FHBC Sermon Notes

I am convinced that when God made little boys, he made them with a "stick magnet".  Boys are always picking up sticks. These sticks can be anything:  a weapon, a staff, a poker for the fire, a drawing utensil.  And boys look around on the ground for the best stick.  Bigger, straighter, longer.  But when the line is drawn, it is not the stick that matters, it is the grip of the boys hands, the attention of the mind.  This is an illustration for the story we see in this passage. God is drawing a line with history.  He is telling a story, but it is strange to see that God is using crooked sticks to draw that line.

Genesis 27-50 (Focus passage: Genesis 28:10-22)

We look at the early chapters of Genesis and immediately following the goodness of creations we see man's rebellion.  Sin entered the world and infected it.  The presence of sin brought a curse.  The curse of death. 

Let us not kid ourselves. We are at this same part of the story. We sin just as Adam and Cain did. As all those that deserved and received judgment.  But God now and then is not watching this wringing his hands.  He is continually saving. Saving for a purpose, to make a people for himself.  So in this passage, we see what God is doing.  He is redeeming that people from the same people that had rebelled against him.

As we look at these passages, we first see God select one man, a man named Abraham.  He makes some outlandish promises to him.  He will make a nation of him, bless those that bless him, and curse those who curse him, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him.  But Abraham failed, and as we saw last week, God remained faithful.  Furthermore Abraham died.  Did it end there?  No, because God is the one fulfilling his promises.  The story, the promise continues through Isaac and then to Jacob.  It is here that we are picking up the story. 

Is these passages we see Abraham die, Isaac die, Jacob dies, Joseph die.  And yet… God is writing the story, and we see each even in death looking forward to the blessing to come.  (Genesis 50). 

What is this line then? It is the line of redemption.  It is a line that is drawn all through scripture, all through our lives now, and to the new heaven's and the new earth. 

When we look at the passages we read this week, we have to really admit there is some pretty tawdry stuff in these passages.  How is God drawing a straight line with these sort of people. Look at Jacob - can there be a more crooked stick?  From birth on he connives, he lies, all to received the blessing.  Perhaps he and his mother thought they were "helping" God out.  But there are consequences. Jacob becomes a hunted man.  And then Jacob continues with his deception.  He fights with his father-in-law over flocks, over wealth and his wife and children.  And then again he flees.  He is hemmed in "behind and before".  He flees putting his wife and children before him.  He is using them as a buffer….

But what is God doing.  Here in Genesis 28 we see Jacob finally come to terms, wrestling with God, and finally submitting to him.  But it doesn't end there. The story of Dinah shows how the sins of the father continue in the children.  Yet again, God preserves them again, God defends them.  All kinds of sin and corruption, and despite that God continues to draw the line of redemption.  By all accounts God's purposes seem like they should unravel.  In the hands of men like Jacob and his children, it shouldn't work.  But… God continues to draw that line, working to bring his promises to fruition. 

Consider this final dilemma.  Right in the middle of the story of Joseph is story of Judah and Tamar.  An adulterous relationship with his daughter-in-law.  Deception, lies again.  What is the point of this story?  Where is Tamar's name in the New Testament?  She is the straight line ancestor of Jesus.  What!!?  Yes, this is true, from this crooked, distorted and just strange set of circumstances, God draws a straight line to the Messiah, to Jesus, the one who saves us from our sin.  Wow.  God really does use a crooked stick.

Finally, let us consider the story of Joseph.  It the words of Joseph we see the articulation of how this principle works.  God truly is awesome, making out of sin a way of redemption. 

>So Joseph said to his brothers, "Come near to me, please." And they came near. And he said, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.  And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.  For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest.  And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors.  So it was not you who sent me here, but God. Gen 45:4-8

This is not a license to sin, but instead it shows that even when we fail, God's grace is greater than our sin.  What an encouragement it is to read these stories, and realize that because God is the one moving the stick, we are able to see his goodness and receive his grace and mercy.

*To give occasion for God's grace.*

Despite all that Jacob did, that Judah did, that we do, God lavishes grace upon grace.  God preserves Joseph (like Jesus), to demonstrate the glory of his grace to a sinful people.

*To show the priority of his purposes*

It is not Jacob's will, Judah's will, or Joseph's will.  It is God's will that prevails.  To not be deceived our own Will will never prevail. 

*To show what God can accomplish, for his glory to be displayed. *

In Genesis 28 we see Jacob understanding this.  He knows who gets the credits, who gets the glory.  It is God.  No other.

God draws a straight line through history, through creation, the fall, the flood, through  his son Jesus on the cross, through the apostles and the church, through judgment and rebirth.  It is the story of redemption.  The crooked stick is not the point, but the movement of the one who holds it.  God is great, God is Good. 

Let all names Praise His Name!  Amen!