When I was a youth, Gene Getz had a book that was given to all of the young men who graduated from our high school youth group called “The Measure of a Man.” I don’t have the book anymore, so I “Googled” to try and find it, and discovered something. The title: “The Measure of a Man” has been used time and time again. Sydney Poitier used it to write a biography of his spiritual journey. Elton John used it to close of the first Rocky film during the credits and retell the story of the Philadelphia boxer played by Sylvester Stallone. One of the Star Trek franchise shows used it as a title for an episode. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. used it as a line in an incredible speech. Mary Lewis Shedd wrote a biography of her husband, a missionary to Iran over 100 years ago, and named the book with that title. On and on it went… a title used often because it HIT A NERVE. People want to measure their lives, and the lives of those that have impacted them. They need to do it, and they need to know HOW to do it. God offers us the way to measure a life FROM THE CREATOR’S perspective!
Go back with me for a moment to the story of Jacob in Genesis. Jacob has lost his son, and through a series of interactions he has discovered that this same son was NOT DEAD, but alive and in charge of Egypt. God led the children of Jacob through a reconciliation process that brought an estranged and dysfunctional family together in the end.
- In the first visit of Jacob’s Family to Egypt (Genesis 42) we were able to see how a guilty conscience works out. The chapter demonstrated clear directives on how to spot a guilty conscience, and the absolute minimum requirement involved in getting past the guilt and entering the restoration process. We saw that until guilty people take responsibility for their behaviors, even though they can be FORGIVEN, they cannot be FULLY RESTORED in the relationship.
- In the second visit of Jacob’s Family to Egypt (43-45) we see reconciliation occur. The narrative offers us two simple stages – preparation for reconciliation (43) and actions of reconciliation (44-45). Now, at long las, we see the MOMENT of reconciliation. It is a moment that Jacob paused and measured his life… and God kept the snapshot in our “believing family album” as a reminder to us how Jacob could measure his life in that climax moment.
It is worth asking…”How do you measure a man’s life walked as he closes out his years in a walk with God?”
Key Principle: The measuring standard of a man or women’s life has been established by our Creator, and related in His Word.
Genesis 46 offers SEVEN MEASURES of a man’s life:
1: Real men WORSHIP: It is measured by HUMILITY BEFORE GOD (46:1).
Gen. 46:1 “So Israel set out with all that he had, and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac.
The language of the verse is that Jacob “slaughtered a slaughtering” to the Lord of Isaac. For a shepherd, this was a portion of his life, his service and his income. He recognized that he had what he had because of God’s goodness. He knew God because of the family relationship God had with his father – but he also MET God and FOLLOWED God personally.
He came to Beersheba and had a significant experience with God. Why does God reveal WHERE he met Jacob? Because Beersheva was the “settled border” of the Promised Land. The wilderness of Zin and Paran lay south of the Negev basin. Beersheva was a “defacto border”. Later, 1 Samuel 3 and 2 Samuel 3 would refer to the land “from Dan to Beersheva”. It was customary to offer sacrifices on border stations. Later, when the country was divided between north and south, the northern tribes established their golden calf shrines along their northern and southern frontiers – in Dan (to the north) and Bethel (in the south). Jacob was acknowledging that he knew the land God gave to him and his sons, and wanted to mark that gift.
Note that Jacob’s worship COST HIM SOMETHING. He offered a part of what he had built up in his flocks – and worship wasn’t a spare time and cost-free activity.
2: Real men SURRENDER: It is measured by OFFERING TO GOD “our” things at God’s disposal (46:2-3).
Gen. 46:2 God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, “Jacob, Jacob.” And he said, “Here I am.” 3 He said, “I am God, the God of your father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you a great nation there.
The verse begins with two incredible words… GOD SPOKE. God reached into Jacob’s life yet again! This was not their first encounter. We have followed the story of numerous encounters before..
- Think back in our study to the first time Jacob showed up in the story as an ACTUAL PLAYER in the story. In Genesis 27:22 “So Jacob came close to Isaac his father, and he felt him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” 2 He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so he blessed him. 24 And he said, “Are you really my son Esau?” And he said, “I am.” When it all began in his story, Jacob had no reflex reaction to breaking God’s Word. He was not going to honor BOTH his father and mother. The ship had long ago sailed on coveting. Now he could LIE and STEAL his brother’s blessing – justifying it against his brother’s stupidity. This wasn’t simply “finder’s keepers” – this was IDENTITY THEFT. Yet, Jacob had been building what police call a “rap sheet” (list of crimes) for a long time!
