The Blessed Life Genesis 26:1-16

Later on this month, we'll celebrate one of America's biggest holidays, Thanksgiving. For about 400 years, starting with the pilgrims, people in this land have celebrated this day of gratitude. What makes Thanksgiving such a wonderful holiday is how appropriate it is for all of us.

No matter where we are in life, we have so much to be thankful for. There's an old saying that says, count your blessings. Do you thank God regularly for the blessings in your life? You and I are truly blessed.

We are blessed for the health we have, the family we have, the friends we have, the beautiful area we live in, enjoying the seasons, even winter. For all these blessings, we are most blessed for what we have spiritually.

For everyone here who has a relationship with Christ, you are blessed beyond measure. As Jesus told the disciples when the demons were under their authority, he says, do not rejoice over this, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

This is the greatest blessing. And what we experience every week is the beautiful blessing of gathering together as the people of God, enjoying our wonderful unity and fellowship in Christ. It's a great joy to worship the Lord together.

My favorite time every week is Sunday morning. I love coming to work, and by the way, this isn't the only time I work during the week, but I'm just saying, I love worshiping the Lord with you. But what if these blessings are taken away?

What if we threaten to diminish our blessings or, God forbid, forfeit these blessings we have in Christ? This is a scary reality that we are going to look at in this text today. We will see this in our sermon series through Genesis as we continue it with Isaac as he threatens to squander the blessed path the Lord is taking him down.

We are going to see what a great God we have as we see his grace and his mercy shine forth as his blessing continues on this man. So I encourage you, as always, to turn in a Bible with me to Genesis 26.

We look at verses 1 through 16. If you're using a red Bible in the pews, it's on page 22. Correct me if I'm wrong. I think it's 22. It's 23. Okay. I made a guess this week and I was like, I think it's 22, but I never actually double-checked.

So thank you for that. This sermon is titled, The Blessed Life. And our big idea, our proposition is following God's way is always the best way. We're going to see three reasons why. The first reason why is the blessings are the greatest for you and others.

We're going to see this in verses 1 through 5. But before we jump into the text, let me give a little recap of last week's sermon, especially if you weren't here last week. So you know where we're going, where we were and where we are today.

Last week, we saw how God worked mysteriously in the lives of his people in Genesis 25, 19 through 34. And we saw three examples in the lives of Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob and Esau. Isaac and Rebekah had to wait 20 years to have their first child.

This waiting period caused them to trust God and pray for this holy desire to have a child and continue this chosen line that started long ago and would continue into the future. And the application for us was that the Lord often has us wait to accomplish his good purposes in our lives.

And all of this is for our good and for his glory. The second example of how God's mysterious hand works in our life is that he chose Jacob instead of Esau before they were born. God did not choose Jacob because he had some good in him that Esau did not have.

Rather, he chose him out of his own will. He decided to choose one over the other. This is important for us to understand in our relationship with God. The reason we walk with God today is because God chose us first.

His eyes were set on you before you were born. And it's a great mystery, but it's a wonderful truth that Scripture teaches. And the third example of God's mysterious hand that we saw in the text last week is that his work in us and in the world is often unseen to the eye.

We should not be tempted to think that what is going on in the world is bigger than God's big plans. We should not be tempted to value that which we can see over that which we cannot see. That's what Esau did.

He valued the instant gratification of a single meal over the great plans that God had for him. He valued the gift of God over God himself, which of course is idolatry. And this brings us to our text today in Genesis 26.

We are going to see in this narrative our similarities between what we have already seen in Genesis 12 and Genesis 21. And you might think, I've heard this before, for those of you who've been with us since we started Genesis, because we're going to see some similarities today.

So let's begin by reading verse one of chapter 26. Now there was a famine in the land besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech, king of the Philistines.

What we read here is that a famine had come over the land of Canaan. And the author Moses reminds us that this famine was similar to the one that happened in the days of Abraham. What he's referencing is the famine that happened in Genesis 12.

That famine led Abraham to go to Egypt to find food. While Abraham went to Egypt, Isaac went to Gerar. If you could mentally picture where modern-day Israel is, Gerar would be on the southern point of modern-day Israel in the Middle East.

