Genesis 28-29

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, good morning, everybody, how you all doing?

[SPEAKER_00]: Good, good.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is an exciting day today.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have a lot going on, baptisms in both of our services and a fall festival after this, which I hope you can stick around for, it is awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, if you're new, my name is Adam.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm one of the pastors here at First Free Church.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are so glad you're here with us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you'd like to connect with us, go to e-free.org slash connect.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let us know who you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: We would love to talk with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Get you plugged in here at the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: Help you find some people.

[SPEAKER_00]: and help you to grow in your walk with Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because that is what we are all about.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are in a study in the book of Genesis right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going through it throughout the entire year.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we are going to go to Genesis and spend some time there today in Genesis chapter 28.

Genesis 28 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: So you can turn there in your Bibles if you want to.

[SPEAKER_00]: Up until this point.

[SPEAKER_00]: What we have experienced in Genesis is a whole lot of failures and mistakes.

[SPEAKER_00]: From people that we look back on and think of as incredible, godly people of faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, the New Testament, the book of Hebrews, gives us a whole list of a bunch of people, including many of the ones we've talked about, and talks about them and what we call the Hall of Faith, their wonderful faithful people.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we have seen all sorts of mistakes and failures and blunders, and how God works through those.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it's one of the reasons why I think the Bible is so trustworthy and accurate because it's not like a lot of the ancient documents that just recorded the successes and the wins and the victories of the people who wrote them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the kings that they write about, but instead what we see in the Bible is we see the faults and the flaws, the mistakes, the ways they did not live up to what they were supposed to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: What God wanted of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't see the Israelites as this brave people who always follow God and everything they do and never mess up.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, we get all the blemishes and the warts and everything that was negative about them.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, often they were enemies of God and what they did, but God, as we learned earlier this year, had chosen Abraham to make a great nation out of, and overall, Abraham was faithful to God, and that his son Isaac was faithful to God, and God promised to make him into a great nation.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then today we're going to look at Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, and we're going to see that God continued to be faithful.

[SPEAKER_00]: to his chosen people throughout all of their failures and false mistakes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, today is not going to be one of those messages where we talk about a bunch of mistakes and failures.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is actually going to be a really positive, hopeful message as we look at an encounter with God and what we can learn from that encounter about God, about Jesus, about the connection between the old and new testaments.

[SPEAKER_00]: And an unexpected response to that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Once you've encountered God in this way, like we're gonna see in our story today, what is an appropriate response?

[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna see something really, really interesting in the story today.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what I wanna do first is a flash forward before we do a flashback.

[SPEAKER_00]: The flash forward is I want to go to a spot in the New Testament where one of my favorite verses sits and talk about how this verse points back to this other story.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to take down a little bit of a journey, but I think it's going to be worth it.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of my favorite verses in the Bible.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it got me thinking, we all have favorite verses, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: You have a favorite verse probably in the Bible, something that you love or maybe you have several favorite verses of the Bible.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought, wouldn't it be cool if we just share those with each other?

[SPEAKER_00]: So introverts get ready.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to give you 60 seconds, share it with somebody next to you, your favorite version of Bible and why.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, as we're wrapping up, somebody from this side of the room tell me what's your favorite Bible verse?

[SPEAKER_00]: Who's got a favorite Bible verse to share?

[SPEAKER_00]: Jeremiah 2911, which says, for I know the plans I have for you sayeth the Lord, very good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, I memorized it in KJV version.

[SPEAKER_00]: So sayeth says the Lord, what about over here, favorite Bible verse?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, which says,

[SPEAKER_00]: very good, probably 356 trust and Lord with all your heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: We all have favorite Bible verses, which is good.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have one that is a little bit obscure, but it's been a favorite of mine for the last few years, and I wanna take you on this journey with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna go to Luke chapter 24 verse 27, which says this.

Luke 24:27

[SPEAKER_00]: Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets explaining from all the scriptures, the things concerning himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: This has for the last several years, been one of if not the favorite Bible verse for me in all of scripture.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me explain why.

[SPEAKER_00]: You kind of have to understand the context a little bit too here.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this is Resurrection Sunday.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are two men who are walking from Jerusalem to Amayas.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are disciples of Jesus, but not those disciples.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're not part of the group of 11.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're part of the bigger circle of disciples of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are having an intense conversation on this seven-mile journey from Jerusalem to Amaz.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're talking about all the things they have just seen and experienced.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, who they thought was the Messiah, the miracles that he did, the triumphant entry into Jerusalem, how he was crucified and died.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as they are walking and talking,

[SPEAKER_00]: Suddenly a stranger comes on alongside them on the road and starts talking with them.

