Living As Strangers: Faith Under Pressure

Good morning. Good to see everyone at Eagle Creek Church, and good to have our team back from the Dominican Republic. I saw Brett right up here. Great to have you. What did you get in, like, 1:30 last night? Something like that. Yeah, pretty close. And we live a half hour out, so Sherry was home at 2:00 a.m. She was up before me this morning getting ready for church, because apparently we had a storm last night. I never know when we have storms, I’m like, that’s the best sleeping weather ever. Any of you like me, you sleep particularly well, and that way the dog bothers your spouse, not you? Because I’m like, I’m not alert to help you, dog, I’m sorry. So my wife, who had very little sleep and had traveled all day, had the dog annoying her all night. So she’ll have a really good nap, probably, this afternoon.

But an incredible week of ministry in the Dominican Republic. I think you guys ministered to over 700 people with medical needs, and some very, very critical situations where they were able to intervene, and then the daily kind of stuff that people go through. And I just heard amazing reports about the quality of the heart of our church. I love you guys, but every time you go out and minister, we get reports back from all the ministries. When we do Serve Day coming up, I believe this next Saturday, and we’re all out in the community, inevitably the leaders of those ministries and the missions where we go say, “Can I just tell you your people are exceptional? They are so willing and so ready and so accepting of everyone. We love it every time your group comes.” Do you know, for I don’t know how many years, we hear that repetitively? There’s something about the quality of the way you serve and the way you love that is so deeply authentic and deeply genuine that it’s felt. And we heard that report this week. There were other people from other cities that flew there just because they wanted to serve and had no one there, and our group welcomed them like they were part of our group. Loved them to where they felt like, “I feel like I’m part of your church, and I don’t even live in your state, by the way you’ve loved me this week,” and they insisted on loving people well wherever they were.

So thank you, guys, for representing Christ where you were. It’s not that you represent Eagle Creek, you don’t. You’re an extension of us. You represent Christ wherever you are. And please remember that when you go out to the community, to your workplace, how many of you know wherever you go, you represent Christ wherever you are, right? Represent the heart of Christ well in the way that you serve.

Your Next Step of Faith

Now, people that do stuff like this, take trips like this, it’s a stretch moment of faith. We were talking about Abraham, how God called him out and said, “Follow me to a place I will show you.” Mission trips are kind of like that. You don’t really know what you’re getting into until you’re there, and you find out how hot it is, or the downpours, and the amount of sickness you’re dealing with. You don’t know till you go, but you follow, and you step out in faith.

And I wonder, for everyone across this room, if you would say, “I feel like in the last year I’ve had a definite big step of faith that I know what it was.” God told me to start sharing my faith at work, and I did. God told me to start a Bible study, and I started doing that. God told me to start leading my family in devotions, I took a step of faith. God told me to start tithing a portion of our income to the church, and I did. God told me to start serving in youth ministry, I was afraid to do it, I didn’t think I had the gifts to do it. I was too uncool, but I did it, and God blessed it.

I wonder how many of you could clearly identify your last big step of faith. And I wonder how many of us it’s been a little too long, and a little too distant, since we took our last big step of faith. How many of you know that you are in a faith walk, or a faith journey, as a Christian? Right? So that means it didn’t stop on the day that you believed in God. There’s a day when Abraham was called by God, God appeared to him, he said, “Follow me into a land that I’ll show you,” and he followed him. We talked about that last week. But the faith journey required that he continue to follow in a life of faith, and he didn’t always get it right.

And today, I’m going to try to help you to take your next step of faith. And I don’t know what that is. Maybe it was simply taking a step of faith to join a community group, or to get in a DGroup, where you would have accountability, and you’re like, “I’ve been so afraid to take any steps forward towards accountability, because I always mess up and don’t pray and don’t read my Bible, and so I’m afraid to have any accountability in my life,” and God’s saying, take a step of faith, this time you’re going to succeed, you’re going to have a daily devotional life, you’re going to have brothers that really encourage you, or sisters that really encourage you. I don’t know what it is, but today, I want everyone to just say this with me: I’m ready to take a step of faith. Say that with me. I’m ready to take a step of faith. I want you to begin to think that way right now, before we continue on with the story of Abraham, to understand what God wants to do.

