A Pattern For Life Part II

First Family, I am so proud of our students for a number of

things, but I just couldn't help but as I was, as we were

worshiping, remembering even just some of the things this

week that God's been reminding me of.

And I haven't had a chance to go to every FCA huddle in our city

and county schools, but I've been to been to several of them.

And I'll be honest, I've been here almost seven years this

July. I have never seen our FCA

huddles and what God's doing through those in our schools.

I'm talking about busting at the seams like they are now.

So I showed up and I happened to show up at Woodland High School

this past Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm losing track of my days.

I don't know. It's one of them for their FCA

huddle. And so I, the last time I'd been

was a couple years ago probably and there was 15 or 20 students

there. So I kind of expected the same.

I'll walk in if there wasn't 100 students in the gym.

I, I don't know how many there were.

I thought. Unbelievable, right?

Praise God. Some of you go to Carter's.

Well, how many do y'all have at FCA?

Because I know it's grown a ton, 80 to 100.

Last time I was there a couple three years ago, there may have

been 15 to 20. It's been growing.

God has been. And by the way, a lot of our

people are huddle leaders in these places, right?

So you got Chris and Natalie, Teddy.

Chris does the Woodland Middle School.

There's like 200 of them middle schoolers running around at FCA.

It's unbelievable. And then Blake Baxter was at

Woodland high School. Blake, are you in the room right

now? She may have been first service,

I'm not sure. She's leading at Woodland High

School. You got Donovan and Kenzie Tate

and others at Cartersville High School.

I can't name them all. I'm just telling you God's

moving. And let me let me tell you this,

and this may not encourage you older folks, but it should.

But God, when God starts moving, do you know who he starts moving

in whose lives? I'll tell you it ain't old

people. I'm sorry.

God's not done with it yet, I promise.

But I'm just telling you when he goes to do something special,

you watch any movement of God and you watch the young people

saying, God here we are, send us, use us, move in our lives

first every time. I'm just telling you, God's

moving in our young people. I've never seen so many from our

church associated with a with a merge weekend.

I've never seen so many gathering early mornings around

God's word. God is using our people.

God is doing this community wide.

Scott obviously leads FCA in Bartow County.

Brandon Barnett leads it in multiple counties.

It's amazing what God is doing among young people.

Praise God. Let's pray that God pours fire

on that, for it's a spread to be contagious.

All right, I'm getting away from my sermon, so here we go

answering the call of God out of Genesis.

All right, we started this last week and our question is, what's

God going to do to save sinners who keep striking out?

They keep stepping up to the plate to hit the ball of his

will and keep whiffing. What is God going to do?

God tells you what he's going to do beginning in a promise in

Genesis 315. The one is going to come born

the seed of the woman, one's going to be born of woman one

day. That is going to do for us what

we couldn't do for ourselves. He's going to crush the head of

the serpent, by the way. He's going to live a sinless

life. He's going to die as our

substitute on the cross. He's going to defeat death for

us. His name's going to be Jesus.

If you know the rest of the story and the Bible is all about

pointing to him and his story of how he came for us.

The Bible starts telling us how that promise of Genesis 315

starts to unfold in Genesis chapter 12.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

And we saw that last week with the call of God on Abrams life.

How through one man, God's going to bring 1 nation to who's going

to bring 1 Savior of the whole world for all who would trust

him as the Lord and Savior. But what we're also seeing, in

addition to this call of God on Abraham's life and the

fulfillment of God's promises, is we're also seeing this

pattern of living that ought to be true of our lives.

We're talking about how God's called Abraham and invited him

into this pattern of responding to him.

That ought to be true of us as well.

So what is that pattern? Remember, God calls us and then

God calls us to bless us. That doesn't mean he prevents

all pain. It doesn't mean he prevents all

suffering. But God calls us because he has

good in store for us. And God calls us.

God calls us to bless us, and then God calls us to bless

others. He calls us to be a conduit for

that goodness to be passed on. This is a pattern for living we

are to embrace. And So what we're going to see

here is we pick up in Genesis 12, verses 4 through 9 is really

Genesis 12:4–9

this pattern of living unfolding in Abraham's life and also for

our lives continue to unfold. So listen to the Word of God

beginning in verse 4 of chapter 12.