Of course, Egypt is southwest of that. And he went to Abimelech, the king of the Philistines. We've heard King Abimelech's name before. Isaac's father Abraham came across Abimelech in chapter 20. Some commentators think that this is the same king, while others think it's his son or grandson with the same name.

Personally, I think it is the same king because what we'll see in our text today is that he has some remembrance of what happened when he was dealing with Abraham. So I think this is the same king, just him much older.

Now in verse 2, the Lord tells Isaac not to do what his father did in chapter 12. And the Lord appeared to him and said, Do not go down to Egypt. Dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. So in chapter 12, Abraham went down to Egypt during the famine.

And so you could see why Isaac would think, well, that sounds like a good idea. My father did it. That's what I'm going to do. But in this verse, the Lord tells him not to go to Egypt. The Lord tells him to dwell in the land of which he will tell him.

And he tells him specifically where in verse 3. He says, Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and to your offspring, I will give all these lands and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham, your father.

The Lord tells Isaac that if he stays in the land where he has lived, the land of Canaan, then he will be blessed. What we can take from this is that if Isaac stays in the land, not only will the Lord provide food, but he will also bless him with so much more.

Then in verses 4 and 5, the Lord makes it clear to Isaac that he is keeping his promises to his father, Abraham. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands.

And in your offspring, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws. So by staying in this land, the land of Canaan, the land of promise, the Lord will multiply Isaac's offspring as many as the stars in the heavens.

And these people will inherit this land that the Lord is giving them. One question we need to ask here is why is the Lord so adamant that Isaac stay in Canaan, what we know as the promised land, and not to go to Egypt like Abraham did?

To answer this question, we need to remember chapter 12. What happened when Abraham went to Egypt? In chapter 12, Abraham sojourned to Egypt because of the famine and he got comfortable there. And him getting comfortable there was not a good thing.

Abraham told a half-truth to the pharaoh in order to protect himself. He said that Sarah was his sister and not his wife, and of course Sarah was his half-sister. So he's kind of telling the truth. And since the pharaoh momentarily took Sarah as his wife, Abraham was dealt well with.

You could say he was living the high life in Egypt. There were no signs that Abraham or Sarah were going to go anywhere. And remember, earlier on in chapter 12, the Lord had just told Abraham, I'm going to give you the land of Canaan and I'm going to multiply your offspring as many as the stars in the heavens.

So after all of that, he goes to Egypt and he plans on living there over the long haul. So you can see here, the Lord doesn't want Isaac to do the same thing. The land of Canaan, the land of promise, that's going to be their land.

And he's saying, don't go to Egypt like your father. Stay here. The Lord is committed to his promises coming to pass for Abraham's offspring dwelling in the land that they would possess. So he does not want Isaac to leave and to stay in Egypt over the long haul.

And the Lord does the same in your life. He stops his people from going down the wrong path, even if on the surface it might seem like a good path. And I'm not saying he stops you from going down a horrible path.

We know that. But sometimes the Lord stops you from going down what would be a good path to send you down a better path. When I was in seminary, one of my professors, who's a brilliant man and loves the Lord and has done so many great things for so many students over the years, and he's pastored churches, he wanted to be an actor, a Christian actor in the 1980s.

And one of the ways you find out if this is what he was going to do is he actually went to one of the sets of one of those cheesy End Times movies from the 1980s. Some of you may remember that. And he went to meet the actors and to kind of see how things were.

And he left thinking, I never want to do that. He was so unimpressed. He says, this isn't me. I want nothing to do with this. And later on, he decided to go into ministry, first as a pastor and now as a professor.

I'm talking about my old professor, Kevin Bouter. Rob knows who he is. But I'm just thinking, think about if he would have become an actor, there would have been a less blessing for himself and for the people of God.

So sometimes the good path is not as good, right, as the better path, and the church would be the poorer for it. And there's so many stories like that where people could have gone one way and it wasn't a bad thing, but they went another way and it was so much better.

And in your case, in your life, think about this, maybe this might be a good application for you. I mean, you're part of a part of a small church and obviously in a smaller church, your gifts are able to be used in so many different ways, right?

And think of if you went to a bigger church, your gifts might not be able to be used. Now, being a part of a bigger church is not a bad thing, right? It's a good thing. But think of how the Lord can use that to bring a greater blessing to you and to so many others.

