Genesis-108-Escape

God's Word: Genesis 31:17-24

 

“Then Jacob rose and set his sons and his wives on camels. And he drove away all his livestock and all his possessions which he had gained, his acquired livestock which he had gained in Paddan Aram, to go to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan. When Laban had gone to shear his flock, Rachel stole the household idols that were her father’s. And Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he intended to flee. He fled with all that he had and arose and crossed the Euphrates, and set his face toward the mountains of Gilead. On the third day Laban was told that Jacob had fled. So he took his kinsmen with him and pursued him for seven days and overtook him in the mountains of Gilead. But God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream by night and said to him, “Be careful that you do not speak to Jacob either good or bad.”” Amen.

 

Jacob’s Escape and Laban’s Reversal

This is the story of Jacob finally leaving Laban's household. It contains both Jacob's flight and Laban's reversal. These two are a pair, and we should examine them together, but first, I'd like to address Jacob's story, which also includes his wife Rachel's.

 

Spring, Shearing, and Jacob's Flight

Spring is now coming to LA. Just when it seemed like the weather was clearing up, it rained again last night, but this rain might be a welcome spring rain. In this way, spring has clearly arrived.

 

As you know, the Middle East has the region of Mesopotamia, where two large rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, flow. The land between these two rivers is called "Mesopotamia," which means "land between the rivers." In any case, spring came to this place as well, and Laban's family took their flocks out to shear the wool, which is usually done in the spring. Jacob took advantage of this opportunity and "quietly" left, as the Bible records. Jacob's flight to return to Canaan is recorded in the Bible.

 

Jacob’s Change and Family Communication

Last week, we clearly saw that Jacob's wealth wasn't due to his own methods or abilities but because he realized, "All this has come from God." Jacob comes and explains this astonishing realization to his wives in detail. This is an unusual scene in the story of Jacob in Genesis and shows how much he has changed.

 

How curt was Jacob before? When his most beloved Rachel asked, "Why don't I have children?" he responded heartlessly, "Am I God? What do you want me to do about it?" But now, he sits his two wives down and explains the circumstances and his future plans in great detail. His consideration for others and his willingness to communicate show how deep a person's change can be. His wives also respond warmly to Jacob's story.

 

What's more important is that they begin to share their true feelings, something they hadn't done in 20 years. Of course, 20 years might not have felt that long at the time, but it's not a short period. After all that time, the wives finally share their hearts with Jacob, saying things like, "Our father has consumed our property," and "He treats us like foreigners."

 

Through this communication, Jacob and his wives reach the same conclusion. Jacob learned of God's will to return to Canaan, and his wives, upon hearing his story, give an amazing response: "Since God has told you this, do as God wishes." What could be a more beautiful family than this, where husband and wife are of one mind to obey God's will? Their family has now become a truly desirable family with no problems.

 

Jacob’s Flight, the Fear Beneath

But in this desirable family that has learned God's will, something unusual happens at the very beginning of their journey back to Canaan. The Bible expresses that Jacob "quietly left" as an "escape." Jacob ran away.

 

Who gave the command to go to Canaan? This wasn't something Jacob thought of on his own; it was a direct revelation from God. We shouldn't take this fact lightly. Today, after the Old and New Testaments were completed, there are no more direct revelations from God in which He directly communicates His word to us. God has already given us all the words He intends to. What we have now is called 'illumination.' It is when we hear God's word and He enables us to understand and act upon it.

 

Of course, when we sometimes say we heard God's voice in a dream or during prayer, it usually means illumination. That’s because if the word you heard was a direct revelation, it would have the same authority as the Bible. Since God spoke it directly, it might feel even more vivid than the Bible. However, there is no way to verify if a word spoken to an individual is real, so we express it as "the Holy Spirit has moved me." We don't use the term "direct revelation" because we cannot grant it the same authority as God's Word. Therefore, we no longer believe that direct revelation exists. However, we do experience times when God moves our hearts and minds to understand, and it feels like God's voice.

 

In any case, Jacob received this kind of direct word from God. But what did he do? He left quietly, secretly. Why? Because he was afraid of Laban. Even though God had told him to go. This shows that while Jacob's faith had grown, he still had a lacking side. At the same time, it also shows that Jacob was still doing well.

 

Jacob ultimately chose to flee. He said he was afraid of Laban, but he wasn't really afraid of Laban himself. If we look deeper, he was afraid of having his property taken by Laban. In other words, what Jacob feared was his material possessions.

 

Our Fears, the Hidden Reasons for Our Lives

If we peel back the layers of the countless excuses and rationalizations we make for our lives, what we truly fear is revealed, just as it was with Jacob. What about you? The deeper meaning of "I'm so busy, I wish I had more time" is often "I want to earn more money."

