Genesis 26:1-33 Like Father Like Son

Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service. This message is by lead pastor Don Filsack and is a part of the series Beginning with God, Walking Through the Book of Genesis.

If you would like to contact us, please visit us on the web at recastchurch .com. Here's Pastor Don.

Be sure to check out the worship folder you received when you walked in, announcements, different things that are going on there. And I think there is a correction on there. Men's breakfast on September 28th is turned into a bonfire on the evening of September 28th.

Is that right, Kyle? Okay, so take notice of that change there. Somehow it's changed from a breakfast to a bonfire. So, but you could probably bring breakfast to the bonfire, just be in the evening. And then also be sure to fill out the connection card you received when you walked in.

If you fill that in for the first time and turn it in in the black box, then please take a free coffee mug back there, just our way of saying thanks. And then remember to put any prayer requests that you have or any suggestions or communication that you would want to have with the leadership on that.

Those are very helpful to us to get feedback from time to time from you guys and also to be able to pray for you. And then also remember any offerings that you choose to give, there's an envelope provided for you.

Those go in the black box back there. We don't pass an offering plate. Anything marked expansion fund will go towards our future hopes of building a building. And so I just continue to ask for you to be in prayer for that.

You know, a lot of people have asked, you know, kind of what could we do about that or where are we at in that process? And the process is just be praying that God would guide and direct us. Obviously, that fund continues to grow and we're grateful for that.

We're talking with a couple of different banks and about some financing options. Nothing is just like, you know, like that's it or whatever to bring before you. And so just constantly be in prayer as you think about it, about God's future for us.

And be in prayer about the current lease situation here. As far as we know, our landlord still is in the process of trying to work with the banks to hold on to this and maintain it. And so we are leases through November and then we're month to month after that.

And so just be praying that God works all of that. And I believe in trust. He's carried us this far. He's given us this great facility that's worked great. And I'm confident that he's just got a plan for us in the future and will continue to bless us.

But be in prayer about that. With all that said, this morning is going to be our last sermon in the book of Genesis for a while. We're going to be in Genesis chapter 26 this morning and then out of Genesis 26 into 1 John starting next week.

And carrying 1 John through basically around Christmas time. And then we'll do a couple things before we pick up back into Genesis after the first of the year. So we're going to take a little bit of a break here.

We've been in it for a while. But if you've been here consistently hearing from the book of Genesis, I know certainly I have. I generally hear when I'm preaching what the content is usually. But there have been two themes that have stuck out to me throughout the study in the book of Genesis.

As far as my personal study goes and as far as the sermons. I'm guessing that if you've been here you've heard these two themes kind of strike you as well. The first is that humanity is busted up and broken and not what God designed us to be.

From the account of the fall in Genesis 3, through the flood, through the Tower of Babel, Abraham. How many of you feel like you've gotten to know Abraham? Have you gotten to know Abraham over the course of time?

That's great. I know that I have. Studying his life and his life is like a roller coaster ride of faith. Okay, there's ups. How many of you know? In any human life really there's ups and there's downs, right?

And the peaks looked a lot like obedient trust and faith in God in Abraham's life. And then the low point seemed to be passive self-interest and trying to save his own skin. And so there's these ups and downs in his life.

Last week we saw Jacob swindling his brother Esau out of his birthright. When we get on into Genesis chapter 27 we're going to see Jacob swindling his brother out of his blessing. How many of you would agree with me that throughout the book of Genesis humanity has not been painted in a very nice light?

Okay, we are broken, we are messed up and we behave poorly. And I appreciate that scripture shows us that. That it doesn't pull any punches or just kind of try to candy coat everything. But it shows us that, okay, we're made out of the same stuff as these people.

Now how many of you wouldn't need to go to the pages of scripture? You just could look in your own mirror to say, you know, you look at your own life and you kind of go, yes, humanity has fallen, I am fallen.