So what we looked at in Genesis 24 is that the Lord has an individual will. We saw this a few weeks ago. He has an individual will for each of our lives and our lives are short and the Lord is only going to let us go down the wrong path for a short time before he steers us to where he wants us to go.

He let Abraham steer down the wrong path for a while, but the Lord guided him back on the right path and brought Abraham again to the land he promised him. In Isaac's case, the Lord has given him an even shorter leash than Abraham.

What he is saying to Isaac is you and your family are going to stay in this land and this is the place where your offspring, namely Jacob, will have more offspring and the ball is going to get rolling for them to multiply to as many as the stars in the heavens.

So staying in this land will bring the greatest blessing to Isaac and to his offspring and this is the application for us. Going down the path the Lord has for you and he has an individual plan for each of our lives.

It's his great plan for you and it's the greatest blessing for you and for others. So this is the first reason why following God's way is always the best way. The blessings are the greatest for you and others.

So think about that in your life. The Lord is sending you down the path that's the greatest blessing for you and others and if he is, continue doing that. Remain steadfast in that. The second reason why following God's way is always the best way is that his path keeps you out of trouble.

His path keeps you out of trouble. We'll see this in verses 6 through 11. We just saw the Lord tell Isaac to stay in Canaan and what we will see is that he listened. Verse 6, so Isaac settled in Gerar.

Okay, let's stop right there. Isaac was faithful in listening to the Lord and trusting that the Lord would provide rather than going with his own plan and going to Egypt. We should emulate this in Isaac.

What the Lord commands we should listen to and do for our blessing and for his glory. While Isaac does not follow in his father's footsteps by going to Egypt, he does follow in his footsteps by telling a lie.

Okay, so we're going to see a similarity between him and his dad here in verse 7. Verse 7, when the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, she is my sister. For he feared to say my wife thinking, lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebecca, because she was attractive in appearance.

So what Isaac tells the men of Gerar is that Rebecca is his sister and not his wife. The narrator Moses tells us that he did this because he thought they would steal Rebecca and kill him. So this is what we call self-preservation.

He's committing the same sin that his father committed. And think of how foolish this sin is. The Lord just promised Isaac that if he stayed in the land of promise, the Lord would bless him and multiply his offspring so that they would continue to live where they were supposed to live.

He does the same thing his dad did. The Lord just promised Abraham and look, and look what he did. He changes things. He doesn't trust the Lord. He kind of tries to do things his own way. And Isaac should know at this point that he's not going to die.

The Lord just promised that he was going to bless him and he's yet to be blessed. We'll see that in verse 12. So he's not believing the Lord's word and trusting the promise that a blessing would come to him and not the opposite of being ruthlessly killed by the Philistines.

So why does Isaac do this? We know the answer to this because we, like all mankind, know how to sin. We are professional sinners as we are sinners by nature and by choice. The thing about sin is that it does not make sense.

If we were to think through the end result of sin, it should cause us to be slow to sin because we know that sin leads to trouble. Sin leads to problems. Sin leads to destruction. Think about the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve were there.

They had this dwelling place with God, joy with God. God provided everything for them to be happy, and yet they were tempted to eat from the tree that the Lord told them not to eat from, and of course they ate and they disobeyed God.

And think of what they lost. They're kicked out of the presence of God. They have to live life in this world as sinners in a fallen world, and think of how much different it could have been if they had not sinned.

At the library in St. Croix Falls, they have some quotes written on there and some messages written on there. One of the messages written on there is, the earth is what we all have in common. As I read that, I said, okay, well that's true, but let's add some things to that.

Okay, this is how I think. Sin is what we all have in common. Sin is what we all have in common. Our need for a Savior is what we all have in common, and the world misses that. Sin at its core is irrational.

It simply does not make sense. Why would we commit a sin to bring about consequences that could have been avoided? Why do we sin to forfeit future blessings? An unbeliever who sins forfeits the greatest blessing of all, eternal life with God.

On the other hand, the believer makes things more difficult in their life by sinning, and they diminish blessing in this life, and even lessen their rewards in the world to come. And as your pastor, I'm in this fight with you.