And so I think about how would our life look different. In Hebrews 11 and verse 6, this is what it tells us. Hebrews 11:6, it says, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must start off by believing that he exists.” That’s Abraham. While he’s still in Haran, God appears to him. Before that, he didn’t know that there was another god. In fact, it’s believed that he probably worshiped the Sumerian god, Nanna. There were these ziggurats that were built in the two cities we’re told he lived in. He was in Haran, which is in southern Turkey along a trade route. Whenever God appears to him here, he had to believe that God existed. Not this other god he had served, not his own way that he had served, but the God who rewards those who earnestly, another version says diligently, seek him, like, with all your heart you’re going after it.

So God is saying, I want you to trust in me. How much? Enough to start searching for me, for what I want for your life, to look for me and my will and my purpose and my plan. Discover what I want for you. That’s how much I want you to believe in me. Not believe in me just enough to save your soul from hell, but believe in me enough to live a life of pursuit of me. How many say that’s a different kind of faith? There’s like, “Oh, I had saving faith.” Did you know that the quality of saving faith and the quality of following faith are both the same kind of faith? It’s a measure thing. It’s like, “I had just enough to get here,” and God’s like, “How about if you grow in your faith to take now your next step? Your first step was believe in me. What’s your next step? Diligently seek me. Follow me. Now start taking the next step.” So maybe you’re like, “I had enough faith to believe for salvation. Now what? What’s the next thing that you have enough faith to do?”

And for some of you, it was giving up a week, and a whole bunch of money, and not knowing exactly what was going to happen, and going and working on a medical missions trip, and that was your next step of faith. But Brett, I’m going to pick on you because you’re on the front. Now that you’re back, what’s your next step of faith? You don’t have to know this morning, okay, but you know, I’ll be open, that journey of faith, what’s the next step? I’m looking at Aiden, who just helped start leading the young adults group, what’s your next step of faith with that group? Henry and Kamisha, whoever you are, you’re going to get in trouble from Matt today, sorry, I’ll leave you guys out. Okay, the White family is cleared this morning, although I mentioned your name. But you’re finding places to say, “God surely has something next for me. God knows where I’m supposed to be going and what I’m supposed to be doing.”

And so for Abraham, here he is. By the way, right after service, I saw him come up here, I’m going to pick on him. In the back room is Tyson Banks. Yes, Tyson, I’m going to look at the camera because I’m looking straight at you. Tyson walked up to me right after service last week and showed me a picture of the ziggurat where Abraham was from. And I’m like, “Is this real?” He said, “Yeah, I was on a business trip and we went out and saw the ziggurat where Abraham probably worshiped the Sumerian god of the moon.” Do we have that picture of the ziggurat? Tyson, you can feel very relieved, I did not somehow find your picture on your phone. I asked him, “Can I have that picture?” and he looked at me like, “You’re not putting my face up on the screen.” So anyway, I just talked about you to get you a little bit.

Anyway, that’s a rebuild of that site. It was in ruins, so it doesn’t stay looking like that, but it was built in the original Sumerian architectural style, the mud bricks and the baked bricks and all those sorts of things. They tried to follow the original. So that’s actually there. So the story of Abraham, it’s real. There really was this guy from 4,000 years ago that God appeared to and said to follow him. So today we’re going to start figuring out, now, how do we move forward?