But that leads to the second theme which I've really been seeing shine through the book of Genesis. And has actually challenged my thinking of God in the book of Genesis. As I've been studying it, and that is the faithfulness of God.

Really against the backdrop of human sinfulness and inconsistency, God shines out as the one faithful character in the story of history. In all the narrative of Genesis, God shines out as the one who is faithful.

He promises things and then completes that which he promises. He is shown to carry his plan forward to bless his people. Hear me carefully. I said his plans to bless his people. I noticed that I think a lot of people have in their minds that, like the Old Testament is a God of wrath, a God of anger, a God of vindictiveness, a God who's going to get back at us for that whole fall thing.

And so he's angry and he's full of wrath and vengeance. And it's not that God is looking to punish us for our failures. That struck me as we've gone through the book of Genesis. He's setting about a plan to provide blessings and redemption through one male offspring of humanity.

And that's what we see his promises and his promises towards blessing and towards bringing about a remnant and saving people for himself. And in our text, we will see God once again moving in the life of his chosen family to take them one more step closer to fulfilling his promises.

One more step close in the life of Isaac, the son of Abraham. And what we're going to see is Isaac is not that different from Abraham, his father. We're going to see him do a lot of the same things that his dad did.

People responding to him the same way that they responded to his dad. And I titled the sermon, Like Father, Like Son. I toyed with just calling it the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. It's kind of the same notion, right?

Like we're going to see a lot of behavior and patterns in the short account of the life of Isaac that is very similar to Abraham. And that means, if we think back, it's going to be moments of sin, moments of great faith, moments of struggle, remembering the promises, trusting in God, and a richness of a blessed life that is good even though it is not perfect.

And so I want you to open your Bibles to chapter 26 of Genesis. That's page 17 in the Bible in the seat back in front of you. And follow along as I read chapter 26. I'm going to leave off the last two verses, and I'm going to pick those up when I preach on Genesis 27 because it really ties in better there.

But follow along as I read Genesis chapter 26 in the English Standard Version. 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.

And the Lord appeared to him and said, Do not go down to Egypt. Dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. 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.

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 Isaac settled in Gerar. 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 less the men of the place should kill me because of Rebecca, because she was attractive in appearance.

When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebecca, 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 Abimelech warned all the people saying, Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death. And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him 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. So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the valley of Gerar and settled there. And Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of Abraham, his father, which the Philistines had stopped after the death of Abraham.

And he gave them the names that his father had given them. But when Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a well of spring water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen saying, The water is ours.

So he called the name of the well Assek because they contended with him. Then they dug another well and they quarreled over that also. So he called its name Sitna. And he moved from there and dug another well and they did not quarrel over it.

So he called its name Rehoboth saying, For now the Lord has made room for us and we shall be fruitful in the land. From there he went to Beersheba and the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, I am the God of Abraham, your father.

Fear not for I am with you and I will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham's sake. So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac's servants dug a well.

When Abimelech went to him from Gerar with Ahazeth his advisor and Phicol the commander of his army, Isaac said to them, Why have you come to me seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?

They said, We see plainly that the Lord has been with you. So we said, Let there be a sworn pact between us, between you and us. Let us make a covenant with you and you will do us no harm just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace.

You are now the blessed of the Lord. So he made them a feast and they ate and drank. In the morning they rose early and exchanged oaths and Isaac sent them on their way and they departed from him in peace.

The same day Isaac's servants came and told him about the well that they had dug and said to him, We have found water. He called it Sheba. Therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day. Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship.

Father, I rejoice in your promises. I am grateful that you set things in motion in ancient times to bring about blessing to even us here where we live. Father, you are good. You are kind. You have been merciful.

You are everlasting. And even as we have an opportunity to sing to you, we sing to you as the same God, alive, living and active today as the God who was back in ancient times with Abraham and Isaac and that you are still a God carrying on your promises and your promises are sure and your promises stand because you are a God who is eternal and everlasting and you are still here, present, working out the promises that you made to Abraham and Isaac centuries and centuries ago.

