Michael Youssef - The Second Law of Godly Dynamics

Thank you so much. I'm assuming that just about everybody heard about Lord Kelvin's second law of thermodynamics, right? I'm assuming you have, but in case my assumption is wrong, let me give you a summary of that second law of thermodynamics. It states very simply that matter, any matter, always proceeds from order to disorder. The second law of thermodynamics, basically, is saying to what is obvious to all of us and that is everything, everything, ultimately, decays and falls apart. Everything ages. Everything wears out. Everything decays. Today, I'm gonna introduce you to Youssef's second law of godly dynamics, okay? And that's gonna make you jump for joy. It works in the opposite direction as Lord Kelvin's second law of thermodynamics. The opposite. So fasten your seatbelt as we go through this. The second law of godly dynamics goes this way.

Now, to be sure, before you jump the gun, I made it up, so don't go and look it up and find out somewhere if it's, but I'm gonna prove it from the Scripture. In the life of the believer in Jesus Christ, life goes this way: it goes from disorder to order. It goes, for the believer in Jesus Christ, things go from the pit to the highest mountain. Things go from us being less of ourselves and more like Christ. We go from disobedience to surrender. Ah, to be sure, the physical body decays. Well, of course, I know that. But the spirit soars like an eagle. Believers go from power to greater power. Believers, as they walk with Christ, they will go from strength to greater strength. They go from one point of glory into another.

This, my beloved friends, is the second law of godly dynamics. And because you'll say, "Yeah, what happened to the first law?" here's the first law. Are you ready for it? The first law starts when each of us come to a point in our lives when we realize that we're not only sinners by birth and sinners by practice, but we are sinful people by nature. And then, and only then, we realize that we've had it without a Savior. And only then we realize that only the perfect God-Man who came from heaven, died on a cross to carry on his perfect body our sin, can save us, and therefore, we look up to heaven and say, "Jesus, I acknowledge you as my Savior and Lord".

That's the first law. The second law I'm gonna be talking about it some more. Now, as we've been looking through the life of Jacob, watching how the grace of God working in this man, as we've been looking throughout the series of messages, I think you have to agree with me that we are watching the second law of godly dynamics at work, right here. And so, turn with me please to Genesis 35, if you haven't already. Because here you're gonna find Jacob in one of those crises that's about to ignite his passion for God yet again.

Now, I spared you the painful experience of reading chapter 34, but I sure hope that you'll read it when you go home. It is a painful chapter and when you read it, you'll understand why. There you find that Jacob's family made a mess of things, to say the least. I mean, they got to Shechem and they made a bloody mess, a literally bloody mess. They got to Shechem and, by the way, Shechem in the Bible represents any place, any place for you it might be different from me, your Shechem is different from my Shechem, and all our Shechems are different, but it's always a place in the Bible, any place, that steals our affection and our passion for God, and replaces with something else, someone else. And your Shechem will differ from mine, but the result is the same. What tempts you to take your eyes off Jesus and your love for Jesus is different from what tempts me. The result is the same. We set our hearts and our desires and our passions on anything or anyone more than Jesus. That's Shechem. On the other hand, the contrast is Bethel. Always contrast Shechem with Bethel. Bethel, Beth-el, as I've been telling you, is the house of God, where the presence of God is so clear for Jacob. And then the presence of God was manifested again after he got waylaid in Shechem.

Bethel in the Bible represents the presence of God. It represents the blessings that the presence of God brought to Jacob. Bethel represents God's leadership in Jacob's life. Ah, but Shechem represents love of things, love of power, love of prestige. Shechem represents the coldness of our love toward the Lord. It represents the loss of spiritual fervor. It represents that business deal that stinks into high heaven but you still go through it. And in chapter 34, Jacob got to Shechem and got busy making lot of money, lots of money, and he abandoned his parental responsibilities, he abandoned them. That's why what happened in chapter 34 happened. Beloved, for some of you, Shechem may represent the climbing of the corporate ladder at the expense of your Christian conviction. There in Shechem, Jacob's family disintegrated. It has fallen apart. It has fallen into chaos and mayhem. Jacob cries to God and here in 35, we see God, yet again, manifests himself and manifests his grace.