The Promise, Then the Challenge

So he’s followed God. He’s arrived at Canaan. We learned last week he worships God in Canaan, because God, while he’s at an altar worshiping, God says, “I’m going to give you this entire Canaanite land.” And it’s all filled, everyone already owns the land. Abraham doesn’t own it. He’s a traveler into the land, he’s the immigrant in the land, and God says, “Immigrant, it’s all going to be yours. The entire surrounding area, this whole country, it’s all yours.” And it’s possessed already by Canaanites. And what does he do? Does he complain and say, “There’s no way, God, I can’t see that happening, someone’s already got the job, someone already owns the home, someone already has this land”? No, he builds an altar and starts worshiping God for a promise yet fulfilled. And the promise was never fulfilled in his lifetime. In fact, the promise was that he would be a blessing to the entire earth, and we learned last week that wasn’t fulfilled until 42 generations later, when Christ came and became the blessing to the entire earth.

So here he is worshiping, and here’s the part I want to hit you with this morning. He’s worshiping God,0 that God is giving him the land, and right after this, we don’t know if it was three months, or six months, or a year, or two years, but pretty shortly after this, this is what happens. The land that God has given him becomes infertile. Famine hits the land, and there are no crops, the grass is dead. He’s a shepherd, he can’t get his flocks fed, he has nowhere else to feed his sheep and his goats. And so, literally, he has this amazing moment where he’s promised, and God says, “Look at it all,” and he’s like, “Yeah,” and God says, “It’s all yours.” He’s like, “Yeah.” And then it all dies. And it’s like, “Well, thanks, God, for nothing.” You know, it sounded really great, but it looks really bad.

So what do you do in the moment where you thought, okay, I’ve had people come back and tell me this, “I stepped up to serve because I felt like God wanted me to, and I got a kid in kids church that hates me and I’m his special buddy and I don’t know what to do.” And it’s like, okay, so you have the promise, and now guess what comes after the promise? The challenge. Inevitably, over and over again, I don’t know why it happens in my life, God challenges me to do something. And when God challenges me to do something, I’m like, “Okay, God’s going to roll out the red carpet for me to go and do that, and it’s going to be super easy.” Now, there have been times where God has called Sherry and I to give something far in excess of our regular tithing towards a project the church is doing, or something that’s going on, and I have this excited call to do it, I’m like, “Yay!” And then the car breaks down and you spend $650 on your car that you didn’t plan on, and you’re like, “Did I really commit? Was that God? I think it was God. Maybe was that you, God?” And then you have to step out in faith, because the challenge seems to always come after the promise.

Why does that happen? Why is there a challenge after a promise, frequently, for the Christian life? I want to read this verse, and some of you will recognize it. James chapter 1, 2-4. It says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” This verse continues and says, “And let steadfastness have its full effect.” You know that when you get tested, you have to stand strong, right? You know that when you get tested, God calls you and says, “Go for it, go do this thing for me.” You know when you do it, your schedule changes. “How am I going to make it on the missions trip? I had to pay some extra bills, I don’t know where I’m going to come up with the money to go do the thing that God called me to do. I don’t have a Saturday free to go on a serve day, I have too many things going.” And you’re like, “But I felt like I was supposed to go serve with my family this Saturday, and then everything came up.” And let steadfastness have its full effect, that is the portion where we miss it. We don’t let steadfastness have its full effect.

And it says, if you do let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete. It really completes the thought. It doesn’t mean you’re a perfect person who never sinned, it means you’re perfected in what God wanted to do in that area of testing. You’re completed in that, you’re not lacking. Now this is an area of strength rather than an area of weakness.

Now I want you, right now, if you had a list that said areas of Christian strength, areas of Christian weakness, how many of you would say there would be something in both categories? You’d say, “Well, I’m pretty good at patience today, but I’m not really good with generosity. I’m fairly good with serving, but I’m not good at sharing my faith. I’m reading my Bible relatively consistently, but I’m not very accountable about moral issues with an individual who prays for me.” How many of you would say I would have some things on both sides of the list? Right. Okay, that verse is why some things do not get moved over to the right side of the list. Do you understand what I just said?

