The Joy of Participation

Morning, everybody. All right, so this morning,

Tanner will be preaching out of Genesis 24.

If you don't have a copy of Scripture, you can find one

under your seat, and if you're using, the one on your seat will

be on page 16. All right, so we'll read Genesis

24. So I will be skipping around

through a few verses so they'll be on the screen so you can

follow along. All right, Genesis 24.

Now Abraham was old, well advanced in years, and the Lord

had blessed Abraham in all things.

And Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who

had charge of all that he had. Put your hand under my thigh,

that I may make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the

God of earth, that you will not take away from my son, from the

daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell, but will go

to my country and to my kindred, and take away from my son Isaac.

Then the servant took ten of his master's camels and departed,

taking all sorts of choice gifts from his master.

And he arose and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of

Nahor, and he made the camels kneel down outside the city by

the well of water at the time of the evening, the time when the

women go out to draw water. And he said, O Lord God of my

master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast

love to my Master Abraham. Behold, I'm standing by the

spring of water, and the daughters of the men of the city

are coming out to draw water. Let the young woman to whom I

say Please let down your jar that I may drink, and who shall

say drink, and I will water your camels.

Let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant,

Isaac. By this I shall know that you

have shown steadfast love to my master.

Before he had finished speaking, behold, Rebecca, who was born to

Bethule, the son of Milka, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's

brother, came out with her water jar on her shoulder.

So he quickly emptied her jar. So she quickly, Sir, quickly

emptied her jar into the through and ran again to the well to

draw water, and she drew for all the camels.

The man gazed at her in silence to learn whether the Lord has

had prospered his journey or not.

Then the young woman ran and told her mother's household

about these things. He said, Come in, O blessed of

the Lord, why do you stand outside?

For I have prepared the house and a place for the camels.

So the man came to the house and unharnessed the camels, and gave

straw and fodder to the camels, and there was water to wash his

feet and the feet of the men who were with him.

Then food, Food was set before him to eat, but he said, I will

not eat until I have said what I have to say.

He said, Speak on. Then Laban and Bethule answered

and said, The thing has come from the Lord.

We cannot speak to you bad or good.

Behold, Rebecca is before you. Take her and go.

Let her be the wife of your master's son, as the Lord has

spoken. When Abraham's servant heard

their words, he bowed himself to the earth before the Lord, and

they called Rebecca and said to her, Will you go with this man?

She said, I will go. Then Rebecca and her young women

arose and rode on the camels and followed the man.

Thus the servant took Rebecca and went on his way.

Now Isaac had to return from Beerla High, Beerla High, Roy,

and was dwelling in the Nagab. And Isaac went out to meditate

in the fields toward evening. And he lifted up his eyes and

saw, and behold, there were camels coming.

And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done.

Then Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah, his mother, and

took Rebecca, and she became his wife, and he loved her.

So Isaac was comforted after his mother's death.

This is the word of the Lord. What's going on?

Port City family and friends, how are we doing?

Good. Well, my name is Tanner and I am

a huge Sinner and that's OK and so are you.

The good news y'all, is that God is good.

He is so gracious. He is in the business of taking

sinners, making them sons and daughters, and then teach them

how to live. And you were created to live in

relationship with him as his child, in relationship with his

church and a family, a stumbling, fumbling group of

recovering sinners who know that they are saved by grace.

Then you were created to be a part of a great adventure in the

mission of God, making disciples to the ends of the earth in

mundane ways and in big ways. So we believe that's what God

has for you. We'd love for you to jump in

here with us at Port City. That's what we're all about

living up in and out together with God, one another and for

our neighbor. Your next step, if you are like,

hey, I'm ready to hear more is starting point and you'll be

hearing more about that later. So I want to pray one more time

just for our hearts and our minds as we dive into God's

word. Then we'll get going.

Our Father, we love you. Thank you so much for your word.

Thank you God, that though we are great sinners, you are a

greater Savior. God, you love us.

You made us in your image. You are so kind and gracious.

Would you once again breathe upon your word, which is alive

and just help us to understand it.

We pray in Christ's name, Amen. I don't know about y'all man.

I know I'm getting older. When I like like plays, I'm

getting into plays, you know, like anytime that and what's

crazy is when they make a new version of it, like a movie

version of a play, you've already seen it, right?