[SPEAKER_00]: As it turns out, this stranger is the resurrected Jesus Christ, freshly resurrected that morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they don't know it because the Bible says God has hidden him from them and so he disguised him so they could not tell who this was.

[SPEAKER_00]: As they're walking along, Jesus says, what are you talking about?

[SPEAKER_00]: And they proceed to talk all about the life and ministry and death of Jesus without knowing they're talking to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: And along the way, they explained that they thought he was the Messiah.

[SPEAKER_00]: They thought he was the one who is going to free Israel from the grip of Rome.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet,

[SPEAKER_00]: Now he's dead.

[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, they knew that some of the ladies had claimed to have seen him, but all they really knew was his body was missing, and Jesus goes, you guys, you guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you not understand what all of the scriptures in the Old Testament said about me?

[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't get it.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had completely misinterpreted and distorted the prophecies and even things that weren't clearly prophecies in the Old Testament all pointed to Jesus and how he would be the Messiah, a different Messiah than they were expecting.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then we get to this verse which says, Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets explaining from all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: Man, I wish I could have heard that talk.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have all of that recorded for us, but we know that there are all these connections there, many of which we just don't even know or understand, but we get some of them, which is awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what I love about this verse is that it shows how the Old Testament and the New Testament are actually intertwined.

[SPEAKER_00]: They tell one continuous story.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like the Old Testament is 1.0, and the New Testament is 2.0.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like the Old Testament is 1 attempt at a salvation plan, and the New Testament is a completely different salvation plan.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're actually both salvation through faith, and just in the Old Testament, they didn't know exactly how that faith was going to be realized in the person of Jesus Christ and his death on the cross and his resurrection.

[SPEAKER_00]: but they're both the same.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're all telling one story.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like the New Testament and Jesus is a doover.

[SPEAKER_00]: And God has said, okay, we gotta do this figure out a different plan.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, the Old Testament all throughout points to Jesus and that's what he says.

[SPEAKER_00]: It all points to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so Jesus walks them through how all the love Moses and the prophets and the Psalms, all of that points to him later on.

[SPEAKER_00]: He appears to his disciples on that same day in verse 44.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then he said, when I was with you before, I told you that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.

[SPEAKER_00]: How awesome is that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because he opened the minds of these disciples of his, guess what?

[SPEAKER_00]: They got to pass a lot of that information on to us, and we get a lot of it in the form of the epistles.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the letters and the writings and the New Testament, a lot of that is based on what Jesus taught them when he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and then we get some of those connections, probably not all of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Probably not everything that Jesus shared with them was able to be written down for us, but we get a lot of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what's really exciting about this is there is one piece of this wisdom that John wrote down that Jesus alluded to himself during his ministry that connects to our story for today.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that is in John chapter 1 verse 51.

John 1:51

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is talking, and he says, I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open, and the angels of God going up and down on the

[SPEAKER_00]: the stairway between heaven and earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there are two Old Testament references here.

[SPEAKER_00]: One is to the Son of Man.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Son of Man is a title that Jesus used for himself more than any other.

[SPEAKER_00]: He used it dozens of times.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we don't know for sure.

[SPEAKER_00]: But probably the reason he used this title is because the other titles and scripture that refer to the Messiah

[SPEAKER_00]: have political overtones to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were culturally loaded terms that referred to a military Messiah who had rescued Israel from Rome, and it was understood that way.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so son of man was a bit of a more obscure title that came from the book of Daniel.

[SPEAKER_00]: We started the book of Daniel in detail last year.

[SPEAKER_00]: The son of man was one who came before the ancient one and was given authority over all the nations.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so this is one way Jesus referred to himself using a title that didn't necessarily have all the political and the military overtones to it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the other reference.

[SPEAKER_00]: is to our story for today in Genesis 28.

[SPEAKER_00]: The angels who are going up and down between heaven and earth, and they're doing that via the Son of Man, who is the stairway between us and God, us and heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the story of Genesis chapter 28, verse 10.

Genesis 28:10

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you've got this in your Bibles, let's read it together, and we're going to walk through this and see what we can learn about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then we're also going to see what is the perhaps unexpected response

[SPEAKER_00]: to such an incredible encounter with God.

[SPEAKER_00]: First 10, Genesis 28 says, meanwhile, Jacob left Beershiba and traveled toward Haran.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I wanted to show you a bit of the journey that he took, because it's a pretty significant journey.

[SPEAKER_00]: So here is a map that's going to show you the route that he took from South the North to get to Haran.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a place called Paton Arum.

[SPEAKER_00]: the field of the arom.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's where he was headed the city of Haran.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he's going there because he has relatives there.

