Genesis #30 - Unlikely Grace #2 - Temptations in the Pathway of the Believer Pt.1 (Gen 26:1-25)

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And if you have a Bible, and I hope you do, take it in turn with me to Genesis chapter 26.
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Genesis chapter 26. We have been working our way, section by section, through the book of Genesis.
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That's our habit here at Redeemer. We like to work our way through books of the Bible, and we've been going through Genesis. And we are in a series in the book of Genesis that we've called
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Unlikely Grace. Unlikely Grace, as we've been thinking about for now, the life of Isaac, and later on, the life of Jacob as well.
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And we come to chapter 26. So Genesis chapter 26, and verses 1 through 25.
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Genesis chapter 26, from verse 1 to verse 25. If you grabbed one of the red hardback
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Bibles that we give away, and by the way, if you grabbed one, that's yours to keep, that's on pages 20 and 21.
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Genesis chapter 26, from verse 1 through to verse 25, pages 20 to 21 in the red hardbacks that we give away.
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Genesis chapter 26. And if you're there, can I invite you to stand with me out of reverence for God's word as we read this portion?
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It's our custom here at Redeemer that when we come to our sermon text, we stand as we read it, out of respect for God's word.
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And so Genesis chapter 26, beginning in verse 1 and reading through to verse 25.
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Genesis chapter 26, beginning of verse 1. Brothers and sisters, these are God's very words. God's word says, there was another famine in the land, in addition to the one that had occurred in Abraham's time.
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And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, at Gerar. Yahweh, the
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Lord, appeared to him and said, do not go down to Egypt. Live in the land that I tell you about.
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Stay in the land as an alien, and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father,
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Abraham. I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky, and I will give your offspring all these lands and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through your offspring.
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And I will confer, and I will give, for I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father,
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Abraham. I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky. I will give your offspring all these lands and all the nations will be blessed by your offspring.
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Because Abraham listened to me and kept my mandate, my commands, my statutes, and my instructions.
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So Isaac settled in Gerar. When the men of the place asked about his wife, he said, she is my sister, for he was afraid to say my wife, thinking the men of the place will kill me on account of Rebekah, for she is a beautiful woman.
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When Isaac had been there for some time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from the window and was surprised to see
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Isaac caressing his wife, Rebekah. Abimelech sent for Isaac and said, so she is really your wife.
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How could you say she's my sister? Isaac answered him, but because I thought that I might die on account of her.
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Then Abimelech said, what have you done to us? One of the people could have easily slept with your wife and you would have brought guilt on us.
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So Abimelech warned all the people, whoever harms this man or his wife will certainly be put to death.
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Isaac sowed seed in that land and in that year he reaped a hundred times what was sown. Yahweh blessed him and the man became rich and kept getting richer until he was very wealthy.
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He had flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, and many slaves, and the Philistines were envious of him.
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Philistines stocked up all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of his father,
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Abraham, filling them with dirt. And Abimelech said to Isaac, leave us, for you are much too powerful for us.
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So Isaac left there, camped in the Gerar Valley and lived there. Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the days of his father,
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Abraham, and that the Philistines had stocked up after Abraham died. He gave them the same names his father had given them.
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Then Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found a well of spring water there. But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen and said, the water is ours.
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So he named the well Essek, because they argued with him. Then they dug another well there and dug another, and quarreled over that one also, excuse me.
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So he named it Sitsna. He moved from there and dug another, and they did not quarrel over it.
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He named it Rehoboth and said, for now Yahweh has made space for us and we will be fruitful in the land.
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From there he went up to Beersheba and Yahweh appeared to him that night and said, I am the God of your father
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Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your offspring because of my servant
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Abraham. So he built an altar there, called on the name of Yahweh, and pitched his tent there.
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Isaac's servants also dug a well. Pray that God will bless that reading of his word and give us understanding of it as we come to study it.
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Let's pray and ask for the Spirit's help and we'll get to work in God's word. Well Heavenly Father we thank you once again for another opportunity to open up your word and to hear you speak to us as your precious people.
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We pray that as we come to this portion of your word and what it has to teach us about who you are and what you are doing, we pray that our eyes would be opened, that your
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Spirit would be at work helping us to understand what we read and what we hear and helping us to apply these things to our lives as your people.
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Father as you pray for us now as we gather, we also pray for our friends just up the street and here in Central Point at Community Bible Church.
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Thank you for Pastor Kevin who's taken up the leadership there following the retirement of Pastor Pete. Pray for them and all that is happening there with change and easing into a new pastorate.
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Pray for his current preaching through the book of Ephesians that you would bless that and that that body there would grow in the grace and knowledge of the
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Lord Jesus Christ even as we seek to do here as we open up your word now. We ask all these things in Jesus name and for his sake.
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Amen. Please be seated. Well this morning
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I want to begin the first of two messages in this chapter of Genesis.
