The Power of Promise

What's going on? Port City family and friends.

How are we doing? Good.

My name is Tanner. I'm one of the pastors here.

So pumped You're with us. We're going to start a new

sermon series in the life of Isaac, and we're pumped.

These are things we skip over in our reading plan.

Amen. Buying of caves and what not,

but it is loaded with the illogical significance and I am

excited to dive into it with you.

Y'all here at Port City we just want to help you walk with

Jesus. That's what we want to do.

We want to help you learn the scriptures.

We want to help you learn the value of the church and

belonging to 1 not just attending one.

And then we want to help you learn about God's mission and

what are you still doing all over the earth and included in

our great city of Norfolk, saving people.

And your next step if you're wondering about groups, about

giving, serving, all the things here is to go to starting point.

Our next one is next week, and you'll hear more about that in

our announcements. OK, so I want to pray one more

time for our time and God's word, and then we will dive in.

Our Father, we're so grateful for your word.

Lord, if you did not make yourself known, we wouldn't know

you. We didn't go looking for you.

You came and found us. You came to seek and save the

lost. We praise you God that this is

not a game that this is real and God, we we find ourselves as you

find us. So Lord, reveal yourself to us

now by your word, we pray in Christ's name, Amen y'all I love

a good highlight video. I love them.

YouTube came out in O five OK high school.

Tanner loved this one video, a Kobe Bryant compilation.

The songs, the highlights. It just was, I mean, just, I can

hear the music. So powerful.

I remember this video like crazy.

Highlight videos are incredible. They cut out the millions of

times they missed shots and they just show you all the amazing

things in a row. It's incredible.

That's literally the definition of a highlight video, right?

They're amazing. They cut out all the boring

stuff and just show you the highlights.

Here's the problem, they're not real.

Like what we love about them is what's wrong with them?

They're not real. Life is not a highlight video.

Amen, somebody Amen somebody. Our, our, our brother and sister

Andrew and I are learning that right now with a newborn, Amen.

That's why we just prayed for him, because life is not a

highlight. But y'all, what we do, what all

of us do, is we take the highlight mentality into our

walk with Jesus. And what could be very dangerous

is to think that what God wants is just give you unending

highlights. It's not true.

I listen to a sermon on patience and I still hate my roommate.

I feel motivated to love my enemy, but I don't love my

enemy. I hear a sermon about the

nations and I like that, but I don't.

I don't want to be uncomfortable.

I I listen to this really cool worship song in the car and then

I get out and I just want to please my boss.

That's life. Now, what I'm not saying is

following Jesus really isn't possible.

What I am saying is is not going to feel like a highlight reel.

Hey, it's not going to feel like that.

It is going to be a pilgrimage, a journey.

It's going to be a step by step journey rooted in promises, but

it's going to feel mundane. And thankfully, the Bible is not

a book of highlights. Praise the Lord, and none more

real than the story of Abraham. Now long stretches of time go on

in between verses at times, but it is our reading into it

highlights, not what it is communicating to us.

Are y'all tracking with me? So in the story of Abraham and

into Isaac, as we get into Isaac's story, my hope for us is

that we learn to live with God in a promise based pilgrimage

and not highlight certainty. Are y'all with me promise based

pilgrimage, promise based journey and not a highlight

certainty. Does that sound good?

That sounds good to me. So today we're going to talk

about knowing our promise history, living the promise in

the present. And then I got 3 promise lessons

for you. OK?

Know your promise history, Live in your promise present.

And I got 3 lessons for you. If you're ready, let me hear you

say I'm ready. OK, let's talk about knowing the

promise history. We got to know who this dude

Abraham is before we can talk about Isaac.

We got to know. OK?

So I invite you to turn with me to Genesis Chapter 11.

Genesis 11 · chapter mention

OK? This is arguably one of the

biggest moments in Scripture. If you had a list of 10 most

important verses in the Bible, I hope you know Genesis 12/1 is

there. It's in the top ten.

OK, it's when God calls Abraham. But before he calls Abraham, we

got a scene at Babel that epitomizes the problem.