This verse, you’re called, every one of us is called towards a life of faithful obedience. How many of you would say every believer is called to every new covenant promise, and every new covenant obedience is something we’re all called to, right? We’re all called to that, every single one of us. How many say we haven’t all achieved that list of obedience and commands and promises and blessings and connections with God? We’re not there yet, but we’re all called to it. And why are some in some places and others in others? Because you’ve experienced trials in places I haven’t, and I’ve experienced callings and trials in places you haven’t. And in some, I’ve stood steadfast and become fairly mature and complete in that area. Not perfection like Jesus’ perfection, but I kind of got that one fairly down now.

How many would say, since you’ve been a Christian, you’ve added more things to the list of things that you somewhat have down now? Come on, that’s not pride, that’s just growth, right? Give credit to the Holy Spirit, you didn’t do it, God did it in you. But by God’s grace, can anyone in this room say you have grown in your Christian faith since becoming a Christian? All right. I lowballed that as low as I could get it to give you a yes on that, okay, because I know you’re so worried that you’re going to be perceived as prideful, which is prideful in itself, right?

Okay, so here we go, honest admission, we’ve grown. How did that happen? We were called to something, we all are. We were tested on it, we all are. Some of us were steadfast and endured, some of us were not. The ones who were steadfast have another area where they can say, “I have some maturity.” Some people are like, “Tithing is easy and I don’t think about it, it belongs to God, so I never touch my 10%, it only goes to God.” Some of you say it’s easy now for me to be patient with my spouse, I used to bicker at them all the time, but God taught me patience, testing, trials, endurance, and that’s on my list of things, I’m patient with my spouse now. And you can go down the list, right?

And so now Abraham has had initial faith. “Follow me.” “Okay, I’ll follow you.” But now he has challenge level faith. And I want us to walk through his challenge level faith, and think about the challenge levels that you are facing. Now, I jumped out of order, so I’m going to make him go backwards on the verses. Genesis 12 and verse 10. Let me put that up. Genesis 12:10. It says, “Now there was a famine in the land, so Abraham went down to Egypt.” Wait, this is common, because the Nile would flood, or they would irrigate off the Nile, and so there would be grain in Egypt when there wasn’t in a lot of the Middle East. And so it was common, and there are many examples of this, actually. You’re like, “How do you know that?” Because it’s scratched all over the tombs of emperors. And this one is a particular one in Beni Hasan, from eastern traders, probably Canaanites, coming because of their wares, and their facial paints, and a whole variety of things that were true of the Canaanites at that time. A group of 37, at Beni Hasan. It’s on one of the tombs there where you can see, and it was from about 1889 BC approximately, when Abraham lived, and they were coming in and trading. If you want to look that up, you can, there’s some cool stuff you can read about that.

So this was common, it was normal that they would do this. The issue is, how many of you know, when you’re called by God, you don’t always do what’s common, you do what’s called, right? Everyone in the world does what’s common, Christians do what we’re called to do, not what’s common to do. Right? So we live with different moral standards, different behaviors. And so it’s common to go get your resource from Egypt, but God had just said, “This land will be the land, flowing with milk and honey, my provision, my blessing, I’m giving you all of this land for you.” And at the first trial, Abraham leaves it, literally, like, it’s all yours, and then the trial comes and he leaves. And he just says, “Well, I guess God’s not going to provide for me here in the land that he’s promised. So I’ve got to go get a payday loan, I’ve got to figure it out for myself, I’ve got to get a bailout right now, I’ve got to pull out the credit cards, and I just got to start making it happen, because I don’t know that God is coming through, I don’t know that that’s going to happen, and I don’t have the patience to endure and be steadfast and be perfected in this area, that God is my provision in the land.”

I wonder if Abraham would have waited for God, if God might have showed up and provided for him. How many of you know there are many examples in the Bible where people actually were provided for by God, like the widow of Zarephath, that Elijah went to and said, “Would you give me something to eat?” She said, “I’ve got a little bit of flour and a little bit of oil, we’re going to make the last little pancake, me and my son are going to eat it and die of starvation.” He says, “Great, make some for me.” She does. And then God provides for her throughout the entire famine, always flour and always oil.