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Genesis chapter 26 and a message that I've entitled Temptations on the
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Pathway of the Believer. Temptations on the Pathway of the
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Believer and like I said this is going to be part one of two if the Lord wills.
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I'm an avid student of military history that might surprise none of you because I talk about my love of history. I've loved history since I was in school and you really can't talk about military history and not talk about the completely evil genius that is the landmine.
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Some of you may not know this but the landmine was actually first developed on these shores. It was first developed during the
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American Civil War but it really cemented its place in conflict during the
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Second World War. That's where the use of landmines escalated. In fact statistics tell us that right now as of actually 2022 was the last time this was checked but as of 2022 there are still close to 100 million landmines.
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Oh live ones by the way. These are not ones that are dead. They're still live today.
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100 million landmines still in the ground today. One of the things that makes landmines so effective is that they're hidden.
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You don't see them until you step on them. A good landmine is pretty well buried and sadly by the time you realize you've stepped on one it's already way too late.
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You don't see them coming until they do.
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Sophie why are we starting this message talking about landmines? That's not a very pleasant subject for a Sunday morning. Well I have us think about the landmine this morning because the principle that makes landmines so deadly, the fact that they're unseen until often it's too late.
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I want to put it to you that that principle is equally true when it comes to our Christian lives as it is when it comes to the fury of war.
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On our journey with God, our faith journey with him is going to be lined with all kinds of unexpected and hidden dangers that pop up without us necessarily being ready for them.
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I said as I said I come to this passage with that picture in mind because as we come to Genesis chapter 26 we're about to witness
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Isaac as he has to navigate through some spiritual landmines. I hope you got the sense as we read this that it just seems to be problem after problem that he's encountering and there are some more.
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I kind of cut the text at 25 we'll pick it up next week where there are a few more of these dangers. Danger after danger in the way of this patriarch, this father of the nation of Israel.
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But I don't want to just look at the life of Isaac in terms of history. This is what happened to Isaac way back when because what
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I hope we're going to learn over the next two Sundays from this chapter is just how common the temptations, the spiritual landmines as it were that Isaac faced, just how common these temptations are.
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We might not do exactly what Isaac does but we may be faced with the same sorts of temptation and so my hope is for us to learn just how common these temptations are and also to learn what lessons we can learn as we seek to navigate these spiritual landmines.
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So that's really what we're going to try to do this and Lord willing next Sunday as we spend our time in Genesis chapter 26.
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Both messages are going to have the same big idea. It's simply this that the life of faith involves the navigation of many temptations.
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The life of faith involves the navigation of many temptations and we only navigate these by the grace of God.
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The life of faith involves the navigation of many temptations and only by the grace of God.
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I'm reminded of what Paul told the early churches that he had planted in Acts chapter 14 where he said that it is through many tribulations that we must enter into the kingdom of God.
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Sometimes those things are external and I'm going to put it to you that from this chapter sometimes those things are internal as well.
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So if we're going to navigate these things well we have to bear in mind that the life of faith involves the navigation of many temptations and only by the grace of God.
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For the rest of our time this morning I want to consider the three temptations that Isaac faced in this passage.
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Three temptations that Isaac faced in our text and lessons that we can learn from his responses to those temptations.
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Three temptations we'll look at two more next Sunday but for now three temptations that Isaac faced in our text and the lessons that we can learn from his responses.
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So three temptations that Isaac faced in our text. The first one that you need to watch out for that comes up in this passage is actually a very common one.
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If you've been in our series in Genesis, you probably can guess what I'm about to say because I've said it multiple times, but it can't be said too many times.
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So first of all, there's the temptation to forget the promises of God. The temptation to forget the promises of God.
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As we step onto the scene of our passage, as you read it, I hope you caught the sense that there's this kind of foreboding sense in the air as you come to this text.
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In fact, our text begins with an unpleasant circumstance in verse one. So verse one, again, there was another famine in the land in addition to the one that had occurred in Abraham's time.
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And Abraham went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines at Gerar. Now, if you've been through Genesis, you may think, wait a minute, haven't we heard about this before?
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And you'd be right. For those of you who were here way back when, when we were in chapter 12, this was the famine that happened in chapter 12 from verse 10 through to verse 20.
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The fact that Moses tells us this, that he says that there was another famine in the land, by the way, they're in the desert.
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Famines happened all the time. So why does he mention this one? Well, he's telling us this one in particular, because he wants us to make a connection between Abraham and Isaac in this moment.
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And in fact, this parallel that he's trying to build, this connection he's trying to build, it's only going to get a little bit deeper because did you catch that second line in verse one?
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And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines at Gerar.
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Hold on. Haven't we heard about an Abimelech king of the Philistines before in Genesis? You'd be right. That's in chapter 20.
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Now let's be fair. This is not the same Abimelech. About 90 years has passed since those events.
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So this is not the same person. More than likely, Abimelech, the name just means my father is king.
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Abimelech was just the royal title that was given. So everybody who becomes king gets the title
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Abimelech. But the fact that an Abimelech is mentioned again in connection with a descendant of Abraham, think back to chapter 20.