You know, every good saga story starts off with the hero, right?

The first Star Wars starts with Luke Skywalker.

They're showing you the solution to the problem.

You don't yet know. OK, when Genesis 11, we meet

Darth Vader. OK, we meet the problem.

And then Genesis 12 is the calling of the hero.

Does that make sense? But we're going to see that the

hero has problems. It's it's an awesome story all.

OK, so the in Genesis 11, just look at the the titles of the

the your Bible is giving you some headers to let you know

kind of what's happening. The original authors of the

Bible and scholars agree. Tradition tells us is Moses

compiled this for us. It says the tower of Babel.

Then you look down, it says Shem's descendants, then Tara's

descendants and then chapter 12 it says the call of Abraham.

Do y'all see those? OK, those descendants lists have

another name called genealogies. Genealogies are lists of names

and anytime you see a list of names, you should be thinking

something new is about to happen.

The biblical authors are trying to send you send you a message

that something new is coming. So notice it goes Tower of Babel

names, names Abraham, Babel names Abraham, y'all with me?

So something new is starting in Abraham.

He's he's the the guy that God is going to use to do something

new, which makes Babble a big deal.

OK, so Babble is bad. It's really bad.

And I want to show you what is so bad about it.

And just two verses. I can't walk through the whole

story, but look at Chapter 11 verses four and five chapter is

the big number versus the little number.

So big 11, little 4. Then they said, Come, let us

build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the

heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be

dispersed over the face of the whole earth.

Verse 5. And the Lord came down to see

the city and the tower which the children have of man had built.

Did you notice the prominence of the word ourselves?

Underline that word. Even if you reason reading our

our copy here you know just underline it.

Next person who opens that will see it ourselves.

Y'all The epitome of what was wrong was ourselves.

Sin is self. God created things good.

He created Adam and Eve full of potential to Co labor in the

world and cultivate it with God and to walk with God in the

garden day after day. And this was God's good

intention. We were naked and unashamed.

We were married, we had jobs. And then the fall comes.

The curse comes. It's fractured, it's broken, and

God has to, in His love, kick them out of the Garden of Eden.

And there's something about the human soul that is trying to

find our way back to God's place under God's rule, with God's

purpose. We want him, we want his place,

we want purpose, we want safety. But what sin is it is instead of

going to God to get what only God can give, it is going to

something else. It's going to yourself to give

what only God can give. So instead of going to the

source of life to get life, instead of going to the author

to get a story, instead of going to God to get security, we say

we got it. And Babel represents the epitome

of we got it. I got this.

That's sin. Sin is self, by the way, I like

to think of it is in your sin and my sin.

What we do is we are both dead in our sin.

That's the doctrine. Quite literally.

You're dead and you're dying. You're quite literally killing

yourself. And that's what they were doing

at Babel. They were trying to build a name

for themselves, quite literally building a tower up to heaven.

How stupid does that sound to our modern ears, right?

But y'all, it's, it's what we do in a number of different ways,

day after day after day as we are trying to make a name for

ourselves. So what is God going to do about

the sinful humanity? I'll tell you what he's going to

do. Chapter 12, verse one.

Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your

kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show

you, and I will make of you a great nation and I will bless

you and make your name great. Y'all, the God of the Bible

wants to make you great. Like it's crazy.

Like he says I'm going to make a great name of you.

They're trying to do it for themselves at Babel and Yahweh

Elohim, he says I will bless you.

You don't have to go get it. I give it.

I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you,

I will curse. And in you all the families of

the earth shall be blessed. So naturally we're thinking this

Abraham guy must be special. He must be a St. well, as we

find in his story, he is quite the scoundrel.

So God is choosing to do this of his own prerogative, not because

Abraham is special. We see in verse 4.

So Abram and by the way, if you're like why you keep saying

Abraham, He goes by Abram. I'm not walking through all of

Abraham's story today. I'm trying to catch you up.

