Profiles in Jacob: Breaking the Silence

(This article is by Mark, along with Pastor Hector Nufio, Elim Central Church, Guatemala)

“Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, and Jacob said to his sons, ‘Why are you staring at one another? Behold, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt; go down there and buy some for us from that place, so that we may live and not die.’” (Gen. 42:1-2)

From most scholars’ perspectives, this event comes after a twenty year period where Jacob is not really walking with or seeking the Lord very much. We know at least one of the reasons why. He had lost his son twenty years before (Gen. 37:31-34) and had told his sons when they tried to comfort him, “Surely I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son.” (vs. 35) This was an event marked for him by finality, something that would alter the rest of his life.

Many of us have faced events like these, turning points in our lives. Many truly never fully recover from them. What is sad is that so many say, “Why did God do this to me, why did He take away my loved one, why did God permit such a thing?” We ignore Matt. 10:17 where Jesus told us to beware of men and the things they would do, and we blame a loving and caring and just God. For whatever reason, something set in on Jacob’s soul and we don’t hear him crying out and wrestling and prevailing with Jehovah God anymore. When there is famine he does not cry out to God; he rebukes his sons and tells them to get to Egypt in a hurry. Joseph is dead and he fears that another loved son, Benjamin, may become lost too, so he holds him back at home. His mourning has become a habit of mind and soul, mixed with suspicion over his sons and the role they may have played (Gen. 42:36), for twenty long years.

“JOSEPH IS ALIVE!!” (Gen. 45:26)

What a shock it must have been, to hear these words. The sons have made trips back and forth to Egypt, trips marked by strange events and the apparent loss of possibly two more sons, Simeon and Benjamin. Suddenly the sons return with this news. It is so incredible that “he was stunned (Heb. numb), for he did not believe them.”

However, as they went on with the story, a new light and joy and hope began to dawn on his heart. “When he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, his spirit revived.” (45:27) He said, “It is enough. My son Joseph is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.” (45:28 )

On the way there, his devotional life returns. He begins to build altars again, and to sacrifice on them and commune with a God that he had not been talking to for a long, long time. (46:1-4) However, on the way, a visit to Beersheba is in the works. This is the place where he deceived his father and took his brother’s birthright, setting in motion many of the problems he later faced. He had sown deception in his family and had later reaped it at the hands of the family he married into.

However, at this fresh renewal meeting with the Lord in Genesis 46, God says nothing about the past. There at Beersheba, the reminder could be very painful. Yet He only speaks of the future. Jacob’s relationship and intimacy with his God has been restored.

TWENTY YEARS . . . . AND THREE DAYS . . . AND ANOTHER MOURNER.

The three days after Jesus’ death may have seemed like twenty years, to a man named Peter. He had betrayed the Lord and, like Jacob, had been in mourning. He wept bitterly, not over the loss of a son but over the loss of his own courage and the breaking of his public promise to Jesus. As Don Francisco writes, “Even if He was alive, it could never be the same.”

Suddenly something very similar happens. A couple of women disciples burst into the room where he is in hiding and they cry out,

“JESUS IS ALIVE.”

Once more, Jesus appears before Peter. At the meal by the fire in John 21:4-14, there is much about the past that could be brought out. Yet Jesus speaks only of the future. “If you love Me, Peter, I want you go and feed and tend My sheep and lambs.”

My Christian friend, has something happened in your relationship with the Lord over time? I personally have never seen the body of Christ in the United States as cold as I see it right now, regarding Bible reading, church attendance, on-fire service and giving, and much more. The conditions are not good, churches are shrinking rather than growing, and our nation is in deep spiritual trouble. We have been heading that way for a long, long time.

Then suddenly comes the news that Someone is alive. Hope is reborn. Could you use some reborn hope today? The Lord is coming to you—not to drag you through the Beershebas of the past, but to recall and retread and re-romance you back to that Bethel where you tithed and gave and worshipped so readily. Can you still hear His voice?

Heaven and Now

“To obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled, and will not fade away, reserved (Gr. Tereo, observed, kept, watched over, preserved) in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In THIS you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while you have been distressed (sorrowed) by various trials.” I Pet. 1:4-6

You have reservations. Where? In heaven.

What do these reservations do? They make you realize that part of your salvation is about to be revealed: not now, but in the last time.

In THIS you greatly rejoice. Even while you also have sorrow for various (many-colored) reasons. While you wonder whether you should make a mortgage payment, or fill your gas tank.

