Q&A Genesis 32-33

Hey everyone, thanks again for listening to Q&A with a Pastor, where I sit down with Keith and we talk about one of his previous sermons. This past week, Keith preached on Genesis 32 and 33, where we see another encounter with Jacob. Now, Keith, this sermon spoke about Jacob's wrestling with God, which is a major interaction with the Father. How does this make you view his salvation, especially in light of the ladder in Friends a couple chapters ago? Yeah, when I first preached the latter, my initial inclination was it because his response was somewhat selfish. He gives a vow saying, God, if you do this, this, and this for me, then I'll let you be my God. And it seemed almost superficial, kind of like, if I can get something out of this, then I'll say it. And I had been taught and thought that the renaming was his conversion. But what challenged that isn't that the wrestling is more clear than the ladder event. It's actually what happens 20 years between. You really see evidence of faith in Jacob. I believe you see him trust God in a mighty way. Whenever God says, you take the speckled goats and the striped goats, he trusts God. And the deceiver manipulator really shouldn't have unless he was converted. So I think you see a man who was converted at the ladder. a very immature faith, and by the time you get to the wrestling, you still see an immature faith. He has faith in God, but it's very much mingled with faith and fear. So, I think I have changed my position on that, that he's a man of faith, but he's an immature man of faith. So, before all of this, you would have thought, based on teaching in your own study, that Jacob first started believing in God at the wrestling incident, rather than the ladder incident, where now you would think that there are evidences of faith. in his life, even back to the latter. Yeah. I mean, the issue here is, you know, I don't, I would never want this to be, you know, Jacob as a model of some kind of a second blessing. You know, someone says this is like when the spirit comes down. No, I think this is God saying enough is enough. You, you will submit fully and completely to me instead of having this constant, he's always mingling his own works with faith. I still think he has saving faith. God had regenerated his heart at the ladder. He encountered Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the ladder. So I think that really has to be the beginning of faith. And it's actually encouraging. It's kind of like with Abraham. It actually follows the exact model of Abraham where he begins with a faith. God says you were justified by faith early on with Abraham. And then Abraham keeps messing up and messing up and messing up. But you do see enough evidence of faith. I would assume that that helps you interact with other people and can help other people interact with other people. I think a lot of the time if we were to go evangelize to someone at Barnes & Noble, we want an immediate response. You know, all of a sudden the heavens open up and they start memorizing scripture right away, right there in the fiction section. But this kind of shows an evidence of continual, gradual sanctification, does it not? And how does that help your view with sanctification, not only in the Old Testament, but also in our lives today? Yeah, that was one thing. Most of the feedback I got was a wish that I said more about how that faith mixes with fear. This is encouraging for the church to hear. there is some kind of a wrong idea that you're converted like Saul in some kind of immediate, dramatic way, and all of a sudden your life's just on the upswing the rest of the time. It's not a helpful model. I think Metzinger, to tell the truth, he's an evangelist, but he does a great job explaining that. Justification is that moment where God declares you justified and saved, but a lot of times salvation overall is a process. There is that one moment where faith is clear, but I know it took me months of reading scripture to finally come to where God submitted me to really confessing Him as a Savior, not just someone I was interested in as God. Um, how does that, how does that impact your view on what the Holy Spirit is doing in this time? I know that I'm, I'm always cautious to wonder what the Holy Spirit's doing in the whole Testament because Acts hasn't happened yet. I mean, there's not this huge grand pronouncement of it, but is there. Is this the Holy Spirit at work in Jacob's life? Okay, I'm sorry. When you said this time, I thought you meant like today. I thought, well, he's glorifying the Son of Asher. Have you not been reading the Evangel? I have. That's one of the more curious questions. What was the Holy Spirit doing before Jesus breathed him out? It's in the New Testament that you see him being much more identified as the seal of the inheritance, as a permanent internal dwelling. There's something that changes because Jesus makes it very clear that the helper isn't going to come in the unique New Testament way until he ascends to the Father. However, I do believe the Spirit is the one who regenerates the heart. And so at the ladder, the Spirit must have been the one that gave Jacob the eyes to see, the heart to respond to the ladder. But there wasn't the same kind of permanent indwelling that we receive. That's where I am in that question today on Wednesday. Yeah. What about on Thursday? I'll let you know. Will you be led by the Spirit to maybe think something else? See, you're saying there has to be something different. There's not a permanent indwelling of the Spirit within Old Testament type things. There certainly is a talk of the Spirit of God and