Dig Another Well

Those who labor among us in the Lord are worthy of double honor.

In some of those translations, it goes on to just talk about those who sow

into the kingdom, those who pour. And we have

someone this morning that I would love for us to take

just a moment and extend that

Angie Beshearse, would you come up, please?

Come on up.

And we have a few more people who want

to— July 19th marked 24 years

for this woman of God to pour into

this house. Come

on, guys.

And she has touched Every single one of these lives.

I'm gonna get out of the camera shot. You guys, come on over here and

love on Miss Angie.

Her fingerprints are all over this house. Her

fingerprints are all over my life

as a mother and grandmother. And

her fingerprints are all over your lives. If you

have been touched and ministered to

by her ministry, would you stand and just let us know that for a

minute?

You guys, you

wanna take that over to Miss Angie?

If you brought something for Miss Angie, would you take it over to her? You,

you just go right ahead and you go hug her.

Michaela, I want to do something.

You do?

Angie, we are so grateful. We should have done this a week ago.

We've been a little bit preoccupied, but we missed something extremely

important, and we wanted it to be on a day where it was just about

you and what you have poured. And we are so extremely

grateful. If you decide to come back for 24 more, we will receive

you with joy. But thank you so much. Can you all say

thank you, Miss Angie? Yeah.

Will you come and escort your mom? We're grateful.

Thank you. Thank you, guys. No,

actually, did you wanna say anything, Angie? I'll stand close and you can use my

mic. Oh my gosh. I mean, this is my heart, my

children. It's not been an easy decision to

step away, but I just felt like that it was time.

It's time for somebody else to step up and start getting their blessings.

You know, yeah, our house is full,

so it's— It's time for someone else to move on in.

Amen. I'm thinking Liam. Hasn't he been like really close to you for

a while? Yes, yes. I've had Liam serve here with me for 5 years and

he still faithfully serves. Go Liam, woo-hoo! He's back

there today. Thank you so much. Love you, honey. Love you.

All right, guys, go to class.

Wow! It's Move Up Sunday. You moved

up. Go and enjoy your classes. Speaking

of enjoying classes—

Y'all are the best.

Speaking of classes, this Wednesday—

hi, honey. I love you.

Bye, ladies. Hi, how are you? Talk amongst yourselves.

Hi, Levi. Hi, guys! Thank you,

Sandra.

Whoo! How amazing to sow

for 24 years in one house, and now she has

like about that many grandchildren.

You're welcome.

You're welcome. Oh,

God is faithful, amen? I am so

excited about the Word that the Lord has today. I'm also excited about the Word

that the Lord has Yes. This coming Wednesday night when

we begin our midweek gatherings again. Pastor Jonathan has

taken point on Wednesday nights. We will be meeting over in the

fellowship hall at 6 o'clock. Kate and the cafe team

will still be providing dinner, uh, come starting at

5. So come and have dinner with us, then come in and, uh, get into

the word with us. We'll be doing a series called Foundations, and, uh,

it's Pastor Jonathan some of our other pastors and

leaders in the house. It's gonna be a strong word.

But then again, isn't God's Word always strong? So

we are gonna jump into this. We had a

couple of— well, actually, we had 6 weeks of worship

anyway. Just because we're moving forward a little

bit in this progression, that's still gonna be where we stand.

That's still gonna be where we're living for a while, that we are

going to worship him. Why?

Amen. And he is good and he is faithful. And I

intend— what I wanna do with you today is exactly what I did the first

week I came down here and talked to you about worship anyway.

The other thing that the Lord has shared with me in this season is

something actually that my

grandmother and grandfather and all of them poured into my life, and we're gonna

get into that in a minute. But first, we'll just read a couple of scriptures.

We're gonna be in Genesis 26. And today, we're gonna talk

about digging another well. And for the sake of today,

and for the sake of today's teaching, I want you to know that

you are Isaac. Can you

repeat that to me? I am— well, you're gonna say, you are

Isaac, aren't you? We are

Isaac today. We are Isaac. So when we

get into the Word today in Genesis 26, When we're talking about

Isaac, I'm talking about you. I'm talking about this house

because why? Because Isaac was a child of promise.

We are children of promise. We are children of his promise.

And so as we get into the scriptures, and I'll tell you that because sometimes

you can detach yourself from the Word and you're like, oh, that's this and this,

this is— but let's bring it home today, okay? And

when— so when I'm talking about Isaac and the stuff that Isaac's getting into, you,

I want you to know that I'm talking to us because I believe this is

where the Lord has taken us. And we're gonna start in Genesis

26, and we're gonna skip— I'm just gonna read you a couple of verses and

then we'll get in more. Isaac reopened the wells

that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the

Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died.

