God in the Transitions

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service.

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This message is by Lead Pastor Don Filsek and is a part of the series Beginning with God, Walking Through the

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Book of Genesis. If you would like to contact us, please visit us on the web at recastchurch .com.

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Here's Pastor Don. We've spent a lot of time in the book of Genesis so far, would you guys agree with me on that?

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It's been a journey in the book of Genesis, and we are almost halfway done.

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Almost halfway done, all right? I want to let you know that I'm going to be taking a break at the end of the summer from the book of Genesis.

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We're going to be moving over to the New Testament book of 1 John, and probably that will carry us through the end of the year, finishing 1

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John. I think sometimes it's good to kind of break things up, and we can kind of get so Old Testament focused that we're missing some of the

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New Testament, and so I'd like to bounce back and forth like I did with the series on the book of Acts. It took me three years to get through Acts, but in between there

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I preached Esther and Jonah and Joshua, and I put some other books in the middle of it so that we were able to kind of take that really long book and that long series and kind of cover some other things in the middle of it.

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That's just to let you know where we're going so you can be prepared, and I would encourage you to get to know 1 John as we're going into a series about that.

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If you're looking for something to study in your own personal time with God and your own time in the Word, then that would be something good for you to already be connecting with that book as we're approaching it and thinking about it for yourself and letting it change you and transform you from the inside out as we come to that text.

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So that would be a good thing if you're looking for something like that. But hopefully you've been growing through the book of Genesis.

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Have you been growing in your understanding of who God is and knowing Him better? I know that I have. But I want to take a moment this morning to just talk in terms of as we think about church growth and stages that churches go through, as a shepherd of this flock,

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I want to give you a caution this morning as a church. I've grown in my conviction lately that recast could potentially be at a dangerous stage in our history.

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So now I've probably got your attention. If you study church history, if you understand how churches go, as a leader of the flock,

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I've been here from the very beginning. Obviously, church planner got this thing kind of rolling. And obviously it's

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God's work. But everything in the first couple of years was tentative, which makes it kind of exciting.

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Everything is new and you're not quite sure how this whole thing is going to work out. It was very outreach oriented. Everything was focused on reaching the lost and being out engaged in the community and connecting with people out in the community and getting kind of the word out and a very outward focus.

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Can you relate to that and understand it? Some of you have been here from the very beginning. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Everything was very focused outside of the walls of taking the gospel out to people out in our community.

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But the reality is that now that we've grown in numbers and God has blessed us with many decisions to follow Christ, we could easily sit back into a stage where we begin to pat ourselves on the back and go, great job us.

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Good job recast, we've arrived. We could have that mindset.

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Are you getting what I'm saying? Where we could begin to kind of slack a little bit in our outreach out into the community.

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And that is something that I think we ought to be very, very careful of. We could find ourselves in a place of comfort and ease, status quo and growing in our inward focus as a church.

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Now many will talk about the mission of the church as building up Christians. And I disagree in one way and agree in another.

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Is that a fundamental thing that the church ought to be doing is building up believers? Yeah, it is.

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Is that why Jesus has left us here is for our own sake, for what happens within these four walls? Is that what the church exists as its ultimate end?

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It is not. That's a part of the great commission. That's part of the plan, teaching them to obey all that I've commanded you.

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But we exist to connect sinners with a savior, to connect people with the reality of the salvation that is found in Jesus Christ.

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I believe the mission of the church is to be a lighthouse to the world and the light we shine out is the gospel of Jesus Christ. We make disciples and then subsequent to making disciples, we then follow the order that Jesus gave us and to teach them to obey all that he has commanded them.

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So it's both, right? It's both aspects. But I think churches as they go through history, they win some to Christ and then eventually they go, you know what, we need to get these people to the place where they're strong and they forsake bringing more to Christ, right?

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So they throw out one for the sake of the other and that's what I want to caution us about. As a church, we cannot afford to take a vacation from the mission that God has called us to.

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And it will be our tendency, it is a tendency in many churches to slide away from the promises of God and the good news he has offered us into busyness and activity.

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I've seen churches at our stage give up on sharing the gospel in the community because they are satisfied with where they are and to be honest, they don't want the church to grow anymore.

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They don't want it to grow because in essence, they're comfortable at a church this size.

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And I think that challenges, that could challenge maybe some of us that are sitting here, it can challenge my own heart that, hey, this is comfortable, we've got a lot of work to do, we've got a lot going on here and do we really want it to grow?

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And that's something that I just want to be challenging all of us to think about as we move forward. There will be times of transition,

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I sense as a pastor that we're kind of at that point where we are making decisions that will be for outreach and for further growth and sometimes it feels like there are gaps in ministry and that's just reality of doing life together as a church.

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In our text this morning, we encounter a sense of transition in the book of Genesis. The baton is going to be shifting away from Abraham if we spent some time talking about Abraham.

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We've spent weeks talking about Abraham. The baton is shifting away from him to his son

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Isaac and we see the first transition in the promises that God has given to humanity through Abraham and God raises up a faithful servant that we're going to talk about in our text to bridge the gap and we see that God is working his plan even in the absence of his chosen man,

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Abraham, who is going to become progressively absent in the next, well, this week and then progressively absent next week all the way to the grave.

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So open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 24, that's page 15 in the

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Bible in the seat back in front of you and we are going to read the entire thing. It is 67 verses and yet I think that there's a benefit in us reading the word of God, letting it pour over our minds, letting it roll out.

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I encourage you to have it open in front of you and a text this long, it could be easy for you to start wandering into tomorrow and the work week and so I encourage you to follow along and read with me as I read it that we actually take in the word of God this morning, but Genesis chapter 24, one through 67.

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Now, Abraham was old, well advanced in years and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he had, put your hand under my thigh that I may make you swear by the

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Lord, the God of heaven and God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the

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Canaanites among whom I dwell, but will go to my country and to my kindred and take a wife for my son,

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Isaac. The servant said to him, perhaps the woman may not be willing to follow me to this land. Must I then take your son back to the land from which you came?

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Abraham said to him, see to it that you do not take my son back there. The Lord, the

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God of heaven who took me from my father's house and from the land of my kindred and who spoke to me and swore to me to your offspring,

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I will give this land. He will send his angel before you and she'll take a wife for my son from there.