When we sin, we are left scratching our head. Why would we sin when the Lord has promised us everything to make our lives happy? When we sin, what we are saying to the Lord is that we don't trust His goodness for our lives.

We don't trust the promise of Psalm 34 9, that those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. So when we go outside of God to get what we think is the better path, we meet consequences that should have been avoided when we should have just experienced the blessing of walking with the Lord.

Isaac was just with God. He had just spoken with Him, and the Lord says, I am going to bless you, and look what He does. We'll see this pulled out here in verses 8 through 10. When he had been there a long time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah, his wife.

So Abimelech called Isaac and said, Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say she is my sister? Isaac said to him, Because I thought, lest I die because of her. Abimelech said, What is this you have done to us?

One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us. So we see here the king of the Philistines, Abimelech, looks out his window, and he notices that Isaac and Rebekah are interacting in a way that is not normal for a brother and sister to interact.

And all the text says is that they were laughing. And he says, There's no way they could be brother and sister. They have to be husband and wife. There was something about this, and the king picks up on this, and he says to them, What have you done to us?

This sin being found out leads to embarrassment for Isaac. Furthermore, it could have jeopardized his wife as another man could have lain with her. And as the king knows, this lie could have brought shame on a Philistine if he took her to be his wife.

By sitting here and not trusting the good things that God promised him, Isaac makes things much more difficult for himself when only blessing awaited him. Does this sound familiar to you and to me? Yes, it does.

This section is incredible because what we're going to see here is the graciousness of the Lord to his people. He is patient with his people, bringing a good result in their life, even though the messiness of sin comes along the journey.

We'll see this in verse 11 here. Actually, we'll see this following here, but we'll close out point two with verse 11. So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.

And again, this is why I think this is the same king, because what happened in Genesis 12 was that the Lord appeared to Abimelech in a dream and said, You're a dead man because you have another man's wife.

Because, of course, Abimelech had taken Sarah as his wife. And so King Abimelech knows, I'm not going to mess with this God, this God that Abraham followed, this God that Isaac is following right here.

So he tells his people, don't get in trouble with this. Stay away. Do not make this woman your wife. But the emphasis of this portion of these verses is the trouble that sin causes. Only blessing awaited Isaac, and yet he got entangled in sin.

And this led to a lesser reputation for him. The name of the Lord was defamed and his wife was hurt. Our sins offend God and bring shame upon ourselves, and they hurt others. What scripture says in Hebrews 12, 1 is that sin clings so closely.

Isaac found this out, and so do we when we fall into sin. But the great news is that in all of this, God's grace toward his people is steadfast. He does not throw his people aside when they do foolish things and just give up on them.

Saying, you know what? I really like this person. I really like this man. I really like this woman. You know what? I'm kind of sick of them because they keep messing up. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to move on from them, and I'm going to find someone else to work through.

God doesn't do that. If you're truly saved, if you truly have a relationship with him, he sticks with you over the long haul, and it's such a beautiful blessing. And it doesn't say much about us, frankly.

It says a lot about him. It shows us how wonderful he is. And yeah, I'll get more to that here in our next point. But the second reason why following God's way is always the best way is that his path keeps you out of trouble.

The third reason why following God's way is always the best way is that the Lord's blessings continue as you right the ship. The Lord's blessings continue as you right the ship. We'll see this in verses 12 through 16.

What we have to understand is the Lord is fully committed to his people. As I already said, he doesn't just throw us aside when we have a big blunder. He sticks with us. So verse 12, And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold.

The Lord blessed him. So we see here, Isaac sows in the land that year and produces a crop to a hundredfold. And notice what the end of verse 12 says, The Lord blessed him. This is incredible. Isaac did something so foolish by lying to the Philistines, saying, Rebecca is my sister and not my wife.

The Lord was dishonored by this lie. Should we expect bad things to continue in Isaac's life after this? Because he messed up so bad. Well, some religions say that the religion of Hinduism believes in karma.

What this means is that when you do good things, good things will come to you later, whether in this life or in a future life. And for those who do bad things, bad things will find them out later. This lingers in our culture.

