August 16, 2026 Gerald Griffin - All My Life Long

Gerald Griffin — 2026-08-16

Transcript

Gerald Griffin: 0:00

Catherine, thank you for leading us today. I was thinking of, I was 14 when I first sang that song. And I remember trying to sing that song and think about the blows of Satan, you know, in the trials. And I was like, yeah, I don't have any. I was 13. So that's kind of the way we're going to go into this message today. And I want to thank Rick for illustrating my last point. And so you'll see it when we get there. We're going to talk today about all my life long, and that's taken straight from the text. It's in Genesis 48, and it's in verse 15. We'll read two verses. I think they'll be up here for you. And this is talking about Jacob. And he blessed Joseph and said, The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd, and here's the text, all my lifelong, long to this day the angel who's redeemed me from all the evil bless the boys do you remember when 30 years old sounded old or 40 or 50 or 60 we'll stop there something happens along that path of getting older you begin looking at the road differently When you're younger, you're looking at the road to think, what's ahead of me? What am I going to do? What am i going to accomplish? How quickly can I get there? But when you've gone down the road a little bit, you have better questions. And these questions are something like, what was God doing then? How did I make it through? Maybe you did not understand you were skating on thin ice at the time. And then later you look back and say, wow, how in the world did I make it through? What was God doing inside me while I was asking him to change everything and everyone around me instead of me? You begin to realize that some things look different the farther you go. You can see today what you could not see yesterday. And that is where our text finds Jacob. And he's more than 70. He's 147 years old in this text. His body is failing, his eyesight is dim. And when Joseph, his son, brings Ephraim and Manasseh to see him, Jacob summons his strength and sits up in the bed. The old man gathers what strength he has because there's something that he needs to say on this day. Quote, I never expected to see your face. And behold, God has let me see your offspring also. That's Genesis 48, 11. Jacob at one time, remember, believed that his son Joseph was dead. One of the cruelest, most horrible things was played upon him by his sons. They let him think that his Son, who he loved, Joseph, was dead, and now Joseph is standing beside his bed with his two sons, And this is when Jacob places his hands on the boys and he says these words, The God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day. He's saying that God had always shepherded him. This is the view looking back. It is not always the view look forward. It's not the view maybe when you're young that God has always been your shepherd. But it becomes very clear to you when you get older. He's not saying, however, that God gave him an easy life, because he didn't. And a lot of that was his own problems, but some of it he was born into. There was great family dysfunction. There was deception. There was exile. There was 20 years under his father-in-law, Laban. There was the fear of Esau, his brother. There was a night of wrestling. There was death of his beloved wife, Rachel. The apparent death of Joseph. There was famine, and there was Egypt. Jacob's not saying everything went my way Everything that I wanted went my Way he's saying now that I look Back over all of it I recognize God was Leading God was shepherding That's what I can see looking back And he was sheparding all My life Two statements from Jacob's life I think Belong together we should notice them It's near the beginning of the journey It's when he's a young man And Jacob wakes up up at a place called Bethel and he says these words, surely the Lord is in this place and I didn't know it. And then at the end of his life, he says to God has been my shepherd all my life long to this day. He does know it somewhere between. I did not know. And now I do Jacob learned to recognize the shepherd. That may be the key, most important thing for us to do as children of God is to learn, to recognize, to shepherd, to learn to recognize when the shepherd is leading us, when the shepherd is beside us, when the Shepherd is along the way and we don't even know it. You see, somewhere between those two, God had not become faithful. Rather, Jacob had been able to recognize his faithfulness. God is always faithful. So I want to ask you a few questions today. And the first one is simply this. Do you remember when you didn't know God was there? Do you Remember that time? for me I was 13 13 is when I came to Christ I did not know God was anywhere around I did not even know and just put the word God nothing about him I'd been brought up in church I'd heard a lot of things but nothing I heard in church seemed to be happening in my life so no I didn't recognize God was there but in if we look back in Genesis 28 Jacob's story is he's running his His family is an absolute mess, and his own brother wants to kill him. I had an older brother. My older brother could get really mad at me, and sometimes, yeah, that was fair, should have been mad at me. Sometimes I caused it. Sometimes it was just that he was the older brother, but I don't think he ever wanted to kill me because if he had ever wantedto kill me, he could have killed me. He was six years older. He was big. I was little, but