There’s this question of, when God calls you to do the hard thing, will God come through? And the challenge is having the faith that continues a life of following. It’s always that part that’s challenging. “I’m a Christian.” Great, a lot of people say that. Do you have the faith that follows through the challenge? “Well, I’m not that kind of Christian yet, I’m more like the one that wants to go to heaven kind of Christian.” Oh, okay, so your list over here is pretty short. “I believe God and going to heaven,” but following, with patience and love and joy and peace, the fruits of the spirit, no, we’re not adding up any more fruits of the spirit in our life. So everyone just has to live with the old self, the new self no one gets to enjoy. How many of you would say your spouse would love to live with the new self, restored by Christ, to be full of love and joy and peace and patience and gentleness and kindness? How many would you love to see your spouse add to their list? Come on. Amen, you can say amen, Sherry, it’s okay, my wife’s over here, it’s true. The more you can grow, the better.

So we’re going to start adding to that list, we’re going to start moving forward. And so he’s having a little bit of a struggle. So I’m going to walk you through just three thoughts here quickly, and as I do, I want you to process real quick about yourself. Think about you and where you are.

Abraham Left God’s Provision and Protection

First, Abraham left God’s provision and God’s protection. It was both of those things that were left, in this moment, in Genesis 12, 11 and 13. We already talked about provision. Let’s talk about protection.

When he was about to enter Egypt, so he’s like, that’s where we’re going to get provision, it’s not here in the land God provided, it’s over there, so we already know where he is with provision, Egyptians can give what God can’t, so let’s go there. When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarah, his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance.” That’s what I said to Sher when she got home last night at 2 a.m. “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance.” Ain’t that right? No, I didn’t say that. That’s quite a compliment, I don’t know if that’s a good one, seems like a weird one, but probably the way they talked. “I know that you are one beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife,’ and then they will kill me and let you live. So say that you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.”

So he says, just say that you’re my sister, so it may go well with him, so they won’t feel like, hey, I don’t want to get accursed by this guy’s god by taking his wife. So what’s the answer? Just kill him off, and then I’m not taking his wife, because he’s dead. So we don’t want to, they’re really superstitious, the Egyptians, they believe these things, and it’s like, hey, if you were to do this, the god of this person could curse you, so it’s okay to just kill him instead. Anyway, weird philosophy, but it’s what it is.

So is God going to protect me in the land of Egypt? Apparently he does not believe that. He knows God as a God who appeared to him whenever he was in Haran, in southern Turkey, as a moon worshiper, who said, “Follow me, and I’m going to open up a land for you, and a promise for you, an inheritance for you, follow me.” He knows that God is, “Just follow me into the land.” But he doesn’t yet know that God can protect him from really hard things in life, if he learns to trust God’s ways. He doesn’t yet know that God can provide for him yet, in really tough times.

And can I just say, I don’t look down on Abraham because of that at all, because he’s a brand new baby believer. He doesn’t have a Bible to read, there was no Bible written at that time, there are no patriarchs he can look back and say, “Well, Moses did this, or Joseph did that.” He was the predecessor to all of it. He was the first Jew, the first one who God revealed himself to, and began the Jewish nation through Abraham. So he’s got no predecessors, no one to look back on, no examples, no Bible, he’s got nothing. So how many say it’s fair that he might have a few hiccups and problems along the way trying to figure it out, right? He’s just taking it step by step.

And I think it’s fair that a lot of you could say, “I did not have a Christian background,” or not ones that really lived like it, or Christian teaching. “I didn’t have the background that a lot of people have.” And so I don’t really understand this whole God-is-my-provider thing. Whenever I think about putting money in the offering, I always put a safe number in, because I’m my provider, not God. So I just add up my numbers, and if it works, then it works, and if it doesn’t work, then I don’t follow God as it were, I follow common sense, I just do what I do.