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But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this oath of mine. Only you must not take my son back there.

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So the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham, his master, and swore to him concerning this matter. Then the servant took 10 of his master's camels and departed, taking all sorts of choice gifts from his master.

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And he arose and went to Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor. And he made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at the time of evening, the time when women go out to draw water.

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And he said, Oh Lord, God of my master, Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master,

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Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring of water and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water.

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Let the young woman to whom I shall say, please let down your jar that I may drink.

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And who shall say, drink and I will water your camels. Let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant,

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Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master. Before he had finished speaking, behold,

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Rebecca, who was born to Bethuel, the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, came out with her water jar on her shoulder.

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The young woman was very attractive in appearance, a maiden whom no man had known. She went down to the spring and filled her jar and came up.

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Then the servant ran to meet her and said, please give me a little water to drink from your jar. She said, drink, my

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Lord, as she quickly let down her jar upon her hand and gave him a drink. When she had finished giving him a drink, she said,

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I will draw water for your camels also until they have finished drinking.

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So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough and ran again to the well to draw water and she drew for all his camels.

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The man gazed at her in silence to learn whether the Lord had prospered his journey or not. When the camels had finished drinking, the man took a gold ring weighing half a shekel and two bracelets for her arms weighing ten gold shekels and said, please tell me whose daughter you are.

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Is there room in your father's house for us to spend the night? She said to him, I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor.

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She added, we have plenty of both straw and fodder and room to spend the night. The man bowed his head and worshipped the

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Lord and said, blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his steadfast love and his faithfulness towards my master.

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As for me, the Lord has led me in the way to the house of my master's kinsman.

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Then the young woman ran and told her mother's household about these things. Rebecca had a brother whose name was

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Laban. Laban ran out towards the man to the spring. As soon as he saw the ring and the bracelet on his sister's arm and he heard the words of his, of Rebecca, his sister, thus the man spoke to me.

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He went to the man and behold, he was standing by the camels at the spring. He said, come in. Oh, blessed the

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Lord. Why do you stand outside? For I've prepared the house and a place for the camels. So the man came to the house and unharnessed his, unharnessed the camels and gave straw and fodder to the camels and there was water to wash his feet and the feet of the men who were with him.

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Then food was set before him to eat, but he said, I will not eat until I have said what

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I have to say. He Laban said, speak on. So he said, I am Abraham's servant.

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The Lord has greatly blessed my master and he has become great. He has given him flocks and heard silver and gold, male servants and female servants, camels and donkeys.

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And Sarah, my master's wife, bore a son to my master when she was old and to him he has given all that he has.

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My master made me swear saying, you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites in whose land

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I dwell, but you shall go to my father's house and to my clan and take a wife for my son. I said to my master, perhaps the woman will not follow me, but he said, the

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Lord before whom I have walked will send his angel with you and prosper your way. You shall take a wife for my son from my clan and from my father's house.

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Then you will be free from my oath when you come to my clan and if they will not give her to you, you will be free from my oath.

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I came today to the spring and said, oh Lord, the God of my master Abraham, if you, if now you are prospering the way

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I, the way I go, behold, I'm standing by the spring of water and let the virgin who comes out to draw water to whom

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I shall say, please give me a little water from your jar to drink and who will say to me, drink and I will draw for your camels also.

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Let her be the woman whom the Lord has appointed for my master's son. Before I had finished speaking in my heart, behold,

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Rebecca came out with her water jar on her shoulder and she went down to the spring and drew water. I said to her, please let me drink.

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She quickly let her jar, uh, let down her jar from her shoulder and said, drink and I will give your camels drink also.

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So I drank and she gave the camels drink also. Then I asked her, whose daughter are you?

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She said, the daughter of Bethuel Nahor's son, whom Milka bore to him. So I put the ring on her nose and the bracelets on her arms.

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Then I bowed my head and worship the Lord and bless the Lord, the God of my master, Abraham, who had led me by the right way to take the daughter of my master's kinsman for his son.

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Now then, if you're going to show steadfast love and faithfulness to my master, tell me and if not, tell me that I may turn to the right hand or to the left.

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Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, the thing has come from the Lord. We cannot speak to you bad or good.

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Behold, Rebecca is before you. Take her and go. Let her be the wife of your master's son as the Lord has spoken.

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When Abraham's servant heard their words, he bowed himself to the earth before the Lord and the servant brought out jewelry of silver and of gold and garments and gave them to Rebecca.

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He also gave to her brother and her mother costly ornaments and he and the men who are with him ate and drank and they spent the night there.

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When they arose in the morning, he said, send me away to my master. Her brother and her mother said, let the young woman remain with us a while.

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At least 10 days. After that, she may go. But he said to them, do not delay me since the Lord has prospered my way.

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Send me away. Then I may go to my master. They said, let us call the young woman and ask her. And they called

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Rebecca and said to her, will you go with this man? She said, I will go. So they sent away Rebecca, their sister and her nurse and Abraham's servant and his men.

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And they blessed Rebecca and said to her, our sister, may you become thousands of 10 ,000 and may your offspring possess the gate of those who hate him.

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Then Rebecca and her young women arose and rode on the camels and followed the man.

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Thus, the servant took Rebecca and went his way. Now, Isaac had returned from Bir Lahai Roy and was dwelling in the

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Negev. And Isaac went out to meditate in the field towards evening. And he lifted up his eyes and saw and behold, there were camels coming.

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And Rebecca lifted up her eyes. And when she saw Isaac, she dismounted from the camel and said to the servant, who is that man walking in the field to meet us?

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The servant said, it is my master. So she took her veil and covered herself. And the servant told

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Isaac all the things that he had done. And then Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah, his mother, and took

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Rebecca and she became his wife and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother's death.

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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship. Father, we encounter in this text a transition period, a time in between and questioning and wondering, will you bless the offspring of Abraham as you had promised?

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And we see your faithfulness time and time again, text after text in the book of Genesis of you being the one who is carrying all of this forward.

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And Father, we sense in our own lives that we go through eras and times of transition and a period of time where we need to put our trust in you.