in this case, Jacob has a brother who does want to kill him. And so Jacob's mother, being what anything a mother would do, she sends him away. She says, your brothers are going to kill you. You need to run. She can't stop him. So she sends them away because away is the only safe place. He leaves Beersheba. He heads towards Haran. And in Genesis this is 2811. It says he came to a certain place and stayed there that night. Why? Because it was dark. Tammy and I went to Santa Fe just a couple of weeks ago. And it had been so long since we had been there, I wasn't quite sure two things were going on. Number one, I was not quite sure that I wanted to drive that far. Number two, it was the first road trip in my new Tesla. And I I didn't know if we were going to be stuck on the road with zero energy at some point. So I'm getting a little bit afraid of it. I'm doing all the right moves for it. So we stayed in, and I'm going to try to say it right, Tucumcari. Close enough? Okay. Tucumcarri. Knew somebody was going to correct me. Well, just thank God it wasn't Tammy that corrected me. Anyway, men can't handle that. Anyway, so we stayed there. And I had the grand idea that we'd stay in one of these restored old motels on Route 66. I thought that would be really cool. I'm just going to tell you it was not really cool, but we did stay there the night. And I'm going to show you that the trip advisor who told me where to go to have dinner, they were not kind to us. But we made it through. The reason we stayed there really was for one reason. reason. It was dark. It was time to sleep. We did not go there because it was the destination. This is what Jacob's just done. He's traveled till it is dark. It is not his destination. His destination is as far away from Esau as he can get. But it's dark. So he stops. And when he stops, he finds out, yeah, God's right here. And there he is in the place that he had not chosen. It was not his destination. It is one of the the lowest point in his life, he's running from a mess that he has contributed heavily to. And that's where God meets him. Jacob dreams of a stairway between earth and heaven. It's not showing Jacob how to get to heaven. It is showing him that heaven is open and that God is in the place where he is, even though he thinks he's alone. And in verse 15, God says, says, behold, I'm with you. Listen to these words. I'm with you, I will keep you wherever you go, I will bring you back to this land, the land that he's running away from. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. With you, keep you, bring you back, not leave you, will do what I promised. Those are the words of a shepherd. Those are the words of someone who is willing to take care care of us and watch over us. And at that time, Jacob didn't really understand the full impact of what God was saying. How do I know he didn't understand? Because I've read the rest of the story. And I hear how he keeps running and not understanding that he has a shepherd. But Jacob, I want to say this, when God said to him, I am your shepherd, I will not leave you. I will fulfill my promises to you. It's not because Jacob had just done He's done something right, and God's rewarding him. Kind of roll that around for a moment. That's kind of the way we believe we earn God's kindness upon us. God's shepherding, but that's not the truth. Instead, God's presence was not a reward for good behavior. It was just his grace. Jacob is running because of his deception. but God did not abandon him to his deception and to his own devices he was leaving the land but he wasn't leaving God and when Jacob awoke he said surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it I think sometimes about the scriptures that have been maintained preserved kept carefully for us. And this is one sentence that God kept in his word for us to look at. The understanding that you can be in a place just like Jacob, you didn't even know God was there. And I bet you if you've allowed yourself to just think a little bit about that, there's been plenty of times you've been there. This morning may be one of those moments. You really don't know that God is there. But I want to say to you this, God did not arrive when Jacob recognized him. Jacob recognized that God was already there. That is the way it always works. God doesn't say, when you start recognizing that I'm here, you'll see me. God says, I'm already here. I just want you to recognize it. Because any place can feel empty and still be occupied by God. There are places in life that feel empty, but they're still occupied by the Lord. A hospital room can feel emptied and still occupied. occupied by God. Years ago, one of the families in our church, it was a granddad, and he had three boys in the church, and one of The Boys, he was married, and they had a son, and there was a problem when he was born, and They had to have a surgery, and so we went down to the Scottish Rite Children's, and I went to the waiting room, and it was one of those things where I had all these things I was supposed to do that day, and no matter pastor, whatever you are, you'll understand this. I had all these things at my to-do list and when I got down there I realized yeah I'm going to be here today. I'm gonna be in this waiting room and I'm gonna be sitting here and I'll be trying to have talk with them and we'll have prayer together and I will be sitting there until I'm not sitting here. It was one of those days. And after that was over I remember the granddad reaching out to me