He gets renamed in Genesis 17. Abraham, which means father of

many nations. So Abraham went as the Lord had

told him and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he

departed from Haran. And hopefully even that when you

say Haran, that's a, that's a, he's leaving from there to go

into what is known as the promised land where God was

telling him to go. And there's, there's a lot

there. So what happens is God says we

got a problem. We got a Death Star, we got a

Darth Vader. It's us, it's ourselves.

I need to hear. I need a plan to save them from

themselves. So he calls somebody who's

themself broken and busted a scoundrel.

So how's that going to help? This is the God of the Bible.

He says, I'm going to I'm going to do something about it.

And I'm going to call a barren 75 year old man with no kids and

tell him through him a bunch of nations going to come and you're

like, huh, this guy, this is the guy, This is your guy.

He's a 75 year old man with no kids.

And then for the next 25 years, he does not have a kid of his

own with his wife Sarah. They are barren still.

They try to force it. They try to have him have a kid

with another woman, so he is a scoundrel.

They struggle with trust and faith.

But after 25 years of waiting, struggling, believing, trusting,

not believing, losing hope, but still trusting, God gives them

the promised son, Isaac. And there's so many other

stories I could go through, but the last before we jump to to

their deaths in the, the The Cave story that we read, I want

us to just kind of be thinking, how does this work?

Like how did their dynamic work? If he's such a scoundrel, why

did God keep operating within? Why did he choose them?

What is going on? How does this, how could it work

that a sinful man like Abraham is able to be the chosen one

through whom we're going to solve the Death Star problem

that happened at Babel? Y'all, there's one really

important story in Genesis 15 that I just want to kind of

narrate for you, Y'all. In Genesis 15, God establishes a

covenant with Abraham. Somebody say covenant, y'all?

A covenant is not a contract, OK?

What becomes very clear is this is not a business partnership

between Abraham and God to save the world, OK.

And the way God demonstrates this is back in the old days,

the way you would initiate or institute a covenant is you

would take some animals and RIP them in half and you would kind

of make like a dance wall. Like imagine like at a wedding,

like it's time for the percolator, like that type

moment. Come on, somebody.

But what is lining it is not your friends and family.

It's like dead birds and you're like, and it stinks and it's

bloody. They're ripped in half.

The idea was we're in a covenant together.

Let's walk through these dead, ripped apart animals and if

either of us breaks our end of the covenant, let it be to us as

it was to these animals. So you don't enter a covenant

Willy nilly, right? And something incredible happens

in Genesis 15. This is what happens at the

moment. They're about to walk through

the percolator line together of ripped up animals.

God puts Abraham to sleep and the Bible says a smoking torch

and a flame of a pot go through what is happening there, y'all?

It is so important to every story we read about Abraham and

Isaac for the next six weeks with Isaac y'all, what is

happening in that moment is God is making it abundantly clear

I'm going to do this. You are sinful.

We can't both walk through this or the person who doesn't do it

will be ripped apart because you'll be ripped apart before we

get through it. Because you are a scoundrel.

The point of the covenant is to show God is going to do it from

beginning to end. He didn't choose Abraham 'cause

he's of a special stock that won't mess it up.

He is going to do it despite Abraham messing it up, even at

the cost of him being ripped apart, which makes Jesus on the

cross not just him dying in the place for your sin.

It is covenant fulfillment of what He promised to Abraham.

He is ripped apart to fulfill everything promised starting in

Genesis 12/1. Jesus dying on the cross is the

solution to what happened at Babel.

He is ripped apart to make our name great, to bless us.

So you could be in the lineage of Abraham, not by blood, but by

faith. See, all that is how this works.

That's how this is possible. God is faithful, not you.

So if you don't know Jesus, probably what you would tell me

if I took you out the coffee, which I pray gets to happen at

some point. He's like, I don't want to go to

coffee with this guy, go with somebody else.

What we're going to tell you is that God has plans for your life

and you just have to sign on the dotted line of Jesus blood and

trust him and follow him. And you're going to tell me you

don't think you can follow Jesus and we're saying I don't think

you have it in you following Jesus about God, He was ripped

in part so you could follow him. He is the covenant making,

covenant keeping God. You are not signing a business

contract where you do 50 and God does 50.