 

It’s not that we can’t read the Bible because we are busy; it’s that money is more precious to us than God’s word, so we spend most of our time earning money. We often don't even tell ourselves this, nor do we realize it. I'm not criticizing you; I'm saying that we all live by hiding ourselves in this way. Like Jacob, if we peel back just one layer, what we are anxious and fearful about is immediately revealed.

 

Even for Jacob, who was following God's revelation to Canaan, there was still a condition: 'Please excuse me from this one thing.'

 

For you and me, there are also so many conditions like 'just this one thing, just this one time, just this once.' There should be no conditions at all for following the Lord, but we always create them. Sometimes we give a ridiculous reason, but sometimes the reason seems very justified. Things we think, like, "Lord, please consider just this one thing," or "Don't you have to take care of this one thing?" This could be about our children, an urgent financial matter, or even our health. Saying, "Lord, I have to be healthy to live for you, don't I?" sounds like a very legitimate reason.

 

‘Follow Me’ and a Funeral for the Dead

There is a case in the Bible where a seemingly very legitimate reason was refused. It's a story from Matthew 8, set against the backdrop of Jesus saying, "Follow me."

 

First, a scribe came to Jesus and said, "I will follow you, Lord." Jesus replied, "Foxes have dens and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." Then another disciple asked Him, "Lord, I will follow you, but first let me go and bury my father."

 

What do you think? Isn’t it a natural and legitimate thing to bury your deceased father? But the Lord did not say, “Oh, that’s terrible! Go and bury him quickly and come back.” As you well know, the Lord said this: “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” It's a very difficult verse.

 

What would you do if you said, "Lord, I'm busy with work today. I'll make sure to go to church next week," and the Lord replied, "Let work take care of its own work, and you come"?

 

If we take this verse literally, it means we can’t go to anyone's funeral. We must only serve and follow Jesus. If He says we can't even go to our own father’s funeral, how could we possibly go to a friend’s funeral? But knowing that Jesus would never say something absurd, we can realize that this verse holds a much deeper meaning than what we might think at first glance.

 

Priority Comparison and ‘What Would Jesus Do’

So, if Jesus wasn't trying to prevent the funeral, what was the meaning? It's about a ‘priority comparison.’ In other words, do not put anything before Jesus. Jesus also said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children, he cannot be my disciple.” We often understand this to mean that we should not love them more than we love the Lord, not that we should literally hate them. We can call this a “priority comparison.” However, this is an extremely difficult issue to apply.

 

If we think that nothing comes before Jesus in every comparison, you and I will live with considerable guilt. From a young age, whenever I heard sermons like this, the challenge I heard most often was about dedication: “Are you living a life where you give up everything for the Lord?” What about you? Can you confidently say in church, “I made every decision with the Lord as my highest priority”? Can you do that when serving fellow believers, volunteering in church, or helping the needy?

 

Because we are human, we want to do it, but we don't do it well. This is probably an excuse most of us have. But if we interpret this as "Jesus is the priority in everything I do, so I must do everything for Jesus," then, in a practical sense, that "everything" becomes church work. Right? It mostly becomes church work. When faced with the question of whether to go to church or do something else, we naturally think that church work—God's work—is the priority, and therefore, we must do God's work.

 

And sadly, we ourselves fail to meet this standard. It's a difficult thing. To explain this matter more deeply, I'd like to talk about the famous novel In His Steps by Charles Monroe Sheldon. Countless slogans and bookmarks with the question, "What would Jesus do?" came from this book. This novel encourages us to think about what the church should do for the poor and marginalized.

 

Most churches are surprisingly more comfortable for the middle class. People who have lived a respectable life, are dressed presentably, and are well-off are the ones who mostly fill the pews. It’s because it’s not easy for the poor and struggling, despite what the book of James says, to fit in at church. It's not easy for those who have little to show their lack and still fit in at church. This is because the church can sometimes be a place where it's hard to say, “I am not educated” or “I am not a successful person in the world.”

 

This novel focuses on that very point: “What would Jesus have done for the poor people at that time?” It is a very challenging and cautionary book. However, in reality, the question “What would Jesus do?” can also create many misunderstandings. If you really think about this question literally, we are talking about a very difficult thing.

 

The True Meaning of ‘What Would Jesus Do’

Think about it. Jesus heard that a man was dying, but instead of rushing to him, he delayed for another day and went only after the man had died. This is in the Bible. Jesus knew that the poor were living difficult lives, yet when one disciple said, "Wouldn't it have been better to sell that and help the poor?" he even praised the woman who poured expensive perfume on his feet.

 

What would you really say to the question, “What would Jesus do?” When we consider this question, we often imagine a perfectly good and kind person, a morally and ethically perfect saint, and we think about what that Jesus would do. But that is not the true meaning of the question, “What would Jesus do?” The true meaning is, “How should I live according to the rightly understood Word of God?”

