Dear Church family, I hope you were refreshed with meeting together as a Church family yesterday and that you were reminded and even felt, once again, the bigness of Who our God is. My aim was to invite you to “magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together” (Psalm 34:3). That should be my aim in preaching and teaching the Word of God every Sunday, to invite us to magnify our great God together. If preaching leads us to life change, to inspiration, to personal encouragement, but not magnifying the Lord, then it has failed. The Bible is not about us. It is about God and the way that we benefit from Him, not the way that He benefits from us!
And that is why Genesis 21:1-7 emphasizes God’s supernatural work to give birth to Isaac through Abraham at a ripe old age of 100 years old and his barren wife Sarah at 90 years old: to highlight the supernatural ability of God to fulfill His promises and progress His Kingdom despite us. It’s to highlight how “God’s people could not, but God could!”
Oh how we still need that mentality in all that we do for God’s Kingdom. Even though we work hard (remember Hag. 2:4!), it’s God working through us and our attitude needs to realize that all of our work, skill, and efforts are not God! God is God and we are not, nor our skills or methods. And that means that He accomplishes the work through us and gets all the glory.
- (-) I want to emphasize (negatively) the great temptation that I feel in American culture that resists the fact that God’s Kingdom grows through His power and not our wisdom, might, or skills (although certainly He can use them!). We live in an era where the Church wrestles between wanting a “professional feel” vs “family feel.” A professional feel emphasizes doing everything that we do in a perfect way, like the music, the preaching, the organized events, and control in those areas etc… Family emphasizes relationships and embraces some of the messy aspects, some things that are outside of our control. In my mind, ‘professional’ emphasizes ‘mastering the arts’ whereas ‘family’ represents ‘relationships.’ Perhaps ‘professional’ and ‘family’ can go together, but I personally find that ‘professional’ and ‘family’ seem to clash. And yet above all, God’s people are a family and we progress through God’s Spirit making people born again (like Isaac) in supernatural fashion (Compare Gal. 4:28-29 & John 3:5!) into the family/Kingdom of God.Church growth all happens like Abraham giving birth to Isaac! We should never be able to claim an inch or credit for it! But I’m afraid that we can try to build God’s Kingdom like Ishmael. That was the child that Abraham gave birth to through Hagar, thinking it was the fulfillment of God’s promise, but it wasn’t (Gen. 16). Abraham worked in his flesh and depended on himself to bring the world one step closer to King Jesus (who actually comes through Isaac), but the fruit of Abraham’s labor, Ismael, actually did not fulfill that Christological purpose because it was done in his own strength against God’s will (side note: surprisingly, but true to God’s character, He still blessed Ishmael!).May God prevent us from striving for Church growth in ways that depend on our strength, efforts, skills, our Ishmaels! I hope that I’m not coming across wrongly like working to do all things well, organized, and skillfully are bad. I can’t imagine not striving for excellency in all areas in my own life or our Church family’s life! I want to encourage my kids to accel at everything they do to the best of their ability. I want this for myself and I want this for everybody else too. However, we as Americans are obsessed with this to a fault (it’s an idol!), and this is why we need a healthy dose of humility and hear God say, ‘I don’t need you. You need me and I’ll fulfill my purpose and plan through shabby people and in unexpected ways just so that I get the glory and not you!”This is what 1 Corinthians 1-2 is all about. I encourage you to read it. Jon Oldham, the director of Harvey Cedars recently wrote this: “As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1-2, the church isn’t about eloquent speech, worldly wisdom, or attractive features, but it’s about preaching the gospel: Jesus Christ and Him crucified; Jesus Christ the power and wisdom of God. It’s our prayer that that’s who we are at Harvey Cedars: a place for humbly preaching the gospel, and a place where He finds people and changes their lives.” And that’s exactly what the life of Abraham says to us, especially in chapter 21.And let me add, if we are going to obsess over one thing in Church Kingdom growth, it’s representing God well through our character, not our skills. You can have great character and be a godly individual, but lack great skills, and yet God uses you. You can have great skills but lack the heart of God. If I could choose between the two, it would be that I exhibit, me and this Church, a heart for Christ and the heart of Jesus in me that comes out to others, through speaking, interacting, preaching, parenting, praying, and even resting!
- (+) Now allow me to end on a positive note to you. The life of Abraham is supremely positive because his life is marked by imperfect faith in a perfect God. You can see through his walk with God the way that God is molding and shaping the growth of his faith in Him (that’s really what Romans 4:17-20 says). Praise the Lord that He finishes what he starts in us! (Phil. 1:6). Praise God that He is the “author and perfector of our faith!” And we see this in the life of Abraham.And the one thing that I hope you understand and embrace through Abrhaham’s life is just how important our faith is within the economy of God’s Kingdom. If God does not need our skills to accomplish His work, what does He need? Well, He needs nothing. However, He will use our faith. Our faith in Him is the most useful thing in His Kingdom, dare I say it’s practical (it always works itself out in obedience/visual ways. Read James 2).With that being said, in order for you and I to have the faith that God desires in Him, we need to know Who God is. And in Genesis, and in particular, Abrham’s life, we see this most basic definition for faith in God (may we have it!): To understand God & have accurate faith in Him, you need to understand that God is first and primarily known as Him working for us rather than us working for Him! He works to provide for His promises…of growth, of Church success, of blessing to the world, and of your sanctification personally. To me, this has been one of the most exciting discoveries of God through Genesis and Abraham’s life. As Creator, God is a provider, and He will provide everything we need in ministry and in our Christian walk with Him to thrive. When Abraham sins in his journey, it’s always because some kind of worldly pressure makes him cave into believing the lie that God is not enough and He will not provide what He truly needs like safety and protection. And for us, if we have faith in God, then we’ll trust that He provides for His promises, one’s like Kingdom growth.And by the way, God is doing the same thing in Genesis 21 to Abe & Sarah as He did in Gen. 3:7 & 21 to Adam & Eve – “God provided for them what they in vain had tried to provide for themselves.” Adam & Eve tried to provide clothing for themself in 3:7, but God provides a better covering in 3:21. Abraham tried to provide God’s promise of offspring and blessing in chapter 16 through Ishmael, but God provides a better blessing and true blessing in chapter 21, Isaac. And that describes our Chrisitan journey. We must learn to depend on the Lord to provide EVERYTHING we need and stop depending on the adult mentality (that I need to work hard and provide for my needs). While that is true in a sense, there is a greater reality working over our efforts: that God is working to provide for us when we fail, and He has already provided a body for us and a will so that we can exert ourselves! So we must move forward, WOL Chapel, with the humble attitude and confident faith that God will provide all that we need, and it will be in ways that defy our ability. I feel like I’m saying something foolish as I write this because it’s so anti-culture. It seems irresponsible. It seems like it kills our reward. But isn’t our reward to glorify God for all that He has done in us and through us? That should be enough.
With love in Christ, God’s ultimate provision,
Aaron