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And Father, there's so many promises that you've given to us and so many good things that you have given us in blessing and the most important thing being salvation through your son,

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Jesus Christ. And I pray that as we come before you to worship, that our hearts would recognize our need for you, that we would come as people without anything to give except worship in essence and faith in you and trust in you.

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Father, that we would come with empty hands but with hearts full of joy and gratitude that you have provided a way for us through your son,

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Jesus Christ and his sacrifice on the cross. Father, that we would be a people who worship you, not just here on Sunday morning as we sing these songs, but worship you with our very lives,

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I ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Always appreciate it, you guys, for the time and energy that you put in each week and grateful for that.

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I encourage you to get comfortable. I know we just took a break, but there is more coffee, donuts, juice at any time.

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And settle in, have your Bibles open in front of you to Genesis chapter 24 and we are going to settle into what is the longest recorded account for us in the book of Genesis.

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That doesn't necessarily mean the longest sermon you've ever heard, I don't know. We'll see, we'll see if we can get through this.

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But it is the longest, literally the longest contiguous recorded account in the entire book of Genesis.

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So put that in perspective, the description of creation of the world takes fewer words in the book of Genesis than this account of finding a wife for Isaac, okay?

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The description of the fall of humanity into sin takes fewer words. The account of the entire flood takes fewer words.

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So just by the volume of this text, we should sit up a little and consider why so much time is being dedicated to finding a wife for a dude, okay?

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Like what's going on here? There's something significant. The promise of God to bless Abraham's line is now coming to the place of its very first transition.

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Abraham, according to the text right off the bat in verse one, he's well advanced in years, which is an understatement.

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The guy, according to just kind of the chronology of his life and figuring things out, his wife died last week in chapter 23.

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She was 127 years old. We know from all the different accounts and things that he was 10 years older than her.

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So we're talking about Abraham being at least 137 years old when this is going down right here, what we're reading about, and probably older.

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Now Abraham has been promised a long life and the blessings of God, and he has indeed received the blessing of God in all things, like the text tells us right there in the end of verse one, and the

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Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. So Abraham calls in his most senior and most trusted servant in the text, who surprisingly remains unnamed during this entire text.

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We do not know this guy's name. I have to be stuck kind of calling him the servant all morning, the servant of Abraham, because we don't know his name.

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I'd like to get kind of that kind of honorable mention in scripture where some significant event in your life was recorded, but your name, oh, we forgot to put your name in there.

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We just left that out. I'm sure he's fine with that, to be honest. As we see the character of this servant, as he runs through this text in faithfulness and service to Abraham, I'm sure he was fine,

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Abraham, getting the primary nod in this, and ultimately, even higher than that,

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God getting the greatest nod in this entire text. So he remains unnamed, and Abraham calls him in, asks him to swear an oath by the

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Lord, who is Lord of heaven and Lord of earth. Can you think of anything that doesn't encompass everything above the earth and everything that is earth?

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Okay, I guess that's pretty much everything. The Lord over all things, he says, swear an oath to me by that Lord, the one who is in control over all things, that you will take a wife, will not take a wife for Isaac from among the

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Canaanites. Now where is Abraham living during this era and during this time? He's living in the land of Canaan.

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So he's saying, you're going to need to leave this country, you're going to need to leave this era, or this area, rather, to find a wife.

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Abraham knows that he's dying, his life is near the end, and his son is not yet married.

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And since the promise, we see the promises that God made to Abraham contained all the notion of offspring, that God would bless him, bless him with children, who would have children, who would have children, and they would become a great nation,

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God would give them a great land, and then one of those offspring, down through the lineage, down through the ages, would end up being the one who would bless all people,

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Jesus being born of Abraham, we know how that promise gets fulfilled. But would you then think that maybe

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Isaac getting married, the child of Abraham's promise, do you think it would be important for him to get married to have more offspring?

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I mean, to keep the promise going, to keep the promise alive, yes, it's vital. But he wants his son to marry from the line of Shem, not from the line of Ham.

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Now Noah had three sons, Ham, Shem, and Japheth, and we know if we were to go way back to Genesis chapter 9, we've already been there before, some of you were here for that sermon, where Canaan, the son of Ham, was cursed.

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Now where is Abraham living? Among the people of Canaan, among those who had been cursed by God back in Genesis 9, and so he's saying, don't take a wife for my son from among the cursed ones, the ones of Canaan, go back to the line of Shem, who is

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Abraham's descendants. So go back to my kin, back in the land that I came from.

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It was common to keep marriage within the extended clan, and that's what Abraham is driving for here. He wants his servant to go back to his family in Mesopotamia to find a wife.

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He wants him to go to a family reunion for a wife, for his son.

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There is a little bit of distance, we'll get there here in just a second, what is the relationship between these two? It's not as close as you might think.

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But the servant is savvy. So the servant is his oldest servant. Now we saw a servant named before Eleazar, it could potentially be that guy, but we're not sure.

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That guy was pretty old back when we saw him several chapters ago, and so he may have passed on and there might be another top guy.

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But is Abraham putting a lot of trust in this servant? Go find a wife for my son? Would you kind of say that's pretty significant?

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He trusts him significantly. And this guy's smart, he shows that he's got a brain in his head and a head on his shoulders.

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He is concerned that the woman, you go to a, I mean this is going to be a 700 mile journey, this is going to take him two to three months to get to that land where Abraham is from.

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This is not just a hop, skip and a jump during this era. This is a significant trip. He says, okay, so I'm going to go there and I'm going to meet this woman and she may not be super eager to leave home, her culture, her people, to go with a stranger on a three month journey to go marry a man she's never met.

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Pretty smart servant. Are you kind of agreeing with the servant at this point going, yeah, that might not, yeah,

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I kind of see what you're thinking there. So he asks the question, is it okay for me to take Isaac to her?

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I mean he's thinking Abraham is going to be out of the decision making process from this point forward. I mean Abraham's concerned,

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I might die any minute now. I'm old and I don't know how long God is going to give me. So if we can make these plans now and get them all square so you know exactly what to do.

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So the servant is wisely asking for feedback. So what if she's unwilling to come here? Can I take

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Isaac to her? And we see that Abraham is emphatic in his response.

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He in essence says, no matter what happens, no matter what you do, you are not to take

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Isaac back to that land. You are not to take him out of Canaan to the city of Nahor.