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Abraham did not make a good decision in chapter 20. All of this is setting up for us the fact that this is not about to be a straightforward story that we are going to read.
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More on what he does in Gerar in just a moment. But I think everything kind of lines up to tell us that this is about to be an unpleasant circumstance.
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Whatever is about to happen here is not about to be easy. But this unpleasant circumstance sets up God's entry into the narrative.
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Yes, it's unpleasant, but it allows God to enter into the narrative with secondly, an unfailing promise.
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So you have an unpleasant circumstance, but that creates the backdrop for God to speak with an unfailing promise.
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So God speaks in verse two and he's pretty to the point when he speaks. Look at verse two. Yahweh the
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Lord appeared to him and said, do not go down to Egypt.
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Why does God feel the need to tell Isaac, don't go down to Egypt? Because the last time there was a famine in the land of this kind of magnitude, that's exactly what
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Abraham did in chapter 12. That story did not go well. I put it to you, and this is why
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I've titled this first point, this temptation to forget the promises of God. I put it to you that Isaac is probably thinking, you know what, when there was a famine last time, what did dad do?
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Well that's right, dad went down to Egypt. Egypt at this point is an up -and -coming world superpower and a slightly more prosperous part of the
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Middle East at this stage. It's probably the perfect place to go. But God steps in and says, no.
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Why? Because he's facing the temptation to forget
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God's promise and to do it his own way. Sure, he wasn't even around when Abraham went down to Egypt, but no doubt, like all families do, this story had been passed around a few times.
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He was aware enough that this happened. And you can probably just put yourself in Isaac's shoes for a moment.
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He's probably sitting there thinking, you know, I know it didn't go well for dad last time, but dad did, you know, dad was kind of dumb last time.
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I can do this better. After all, it would be different this time.
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I mean, Isaac doesn't say it, but I think you can get the sense he doesn't have to say it. And before we go any further, let's bring this home for a moment.
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Isn't that a temptation we can all be prone to? I mean, who in here can honestly say you've never been tempted to retread old ground, even though the old ground didn't lead anywhere good the last time you trod it?
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I mean, we've even got a phrase for this though. Don't we say that there are some people who, when things get difficult, they revert to type?
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Did God know this tendency about Isaac? Does God know that tendency about us as regular everyday people?
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I put it to you that of course he does. In fact, God knows you better than you.
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To use the technical term, we call that God's omniscience, omni everything, science, knowledge, that God has all knowledge of everything.
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And that includes you. He knows you better than you know you. In fact, if you're taking notes,
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Psalm 139, this is how the Psalmist says it. Psalmist says, Yahweh, you have searched me and known me.
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You know when I sit down and when I stand up. You understand my thoughts from far away. You observe my travels and my rest.
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You are aware of all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know all about it,
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Lord. You have encircled me. You have placed your hand on me. This is wondrous knowledge that is beyond me.
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It is lofty. I am unable to reach it. God has perfect knowledge of each and every single one of us in this room.
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Now, I can imagine what for some people that might feel like, wait, God knows everything about me. That's probably the most terrifying thing in the world.
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But actually, for those of us who are his children, that's not terrifying. It shouldn't be.
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Because if you think about it, it's actually the most reassuring truth in the entire world. Okay, how is that reassuring?
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Let me help. Let me see if I can help you out with this. Nothing that you have done or will do or even think about doing has ever caught
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God off guard. I mean, we as human beings catch each other off guard all the time.
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Whoa, I did not expect them to do that. Think about this. That thought has never occurred to God.
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Not even once. God has never had a moment where he has no idea what's going on.
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And Isaac is about to learn just how reassuring that is.
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Because God doesn't just say, don't go down to Egypt. Come back with me to Genesis 26 verse 2.
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Yahweh appeared to him and said, do not go down to Egypt. Live in the land that I tell you about.
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Stay in this land as an alien, and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father,
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Abraham. I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky. I will give your offspring all these lands and all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring.
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Because Abraham listened to me and kept my mandate, my commands, my statutes, and my instructions.
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God knows what Isaac is thinking in this moment. And because he knows exactly what
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Isaac is thinking, he speaks right to the point of his need.
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Just like Abraham was an alien in the land. And alien, by the way, just means someone who's a stranger here, not someone from Mars.
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Just like Abraham was an alien, Isaac's identity was to be that of an alien.
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Just like Abraham enjoyed the blessing of God, even in that state, Isaac would too.
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Just as Abraham was promised offspring as many as the stars, now Isaac would be the recipient of the same promise.
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And just as land and physical blessing were given to Abraham, they would now be given to Isaac.
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You see, what Isaac needed in the heat of temptation was not a stern telling off.
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There's a time and a place for that, but not necessarily here. And what
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Isaac needed was reassurance. What he needed was a reminder of God's covenant promises.