We rejoice and I ask that you would help us to catch a vision of what it means that you are everlasting God.

And that as we sing these songs,.

We would recognize that you are both past, you are present and you are future and you are the same consistently and that you are loving and merciful and kind and a God who keeps his promises and I rejoice in that and ask that we would worship with our hearts engaged in recognizing who you are.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Be sure to make yourself comfortable. You can get up, get any more coffee, donuts, juice. I know we just took a break but feel free at any time. Men's restroom back there, women's back here, especially if you've been taking an advantage of the coffee, you might need that.

Know where those are. And then encourage you to have your Bibles open in front of you. Genesis chapter 26, in case you weren't here when we read it earlier, that's page 17. But having that open, I am always grateful to just kind of look out and see Bibles open and people actually following along.

It really is the structure of my messages every week is to walk you through a text of the scripture. And so having that open is beneficial. We start off right away with the phrase, now there was a famine in the land, which is just kind of a loaded comment when you think about it.

If you think about, we're talking about the land of promise, right? And there's a famine in the land. Now, have we seen famines in the land of promise before? We've seen them happen before. Are they going to happen again later in the text of scripture?

Yes.

Now, this is the land that was promised to Abraham and his offspring, promised to Isaac and his offspring. We're going to see here in the text. But have you ever noticed that being chosen by God doesn't make us famine proof?

Have you noticed that? That being blessed by God and going through famines are not mutually exclusive ideas. In other words, a person can be blessed by God, chosen by God, and equally go through difficult times.

Now, you could probably right now go out to your car, turn on the radio, tune it into some speaker out there right now speaking who is going to tell you that what God wants most from you, that if you are living a life of faith, then he's going to make you wealthy.

He's going to give you the means to buy that Ferrari that you want. He's going to give you all of your health, that you're going to be perfect and fine and everything's going to work out hunky-dory in your life if you have enough faith.

Have any of you ever heard that preached before? That is not what I see consistently through the life and character of those chosen by God in the pages of scripture. And case in point, his own son hung on a cross for you and me.

The very son of God suffering for us. Isaac, the chosen one of God in the text, going through a famine. And that's reality of life. God loves us enough to sharpen us through adversity. He loves us so much that he will allow things in our lives that sharpen us.

And how many of you could actually testify that some of the most sharpening things in your life, some of the most formative, positive things have come through hardship? I know it has for me. I know that I am in part who I am because of some of the difficulties that I've had to face in life.

Some of the best qualities I've learned in life, a couple, you know, and I've got just small ones, but they have been as a result of difficulty and hardship. God is often like a parent who makes their children eat their veggies, right?

Now, how many of you, when you were a child, your parents made you eat the veggies? Did they make you eat the veggies before you got dessert? At least, yeah. How many of you now that are raising kids, you make your children eat the vegetables?

Yes, uh-huh.

Can I hear an amen in there?

That's pretty,.

That was a significant one over there. Somebody's in the thick of it right now. Watch out kids at lunchtime. But a person might argue, and I mean, I think you could probably hear this side of the argument.

Like you could hear somebody logically saying this. A person might argue that the loving thing to do is to always give your kids what they want. Like if you really love your kids, you'll give them what they want.

But those who are parents or those who have been children might know that what you want is not always what's best for you. I'm convinced that most of them, that at least one or two of my kids would not have survived to this age that they're at right now were I to give them everything that they asked for.

You know, we tell our kids to not play in the road. Why? Because we love them and we want them to survive, right? How many of you know that your kids would make some pretty bad decisions if you just let them do whatever they wanted?

And we did the same when we were their age as well. So Isaac is in the midst of a famine. I believe he's on his way down to Egypt because God is gonna tell him, don't go down to Egypt. So that kind of presupposes that he was thinking at least mentally, hey, I think I'll go to Egypt.