[SPEAKER_00]: His uncle Laban is there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he needs to go there because he has just tricked his brother Issa out of his birthright and manipulated him out of his birthright.

[SPEAKER_00]: You remember the stories where he cooked up the stew and Issa was super hungry.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was so hungry that he was willing to basically hand over his birthright.

[SPEAKER_00]: to Jacob for that stew and that so that was the manipulation and then later Jacob puts on the animal skins to make himself feel like he's Harry as dad can't see real well so he feels the skin and thinks well his voice sounds like Jacob but his skin is Harry so it can't be Jacob because he's a smooth boy and so I'm going to go ahead and give him the blessing as if he's the first born.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Jacob has done all of this and Jacob's mom has learned that he saw wants to kill him so she says to Jacob you've got to get out of town or you're going to die.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then he goes and sees his dad and his dad says, hey, well, you're there with my distant relatives.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to get away there, so that you don't marry one of the local women here that serve all the pagan gods.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to go get away from your relatives.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that is why Jacob is on the land.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's running, he brought nothing with him.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, a couple chapters later as he recounts the story.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I had nothing with me, but my staff.

[SPEAKER_00]: no extra resources, nobody there to help protect him, no friends, no servants, nothing he is on his own out alone.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then this happens.

[SPEAKER_00]: At sundown, he arrived at a good place to set up camp and stopped there for the night.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob found a stone to rest his head against and lay down to sleep.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now that stone to rest his head against would be an odd thing to include in the story, except it's gonna come up later.

[SPEAKER_00]: And probably we need to have in mind something like this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some kind of a flat stone could have been a little bigger than this, maybe twice the size three times the size, but something along this lines that is like the perfect height for if you're a side sleeper, you know, and so you can just kind of rest your head.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe put the cloak on top of here, so there's a little bit of cushion, and you can just lay your head on this.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's going to become important later in the story.

[SPEAKER_00]: As he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from the earth up to heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he saw the angels of God going up and down on the stairway sound familiar at the top of the stairway stood the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather, Abraham, and the God of your father, Isaac, the ground you are lying on.

[SPEAKER_00]: belongs to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am giving it to you and your descendants.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: They will spread out in all directions to the east or to the west and the east to the north and the south and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants.

[SPEAKER_00]: What's more?

[SPEAKER_00]: I am with you and I will protect you wherever you go.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Incredible encounter with God includes this visual, a lot of times in the older translations we thought of this as a ladder in fact it's often called Jacob's ladder.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the reality is it was more like a stairway that it really have ladders back then that we think of.

[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't have a lot of wood, they had a lot of stone.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so typically all the buildings were constructed so that you had steps and stairways to things.

[SPEAKER_00]: So stairways a better translation.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can think of it as stone steps like would lead up to a ziggurat or a pyramid.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a visual that kind of give you maybe somewhat of an idea of what he saw, a portal to heaven with steps coming down.

[SPEAKER_00]: Angels going up and down God at the top of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: This vision stands in direct contrast to the tower of Babel.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you remember anything about the tower of Babel, here you have people creating their own steps to reach up into the heavens and say, we can reach up to God this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: All we got to do is get up there about 150 feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's where he lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're just going to get, if we can make a building that high, we will find the door some way, and we'll be able to get to God that way, and we're going to make a name for ourselves, and we're going to be great, because we can build this huge tower.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is God saying, oh, people, you thought you could reach me by building a tower.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to have to build a lot higher than that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And even then, it's not going to work.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can't get to me, so what does God do?

[SPEAKER_00]: He comes down to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: He creates the stairway down to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a visual that he is giving Jacob a picture.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is giving him, which could not be understood until a long time later.

[SPEAKER_00]: But a stairway between God.

[SPEAKER_00]: and man, and angels coming up and down.

[SPEAKER_00]: God interacting with us, what does it tell us?

[SPEAKER_00]: God wants to be close to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: He wants to have a relationship with us.

[SPEAKER_00]: He wants to connect with us, and we cannot reach out and get to Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: But He can reach out and get to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: An incredible thing Jacob got to experience.

[SPEAKER_00]: Something most people would never get to experience.

[SPEAKER_00]: But God even says in the vision,

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the God of your grandfather Abraham, the chosen one, who I'm gonna make a great nation out of.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's your grandfather.

[SPEAKER_00]: And your father Isaac, he worshiped and trusted me too.

[SPEAKER_00]: And basically what God is saying is now it's your turn Jacob.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's your turn.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's your turn to get the promises.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's your turn to get the covenant.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's your turn to trust and follow me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I wanna be your God, just like I was there God.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a transition and a decision that every young person has to make.

[SPEAKER_00]: So choose to make their faith their own and not just follow the faith of their parents.