God’s response to this wayward man, on behalf of the commitment God made to Abraham years before, was to move in and meet him. Genesis 28 reminds us that connecting to God requires confronting God’s existence, position and claims with careful consideration (28:10-15).
New connection takes an intentional awareness – it is not haphazard. It becomes open to the REALITY of the spiritual world – the grasping of the truth that “THERE REALLY IS LIFE OUT THERE!” Remember Genesis 28:10? “Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran. 11 He came to a certain place and spent the night there, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head, and lay down in that place. 12 He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven;
Second, we must recognize there is a connection between the spiritual world and the physical one. Genesis 28:12. “…and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.”
Third, and this is crucial – we must recognize God’s position in BOTH worlds is ABOVE all that exists – He is Lord. Genesis 28:13 And behold, the LORD stood above it …
Fourth, we must accept that the basis of everything spiritual we will know is what the Lord says. It all comes from His Word – it is the only Word we can depend on. Genesis 28:13b “…and said…”
Fifth, we must accept the promises God offered to and through our fathers that are for US and OUR CHILDREN. They are rooted in HIS IDENTITY and HIS ABILITY. Genesis 28:13b “…I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants.”
Sixth, we must recognize that our future is in His hands. Anything we produce will be set inside the truth of His plan for us. Genesis 28:14 “Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth. and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
Much later, Jacob is now an OLD MAN, and he again hears God’s familiar voice. Has meeting with God become casual? Not hardly!
Bruce Goettsche wrote: “The first response of an unholy person to the holiness of God is an acute awareness of personal sin. When the unholy confronts the holy we become very conscious of our own sinfulness. It is like we live most of our lives with some of the lights off . . . we are able to hide some of our wickedness in the dark. But when we come into the presence of God the darkness is gone. All the hidden is exposed. Remember back to when you were a child. You may have thought you were a great athlete, or great student, or a great musician, or even a spiritual giant because you always seemed to excel over others. But somewhere along the line you found out that there were many others who were as gifted and more so. Sometimes the first months of college are very sobering because the standard has changed. And when you approach the professional ranks . . .the standard changes again. I know anytime I start feeling spiritually cocky, all I have to do is read a biography of one of the great leaders of the past. Quickly I am humbled.” (sermon central contributor).
Note carefully also that God took the movement of Jacob to the edge as a sign of surrender and obedience. Internally Jacob made his way to the edge, but he wasn’t truly comfortable with the idea of leaving the land God promised to his fathers, and to him. God nudged him because God knew Jacob would need to be assured. The King that we serve knows what we need! That is just one more reason why we should worship Him! The resolution to fear and worry is trust in the Word of the Living God – so God offered it in mercy to Jacob. He gave Jacob further instruction BECAUSE JACOB was walking in the instruction he already had.
3: Real men TRUST: It is measured by CONFIDENCE IN GOD and His promises (46:4).
Gen 46:4 “I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also surely bring you up again; and Joseph will close your eyes.”
God handled many men in the Word with this same promise –
- It is not where you go that matters. The conditions may seem safe or unsafe. I am in the valley of the “shadow of death” – says the Lord.
- It does not matter what weapons you take with you – five smooth stones in My hands can fell a giant – says the Lord.
- It does not matter what provisions you carry in your hands – a mere staff can become a serpent in My hands – says the Lord.
What matters is God’s presence in the life of one walking in the confidence of obedience. A lot of insecurity in the lives of believers today is nothing more than the realization that we are walking in our own path, not sharing intimacy with God.
What more intimate thing could God have pointed out than the reality that God would be there at the end of his life, as Joseph, his long, lost son, would close his eyes in death. God promised to be with him. God promised to have him lovingly handled in death. God promised to bring his body back to his father’s burial place. He had no guarantee – but he had GOD’S WORD- and that is enough for a man of God.
4: Real men OBEY: It is measured by PROMPT REDIRECTION BY GOD – even in the hard things (46:5-7).
Gen. 46:5 Then Jacob arose from Beersheba; and the sons of Israel carried their father Jacob and their little ones and their wives in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. 6 They took their livestock and their property, which they had acquired in the land of Canaan, and came to Egypt, Jacob and all his descendants with him: 7 his sons and his grandsons with him, his daughters and his granddaughters, and all his descendants he brought with him to Egypt.