Here again, we see that law, the second law of godly dynamics. Here we see God's grace overwhelms Jacob's sin and overwhelms his grief. Yet again, here we see God's love and mercy calling Jacob yet once again. I don't know about you, but I'll find it really helpful every now and again to take time and to stop and take a stock of my life. Where are you right now? Are you in the far country? Are you so busy making a living, you lost touch with life? Where are you? Are you deliberately living in disobedience? Are you in a relationship that you know goes contrary to the Word of God? Are you taking matters into your own hands and leaving God out in the cold? Are you serving your own blind ambitions, that you have stopped seeking the mind of God?

Remember this: God's grace is calling you yet again. God's grace is inviting you to come again. God's arms are open wide for you to come yet again, amen. You might be at a place where you feel that your soul is rusted and that your spirit is literally drying up and you don't know why and your walk with Christ has been halted. Here's the good news. In fact, no, here's the greatest news of all. God's grace that called Jacob yet again, is calling every one of us to come back again. Look at verse 1 with me please: "God said to Jacob, 'Go out to Bethel where God appeared to you when you were first fleeing from your brother Esau.'" In other words, he said, "Go back to your first love. Go back to your first encounter with God. Go back to where your love for God was pure and real and complete".

Well, before I get carried away, I better get into my sermon. I wanna give you three ways to appropriate the blessing of the second law of godly dynamics. They are as follows, three words: Remember, Release, and Reaffirm. Remember, Release, and Reaffirm. Can you say those with me? Remember God's past blessings. Release your false idols. And Reaffirm your covenant with God. First, he said, "Remember your past blessings". At this point of Jacob's life, as I said, his boys have totally blown it. I mean, they've blown it so big, that it stunk to high heaven. His boys made enemies in the land of Shechem, and Jacob finds himself in what we call deep, deep, deep trouble. Jacob could not go back to his tricky Uncle Laban, to his past. He could not go forward to being with his brother Esau, even though they were reconciled.

Now, he can't stay where he is because of the mess that the boys made in Shechem. I don't know what you do when your past, your future, and your present are closing in on you. I tell you what I do. I look up. There's nowhere to go but to look up, amen? I don't fret, I don't panic, I don't give up. I look up. You look up and remember God's past blessings. And that is why as soon as Jacob heard the call of God, this is not by accident, that go from verse 1 to verse 2, there was no break in between. As soon as he heard the voice of God calling him to come back and return to the grace of God, he calls his family. He said, "Boys, we're going, get ready to worship God". He calls his family to repentance.

Look at verse 2. He calls his family to depart from idols. He calls his family to turn against impurities. He calls his family to start worshiping God alone. Beloved, here is the second law of godly dynamics in action. Jacob did not take long to respond to God. He did not take long. He did not analyze it. He said, "I'm wondering if it's the voice of God". He immediately responded. Why? His life, like our lives, moves from disintegration to wholeness. It moves from reluctance to responding to the call of God and repentance. It moves from doing his thing to doing God thing. And so Jacob remembers God's vision in Bethel, more than 20 years ago. He begins to remember the past blessings. There he remembered God's dream. There he remembered his own vow and promise to God. There he remembers the faithfulness of God. He looks back in his life and he sees the faithfulness of the hand of God. Beloved, listen to me, God has been faithful to Jacob through all these years and God has been faithful to you all these years. Can I get a witness?

Truly, at this moment, Jacob can look back and even his current circumstances were terrible, to say the least, but he can honestly look back and say, "God is good, all the time. And all the time, God is good". Let me ask you this: When you look back and review your life, can you see his grace extended to you? Even in the times when you know you least deserve it. Oh man, I can. I can. Remember, God's past blessings, release your false idols. When you read chapter 34 when you go home, you can easily conclude that one of Jacob's shortcomings was his failure to instruct his family. It was his failure to teach his family. It was his failure to lead his family into worship, praise, adoration, total trust in the living God. But also, obviously, there was another failure. He failed to keep his promise to God to give back 10% of everything God placed in his hand.