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You are not to take him to Mesopotamia. The basis of his answer is given in verse seven.

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Why? God had called him out from among his people and out from that land and gave his offspring the land of Canaan.

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He said, your offspring will possess that land. So Abraham is basing the future of his family on the promises of God to give him the land of Canaan.

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He says, don't take my son out of Canaan. He will forsake the promises, keep him there.

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A move back to Nahor, a move to Mesopotamia is a move away from the promises of God and Abraham says, this is important that my son keep on the track of the promises of God.

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Abraham shows at the end of verse seven that he is indeed trusting in the Lord. Look at seven with me.

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He God will send his angel before you and you shall take a wife for my son from among there.

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He is trusting that God is going to send an angel ahead now, whether he received a special revelation from God, that God approached him again in a dream that's unrecorded for us and told him, hey,

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I'm going to send an angel before your messenger and it's all going to work out. We don't know exactly what that was or maybe it's just that Abraham had seen enough of the faithfulness of God that he's here just making a general statement saying,

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I trust God that he's going to make your pathway successful. I've seen how God rolls,

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I've seen how he works and this is going to work out. He has promised my son will get married and carry on offspring and this is going to be the way that it goes.

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But now in verse eight, Abraham comforts the servant by giving him an out. I think Abraham is not thinking that this isn't going to work.

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It's not a lack of faith, but it's putting, it's putting some calm and comfort in the servant because his, his entire, uh, everything is staked on this oath.

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He's going to take an oath before the almighty that this is what he's going to do. And so what if the woman won't come back? What if he can't find one?

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And so Abraham kind of gives him an out. If she refuses to come back, then he has set free from the oath.

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Another way of thinking of that is he is not to go to the land of Mesopotamia, he's not to go to Nahor and coerce a woman into coming with him.

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He is not to steal a woman for Isaac. You get what I'm saying?

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He's not supposed to make that happen. He's supposed to provide the opportunity for that to happen, but he's not to coerce someone.

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So the servant swears an oath to the God who is over all and to the God who keeps his promises and he gives

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Abraham his word, ultimately, um, giving that promise to God almighty before the

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Lord over heaven, the heavens and the earth. And we've come to the end of our interaction here in our text with Abraham.

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He's not going to speak again in the text of scripture. He is done speaking and he will slowly fade into the background and next week to the grave.

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A pretty unceremonial end, really, for a man who we have been following for a long time in the book of Genesis and he's kind of fading into the background.

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What we have here in the text is nothing less than the passing of the promise, um, from Abraham to his offspring,

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Isaac. And so we ought to be asking ourselves the question, will God bless the offspring of Abraham as he had promised?

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Is he going to show himself faithful to the children of Abraham and their children and their children just as he said he would?

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Will they be under his favor as well? And this text is going to be an indicator, thumbs up, right?

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God is a God who keeps his promises. There's one thing we've established so far in the book of Genesis. God Almighty is a

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God who when he says it, it will come to pass. When he declares it, a promise to us, it is for sure.

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It's rock solid. You can bank on it. The servant takes 10 camels, which is a huge deal in this era.

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Again, scientists and people who study history and stuff get all over things like this. They just eat it up and I kind of enjoy it too, but you know,

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I know that not everybody in the room geeks out on history like I do, but camels had just been domesticated during this era.

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I mentioned that in a previous sermon. It's cutting edge transportation technology at the time, the camel, you know, that they were actually able to train them and get them domesticated and doing what they wanted them to do.

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They were learning how to do that during this time. And so he takes how many camels? 10 camels.

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This is a massive caravan that is going out a big deal. And he takes all sorts of precious gifts in order to offer the bride price and to impress the family of a potential wife.

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He's going to take all kinds of bling with him and he's going to show off to the family of this woman and try to get her to be impressed with the wealth or whatever.

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I mean, that's part of it and we'll see that. How many of you in your mind, like I've mentioned this before in the whole

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Joseph and Mary going down to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus and how we have them traveling alone and all the cards show them up on top of a dune, you know, on a camel or on a donkey and she's riding and he's leading it and you see the silhouette, you know, the

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Christmas card I'm talking about. People did not travel alone. You need to get rid of in your mind any notion that people traveled alone during this era.

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You die if you travel alone. You're done. Okay. And we're going to see later that this servant takes an entourage with him, likely including even some military personnel.

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He likely has some swords or some spears along with him during this journey, primarily because he's carrying such wealth.

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Okay. So he was no fool. He's not going to travel on those dangerous roads solo. We're going to see just one brief mention later in the text of his men as well, departing

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Nahor and heading back home with him. So he's not alone. Just if you're trying to picture this whole event in your mind, never have them traveling alone unless the text outright says like Elijah once in a while travels alone or something like that.

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But you've got to have the right, the right notion of what's going on and pay attention to the text. So he takes the 10 camels somewhere between 10, verse 10 and verse 11.

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The servant travels a two to three month journey. No mention of that trip whatsoever.

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I mean, you know, there's just some gaps in stories and things that are there for probably not much happened. They just traveled.

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But that's pretty significant, wouldn't you say? Two to three month journey by caravan on a camel's back, pretty big deal.

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And they journeyed to the city of Nahor in what is modern, is Mesopotamia, which would be in modern day Iran. So a haul, not,

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I mean, think about Jerusalem to Iran is quite a haul. And he comes to a well, lets his camels rest.

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And immediately, it's the first thing that he does when he gets there, puts the camels down and then he prays.

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The very first step of this servant of Abraham is to pray. Now he has wisely placed himself in good circumstances to find a lady, right?

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Do you see that in the text? Has he operated out of wisdom and out of just kind of common sense?

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He puts himself at the well. He's in a location where women are going to be coming in the cool of the evening to gather water from the well.

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Really hot days there all throughout the year. And so he comes there in the evening, sits down by the well.

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But rather than merely depend on his own ability, he prays to the Lord for success.

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Where is his dependence? Is his dependence on his ability, on his, you know, all of the gifts that he's brought or all those things?

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No, he immediately demonstrates his hope and trust in the Lord for success. But he doesn't just pray for success, but also for God's faithfulness, his loving kindness to be shown to his master

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Abraham. Notice that the servant recognizes that what he is doing has to do with God's promises and not just merely obtaining a wife for Isaac.