He is the covenant making covenant keeping Yahweh whose

blood was ripped shed for you. So just know if you don't want

to opt in at poor city, it ain't because you ain't good enough.

None of us are we all scoundrels.

There aren't some Saints, some scoundrels.

God makes scoundrels into Saints by his blood.

Amen, somebody. That's how this works.

Now let's zoom up to chapter 23, verses 1 and 2.

Sarah is dying. She dies.

Sarah lived 127 years. These were the years of the life

of Sarah. And Sarah died at Curiath Arba,

that is Hebron in the land of Canaan.

And Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to wheat for her.

So y'all just want to give you a couple of clues both of time and

location, Time and location. Cause a lot is going on here and

it's not just highlights, OK? When they were called, they were

called in the land of Haran. We want to show you a map real

quick, OK? This is modern day.

This is modern day like Syria, Middle East, Turkey, these

different dynamics. So they started in the land of

Erb, bottom right of your screen.

OK Haran is where they were called.

So like Abraham's family's originally from Erb, they were

called when they were in Haran, they traveled down into the

promised land. And then you you've been here in

the term Hebron, OK, This is where The Cave scene is going to

go down is in Hebron. Hopefully you see that in the

red in the bottom left under Jerusalem.

Y'all see that? OK, so that is where this scene

goes down, where Abraham goes to the Hivites and he says hey, my

wife is dead, OK. And by the way, this is point #2

living the promise present, My fault.

So she is 127 when she dies, OK? She was 65 when they called her

up in Haran, OK? She was 90 when she had the

Promise kids. So 25 year gap right?

She finally has the kid and then for 37 years she gets to be

Isaac's mom and then she dies. OK they were promised you will

be the the you know through you all families on earth will be

blessed. But at the end of their days

they had nothing. And I just want to be clear, God

had promised them stuff. They had the kid but no no

actual land was theirs. Are y'all tracking with me?

They have been faithful to the God of this covenant and they

trusted him. But she dies.

So what Abraham does and this this chapter 23 is one of those

where you read it in your reading plan.

You're like, why is this here? What is this?

Can I just where's the next highlight when Lord is a good

story coming? OK, I get this one.

I'll read this one y'all. It's all there on purpose.

Think about this. God promises them the promised

land. They own none of it.

And another thing you'll notice as you go back and read Genesis

23, God's name is not mentioned by Abraham.

Abraham didn't tell him directly to buy The Cave that we know of.

But at the end of his wife's life, he mourns for her and he

gets up. He's been promised this thing,

all this land through him, all the nations on earth will be

blessed. He's been given the kid.

I'm gonna buy land for where my wife's going to be buried.

So he has to go to the power holders of that day, the

Hivites. And you'll notice in their

little dialogue, it feels very like Ruth 4:00-ish.

For those of y'all that know your Bible, like this purposeful

actual ceremony of buying something legally, they want to

say you can use it. What they're trying to do is say

we'll loan it till you use it. Do what you need to do, but it's

ours. And he said no, no, no, no, no,

Let me buy that thing. I want to put my stamp on this

land that God gave me. Do you get that?

He's buying land. God already gave him.

Y'all track with that. He's purchasing promised land.

So it's an anchor of faith that God gave us this and I need

somewhere to lay down my wife. And so I'm going to do it here

where God gave me the land. So he goes to the power holders

of the land in Hebron, which if you notice is in the heart of

the promised land. He says, let me hide that cave.

They do a little cat and mouse. And the guy basically says, I

can't give you The Cave. I'll give you the, the, the, the

field. And he expands it even more,

gives him more than he asked for.

And he charges them a big price for.

And Abraham says, I'll take it. So what's happening right under

our nose is that part of the promised land is now legally

his. He has legally bought some of

it. And for future generations to

come, others will be buried here.

Not only does Sarah get buried here, we're about to see Abraham

gets buried here. We're going to see later in

Genesis, Isaac will, Jacob will, Rebecca will, and Leah will.

It becomes a symbol of God's faithfulness to this family that

they get to keep coming back to this land no matter who lives

there, though they are vulnerable and they could get

some armies and tell them you don't own this land no more.

