4. We believe we have rights
• To choose our future
• Make our own decisions
• Seek out our own retribution
• To be successful & make lots of money
• Focus on our life and our family first
– BIBLE VERSE HERE: It says, “You have been given
free will by God.”
5. God’s Right of Way
• Isaiah 55:9
– “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
• Proverbs 3:5-6
– Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
6.
7. Two reasons we yield to God
• God is bigger than we are
– Matthew 16:24-26
• Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be
my disciple must deny themselves and take up their
cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their
life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will
find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the
whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone
give in exchange for their soul?
8. Two reasons we yield to God
• God is bigger than we are
• God has the right of way in our lives
– Jeremiah 31:33
9. God’s job is not to protect
your right to go your way
• Acts 10:34-35
– Then Peter opened his mouth, and
said, Of a truth I perceive that God is
no respecter of persons: But in every
nation he that feareth him, and
worketh righteousness, is accepted
with him.
10. Yielding leads to a new name
Genesis 17:1-7 WHY?
• God comes to
Abram another
time to
reestablish
God’s covenant
with Abram and
Sarai.
11. So what happened? Genesis 12:1
Abram means High Father Sarai means Argumentative
12. “We” still have some rights
along the way
Abram Sarai
• Aligns with the rich and • Sees herself as property of
powerful (Gen 12:10-20) the covenant not part of it
(Gen 12:10-20)
• Thinks he gets to • Thinks she gets to choose
choose where and who when and how the
the covenant will be covenant will be fulfilled in
with (Gen 13-15) her family (Gen 16)
13. New names for new people
Abraham means Sarah means
Ancestor
of a Lady
multitude
Romans 4:3
What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was
credited to him as righteousness.”
14. We too have names
Some are given to us Some are assumed by us
• You are “So Cute” • I am “Going to be a Star”
• You are “So Smart” • I am “God’s gift to the
• You are “A problem” world”
• You are “No help at all” • I am “Worthless”
• I am “Ugly”
15. God has new names for us
• Revelations 2:17
– Whoever has ears, let them hear what
the Spirit says to the churches. To the
one who is victorious, I will give some
of the hidden manna. I will also give
that person a white stone with a new
name written on it, known only to the
one who receives it.
Editor's Notes
What I want them to say: “ I have demanded my own right of way with God for too long and I want to yield to His right of way in my life today.” “ I don’t want to be defined by the names I have been given by others or the name that I have desired for myself any longer. I want the new name that God wants to give me and I allow myself to be defined by that name from this day forward.”
“ He has the right of way” story in order not to get crushed. You might say well that is not right! He should yield to me, I have the right of way. You might think this as you walk across the street and a car comes barreling down the road towards you. Maybe you do have the right of way but the car is bigger and more powerful and if the driver is not paying attention, regardless of who has the right of way, between you and the car you know who is going to be more damaged. So yielding, even when we have the right of way, is sometimes a better idea.
The question then is who is who in my little analogy? Who is God and who are we? The answer is clear I think. God is the 18 wheeler and we are the Ford Fiesta.
And on the roadway of life most of us feel we have a certain rights of way. We believe we have the right to choose our own future, to make our own decisions, and to seek our own retribution and payments for the bad things people do to us. Many of us feel that we have the right to have a very successful business and spend the money as we would like and that maybe we do have the right to ignore the poor as we walk down the street to our favorite restaurant because we have worked hard for the money or maybe we do have the right to spend weeks in some exotic tropical place because we have worked so hard that we are not interested in the idea of giving our free time to help someone else. Sometimes I feel that way. I imagine you might as well. The idea of yielding, or not pursuing the enforcement of our right of way, comes hard to us. Especially when it causes us pain and suffering. We believe this because of how we interpret the idea of having a free will given to us by God. There is a Bible Verse that should go here that says that we have been given free will by God but I couldn’t find it. I guess it is next to the verse that says “God helps those who help themselves” which by the way I couldn’t find either. Instead, all I could find was evidence that we have the ability to make choices and often times because we don’t yield to God’s ways and ideas we make the wrong choices and experience all kinds of nasty results from it.
So many of us it seems have this idea that we have these rights and a certain right of way for our lives. But we need to think about that a little because maybe we have less rights than we imagine. Maybe we are confusing what we are able to do with what we have a right to do. Maybe that is the reason that we yield to God so little in our lives. Because instead of realizing that God has the right of way in our lives we actually believe deep down that we do and that God’s job is to protect our right of way. So maybe we are just confused. The Bible tells us over and over that it is God that has the right of way in this world and the next.