and he said I'll never be able to thank you enough for spending the day with us. and I thought I didn't really do anything I sat in a chair I got up, I got coffee I got more coffee, I went to the restroom got more copy, I mean that's the day that was really it but I didn' t understand what presence meant but I should because we understand what God's presence means to us when we recognize it now I'm a far cry from being a representative But God was there in that hospital room. There are places that seem empty also, like a home when somebody leaves. Or a ministry season that's over. Or a relationship that goes silent. Or a prayer that goes unanswered and you say, why isn't God here? You can say, I don't see God, I do not understand God, I don' t know what He's doing, but our inability to see God does not mean God is gone. on. The shepherd is not limited by the awareness of the sheep. Some of the most important work God has done in our lives occurred when we had no idea he was doing anything. That's when we look back. That is the view looking back and saying, oh my goodness, I wasn't alone. I wasn't just blindly walking. God was leading. And so some of us look back right now and we say God was there. I didn't see or understand him when he was there, but he was there. The place where Jacob felt most alone became the place where he discovered he would never be alone. Number two, another question. Do you remember when you thought you had to control everything and if some of you are poking your spouse right now and saying yeah that was on the way to church today refrain control the one pattern that follows Jacob throughout his life and maybe we should read him more so we could understand something about ourselves Jacob is an absolute control freak before we ever used those words he had to control everything and he thought he could and honestly in a lot of ways it worked for a while you know the one thing that Jacob wanted and you start listing all the things that you might want maybe you want riches maybe you wants everybody to know you you want the fame maybe you won't great talent maybe you You want great skill. The one thing that Jacob really wanted was God's blessing. And so he, a control freak, set out to make it happen. And you know the rest of the story. He manipulates. He lies. He deceives. One thing that he did, this is kind of the beginning, is he bargained with Esau. And he deceived Isaac. And he fled the consequences. and then he went to meet Laban who would become his father-in-law and he finally found someone who played the game better than he did and if you know the story you know what I'm talking about so if you don't let me just kind of lay it out here Jacob agreed to work seven years for Rachel seven years to be able to marry the woman he loved his father in law made the agreement with Well, why wouldn't you trust your father-in-law? You're marrying into the family. And so on the wedding night, Laban switches her with Leah, the other daughter. So I want you to just get the irony of this. The man who had deceived his father, remember when he put on the gloves? Remember when he did all this to make him think he was Esau? And his father feels of him and says, oh, it's Esau, and gives him the blessing. He deceives his father through his father not being able to see clearly. That man was deceived when he couldn't see. Sometimes I look at this and I just want to say, God, I want to ask you these questions. Is this like, are you smiling when you do this? Is this something you look back and say, you're going to learn this lesson good. You're really going to understand this. Somebody, Jacob, just met his match. And for 20 years, I want you to catch this, for 20 years, Laban kept changing Jacob's wages and arrangements over and over again. Just read through it. It's really hilarious. He keeps changing this about the livestock and all the rest, trying to always get the upper hand with Jacob. Jacob could not, Jacob the control freak, could not control Laban. but it's just a better part Laban could not cancel God's promise now just again I'm going to be a couple of times I ask you to do this I want you to let that soak down for a moment who is it that you wish so much you could make them stop doing whatever they're doing they seem to be hurting you they seemと be you know the roadblock in your intentions and sometimes you finally think I think they're doing it on purpose. I think they're trying to do everything they can to make this not happen for me. And maybe what you ought to remember is no matter what they do, they can't cancel God's promise in your life. Eventually, all of us will meet something or someone we cannot manage. And that's uncomfortable for capable people. Capable people should just be capable of handling all the situations. Capability is a gift, but capability will make a very lousy God. If it's just what I can do, what I can manage, what i can control, then that's going to end poorly. In his grace, God allows us in his grace to face things beyond our capabilities because he is doing this. He's just messing up my life? No. He's trying to prove a point. Not exactly. He is just not happy with me. That is not it. God is allowing us to face things we cannot manage because he is shepherding us away from our independence. So Jacob returning home and Esau comes out to meet him with 400 men. Look at how Jacob who is so capable manages the situation. See if you would have done done the same thing. He divides the camp. He sends gifts ahead to placate his