But he's on his way and on the way he stops off in Gerar and God appears to him there or meets with him or however it happens in a dream in the night or whatever. But because the Nile River has a very stable source way far South in Africa, if there was a lack of rain in the Middle East, it's unlikely that there's a lack of rain in the mountains in Southern Africa, okay?

Rainforest and all that stuff. So the source of the Nile is pretty steady. And so it was very common for people in that time. And that's why you constantly hear people in famine, where do you go? You go to Egypt.

The Nile River doesn't dry up regularly. And so it's got a good source way down in a very different climate than the Middle East. And so it's pretty consistent. So he's probably heading there. It seems unlikely to me.

Now, I don't know that the timing of this chapter is difficult for us because we're gonna see that by verse 18, it's gonna say that, which the Philistines had stopped up all of these wells after the death of Abraham.

But I think at the beginning of this, Abraham is actually still alive. We're gonna see that Isaac becomes wealthy in this. Not many of you know if he's received his inheritance from Abraham, he's wealthy, okay?

And it's gonna say he became wealthy in the midst of this text. We're gonna see that Abraham is certainly dead by the time we get to 18, but I don't think he is at the beginning of this. We also know that the twins were born to Rebecca, prior to the death of Abraham, by 15 years, give or take, according to the chronology and the things that I've been able to figure out and different people and scholars have looked at.

And so it seems unlikely also to me that when we see the scenario and situation where Rebecca is gonna be considered his sister, how many of you know she's toting twins around with her everywhere she goes?

It's gonna be kind of hard to hide that she's a mom and it's gonna be hard to hide that husband-wife relationship there. I mean, not that that couldn't happen, but it seems like the text indicates or guides me into the conclusion that this is covering a span, this chapter 26 is covering a span of Isaac's life, that these events are kind of drawn out and accordion together into one chapter so that when he's digging up all these wells by the end of the chapter, that's subsequent to the death of Abraham and this is an ongoing, long-term thing.

Is that making sense to everybody? We're talking about the timing of this and all that. But the Lord appears to him just as he had to his father, but God tells him to not go down to Egypt. Now we know that Abraham did go down to Egypt, but here he's told directly not to.

And then God commands Isaac to remain in the land of Gerar and set up a temporary encampment there. He says, sojourn in this land, stay here. And now God specifically refreshes his covenant with Isaac.

Now God had made a lot of promises. He selected out Abraham from among the people of the earth and said, your offspring and your family is going to be in special covenant relationship with me and I'm gonna make some promises to you and I'm gonna promise some significant things.

So he promised that to Abraham, but, and part of that promise was that this is gonna pass on to your offspring, right? And now Isaac being the chosen offspring of Abraham and now he's going to pass that along to Isaac as well.

And there's at least five parts to this promise that we see in chapters three and four. The first is that God promises his presence. He says, I will be with you, Isaac. How many of you think that that's a, that right there is like, that's golden, right?

Like if God ended there and stopped the promises there, I'd be pretty happy if God just said, I will be with you. Is that an awesome promise? Okay, and then by the way, that's something that carries forward to those who are his children today.

That's a cool, that's a cool notion. He is with his people. But God promises his presence specifically to Isaac. He says, I will be with you. Secondly, he promises his blessing. Wow, okay, this is taking it and ratcheting it up a notch.

I will bless you. The third thing, God promises all of these lands. He says, he says, Isaac, look around you and the lands that you see, I promise to your offspring, I'm going to give this to you. This is going to be your, this is going to be your land to possess.

And he promises that two times in the text. He says, you're going to have an awesome, abundant land. The fourth thing God promises is that his offspring, he says, yes, your offspring is going to possess the land and look up at the stars.

Your offspring is going to be as numerous as the stars in heaven. Okay, now does that, and I've mentioned this before in previous sermons, but does that mean that, like if we counted up the number of Jews on the face of the planet, it's not quite the number of the stars that we've found, right?

So what's this talking about? Well, certainly it's hyperbole, a sense of exaggeration or a sense of just astronomical numbers. But then there's also an aspect in here that anybody who is a child of faith, according to Paul in the New Testament, anybody who was a child of faith is a child of Abraham.