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He has not come only to find a wife for Isaac. He has come for the name of the glory of the Lord and that his promises might be fulfilled.

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He has a bigger picture of the mission that God has called him to. Do you see that in the text? It is not just merely finding a wife, but it is the loving kindness of God expressed to his master that is part of the target.

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I'd suggest to you that many of us fail at this point. We just don't even pray and talk to God about our decisions.

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You get what I'm saying in this? This servant is going to sit down and pray and talk to God about the decisions that he is going to make here.

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Now the servant comes with a plan, right? Does the servant have a plan? He comes with a plan, but he gives that plan over to God.

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He draws up a test for his own sake. He asks God to give him a sign that goes like this. I'm going to ask a woman,

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I'm going to sit by this well and I'm going to ask a woman for a drink of water. And the one who also offers to go the extra mile and water my camels, let her be the one.

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Let her be the one, Lord. He's still praying. He's talking to who? He's not talking to himself.

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He's not rationalizing things in his mind. He's not coming up with some kind of an ultimatum.

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He's talking to God and he's saying, would you please bless this endeavor by doing this?

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If you do this, then I will know for sure that you're behind this and you're showing your faithfulness to Abraham. Not only that, but have you noticed how the test ties into something of the character of the woman who would be chosen?

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He's saying, would you allow the blessing to my master and to Isaac be that we find a woman for him who would be the kind who goes the extra mile?

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It's not like the test is detached from some kind of importance in the actual thing that's being decided.

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Does that make sense? It's not like he said, hey, if I pour the eggs into the pan and the face of Jesus shows up, then

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I'll buy the Ferrari. What? How is that connected again? Do you know what

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I'm saying? You can come up with all different kinds. By the way, I owe Kyle. Thanks for that. We were talking about it this week and he said something about pouring your pancake and it's the shape of a face or something and then you go do whatever you want to do or whatever.

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You see how this isn't just strictly an ultimatum, God, do this random thing and then I'll know that you want to do this.

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It actually has to do with the character of the woman involved. Are you seeing what I'm saying? Would you give my servant,

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I mean my master, would you give Isaac the kind of woman who would do this kind of thing, who would go the extra mile and water the camels too?

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Now, anybody questioning, is this acceptable practice? Is it okay to issue this kind of thing to God and say, hey, if you'll do this, then

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I will do this? Should we live our lives issuing those kind of, you know, the word ultimatum doesn't work there, but issuing that kind of test for things?

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How does God guide us into practical decisions? Anybody struggle with that? Anybody wrestle with that?

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Maybe you have in the past, maybe you are now, maybe it's just, I mean, some of you in the room are thinking about dating and spouses and things like that and you're kind of like, how do

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I know? Or where do I go to college? Do I keep this job currently that I'm miserable in or do

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I move on or do I take the promotion or do I stay where I'm at or, are you getting what I'm saying? You have decisions that you have to make and it's like,

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God, what do you want in this? Is it okay for me to say, hey, if God in the next two weeks, you have my boss come to me and say

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X, then I'll do Y. Is that acceptable? Well, does the text seem to indicate that that's okay?

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The text seems to challenge us that that's okay. Should we expect though this kind of miraculous intervention over our daily decisions?

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You know, think of it this way, while standing in line at McDonald's, are you praying, God, if the young lady behind the counter says, supersize it, then

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I know that it's your desire that I get the large. I know it's your desire that I supersize it because she said it and I've issued the challenge and, are you getting what

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I'm saying? I'd be very cautious though. I think just like most topics, just like most issues in faith, we have a table where we can fall off one side or fall off the other, right?

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And the biblical balance is right in the middle and there's two sides of this table that we could fall off of.

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Some people overdo this type of decision making and even become immobilized in the absence of God's direct, divine guidance.

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God, I'm sitting here, I got the remote control in my hand and my phone is right here. You can call me any time that you want me to do your will.

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Waiting for the phone to ring, okay? And you just live your life, your way, doing your things because you know what,

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God hasn't interfered. God hasn't gotten in the way. He hasn't called on the phone. He hasn't done this or that and so I'm just here rolling the way

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I roll. So we can sit around waiting for God to call and tell us what to do and find that we've squandered our gifts, we've squandered our talents and our abilities because we were just waiting for God to jump through our hoops of guidance.

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We could do that, right? That would be falling off one side of the table. But I confess that I lean in the other direction, falling off this side of the table and this is, the text has corrected me.

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I've had all kinds of conversations with my wife on this one over the last week and trying to figure out how does this text correct my understanding of the guidance of God in my life.

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I have been raised to be skeptical of the miraculous leading of God, the God told me to.

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Any of you relate to that? Where you would tend to fall off this side of the table where it's like whenever anybody says God told me to,

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I'm immediately, I mean I've got like a red flag up, at least an orange flag if not a red flag. Are you guys relating to that?

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And so how does this text correct us? How much does God care about our lives day in and day out, even the mundane decisions, are we willing to give those things over to God?

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At least we know that in this text and a few others in the Old Testament, God was okay with a person asking for circumstantial guidance from Him.

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The story of Gideon comes to mind where Gideon throws out the fleece and even though that's not pictured as a great decision making choice, he should have trusted

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God when God called him in the first place, would you agree with me on that? But in his humanity and in his distrust in himself, he needed an extra sign and God obliged him in that.

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God actually gave him the sign that he needed. So it is okay to say,

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God if you do this, then I will do this, but I would encourage balance in this area of our lives.

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We should be in motion, moving to the well like the servant, coming with a plan, trusting

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His promises all the while keeping our eyes open for the divine leading of God in our circumstances but finally and most importantly, we should be taking our decisions to God in prayer for direction and I think that's missing often.

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I think a lot of times we even give lip service to it to say, you know what, somebody comes to me and says, would you be willing to help out in Sunday school, well let me pray about that.

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Come back a day later with zero prayer and say, you know what,

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I just kind of feel like the Lord is leading me not to do that right now. Are you getting what I'm saying? I mean, how often do we just say, oh yeah,

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I'll pray over that and I'll give that to God and we really don't. If we're honest, do we pray?

