Chapel Hill Bible Church - Sermons Chapel Hill Bible Church

Have you ever returned home? By home, I mean where you were raised, and all that represents: your old house, schools, hang out haunts, college campus? I bet a flood of memories come back. Some of us did not know Jesus back then and we can feel the regrets and loss with those memories. However, as it often happens, God meets us in that nostalgia and He reminds us of the intervening work. His grace. His providence. His guiding of our lives. We came to those places as new people and we then get reinvigorated to press on. You see, those place represent our earthly origin stories, but in seeing those places in the big picture of God's gospel story, we see that home is actually ahead, the place God is moving us, as He works into us the glorious truth that we do not belong to a certain city, a house, a high school, a clique, a former athletic prowess, but rather we belong to Jesus. Our identity is Jesus. And Jesus is our home. Genesis 35-36 is that kind of story, that invites us into its pages.

Genesis 34 is a cascade of atrocities displaying the depravity of the human heart. This awful story of disobedience, defilement, deceit, and death highlight our need to be rescued. And while there is no hero in this Genesis 34, praise be to God that this is only one chapter in the story of God's redemptive plan for his people.

God loves us so much, He gives us limps. It is true. Let me argue from this vantage point. God loved the Son so much that He sent Jesus to the cross. The logic is difficult, but clear.

In Genesis 32-33 we are going to see a little pre-gospel. Jacob needs to reconcile with Esau. And, in a surprising and beautiful way, they will reconcile. But it is what happens in the middle that makes it possible. Jacob meets God in the night with an enigmatic and yet powerful wrestling match where - surprise, surprise - not only does Jacob survive, but he prevails... meaning he gets to see God face-to-face... and he leaves with a gift - a limp. That limp is life. That limp is the constant reminder that human weakness is where God does His best work, even the work of healing a relationship that seemed all but lost.

He is Risen! He is Risen indeed! The glorious truth of Jesus's resurrection and our resurrection will be celebrated this Easter Sunday and we will look at it from 1 Peter chapter 1. In that text, Peter uses stunning imagery to show us what the resurrection means for our lives as the people of God who are not home yet. In fact, he calls us the chosen people of God who are struggling in the wilderness as we press on to heaven (elect exiles).

Palm Sunday begins Holy Week often with a refresh on Jesus riding into Jerusalem during Passover week on his way to the cross. This is referred to as the Triumphal Entry.

This year, I want to journey with Jesus, but from a bigger perspective. What does this journey to Jerusalem mean in the bigger context of the Biblical story line? I want us to pull up a bit and look at the story of God's glory in Ezekiel, a weird but profound book, where we encounter the glory of God leaving the temple due to the unrepentant and gross sin of His people. This is a crushing scene. It is a bad news scene that prepares us for the good news. The glory will one day return. As we catch up with the scene in John 12, with Jesus riding into Jerusalem, suddenly we have an "Aha!" moment. This is the glory of God returning to the temple, to Jerusalem, to His people... wow! My prayer is that we are re-fascinated with and in awe of Jesus this Palm Sunday.

The Bible is a truly cool interconnected story. God often teaches the same themes through layers of stories upon stories. Genesis 31 is like that. Before the big book of Exodus, we have a small chapter and mini-Exodus. Jacob flees his father-in-law, who has him in slavery. He does so because God commands him out, and promises to be with him, just like Genesis 28:15. The parallels with Exodus are uncanny and wild.

This story is for OUR instruction. God is teaching us to believe he is the true and living God who delivered mini-Israel, delivered mega-Israel, and who had delivered us. One thing to consider with this story is that our Exodus from sin and death is real and we need not live as if it didn't really happen, like we are tempted to do. We are called back to God's very real grace and then to walk with Jesus into trials that don't contradict our salvation, but in fact, deepen its impact on us.