[SPEAKER_00]: For a while, as we're growing up in these households, it's easy for us to just say, what my parents believe in this and they want me to believe in this.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm gonna do this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna go through the motions.

[SPEAKER_00]: But at some point, you have to decide, no, I'm gonna make my faith my own.

[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't just my parents' God.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is my God, too.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that is the moment that Jacob is having right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is a moment where he is having to decide and I'm going to follow the same God that my father and my grandfather followed.

[SPEAKER_00]: God makes three significant promises to Jacob as part of his covenant.

[SPEAKER_00]: The first one is this land is your land.

[SPEAKER_00]: This space that you are in right now, I'm gonna give it to you and your descendants, just like I promised your father, just like I promised your grandfather.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's going to be for your descendants forever.

[SPEAKER_00]: The second promise is your descendants are gonna become a great nation.

[SPEAKER_00]: He uses the phrase, they're gonna be like the dust of the earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're gonna be so numerous,

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not necessarily meant to be taken literally, but what it means is it's beyond your comprehension how many descendants you will have because it's not just biological that he's talking about.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's talking about all of the spiritual descendants that would be grafted into this family.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not talking thousands of people.

[SPEAKER_00]: which a lot of nations were thousands or 10,000 people back then.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not talking hundreds of thousands.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was a really big nation.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not talking millions.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're talking billions and billions of people that are accounted as Jacob's dissentance.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's beyond what he could count or

[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine, sounds crazy at the time and yet it all came true in a way that he never could have dreamed of.

[SPEAKER_00]: Number three, God says all the people of the earth will be blessed through your descendants.

[SPEAKER_00]: Isn't that amazing?

[SPEAKER_00]: Your descendants, even though you don't even have a family yet, you don't even have a wife yet, you don't have any kids yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: But your descendants are going to do something, are going to be involved in something that is going to be a blessing to every single person on earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, we know that happens through Jesus Christ, who is one of the descendants of Jacob.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, as a side note here, something that's very interesting to me as I was studying this week is to realize that these three promises of God have always been under attack.

[SPEAKER_00]: They've always been under attack, think about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's the promise of the land, and what has happened throughout history?

[SPEAKER_00]: People trying to take away the land of the descendants of Jacob.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's always happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's the promise of descendants that would be, as many as the dust on the earth, two numerous to count.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet there's always been people who are trying to wipe out the descendants of Jacob.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there's the promise of being a blessing to all people on earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet there's always been people who've been trying to smear and ruin the reputation of Jacob's descendants.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's just very interesting to me to think about the fact that from the time of the the Assyrians and the Babylonians and the Persians and the some extent the Romans and then you end up with Nazi Germany and you get into the Iranians and Hamas and the PLO and all these different groups that have a seeming fixation on going against and attacking things that God has actually promised to Jacob and to his descendants.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's a really fascinating thing for me that that

[SPEAKER_00]: He has no protection.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's got just his staff.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a dangerous journey.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to meet up with family members who hopefully will take him in.

[SPEAKER_00]: And God says at the very end, hey, I am with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I am going to protect you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will never leave you.

[SPEAKER_00]: It reminds me of what Moses told the people of Israel in Deuteronomy.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I will never abandon you or forsake you.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what God said to his followers.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says it again to Joshua.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will never abandon you or forsake you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you know what?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's what the author of Hebrews says to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says that promise that was given to Jacob and others.

[SPEAKER_00]: It carries down to you and I. And Hebrews 13, fiveists says, don't love money.

[SPEAKER_00]: be satisfied with what you have for God has said, I will never fail you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will never abandon you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for some of us, that's the number one message we need today.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're going through a tough time today and you're wrestling through something, you just need to hear that God is with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: He will not leave you.

[SPEAKER_00]: He will not abandon you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even though at times he may feel far from you, he may have feel distant.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is always there with you just have to trust in him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he will see you through it to the other side.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Jacob needs this message right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's used to sleep in a nice tent, in an actual bed, not a stone for a pillow, with good food.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now he's sleeping on a rock, he's hungry, he's alone, he's probably pretty discouraged.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this message from God is what he needed.

[SPEAKER_00]: so he responds.

[SPEAKER_00]: For 16, Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, surely, the Lord is in this place and I wasn't even aware of it, but he was also afraid appropriate response given what he just experienced, what an awesome place this is.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is none other than a house of God the very gateway to heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, ancient people,

[SPEAKER_00]: associated the gods with certain territories, certain regions.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the gods they viewed them as their power was strongest and somewhat limited to the area that they over saw.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you think back to the message that we did on Daniel last year, the series on Daniel, that there's actually some truth to that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because we talked about how God established boundaries for the nations and lands for them, and he assigned sons of God to them, and then in Psalm 82, he actually judges sons of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are heavenly beings who were given some authority over the nations.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are judged in Psalm 82 for not handling that authority well.