brother. He prepares for every possibility. He's going to buy him off or cut my losses or give myself room, always have a fail back. This guy is a good thinker. He is a strategist and he is figuring all of it out. And then after he does all that, you know what he does? What's the last thing? What is the fallback? he prays not the first thing the last thing and his prayer is actually a humble prayer i'm not worthy he says of the least of all the deeds of your steadfast love and all your faithfulness that you've shown to the servant and you and i might read that passage if we stopped right there and said eureka he got it man he figured it out he figured out how to walk with god he understands He understands now what a life of faith looks like. But after he prays, he keeps arranging. I read this. We give it to God at bedtime and we take it back before breakfast. Genesis 32, 24 says that Jacob is alone and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. One guy that I used to like to, I still do read, Ray Stedman, and points out that the verse does not say that Jacob wrestled with the man. It says the man wrestled với Jacob. That is God coming after him. That is not the case. That is, God not allowing him to stay in his own self-sufficiency. This is God confronting the self-reliance that Jacob had carried all of his life, and Jacob thought the problem was Esau. No, the problem is God. God, he just keeps pushing up against what God has told him to do. At Jabbok, God put his hand on Jacob and he touched his hip and the contest was over because he couldn't wrestle anymore. All he could do was cling. And when he's clinging to God is when he says, I will not let you go unless you bless me. Earlier, Jacob's trying to take the blessing through deception. Now he would would receive a blessing through dependence. Jacob gave God control only after God gave him a limp. Sometimes even a limp is mercy. What are you carrying in your life? What scars are you caring that are actually the mercy of God? I'll show you mine if you'll show showed me yours. It was in 2015, I'm sorry, 2012, that on an ordinary day, I decided to skip lunch and take a long bicycle ride. It is during that bicycle ride that I found pavement that was not kind to me and threw me over the bicycle and put me in the hospital for week and two brain bleeds later some plastic surgery to try to clear a few things up. I came back home after seven days had some more surgeries done and sat in a chair for six months while the church found somebody to preach. Six months sitting there on narcotics that the doctor told me to take for the pain and I can't even think straight anymore and if you were to ask me one of the the blessings that happened in my life, it was that accident. Absolutely is that accident there are things physically that are not blessed by that, but my life was blessed by that things that God taught me during that time and things that got taught me after that time. That is a scar and that is a good scar. And there are scars that we get in our lives. There are these setbacks that change us, that give us the limp that were indications of of the mercy of God. The shepherd loved Jacob too much to leave his self-sufficiency untouched. Sometimes we ask God to change our circumstances and God says, no, I'm changing something in you. We think we're managing our life and God is shaping our life. The Bible says in Genesis 32, 21, the sun rose upon him as he passed, limping because of his hip. The sun rose, but he was was blessed. Weakness teaches what strength never can. Some truths we repeat while strong become real only after we've had to learn to cling. Number three, do you remember when you thought God wasn't doing anything? I've shared with you guys before when Tammy and I were pretty newly married and there was this guy that is in my life that is just causing me so much problem and I was just like Tammy's like we need to pray about it we've been praying about it for about six months and I said I'm through praying about it I'm gonna do something and the next day God answers the prayer we've been praying about for six months I missed it by one day are you kidding me do you remember when you thought God wasn't doing anything of all of Jacob's pain perhaps none was deeper than what happened with Joseph Jacob had a lot of stuff in his life but But when Joseph's brothers, who hated him so much, sold him into Egypt and they took his robe from him and they dipped it in a goat's blood and they handed it to their father so he would believe that his son was dead. I don't know what kind of siblings you have, but these guys, they take the cake. Seriously. Genesis 37, 33. He identified it and said, it's my son's robe. A fierce animal has devoured him. Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces. Something occurred to me. I mean, it's not rocket science, but something occurred to me when I was studying for this Texas week. They let him think that, and then they let him think it again the next morning, and the next week, and the last week, and the next year, and the next year, and a decade. They just let him live with that. That's pretty astounding. The Bible says that Jacob tore his garments. He mourned for many days. As far as we know, Joseph's story's over. But Jacob doesn't have the whole story. Do you realize that every moment, every day that Jacob mourned for his son Joseph, Joseph was alive? And during those times of him mourning for Joseph, Joseph was alive in Potiphar's house, and Joseph was alive in prison, and joseph was alive before Pharaoh, and he was alive while grain was being stored. He had a whole life that Jacob thought didn't exist. While Jacob saw loss, God saw Egypt. While Jacob's saw one disappear, God was preparing to preserve the entire family. That doesn't make Jacob's pain imaginary. His sons had lied. His family was fractured. He lived for years under a false understanding. We sometimes think we have enough information to interpret what God is doing. I mean, we see the robe. We see the blood and the empty place at the table. We see that someone has left. We See that the plan has failed. Don't confuse. fuse. I cannot see what God is doing with God is not doing. God can be doing his greatest work in a place you cannot see. Years later, when famine brought Jacob's sons to Egypt, Joseph reveals himself and the son Jacob believed was dead was alive. Now we're back to the text. In Genesis 48, Joseph stands beside Jacob's bed with the two sons that just a short time ago Jacob didn't even know existed. Jacob looks at Joseph and he says, I never expected to see your face and behold God has let me see your offspring also. The face Jacob never expected zu see was looking back at him with two grandsons Jacob never imagined. You know sometimes God gives gifts we never knew to even ask for. Genesis 48 also reminds us that not every loss is reversed. I mean, after all, he says in 49, he said, For me, when I came from Paddan to my sorrow, Rachel died. All those years, Jacob still called Rachel's death a sorrow. Faith does not require us to deny sorrow in order to trust a shepherd. But trouble never has the final word. And here we get to point number four in the last one. And Rick, this is where you illustrate it. Do you remember when you realized your story wasn't just for you? Not just for You. Watch what happens in Genesis 48 because this is the absolute understanding of what God is doing. Jacob doesn't just look back and remember. He places his hands on Ephraim and Manasseh and he says these words. The God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from the evil, bless the boys. Now, being a grandfather, this is a pretty cool text. If you're a grandparent or a great, this is a cool text because it ends with Jacob asking God to do for the boys what he's done for him. Bless the boys. Jacob has finally realized his story was not just for him, he has thought himself the main character in this movie for so long that he finally reaches the point and says the movie continues the story goes on the truth endures the shepherd is for me but for me and all those that I love what God taught him at Bethel what God confronted him with at Jabbok what God carried him through with Joseph and Rachel all of it had become something he could place into the lives of those coming behind him Jacob could no longer give his grandsons his strength but he could give them his story he could tell them the God who shepherded me will be faithful to you those coming behind us those that we embrace they need the stories where you're not always the hero but where God is is. They need to know where we found God when we were in the dark, where God confronted us with our self-sufficiency and what we learned, how he carried us through sorrow and why we still trust him today. What you do know about God, that those are coming behind you, you cannot afford to to not leave them. You have to give them what you know. There comes a point when your story should become someone else's blessing. And the shepherd Jacob knew is fully revealed in Jesus Christ. And that is who we can talk about today. The good shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep and rose again. He did not rescue us so that his faithfulness would end with us and at Bethel Jacob said I didn't know and at the end of his life he says I do know because all my life long he has been my shepherd now shepherd bless the boys he turned memory into story and story into blessing and that is now our turn for you that have small children for you to have small grandchildren for you have people in your life that you can influence influence keep telling them about what God has done in your life that's the story because there is still a shepherd I want you to pray with me please heavenly father is because of your faithfulness that we are able to be here we areable to have the friendships we have the love that we havethe grace that you bestow upon us each and every day and even today some of us maybe most of us woke up and we did not necessarily recognize God is in this place we tend to keep running back to the days of it's all about me or I can take care of myself or I'm absolutely sufficient or I have to take careof that or I will deal with that or it's all about my plans but Lord you are the shepherd just as you told Jacob you would be with him you would guide him you would bring him back you would give him blessings those cannot be thwarted by anything outside they become non apparent to us we're blinded to them when we don't recognize you so Lord let us embrace who you are what you're doing in our lives if there's anyone here who does not know the Shepherd yet the greatest privilege of all is having Jesus as our Savior and I pray even today they may take a moment seek anyone here and say give me a little bit more about what it means to know Jesus and Lord for the for those of us who've walked with you for a while I pray that we will not take for granted that you were there every moment and we ask it in Jesus name Amen