Last year, those were the three movements that I believe God used to try and shape us as individuals. Those things don't change for this year. I believe that we need to let these truths seep in our souls. In different ways, they are always going to be important to us.
But this week, we want to look and pay attention to four new words:
Acceptance ----------Achievement ----------Sustenance ----------Significance
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PAUSE:
- Which one of those words jumps out to you?
- Put those words and the ideas they stand in
some type of order. Which should come first?
How do they flow into each other?
(Just off the top of your head)
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With those ideas in mind, let's look at two stories from the Bible, and compare and contrast them.
STORY #1: Genesis 27:1-40
When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called for Esau his older son and said to him, “My son.”
“Here I am,” he answered.
Isaac said, “I am now an old man and don’t know the day of my death. Now then, get your equipment—your quiver and bow—and go out to the open country to hunt some wild game for me. Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my blessing before I die.”
Now Rebekah was listening as Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau left for the open country to hunt game and bring it back, Rebekah said to her son Jacob,“Look, I overheard your father say to your brother Esau, ‘Bring me some game and prepare me some tasty food to eat, so that I may give you my blessing in the presence of the Lord before I die.’ Now, my son, listen carefully and do what I tell you: Go out to the flock and bring me two choice young goats, so I can prepare some tasty food for your father, just the way he likes it. Then take it to your father to eat, so that he may give you his blessing before he dies.”
Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “But my brother Esau is a hairy man while I have smooth skin. What if my father touches me? I would appear to be tricking him and would bring down a curse on myself rather than a blessing.”
His mother said to him, “My son, let the curse fall on me. Just do what I say; go and get them for me.”
So he went and got them and brought them to his mother, and she prepared some tasty food, just the way his father liked it. Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins. Then she handed to her son Jacob the tasty food and the bread she had made.
He went to his father and said, “My father.”
“Yes, my son,” he answered. “Who is it?”
Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.”
Isaac asked his son, “How did you find it so quickly, my son?”
“The Lord your God gave me success,” he replied.
Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near so I can touch you, my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not.”
Jacob went close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” He did not recognize him, for his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he proceeded to bless him. “Are you really my son Esau?” he asked.
“I am,” he replied.
Then he said, “My son, bring me some of your game to eat, so that I may give you my blessing.”
Jacob brought it to him and he ate; and he brought some wine and he drank. Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come here, my son, and kiss me.”
So he went to him and kissed him. When Isaac caught the smell of his clothes, he blessed him and said,
“Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed. May God give you heaven’s dew and earth’s richness— an abundance of grain and new wine. May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed.”
After Isaac finished blessing him, and Jacob had scarcely left his father’s presence, his brother Esau came in from hunting. He too prepared some tasty food and brought it to his father. Then he said to him, “My father, please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.”
His father Isaac asked him, “Who are you?”
“I am your son,” he answered, “your firstborn, Esau.”
Isaac trembled violently and said, “Who was it, then, that hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it just before you came and I blessed him—and indeed he will be blessed!”
When Esau heard his father’s words, he burst out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me—me too, my father!”
But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.”
Esau said, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? This is the second time he has taken advantage of me: He took my birthright, and now he’s taken my blessing!” Then he asked, “Haven’t you reserved any blessing for me?”
Isaac answered Esau, “I have made him lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants, and I have sustained him with grain and new wine. So what can I possibly do for you, my son?”
Esau said to his father, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!” Then Esau wept aloud.
His father Isaac answered him,
“Your dwelling will be away from the earth’s richness, away from the dew of heaven above. You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck.”
Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. He said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”
STORY #2: Luke 3:21-22
When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
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PAUSE:
- What are the similarities here?
- What are the people in these stories seeking?
- What are the differences?
- What is God really like?
- What did Jacob have to do to get the blessing
of acceptance from his father?
- What did Jesus have to do to get the blessing
of acceptance from his Father?
- What do we have to do for the blessing of
acceptance from God?
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What's the point?
Before the stories, I asked for you to organize four words. The order that we seek those words is so significant to the image that we have of God. In our modern western culture, those words would be organized this way.