Protection. “Hey, if someone talks me down, if I hurt someone and they’re friends of my friends and they’re mad at me, well, I’m going to trash them first, before they go and trash me to my friends, because I’m going to make it so no one will believe you after what I told them about you.” So then I protect my reputation by tearing people down before they tear me down. I just protect myself. I do that at work, or I do that in friendship circles. People will get this way, where they start to say, “I’m my protector, I’m my provider, I don’t know how to trust God to be a provider or to be a protector.” And that is exactly where Abraham is. He’s struggling, he doesn’t know these things. And so he’s just acting, saying, “Honey, just lie, just, you know, it’s sort of the truth, it’s not totally a lie.”

Actually, we learned, I’m going to freak you guys out for just a moment, we learned that Sarah was his sister. She was his half-sister. They had the same dad, Terah, they had different moms. Genesis 20:12. Same dad, different moms. You’re like, “I could not believe that.” 4,000 years ago, there were a lot of things that were still on the books as okay that are not okay today, right? So 4,000 years ago, if you were a moon worshiper, you might be married to your stepsister, you didn’t have to be from Arkansas, you could have been from, you know. Anyway, sorry if you’re from Arkansas, we love you, I think it’s only cousins down there, you know, I know we have some Arkansas folks, I love you guys.

Um, so this is, don’t let it freak you out, he didn’t have his life all figured out. He was a moon worshiper from Ur, and then from Haran, and God appeared to him, and he’s just figuring stuff out, trying to learn how to walk with God and what God wants for his life. And so he just doesn’t have enough faith yet that God could protect him. And so he’s like, “Yeah, tell him you’re my sister.” Technically true, but kind of the first relationship might be, “I’m his wife,” you know, and he’s like, “Don’t lead with the obvious truth.”

How many of you know that deception is a nice word for lying? It really is, it’s a nice word, it’s like, “Well, I wasn’t lying.” It’s like, but you were deceiving. Which would you rather be aligned with, Satan who is a deceiver, and called the deceiver of the brethren, or Satan who is a liar, and the father of lies? Well, either way, you’re aligned with Satan, as a deceiver or a liar. How many say, I’d rather just stay away from deception and lying, and not be aligned with Satan? Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” So if you’d like to be aligned with Jesus Christ, be aligned with truth. If you’d like to be aligned with Satan, be aligned with deception and lying.

So by the way, if you’re like, “Well, I’m a little newer to Christian, I didn’t know lying and deception was that big a deal,” that’s okay that you didn’t know that, I just now informed you, let’s move it to the right column now. Correct? Okay, let’s move it to the right column. What does that mean? You’ll probably have some hardship now if you commit to this right now, you’re like, “I’m committing to that right now.” This week you’ll get challenged on that, and you’ll be tempted to deceive or to lie, and then you’ll have to be steadfast, and it’ll hurt, it’ll hurt your reputation, and then you just stick with the truth, and then you’re going to be steadfast, and then you’re going to become complete and perfected in that area of maturity as a Christian, and you’ll put it in the right column. Amen.

Okay, so I wanted to just walk that through with you, it’s a little discipling moment for people that are trying to add on healthy behaviors to their spiritual walk. So I want to encourage you with that. So he’s protecting, he’s lying, and he just doesn’t trust that God can do it for him. And this is the way he’s going to make it through this season of his life. It’s a hard season, it’s a tough season. So he’s going to rely on wrong sources for provision, and on wrong methods for protection. This is common among people that are newer to faith or outside the faith, it’s common. How many of you know it should become less common as you grow in your faith, right? That should be a less common approach towards the challenges that you’re having.

God Protected and Provided

And so we continue on. The second thought is, God protected and provided. Now, this God protected and provided thing is kind of interesting, because it’s when God did it that makes it interesting. God protected, and God provided, when he was lying, he was protected. When he was not trusting God for provision, he was provided for.

And it’s an interesting thing, because we always think, one plus one equals two. I’m good, God blesses, I have blessing. I’m bad, God curses, I have curses. But how many of you know that God’s equation is often, I’m bad, and God blesses? Why would God bless when I’m bad? Because it’s the first act of salvation itself. I was sinful, and God sent his son to die for me, right? He didn’t come for the righteous, he came for the sinners. And he doesn’t love you less now that you’ve become a Christian, he loves you as much, if not more, right? You’re now adopted as a child. The love of God did not lessen as a result of that.