It's like God is doing something right under the nose of the

nations that he's going to do in fullness later.

Y'all track with me. So this is a massive moment in

Abraham's life. And what I really like about it

is like the promise God gave him, gave him some like.

Promise filled creativity, like I didn't get directly told to

buy this field, but God told me all of it's mine, all of it will

be my family's. And he just kind of, he's like,

hey, I'll walk in that and like he didn't have certainty of how

it would go. So there's a lot of fear here.

So I don't know who needs to hear this, that if you're

following Jesus, like we don't get highlight certainty.

God is not going to tell you how every single risk is going to

go. He told us that His glory is

going to cover the earth as waters cover the sea, so we

bring future signs of the Kingdom.

He told us He's going to have a Worshipful celebration of His

name from every tribe and tongue.

So we share the gospel with people from every tribe and

tongue, but we don't know how it's going to go.

Or y'all track it with me, but we have enough of a promise to

buy The Cave. Or y'all track it with me.

We have enough of who God is to walk in what He's called us to

in the Great Commission and in all of the promises of

Scripture. But it does doesn't mean you get

a highlight certainty of how it's going to go.

This was a risky faith filled faith creative move based on the

promises of a covenantly faithful God.

Are y'all with me? OK, now let's skip up to where

Abraham dies in chapter 25, Genesis 25, Big 25, Little 7.

These are the days of the years of Abraham's life, 175 years.

Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old

man and full of years, and was gathered to his people.

Isaac and Ishmael. His sons buried him in The Cave

of Machpelah in the field of Ephron, the son of Zohar, the

Hittite east of Monterey, the field that Abraham purchased

from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried with

Sarah, his wife. After the death of Abraham, God

blessed Isaac his son, and Isaac settled at Beer Lahi Roy.

Again, if you are in Israelite hundreds of years later in

slavery in Egypt, a story like that is going to fill you with

faith. Though we might be slaves now in

Egypt, we own some of that land and God is doing it.

It may not feel like it right now while I'm a slave, but God

is in the midst of setting us free and taking us back.

Y'all, What God is doing is He is fulfilling what He said He's

going to do. And even when it doesn't feel

fully fulfilled yet, you get to live in that future world of

fulfillment in the present. Does that make sense?

It's already not. Yet it is not that different

than a present day believer who knows Jesus Christ knows one day

all things will be made new. But you live in a busted broken

world where your Mama can't stand you because you follow in

Jesus, where you got friends who push back on you.

You've got a lot of tension between what God has said is

true and your experience. So we have a model for how to

live as if things are what God says in the midst of a reality

that says it's not that way and something crazy happens when we

trust God anyways. He is writing His story.

Even if you feel controlled by other people's story.

Amen, somebody. So Isaac settles in beer la Hi

Roy. And in that, that is right there

in the heart of the promised land.

So here's what I want to do. The the the torch is passing to

Isaac. Him and Ishmael get together to

bury the dad, which is full of theological significance.

The son of the promise, the son of the slave woman come together

to bury the father, but only one goes forward with the promise.

Oh take me to coffee. I wish I could give you more,

but what I want to do is give you 3 promise lessons that we

learn from the life of Abraham as things pass on to his son.

I got 3 lessons. It's going to come in like 2

sides of a coin, something about God and then what we learn about

life of promise, pilgrimage in light of that.

Y'all ready? First thing Abraham and Sarah

know as they die is this. God is.

I don't know if you ever heard that phrase before.

God just is. You know what that means?

You know what is means? It means he's self-sufficient,

non contingent. OK, you are dependent.

God is independent. God is.

He existed before all things were created.

He is triune, father, son and spirit.

He creates all things ex nihilo out of nothing.

And before he called Abram, he was God.

After called Abram, he was God. He didn't call Abram because

Abram was looking for him. He called Abram because he

wanted to call Abram. God is God, doesn't react, God

acts. I don't know if you notice, God

is God and you are not God is God.

