Genesis
Pastor Stuart spoke from his personal readings in Genesis and examined Jacob’s experiences at what He called ‘GOD’S CUSTOM POSTS’.
Dear family,
It was such a joy to be with you on Sunday. Thank you for your welcome, for listening so attentively to the message and for your response to the Word. I spoke from my personal readings in Genesis last week, where the second-half of the narrative tracks Jacob’s journey. Paul told the Corinthians why the OT narrative is so important for followers of Jesus: “These things happened … as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come” (1 Cor. 10:11). I trust this made sense to you, given our look at Jacob’s experiences at what I called ‘GOD’S CUSTOM POSTS’
Customs Posts are check-points that are places of inspection, of investigation, sometimes interrogation. They are about evaluation, about confession in the form of making declarations. Have you anything to declare? They are about access. Yes, they can feel potentially threatening as they have a deterrent role, but once you have passed through them, you can continue your journey with a sense of freedom and authority. We noted three different customs posts (at Bethel, Bethlehem and Beersheba) that Jacob had to pass through on his pilgrimage that I suggested we too will find on our spiritual journey, both personal and corporate. The same places, by different names and in different circumstances have been and will be on our spiritual travel schedules.
These spiritual check-points are not about the excise taxes of man, about what man demands. They are about the excising of the heart of man by God, about key moments of divine inventory when, yes, we are asked to make a declaration: about our citizenship, about our intended travel plans, about our destinations, and also about our baggage. Life is littered with such check-points. God never intends them to become stopping places. The place of inventory and inspection, of evaluation and examination, is always about transition, not termination; about moving on not going back; about mission not maintenance. Sure, it sometimes feels like fear and smells like death, but the check-point is not intended to close our eyes in fear but open them in faith to new vistas of as-yet untraveled walks of faith, unclaimed territory, unfinished business. They are about new horizons, that draw us into new terrain, new possession, new occupation.
I mentioned briefly the two check-points that preceded Bethel: at Jabbok where God wrestled with him and dried up his hip-sinew, representing the excising of his flesh and self-dependency, and his ability to stand on his own feet. He is dislocated by God in order that he could be relocated. The meeting with Esau was about facing the ghosts of his unresolved past, and experiencing the grace of God in his deliverance that freed him to look in the face of Esau, representing sin and shame, fear and failure, and say that now he saw the face of God in it all. There’s no space here to do more than just identify the next three check-points. (You can always download the message and re-listen to it to get the substance of what I shared about each one.) Suffice it to say, no more than Jacob can we spare ourselves these check-points of our walk of faith: personally, familiarly and corporately.
Like Jacob, we will come to the barrier at Bethel, to the inspection and conviction of the Holy Spirit, to the place that requires purging before pressing on, where we will do what Paul exhorted the Corinthians to do there: “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith: test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” (2 Cors. 13:5) Jesus cannot share the space with anything that is not Christ. Are you at Check-point Bethel? Do you need to remove something that has been, that is wrong, that is not consistent with the way that Jesus has called you to walk. Make your declaration at this customs January 14, 2020 post, let it be removed and let the guilt be taken away by Jesus who once and for all took away our sin, and walk out the other side of this check-point with a clean passport and a cleansed identity. This is all about removing what is wrong.
Like Jacob, we will come to the barrier at Bethlehem, to the places where it seems that too much is asked of us, but where what is most precious (our Isaacs) can be sacrificed and disallowed to become an idolatry or a possession that displaces or replaces our love for Jesus who is our all and all. Are you at Check-point Bethlehem? What is the Lord asking of you? Do you love Him more than these – what are your ‘these’? As Paul put it (Philippians 3:7-8) “whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.” What we feel as loss of what is good, is transformed into the gain of what is Christ. Make your declaration of sacrifice and denial at this customs post. This is all about releasing what is right.
Like Jacob, we will come to the barrier at Beersheba. We will feel awkward and even immature that we have to be catechized by the Lord on the most fundamental matters of trust and faith. When you’re at this check-point bumper-sticker theology won’t help you, like ‘Let go and let God’. You need to hear the voice of God speaking the most basic answers to your most basic fears. But you have to admit what you fear. Name it and let the Lord excise it (get rid of) with His old but fresh revelation of who He is still is to you. Are you at Check-point Beersheba? Yes, there is a road beyond the Beersheba customs post that invites us to pass through against the odds, to mature in trust and faith and claim new land and a continuing history in God. We can pass through Beersheba, assured like Jacob of His presence, His personal care, His purpose, His protection and provision. We think it’s the end of this generation of walking and working, but God promises posterity. This is all about recovering what is true about God.
These check-points are not about the perturbation of our souls, but about the preparation of our lives for what is yet to come, including heaven no less. Yes, we often feel something is being taken away, but in the words of one young martyr, Jim Elliot, who released the good of his own life in his death at the hands of Auca Indians in Ecuador in 1956 at the age of 29:
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep
to gain what he cannot lose.
See you at the check-point.
Pastorally yours,
Stuart
P.S. Perhaps you can re-listen to the message before homegroup so you can pray through and pray in the application, not only personally, but also for our corporate church life and direction, to press through and pass through to the other side of the check-points.