Isaac's servants dug in the valley and discovered a well of fresh

water there, but the herdsmen quarreled and said, The

water is ours. Then they

dug another well, but they quarreled over that one also.

He moved on from there and dug another well,

and no one quarreled over it. He named it Rehoboth,

saying, now the Lord has given us room, and we

will flourish in the land. Father God, I

thank you so much for your Word, and I thank you, Lord, how relevant your

Word is, Father. It is so alive, and it really

It reaches across thousands of years and speaks to

us like a living thing. And so,

Father, I pray that we hear you today, Father. I pray for a

prophetic spirit in this house today, one that discerns,

one that understands, one that grabs hold and

listens to what the Holy Spirit has to say. Father, I

pray that my stuff fall and yours stand. Teach us today,

Lord. Amen. We want to learn from you. In Jesus' name,

amen. Amen.

In the same season that the Lord began to share with me to worship

anyway, there was another word that he spoke to me, and I figured that he

would release that in his timing. And that word was this:

tend the wells. Tend the

wells. Now, I'm a country girl. I grew up on a

farm that had a well house, and we lived on well

water, and it supplied us. And so I

understand, I have a little bit of an understanding about a well 'cause we had

one. And it didn't just take care of us, it took care of a lot

of families around us as well. It did mean that when you

got water in your drinking glass, sometimes it looked a little funny, I will say,

but we knew how to tend the wells. And when my granny would send me

out to the well house to get something, she would tell me 2 things. The

first thing that would always come out And if you've ever had a well, you

might know this one, watch for snakes.

And I'm like, if there are snakes out there, I think you should be the

one going. I've got my whole

life in front of me.

Watch for snakes. Guys, wherever your water supply is, you

gotta watch for snakes because it's an

environment that the enemy loves. He

loves to come for your water supply. And so you've

gotta be very mindful when the enemy is trying to

attack your water source. The other thing that she would say, she'd say, now

watch for snakes. And you're like, all right, fine, give me the

gun. Anyway, and then she would say, protect

the water. Remember, your dirt becomes our dirt. Yeah.

Remember, your dirt becomes our dirt. Now, let me tell you what

she meant by that. If I was careless and I just

decided to fling that bucket out there however I wanted to,

and it hit the dirt walls of that well house, every bit of

that rock and dirt and mess and whatever might be crawling on the

side of that, let's just put that out there, fell into the water.

And it didn't just affect me. It affected everybody

who drew from that well. And so we

have to protect the water and remember

that our dirt, my dirt, becomes your dirt

because the well that we draw from is a consistent well.

So watch for snakes and protect the well. Because here's—

let's see, the enemy's strategy isn't always confrontation, sometimes it's

suffocation. Yes.

And we begin to see that in the life of Isaac.

Sometimes his goal is not— see, you

can't stop the water in a well, but you

can sure cover it up. That's right. You can sure contaminate the water

until it's not usable. You can be careless

in your life around the well to the point that My dirt

becomes your dirt. We have to be careful

with the water. The enemy's strategy— it says that they—

that the Philistines did not want to go and fight,

so what they did is they went and filled in the wells

because they knew what the result of filling in the well would be. Now, what

do I mean by filling in the well? I don't know. It might be offense.

It might be anger. It might be a lot of

distraction, busyness, a lot of things that cause

us— Yeah. To stop accessing the supply.

The supply doesn't change. The living water does

not change. What we can change about it is the

atmosphere that we create around that water. The enemy knew

if he could keep them from accessing the wells, he could stop the

life. He could stop the life, and that's why the battle is

often waged at the wells. Yes.

supply. Your supply. Are you drawing?

Are you drinking deeply from that

living water? The washing of the water of the

Word of God. That is where our life is. That is what

sustains us. That is what keeps us going. And if we get

so distracted with the walls, and the wells, and the—

and allow the water to become polluted, we stop drawing from it.

Genesis asks the sobering question, so what happens when the wells get buried?

And I put this out there because it becomes a checkpoint in our life, in

my life, in the lives of this body, this church, these

people. When the wells start— and you can look at it and go,

okay, then maybe the well

has been a little bit— I've not been accessing the

water of the Word like I should. I haven't been accessing the living water. I've

been a little bit careless with the well. And I think that's what Well, here's

what happens. Families are left to wander in

Genesis. Flocks begin to weaken.

Fruitfulness, fields begin to wither, and communities

fade. And that is the goal, and was

the goal, of the Philistines when they went and they began to fill in

the wells of Abraham because they did not want that family

to prosper. They did not want them to have the supply

that they needed. And so the enemy began to

cover up the wells and remove that supply.