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And can I put it to you that when we are tempted to forget all that God has said and all that God has promised, that's the very time that we need to be reminded of those exact same promises.
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I'm going to give you a very tangible example that those of you who are regulars here at Redeemer will remember. That's one reason why every
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Sunday here at Redeemer, I'm going to do it this Sunday, just like every other Sunday, after we've had the
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Lord's table, which we have every week, every week we have an assurance of pardon. You ever wondered why we do that? Why we intentionally build into all of our worship services an intentional reminder of the pardon that we have.
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And in fact, we don't make it or we don't write up words. We just go straight to God's word and allow God's word to give us that assurance of pardon.
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Why do we do that? But we do that because as much as we hear it regularly, we can never hear it enough.
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We need to be constantly reassured of the fact that in Christ we are a loved people, a forgiven people, a kept people.
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That's a truth we can never get tired of hearing. And so we just built it into our worship services that at least at that point, even if the preacher does a bad job and doesn't get to the gospel, you will hear it in that moment.
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Why? Because that's what we need. We need constant reassurance of what
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God has done for us in Christ. And I think you see a little bit of that here in Genesis 26, where God reminds
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Isaac of his promise. Now, before we move on, there's one little thing we need to get straight.
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So look at verse five. Actually, let me start in verse four. So God says, I will make your offspring as numerous as the star of the sky.
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I will give your offspring all these lands and all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring because Abraham listened to me and kept my mandate, my commands, my statutes, and my instructions.
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There's a way to read this that makes it sound as though God's blessing was conditioned on Abraham's obedience.
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Put it another way. There's a way to read this that makes it sound like God is saying, Abraham was a good boy.
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And since Abraham was a good boy, I blessed him. Now, some of you were here when we looked at the life of Abraham in quite some depth.
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I think we could all agree Abraham's a good man in a lot of ways. He wasn't all that good.
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Now, one look at Abraham's life should disprove the idea that because Abraham was good, God blessed him. In fact, back in Genesis chapter 12, when
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God first appears, the promise is made to Abraham before he's ever done anything. It's a response of faith on Abraham's part to obey what
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God has said. Probably why are you laboring this point? Because I don't want anybody to leave here today with a misunderstanding of how it is that God deals with us as his people.
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We're talking about this in our Sunday school hour, the fact that being precedes doing.
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That being who we are precedes what we do. And I think the same is true for even how
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God speaks of Abraham. But Kofi, the text says, because Abraham listened to me. So what are we supposed to do with that?
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Well, not one to always quote folks unnecessarily, but I think the commentator
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Calvin gets it right. He says this, that Moses does not mean that Abraham's obedience was the reason why the promise of God was confirmed to him.
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But from what has been said before, and he quotes chapter 22 verse 18, where we have a similar expression, we learn that what
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God freely bestows upon the faithful is sometimes beyond what they deserve ascribed to them.
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In other words, God credits Abraham with his obedience, even though the obedience was itself a gift of grace from God.
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I mean, this maps well with the rest of the Bible, Ephesians 2 .10. Bible says that we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which
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God prepared ahead of time for us to do. I put it to you that this is important because it's when we understand that God's, when we understand, excuse me,
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God's promises, when we rightly understand what God has promised us in Christ, that's when true obedience is able to thrive.
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And this is how Isaac was to overcome the temptation to forget the promise of God, to be reminded of that promise.
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But that's not the only temptation that he had to get around on his journey. Yes, the text teaches us about the temptation to forget the promises of God, but the text also teaches us about number two, the temptation to repeat past failures.
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Temptation to repeat past failures, verses 7 to 11. Now, it would be awesome if the narrative ended in verse 6.
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Great, wonderful, power cells on the back, we can all go home, but not quite.
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Of course, you know, just like life in general, nothing is ever that straightforward. So verse 6 ends with Isaac living in Gerar.
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Gerar is more or less the capital of the Philistines at this point. It's the same place that in chapter 20, we talked about a few minutes ago,
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Abraham had moved to. Remember all of that foreshadowing that I talked about with Abimelech, the mention of the
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Philistines, Isaac going there. Now it's all about to come into play as you look at verse 7, when the men of the place asked about his wife,
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Isaac's wife. He said, she is my sister, for he was afraid to say my wife, thinking the men of the place will kill me on account of Rebecca, for she is a beautiful woman.
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If this sounds familiar, it's because we have seen this episode before. In fact, some people have jumped on the book of Genesis at this point.
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See, Genesis can't be real, because how in the world can the same event happen not once, not even twice?
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This is the third time in Genesis we've seen this, some call it the sister -wife motif.
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Not legitimately, some commentate that's what they actually call it, but it happens this often in Genesis. Thankfully, this is the last time we're going to see this.
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But as you see, Genesis can't be real. No way someone could be that dumb.
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In fact, two people could be that dumb to pull this off again.
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My simple response is, have you met human beings? People are people, and sometimes people, even different groups of people, years separated from each other, can do the same dumb things all the time.