 

If you try to apply the actions of Jesus literally without properly understanding them in the context of the entire history of redemption in the Old and New Testaments, you will quickly fall into an extremely difficult dilemma. Jesus was not a normal person. How could you live like Jesus? We try to live according to our own conscience without even knowing who Jesus really is. This is what we so often mistake for “What would Jesus do?”

 

We tend to think that living in accordance with our basic ideas is living like Jesus, but that’s not true. Perhaps because we misunderstand this, we believe we must give our best to the church, dedicate all our time to church work, and sacrifice ourselves for the church above all else. This isn't necessarily wrong. However, if we interpret it this way, the church must take precedence over our parents, siblings, or children, and we must devote all our energy to church matters.

 

I am also one of the victims of this teaching. My family has believed in Jesus for generations, and I was taught and always thought that church work should take precedence in everything. I respect and love my mother and father, but in this respect, I think we were more influenced by the way we lived than by Christianity itself. So from a young age, I always thought that “the person who deserves the Nobel Prize most in this world is the one who invented the Zojirushi rice cooker.” If it hadn't been for that rice cooker, I would have starved. My mother was never home. She was always busy with church work; whenever something happened at church, she had to go, and whenever she was called, she had to go. Because church work was the priority in everything, it was considered normal and good to do so.

 

A Life with Christ as Lord

There is some truth in the statement that church work is a priority in God's work. I say this again in case you misunderstand and think, “Does that mean church work isn’t very important?” The church is where God's people gather, so it is certainly important to dedicate your time and heart to them. But the real question is, why do we do it?

 

When Jesus said, “Let the dead bury their own dead,” he wasn’t saying not to go to a funeral. He was saying that Jesus Christ, the Lord of life and death, is here. In other words, He was telling the man who only saw death as death, “No. I am here, the Lord of life and death, and you must follow Him and His will.” In other words, we are called not to simply prioritize the church in all things, but to consider and act according to how we would live if Christ were the Lord and King of every aspect of our lives.

 

When we decide on something, we often let the way our church does things guide our decision. And we tend to think of that as the most important thing. However, what Jesus and the Bible truly want from us is to ask ourselves in every problem and situation we face, “Is Jesus Christ the King, and am I, as His servant, obedient to Him?”

 

This does not mean that your feelings, emotions, or judgment are not important. Your zeal and passion are also important. But they are never the priority. As you know, the Lord’s zeal and love are immeasurably great. Therefore, in whatever you do, what is most important is how you rightly interpret God’s Word in your life, how you faithfully understand it, and how you decide based on that understanding.

 

God does not scold you because you don’t yet fully understand His Word or because you sometimes misunderstand it. God looks at your heart, how you earnestly think about His Word within your knowledge and faith, and because He is your Lord, you rightly understand His Word, value it, and try to live according to it. This is what we call ‘conscience of faith.’ It is not just a personal conscience, but a conscience held before the Word of God. And if a decision is made by the conscience of faith, no one can condemn that person.

 

When someone acts according to their conscience of faith, no one should condemn that person who is under God’s Word. Sometimes our understanding may be insufficient. They may act differently from us. However, we should not ask them, “The church is doing it this way, so why aren’t you?” but rather, “Are you standing before God’s Word and making this decision with Christ as your Lord?” Before the church asks a member, “Why did you act that way?” it should ask, “When you made that decision and thought about it, was Jesus Christ your Lord, and did you decide that way with Him as your King?”

 

If not, we need to repent. No matter how good our actions may look on the outside, if we didn't do them to honor Christ, you and I have become our own kings, and in the end, it becomes the ‘my glory’ that we so often speak of. There is no way to avoid this result, because Christ is not the King.

 

We may wield God's Word like a ‘family heirloom sword,’ but if that Word is rightly interpreted through deep thought and struggle with the work of the Holy Spirit in your life, you must respect the judgment of others. If their decision was not made without any connection to Christ, we should respect their judgment and ask them, “Is Christ your Lord? Is He your King? Did you try to find His voice? Did you try to decide within His Word?”

 

This principle applies to everything. This example is too close to home, so I wondered if it was okay to use it in the first service, but since you misunderstand so much, I'll just say it. Yesterday, our church cleaned in front of the building. Many people came and helped with great enthusiasm. It was a very grateful thing. But many more people did not come. So what should we do with the people who didn’t come? "Are you even church members? How can you not be so enthusiastic about church work? Did you even remember?" I had a great desire to ask these things, but it's the wrong approach.

 

The people who came to help were responding to the Lord's question, "Do you love me?" What others did is not important at all. I was the one who responded. Many people may have wanted to come but couldn't because they were busy and tired. But if they were thinking that the Lord is their King in their own lives and were faithfully doing the work He entrusted to them, they will find peace in the Lord just as much as those who came and toiled and sweated. Judging by the lack of "Amens," it seems there are not many people like that, but you must ask yourselves, "Was the Lord my Lord during that time?"