Now, I do believe in positional blessing, meaning that you can position yourself for blessing, but I also believe in God’s sovereignty, meaning that God can bless whenever he chooses to bless, whoever he chooses to bless. He can bless a heathen if he wants to, he can bless you wherever you are. So a blessing is sovereign, it’s never earned by any of us. So blessing is never earned, everyone say, blessing is never earned. Yeah. Blessing is always sovereign, it’s always God’s choice, when and where.

And this is a moment where we see sovereign blessing happen. Genesis 12:17 says this. Genesis 12:17: “But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues,” because of who? Not because of Abraham. God did this because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. It says, “So Pharaoh called Abraham and said, ‘What is this that you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your…'” I wonder where he got that tidbit of information. He went in to hook up with her, and she said, “Before you do, you should know something, I’m a married woman.” And he’s like, “Well, I’ve had the worst week of curses on my entire household, and I bet it’s because of that. Who’s the God that your husband is serving, and you guys serve? We don’t really know much about him, he just showed up recently, and we’re figuring it out. Well, something’s going on, and it’s because of you guys, and you need to get out of here.”

So this is what’s going on. So God stepped in, because he’d made a promise to Abraham, not because Abraham had done the right thing. Abraham had lied about stuff to protect himself. He had not really looked out for his wife very well in this either, because either way she would have lived. Either way it would’ve been, “Well, they’re going to kill me, but you’ll live this way,” or, “They won’t kill me, you’ll still live, but you’ll be with them.” So either way, she was going to make it, he just really protected himself in this.

Second Timothy 2:13. Listen to this, the character of God. Why does he bless when we’re unfaithful? If we are unfaithful, he remains what? He remains faithful. And why? It tells us why, for he cannot deny who he is. He is a faithful God, he is a merciful God, he is a loving God, he is a forgiving God. And I want you to pause for a moment, if you’re in the middle of a condemnation fest in your life, you’re like, “I’m condemning myself for everything I said and did yesterday, last week, I was horrible, I was awful, I blew it, I messed up.” I want you to remember, who he is and how he responds to your life is contingent on himself, not on your behavior. It is contingent on nothing but his character alone. God loves because God is loving, not because you deserve love. God forgives because God is forgiving. God heals because God is healer. God provides because God is provider. God protects because God is protector. That is who he is. And his nature doesn’t change when our behavior changes.

So you’re serving the right God, in case you ever wondered, that alone ought to say, “Oh, I think I’m serving the right kind of God.” The kind of God who is faithful, though we are not.

And so God decides, “I’m going to step in, I’m going to bless.” Now something happens. Abraham, he says, “Get out of dodge, take your family,” he’s there with his nephew Lot and Sarah at the time, and all his flocks and all the herds, “just go.” And whenever he goes, actually, in Genesis 13:2, it says he left very rich in livestock, silver, and gold. I wonder why he was so rich, suddenly, in livestock. It didn’t say he was rich when he went in, it says he was rich when he left. Abraham was very rich. Now why is this? It’s believed that he was enriched by Pharaoh, who was paying his god off, and his god off, to get the curses off of his home. It’s believed that it was a way to remediate the curses in his life, and so he was trying to get him out of that. So he leaves, and something changes, something changes about his direction.

Back at the Altar

And this is where I want to wrap up here. I want to take you back to the altar, okay, the first altar. The third thought is this: we’re back at the altar. Now, back at the altar is a place where God had promised him and said, “I will provide, this is yours, I have this for you.” Okay, it didn’t work out, and the plan messed up, and we had famine, and then I almost lost my life, because I thought they’re going to take my wife, which they did, and they’re going to kill me, and all this. And so I’ve gone through all this stuff, but wait, everything’s forcing me back to God again, everything’s pushing me back into the land that he promised. What do I do if I go back there again? I messed up, I kind of blew it, where do I go?