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Do we bring the things that are going on in our lives before the throne of God and say, would you guide me? Would you give me direction?

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And even confessing at times, I've said this to God, I'm a little thick,

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God, when it comes to your communication with me, sometimes I'm not sure if it's you speaking and so could you just make it really clear?

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Like, I really do want that. I really do want you to communicate to me in a way that I understand and a way that I'm pretty thick when it comes to understanding what it is that you desire and what it is that you want.

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So would you open my heart and open my ears to your communication, whatever that looks like, whatever it might be.

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Are you getting that? I think even the servant, we're going to see here in a second, he needed that.

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Before he's finished speaking, but any of you think this is like uncanny, like you'd just be like, ooh, get chills.

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Like if that happened to you, like you're praying, God, would you do this? And then it happens before you're even done praying, like you haven't even said amen yet.

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And Rebecca comes to the well with her jar to fetch water. We've already seen her genealogy.

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We already know that she's a relative of Abraham. She is the granddaughter of Nahor, who is

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Abraham's brother. Bear with me here. This makes Isaac and Rebecca cousins once removed on their father's side, technically.

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Or depending on what state you're from, kissing cousins. You guys saw it coming.

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A couple of you were laughing before I even said it. That's wrong. The servant requests water and she quickly, quickly, speedily, quick to serve a stranger.

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You see that here? She quickly lowers the jar so that he can get a drink. It's unclear from the text if she also gives the entire entourage water as well.

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The text doesn't tell us, but it's assumed because she's willing to water the camels, too. I'm guessing she didn't leave the guy carrying the spear off to the side, you know, to dehydrate.

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But it doesn't say. We know later in the text that he wasn't traveling alone, though, but she also offers to draw water for his camels, too.

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This is not, like, how many of you know that one of the dangers in issuing God this kind of test is that we could make the test pretty simple.

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God, if the sun comes up tomorrow, then I know that you want me to buy a new

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Apple product. You want me to get the newest. You want me to sign up for the new iPhone 6, and God, I'll know.

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I'll know, because, or you could go with the whole winter if it's cloudy bit in West Michigan, right?

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God, if it's a cloudy day tomorrow, I know. I mean, are you getting what I'm saying? But this is a significant test that he offers here.

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This is not some small undertaking. To water 10 thirsty camels that have traveled through the desert, some suggest that this could have amounted to, at the low end, a couple of hours, and at the high end, three hours worth of labor for this young lady.

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This is not just, okay, here, I'll just take a little water and dump it into a, as much as, I mean, just figuring how big a jar would be used to obtain water, how much could a woman actually carry and pour into a trough, and then we know, scientifically speaking, how much water a camel that is thirsty can drink.

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So we've just got the math there. This would be about two to three hours worth of hard work. But regardless of how long it takes, we don't really, the text doesn't tell us, we just know that she has taken on a significant, above and beyond, extra mile activity for this servant.

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He takes time to sit back. He has time now. She's watering the camels. He sits back and contemplates in verse 21.

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I think it's funny. I think it's meant to be, there's meant to be a little bit of humor in verse 21. He sits there in silence, wondering if the

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Lord has prospered his journey. Get it? I see a couple of you chuckling.

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You're getting where this goes. I find this ironic, but also telling about the human heart.

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He issues the test. The test is instantaneously fulfilled, and he goes, God, is that you?

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Is that you? See, the servant is just as thick as I am when it comes to discerning the will of God.

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How many of you know that you could put a test before God, he fulfills it instantly, and we would be no different than the servant, going,

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God, God, is that you? Are you, you're the one doing this? Well, we're going to see just in this contemplation, he comes to the place in his heart where he is fully satisfied that this is indeed the will of God, that God has acted here.

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And the servant now gives Sarah a nose ring made of a fifth of an ounce of gold, two bracelets weighing a quarter pound each.

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She's got quarter pounders on her wrists here. That's a lot of money, right? I didn't do the math, but anybody know how much an ounce of gold goes for?

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How about a pound of gold? This is a lot, okay? At first glance, this probably appears to be a lavish gift for her hard work.

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She's just worked very hard to serve him, and so he's now given her a gift. Little does she know that she's receiving part of her bride price.

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She's getting a little bit of that in advance. Do you think she'd be impressed with this guy? He's just given her a nose ring.

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By the way, I say nose ring, you'll see that here in a minute, it's not translated here. I don't know if Baptist translated that part or what, but it's a nose ring and he puts it in her nose and then gives her the bracelets.

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The servant is then moved to worship God. He asked for God to guide.

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He made his own plans, but yielded them to the will of God. He prayed and then gave

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God the credit. Can you imagine a different response from the servant than giving credit to God for this?

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Just get out there, wild in your imagination, and can you imagine a context where somebody would do something good for their boss and take credit for it?

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I know that's probably a stretch for most of us to imagine how somebody could do that, but can you picture the servant taking credit for this himself?

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Yeah, you guys are looking at me blank like you didn't understand what I just said. Can you imagine the servant taking credit for this himself, not bowing to God, ignoring

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God's involvement and going, who traveled the 700 miles to Nahor? Who undertook that two to three month journey?

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Whose idea was it to sit down at the well in the evening when the women are coming out? Whose idea was it to sit down there and wait?

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Who spoke to the woman, the first woman to arrive? Who brought the gold bracelets and the nose ring?

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Who was it? But the servant sees in all of these things the hand of God, and he gives

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God the credit for his success. Who gets the credit for our successes?

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Having rewarded her, the servant asks to stay with her family, and she says they have room, but leaves him there to check with her family first.

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So she runs back, leaves him there at the well. There's every indication in the text that her father,

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Bethuel, is incapacitated, possibly so elderly he has passed the leadership of the family off to Laban.

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He's still in the picture. We're going to see him speak briefly in the text, but primarily we see the family interaction being between Rebecca, her mother, and her brother.

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And Bethuel is kind of, did you notice that in the text? He's kind of absent from the text. He doesn't function.

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Instead, she runs to her mother's household, the text tells us, and her brother Laban is the one who hurries to negotiate with this visitor.

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And verses 29 through 30, we're introduced to a guy who's going to factor in a lot later in the book of Genesis, this guy

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Laban. Laban is an interesting character. He is a great case study in greed through the book of Genesis.