Summer where I live is a season of reservations. We have airline reservations, and with those we are advised that we should add hotel reservations too. Then again, we also want to reserve a car with the hotel and the flight. Or, we have reservations on a cruise line, or maybe (not as glamorous) reservations at a campsite. Lois and I made two of those reservations last summer. Large signs encouraged folks to call early and make reservations. Sometimes spouses are ecstatic to hear that “hubby” made reservations at a restaurant on Friday night: one that is hard to get in to.

Tickets we purchase also give us reservations, to see a baseball team or a play or the opera. In our Chicago news we heard of a person deceived into buying baseball tickets last fall, during playoff season, for seats that don’t even exist in the ballpark. All that Major League Baseball could say was, “sorry.” I regularly pass through an airport that has grumbling “bumped” passengers trying to get on another flight.

AT THE SAME TIME, God says that there is an inheritance reserved in heaven for you. You have reservations there, we are told. It is imperishable and undefiled, just like the reservations. You see, heaven is not “overbooked”. You cannot reserve a place there and then find that tickets there were oversold, or that there never was an event to attend. No one can bump you—not the devil, not anyone.

What is so important about these heavenly reservations that Peter would begin his epistle with a reference to them? Maybe, as Oswald Chambers suggests, we haven’t thought about them enough. He writes,

“This (reservation in heaven) is a great conception of the New Testament,
but it is a conception lost in modern evangelism. We are so much taken
up with what God wants us to be here, that we have forgotten heaven.”

He adds,

“It is a conception beyond us . . . there is an undefiled inheritance awaiting
us which has never yet been realized, and it has in it all we had ever hoped
or dreamed or imagined, and a good deal more.”

Maybe we should start thinking about this “reservation” we have a little bit more. Why? Global warming is the least of our concerns, for God has something even more radical reserved for this earth we live on, and all of the things that it contains and we possess. Peter adds to his “reservation” teaching, “The present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire.” (II Pet. 3:7)

Let’s get this straight. I, the Christian, have reservations.
The whole earth has reservations too.
Mine are for heaven. The earth’s are for fervent, intense heat that burns it up. (II Pet 3:10)
Makes you want to say, “Gotta go,” doesn’t it?

The word “reserved” means guarded, watched over. You are under guard. You are reserved by God, for Him. You are reserved for heaven, to be with Him. You are reserved in Christ, in Him. You are inscribed in the palms of His hands (Isai. 49:16). His own Holy Spirit is the guarantee, as the Scripture says: “He has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing us what is to come.” (II Cor. 5:5)

I KNOW I AM WRITING ABOUT HEAVEN. Fact is, this realization about our “reservations” should have a powerful impact on how we live NOW. For, as the wise man once said,

“What we weave down here, we will wear forever.”

Rev. Jeremiah Wright: It’s a “black” church?

I heard, as I am sure many of you did, the recent comments being published nationwide by a fellow pastor, a man named Jeremiah Wright. Many are wading in with responses to his comments, and so allow me to do the same. The comment I want to address is the one about the “black church.”

Rev. Wright has been in the ministry for many years. I don’t know how carefully he has studied his Bible and in many other areas I cannot stand as judge. But from the Bible perspective he must know very little about “the Church.”

You see, there is no black church. There is no African-American church. There may be traditions that spring from some African Americans regarding church and worship, just like there are European and Hispanic and Asian based traditions. However, traditions are not the Church. The Church supersedes all traditions, having outlived most of them.

The church is a body—one body. (Eph. 2:19-22) In I Cor. 12:18-20, we see that the Church has many members to its body. Some are believers in Christ from Africa, some are from the United States, some are from China, some are from Mexico, and so on. It is only one because it is the Bride of Christ (Rev. 19:7, 21:2-3, 9) for all eternity, and Jesus is faithful, as He taught us to be, to one wife.

Therefore, there is no black church. The “brothers” are not black or white; they are, from Christian perspective, of all colors and ethnic groups and nations. Since God is their father, they have become brothers in the faith. (Matt. 23:8, 25:40, Mark 3:33, I Tim. 5:1) One day, all the brothers and sisters, those who have been faithful disciples and believers and followers of Jesus Christ, from churches denominational and nondenominational, will gather as one in eternity to worship Him. (Rev. 5:9, 15:4) Only one faith, one Lord, one heaven, one body, one Holy Spirit, one hope, and one God and Father over all. (Eph. 4:3-6)

It is true that some blacks and whites and Hispanics and Asians only worship together in churches with those of their own ethnic background and language and color. That doesn’t make it right, but it is happening. In fact, as many have said, Sunday School may be the most segregated school in America. It has happened so long for so many that we now have these many prejudices, fostered for the most part by ignorance and “comfort zones” that won’t even let us get out and worship inter-ethnically like we were made to by God.