People like, oh, that was karma. You hear people say that. It comes straight from Hinduism, which is demonic. We must understand that. Is this what the Bible teaches about karma? No. What the Bible teaches is that we are all born in this world as bad people.

We are all sinners, as Romans 3 .23 says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. You want to lose an election? Say that, OK? We think about Tuesday. So many people are so afraid to say things, right?

We're all bad people. Let's just be honest about this. If we all got what we deserved, we would be in big trouble. If we got what we deserved, you know where we would be right now? We'd be in hell. I heard one pastor say that today is a good day because we're not in hell.

Do you think about your days like that if you have a bad day? Even a bad day, God is being gracious to you. And we'll never go to hell if you belong to Christ because God's grace towards you in Jesus Christ, right?

He sent his son to die for us. Romans 8 .32 says, He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not graciously give us all things? He sent his son for you and he's forever committed to you.

Do you think like this? And do you believe that you are deserving of hell, but you're given heaven because of God's grace? Do you see how amazing his grace is toward his people? And we see it here with Isaac.

The Lord blesses Isaac after his blunder. The Lord did not give him what he deserved. This is how God works with his people. He extends continual grace to them. Theologian Wayne Grudem defines God's grace as his goodness toward those who do not deserve it.

God is not obligated to be gracious to us, but he is. This is such a marvelous truth about the God we serve. What karma assumes is that man is good, right? I can do good things and be blessed by the divine as they would understand it.

But the only way we are able to do good things is through the grace of God. God's grace is what brings the blessing as he pours out his blessings on his children and through the spirit brings them toward holiness and closer communion with him.

God's children are forever under his blessing. And after we fall into a blunder, we must repent, sincerely repent. And as we do this, we get back on track with him. Now, it doesn't say here specifically that Isaac repented.

I think it's safe for us to assume, right? He's a God's child and he gets back on the track with him. And we continue to walk with the Lord and his grace and his blessings. And all of these promises are still ours, even after we have a blunder.

As my old pastor has said, the presence of sin is not the problem. The lack of repentance is the problem. That's how you tell the difference between a believer and unbeliever, right? I heard one person say there's two types of people in this world.

Unrepentant sinners and repentant sinners. Which one are you? These blessings that are still ours should motivate us to repent and get back on the path. We see the Lord do that here with Isaac and he's going to do it with us too.

Because in verse 12, Isaac's back on the path after his blunder. And we know this because in verse 12, Isaac plants the seed in a dry and arid place that had been struck with famine. He did not continue down a rebellious path by going to a land the Lord told him not to go.

That's how we would know if he was continuing in his sin. But he trusted the Lord by staying in the land the Lord told him to plant. And he planted, fully trusting that the Lord was going to bless it.

Okay, so you see him. Isaac is back on the path here. And this is our model as we interact with the Lord when we fall into sin. Isaac does not deserve blessings, but he knows the Lord and expects to experience his grace as his child, even after he sins, as he turns once again to him.

And I want to be very clear here. This isn't saying, okay, we'll keep sinning and just keep coming back to him. No, the Bible tells us to kill our sin. We should not plan on sinning. But when we do sin, we need to repent and get back on the path with him.

And what is so remarkable about the promises of Scripture is that we deserve hell. But instead, we get heaven through Christ. And furthermore, the Lord even rewards people beyond receiving everlasting life based on their faithfulness to him.

That's what's so remarkable about this. God is the one who's gracious to us. He gives us the ability to do good works. And guess what he does? He rewards us for our good works. Matthew 6 20 says to store for ourselves treasures in heaven.

That means that some people's experience in heaven is going to be greater because they were more faithful in this life. And some people's blessing will be less because of less faithfulness. So you do get rewarded for good actions, which is remarkable.

The Lord sets his sight on his people before they were born. He set his sight on you before you were born, pouring out his grace on them. Continuing to be gracious to them as they fight the fight against sin.

And this is such a beautiful truth of Scripture. As you fight, the Lord is gracious to you by fighting with you, right? He he wants you to kill your sin. He wants you to get back on the path when you fall.

And this is what we see with Isaac. He lies the king of Imalek. He brings shame upon himself. He defames God and hurts others. Yet in the following section, the end of verse 12 says the Lord blessed him.