 

This is most important when you forgive someone, do good, give to the poor, or do anything else. If not, you and I can dig the wrong hole. And if we truly misunderstand Jesus Christ, that hole will be a pit that you dug yourself to fall into. That's foolish.

 

Jacob is doing that very foolish thing right now. Therefore, we cannot stop asking this question that was posed to Peter. You know how difficult this issue is from Jesus' words to the man who was going to bury his father. Perhaps Jesus would have let him go to the funeral if his problem was not what it was. This is because the Lord is interested in whether they know Him as the ‘Lord of life,’ not in teaching that a specific action is always the right answer. That's why we should always think of Paul's wisdom in the Bible: "Live according to the measure of faith." This does not mean that those with little faith should live a little and those with much faith should live a lot, but rather it asks how faithful you have been before God.

 

The Comfort of Jesus Christ

I would like to conclude by using one last example to show how difficult this issue is, and I hope you will find comfort from it and consider how to live according to the Lord's will. This story is not about me, my experience, or your experience. The person I'm about to use as an example is someone we cannot dare to follow or even dare to discuss His life: it is the story of Jesus Christ.

 

Before the Lord went to the cross, He prayed so intensely in the Garden of Gethsemane that His sweat became like drops of blood. At that time, the Lord said, "Let this cup pass from me." Jesus Christ was without sin, so there was no reason for Him to bear the cross. There was no reason for Jesus to endure the agony of eternal separation from God the Father on the cross, an agony that could be described as the agony of hell. The Lord did not have to hang on the cross; He was without sin. There was no necessity for Him to be crucified for us. You and I, however, can only die for our own sins. Nevertheless, Christ said, “Not my will, but yours be done.”

 

Even for the Lord, there was a condition: ‘just this one thing.’ We have been pondering that following the Lord means there can be no conditions, but even Jesus Christ, who was following the will of God, seemed to be setting a condition, although it was incomparable to ours. “Let this cup pass from me.” But what was His conclusion? “Let your will, not mine, be done.”

 

How difficult this issue is, and how fiercely we must contemplate this matter. We are in the same position as Jesus, who so much desired for His Father's will to be revealed rather than His own, because we are united with Him. When you say, “just this one thing, just this busy time, just this one business, just this one child, or just this one life,” and when you say, “just this one thing” amid the many things that make your life difficult and burdensome, you must ask yourselves, “Is Christ my King? Is He my Lord? Am I approaching this problem and responding to it according to His will?”

 

We can only find our greatest comfort in Christ's last words. The Lord walked that path and finally said, “It is finished.” The fact that He is our Lord is the only comfort for you and me. No matter how much we think, decide, and struggle, we are still insufficient, and because of this, we can always stumble and never be satisfied with the result. However, Christ, who is our Lord and in whom we are united, not only went through this but also conquered it and finished everything.

 

Because we are in Christ, we can remain steadfast despite our weaknesses, our stumbles, and our limited knowledge. The more we study the Bible, the more we realize its depth and difficulty, and the more we rely on Christ. We rely on what the Lord has accomplished. Lord, even today, may You be my King and my Lord, so that I may see this problem not through my own conscience, knowledge, experience, or stubbornness, but only within You and Your Word. Let me struggle and agonize with Your will. And let these decisions be the result of that.

 

The Only Question Christ Asks

I always feel like saying to you, “Isn’t it great to come and pray together on Friday? Why don’t you come?” Isn't it great to pray together on Fridays? Most of you don't pray much when you're home, do you? I'm saying this because I know you too well. Isn't it true that for most of us, it's more comfortable to lie down and rest than to pray, and we remember the time to watch TV but forget the time to pray? So, why wouldn't I want to say, “Let’s come and pray on Friday, or even on Saturday morning,” and if you don’t come, why wouldn’t I want to take attendance and give demerits? I have this thought that I want to tell you, “I am doing this for your own good, so why don't you listen to me?”

 

But I think this is the wrong approach. If you say, “Well, isn't it better to be dragged out and pray, even against my will?” In a way, that might not be wrong. However, I want you to answer this question: “Do you love me?” I hope this is your only conscience, your only decision, and your only response before God. Not some organization we created, not some rule we made, not some time we set, not something else we created, but Christ asks you this question: “Am I your Lord, am I your King, and do you love me?”

 

Let's pray.

 

Because Christ has accomplished everything, unlike Jacob, we, with Jesus and in Jesus, leave Haran, leave Egypt, and leave sin. Lord, may we live in You joyfully, cheerfully, confidently, and thankfully in all the problems of our lives because You are my Lord and my King. Help us overcome the temptation of “just this one thing” and let Christ, who fulfilled the will of the Father instead of His own, be our answer. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.