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I am really not surprised by this. In fact, again, we don't know this for certain.
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This is, call this a filling of the gaps for me a little bit. I have no doubt that Isaac probably heard this story from his dad.
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Towards the end of his life, as Abraham has matured and what have you, he had probably sat his son down and said, okay, listen,
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I need to tell you about some of the mistakes I've made. So no doubt, he probably heard, you know what, I did this twice.
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I did this once in Egypt, once with the Philistines. It really didn't go well. Isaac, don't do this. And I have no doubt in my mind that Isaac probably thought, you know what, again, it didn't work for dad, but I think
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I can get it right this time. So he decides, as it were, to run back this same play one more time.
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And actually verse eight tells us that it worked for a while. So verse eight, when Isaac had been there for some time, but verse eight goes on,
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Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from the window and was surprised to see Isaac caressing his wife,
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Rebecca. I have to be honest, my curious mind has so many questions that this text has no answer, which probably means
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I shouldn't answer them, but I'm going to ask them anyway, knowing that I don't get answers in text. Why is
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Abimelech looking at people's houses from his window? That's a bit weird. On top of that, why are
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Isaac and Rebecca, who have told everyone, this is my sister, you know the area in which you live, why are you engaged in PDA knowing the ruse that you've put in?
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I have so many questions. The text doesn't answer those questions, so it's probably best that I leave those alone, if I'm really honest.
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But what it does say is a little bit striking. So you see then 26 .8,
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that word, at least in the Christian standard Bible, it's the translation I preach out of, it says caressing. Interesting.
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The word comes from the same root as Isaac's name. Remember Isaac's name means laughter or to laugh.
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It's from the same root. This word carries an idea of playfulness.
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It's not sexual in nature by any stretch. It's more, they're just joking around with each other like happy couples do.
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But there's more to it than even that, because actually you've seen this word before. If you've been with us in our series in Genesis, it just was translated a bit different.
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If you're taking notes, Genesis chapter 21 verse 9. Remember Genesis 21, the birthday party that starts to go a little bit pear -shaped between Ishmael and Isaac.
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Genesis 21 9. But Sarah saw the son mocking the one
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Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham. The word mocking, same word that's used here for Isaac caressing
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Rebecca. One writer puts it like this.
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The choice of words is interesting. It is as if Moses was writing that Isaac's lapse of faith, going to Gerar and calling his wife his sister, made a mockery of the great promise embodied in his name.
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In fact, Isaac made a mockery of Abimelech by the deception. Caressing his wife is intended to be seen as a mockery to Abimelech whom he tried to deceive.
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At the heart of the problem with this action on Isaac's part is ultimately he's trying to do the things of the past and hoping for a different result.
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I think I quoted it recently, remember Einstein, definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
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Abraham had faltered at this exact point, not once, but twice.
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And now Isaac is missing the mark in exactly the same way.
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Isaac is failing to trust in the good word of God when the promise should have been more than enough.
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It's almost as though in Isaac's mind he's thinking, I know what God said, but can
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God do what he has said? But that doesn't make sense because Isaac himself is a manifestation of God's ability to do what he has said.
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It's almost as though Isaac forgot his own story.
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And since he somehow got it into his mind that God couldn't do what he said, he decided, you know what, I'm going to revert to a tried and true plan.
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Well, it was tried. I don't know about the true part because look at verse nine. Abimelech sent for Isaac and said, so she is really your wife.
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How could you say she's my sister? Isaac answered him because I thought I might die on account of it, just like Abraham thought.
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Then Abimelech said, what have you done to us? One of the people could have easily slept with your wife and you would have brought guilt on us.
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And I'll pause for a moment. I have no doubt in my mind that Abimelech had probably heard the story from his dad, maybe grandfather, about what happened the last time
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Abraham came to town, the jump from not your sister to bringing guilt on our people.
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I don't think he's being dramatic there. I think he's just, he knows history because back in Genesis chapter 12, when this happened,
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God struck the nation. It was not good for them. Isaac could have avoided all of this with a little honesty.
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I think Isaac thinks he's being clever, but here's a take home point from this. Beloved, sin never works.
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It doesn't work in the past and it doesn't work in the present. In fact, Moses, remember
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Moses writing this to the children of Israel who are about to enter into the promised land? Moses is going to reiterate this story in a totally different way.
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Keep a finger here in the book of Genesis. Turn to the book of Numbers with me. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, book of Numbers and chapter 32.
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As you're turning, I'll give you a bit of the background. Two and a half of the tribes were on one side of Jordan.
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They really liked it. They'd settled. They built land there. They're like, you know, we don't want to cross Jordan and go into the land with everyone else.
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We're really nice and settled here. Can we stay here? And so Moses basically says, yes, you can, but you need to go help your brothers and sisters when they cross over so they can possess their land.