[SPEAKER_00]: and for not judging the people well and wisely.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so there actually was some legitimacy to this idea that the gods were considered regional, little G gods.

[SPEAKER_00]: Spiritual beings that had some influence in the New Testament Paul says when people sacrificed to idols and demons, when they sacrificed to idols, they were sacrificed to demons and they didn't realize it.

[SPEAKER_00]: They thought they were sacrificing to some gods.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were actually sacrificing to spiritual beings that had turned against God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what was behind that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, those beings actually did have geographical ranges to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And those were initially assigned by God for them to lead the people well.

[SPEAKER_00]: They just turned against them because he gave them the freedom to be able to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so there's some truth to this.

[SPEAKER_00]: when you may remember the story of Neiman.

[SPEAKER_00]: Neiman is a man who had leprosy.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not in his way.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not from Israel, but he comes to Elijah, who he hears might be able to heal him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Elijah does heal him through God's power.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then Neiman makes the strangest request.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, you may have never even realized this before.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, hey, I want to worship your God forever.

[SPEAKER_00]: So can I take two muel loads of dirt back with me?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why does he say that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, because back then,

[SPEAKER_00]: the region, the land, and even the earth itself was associated with, this is this God's domain.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is this God's territory.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so name and thought, and I shouldn't correct to me, just let him do it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what?

[SPEAKER_00]: When I worship your God, I want to be on the dirt that your God oversees.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was just the view that they had.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's not actually that crazy of a view.

[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, we know today that God is not limited by any of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But this is what Jacob is thinking when he's in this place.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not thinking, oh, I just stumbled across a place that God happened to be at the same time.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's thinking, this must be God's international headquarters.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I just happened upon it here in a little city called a little area called Luz.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what the region was called Luz.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm here.

[SPEAKER_00]: I found God's headquarters.

[SPEAKER_00]: I found the gateway to heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what he thinks.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the place where it's at.

[SPEAKER_00]: The house of God, the gateway to heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: He means that literally.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the next morning, verse 18, Jacob got up very early.

[SPEAKER_00]: He took the stone.

[SPEAKER_00]: He had rested his head against and set it up right as a memorial pillar.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then he poured olive oil over it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he takes a stone like this, maybe bigger than this.

[SPEAKER_00]: He sets it up right and digs out a little channel in the ground, puts it in the ground, pour some olive oil over it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because that was considered to be a ceremonial act.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was anointed and saying, this rock is special.

[SPEAKER_00]: This rock is different.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to do something to represent the fact that something special happened here.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to stick this in the ground.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to make sure it's up right.

[SPEAKER_00]: So at the next time I come through this area, I'll be able to look around and go up.

[SPEAKER_00]: There it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the spot.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's God's headquarters.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's where I saw the gateway to heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what, and maybe if I go there again, lay on that rock again, maybe they'll happen again.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I want to know where is this place so I can go back there and worship there.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he named that place Bethel, which means House of God, although it was previously called Luz, bit of a name upgrade if you ask me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then Jacob made this vow, if God will indeed be with me and protect me on this journey, and if you will provide me with food and clothing, because remember he has nothing, and if I return safely to my father's home, because remember, he saw wants to kill him, and then the Lord will certainly be my God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, sounds like he's giving God a test here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, okay, God.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you'll do all this stuff for me, then I'll follow you, but it's actually not a bad test, because God has just promised to do all those things.

[SPEAKER_00]: God has just promised, I'm gonna take care of you, I'm gonna bless you, you're gonna have a great nation, which means you're gonna have a wife and kids, I'm gonna bring you back to the slandest land that's gonna be your,

[SPEAKER_00]: land, and so it's actually perfectly appropriate for Jacob to say, okay, if God is going to keep his promise and be faithful to all that he has said to me, then you better believe I'm going to follow and worship him for the rest of my life.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what it means when he says he will certainly be my God.

[SPEAKER_00]: That means a lot.

[SPEAKER_00]: He will be my God means I will serve him.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will be devoted to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will be committed to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He will be my only God.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to follow after him the rest of the days of my life.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then he says, in this memorial pillar that I have set up, will become a place for worshiping God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I will present to God a tenth of everything he gives me.

[SPEAKER_00]: That really struck me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob has just had this experience with God that is incredible, and his response appropriately is fear.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then his response is admiration and worship.