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We're going to see that. We're going to see right here from the introduction of Laban, we see what motivates

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Laban. He likes gold. This guy likes bling. He probably has grills, okay?

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Probably not, but I just said that. Woke a couple of you up, so.

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But we meet this guy, and he sprints out to the well to meet this very affluent man waiting for him there.

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He's in a hurry now. He says he sees the nose ring, he sees the bracelets, and he's like, pooh.

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He invites the man to come to his house, and after all the social pleasantries of washing the feet and feeding the animals, a feast is laid out.

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But the visitor, in very rude fashion, the servant, in very rude fashion, says, I've got business I've got to attend to before we touch the food.

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So the food sits there getting cold. Now, have any of you ever, I've got to be careful.

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You know, this is like one of those really hot topic spiritual things, but have any of you ever just thought like when somebody's praying long at a meal, like the food's getting cold?

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I mean, if you're, I'm sorry. That's so wrong that I just said that. So unspiritual. But everybody laughed because you've thought that before.

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I'm really hungry right now. Whatever it is. The food is getting cold. This is really rude.

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Good business transactions happened after the meal. You had a full stomach. Wisdom actually dictated that you talk about business after the meal.

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People are feeling good about themselves. Everything's happy, you know, full stomach. Everybody's like, oh, sitting back, you know, oh, good.

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And so, but this guy is like, he is about his master's mission. He's got nothing else in his mind, and he is so impressed with that day's events that he can't, he's like,

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I can't eat until we get this out, and Laban gives permission. I mean, it's actually permission.

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Speak on. Okay, speak. Verse 34 would have been very significant in this text.

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So he said, I am Abraham's servant. Up to this point, no indication that this guy is family, that this is kin that have arrived.

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And he launched into a sales pitch for his master. He says, the Lord has greatly blessed him and made him a great man.

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He has become a very affluent man with lots of good gifts from the hand of God. He lists out some of those good gifts.

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A little bit of a PR campaign for Abraham and Isaac. Not only that, but God has blessed

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Abraham with a son in his old age. Emphasis on old age there, kind of ultimately saying, he's a young man.

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Okay, I know that you're thinking, Abraham, you're doing the math going, if he's got a son, he's pretty old. No, no, he was really old when he had him.

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And his son is set to inherit all the wealth of his father. He's young.

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He's wealthy. And the servant has come to find a wife for him within the clan of Abraham. I think

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Laban has already started to see dollar signs as this conversation is unfolding. He's like, huh, wait a minute.

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You're looking for a wife. I've got a sister, unmarried. You're really wealthy. This is going to go well.

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Verses 39 through 48 are a retelling of the story we already know. But it is told again in the text.

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The text records it for us to demonstrate to us that the sales pitch isn't only Isaac is super awesome.

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Isaac is super wealthy. Isaac is super studly. Give us Rebecca, we'll be on our way. Thank you very much.

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There's more to it than just that. The message is primarily God has divinely orchestrated these events.

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He has brought me to your house. He has guided this entire process. And I'm convinced that he wants Isaac and Rebecca together.

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See, he appeals to the direct hand of God and divine guidance in all of this. The servant lays out the guidance of God and then rather than coerce them, leaves the ball in their court.

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Now, Laban, Bethuel, which will you decide? To show your love and kindness to Abraham or should I go elsewhere?

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Now, the ball's in their court. It was kind of a hard serve. Because he's like, are you going to be a blessing to those around you?

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Are you going to demonstrate love and kindness to this? And in verse 50, we find

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Laban and Bethuel's remarkable response. We're going to find Laban later worshiping idols. Okay, so Laban is, don't get in your mind here that Laban is demonstrating his pure -hearted devotion to the one true

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God. Now, he probably has some notion of God and maybe follows him to some degree. But he has household idols.

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And we're going to see Rachel, the matriarch, steal from her dad's house.

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And that's kind of weird. So he says though, who are we to judge?

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We refuse to even weigh in on that which the Lord has chosen. The decision has been made by God.

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And so they immediately agree to it. And immediately the servant once again praises the Lord. He bows before the

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Lord and gives him the honor and glory for what's going on here. A substantial bride price is paid to the family and bridal gifts are given to Rebecca.

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The servant is eager to depart the very next morning. He's like, I've got what I came here for. Can we move on?

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But Rebecca's family wants a little more time to process her departure. Can you imagine that? Somebody rolls into town and takes your daughter and wants to leave the next morning.

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What? I need a little bit of time to process this. So the family says, could we have at least 10 days? And knowing what we see of Laban down the road, he may already be scheming a way to milk more money from Abraham's servant.

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Does he do that? Does he do that later? Does he do that to Jacob? Seven more years? Seven more years and then you can have

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Rachel? Right? That's the way that Laban rolls. And I don't imagine he's probably got some of those seeds already formed in his mind.

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The servant wants to move on. And so they ultimately give Rebecca the decisive vote. She votes in the text to depart immediately.

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Now, the text tells us nothing of how difficult this was for Rebecca. And I want to use this as an opportunity to just kind of help you out in something that I see happening in our culture and here in America and particularly in the church, and that's this significant volume of writing out there that I would call historical

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Christian fiction. Have any of you ever read historical Christian fiction? Just being honest, I've read some. But I think it's a dangerous thing in one way because what it ends up doing is it plants pictures and thoughts in our head that we can then in turn, they flavor and they end up going above and beyond the text of Scripture.

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And by that, they are so powerful in our minds that the feelings that they evoke end up taking precedent over the text.

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And we can end up thinking and seeing things from a specific angle that an author who's writing a novel has power over us if we think that they're writing about that which is true.

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Are you getting what I'm saying about that? And so, can you imagine an author writing a book about Rebecca and talking about the pain and the anguish of leaving her family and making that a major, major point?

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And how is God going to sustain you during difficult times like he sustained Rebecca during this awful ordeal where she's been ripped from her context and her family?

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Well, the text is something kind of different. The text is something kind of different. I don't know.

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Have you ever thought that maybe this is her ticket out of a rough family? Maybe she's eager to go.

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She just was offered 10 days longer with her family or leave the next morning.