I love Isaac. You are Isaac. We

are Isaac. I love what he does. It says that he was determined to

go and reopen the wells of his father, right? And so the very

first one he comes to is Essek. And Essek is

a well, it says, that we read about. It says oppressive strife, injury,

distress, or contention. The first well he comes to

is a well of strife. Contention,

somebody having a differing opinion, and there's Esau. And

so he has this opportunity right there. He's looking at this and he's going,

there's oppression, there's strife, there's injury. Because see,

Isaac was hurt. Isaac.

Isaac was hurt. Isaac had been wounded.

And he could have easily

Just stopped there and camped by that well. He could have

decided, I— this was my father's well. I

am going to camp right here. And he could have dug in

his heels, and he could have gotten his people into a fight, and

they could have fought the Philistines. And this

oppression, strife, injury,

distress, and contention, they could have camped right there. But

Isaac didn't want that for his family. Isaac did not want

that for his family. So Isaac makes the decision. He's like, we're not

gonna camp here. We're not gonna live in this. And he moves

forward. He makes a decision. And don't you know that your

decision will cost you an action? He

moves on and he goes to Sitnah. The next well that he goes to dig

that was his father's is Sitnah, and it means hostility, enmity, and

accusation. It has a

root with the name Satan. Notice that,

because it's filled with accusation. And accusation—

who's the accuser of the brethren? That is

literally what Satan means, the accuser of the brethren.

So we see hostility, enmity, strife,

and accusation. This well, another well.

That he could have stayed right there if he had chosen

to. But Isaac refused to stay trapped in perpetual conflict,

bitterness, or accusation. He moved forward and

simply dug another well.

Simply dug another well. I love that he has

the heart and the fortitude to just go dig another

well, because you will never reach the end— the next well if you are

still fighting over the last one. That's right. You'll never reach the

next if you stay camped somewhere that does not

feed that water in you, that doesn't bring water to you.

And so if Isaac had stayed there, he could have been stuck in

that forever. He could have been stuck in that forever. Oh,

but God. Oh,

but God. In his faithfulness,

Isaac chose not to stay there. He didn't want his family in

that mess. He did not want the anger, and the frustration, and the

accusation, and the strife. He did not want to send his

family into battle. What he wanted was to

find them a place of rest and peace.

So he got up, he did the work, he gathered his family, and the next

well that he went to was Rehoboth.

A well of wide water. Wide open spaces

and room to run. Room to run.

Katie, you wanna sing Dixie Chicks right now, don't you? No,

no. I know you. Wide open

spaces, Rehoboth. The Lord has given

us room to run,

room to spread out. But he could not have reached that

place if he had not moved on from

the first 2 wells. And it would have been easy. Sometimes it's

easy to just camp somewhere. But what if God

has other plans? What if God has— I want

that! Wide open spaces. The Lord has given

us room, and we will flourish in the

land. Isaac could have camped by any of those wells.

He could have. It says he pitched his tent. He could have pitched his

tent. Especially having come out of strife,

having come out of that place of wounding and hurt, and

anger, and frustration, don't you know that

Rehoboth would have been so peaceful?

It says, Rehoboth became a place of relief.

Sometimes you just need relief, right? You've walked in high

heels all day. I hear that people do that.

You get home from work, you take off your work clothes, you put on something

comfortable, you grab your sweatpants, you pile up on the

sofa, or for me, go sit on the porch swing, and there's just like this—

Ah!

Yeah. And I believe that Isaac probably felt that because when he

was living in the land of the Philistines, he had been very successful. He had

been very full. He had been very blessed. And— but then

he set on this journey that he did not anticipate, did not

know that he was going to go on, and things just went from

difficult to difficult-er, and—

or more difficult. Difficult. And he could have stopped, but he didn't

because God had a plan, and it became a place of relief for him. But

here, guys, when your plans come to an end, God's purposes keep

you moving forward. When your

plan, what you thought was gonna happen,

ends, it is God and his

will and his purposes that keep us

moving forward when we wanna camp by an old well. Amen? Amen.

Amen. When we want to just stop, it is his purposes. And it was

Isaac's heart to follow the leading of the Lord

and keep going. And if he hadn't done that, guys, if he

had not done that, if he had just stopped in

the wide open spaces, it would have been a completely different

ballgame. But Isaac knew the Lord, and he

knew the Lord's voice. And so he goes from

Esau, To Sitnah, to Rehoboth,

and then it says, from there he went up to Beersheba. From

there he went up to Beersheba. He moved beyond what was comfortable.

He moved beyond what he thought, well, this is it. He moved

forward because that was what God told him to do.

So he built an altar there, and he called on the name of the

Lord. Isaac's first move in

Beersheba was not to build a house or reinforce his fences,

but to build an altar. And see,

when God is moving us forward, when God is calling us forward— and guys,

this is so perfect in where the Lord has us in this

season, because the very first thing that we have done is we

have built an altar of worship. We have built a

place to call on the name of the Lord. And that is

priority one. It's so important for us to call on the name of the

Lord, to know his blessing in the house, to know that

it is him that calls us forward because

he is, and he does, and he will continue.