the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. But what I can definitely say is that Jesus promises that the Spirit's going to indwell in a new, more significant way. The Spirit is still there regenerating the heart. The Spirit is still the Spirit, just not in the same way as what we see on this side of the cross. Yeah, it's like the Son is somewhat different in the sense that he's not incarnate. Okay, if I could for a second, could you dialogue a little bit about Jacob's prayer in this passage, and is it a good example for how we should pray. I know that you brought up some instances where it is not a complete prayer, but is it a good prayer? Yeah, the only thing I put on the prayer was that simply after he prays a very clear, repentant, humble, I'm dependent upon God, he doesn't ask God for guidance. I was just following Jane's P voice on that. that he doesn't ask God, what should I do next? He doesn't actually ask the right question following. He doesn't say, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The prayer, though, is extremely, it was very challenging. It led me to that thought, God doesn't need us, but he loves us. I mean, how encouraging is that? God does in no way need us. He doesn't need to give us anything, but he gives us everything. So that prayer, I think, is a model in many ways. Just because it's missing one part doesn't mean it isn't helpful to lead us in prayer. You know, some might say we should only follow Jesus' pattern of prayer. Well, I mean, the Psalms are there as a pattern of prayer for different circumstances. Jesus is there trying to correct the unnecessary repetition in self-righteous prayers of the Pharisees. So, yes, Jesus' prayer is obviously the the clearest pattern, but all the prayers in Scripture, most of the prayers in Scripture are seen to be patterns for the other ways we can pray. So, Paul in Ephesians, I will oftentimes pray through that prayer, adding things into it that are particular to me. Okay. Now, this was another encounter where someone saw the face of God. We can't see the face of God in our lives right now, but how can we experience God? And can we experience God like they would have in seeing the face of God? Yeah, this theme is actually fascinating to me. I've traced, I did a Bible study on the face of God, or God's seeing, and it's actually fascinating how often this comes up. I mean, one of the biggest ones is obviously Moses says, can I, let me see your glory, and he says, you can't see me face to face. Here, Jacob at least confesses he saw God face to face. And in light of all this, you know, Jesus promised, you shall see the face of God, or in 1 John it says, It says, you will see him as he is, face to face. It's one of the sweetest promises in scripture. Now, I'm just going to jump over to Matthew 5a. Bless her with a pure heart, for they shall see God. Yes, at one level that is simply saying we will see God whenever Christ returns and gives us pure eyes and a pure heart. I also think it says something about us now. You know, we don't see God with our own eyes. Whenever Philip saw Jesus on earth, Jesus said, you see the Father. But I think what we do is we see the Father and the Son with spiritual eyes. I'm following Augustine there. We see, we can experience, let me put it this way, we can experience God more if we are following God more. So the more we cast sin, the more we cast vice out of our own lives, I think the better vision we have of God. Gregor Nazianzus, one of my favorite metaphors for spirituality is climbing a mountain. The farther up you get, the better the view. And the metaphor there is, the further up you get, the more you see your sin, and you can't keep ascending until you throw off your sin so you can ascend higher. So it's this constant process of throwing sin off, getting higher, seeing more sin, throwing that sin off, getting higher. And the truth of it is, it's an infinite mountain because God's infiniteness is holy and beauty. And that's what, Greg said that? Gregory of Nadiensis. Another good friend. After hearing that, I now know why you went directly into the dialogue of us wanting to see Christ in one another. I mean, obviously, we're to worship God and love our neighbor and our friend as ourself. So, talk a little bit in how we can see Christ in one another in just a brief explanation of what that means. And then also, how do we strive for people to see Christ in us without striving for Behavioral fundamentalism. Behavioral fundamentalism is like quite the diagnosis. Yeah, I just coined it. I'm sorry, I got so hung up on that. Talk about how we experience Christ in other people. You're thinking about backpacking, aren't you? I am. I am. I am on a mountain and you are wearing lederhosen while we're hiking. I don't even care to know. So you're not hiding by yourself. You're going to the mountain. One of the key ways God reveals our sin is through other brothers and sisters. That's where my sin is most evident when I'm relating to other people. I see how selfish or arrogant or sinful I am whenever I am manipulative. I am with other people. And that reveals my sin that allows me to repent and get closer to God. That's kind of the idea of instruments in the Redeemer's hands completely still in the title of a palestine book there. But when I speak to Christians, I am hoping that they are going to have a good word that will either encourage me to think better about God or to think better about my own sin. And so you said, how can we try to make sure people are experiencing Christ in us? You know, people aren't experiencing Christ in you whenever you're taking the garbage out. You know, whenever you're doing just a simple deed. I think people