[SPEAKER_00]: And his response is, okay, I'm going to trust God for this.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then he's going to be my God forever.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then his response is, and I'm going to give stuff to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to make sure that I give back.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think he's promised to bless me with all sorts of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: I got nothing right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's promised to bless me with resources and pray and provide for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, well then I better give back to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to go with 10%.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why did he do that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, probably because that's what his grandfather Abraham did.

[SPEAKER_00]: When he came to the pre-smilkizedek, his grandfather Abraham gave him a tenth of everything

[SPEAKER_00]: Later on, throughout his dissentance history, you see this show up again and again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because Moses tells the Israelites and his law, you are to give a tithe 10% of everything you own to the Lord and to his work.

[SPEAKER_00]: There were to be tides and offerings.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there were tides, which was 10% of everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there were offerings, which is sacrificial offerings above and beyond the 10% tithe.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that is what the followers of God were expected to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: We read that part of the reason for these tides was not just to make sure that the religious leaders in the organized religious worship could continue as God had commanded, but also to care for people.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was to take care of the priests.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was to take care of the Levites.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was to make sure that what happened in the tabernacle and eventually the temple was able to continue with all of the functions of religious worship that God wanted His people to do as a group together united.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it was also to take care of the orphans, and the widows, and the poor, and the foreigners like Jacob traveling through with nothing else with them.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was to protect and help all of those people, God's people helping other people in need.

[SPEAKER_00]: That concept carries through to today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our modern version of this or one of them is our benevolence ministry.

[SPEAKER_00]: And probably many of you have never even heard of this or don't know much about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't make a huge deal about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: The instances, the situations that we help people in are always confidential.

[SPEAKER_00]: The only way I even find out about them is if somebody sends a card and says, thanks so much, your church, help me in such an incredible way and it's been a huge blessing.

[SPEAKER_00]: but we have a wonderful team of volunteers part of our Deacon Ministry that evaluates each case and tries to determine faithfully through prayer and a lot of wisdom and training that they have to figure out how can we help people with the tives and offerings that you give to this church.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so you continue to participate in the exact same thing that God has established thousands of years ago for His people to do, that there be ties, that there be offerings, that out of those ties and offerings it continues to provide for the organized worship of God that we do here, but also for caring for people who need.

[SPEAKER_00]: We do this through our feed the world and feed Missouri events.

[SPEAKER_00]: or we package tens of thousands of meals for people that are in need.

[SPEAKER_00]: And lots of other ways, back to school drives, and other things like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are all sorts of things that we do as God's people to help those in need.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it happens, thanks to, you're giving it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's exactly what's described by Moses in Deuteronomy.

[SPEAKER_00]: The way it is supposed to work.

[SPEAKER_00]: So fast forward, 1500 years after Jacob's promise to tie to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this has been passed on to His descendants.

[SPEAKER_00]: Through Moses, it's part of the law.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's what they're supposed to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's what God expects of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now we are going to come to the prophet Malachi, because what has happened is the people have forgotten about this command from God to give.

[SPEAKER_00]: They have stopped doing it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And here is what God says to the people through the prophet Malachi.

[SPEAKER_00]: Malachi 38, should people cheat God?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yet you have cheated me.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you ask, what do you mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: When did we ever cheat you?

[SPEAKER_00]: You have cheated me of the tives and offerings due to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are under a curse.

[SPEAKER_00]: For your whole nation has been cheating me, bring all the tives into the storehouse.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there will be enough food in my temple.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you do, says the Lord of Heaven's armies, I will open the windows of heaven for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will pour out a blessing so great.

[SPEAKER_00]: You won't have enough room to take it in.

[SPEAKER_00]: Try it, put me to the test.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your crops will be abundant, if I will guard them from insects and disease.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your grapes will not fall from the vine before they are ripe.

[SPEAKER_00]: Says the Lord of heaven's armies.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then all nations will call you blessed.

[SPEAKER_00]: For your land will be such a delight.

[SPEAKER_00]: Says the Lord of heaven's armies.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Jacob essentially said, God, you've made all these promises.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to put you to the test, and if this comes true, if your word comes true, then I will know you are really the God I need to worship and serve.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's legitimate, because God had just made those promises to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: God comes in 1,500 years later, and says through Malachi to the people of Israel, the descendants of Jacob, who are supposed to carry on this practice of giving back to the Lord into His work, and have stopped doing it, and He says, put me to the test.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not amazing.

[SPEAKER_00]: God telling people, put me to the test and see if your giving does not return a blessing greater than what you can imagine.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will open the windows of heaven for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that doesn't necessarily mean he's just gonna give lots of money.