Like I mean like it's kind of like a remake of a movie.

You've already seen it. One of my favorites is the Les

Mis kind of every time they make one, I watch it.

I've gone to I've seen the the Broadway crew came to my town

one time and I watched it. And here's what's so funny.

When you leave, you know, if they did a good job because

you'll be like, Oh, that was a good so and so character, right?

That was a good Valjean. But like, if they mess it up,

you're mad because you know what it should be, but if they do it

good, they did it good and put their spin on it.

That makes sense. Like it's already there, but you

can mess it up and it's already there and you can make it your

own. Does that make sense?

Yo, what I love about that concept, I want to just give you

that concept of a play y'all in in.

To be made in God's image and then be a fallen image bearer is

to think you are directing your own play.

That's what we are born into. Sin means we think we write in

an original. But the good news of the gospel

is that you can become a character in God's play and the

role is already there, is there in your parenting, is there when

you work, is there when you're married, is there when you're

it's already been written and you get to put your spin on it.

As one artist once said, I copy what he did and I'm still

authentic. OK?

The idea is I'm an original as I copy him.

You're not an original if you don't copy him.

Isn't that the great irony of the gospel?

If you want to be an original, you follow Jesus.

That's the good news of the Bible.

So the title of today's sermon is The Joy of Participation.

And what we're going to see in this really long story that

we're kind of chopping up so we can get handlebars around it is

a bunch of people who are participants in something bigger

than themselves. They're just, in a lot of ways,

enjoying the ride of this God who is guiding things without

forcing it and just is there. And we get the joy, as so many

have read this for thousands of years, of taking our trust in

that God into our lives and living it out.

That's what we get to do. So we're going to look at being

a participant through five different little angles.

The neediness of God's participants, the resolve of

God's participants, the guiding hand of God, how that produces

the praise of God's participants.

And then lastly, the pictures of God's participants.

If you're ready, let me hear you say I'm ready.

OK, point #1 the neediness of God's participants.

What you'll notice in this story, which is mainly the main

characters are the servant, Abraham, Rebecca, and Isaac.

And then you've got the trickster.

Laban and the family are involved as well.

What you'll notice is they all need God.

Somebody say I need God. Facts and what's amazing y'all

is God brings you in relationship to himself to need

him. I think many people think if you

know God your needs go down. No, no, no.

Your needs go up as you know God, not down, and the joy

increases the more you depend on Him.

The goal of God in your life is not for you to need Him less,

but more. OK.

And that's what we see in the story starting with Abraham.

We learn in verses one through 4 that Abraham is about to die.

We actually read the story of his death last week.

We're getting into Isaacs story more and this is a a big story

of of some even think by the end of the story Abrahams dead

because the servant comes back and presents everything that

happened not to Abraham but to Isaac.

We can't know for sure, but he is on his deathbed and he's in

the needy position of fulfilling God's covenant to his family to

bless all nations on earth through him.

Well, his son don't have a wife. So on his deathbed, he's not

thinking about himself and his legacy.

He's thinking about God and his faithfulness.

And he's like, how can I participate in God's

faithfulness? I need to get a son, a daughter

from my son. And scholars agree that Isaac

needs to stay in the land as a trust in God's promise that the

land will be where you'll stay. So he can't go, so he sends his

servant. So Abraham needs his servant,

and he needs him to follow his instructions.

You can't go to the women of this land.

And this is not an ethnic prescription he's giving him.

It's a worship one. It's like this is about who God

is, and you go to my family to find somebody for him to marry.

Don't go to the people of this land because they got other gods

and y'all. The reality that Paul picks up

on in this concept of being equally yoked in the New

Testament is just that union and marriage is a highly intimate

thing. And what the Bible teaches is

you don't want to enter a union where your devotion is not

equal. We're like, first place is not

God. You're just asking for God to be

supplanted as the, the, the king of your heart.

And so just the most natural thing ever.

Don't, don't, don't go there. So he asked his servant to go on

his behalf because he's about to die.

Isaac can't leave, which leads us to the servants need.

The servant is like you want me to do what?

I mean, we've shown you all the map before, but he is traveling

hundreds of miles back with some people with them and 10 camels.

So he's going basically they are in the Negeb.

You heard that term. The Negeb is kind of the the gap

between Egypt and the promised land.