He goes, and I’ll read this, Genesis 13:3-4. It says, “And he journeyed from the Negeb as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the place where he had made an altar at first, all the way back to his knees again in front of God.” And there Abraham called upon the name of the Lord. That’s where he found God again. That’s where he discovered hope again. That’s where he was redirected with his life.

The story right after that is his herds were so big, and Lot’s were so big, their herdsmen were fighting with one another. And of course, Abraham, being head of the household, had the right to the provision, the land was his. And he turns to Lot and says, “Take whatever you want.” Lot says, “Well, take all the beautiful green valleys by Sodom and Gomorrah.” And Abraham takes the hill country. As he’s walking up the hill, God stops him and meets with him again on top of the hill, and he says, “Abraham, survey all that your eyes can see. Look northward, all that you see is your provision, and look south, all that you see is your provision, and look west, all that you see is your provision, and look east, all that you see is your provision.” And so Abraham settled there among the oaks of Mamre. And there he built an altar, never to return to Egypt.

Something had moved to the column, God was provider, God was protector. I don’t have to claim the best of everything, wherever I go, God will be my provision. If I go to the valley, God will meet me there and provide. If I stay in the rocky hills, God will provide, because God is my provider. I am no longer provider, God is provider. I am no longer protector, God is protector. Where did he learn it? At the altar. Where did he return to God? At the altar. Over and over and over again, the moments where the lesson is sealed and seared in my heart steadfastly is in the moment where I meet God at the altar once again.

And God begins to speak to my heart and say, “Matt, you’ve been fighting and working and pushing so hard and so long, are you tired yet?” “I’m worn out, God.” “Okay, will you let me take care of you now? Will you let me love you? Will you let me forgive you? Will you let me protect? Will you let me provide? Will you let me?” “I’ve got nothing else, God. Here I am. Here I am. I’m yours. Surrendered at the altar, given over to you at the altar. Here I am.”

And as our worship team begins to lead us in a few moments of worship right now, I want you, wherever you are, to begin to stand, all across the room. Will you stand with me? And as we stand, I want you to begin to surrender the thing that you’re trying so hard to make happen in your life, and your marriage, and your child. The thing that you’re trying so hard to make happen in your career, in your finances. Is it even God, or is it just you? Is that God? Is it really God? Do you know it’s God? Or, if you slow down and open up your hands and say, “God, it’s yours,” or, “It’s mine, I don’t know.” My hands open, I don’t grip it tightly, I don’t hold on to me making my life happen.

Maybe you’re the person who was raised in a rough home and a rough background, and everything you got was by scraping and fighting. You’re like, “No one gave me anything, no one was ever there, I had to get everything I got on my own.” And so your hands are always closed, because you’re your only protector, you’re your only provider. Can I tell you, you can meet God at this altar today and say, “God, open-handedly, take whatever you want of my life,” that these same open hands now can receive what you provide. Your mercy, your grace, your provision, your next step. I receive, at the same time I let go. How many of you know, open-handed is a position of saying I let go, but it’s also a position of saying I receive, right? So all across this room, as we begin to worship, would you open-handedly allow God to show you the thing that he’s calling you to let go of, and surrender, and trust him with? Would you do that? Let’s begin to do that as we worship.

Let me pray.

God, we’re doing that even in this moment. There are people that have lived through some pretty hard things, and they learned the only way to get through was on their own intelligence, on their own strength, their own capacities. The idea of surrendering to someone, it’s been a fearful idea, because we had people let us down in our lives, and it didn’t feel safe. Surrender never felt safe. But Lord, we’ve been in Egypt too long. We’ve been away from you too long. We’ve been pushing and trying and lying and protecting too long. And Lord, we just need to come back to you, to the altar of promise, where you first met us. And you showed us you were good. And you showed us you were God. And you showed us you were never changing. And we need to meet you back here again today. And trust you for your provision, for your blessing, for your protection. We trust you.

Let’s worship for a moment before we go.