The God of all can change it all...

Read 1 Peter 1:13; 4:7; 5:8, Genesis 25:21-34; Romans 14:5; Romans 9:6-16

A sober mind is of vast importance when engaging hard realities that you will most likely disagree with. It is of even more importance when the One with whom you are disagreeing is of superior rank and authority.
So today we will consider a question of devotion. Was Isaac more devoted to his desire for offspring, or was he more devoted to God? How can we assess his motives? His motive is seen in the sober-minded and self-controlled content of his prayers. It is necessary for us to asses and reflect on our prayers, always checking our motives. The reason is that GOD WILL MAKE DECISIONS THAT WE DON’T AGREE WITH.
Consider the passage. “…the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. The children struggled within her…” God will always answer our prayers, but sometimes it will be in a way that reveals that our will is not the same as His.
At this point, one of two things will happen… 1.) You will conform your will to His and submit to His hand, showing that your devotion is to Him, over yourself. OR 2.) You will turn from God, because you disagree with His decision, showing that your devotion is to yourself, over Him. We have many examples today of God answering prayers in ways different than we desired… pregnancy with complications…sparing your life, but maybe not your legs… providing a job, but not your dream job… sparing your life, but not your child’s…
This is all very sobering. Throughout scripture, God reveals things about His design that are in direct opposition to the way we would have done things. Given the chance, we would have orchestrated it all very differently. But these revelations of who God is are reminders that WE ARE NOT GOD! And anytime we set out to “play god”, the result will be vain failure.
Rebekah, a first-time mommy, is in anguish. The children within her are struggling to the point of causing her to ask, “If it is going to be this way, what is the point of living?” And she is not being over-dramatic. The kind of physical, mental, and spiritual pain that she is feeling is very familiar to many of you. Some of you have even asked the same question…. “What is the point of living?” So Rebekah goes to the Lord for some comfort, and this is what God tells her to comfort her.
- I have placed 2 nations in your womb.
- They are fighting because of the way that I made them.
- They will be divided from birth.
- One will be stronger than the other.
- The older will serve the younger.
Does this sound comforting to anyone? In light of ultimate reality, it should be comforting. God is revealing that this seemingly horrible thing is not outside of His control, but rather it is by His doing. THIS IS HARD. Before either of these children are born, God is revealing that He has a very specific yet very different plan for each of them. This conflict, like the pregnancy itself, did not arise from natural causes. The God of nature has changed the order of nature. ARE WE OK WITH THIS? It is natural for a mom to say, “They are both my children, and I love them equally.” But God is saying, “I only love one of them. And I hate the other…”

One of the things that we do when we come across a hard passage like this is to treat it in very human terms. I remember the first time I heard this. I said, “Not my God! My God would NEVER do such a thing!” And a lot of times we will deem a passage “up for different interpretations”. Howard Hendrix, in his book “Living By The Book” makes a great point that in Scripture, there is only ONE right interpretation and many different applications. So if you and another have a disagreement about what something in the Scripture means, then “different interpretations” is no place to hang your hat. We should say, “someone is wrong, and it might be me… I am saying that I do disagree (whole-heartedly), but I am not necessarily saying that YOU are wrong…”
Romans 14 calls us to be fully convinced as to what we believe. FULLY CONVINCED! Have convictions! Do not be wishy-washy, tossed to and fro by every wave of doctrine. Know what you believe! But hold your convictions in humility. BOLD HUMILITY! John Piper makes a comment about the truth revealed in Romans 14… “Christ-honoring passions, Paul says, can unite us in spite of differences of application… different applications with an aim to honor the Lord.” Jerry Bridges in his book “Respectable Sins” says, “Doctrinal pride is the assumption that whatever my doctrinal beliefs are, they are correct, and anyone who holds another belief is theologically inferior.” 1 Corinthians 8 warns us not to let our knowledge puff us up. Realize that “many godly and theologically capable people hold other convictions.”
The point is that in the midst of our disagreements, we should not always aim to be “right”. We should aim to honor God by holding our convictions boldy, yet humbly, being reminded that neither ourselves nor those we disagree with are God! God is God. We are not.

So the God of nature has changed the order of nature, and even further restricted the blessing to not only the seed of Isaac, but now only one part of the seed of Jacob.
Read Romans 9:6-16.

To hear the Scriptures plainly spoken, and then say “Not my God! My God would never do that!”, is to be idolatrous. It is idolatry cloaked in righteousness. We act as though this could not be possible because our view of God is soooo high. In reality, it is the view of ourselves that is soooo high. We add to and take away from the aspects of God in the order that they accommodate our likes and dislikes. Therefore, what we are actually worshipping is an idol…God altered. Our “VIEW” of God can be an idol.
This should be sobering, because the only way to keep a right view of God is by His breathed out WORD. To worship your “view” of God is no different than worshipping Baal. It is not GOD! None of us can have a perfect view of God, but many of us should work out our salvation with MORE FEAR AND MORE TREMBLING. We should tremble before God if we come before Him saying, “search my heart and tell me if I am truly worshipping You or just my view of You.”

“That which you cannot understand is that which God can be.” (Hilary of Potiers)

I am broken-hearted by our inability to have different beliefs in the same faith. I am broken-hearted by a fractured “church-community” that is misrepresenting the truth about the oneness of God and the unity that we have as an undeserved gift in Christ. Calvin said, “How frivolous a thing it is to boast of knowledge, when love is wanting.”

I believe that God truly does the things that He has included in Genesis 25 and Romans 9; that He can change the order of nature; that He ordains the days of every life before they are lived; that He loves and even hates as He sees fit; that He saves some while leaving others to that which they deserve. Because of these beliefs I have been called un-evangelistic, lazy, and even hateful. But because of these beliefs I have been prone to frustration, impatience, and doctrinal pride. We must fight constantly against imbalance that promotes division and fosters a fractured community.