And so anybody in this room, there was a star that as Abraham looked up, he saw a star for you and for me. There's something that's exciting. I'm not saying that you're a rock star or that you've got to, you know, there's your star or whatever, but are you getting what I'm saying in this?

That he saw moving forward into the new covenant and said anybody who exhibits faith in the same line as Abraham in the promises of God, obviously us through Jesus Christ, through the fulfillment, we live in a backwards looking, God fulfilled it.

They looked forward saying God will fulfill it. Them faith forward, us faith backwards. Either way, we are considered to be children of Abraham, sons and daughters of Abraham. There was a star that he looked up and he saw for you that day.

That's a cool thing to me. I don't know if that strikes you, but we are sons and daughters of Abraham. We are part of that offspring. But then the fifth thing, last but certainly not least, God promises that all the nations of the earth will be blessed in Isaac's offspring.

Now, another way to state that, and I think sometimes I've said that so much in this series that I fear that you just might get, okay, immediately when you hear that, you just think Jesus, and we know the backstory, right?

From our vantage point in history, can you look back and see the fulfillment of that promise? All nations will be blessed. But think about it from this perspective. What Isaac is hearing in his ears is that something is gonna happen in my lineage.

A big deal is going to happen and it's going to have a global impact. My family is going to have a global impact on this planet. And someone, one of my offspring, and I think you could put together the promise to Eve and that one of your offspring, he will crush the head of the serpent.

It's gonna be a male offspring. There's some things that he could actually see. I'm looking forward, but ultimately saying one of your children, one of your male children is going to have a global impact on the world.

You think Isaac had any notion what that really meant at this point in history? I think just kind of like, okay, that sounds really cool. I don't know what that looks like yet, but he had to recognize at that point that we're talking about more than just the Jews here.

What God's call to Abraham, God's call to Isaac had more to do with the entire globe and more to do with the impact that one of his offspring was gonna have on the world. Notice how many times in the text in verses three and four, God says, I will.

Who is gonna accomplish these promises? Who's gonna get it done?

He will.

I will be with you.

I will bless you. I will give these lands to your offspring. I will give you an offspring as numerous as the stars of the heavens. I will bless all nations through you. Now, how many of you know a promise is only as good as the one making the promises?

I could promise you a half a million dollar house and I'm not gonna be able to make that work. So I could promise it, but it's not a good promise, right? I was mindful of this. How many of you are mindful of this when you make promises?

How many of you are just like a staunch, like I don't make promises because I know that I'm not in control of my life? Like, is anybody kind of in that category? Not really. There's a part of me that says, okay, I could make promises to my kids that I'll be there for them in the future for all things.

And how many of you know I don't have control over that? That's reality. Okay, so I recently took my oldest son, Adam, I took him on a weekend retreat away, just the two of us. How many of you ever heard of Passport to Purity?

Have you ever heard of that? Something that if you were interested, it's a great opportunity to kind of help your kids going into the teenage years and stuff. And if any of you have kids that are at that age, I'd love to sit down and talk with you about this.

It's a great program, a really good time. But part of it at the back of his journal, so he gets a journal for the weekend. We walk through all kinds of topics and stuff. But at the back of his journal, I wrote him a letter, father to son.

And part of that letter was me wanting to, and I asked his permission to share this with you. But part of it was just sharing my heart and my desire to be there for him as he goes through the tentative years of going through middle school and high school and stuff like that.

And I desire to be there for my son. But the reality is, as I'm writing this letter, promising these things and saying, I want this for you, there's a tension in my heart going, I don't know if I'm gonna be here tomorrow.

Are you getting what I'm saying? I am finite in my ability to impact anything, right? He can just take me right now and I could be done. Are you getting what I'm saying? And so there's something that's significant about the one who is making these promises.