Achievement - Significance - Sustenance - Acceptance
In other words, if I can achieve enough, if I am good enough at something and win enough, then I will have significance in the world and people will notice me. Hopefully, I can keep that achievement up long enough to sustain me, to keep me going. And if I am good enough, someone will eventually accept me.
We see this type of brokenness all over that first story. Jacob wants to be able to get the blessing of acceptance, but it is only going to be given by his father to the one who achieves (by shooting some animals and cooking it for him). So Jacob tries to subvert the system, and show that he has achieved, and it just so happens that he knows how to cook (and how to lie :-) These achievements let him fool his dad, and he gets the blessing of significance.
But look at how Jacob achieved that blessing - by acting like somebody else! So is there any chance that significance or acceptance is going to sustain him through life? No way. Instead it will haunt him. Esau will haunt him. Jacob will always wonder if just being Jacob was enough. There's all sorts of other crazy stuff in here too - like why did Isaac believe he only had one blessing to give - but that aside... the lie that achievement has to come first creates resentment, competition, chaos and hurt.
But in the second story, we see a clear picture of God. God organizes the words differently.
Acceptance - Sustenance - Significance - Achievement
In other words, we are accepted by God just as we are. This sustains us and gives us the energy to keep going, because we know that no matter how we fail, the creator God is crazy in support of us. This gives us room to find our significance, and launches us into whatever it is that God has for us to achieve.
It's much more beautiful. It's much more inspiring. It's much more true.
You see, Jesus had done no ministry at this point. No miracles. No teachings. No hanging on the cross. Jesus had been a carpenter. Jesus had lived with his mother. Jesus had watched his siblings grow up around him. But had done nothing of the things he'd become famous for. And in that moment of nothingness, GOD WAS CRAZY IN SUPPORT OF HIM.
My Story
It's amazing when you realize that God is not against you, but for you. That God accepts you no matter where you are at. That love and understanding can be so sustaining.
Many (alright, probably all of you) have heard my story about when my wife broke up with me while we were dating in college. About how I went out to the soccer goals on the field and cried out to God in my time of feeling my most rejected. I was downright angry at God, but also feeling really guilty and scared that God was angry with me. And as I cried out, I had this strange sense that God was right there with me, sitting on the ground on the soccer field, back against the same post as me. Just listening until I got all my anger out and said everything I wanted to.
I realized in the course of my blustering that I hadn't done everything right. I had allowed Courtney to become too important in my life - maybe like you've allowed something or someone to become too important in your life. And yet as I literally cried, my main feeling wasn't guilt or despair. God was filling me up with hope. Because even in this place of brokenness, God accepted me. God saw me as a son, who he loved, and in me he was well pleased. And suddenly I realized something: Not everything was right, but everything was going to be alright. Not everything was okay, but everything was going to be okay.
This has happened to me time and again when I get in rough patches of life. When I am overwhelmed with responsibilities, when my wife and I suffered a miscarriage of a baby, when I was so angry at God because my brother's tennis team lost, when I'm writing devotions for tennis camp... God sits down next to me and says, "Listen, even if this all fails, even if you achieve nothing, you are still my son, and I still love you, and I am still pleased with you."
That is incredible to me. God begins with acceptance.
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PAUSE:
- What about you? Where have you struggled or
what have been your most difficult times?
- Imagine yourself back in that difficult place,
then in your imagination look around,
where was Jesus and what was he saying to you?
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So, what about us?
God's acceptance gives us a lot of freedom.
We don't have to pretend to be someone else.
We don't have to act like there isn't enough blessing to go around.
We don't have to get mad at our brother and take away his worth to gain our own.
We don't have to feel like God is mad at us.
We don't have to cling to the thing that we think makes us worthwhile.
We can simply stand in God's support, knowing that while we might not have done everything right, everything is going to be alright. And we can offer that same acceptance to those around us.
Because, if we are all God's sons, who God loves, then that makes us all brothers to each other. And brother you've got acceptance with me as well. And that acceptance doesn't ride on how many forehands you can finish for winners, how many matches you win, what position on the team you play, or even how well you listen and participate. That acceptance is based on the fact that God created you well, and by God's creation, you became my brother. And that's enough for me to be in full support of you. You are enough.
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