Everything they had followed Jacob. If they were attacked, they were “all in”. The obedience was TOTAL.
Spurgeon said it best: “It is my first public declaration that a thing which looks to be unreasonable and seems to be unprofitable, being commanded by God, is law, is law to me. If my Master had told me to pick up six stones and lay them in a row I would do it, without demanding of him, ‘What good will it do?’ Cui bono? Is no fit question for soldiers of Jesus. The very simplicity and apparent uselessness of the ordinance should make the believer say, ‘Therefore I do it because it becomes the better test to me of my obedience to my Master.’” When you tell your servant to do something, and he cannot comprehend it, if he turns round and says, “Please, sir, what for?” you are quite clear that he hardly understands the relation between master and servant. So when God tells me to do a thing, if I say, “What for?” I cannot have taken the place which Faith ought to occupy, which is that of simple obedience to whatever the Lord hath said.”
REAL OBEDIENCE IS ABOUT THE HEART, not simply the performance!
- Obedience is seeking God with your whole heart. Performance is having a quiet time because you’ll feel guilty if you don’t.
- Obedience is finding ways to let the Word of God dwell in you richly. Performance is quickly scanning a passage so you can check it off your Bible reading plan.
- Obedience is inviting guests to your home for dinner. Performance is feeling anxiety about whether every detail of the meal will be perfect.
- Obedience is following God’s prompting to start a small group. Performance is reluctance to let anyone else lead the group because they might not do it as well as you would.
- Obedience is saying yes to whatever God asks of you. Performance is saying yes to whatever people ask of you.
- Obedience is following the promptings of God’s Spirit. Performance is following a list of man-made requirements.
- Obedience springs from fear of God. Performance springs from fear of failure.
(Rich Young, Sermon Central Illustrations).
5: Real men RELATE: It is measured by LOVING RELATIONSHIPS FROM GOD (46:8-27). Each list was organized by tent of the mother.
OF LEAH Gen. 46:8 Now these are the names of the sons of Israel, Jacob and his sons, who went to Egypt: Reuben (Hebrew: Look a son!), Jacob’s firstborn. 9 The sons of Reuben: Hanoch and Pallu and Hezron and Carmi. 10 The sons of Simeon (Hebrew: Hearing!): Jemuel and Jamin and Ohad and Jachin and Zohar and Shaul the son of a Canaanite woman. 11 The sons of Levi (Heb: Joined or apportioned): Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. 12 The sons of Judah (Heb: Praise): Er and Onan and Shelah and Perez and Zerah (but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan). And the sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul. 13 The sons of Issachar (Heb:Reward): Tola and Puvvah and Iob and Shimron. 14 The sons of Zebulun (Heb: Dwelling): Sered and Elon and Jahleel. 15 These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan-aram, with his daughter Dinah; all his sons and his daughters numbered thirty-three.
OF ZILPAH (Legally of Leah) Gen. 46:16 The sons of Gad (Heb: Fortune): Ziphion and Haggi, Shuni and Ezbon, Eri and Arodi and Areli. 17 The sons of Asher (Heb: Happy): Imnah and Ishvah and Ishvi and Beriah and their sister Serah. And the sons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel. 18 These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Leah; and she bore to Jacob these sixteen persons.
OF RACHEL Gen. 46:19 The sons of Jacob’s wife Rachel: Joseph (Heb: May He add) and Benjamin (Heb: Son of my right hand) 20 Now to Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, bore to him. 21 The sons of Benjamin: Bela and Becher and Ashbel, Gera and Naaman, Ehi and Rosh, Muppim and Huppim and Ard. 22 These are the sons of Rachel, who were born to Jacob; there were fourteen persons in all.
OF BILHAH (Legally of Rachel) Gen. 46:23 The sons of Dan (Heb: Judge): Hushim. 24 The sons of Naphtali (Heb: Wrestle): Jahzeel and Guni and Jezer and Shillem. 25 These are the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Rachel, and she bore these to Jacob; there were seven persons in all.
26 All the persons belonging to Jacob, who came to Egypt, his direct descendants, not including the wives of Jacob’s sons, were sixty-six persons in all, 27 and the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt were two; all the persons of the house of Jacob, who came to Egypt, were seventy.
The simple truth is that the Christian faith is all about CONNECTION to other people. The illustrations of Paul were that were to be a BODY, joined in the Spirit to one head. He didn’t simply take that as theory – it was his actual daily practice. Is it ours? DO we seek to see the needs of the body? Are we trying to be connected to each other or only to God and His Word? It is not enough!