experience Christ in you when you use your words. Now, obviously they can see a model of service and that can be a way people see, wow, he's serving faithfully and humbly and that models Christ. But the best way to help people experience Christ in you is by using your words. It's by talking about what you have learned recently. It's by talking about what you've been challenged by. This past week, two different people really allowed me to experience Christ in them. One called to confess sin. This person had actually called to tell me that they had been holding a grudge against me and that they were convicted and wanted to apologize. And the humility and transparency was just really encouraging. And I quickly said, I forgive you, and thanked them for the transparency. And that allowed, I think, a moment for the gospel to hopefully be real for both of us. I know it was very real for me because of this person's humility in wanting to confess a sin that this person didn't have to. But they were so convicted by God that they felt like they needed to. The other one was after the Sunday morning service. Another person came up and just started talking about the sermon and said, this is what God was teaching me. Thank you so much. And it really wasn't one of my main points, but as I was talking and they were reading scripture, there was a whole other revelation of God. And they were so joyful about what they needed to repent of. You know, so clearly they discovered more sin to repent of and a new way of seeing God. Not a novel way, but another angle, you know, to look at the infinite God. It was very encouraging. Both of these people, God had been working on them individually, and then they shared it with me in our corporate setting. And that's how we can help others experience God. It's really breaking away from this whole individual religion mentality. If you think Christianity is only what you're doing, when you come on Sunday morning, you quietly sit there, you read your Bible in your closet, and you don't talk about what God is doing in you, that isn't being a disciple of Christ. Because being a disciple of Christ means you are being discipled and discipling others, and sharing what God is doing with you. I just kind of think, going back to the mountain scene, maybe it's because we're in Virginia, but if we are pursuing God in an upward And in ascending walk, we serve one God, not many gods of various mountains. So if we serve one God, then there's one mountain that he's on top of, essentially. And there's got to be other people there. I mean, we're not alone in this world. It's just in terms of talking about the gospel and Bible of the people. I can't remember the name of the book. Is it Speaking Truth and Love? Or maybe that's just a counseling idea where you are Speaking the truth of God in love to other people in order to have reconciliation in order to have joy and that kind of thing But this all brings me back to when you invite me over to play video games That is not you trying to show me Christ in you. Is that what I'm hearing? I don't invite you to play video games. I invite you over to have meals together. That is my second point. How can I get on you? I invite you over to have fellowship by eating with us and spending time. But if you want to get beat playing some college football, I will let you get beat if that's how you think you will experience Christ at my home. Brother, I want that to be your triumph. I don't, I don't, uh, yeah. I will be Duke and you can be whoever you want. Okay, well. Oh, man. Okay, so we have, just going back, just to kind of recap, we have God encountering Jacob in a wrestling match, and you see this as another pathway of sanctification. You are talking about how we can encounter God, not only through other people, but mostly just keeping our focus on Him, and then also throwing off our sin and seeing what He's done in our life, and then we can We can see Christ in other people by experiencing the joy of Christ within them, but also we can have people see Christ in us by speaking the truth of the Bible and the gospel to them. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of folks who want to say, I want to seek the face of God, and they're expecting some big moment, like a Pentecost kind of moment. I would say, you know, the best way to see the face of God is in others. You know, by hearing the word preached, by praying together, by talking about God's word together, by talking about the gospel together, It's kind of, we want to get the dramatic of God, the drama from God, without the normalcy of God. It seems like that'd be a slippery slope to idol worship too. Like if I can only seek truly the face of God at church, does that make the building itself an idol? No, the issue there is faithfulness. Does God call us to be faithful, or does God call us to always be wanting... It's an expectation issue. Does God call us to be faithful, or does God call us to have these big sacrifices? To kind of take the teaching of Samuel there a different direction, or as a parallel. Anyway. Alright, well just kind of to wrap up, what are you preaching on this weekend? Rape, circumcision, and murder. Is everyone invited? Am I allowed to go in there? The only thing I know is that Brian Davis has to read the text. It's one of those texts that only Brian Davis can read. He'd get through it better than I would, I think. Well, Keith, thanks so much for answering my questions and some of the other questions that were sent in. If you have a question based on the sermon or the worship service, go ahead and send it to congregation at jpbc.org and we'll throw it at Keith and see what he has. Thanks so much.