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Once you're done, you can come home. Pick it up in verse 20. Deuteronomy chapter 32, it's not
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Deuteronomy, Numbers chapter 32, beginning in verse 20. Moses replied to them, if you do this, if you arm yourselves for battle before Yahweh and everyone of your armed men crosses the
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Jordan before Yahweh until he has driven his enemies from his presence and the land is subdued before Yahweh afterward, you may return and be free from obligation to Yahweh and to Israel.
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And this land, the land that they were on, on this side of Jordan will belong to as a possession before Yahweh.
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That's 20 fews where I want to go. But Moses says, but if you don't do this, you will certainly sin against Yahweh.
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Here's the point I want to make. Be sure your sin will catch up with you.
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Reality is sin catches up with all of us. We can try and avoid it. We can try and outrun it. We might get away with it for a while, but just like it did for Isaac, Moses says, it's going to catch up with you.
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And by the way, if you want to know how that story panned out for Israel, Judges one through four tells you that story. It caught up with them.
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Unfortunately, you see the sins of the past, unless repented of rarely stay in the past, they will come back again.
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But come back to Genesis with me, because even in this, did you catch the grace of God here? You think,
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Kofi, where do we see the grace of God? Look at verse 11. So Abimelech warned all the people, whoever harms this man or his wife will certainly be put to death.
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Abimelech could have expelled them. That's what happened back in chapter 12. If you remember when
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Abraham went down to Egypt, they kicked him out. He basically got deported. He could have expelled them.
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I mean, he's a King. Philistines were warlike people. He could have executed them. That could have been the end.
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He could have said, you know what, let me solve this problem once and for all. But none of that happens.
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In fact, God is, I would argue, incredibly gracious here. You know, kind of like how
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God is more gracious to us than our actions often merit. Imagine one of my favorite verses in all the
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Bible, Psalm 103 verse 10, he has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our iniquities.
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Isn't that the heart of the gospel message? I mean, isn't that the glorious truth at the center of our salvation, that what we rightly deserve, that the consequences of our sin is laid not on us, but in fact is laid on someone else.
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Isn't it good to know that the sins of the past can be exactly that, the sins of the past, not the sins that define us in the present and not the sins that define us in the future.
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You see, even in the midst of Isaac's very clear falling into this temptation, grace is still present because the reality is on the pathway of life.
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We're going to face the temptation to forget the promises of God. We're going to face the temptation to repeat the sins of the past.
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But there's a third temptation that Isaac faced. And I'll put it to you that this one is one that couldn't be more relevant to us in our day and age as Christians.
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You see, there's a third temptation in our passage and it's this, the temptation to respond badly to persecution, the temptation to respond badly to persecution.
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If I'm honest, it feels like this whole section, verse 12 to 25, needs its own sermon, but we'll do what we can with the time we have.
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There are three realities about persecution in verses 12 through 25 because Isaac is about to experience some. I think there are a few realities we can learn from.
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Actually, when you put the three together, as I'm going to say them, they actually form one sentence, but I've broken it up so that we can follow this along a little closer.
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The first reality about temptation that we learned that you're going to need to accept is simply this, persecution happens.
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Persecution happens. Some time has passed between verse 11 and verse 12.
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So when we pick up in verse 12, it says, Isaac sowed seed in that land. And in that year, he reaped a hundred times what was sown.
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Yahweh blessed him and the man became rich and kept getting richer until he was very wealthy.
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He had flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, and many slaves. And the Philistines were envious of him.
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Early time has passed. And in this time, God has started to make good on his word.
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And Isaac is showing genuine blessing on his life.
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But of course that doesn't go unnoticed. So end of verse 14, he has flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, and many slaves, and the
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Philistines were envious of him. Verse 15, the
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Philistines stopped up all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of his father, Abraham, filling them with dirt.
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And Abimelech said to Isaac, leave us, for you are much too powerful for us. By the way, the idea of stopping wells in the ancient world, it would be akin to we're here in Central Point.
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If someone fouled the water supply here in Central Point and said, you know what, I'm going to blow it up. In a desert climate, which is what this is, this would almost be certainly death for Isaac and his family.
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That's bad enough. In verse 16, you now have the king of the land basically expelling him.
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You need to leave. But notice he doesn't say you need to leave because, you know what, I've had time to think about that thing you did with the whole
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Rebecca situation. Actually, I didn't like that at all. You need to go. That's not what the text says. The text says, leave us, for you are much too powerful for us.
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This isn't revenge because Isaac told a lie to Abimelech. No, this is because Isaac is becoming a threat.
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And actually, there might be something to this. Follow me here because this might require some thinking for those of you who've been with us through Genesis.
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If not, I'll do my best to fill you in. In chapter 14, you remember chapter 14 is a story with Lot getting kidnapped and Isaac going to rescue him.
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Remember that Abraham did not need any external help to go fight these kings that had captured his nephew because he had 318 fighting men.
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Let's suppose all 318 have died at this point, which is probably likely. Chances are they probably got replaced as they got older though, which means
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Isaac is traveling around. He's got two sons, a wife. He's got a bunch of slaves.