So that red bottom left where there it's like orangish in

there. That's kind of like in between

Egypt and the red is Negeb and he's traveling back to Haran.

OK, we're talking hundreds of miles here that he's going to

travel with some camels and some people.

He's like, what do I do? Like he wants specifics when

we're we're we're afraid. We want specifics, don't we?

What do I do if I make a left turn and I should have made a

left quarter turn, you know, like that's kind of like, what

do I do then, huh. Abraham.

And Abraham is basically like you'll be I OK, But we see his

neediness later in the story when he prays, right?

He prays to he prays to the Lord and says, I need some help here.

We'll talk about his prayer more in a little bit.

So prayer represents his need. Then there's Rebecca who's just

going to a well in the middle of the day and meets this stranger

who asked her for water. And then she commences to say,

not only will I water for you, but I'll get some for your

camels. One scholar said that basically

the way an old school well worked, as it was lower than the

rest of the the ground, it was down some.

So imagine like 4 little steps per trip.

You got a three gallon like drum that you're filling up and then

dumping for the camels. A camel can drink 25 gallons of

water in one of these sittings. Says that she probably made 80

to 100 trips that took her up to two hours of watering.

So it's not just like, let me get you camels real quick.

Turns on a hose. It was like a lot of work.

OK. This is she's physically

spending herself. She is vulnerable out here at

this. Well, with this man, she is in

need. And then there's Isaac.

Isaac is needy here. She he's lost his mother.

He needs a wife. He's not being lazy by staying,

He's being dependent by staying. He is depending on God to

provide for him. He he needs to stay in the land.

And so he's in the position of hopefully this servant that my

father sending does what God wants him to do.

He's in a very dependent position.

Y'all, being needy is so hard, isn't it?

It is so hard, but it's so good. The best example I can think of

is think of the last time you were really hungry and you had

something good to eat. Notice you tend to think of

something good you ate when you were hungry.

Sometimes even subpar food, if you were really hungry, becomes

the greatest meal you ever had, because the enjoyment of food is

linked to hunger. No hunger, no craving, no

craving, no quenching. Right?

That's kind of the idea. Imagine how silly it would be if

somebody had a satchel full of goldfish and every time they

felt an ounce of hunger at all, they're like, and they threw the

goldfish in and they systematically tried to remove

hunger from their life. I would pity that person.

You would pity that fool. I pity the fool who eats so many

goldfish. They're never hungry.

Why? Because hunger is a gift.

Hunger tells me I need my hunger quenched.

To remove hunger is to remove feasting.

To remove hunger is to remove quenching.

Y'all. So it is with need.

Y'all. Need is hard, but it's good.

Need is so hard, but it's so good.

And left to ourselves, even those of us who have followed

Jesus for a long time, you would build a world where you did not

need God. Actual facts.

Every time That's what we do, we pray, listen to.

This is why I want you to be considering if you consider

yourself a Christ follower here, where are you going to God to

satisfy hunger versus where you're going to God to remove

hunger as a category from your life?

There's a difference between relying on God and wanting God

to remove your reliance on God. Y'all track it with me?

We learn to relate to God to remove need.

He ain't going to do that. He wants to satisfy need.

Refuge. That's what God wants to be to

your soul. So what does that look like in

your life? If you do a prayer audit, how do

I go to God to remove my need of him versus how do I go to God in

my need of him? Amen.

OK #2 the resolve of God's participants.

Abraham has a lot of resolve in the story says put your hand on

my thigh, which we don't really know exactly what that means,

but it says put some bread on it, put some skin on it.

Put your hand on my thigh. I'm put my hand on your thigh.

Like let's, if you touch my thigh, like that's just not a

place any of y'all going to touch.

You know what I'm saying? Like it's just not going to

happen. It's it's not going to happen.

But y'all notice that Abraham's resolve, he's not confident in

the servant. He's confident in who he's

trusting the servant to. That make sense?

He's basically like, hey, I don't know what's going to

happen, but God's got you. God's got you.

He says perhaps in verse 5, the service, like perhaps you won't

be willing to come with me and da da, da, da da.

And Abraham says in verse 6, see to it that you do not take my

son back there. The Lord, the God of heaven, who

took me from my father's house and from the land of my kindred,

and who spoke to me and swore to me, to your offspring, I'll give

this land. He will send his Angel before

you and you shall take a wife from my son from there.

