentially: “If the prophet had told you to do something difficult, you would have done it.”
One of the Longest Benedictions I Ran Out of Time to Share
Maybe you know the story of how Joseph and Mary accidentally left Jesus at the gas station on their way home from Jerusalem. Well, not the gas station bathroom in Jesus’ case. Joe and Mary are far down the road before they realize Jesus isn’t with them...
So many quips and quotes...
So little time to preach
I wonder what Mary and Martha’s phones might look like:
* Martha = the open browser with 27 tabs
* Mary = the single window that matters
* Psalm 46 = God saying, “Close the tabs.”