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Let's just suppose he's got exactly the same number of fighting men that his father had.
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I don't know about you, but if the guy, in fact, I think about this because the house next door to where we live is up for sale.
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It would be akin to the people who live next door to my wife and I moving in and like, oh, you know, we've got a family and we've got a militia who lives with us.
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Wait, what? Yeah, we've got a militia who, they've got guns, they've got grenades, they've got all sorts.
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So how can we be cool? Please tell me more. I can understand why that would be terrifying.
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I mean, a man with a militia that you can understand it from a political standpoint, it's a problem waiting to happen.
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At least you think so. Add to that that he's clearly wealthy enough, the text said it, did you catch it? The text says that he's wealthy enough that the
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Philistines, verse 14, were envious of him. The Philistines were a seafaring people.
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Actually, they come from what we now know as ancient Greece. They were not poor people by any stretch.
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But how rich do you have to be for them to be envious of you? This is a man who is running around the desert, basically has no fixed home, no fixed address.
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And yet the elite of the land are terrified of him. I can understand why they think
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Isaac is a threat. But here's the part that loses me. As far as we can tell in this passage,
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Isaac has not once flexed any of his muscle, militia or money, towards these people.
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Not once. In fact, that might be the issue on the surface, that might be the presenting problem, but I don't think that's the real problem.
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I think the problem that Isaac is experiencing persecution for is very simply, he has the presence of God with him.
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Did you catch it in verse 12? Isaac sowed seed in that land and in that year he reaped 100 times what was sown.
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Yahweh blessed him. In this instance, it's not Isaac's sin or even
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Isaac's prosperity that's the problem. It's the fact that this points to the blessing of God that the
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Philistines, as a pagan people, would have very clearly been opposed to. Doesn't that sound familiar?
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I mean, think about this. Have you ever thought about the fact that Christian, have you ever thought about the fact that the world hates us?
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I mean, not every individual person. I want to be clear about that. But when the Bible talks about the world, the world is the system of things that is set up in opposition to God.
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That the world as a system hates the people of God. Have you ever sat down and really thought about that?
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And here's the thing that I often think about. Now granted, let me pause. Sometimes Christians can do things make themselves unlikable.
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Let's not pretend we don't. Sometimes we do. But sometimes it's not that. Most of the time it's not that.
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But most of the time, the world hates us not because of us. The world hates us because of the
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God who is with us in Christ. Again, we were talking about this in our Sunday school hour,
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Matthew chapter 5, 11 and 12. You are blessed when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of me.
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He said in John chapter 15, if the world hates you, understand that it hated me before it hated you.
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If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you.
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Remember the word I spoke to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
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If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. Can I put it to you that Isaac meets with persecution for the same reason that you and I, if we are
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God's people, we will meet with persecution? God's people attract attention from the world because God's presence is with them and it's not the kind of attention that's always pleasant.
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So in Isaac's case, they look at his prosperity, they become envious of him, and they become scared of him.
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For us, it might not be our prosperity. In most cases, it isn't. It might be our stance for righteousness. Either way, we end up in exactly the same place.
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That might seem like something of a mystery to, honestly, a lot of Western Christians. Our brothers and sisters in the persecuted church around the world have been living this reality for quite some time.
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I also think we should listen to them way more than we often think they should listen to us, but that's a whole other conversation for another time.
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But in response to the reality that persecution happens, again, let's kind of dig deeper and think about this for a moment.
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Oftentimes, Christians will do one of two things. Either we engage in flight.
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What do I mean by flight? Well, the world hates us, so you know what? We're just going to withdraw from the world. Retreat, retreat, retreat at all costs.
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Probably not the best way considering that that's not why God in his infinite wisdom has left us here.
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If all the light goes standing in one place, what happens to the rest of the darkness? So flight might be the one thing we do.
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The other thing might be, you might guess I was going to say this, we fight. The mindset kind of goes, the world hates us, and honestly, we hate them.
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So you know what? Let's just play, let's play them at their own game. You know, come outside and let's fight.
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But can I put it to you that both of those responses, whether it's fight or flight, both of them come from the same motivation.
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They come from the motivation of self -preservation, don't they? Now, self -preservation isn't always bad.
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The book of Proverbs has a whole section of sayings related to, you know what, sometimes wise people know how to run.
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But if our first instinct is always either we fight or we fly, that might not be the best way to respond to persecution.
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The first thing to recognize is just persecution happens. And since persecution happens, be afraid.
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Now, as you read verse 17, you might think, Kofi, you said we shouldn't run. But verse 17 says, so Isaac left there, camped in the
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Gerar Valley and lived there. This sounds like he's running. Well, first of all, the
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Gerar Valley is basically the wider area surrounding the city of Gerar. Gerar's kind of the capital. He's not really running, he's just moving away directly from them, but he's still in the area.