He is confident of who he's entrusting the servant to.

So resolve is not about you getting more confident in

yourself. You know the source is what

creates the resolve. So I just want to say to our

older Saints in the room, we need people like who Abraham was

in this text telling a younger generation, I don't know, but

you could trust God. We don't need skills from you.

We need resolve from you. Resolve sources from you.

We need you to look at us in our parenting and say God's got it.

We need you to look at us in our marriages.

We need you to look at us in the way we're living out the mission

of God or the way we're spending our money and say, hey, you can

trust God. We need some older Saints and

y'all, we need to be praying for older Saints to jump in with us

because we need people on their deathbed saying you can trust

the God of Abraham, you can trust Jesus Christ, you can

trust Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Then there's the servant's

resolve, right? So the servant, I want to point

this out to you because some people don't know the difference

of these two things. I'm about to say if you look

with me in where does it come? Where's he start praying verse

12. OK, look at verse 12.

And he said, O Lord God of my master Abraham, please grant me

success today and show Steph fast love to my master Abraham.

Behold, I'm standing by the spring of water, and the

daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water.

Let the young woman to whom I shall say, please let down her

jar that I may drink. And who shall say, drink and

I'll water your camels. Camels.

Let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant

Isaac. Y'all.

There's a difference between a prayer for guidance and like a

test prayer. OK, test prayer is do something

crazy and I'll know you're in it.

Test prayer is knock this thing down right now and I'll know

you're listening to me. OK, Guidance prayer is within

the confines of obeying you and trusting you that you've already

given me. I am looking for your activity.

Does that make sense? I'm watching you.

My eyes are on you in the midst of the faithfulness you've

called me to. It's not.

Well, if you do blank, then I'll faith.

I'll be faithful. That is a prayer of unbelief,

OK, Prayer of trust and guidance honors the Lord.

And sometimes they might even sound the same to somebody

listening. And a lot of that comes down to

your heart. This servant wanted to honor his

master Abraham, and he sought the Lord for guidance in doing

that. And then notice he didn't see

one action. And then just defiantly say this

is from the Lord. And my test prayer work.

Look with me at verse 21. So remember 80 to 100 trips

Rebecca took right fill up all the water.

The man gazed at her in silence to learn whether the Lord had

prospered his journey or not. I love that, that word gaze,

where he's just staring and just just prayerfully meditating on

what he's watching and remembering what he prayed and

said. If this happens, Lord, I'll know

you're in it. And then he watches.

I love that image, this resolve that he's building inwardly to

watch what he asked God to do and then meditate on it while

he's watching his prayer get answered.

And you notice that the storyteller.

As they were telling us this story said in verse 15, before

he had finished speaking his prayer, behold, Rebecca, who was

born to Bethuel the son of Milka, the wife of Nabour and

Abraham's brother, came out with her water on her shoulder.

He was already answering the prayer before he had finished

praying it. But that's not the only resolve

the servant has. Later in the story, what happens

is, is he? He meets with Rebecca and she's

convinced right away. She sprints back to the house to

tell him. And now remember, caravan

camels, people, they show up. It says in verses 32 and 33 that

the man came to the house unharnessed.

The camels gave straw and fodder to the camels.

There was water to wash his feet and the feet of the men who were

with him. The food was set before him to

eat. But he said I will not eat until

I have said what I have to say. And they said speak on brother.

Say what you got to say man y'all I love that image.

We have a foot washing survey. Who says I'm not going to speak

after I just met this woman at a well let me talk to you right

quick. And he says I'm not going to

eat. I don't know if you noticed food

breaks your resolve. Did you know that we might

return to this text one day to talk about it as it pertains to

the spiritual discipline of fasting?

But the basic idea is I'm not going to break my resolve by

eating this smoothie with you right now.

I need you to hear what I got to say.

And I'm like, speak, oh, man. And then he tells the story of

God's faithfulness, and he's so resolved that Laban basically

says at the end of it, we know later in Genesis, Laban is a

trickster, and if you give him an inch, he'll take a mile.

Laban says well this is from God, Laban ain't even got

nothing to say because the servant had so much resolve.

And notice y'all, the servant's resolve is not for his game but

for Abraham's gain, it's for Isaac.

Isn't it amazing how much resolve you can have when you

know the triune God in your resolve isn't for your dreams to

come true is for God's covenant faithfulness to go forward.