[SPEAKER_00]: It could be all sorts of ways that he's going to bless them.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you will never regret giving to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: You will never regret giving generously to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, he says here, one of the reasons you've been doing poorly or more poorly than you'd like is because you're not giving faithfully

[SPEAKER_00]: But start it back up again and I'm gonna knock your socks off is essentially what God has saying here.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we haven't had a preaching series here on money for a while.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it struck me as so interesting that Jacob, after this experience with God, would respond with fear, had respond with worship, had respond with a promise of obedience and faithful service, but had also respond by saying, and I am going to give back to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: because God gives to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm gonna make sure that 10% of everything I get goes back to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought to myself, wow, that is a part of our worship.

[SPEAKER_00]: That should be a part of our response to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: If we think about all that God has done for us and He saved us from sin and He does this incredible work in our lives and He walks through life with us and helps us to grow and helps us to overcome sin.

[SPEAKER_00]: And He forgives us our sins and all of that, part of the worship that He expects of us is for us to be givers back to Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of times we don't talk about it because it's kind of awkward to talk about in church.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I get that, but it's right there in the text, it's something that God expects and requires of us that we need to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to leave you with two things today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Two important takeaways from this story, and the first one is by far the most important.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that is that Jesus is the stairway.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is the stairway.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is the connection between God and people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the Father except through me.

[SPEAKER_00]: People have always tried to make their own way to God, their own connection to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: They've always tried to say, if I just do enough good stuff, if I just give money to the church, if I get baptized, if I'm in there at least once or twice a month, if I can have enough good that outweighs my bad, well then maybe God will accept me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the Bible says that doesn't work at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Bible says it's not by any works of righteousness that we could do but according to His mercy that He saves us.

[SPEAKER_00]: It says it's by the grace of God that He saves us, by grace through faith and it's not of anything we do so that we can't brag or boast about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is nothing we can do to save us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is the only way He is the stairway and He came down to earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: so that we could go be with God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is the stairway.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is the most important thing I can tell you.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says in John 151, I tell you the truth, you will see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob thought he found the gateway, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: He thought he found the portal to heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus says, no, that's not quite right.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am the gateway.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am the way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob thought he found God's residence, God's house on earth, and that's understandable, but Jesus is no, I want to make my home inside of you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to be my home.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to live with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do life with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be there with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Never leave you, never forsake you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus in so many ways is so much better than anyone could have imagined.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what this story teaches us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what this connection between the old and the new teaches us.

[SPEAKER_00]: that picture that God gave Jacob was a picture of the saving work of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: It just no one could have understood yet, which is why it took a long time before Jesus came.

[SPEAKER_00]: and open their eyes to the Old Testament scriptures and said, let me show you how all of this points to me, how awesome is that God has woven together this incredible tapestry of faith throughout the Old and the New Testament.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we trust in what Jesus Christ did on the cross for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's how we gain access to that stairway between us and God.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is the bridge.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is the stairway between us and God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so if you're someone that's here today and you have never trusted in Jesus Christ for your salvation,

[SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe you have thought, well, I believe in Jesus, but I also have to be a good person.

[SPEAKER_00]: I also have to do enough good outweigh my bad.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have to understand.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is not what the Bible says about salvation at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, in the book of Galatians, Paul says, look, if you're trusting in something other than Jesus Christ to contribute to your salvation, then Christ's death and resurrection is worthless.

[SPEAKER_00]: because he paid the entire price, he is the only way.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is trust and belief in him.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, the reason we do good is because he saved us not to get saved.

[SPEAKER_00]: The reason we do good is because of what he's done for us, not so that we can earn some kind of place or bring something to the table to help contribute to our salvation that is so, so very important.

[SPEAKER_00]: Especially, as we see a number of baptisms today, to understand what these people are saying is not, I'm doing this to be saved, or I've done some good to contribute to my salvation.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're saying, I can't do anything.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus has saved me, I wanna tell you about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what the baptisms are about today.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the last point I wanna leave you with,

[SPEAKER_00]: is that Jacob's response to his encounter with God was not just fear and worship and service, but it was also to give.

[SPEAKER_00]: And to give substantially, you think about it, 10% is not a small amount.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, I'm gonna give 10% of everything I get back to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then God commands the Israelites to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And God judges the Israelites for not doing that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in the New Testament, we're not giving up percentage.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're just told, be generous, be cheerful, be consistent.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what Paul said.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul said, set it aside every week, so that it's ready to go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Be generous, be cheerful, be consistent.

[SPEAKER_00]: So my question for you is, how is your giving response to God?

[SPEAKER_00]: How is your giving response to God?

[SPEAKER_00]: I care about your faith response to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: I care about your prayer response to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: I care about your worship response to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: I care about your service response to God, but something we maybe don't talk about enough is how is your giving response to God?

[SPEAKER_00]: Are you giving faithfully?