We need connection to BOTH GOD AND HIS LOCAL BODY to be effective.
When I was a young Bible student in Philadelphia, James Montgomery Boice was still at Tenth Presbyterian. He once told a story about Lawrence of Arabia visiting Paris after World War I with some Arab friends. He showed them around Paris, but what fascinated them most was the faucet in their hotel room. They spent hours turning it on and off; they thought it was wonderful. All they had to do was turn the handle, and they could get all the water they wanted. When time came to leave, Lawrence found them in the bathroom trying to detach the faucet. They explained, “It is very dry in Arabia. What we need are faucets. If we have them, we will have all the water we want.” Lawrence had to explain that the effectiveness of the faucets lay in their connection to the pipeline. Disconnection means the flow isn’t there. We need each other. We need to need each other. We need to learn to need each other. God gave us one another to make the journey with.
Dr. Larry Crabb wrote in his book written in 199y simply titled: Connecting, “We have made a terrible mistake! For most of this century we have wrongly defined soul wounds as psychological disorders and delegated their treatment to trained specialists. Damaged psyches aren’t the problem. The problem is disconnected souls. What we need is connection. What we need is a healing community.”
6: Real men LEARN: It is measured in ACCEPTING HELP from GOD (Gen. 46:28-34)
Gen. 46:28 Now he sent Judah before him to Joseph, to point out the way before him to Goshen; and they came into the land of Goshen.
And later in…
Gen. 46:31 Joseph said to his brothers and to his father’s household, “I will go up and tell Pharaoh, and will say to him, ‘My brothers and my father’s household, who were in the land of Canaan, have come to me; 32 and the men are shepherds, for they have been keepers of livestock; and they have brought their flocks and their herds and all that they have.’ 33 “When Pharaoh calls you and says, ‘What is your occupation?’ 34 you shall say, ‘Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth even until now, both we and our fathers,’ that you may live in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is loathsome to the Egyptians.”
An uncomfortable truth hits all of us eventually – there will be others doing what we do after we are not longer able to do it. We are not irreplaceable. As we age, we hand off things to our children that we once cared for. It is a natural and yet uncomfortable truth. The father begins to be instructed by the son. It is something real men LEARN to accept help.
7: Real men CELEBRATE: It is measured in the RECALLING GOD’S GRACE in a life not always surrendered (Gen. 46:29-30)
Gen. 46:29 Joseph prepared his chariot and went up to Goshen to meet his father Israel; as soon as he appeared before him, he fell on his neck and wept on his neck a long time. 30 Then Israel said to Joseph, “Now let me die, since I have seen your face, that you are still alive.”
Life is light and joyful to the obedient and growing believer. The promises he or she has believed and grasped are as good as the God he trusted in. God delivers – and not because we deserve it! The greatest moment in a man or woman’s life comes when we, perhaps for the first time, recognize NOT ONLY that we MUST trust God – but that God is WHOLLY TRUSTWORTHY.
Paul said it. The old King James says it best:
2 Tim. 1: 12 “For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.”
When we KNOW it and BELIEVE it – the heaviness of carrying all the weight of life is loosened.
Several years ago in the movie Hoosiers, Gene Hackman played the part of Norman Dale, a former college coach with a tainted past who was hired to coach a rural high-school basketball team from Hickory, Indiana. Coach Dale leads the team all the way to the state finals. On the day of the semifinals, the team arrives at Butler Field House, the huge inner-city arena where they will play in just a couple of hours. When the players enter the arena, their jaws fall slack and their eyes open wide. Gawking at the seats, the stand-alone goals, the suspended scoreboard, and the lights, they are awestruck and intimidated. Coach Dale instructs one of his players to take a tape measure and determine the distance between the free-throw line and the goal. “What’s the distance?” he asks. “Fifteen feet,” the player says. The coach then tells the smallest player on the team to climb on the shoulders of the taller player so they can measure the goal. “How high is it?” he asks. “Ten feet,” the player says. Coach Dale says, “I believe you’ll find these are the exact same measurements as our gym back in Hickory.”The team members nervously laugh and everybody begins to relax. As they exit the gym, Coach Dale turns to his assistant and whispers, “Sure is big isn’t it!” The challenges that lay ahead for you are big as well. Do you measure up to the challenge? God has told you how to measure yourself. (Sermon central illustrations).
The measuring standard of a man or women’s life has been established by our Creator, and related in His Word.
