WHY DO YOU ASK MY NAME?

One of my favorite events in scripture is the night Jacob wrestled with God. I don't believe you find anything like this in any religious teaching other than the Bible. The God who created the universe humbles Himself to wrestle with a man. The story is in Genesis 32.

Jacob feared that he and his family would be attacked by his brother, Esau, and an army of 400 men with him. Jacob sent his family and all his possessions across the Jabbok River to protect them. And left alone, all that night a man wrestled with him. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip and put it out of joint. If he hadn't known before, Jacob now knew who this was. This is not the first time in scripture or even in Jacob's own family, that God appeared to someone as a man. I am convinced that Jacob wrestled with the preincarnate Christ whom The New Testament identifies as the I AM who appeared to Moses at the burning bush. He told Jacob to let go of Him because the night was over. But Jacob said, “I will not let you go until you bless me.” Jacob, already crippled so that he would limp for the rest of his days, knew he was now risking his life for the blessing of God. And in blessing him God changed Jacob's name to Israel.

But then we read in verse 29 that Jacob asked Him, “Please tell me your name.” He said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” Why did Jacob ask his name? If he didn't already know whom he was dealing with, he wouldn't have asked Him for a blessing. And we read in verse 30 that Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”

I remember something from my childhood that impressed me deeply. My father, who was usually a very quiet man, talked about an answer to prayer that he thought could never happen. And Dad said, “God had to have done that!” That statement from my father encourages me to this day. Many of you can look back on some time in your life in which you were absolutely certain of God's intervention. Your’s, like my dad’s, may have been an impossible answer to prayer. It may have been a miraculous rescue. You may have trembled at the wonder of the universe. You might have been stunned by the complex language of DNA, or the calculated peregrinations of migratory birds. You could have sensed God’s very presence in a prayer meeting, a worship service, or in your private devotions. And you knew it had to be God. Whatever it was, sometime later you asked if that could really have been God. You may have asked a friend or a mentor their opinion. You may even have asked God, “Was that you God?” even though, somewhere in your mind, you knew it had to have been. While most if not all of us have had experiences like that, we sometimes need to remember that He is just as real when we no longer sense His presence. He is God even when He is not wrestling with you.

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THE SIN OF THE CHURCH

What sin is enveloping the church in these days?

Any sin is serious. And God's people are not immune to the enemy’s temptations, although we are given armor against them. To some extent, it is not unusual for God’s people to be sucked into whatever sin dominates our culture. But those who desire to be godly will seek deliverance from the sin of the world around us.

The sin that is shaking our country is slander. It is prevalent on Facebook and other social media. It seems to have consumed politics. And yes, it can be found even in God’s church. We are tempted to think that castigating those we disagree with or that we feel are attacking us is the right thing to do. That is an ungodly notion. The Bible clearly condemns slander.

In Mark 7:21,22 Jesus listed slander as one of those things that come from within our hearts and defile us before God.

In Ephesians 4:31 Paul directs us.

“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.”

This includes all bitterness toward those whose politics, world view, or lifestyle we abhor.

1 Peter 2:1 calls God's people to stop slandering others.

“Put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.”

Like a number of sins, slander defies several of the Ten Commandments. First it breaks the command not to bear false witness. If you say or write something that you have not verified about anyone, a neighbor, a politician or a public figure, you are saying you don’t care as much about the truth as God does. I have heard people defend this by saying, “Well, most of what I said has to be true.” I wish I could say that ruins your whole argument. It certainly does for me. But in this post-truth era, people may not care whether everything you say is true or not. But you can be sure that God is not with you in that tirade.

Slander also breaks the command not to murder. You may be scratching your head at this one. In Matthew 5:22 Jesus said,

“But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”

Jesus called hatred, murder in your heart. We need to strive not to minimize the seriousness of this evil.

Possibly a little more obscurely, slander challenges the first commandment. God said “I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me.” Pride and hypocrisy are the seeds of slander. The person committing this sin pretends to be better than the person we are slandering. Slander puts into words the worship of your own thinking, your attitudes, your fears, your politics, and even your bitterness.

Some of you are cut to the heart by what I have written. God bless you. Some of you have known all along that hatred of our enemies is not Christ-like. But what are we to do?

