A World Where Faith is Blessed

In today’s sermon text, Moses recalls the genealogy of his family. And it’s easy for this snap shot of the history of the family of Levi from a helicopter to look overly pristine. We hear these names, these generations and they arrive at Moses and Aaron, and people can sometimes think that God just randomly picks people to serve Him. And of course, it is always God’s grace and mercy pouring over our lives, but God’s sovereign grace is not random or arbitrary. It is deep and unfathomable, but if the genealogies teach us anything, it’s that God loves the stories of generations. He loves the time it takes for little kids to grow up, he loves the story of young families growing up into older families. And he loves for his people to trust him, to rejoice in him, and to cry out to him as they walk before him. The evolutionary worldview that permeates our culture wants faithfulness and success to seem random and unexplainable. If chimpanzees sometimes turn into people then sometimes faithfulness sprouts out of hard hearts. But that’s not the way God made the world to work. God made the world such that children thrive when their fathers love them and spend lots of time with them. And He made the world such that children droop and struggle when their dads check out. He made a world in which a woman that is loved and cherished grows in beauty and glory and is the crown of her husband, and in this same world, a woman who is neglected or mistreated is a garden overgrown with weeds. God made the world such that homes are glorious and beautiful when wives and mothers rejoice in their callings to be the glory of their husbands and love the gift of little ones, and that same glory can be turn into terrible ruin when bitterness and complaining and fear and worry are served up for dinner night after night. God is sovereign and rules over all the details of every life, every story, but faith looks to the cross and empty tomb of Jesus. Don’t compare your family to the family next to you. Don’t resent what God has given you. Begin by giving thanks for your people, for your parents, for your spouse, for your children, and then look to Jesus in faith. We live in a world where faith is blessed.