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And which did she choose? Leave the next morning. Now, maybe she had an adventurous spirit.

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We don't know what it was that motivated her. We just know she's ready to go. The text tells us she's ready to go the next morning.

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So her family sends her off with some maids, her personal servant, and a blessing that she would become a multitude and that her offspring would be victorious over his enemies.

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Interesting that that's singular. I don't know if they knew exactly what they were saying, but she indeed did have an offspring who demonstrated perfect victory over his enemies.

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After weeks of travel, the caravan rolls back into Canaan. They arrive by the plan of God at a time just when

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Isaac is out in the field, going out to meditate in the evening. Interesting, you know, you ever think of Isaac going out in the field to meditate?

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He's out there thinking things through. He lifts up his eyes. In the text, parallel to Rebecca lifting up her eyes, this romantic scene across the field.

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And then she falls off the camel. Okay? That's what the text actually says in Hebrew.

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They've actually gone gentle with it and said she, you know, dismounted from the camel.

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It says she fell off the camel. Her eyes lift up. Maybe he was just a hunk. I don't know. But she's like, whoo!

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I mean, it's kind of like, I picture that working in the Princess Bride or something. Or, you know, somewhere it's

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Monty Python skit or something. But she's, you know, this romantic moment. Their eyes, blah! But anyways, they see each other for the first time.

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And the child of the promise, Isaac, whose name is Laughter, and the wife of the promise are now poised to carry on the promises of God and to make a great people in a great land.

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The servant calls Isaac his master and reports back to Isaac instead of Abraham. This shows that the shift from Abraham to Isaac is almost complete.

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Isaac and Rebecca are married, and then they grow into love together. Did you know?

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You can look this up online. Did you know that the divorce rate is less in countries where there are still arranged marriages?

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Did you know that? That's pretty crazy, huh? We don't think that way. But here they met each other and then fell in love later.

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They married each other and fell in love. Are you getting what I'm saying? I mean, it was, to them, a decision.

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It wasn't primarily about how compatible we are. It was working at compatibility and making that work.

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They get married and fall in love. God has miraculously provided a wife for the one through whom the promise is going to be carried.

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The promise is another step closer to fulfillment. Abraham is a step closer to becoming a great nation in our text.

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Now, I've spent a lot of time in my applications to the book of Genesis highlighting that God is a keeper of his promises.

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But this text is one of the clearest in showing how the sovereignty of God protects his promises and makes it happen.

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In this transition between Abraham and Isaac, we are left to wonder, will God continue his plan of blessing to the offspring of Abraham?

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And he proves himself to be more than faithful. But a couple of things for each of us to consider.

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The servant of Abraham praised God and saw his hand in all things. Where do you see the hand of God in your life?

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Is it just a nod to him from time to time? Or do you recognize the hand of God in your daily lives?

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Who gets the credit for your successes? Are you able to look back and trace the hand of God and the things that have been blessings to you?

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And if God is sovereignly involved in moving forward this old covenant by providing his chosen servant a wife, how much more do you think

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God is working in this new covenant age to draw people to his son, Jesus Christ? We serve a

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God who is moving his plans forward. And we, the church, are his chosen instrument. We should be ready each day to be used by him just as the servant was eager and ready to be used by God.

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Our hope and trust is in a God who has provided salvation for us. His plan, his people, and his land in the old covenant led to the birth of his son who went to his cross, his sacrifice, his death, and his resurrection.

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And what we have to bring to the salvation equation is our sin.

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That's what we provide in the equation, our sin. We bring that to the table. So let's be very careful during a time of growing deeper in Christ as a church that we never think that deeper things are different than gospel things.

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I think a lot of times people have the idea that the gospel is the initiation into the Christian life and now we've grown past that and I don't need to hear the gospel.

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And I could tune that out when Don gets up on Sunday morning and he presents the gospel. He's doing that for visitors. I need to hear the gospel myself.

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We need to hear the gospel regularly, often, as often as we can. We need to be preaching the gospel to ourselves.

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That we are not good enough, we can't be good enough, but God has provided a way and it is his way from beginning to end.

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To his glory, Jesus Christ provided for us. So many churches somewhere around where we are decide that they've graduated from the gospel and it's time to move on to discipleship and those two things are mixed together.

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They are both an essential part and you don't move from an era of evangelism to an era of discipleship.

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It's both going on simultaneously in the future if we are a church. If we neglect one, then we are not doing what

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God has called us to do. If we neglect the other, we are not doing what God has called us to do as a church.

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Are you getting that? And somewhere in this process, churches have a tendency to begin to think pretty highly of themselves.

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They begin to communicate, usually on accident, that the basis of a good life is merely doing good things.

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So let us as a church cling tenaciously to the gospel that proclaims that he has done it for us.

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Like the servant in our text, let's give thanks to the God who has demonstrated his faithfulness and his loving kindness to us as a church.

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And we celebrate that loving kindness poured out on us by his son, Jesus Christ. Through communion, we take communion to remember that sacrifice that is our source of hope.

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Without a point of conversion, we have not crossed over from death to life. I'm not talking about knowing a date and time that you gave your life to Christ, but what

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God requires is that everyone comes to a place of recognizing their own sinfulness and humbly accepts the sacrifice that he has provided for us.

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If you've accepted the way that God has provided for us to be saved, then please join together with God's people in communion this morning.

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Take the cracker and remember his body broken for us. Take the juice and remember his blood shed for us.

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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the good news.

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I thank you for the gospel that is so simple and yet profound and can be made complex through our confusion over our tendency to take what is simple and make it complex when the reality of the gospel is your son died on the cross for us, rose again victorious over sin and death, and that anyone who believes in him and puts their trust in him, that those things will be true of them too, that they will indeed have resurrection in their future because of his sacrifice and forgiveness.

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That's awesome. I pray that as we have an opportunity to take communion together that you would help us to reflect on what this means.

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Would you allow us to be a gospel people who are saturated in our hearts and minds with the truth that we are not worthy of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we are not worthy of your presence, and yet you come and live with us and in us by the sacrifice of Jesus and by faith.

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I pray that you would move in us through this week to bring honor and glory to you, that we would walk in obedience because we have been saved by Jesus and we recognize how much you have loved us.