First we need to turn to God with a repentant heart. That includes those of you who have not participated in this sin as far as you know. We are all part of the church, and many in the church are guilty of outrageous slander. We must not approach them with an arrogant spirit. Before we say anything to anyone else, we need to pray like Nehemiah and Daniel prayed when they confessed the sins of their people. They had probably never participated in those sins, but they recognized that they were part of the people of God who had sinned.

We are to pray consistently, both for our enemies and for those who would hate and lie about them rather than loving them in the name of Christ. Pray for God to help us love both those who slander and those who are slandered.

And trust that God is sovereign. The saying, United we stand. Divided we fall. Can be traced back to one of Aesop. In a different context, Jesus said, “A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.” Although especially in this time of pandemic, I see bright sparks of unity in America, I fear that our nation might not survive the divisiveness in our culture and politics. Trust me, you will not enjoy the destruction this country. And whatever emerges will be worse, maybe worse than anyone could imagine. I am not suggesting that we not disagree with one another. I am crying out to God and to God’s people that we set an example for the rest by not hating or believing the worst about those with whom we disagree. However, even if God’s people seek to be holy in the midst of all this, I am not sure what will happen in our nation as a whole. I am certain that no matter what happens Jesus is Lord, He is coming back, and God is still on the throne. Our security is in Him. Therefore, “love one another, just as he has commanded us.” (1 John 3:23)

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HOW ARE YOU WORKING FOR SUCCESS?

I am writing especially to you who are pastors, but much of what I have to say will apply to any believer in Jesus Christ. I suspect that much of what is pressed upon us by the church growth movement and its widely accepted continuations are little more than superstition. Some of these things remind me of the labors of Jacob in the 30th chapter of Genesis. Jacob put striped sticks before the eyes of the livestock while they were breeding so that they would bear striped and spotted offspring which were to be his wages.

I have recently been trying to memorize chapter by chapter through Genesis. And frankly, I had great difficulty with this chapter. I did not believe for a minute that what those animals saw had any relation to how their offspring turned out. However, I am pretty sure that Jacob believed it while he was doing it. And low and behold, it worked! Jacob became extremely rich. That may be the mantra of some in the church growth movement. Whatever works must be right.

I didn't really get any peace about this until I was into the 31st chapter, and discovered that at least eventually Jacob found out that his strategy was not what increased his flocks. And Moses had to have known it when he penned chapter 30. God made the animals produce the offspring that were designated as Jacob's wages, not his machinations.

Now, let me say emphatically that the Bible teaches that God and God alone adds numerically to His church. I am aware that by God's grace and in union with God's Spirit we, like Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:11, seek to persuade people. But we do not do it with cleverness, sidestepping truth that is uncomfortable, or appealing to worldliness. We persuade in the fear of God, the conviction of the word of God, and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

This is not to say that you can never bring success by gimmicks. I once heard someone quip, "That church would have grown if there wasn't a God." But I strongly suspect that if you reach people by any means but the movement of the Holy Spirit, they are still lost. And they will often do harm to the fellowship before they leave completely.

What then can we do to become successful? Let me suggest some things that lead to long-term success, at least in the eyes of God.

1. Seek to grow in the Lord by saturating yourself in God's word.
2. Seek to grow in the Lord as you obey what God shows you of His will.
3. Pray earnestly and lead others to pray for God's will and work in their lives and in His church
4. Pray for people all around you, and help others pray for deep connections with people who need to hear the gospel.
5. Compassionately minister to needs that God shows you.
6. Consistently teach and train your people to walk with God and touch the lives of others.

The scriptures give us the fodder for this kind of development and teaching. Things like the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5 and those things that pertain to life and godliness listed in 2 Peter 1 and in many other Scripture passages that God enlightens in your heart, in your preaching and teaching, for your organization and encouragement of the flock, and in the lives of your people.

http://thinkinginthespirit.blogspot.com/
http://theanchorofthesoul.blogspot.com/
http://watchinginprayer.blogspot.com/
http://writingprayerfully.blogspot.com/

Website
http://daveswatch.com/

YouTube
https://goo.gl/PyzU

Amazon Author's Page
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