It's for God to be seen as the good God that he is and for

what? His Kingdom and his agenda has

in mind, and sometimes that means your dreams are coming

true, Sure, but we tend to only listen to resolve type podcast

in the name of building your Kingdom.

But in the Kingdom, your resolve goes up for the sake of others.

Then there's the resolve of Rebecca.

This key moment at the end that we read where basically Laban

tries one more trick. He's like, I can't, I can't mess

with the servant. He's got some resolve.

Hey Rebecca, you really want to go with them?

You can just hear this question after saying this is definitely

from God. Layman says you really want to

go and Rebecca says I will go. Now let me tell you all

something. If you don't have resolve, other

people offer you another narrative than God's.

Do you know that if you are not convinced in your own mind of

what God is doing in something, somebody else will reinterpret

the situation for you. There's usually a layman

standing by. Does that make sense?

Ready to reinterpret the same events?

You should wait 10 days. That's what he said.

She says I will go. I don't know who needs to hear

that when you know the Lord is in it.

I want to be clear. When you know God has sent

something, community is confirming it.

The wisdom, the counsel, the Spirit of God, the Word of God

is within commands of what Scripture has for you and people

around you are confirming that. Get you some resolve and let's

rock'n'roll. Otherwise somebody else will

reinterpret the events for you and y'all.

I want to say this too about Rebecca.

What if she need Laban's? What if she was the type of

woman who needed Laban's blessing?

What if she was the type of woman who needed his?

Kind of like assurance. You got this sis.

After knowing the Lord was in it, She didn't need Laban's

blessing. Does that make sense?

She made her own decision because God was in it.

Y'all Christ's father, you need to hear this.

You are enough in Jesus and only in Jesus.

You are enough and many of us live a lot of our lives to hear

you are enough from other people.

I do that and I understand it. And if I could hear your story I

would know why you want to hear you are enough from another

human being. But I want you to hear that you

are enough in Christ if your daddy never told you that, if a

coach ain't never told you that, if your boss never tells you

that, you are enough in Christ. And that builds a resolve in you

that you don't. It's not that at Christmas I

don't care what nobody think about me.

That ain't what I said. Humans need to hear love and

approval blessed over them. And when you don't get it,

that's called neglect. OK, but the point is, there is

an anchor deeper than the assurance others can give.

There's an assurance only God can give you.

Are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works?

So church, where is our resolve today?

You've got some. You get hype for your workout

plans. You've got some resolve.

We all do. The question is, in what

direction is it aiming and what is its source?

Because what the Bible does is it doesn't do away with resolve.

It re engineers. It re engineers what it's for

and how it's powered. And it's powered by God and for

his glory and our good, for our joy, the good of others.

We go from living for assurance. Bless me, tell me I'm good

enough, to living from assurance.

That's what the gospel does. Point #3 the guiding hand of

God, y'all, the hero of this story is God.

The hero is God. The God who provided a son at

100 years old to Abraham is also just as powerful in a mundane

story with a servant searching for a wife and at A at a well in

the camels and shut and laban up.

And just all these different angles of the story are just as

miraculous, though mundane as when he provides a baby for

somebody who is 100 years old. That's the God of Genesis,

y'all, I love the image of Isaac in the story.

Y'all know Isaac don't even speak Y'all.

What I love about that image because we we named the series

Saints and scoundrels. And every year we're going to

revisit a different scoundrel in the Genesis story.

We started with Abraham and Abraham's that was last year.

His scoundrel is he takes matters into his own hands.

I'm kind of like that, but some scoundrels are very passive.

Y'all, The amazing thing about Isaac's past scoundrel Ness, he

doesn't do a lot directly, obviously wrong.

He just fails to lead in so many ways.

As we'll see in the coming weeks.

He's a very silent participant. He's really faithful in chapter

22 with the, the kind of like sacrifice stories going on, he

says, Lord, he sits there silent, ready to be, uh, y'all,

y'all who are with me know what Abraham was about to do.

He does not speak again until chapter 26, but the stories are

all about him. He is a silent participant in

what God is doing. That's amazing because this

story isn't primarily about Abraham or Isaac, it's about

God. God is doing something, y'all.