This isn't karma. This is grace. This is grace. And this should amaze us. The Lord's grace toward his people. Now, what Isaac experiences here is physical blessing. He knows that the Old Testament often represents spiritual blessing through physical blessing.

The Lord often prospers the life of his people in the Old Testament through physical blessing. On the other hand, he often punished disobedience by ending people's lives. Or punishing them in some way.

And what we see in our text is this truth that Isaac was under the Lord's spiritual blessing as he pours out physical blessing upon him. So let's read. Let us read these blessings in in verses 13 through 16.

And the man became rich and gained more and more until he became very wealthy. He had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants so that the Philistines envied him. Now, the Philistines had stopped and filled with earth all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham, his father.

And Abimelech said to Isaac, go away from us, for you are much mightier than we are. What we see here is that the Lord blessed Isaac so much that he became wealthy. He also had flocks and herds and many servants who helped him prosper.

The people whom he had just sinned against, the Philistines were jealous at how much the Lord had blessed him. The Philistines attempted to stop his prosperity by filling up wells that Abraham's servants had dug many years before.

And as they are looking on and observing Isaac's prosperity, they are threatened by it. Think of how much glory is seen here. The Lord's glory as they see the Lord prosper this man. They know that he's a follower of Yahweh and he keeps getting blessed.

And as the end of verse 16 says, they acknowledged that Isaac was much mightier than they were. And this same situation happened with Abraham in Genesis 21. Abraham prospered and the Philistines were able to say that God is with him.

So they took measures to protect themselves by making a treaty with him. And in our passage today, they take the measure of simply telling Isaac to leave this region. And later in this chapter, and we'll see this next week, they will take the measure of making a treaty with him as they did earlier with Isaac's father, Abraham.

So we see how greatly the Lord blesses Isaac, so much so that it brings jealousy. The Philistines are jealous toward him. And when the Lord blesses his people, he blesses them greatly. Now, you can see how someone could take this as a prosperity thing.

Okay, let me be very careful here. I'm not saying the Lord, the Lord obviously blesses us with physical things, right? But the focus, again, of the Old Testament is physical blessing meant spiritual blessing.

Okay, so this does not necessarily mean material. And everything the Lord gives us, again, is a blessing. But the greatest blessing the Lord gives his people is spiritual. He has promised that we will dwell with him forever and enjoy him forever.

Our fellowship with him now and our future with him is the greatest blessing. We taste and see that the Lord is good as he blesses us in so many ways in this life. And all these blessings are pointing ahead to the blessing of being his children, dwelling with him forever and ever.

It's not because of us that we experience this. He pours out his blessings on us because of his amazing grace. As the Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 1 -3, the Lord has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

So when we sing that song, Amazing Grace, think about that. Think about how wonderful the Lord's grace is toward his people. As I mentioned in the introduction today, angels have no clue what it's like to be us.

To experience the grace of Christ in salvation. They don't know what it's like. They've never experienced it. But we do. And it's remarkable. So this is the third reason why following God's way is always the best way.

The Lord's blessings continue as his people right the ship. So that when we sin, this should motivate us to get back on the path, knowing that he's not going to throw us aside. His blessings are still there.

If we sincerely come back on the path with him. So to wrap up this sermon this morning, following God's way is always the best way. We've seen three reasons why. The blessings are the greatest for you and others.

His path keeps you out of trouble. And the Lord's blessings continue as his people right the ship. So for those of you who have walked with the Lord for a while now, you know these truths to be true because you've experienced them as you've walked with the Lord.

And let us praise and thank the Lord that following his way is indeed the best way as his blessings abound for his people. Now, next week, we're going to look at the conflict between Isaac and the Philistines.

And we will see how Isaac rightly handles this conflict. Let's pray. Father in heaven, your blessings towards your people are incredible. Lord, you are good to those who do not deserve it. And we see that clearly in this text this day.

Where sin is, grace abounds more and more. And all of this, Lord, is meant to bring glory to yourself. And we certainly, Lord, benefit greatly. It brings us great joy, Lord, to know that this is the path that you have for us.

That you desire, you eagerly pursue us. Eagerly desiring to have this relationship with us. And how wonderful it is. And so, Lord, as we live this out, may we understand this. And may we praise you more.