[SPEAKER_00]: People give in different ways.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some people give like they tip at a restaurant.

[SPEAKER_00]: You go to a restaurant, you get good service.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, well, maybe I'll do 18% today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some people treat church that way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the songs are pretty good.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll bump it up to $45.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's how some people give to the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I had a good experience today, so I'm going to give a little bit more to it.

[SPEAKER_00]: They tip God.

[SPEAKER_00]: They treat God like He's their waiter, and they tip Him for good service.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some people give, but they give sporadically and occasionally, and it's not a discipline in their life.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a consistent act of worship in their life.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not something they do faithfully.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some people give faithfully, but they give a relatively small amount in proportion to their income because they struggle to trust God to take care of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And man, I remember what it was like when my wife and I first started out and we got married and we were looking at our really tiny little paycheck and trying to figure out how things are going to go and starting to know we are going to tie them on this.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are going to give 10% of this really, really tiny amount of money and we are going to live on the rest of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what I would tell you and here's what every other person who has ever talked me about this has said to me, I never regretted it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I never regretted it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I never regretted giving more to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I found that I could never outgive God.

[SPEAKER_00]: But every time I gave more, he just blessed me more.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's just what I've experienced.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what so many have experienced.

[SPEAKER_00]: My wife and I have done that ever since.

[SPEAKER_00]: We always make sure we give at least 10%, and then we give sacrificially the other things as they come along.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there are other ways that we can give and contribute.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we always make sure that at least that is our baseline, that's our default, that we do.

[SPEAKER_00]: Feels a little weird giving back to the church that pays me, but it's what we've always done.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's what I've done at every church I worked at.

[SPEAKER_00]: And God has always been faithful.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll bet many of you have stories.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of you I know I've talked to, where you're like, man, I struggle with it for a long time.

[SPEAKER_00]: I did not want to give that up.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I finally decided, well, I really need to be faithful in this.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is one area of my life that I have not submitted to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm going to give at least 10% of my income to what God is doing in the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: And every single person says, it's the best decision I could have made.

[SPEAKER_00]: because you can't give out God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because God says, look, see if I don't open the windows of heaven and bless you.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not promising financial blessings, but he's promising blessings.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I have never encountered a person that gave more to God and didn't say, it was worth it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody ever came and said, I want my money back.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a pretty good sign.

[SPEAKER_00]: So how is your giving response to God?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's different for every person.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus made that clear.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a set amount, it's a proportionate amount.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, Paul says let everyone give and proportion to their income.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul actually says that in the New Testament, but do it cheerfully, do it generously, do it faithfully and consistently.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for some of us, that's the message we need today.

[SPEAKER_00]: For some of us, what we need to hear is, okay, we're here, we're here, we're in God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Check, awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's keep doing that faithfully.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's do that every single week.

[SPEAKER_00]: Are we serving God together?

[SPEAKER_00]: Are we faithful throughout the week?

[SPEAKER_00]: Are we worshiping Him throughout the week and everything that we do?

[SPEAKER_00]: Are we obedient to God and everything we do?

[SPEAKER_00]: And then are we giving as response to God and who He is?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because encounters with God lead us to say, hey, I want to do more for Him and what He's doing in this world and it goes all the way back to Jacob and Abraham at the beginning of all of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me have you bow your heads and close your eyes with me right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just ask God to work in our hearts, Holy Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Would you convict us now of the areas in our life that we need to grow in?

[SPEAKER_00]: Lot of pray that you would teach us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Teach us from this message, teach us from your word, help us to trust you more and more, to trust you with everything that we have, but also to show that trust by being generous givers.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, for some people here, this isn't even their church.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're here just to see the baptism.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they have another church, they go to, Lord, I pray that they would be generous to their church, that they'd be faithful givers, Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let us be faithful to you in this act, not just so that we can see your blessing out of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: but because we want to respond to who you are and what you have done our lives, you are a good God, you are a faithful God, you are a generous God, you have blessed us with so much God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes it is a struggle to live for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes we feel like man, why aren't things going right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not saying that it's a guarantee is silver bullet, the right, the right diagnosis in every case, but sometimes I wonder if we're just not being faithful to you with everything we have?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's Lord help us to be a faithful people.

[SPEAKER_00]: and our worship, our obedience, our service, and even in, as Paul says, this gracious act of giving, let us excel in it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Lord, if there's anyone here who does not know you as their savior, I pray that today would be such an encouragement to them as they see these testimonies of baptism and so many people who are demonstrating their faith in Jesus Christ, God, I pray that it would spur them on to wanna put their trust in you.

[SPEAKER_00]: To talk to somebody here today about what it means to be your follower.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in your name we pray, amen.