I remember one time I was driving down a one way street. There were seven people and a little child in my Volkswagen Vanagon. All of a sudden I notice this other car heading straight for us. We were able to skirt by that car and no one was hurt. But I was so mad at the other driver for putting all our lives in danger by driving the wrong way on a one street. We all were and talked about it for a week. The next week I tried to turn down the same street and that time I noticed a sign that said, “Do not enter, One Way.”
God is bigger than we are and even though we can choose to pursue our own right of way and demand our own rights, that is not the best choice because He has the right of way. Jesus said that we can spend our whole lives doing that but in the end we will forfeit our soul.
The second reason is God does have the right of way in our lives. That is what this covenant in Jeremiah 31 is all about He is our God and we are His people. God has the right of way.
Most of us have some form of an understanding that God’s job is to protect our person’s, our individuality, that God exists to make sure that all my percieved rights are maintained, that somehow God’s covenant with us gives us a list of things that we get to demand from God. It is a nice thought and I wish I could tell you that that is the God described in this Bible. That is probably tht God we would all like. But I cannot. That is not the God that is, was and will be. That is the God we would like to have. And that God is the God that many serve today. The God that is going to do what they want. The god’s of gold, silver, iron that are not god’s at all. What I can tell you is that covenant of the God that actually is, was and will be is a covenant of agreement with us where we yeield to God’s right of way in our lives and God promises to make the world a better place for us and everyone else through our relationship with God. It is a covenant in which the end results are left to God. In the process the promise is that our names will be changed, meaning that something inside of us, our character will become something different through the yielding process. It is a yielding process in which every man becomes and esteemed ancestor and every woman becomes a lady.
This basic principle of yielding to God’s way is the fundamental learning for Abram and Sarai in Genesis 12-17. Their transformation is a process that takes 25 years but it is one that results in them receiving new names from God. God comes to them after 25 years of yielding their will to God’s will, of yielding to God’s right of way, and says that now is the time for them to have a baby because only now are they finally ready to birth the people of Isreal, the people of God. Why? What happened?
Meet Abram and Sarai in Genesis 12:1 – God initiates the covenant with Abram and Sarai and they are invited to yield their place of position and power in UR of the Chaldeans to go “somewhere” that God is going to show them. At this point it time Abram imagines himself becoming a father of high esteem in his clan and in his country. His name Abram is a reflection of his character at this time and means “High Father” And Sarai is reflective of her character and means “argumentative”
Neither at this point are understanding the covenant and God’s plans for their lives. In fact they still believe that they have some rights in deciding the way God’s plans are going to come about. Genesis 12: 10-20 – In Egypt Abram aligns with the rich and powerful; Sarai sees herself as property not part of the covenant; God says no and shuts it down Genesis 13 – With Lot he thinks he gets to choose where and who the covenant will be with; Genesis 14 - God says no and Lot is captured and Abram needs to save him; Abram begins the transformation of yielding and begins to call God the “High Father” Genesis 13:18 Genesis 15 – Again Abram tries to decide how the plan of God will play out by trying to give his inheritance to a servant, God says no and Abram begins to sacrifice which again is a demonstration of his yielding to God’s right way. Genesis 16 – Sari thinks she gets to choose when and how the covenant will be fulfilled in her family by giving Hagar to her husband as a surrogate mother; she still does not realize that she is to be part of the covenant; soon realizes that it was a mistake (this is 11 years into the 25 year waiting period)
Then is Genesis 17 we see God return and tell Abram again about the covenant, the agreement that he is making with Abram and Sarai. But this time something is very different. God changes there names. Covenant of Yielding leads to name changing! The most significant thing that happens as a result of this covenant is that they become different people, they are fundamentally changed and because they believed if faith that it was possible to become new people and yielded to God, God reckoned it to them as righteousness. They became righteous which by definition means being in right relationship with God.
These names define us and our behavior. But we need to ask ourselves are they our true names? Are they the names that we desire for ourselves if they are names given to us that we not like. Some of us are unhappy about who we are and long to become something new, something better. Yielding to God and allowing God to give you a new name can make that possible. Some of you have names you have given yourself and maybe you very much like them. But in you tired of striving, keeping it up, and you feel that there is a void in you that you cannot explain. You too can receive a new name from God by yielding the names you have chosen for yourself and allowing God to define you. Some of you may have already done what I am talking about. Some of you might not be ready or interested in doing what I suggesting. In all cases remember that at the core of the gospel is the covenant of yielding and renaming. It is at the heart of God’s imagination for you. Remember
Faith Stations. Victory in the New Testament is always defined as laying down our lives and picking up our cross daily. Victory is always defined as yielding to God’s right of way in our lives. Manna = I will sustain you Name = I will transform you into the someone you have always longed to become but never knew you did
