Somewhere in the back of our minds we all have an idea of
how we’d like our life to go. I think
most people are pretty realistic about what they’d like too. I don’t think that any of us have any
ambitions of becoming Olympic athletes.
We’re not suited for that kind of thing.
Nor do any of us have ambitions of becoming brain surgeons. Again, we’re not cut out for it. Even when it comes to money (which none of us
can ever seem to have too much of), I don’t think you have dreams of being
super-duper rich. You have your lot in
life, and your expectations are set accordingly. I suppose that we all imagine that tomorrow
will not be all that different than today.
Our hope, of course, is that tomorrow will be at least as good as today
is, and if it’s a little bit better, then that would be really nice.
In our culture there are two main factors that are pointed
out as having a bearing on how tomorrow will go: Luck and ambition. When a person’s life gets better—when they
get a better job, or find a good spouse, or they make valuable
investments—these kinds of things are attributed to good luck. When things go badly, then the person is
unlucky. I think that for a lot of
people this is not so much that they actually believe in a thing called “luck”
as that they don’t really know why things happen—bad or good. Being lucky or unlucky, for a lot of people,
is just saying stuff happens, and who knows whether it will continue or not.
People have a more definite idea about the value of ambition
for how things will go. There is a
deeply seated American idea that we all make our own lot in life. If we work hard and work smart, then things
will go well. If we don’t work hard or
work smart, then things will not go well.
The future is in our own hands.
Everything is up to us.
Because these two explanations for what happens in a
person’s life are so powerfully believed and taught, it is only with difficulty
that we can begin to think like a Christian.
But that is why we have the Bible—it is not given as a doorstop or a
paperweight. It is given so that we
might learn from it.
Something that is quite practical and applicable that we can
learn from it is that God is the only acceptable, ultimate explanation for why
and how our life progresses the way that it does is because of God. This is true for everybody’s life, whether
they are a believer or an unbeliever.
The Bible has examples of unbelievers’ lives. It has many more examples of believers’
lives. We can learn from both, because
we do not want to end up as unbelievers and be condemned, and so we can take
warning. We’d like to become or remain
believers so that we will be saved, and so we can see how God dealt with his
saints from times past and apply it also to ourselves.
This is why it is a good thing to study somebody like Jacob,
to whom God also gives the name Israel, whose twelve sons would make up the
twelve tribes of Israel. The portion of
the Scripture that we considered tonight is towards the end of his life. Much had already happened to him. He had fought with his brother Esau. He had been cheated by his uncle Laban. The wife he loved more, Rachel, bore children
with great difficulty, and in fact died in bearing their youngest son
Benjamin. Benjamin’s brother, Joseph,
was Jacob’s favorite son, and because of this he was hated by his
brothers. By trickery Jacob was led to
believe that Joseph had been killed by wild animals, but in fact he had been
sold into slavery in Egypt. Jacob had no
shortage of troubles.
Now that he is a very old, feeble man, he finds that he
cannot stay in his beloved homeland of Canaan.
There was a severe famine—no rain, no forage for the livestock, no food. The only place that has food is Egypt, so
that is where he is forced to go.
I feel pretty confident in saying that this is not exactly
how Jacob wanted things to go. Things
became so bad at home that he essentially had to become a refugee—a stranger, a
beggar. That is not a way that people want
to live out their “golden years.”
So what are we to make of these difficult conditions that
Jacob was forced to endure at least somewhat against his will? There are a lot of things that we can never
know about what exactly is going on, because God doesn’t tell us. Why couldn’t there have been better weather
and more plentiful bounty from their flocks so that Jacob wouldn’t have to go
to Egypt? God doesn’t say. Something that God does say is that all
things work together for the good of those who love him. We know that God loved Jacob and that Jacob
loved God, and so we can know that these things were for his good. How and why they were exactly for his good
cannot be known with any certainty.
Just so that you can understand something of why things like
this might happen, I’ll give you a possible explanation so you can understand
why God decide to do things like this.
It is possible that Jacob was getting to be too comfortable in his
comfortable surroundings, and that God with his promises of comfort was no
longer what ruled in Jacob’s heart, soul, and mind. The Bible says nothing about this being the
reason whatsoever, and so you shouldn’t think that this is the correct answer
for why God decided that Jacob should die in a strange land in his old
age. I’ve only given you this as a possible
explanation so that you can see why God might do something that seems
strange or unwelcome to us, but it is actually for our good. It is not luck or Jacob’s ambitions or lack
thereof that explain why things turned out for him the way that they did. It was God, and he did it for his ultimate
good. Jacob died as a stranger in a
strange land, but he was no stranger to God.
His afflictions and troubles purged out his false faith in things
besides God, so that he could cling all the more to God in whom our hopes are
never misplaced.
It is good for us to see examples like this in the
Scriptures so that we can also think about our own lives. We all have a general idea of what might lie
ahead for us in our lives, but things can change. We do not fear those things that will improve
our quality of life. These things are
welcome, and we must be sure that we give thanks for them. But we do fear those things that might
decrease our quality of life, or even take away our life altogether. We should not imagine that these things are a
matter of luck, or even that they are a matter of getting older, or just random
stuff that happens. Realize that God is
intimately involved in your life, and that ultimately there isn’t anything that
happens that isn’t apart from his will.
This is a scary thought, and so it is easy for us to shy
away from it. The reason why it is a
scary thought is that sometimes really bad things can happen that we really,
really don’t like. What, then, will this
do to our opinion of God? Will this mean
that we will hate God, or that we will see him as a scary ogre? Let’s not kid ourselves, some people do come
away with that conclusion—and that is why I think we are so scared to looking
at our lives in this way. But the reason
why that happens is because people are judging God apart from his
promises. They don’t believe the
promises God has made to all people in Christ, and so they rise up against him
for not doing as he or she would want.
But if you keep in mind God’s promises, and especially the
promise of redemption and everlasting life that he has made in Jesus Christ,
then there is no need to see God as evil or an ogre when he does things that we
might find unpleasant. Instead these
unpleasant things are known for what they really are—discipline from a loving
Father. No one likes discipline at the
time that it is given, but there is nothing more loving that a father can do
than to discipline his children. Lazy or
incredibly stupid fathers will allow their children to harm themselves by going
after whatever their desires might be. A
loving father prevents a child from doing what it wants, because the Father
knows a better way. Blessed and wise is
the child who knows that this is true, and will receive discipline with
patience and even thanksgiving.
That is how we should receive God’s hard knocks in our life
too. We should understand them as
discipline and that God is preventing us from carrying out our will that would
like to do otherwise. Discipline also is
humbling. We have to swallow our pride
and know that God’s ways are better than our ways. That can be a bitter thing to learn, but know
that God rejects the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
Always keep in mind that this earth is not our home. It is not the only story. Behind our earthly life is the way that God
forms and shapes and alters things so that we are not lost forever, but by
baptism and by faith receive eternal life.
Jacob, whom we heard about tonight, had a very bumpy ride through life. He shed a lot of tears. He even died in a strange land. But now God himself comforts him and wipes
away every tear from his eyes. If that
is how things turn out for you too—that there are a lot of tears in this life,
but God wipes them away in the next, then you have lived well despite the pain,
and you will die well with faith in your Savior.
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