To be a good participant in God's story, you have to believe

you're in good hands. Somebody say you're in good

hands, y'all. About 8 years ago I got hurt

playing basketball. I got a lot of stories like that

so let me be specific. I got hurt playing basketball

with a group of high schoolers during school, during class on 7

foot goals, wearing Sperrys, trying to show off for some 14

year old boys. Threw it off the backboard,

tried to windmill it landed and dislocated my toe.

This thing was all kinds of crooked.

I knew it right away. I just walked off the court.

I was like y'all be fine, get home.

I don't I don't even know what's going to happen.

I walked to the trainer's office.

I'm talking to the trainer. I explained to him, he looks at

it, he's like, oh, and he's like, I'll tell you what, man, I

can fix that, but you might lose the toe.

I was like, whoa, don't look at me, don't breathe on me.

Step back, kindly step back. Show me your thumbs, OK?

Don't get them near my foot. But then he's like, oh, good

news, man. In about 45 minutes, this guy

will be here. And he, this is what he does.

He does like foot surgeries and stuff.

He knows what he's doing. I was like, well, praise the

Lord, I'll see him when he gets here.

You go on and get you a Twizzlers or something.

I don't know. Just get out of here.

I love this guy, but he can't touch my foot.

The guy shows up and he's like, hey, man, I mean, he's in

scrubs. I'm immediate, just like I was

in good hands. You're in good hands, OK?

You're in good hands, yo. You're in good hands.

Put your mind at ease, yo. You can trust God.

You can trust the God of Genesis.

You can trust the God who sent his Son to die in your place.

You can trust Him. God is doing so many things in

this story that nobody in the story knows about.

He's doing so much. I want to show you just one.

I want to show you one cool thing that the Bible was trying

to give us a hint about back at the end of chapter 22.

Flip back to the end of 22. So we just read this long story

of 24 of Isaac getting a wife, all the lairs, the servant

praying, coming back, telling the story, all that.

OK, Chapter 23, if you look at the headers in your Bible says

Sarah's death and burial. OK, Chapter 22 was the almost

sacrifice of Isaac. And look what happens at the end

of that story in verse 20. So Abraham just almost

sacrificed his preteen son. And if you're like, what is that

story? We taught on it last year, Go

check it out on our podcast, OK, Amazing story.

And in verse 20 this is what it says now after these things it

was told to Abraham. Behold Milka also has born

children to your brother Nahor us his first born Buzz his

brother Kamul the father of Arum Kassad, Hazel pill Dash Jidlef

and Bethul verse 23 parentheses. Look at the swag of whoever

translated this version. Bethul fathered Rebecca.

Yo what's cool is Abraham didn't know know exactly how I was

going to go and he didn't explain it all to his brother,

but he had heard enough to know God is doing something.

Here's what's crazy. Abraham had one kid by promise

that's that's Isaac. He had 1E force that's Ishmael

His brother had way more kids than him so he could woe is me.

God wasn't in my life. No, no, no, no, God has been

faithful to him and he knows now it's time to trust the Lord and

send his servant back to get a wife or his son.

And the Bible had already told us who they had God had in mind

for him before we even knew it. That makes sense.

Rebecca was already waiting. God had set that up.

Y'all, you are in good hands in the, the 12 steps community,

the, the, a, a community which arrived out of the church, by

the way, in the, in a lot of ways, I think the church needs

to relearn some things from the, a, a community.

One of the things that they say they start every meeting with,

they say their name and say I'm a Sinner or they say I'm a, I'm

an alcoholic or whatever it is. There's different renditions of

this. But one of the things that's

really important, one of their next steps, they say a lot is I

trust that there is a higher power that can handle life

basically that I can entrust myself to.

We know that what the a community needs from the church

that they once knew is that that that higher power is the Triune

God and not some obscure deity that you can't know.

But the point is, we are in good hands when we can trust

ourselves to somebody who can manage our life better than us.

Much of our coping, much of our addiction, much of our control,

much of our anxiety is the result of we do not trust Him to

run it. So we manage our lives and take

control. That's what coping.

That's what addiction tends to be.

It's high control. I just want you to hear that

when we say terms like God is sovereign, what we mean by that

is He is good and He's taking it somewhere even when we don't get

it. We get lost in those

discussions. We're like, well, how does this

work? What does that term mean over

here and this? That's not the point of the

term. The term is He is good and

directionally taking things somewhere and we can trust Him

even when we don't get it. We are in good hands.