He's patient. He makes a promise when he's 75

and then the kid comes at 100. So the whole time they were

whining like God, what are you going to do?

Do you ever do that? And he did exactly what he said

he was going to do. He's God.

He ain't dependent on nobody. He's self-sufficient.

He's eternal. He's God.

He's so big. He's author, he's patient, he's

provider, he's covenant maker. So what do we do with that?

Pilgrims embrace being human. To be a Pilgrim is to embrace

being human. Remember at Babel they were

trying to be God. To be saved is to joyfully re

enter being a human and not be God is to say I'm not God is to

joyfully say I'm not in charge. In our sin we D God God and we

try to be God. We try to be the author of our

own story, the captain of our own fate.

We try to live like we're not going to die.

But y'all, to be saved, to know God, to trust Christ is to give

up on being God is to give up on being.

The author of your story is to hand the pin back.

Amen. Somebody.

So just go. You know what?

I'm sorry. Like I'll, I'll, I will enter

your story now. I'll stop living ignorantly.

Ignorance is not bliss. Actually, a story with you as

the author where my circumstances get worse is

better than one where I continue to hold this pin.

To know God is to just say you got it man.

And for some of y'all you are exhausted of being God.

I remember the first time I heard the gospel at 18 years

old. That was part of what was

happening in my soul. I didn't really understand is

you are a created being created to submit to a God who is who

has unlimited resources. He is mysteriously big and good

and like you can know him. So he's like the perfect blend

of like unknowable mind blowing, this God of Genesis and also

like intimate and near promise giver.

That's what your soul was created for and what it does.

It just makes you relax. Just relax.

You were created to be a child with the father.

You were created to be rescued by the Prince.

You were created to live in an adventure.

And in this God, you can just handle the pen and rest a little

bit. And for some of you, I just want

to invite you because you know, you don't know that rest,

because when you hold the pen and you're trying to be God,

it's exhausting, isn't it? It fills your life with anxiety

and paranoia. You got to build your Kingdom

and protect it. That's what you got to do.

You got to take more land and defend the land you got.

That's what the kings of the earth do.

And in your sin, that's what you got to do.

And when you're holding the pen, you know it's on you.

So one of the things salvation does is it just and then walking

with Jesus every morning you get up or whenever you you know you

get in the word and do your quiet time is hopefully you re

giving the pen like not in a salvific way because you've been

saved by grace through faith and the spirit indwells you, but

it's just taking your flesh and saying flesh.

We are more at home when we give them the pen and when we control

the story. So let's relax again.

Let's do it again. Give it to them.

Y'all. There's more joy in having a

king than trying to be 1. And some of y'all know you still

trying to be a king. You're not a king, and what's

causing the misery in your life is your continued attempt to be

God. Pilgrims embrace being human #2

God is promise giver. God gives promises, so he is.

He chose Abram. Boom.

Abram may choose God first. Facts.

He just does. He chose Abram.

Why did you choose Abram? Because he did.

God is promise giver. There's nothing in Abraham.

Abraham that made it like it. Just that's, that's who he is.

Why did he pick a 75 year old bum who was going to do some

wicked stuff? Because he's God, that's why.

That's who God is. So pilgrims trust and obey.

Y'all Pilgrimage is like a journey towards a place.

I'm going to go to this thing and do this thing.

You know, I got to go there. I got to get there.

I'm on a journey, y'all, the the pilgrimage for the believer, the

follower of Jesus. The difference is we're not

really aiming for a place. We're just aiming for God

himself. We're trusting and obeying him.

And yes, we will enter fully into the full expression of that

trusting and obeying in heaven, where his, you know, his glory

is so present that the Son is not needed.

But it's not altogether a different reality than the

current one. When you trust and obey, it's

just a fuller extent of it. But trusting, obeying is the

destination, y'all. It's a stumbling destination, as

Abraham and Isaac will model for us.

We mess it up like we struggle to trust them.

We're like, what are you doing? You know I don't trust you.

How could you? It's a life of him splitting a

Red Sea. And then y'all got some food and

you go, is God even real? It's constantly.