Our call should always be to worship first and then work.

And then work. Let

me read you something.

Here's why Isaac needed to move out of his wide open

spaces and follow the Lord. Chapter 26 of Genesis, verse

26. Now, Abimelech was the king of the Philistines.

He was one of the ones that were instrumental in making

Isaac's life rough. And so Isaac

had been hurt by their encounter and everything else that had

happened. And it says, Isaac built an

altar. There he called on the name of the Lord. I find this progression so

important. He built an altar, he

called on the name of the Lord, he blessed the Lord. And it says, meanwhile,

Abimelech had come to him from Gerar. And it says—

and Isaac says, why have you come to me since you were hostile

toward me? And he says, down here

on verse 28, 29, it says,

Abimelech said, let us make a treaty with you that you will do us

no harm, just as we did not you, but always treated

you well. And now you are blessed by

the Lord. Isaac then made a feast for them.

For who? For his enemies. Isaac then made a

feast for them, and they ate and drank.

Early the next morning, the men swore an oath to

each other. Then Isaac— then

Isaac sent them on their way, and they

left in peace. Why does that matter?

Because verse 32 says, that

day Isaac's servants came and

told him, we've found water.

The moment Isaac released the conflict, God released the provision.

The moment Isaac released the conflict, God

released the provision. The provision.

That day Isaac's servants came and told him about the well they had

dug. They said, we've found water! And he called it

Sheba. See, he moved out of the wide open

spaces. He moved out of the comfortable place. He even moved out of his place

of relief because God had more for him.

And the more that he had for him was this: Sheba

is the well of the oath. It's the place where God

reminded him of all of the promises that had been spoken. It's the

place where his father had brought 7 lambs that brought peace.

It's the place where he was reminded that the wells that he was

attempting to re-dig were not the wells that the Lord wanted

him to stay at. He wanted to take Isaac to the place of the promise.

And see, you are children of promise. We are children of

promise, and God is calling us into

a different place. The progression of the wells is this, and you can check

your heart. I've had to check my heart over and over.

Distress and opposition, hostility

and accusation, or forgiveness and

relief. We can stop at any of

them, or we can move toward the promise. Amen.

that God has. Move toward the promise that God

has. You know, in the beginning I shared with you the

things that, that happen when the wells get stopped up, when the

wells get covered up, and, and, and we are not careful

to tend the water. Things die and family

scatters and there's not provision, all of those things.

But Ezekiel 47, Ask the opposite and greater

question. What happens when you open the wells?

Worship team? What happens when

you open the wells? It says that the land

begins to flourish. Provision

multiplies. Fruit begins to

grow. Healing arises.

And dead things come alive. That's what I want.

That's what I want, and that's what I

believe that God has for us, Isaac.

That's what I believe the Lord has for us, that there is

a land that flourishes, provision that multiplies,

fruit that grows, healing that arises, and

dead things coming to life. Amen. That's what I

believe. That's what I believe. See, sometimes

faith wears work boots. It picks up a shovel and it keeps

moving forward knowing that water

awaits. Sometimes faith has to strap

its boots on when it does not want to. It has to begin to

grab a shovel and be willing to do the work that is

necessary to move to the well of promise

that God has. I don't want to camp by any of

the other ones. I want his promises,

and I want you to experience the promises

that God has spoken over this house for as long as I

have been here, since the 1900s.

What do you want, Isaac? What do you want?

Are you willing to put your boots on,

tramp through some things that you might not have wanted to,

forgive some people you might wanna be mad at,

pick up the shovel, and begin to move

forward to that place of

promise? It is time

to dig another well. It is

time to dig another well. Now, that is

not neglecting what he's told us before. I still

believe part of this process is to worship

anyway, to worship anyway. So here's what I believe we're going to do.

Well, actually, here's what I know we're going to do. I'm going to

join you again right here. And if

you have camped by any other well,

Except the one the Lord has called you to, we're going to come in and

we're going to worship anyway. If you have been wounded, if you have

been hurt, if you are carrying anger, if you are carrying frustration,

understand that your dirt becomes our dirt.

We want it gone for your sake. We want God

to heal these places so that we can get

to the wells That's what I believe.

That's what I believe for all of us. So

we removed 2 rows this morning for you.

I'm gonna join you down here and we are gonna worship. And when

we say dead things come alive, if this is your well,

if this is your place, when we begin to get into these places—

kids, young people— The young shall lead us. We need

you to help us worship through this. Amen? Amen. So bring what you got,

and we are going to worship anyway and watch God move us

to the next well. Come on down, guys. Let's do this.