The cross of Jesus Christ tells us that we are in good hands.

God cares about us and loves us. God's purposes will ripen fast,

unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste,

but sweet will be the flower. Blind unbelief is sure to air

and scan his work in vain. God is his own interpreter, and

He will make it plain. You can trust God.

Let's talk about the praise of God's participants, y'all.

The servant is the dopest character in this story other

than the Lord. He's so dope.

I mean, he's incredible. We all know his name.

Isn't it amazing you can have more joy as an unnamed character

in God's story than being a Laban who tries to control his

story in verses 50 through 52. I love it.

He gets to the end of he basically just retails the whole

thing. Camels, this water.

I knew it was her. She said she was your family.

I gave her some gold, she came back.

Now I'm telling you this. Verse 50.

Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said this thing has come

from the Lord. We cannot speak to you bad or

good. Behold Rebecca's before you take

her and go and let her be the wife of your master's son, as

the Lord has spoken. Verse 52 hit me like a ton of

bricks this week. Y'all read it with me?

Check it out. When Abraham's servant heard

their words, he bowed himself to the earth before the Lord.

This dude hears that they're in and that God's purposes are

coming to pass, and he just falls down on the ground and

praises God. He ain't falling.

He ain't praising them. He's praising God in front of

them. Yo, we would think that's weird,

right? We would be like if somebody

just bowed in the middle of the day because they thought

something just happened from the Lord and bowed down and be like,

that's a little weird. Y'all.

This is not like Sunday. Some of y'all get uncomfortable

when we worship like that in here, which I hope we do more

and more. Amen.

But this is not Sunday 10 AM kind of bowing.

This is Monday 2:00 PM by the water cooler.

Like bow like just on the floor. God is good.

Praise them, y'all. It's not weird when people

praise God, it's weird when people don't.

OK y'all. We have had a secular blanket

pulled over our eyes. Which means the goal of which is

to relegate religion to a hobby of preference that you practice

in a time and place which we cosign.

And at that time and place you can do whatever you want to do,

like any other hobby. You play basketball there and

you do your worship over there, y'all.

What praise does is it pokes a hole in that blanket.

That makes sense. We know that God controls the

cosmos. We know that every animal knows

its master. We know the truth of how the

oceans were made. We know that all is God's

territory, not just this room, not just where there's steeples.

We know that He is always God, no matter where you are.

We know that praise is the thing that pokes a hole in that

blanket that says stay over there and worship at that place

at that time into. To neglect to praise in public

is to cosign that it only belongs in private.

That makes sense. One of the things secularism

wants to do is make you feel like an idiot.

Just stupid, dumb praise don't matter here.

That was weird. You can do that.

That whatever helps you be a good person, right?

The goal of all that is to say this doesn't actually have

anything to do with reality. It's just for you.

But the opposite is actually true.

We worship because it's true, not because it's helpful.

It's helpful because it's true. Amen.

And So what praise does is it pokes a hole in that and

actually flips it and makes it seem weird when you're not

praising. Does that make sense?

So one of your applications this week is don't be weird.

Praise God, don't be weird and start praising God.

But this is the serious question, where have we accepted

that God does not belong? Where in your life, in your job,

in the things you do? Where have you subconsciously

agreed with a lie that God does not belong?

There, He's not in charge there, He does not care there.

Is it your street? Is it your workplace?

Is it your job? Is it with your friends?

With your family? Who thinks you're annoying and

in a weird Jesus phase? Does not matter what they I.

I empathize with all those and do all of those.

OK, but the point is, praise ain't weird.

Not praising is weird. Lastly, the pictures of God's

servants. Y'all, there are three just

amazing pictures in the story that again point to something

bigger than the characters in it, right?

The first one is marriage. Y'all, marriage in the story is

beautiful. It's a different time where

prearranged marriages were normal is different than what

we're used to, y'all. But marriage between a man and a

woman, as Ephesians 5 tells us, points to Christ and the church.

That's why it exists. Marriage exists to glorify God

by exemplifying the way Christ the husband relates to the

bride. That is the church, the

collective people of God that have been purchased from every

tribe, tongue, and nation on the earth.

So in a lot of ways, we live in a love story and we are the lost

Princess who needs to be rescued and Jesus Christ is that hero.