Like it's just constantly. You're going to struggle, you're

going to stumble, but you're given a purpose, you're given an

identity. Every step Abraham took for the

rest of his life had purpose and identity.

Hebrews tells us that Abraham died not having received what

was promised. Friend, we look at it like

Abraham had some great life. You have more technology in your

pocket right now that Abraham. I mean, he would have killed to

have an iPhone, man. He was so vulnerable at all

times. He was a stranger, a wanderer.

He had a son, but he was vulnerable all the time.

Him and Sarah were constantly vulnerable.

They were Wanderers. They didn't get, in a lot of

ways, what was promised to them. They got a son, but other than

that, their life was chaotically difficult.

But they got God, they got Yahweh, they got the God.

Who is to y'all? I don't know what you think you

need today, what it is, What is it you think you need to have

full joy? So what the Bible presents is

that when you get God, you get everything.

And if you have everything without God, you really have

nothing. And So what many of us do is we

play this cat and mouse game where you're like, well, how

much of everything can I get and get God?

What if I can do both? Hey, y'all, all of us have done

it. All of us think like that.

All of us do it. I've done it.

I do it. But listen, y'all, the Bible,

the story of Abraham, the story of Isaac is a testament to get

God. The pilgrimage is to trust and

obey, and obedience becomes the litmus test of if you're

trusting. If you trust, you obey.

They're two sides of the same coin.

You can't say I trust and not obey.

That's how it works. I trust them.

I just don't do nothing. You know, it just don't work

like that. The way you exemplify your trust

is to walk in the steps, right? So I don't know what it is you

think you need today. You need God.

I want better circumstances for you.

Don't hear me saying I don't want your circumstances to

change. I'm just telling you, you have

to have God. You have to have the God who is

third thing. God is gracious.

God is so gracious, man. Abraham a bum.

Isaac a bum. I'm a bum.

You a bum. I'm a bum.

She's a bum. He's a bum.

Because we're all bums. Heck, my man, you watch some

good burger. That's my guy.

Keenan and Kel. Oh, man, you know Kel's a youth

pastor, y'all. This is my brain.

It's fun. Kills the man, Y'all, They're

scoundrels, y'all, they are scoundrels.

Scoundrels need grace, y'all. Genesis is about God.

It is all about God. God's grace takes prisoners and

makes them into pilgrims. Y'all in your sin, in my sin.

We are prisoners. We are prisoners of our own

making. We build the cell that we then

live in and lock ourselves in. That's what we do.

We got nobody to blame for our misery.

Now don't hear me saying nothing bad has happened to you.

I don't know your story and I would love to sit down and talk

with you. But what causes our misery isn't

what's happened to us as much as it is us.

It's our sin, it's our attempts to solve it.

It's our holding the pen. We create the jail cell and then

we live in it. We get comfortable in jail.

Then the gospel comes and tells you you're in a prison of sins,

making your own making, and God offers to take the jail cell for

you to go in and take your punishment and let you go.

He says I'll live in here, I'll take the penalty of all this.

You get to go free, but you aren't just free to just walk

out the cell and do your thing. You're given a purpose, a

journey. You're a Pilgrim making

progress, OK. You're a Pilgrim making progress

in the presence of God with a lot of promises from God.

You have purpose from God. That's the gospel.

The gospel is that you are a scoundrel.

You are in a lot. And listen, we're complicated

scoundrels. We're wicked and weak where

stuff has happened to us, right? Like there there are things are

things been said to you that would break my heart and I would

cry with you if I could talk with you right now.

So you are weak like things have happened that are not your fault

that I would weep with you over. But you are also a scoundrel.

You are and you need radical grace.

You need help, you need grace, you need mercy and that's the

gospel. The gospel is not that you are

good and you need a little bit of coaching.

The gospel is that you're dead and your sin.

You need radical intervention by God to save you, to help you, to

wash you in the blood of Jesus. The cross is a symbol of God's

great love for you and your great need for God, y'all.

We needed that much help. Do you agree with God's

testament to you that you need saving?

Or do you still just think you need some help?