And I want us to see that and I want us to grasp this and get it in our hearts and in our heads. Better a promise, much sure as a promise that God is with you. To write that in their journal and say, God will be with you.

And he's always a step away, a step of faith away from you. And he's always ready to embrace you.

At any time in your life.

He's there for you.

God here in this text says, I will. And that is so different than any one of us saying, I will. James actually tells us, don't be careful when you say, I will. Always say, I will with what? If God wills, our will is subservient to his.

Would you agree with me on that? So be careful when we say, I will, but the timeless, eternal, omnipresent, meaning there is no place he is not. Omnipotent, meaning there is nothing he cannot do. Omniscient, meaning there is nothing he does not know that God will be there fulfilling his promises long after Isaac is dead and gone.

Is this a significant promise? Is that, does that add some force to God being able to say something about Isaac's offspring, Isaac's children? Centuries down the road, he is still there, the same God, the same God that you and I serve, the same God that you and I sing praises to, the same God that you and I desire to walk with in relationship throughout our week is the God of Isaac, is the God of Abraham, is the God we're talking about here in the Old Testament.

He's not just some removed deity like in these crusty documents of ancient times with, are you getting what I'm saying? There's something that's awesome in this. Verse five shows that in no uncertain terms that Abraham was faithful in these things.

Look at verse five. So he says, all of these I wills, I wills because Abraham obeyed my voice, kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. So we saw that Abraham's broken, right? He does some, he makes some mistakes and he does some things that are wrong but Abraham did indeed obey God's voice.

So many times we encountered in the book of Genesis so far when God appeared to Abraham in a dream and or in a vision at night and what's the first thing we see him do early in the morning? He's up obeying.

He's up and saddling the donkey and getting ready to sacrifice his son Isaac. He's getting ready for the journey. He's doing things immediately. Often it's early in the morning. God meets with him in the night and he wakes up right away and is in the process of obedience.

The various phrases that are used in verse five shows that when God told Abraham to do something,.

He did it.

He wasn't morally perfect but he was a man who heeded the voice of God. And here Isaac obeys like his father. So God says settle in Gerar and in verse six we see Isaac settles where? In Gerar. He obeys the voice of God.

He's acting like his father. But within this brief chapter we have a summary of the life of Isaac and we see so many reflections of Abraham in his son. How many of you have identified, those of you that are parents in the room, how many of you have identified at least at some point in your life a sin that you struggle with in your children?

A couple of us, a couple of us. That's one of the most, I think that's one of the hardest things. In life, isn't it? When you actually identify they're at, oh, they're so cute, they act just like, oh, they act just like me, you know?

And I'm like, kids, stop being so dramatic and loud. You're acting like your mom. And that's not, that's not true. That's not true. She's not in here, is she?

I didn't get away with that.

She was in here in the first service so it wasn't quite that dramatic. It wasn't quite that dramatic in the first service. Are you getting what I'm saying? I mean, like father, like son, right? And the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

And we see the sins that we struggle with replicated in our children. And that's a painful thing to see on this fallen planet. I know I don't like it. And here Isaac is going to do the same things his father did, even replicating a specific sin that his father committed.

He tries to pass off his wife, Rebecca, as his sister. Have we seen someone do that before? We've seen Abraham do that twice now. And now Isaac follows in the footprints of his father. As I mentioned earlier, most scholars point out that this likely occurred during the 20 childless years of Isaac and Rebecca.

If they had twins, it might have been difficult to hide that. They may have. I don't know. I wasn't there. And the text isn't abundantly clear. But there's some indicators in the text that it probably happened during that time.

But Isaac is, Isaac is afraid. He knows his wife is a hottie. And he thinks someone is going to kill him for his wife. And so he takes the same exact tack as his father. Well, the king of Bimelech may be the same king that's just really ancient by this point.

Or it's possible that the name of the title of Bimelech or the name of Bimelech is actually a title for the ruler, the king of Gerar. And actually we're going to see later, much later in the Old Testament, another king of the Philistines named Bimelech.