He is the king that comes and gets the damsel in distress.

He is Shrek. We are Fiona kids.

OK, The difference is the way He rescues us and makes us His

bride and purchases US is not by slaying but being slain.

Are you with me? There's a picture here of a

beautiful marriage ceremony that points to the ultimate purpose

and the ultimate marriage feast that is coming one day where

Christ the King gets the honor he is due because he is the

victorious one who was slain and then rose three days later.

He came to make us beautiful. He didn't choose you because you

are beautiful. In Christ y'all we have a king,

we have a rescuer who came to make us lovely.

He loves us. We are lovely because he loves

us. That's the good news of the

Gospel. The second picture here is one

of service. Y'all alluded to it earlier, but

again, can you think of another servant who is a foot washer?

Can you think of another servant who meets a woman at a well and

changes her life? Can you think of another servant

who puts the needs of others above his own?

Can you think of a servant who does something that other people

get to reap the benefits of? Isaac gets a wife not because he

went and got one, but because the servant did.

Can you think of a servant who does for others what they can't

do for themselves? Can you think of a servant who

goes in the place of somebody who could not go?

Y'all, who are you in this story?

You are Laban, I am Laban. We are the bums that think we

control God. We are the ones.

We are not the hero of this text.

We are the ones just waiting for a foothold to become the

director of the moment. But the hero of the story comes

to turn Labans into Isaac's, to turn Labans into Rebecca's, to

turn us into participants with joy that we no longer run the

show. We are a part of it, y'all.

The good news of the gospel is not that he will recruit you if

you will get it together, Is that though you are you, though

you are a great Sinner, though you can't get it together,

Christ died for you. He came to die in your place,

and then present His purchase life, His perfect life, to the

Father, and say, though they didn't do it, treat them as if

they did. Let what they did do be unto me,

and let what I did be counted unto them.

That is the gospel. It's an amazing picture of our

king in this servant. And then lastly, y'all the 3rd

just great picture. Here's one of adventure.

Y'all, we have a servant just trust in the Lord and getting

miraculously provided for and mundane circumstances that are

happening all the time in that culture and you might be here

today. And when I say things like be a

participant in God's story, you're like, I don't feel like

I'm ready to be in God's story. I'm not good at blank or I don't

have a job that I'm not a missionary, I'm not a pastor.

I don't sing well, Amen. Neither do I OK?

I can't serve the Lord if I don't have those skills.

And the point is participants in God's story aren't those with

high skill. They're just ones who are

saying, Lord guide me, help me. I got 5 loaves and two fish.

That's what I got. Help do something with this.

Can you do something with this? The Lord can do something with

whatever we bring to him. OK.

I remember one time I heard the story of a of a woman who was

living in the largest population of a certain people group in the

United States in one city where a lot of them had just been

relocating to. That's that tends to be how how

immigration works is a lot of them end up in the same area.

And I remember she was like, I love these people so much.

She lived in an apartment complex that was 99% that people

group and she was just a stay at home mom with two kids.

She was like this is the craziest chaotic life ever, but

these are my 5 loaves and two fish and I love it.

I just was so challenged by that.

She didn't have some crazy success stories of what all God

was doing yet or anything like that.

She just was like, I love this. What that pointed out to me was

the joy of participation. I'm not promising you what will

happen in your life if you trust the Lord and get in His story.

I don't know, you might glorify Him a lot with a really hard

life. I don't want that for you.

I want it to go great. I want the church to blow up

within 5 seconds. I want the things to happen.

Are you tracking with me? I want things to, I want things

to to go really well. But what we do is we bring our

five loaves and two fish. We offer it to the Lord and we

say he do something with this and we get the joy of

participating in his story. You know, I'm going to end with

a simple poem this week. This is it.

It's 2 lines. Only one life will soon be

passed. Only was done with Christ will

last. Only one life will soon be

passed. Only what's done with Christ

will last. Let's pray.

Our Father, we love you. Thank you so much that you want

to turn us from from from Laden's into to Isaac's where we

just reap the joy of being in your story.

God, may we trust you, May we trust you.

God, you are so worthy of trust. We love you, we declare that we

need you. God, teach us to be OK with

being needy, Teach us to depend on you, delight in you, abide in

you and just offer you our five loaves and two fish and watch

what you do. We love you and pray these

things in Jesus name, Amen.