You need some coaching, y'all. I just want to invite you to

acknowledge you need grace. Pilgrims throw themselves upon

grace. I mean just throw themselves on

it. Uncalculated.

Just utter jumping in on grace of God.

This God has saved me. Radical mercy.

We get uncalculated. I want to invite some of y'all.

If you've been walking with Jesus for awhile and you're

still just calculated, think about what God's done and lose

the calculations. You with me like God has saved

you. Lift up the cup of salvation.

Call on his name. Trust him.

The beautiful part is He died to save you, so you would need him.

He didn't die to save you, so you wouldn't come to him and

bother him. He purchased you to bring you to

himself, not to get you away from him.

He purchases you, so you'll need him.

I've been studying in Psalm 116 it says I will lift up the cup

of salvation. I will call upon his name and

Thanksgiving, and I will call upon the name of the Lord,

meaning I will need him. You honor him by needing him.

He died for you, so you'd need him.

He brings you into his story. I just want to say this man like

what we see in the story of the the the early Genesis story with

Isaac, with Abraham, y'all on their deathbed.

Would Sarah and Abraham have said they had God figured out?

No. They'd be like God.

He's crazy. Maybe wait 25 years.

Do you know enough? Yes.

Do I know everything to have God figured out?

No. Do I know enough to know he's

really good? He goes the distance and I can

trust him? Yes.

Y'all First Corinthians 13 says that we see now dimly, meaning

we don't see everything about Christ, We don't see reality

fully as it is. We're even on our best day

looking at the cross, begging God for eyes to see.

It's blurry, it's blurry, but you see enough.

You see dimly. Dimly is plenty.

If you've seen Christ, if you've seen the cross, if the Holy

Spirit indwells you, if you have God's word, if you have the

church, if you have his mission, you've seen enough, you've seen

enough. Trust Him.

I want to close with this. There's a one of my favorite

images of what following God is. Again, it's not highlights.

It's not like boom, like it all just makes sense.

Now I'm perfect. I don't see any more like it

doesn't work like that. The way it was explained to me

is kind of like a dog chasing a scent.

You ever watch a dog just sniffing for stuff?

They know they're looking for something.

They've got the scent or they wouldn't be sniffing.

They're not just sniffing the sniff like you watch them really

good. One of my neighbors has a one of

them dogs where like this joker is trained like a duck hunter or

something like that. I don't know.

He he tells me these terms like, I don't know, man, I don't do

dogs. But he's got the little weren't

whistles and all that stuff. But what's incredible about

these dogs is they got a nose on a man, like they could just

sniff stuff down. He'll give it a little sniff and

then go hide it somewhere. And then he'll be like, wait,

you know, like just, he'll sit there unchanged, just listening.

But when they get unleashed, they take off #1 and they're

searching for something. They've already sniffed.

Are you with me? So it's not a wild goose chase

where they bring, well, it kind of is.

But you, you get what I'm saying?

They're they're looking for something.

They've already found you with me.

Y'all, You have the gospel sent, you've been saved by grace

through faith. The Holy Spirit indwells you in

the pilgrimage. The journey is a promise based

sniffing for something that's already found you is trusting

Christ is taking a step day by day under the promises, under

the shed blood of Christ, not to build your dream come true, but

to see Kingdom come. And it's good even if your

wildest dreams don't come true. You get God, you've got the

scent, and it's coming in his fullness.

Amen. Not a burden we bear, not a

sorrow we share, but our toil He doth richly repay.

Not a grief or a loss, not a frown or a cross, but is blessed

if we trust and obey. But we never can prove the

delights of His love until all on the altar we lay For the

favor He shows and the joy He bestows are for them who will

trust and obey. Then in fellowship suite we will

sit at His feet, or we'll walk by His side in the way.

What He says we will do. Where He sins we will go.

Never fear, only trust and obey. Trust and obey, for there's no

other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.

Let's pray our Father, we love you and we declare you are the

covenant making, covenant keeping God.

God, you have done it all. This is not about us, it's about

you. God.

Would we respond with trust and obedience?

We pray in the mighty name of Jesus, Amen.