And that is why in Genesis 35, God graciously gives him another opportunity to keep his vow. Verse 2, he turned to his family and he says, now here's a Youssef translation, okay? You're not gonna find it in your Bible. "Okay, guys, I may have blown it before, but I'm gonna get it right this time. Hand over all these idols and the rings and the clothing of sin. Hand 'em over, because from now, we are gonna give up all these idols, we're gonna give up false belief system about God, we're gonna give up false ideas about God. From now on, our testimony to our neighboring community is gonna be the way we live and the way we walk and the way we behave and the way we conduct our lives. We are going to live in the fear of the Lord".

Jacob calls his family to repentance. He calls his family to a change of heart. He calls his family to purify their hearts. Why? Because these idols and these rings and these clothing, they were not just trinkets. They were not just ornaments. No, they were the evidence that Jacob's family kept these idols for their own protection and for own security. They trusted in these false idols for their safety and they were trusting these false idols for their protection. To this day, so many people wear all kinds of stuff that's they think is gonna protect 'em. They were dabbling in black magic. They were dabbling in divination, thinking that it's for their wellbeing. Just like Israel was tempted again and again and again to go to Baal. Why? Because they were afraid that the crops, if they don't appease Baal, even though they believed in Yahweh, they said, "Well, well, let's just appease Baal as well, in case. Just in case. Take a little insurance".

You see, they were dabbling in these divinations for their wellbeing, just like Grandpa Laban did. Remember the idols that he thought Rachel had stolen? His idols. He operated by divination. Ah, but now, but now, but now. Listen to me. No more. He's saying that it is time to go back to Daddy's God, not Grandpa Laban. It is time to go back to the only one who truly can protect them. It is time to go back to the only one who can give them real security, eternal security. Remember past blessings, release false idols, and thirdly, reaffirm God's promises. After Jacob and his family came into repentance, and they came into true worship and commitment to live in obedience to the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And now, God affirms, reaffirms actually, his promise to Jacob, that he made many years earlier. It's the same promise that he gave his father, Isaac, and it's the same promise he gave to his grandpa, Abraham. It's the same promise.

What is it? That the Messiah will come through the line of Jacob. That's the promise of God. That's the covenant. That's the Old Testament. That's the old covenant. And the whole Old Testament says Jesus is coming, Jesus is coming, Jesus is coming. That's the promise. And if you really seriously wanted to have a good and healthy spiritual exercise this afternoon, I've given you one homework already. Let me give you a second one. Go home and read the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew chapter 1 and then Luke chapter 3 beginning at verse 23. Read them carefully. Trace the physical line of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. It'll go straight into Jacob.

See, God keeps his promise, even if it takes thousands of years. What a promise. There in Bethel, God tells Jacob to build a real altar this time. And he calls that place not just Beth-el or the House of God; El-Bethel. This is the God of the House of God. You see, our God is a personal God. He cares more about the person and the personal relationship, not the symbols. It's the person, not the symbols that really matter to God. It's the person and not the building that God is looking for. I know many people mistakenly refer to this building as the church. This is not the church. When you're not here, this is not the church. This is just a rain shelter. Can I get an "amen"? You're the church. And when you gather, that's the church.

You see, God always, Old Testament, New Testament, in between, always desired a personal relationship. Beloved, our Christian faith is in the Christ, and it's him and him alone we worship. But even before renaming the place, Jacob made good on the vow that he made many years earlier. He offered a sacrifice of thanksgiving. So let me conclude by going back to where I started. I wanna go back to where I started. While the second law of thermo dynamics is that matter deteriorates and goes from good to bad, the second law of godly dynamics goes like this: God's children will go from glory to glory. God's children will move from good to great. God's children will soar like eagles to greater heights. God's children, far from deteriorating, they will daily be renewed. Listen to me. Here, I'll show you from the Scripture, the second law of godly dynamics. Here's how it goes in the book of Isaiah: "Even youth shall faint and be weary. A young man shall fall exhausted. But they who," what? "Wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. And they shall walk and not faint".