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More importantly, Isaac doesn't actually do any hiding, verse 18. So it says that Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the days of his father,
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Abraham. So when Abraham was there, because obviously you need a water supply, he had dug all of these wells.
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So he reopens them. So it says that he reopened the wells that had been dug in the days of his father,
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Abraham, and that the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died. He gave them the same names his father had given them.
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Then Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found the well of spring water there. But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen and said, the water is ours.
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So he named the well Essek. Essek means argument, because they argued with him.
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Then they dug another well and quarreled over that one. So he named it
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Sitna. Oh, by the way, Sitna means hostility or opposition. It's from the same root that we get the word
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Satan from, by the way. He's the adversary, the opponent. Verse 22, he moved from there and dug another.
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So again, yeah, he's kind of moving, but at the same time as he's moving, he's reopening these wells.
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In fact, he's digging new ones. He named it Rehoboth. Rehoboth means an open space. And said, for now,
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Yahweh has made space for us and we will be fruitful in the land. Isaac doesn't run to his credit.
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In fact, he stakes his claim on the land that his father had lived on. The opposition doesn't change what they do, but Isaac stands firm.
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Why? I think some growth has happened in Isaac between when this narrative began and where we are now.
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There's a bit more assurance of God's blessing. And so he stands, as it were, 10 toes down and says,
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I'm not going anywhere. Kind of reminds me of what Paul says.
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If you're taking notes, 1 Corinthians 16, 1 Corinthians 16 verses 13 and 14, he says, be alert, stand in the faith, be courageous.
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Literally, that phrase is act like men, be strong, do everything in love.
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The response of God's people is not we run when persecution comes.
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The response ultimately is we're just faithful. And by the way, that passage of 1
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Corinthians 16 is an interesting one because Paul ends it by saying do everything in love. It takes a lot of courage to act in love towards those who hate, doesn't it?
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But that's exactly the point. Persecution happens, so don't be afraid. Instead, remember our faithful God.
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Persecution happens, so don't be afraid, but remember our faithful God, verse 23.
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More time passes between the events of verse 12 to 22 and where we are now.
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Isaac is on the move again, and this time he is moving a little further away, about 19 miles to east, to a city called
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Beersheba. So verse 23, from there he went up to Beersheba and Yahweh appeared to him that night and said,
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I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you.
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I will bless you and multiply your offspring because of my servant Abraham. Why does
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God feel the need to tell Isaac not to be afraid? It seems like he's acting with some courage. I think that's fair, but Isaac is human, isn't he?
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And as a human man, he's going to feel temptation. He's going to feel those old doubts kind of creep up again for sure.
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I mean, I actually don't blame Isaac if he's afraid at this point. It seems like it's been a pretty rough go of things so far. It's been a journey of ups and downs and here and there and everywhere, but in this moment,
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Isaac has something more secure than the beefiest, meanest security team in the desert.
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He has the one thing he needs the most, which is the presence of God and his faithful word. God says,
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I am the God of your father Abraham. I kept your father all through his many wanderings and sometimes self -inflicted things he did.
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Don't be afraid because I am with you. He has the presence of God.
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And once again, he has the faithful word. And so Isaac responds in worship, verse 25.
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So in light of what he's heard, verse 25, he built an altar there, called on the name of Yahweh and pitched his tent there.
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Isaac's servants also dug a well there. He responds in worship and he responds in faithfulness.
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And let me leave you with this as we wrap it up. Isn't this how we should respond in moments like this? The response of our hearts in moments of temptation and moments of difficulty be,
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I don't know how this will end. Again, God has perfect knowledge of everything. One of the great things about being a human is you don't.
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I don't know how this will end, but I trust the faithfulness of God.
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Reminds you of another man, doesn't it? He was in a very, very, very tough place. In fact, he's in prayer too.
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And as he sits in the place of prayer, knowing that he's about to face arguably the most difficult moment in human history, in his humanity, he submits to the father and he says, not my will be done, but yours.
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You see, that's the ultimate way we respond. Not just to persecution, but to all of the temptations that we've talked about this morning.
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I don't know where this is going, but I do know the God I trust in. And we're thankful that that man, if you haven't guessed,
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I'm talking about Jesus, that that man was willing to say, not my will. I don't know what's going to happen here, at least in his humanity, but he's willing to submit himself to the will of God.
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In fact, we're going to celebrate that in just a few moments as we come to the Lord's table. He didn't give into the temptation to preserve self, but he was willing to give his life for all of us.
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And that's what we celebrate as God's people. Amen. We celebrate the fact that even when things get difficult, we can trust in the will of God in Christ.
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And heavenly father, we thank you that we have that great and glorious promise that every time we go through difficult moments, every time we go through challenging moments, you are with us and we have your presence and we have your word.
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So father, help us to simply trust in that word, even when things don't make sense.
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And even when things are challenging. And father, we thank you for the Lord's table that we get to be reminded of the fact that Jesus obeyed all the way to the cross for us.
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And as a result, he's made us part of his family that we're able to come around his table and to commune with him.