I pastored an inter-ethnic church for nine years, and were I to pastor again, it is the only type of church I would be interested in serving. Why? Only in this way, when we are actually working and worshipping and serving and praying together, can we show our world that in Christ these color and ethnic barriers can be broken. Ephesians 2:14-16 shows us that one of the primary purposes of the Holy Spirit in the church is to bust down walls—to remove all enmity and division between Jew and all Gentiles—to make of many believers in Christ, one church.

Maybe when somebody gets this wrong, they begin to get everything else wrong as well.

Church Leaders: Opposing Discipleship?

This past year, one of my major areas of study has been in the disciple-making process – which is often lacking in many churches. Even though disciplers come from all walks of life, I am learning that the pastor is the key – he is the #1 disciple maker. Bill Hull states, “Without strong directive leadership from God’s representative (the discipler), people will lack in personal priorities.”

To be a discipler, what challenges and conflicts will you face? Since disciple-making is so vital and the heart of church ministry, the enemy will fight you hardest throughout the process. It is the sign of a strong church and the key to fulfilling the Great Commission, where Jesus commanded us to “make disciples of all nations”. This is why the enemy will fight you so hard, hitting you and your church with intimidation, deception and impatience, and you will face days where everything appears to be going backwards. In addition to finding those who need discipling, you will need a training program and then you will need to help them make disciples of others. You will have to know where you want them to go from the start, because without vision you will both soon wander. All this takes time, usually a five year plan, and many do not possess that kind of patience or perseverance.

Because of this, you may have noticed that disciple-making is not very popular today. Many churches want quick results that focus on numerical attendance, financial well-being and excitement. Many have stopped asking the right questions. The most popular theologies today are geared towards “immediate need gratification”. As a result, many around you at church believe themselves to be much more mature than they really are.

You will be surprised at those who will reject your efforts to disciple them. For example, to the joy of one church’s leadership team, their new pastor announced that he would become a disciple-maker. But when he opened his first discipleship group, not one church leader would join. Their “I don’t need this” attitude and behavior torpedoed all of the pastor’s efforts. Those who don’t want accountability will resist your efforts. They don’t want someone who will encourage, warn, help and pray for them to make sure that what they are being taught is actually being done. How sad that these people exist, even in leadership, when Christ Himself modeled accountability. (see Mark 6:30)

“Accountability – disciple making would be impossible without it. Disciple makers assist in the process by helping people keep their commitments to God through accountability. A disciple’s life is one of close communion with God and walking in loving obedience, assisted by accountability.” (Bill Hull)

As you become a disciple-maker and begin to delegate real ministry to your disciples, you will be attacked by the traditionalists who cannot see the disciples doing what “only the pastor should be doing”. Many pastors have found themselves caught in the carnal and traditionalist buzz saw. You will be accused of not caring, but in reality you are because you are producing more caring people for an increased ministry to the hurting and needy. Most pastors have spent so much time with the spiritually sick that they can no longer see how important it is to train and ready the spiritually well to help them with all the sick! Work on a cure!

Many do not value true leadership, so it is kept from them. As a result, you cannot help them. Do not try. Discipleship never happens without obedience and respectful submission to a leader.

One of the other problems you will face is the accusation of favoritism. This will happen when you select certain people to disciple, but not others. We can be sure it happened when Jesus chose only twelve of the 5,000. Even the twelve felt jealousy amongst each other! Remember when two of them where arguing about who would be sitting at Jesus’ left and right hands?

Knowing these things, examine your leadership structure as it may be totally out of order. A system that allows the disobedient, Biblically illiterate and unspiritual to lead is in error. Add our love for politics, petitions, motions, committees, power plays and more, and you can see why not much has been getting done for some time in many places that we call “churches”. Leadership needs to be able to show the ability to make disciples before they receive such a position. “The duplicity between proclaimed priorities in the church, and the actual practices of leadership, is the greatest weakener of local churches.” (Bill Hull)

So what is a true discipler? He is a pastor leading a group of ministers, not just a minister leading a group of spectators. So pastors and leaders – get with it! Start discipling – and God bless you in it!