The Bible says so Abram went and the Lord, as the Lord had told

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

departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarah his wife,

and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they

had gathered and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and

they set out to go to the land of Canaan.

And when they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through

the land of Canaan. And Abram passed through the

land to the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moray.

And at that time the Canaanites were in the land.

And then the Lord appeared to Abram and said to your

offspring, I will give this land.

So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to

him. And there he moved to the Hill

Country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent with Bethel

on the West and AI on the east. And there he built an altar to

the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord.

And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.

Now if you remember what God said last week, what we just

read really ought to jump off the page to you, because God

said go. And Abram did what?

Abraham hung out for a little bit.

Abraham said, God, can you repeat yourself?

God said go. And Abram did what he went.

God said jump. And Abram said how high?

I mean Abram doesn't wait, Abram doesn't negotiate, he doesn't

hesitate. Abram obeys right away, all the

way. If we don't know this phrase is

a church yet, I hope we do right?

I say this a lot because it is life skill one O 1.

God desires from you and me obedience that is right away and

all the way. Right away and all the way.

This is what Abraham does. Parents, by the way, God tasks

you to teach this life skill to your children so that they can

put it into practice with him when it's game time.

I want you to know that if your children don't learn right away

all the way, obedience to godly authority in their lives, do you

think they're going to give it to God one day if they don't

give it to you? The answer's no.

The answer's no. You can actually study this.

And teenagers, you're a little late for this, but it's never

too late to make corrections. All right?

But parents, young parents, listen to me.

They say even people that are secular in their field but study

human growth and development. Talk about a window of time,

usually between the ages of two and four, two to five, two to

six, where there is a formative period in a child's life when

they choose how they're going to respond to authority.

And if they miss that moment, it's very difficult to

retroactively apply it to get them back on track.

Often the discipline that's biblical, that's corrective and

loving is needed in a window that's earlier than you think it

is. Which by the way, and I'm

getting off track right here, but I just got to say this.

Which in our day and time, the parenting pendulum is swung so

far. What you're going to hear is,

oh, they're just a kid, or they're tired, they need a nap

or they need a screen. I'm going to tell you what they

need. What did y'all think?

I was about to say, wow, maybe I shouldn't go there.

I think you already got my drift.

I'm going to get back to the sermon.

All right, praise God for that. All right, so y'all know some

stories in my own life, life skill, one-on-one parenting

before God right away all the way obedience and and by the

way, if God is going to get that in your life, let me just tell

you what's going to have to be true.

God is going to have to be your highest allegiance if there's

something higher or more important are first in your

life. If God is second, if God is

subordinate, if God's not number one, if God is VP in your life

but not P for president and CEO, then guess what, you're never

going to give him obedience this right away all the way.

You want to know why? Because you got another boss to

run things by that maybe you yourself and I right, me myself.

And I think that's how that should go.

But you've always got something somewhere else, someone else you

want to actually run it by instead of actually just simply

giving God right away all the way obedience.

Listen to Jesus's words out of the New Testament that

reemphasize this. Matthew 1037 through 39.

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of

me. Whoever loves son or daughter

more than me is not worthy of me.

What is Jesus saying? That you can't love your parents

or can't love your kids? Of course not.

But what he's saying is, if you got a greater love in your life

than me, we've got a problem, because he's not.

Am I your highest allegiance, highest love, greatest

authority? If so, right, Jesus goes on to

say, who would? Whoever does not take up his

cross and follow me, He's not worthy of me.

Then he says something kind of strange sounding, but it's so

clear when you get it right. Whoever finds his life will lose

it. But however loses his life, for

my sake, we'll find it. What in the world does that

mean? That means if you go looking for

life in all the wrong places to give your first love and 1st

allegiance and 1st worship to anything else other than Jesus,

guess what? You might think you found life,

but it will let you down because you've not found life.

You will lose it. But Jesus says you let go of all

those other allegiances, and you place me first.

Let me be King, let me be Lord of your life.

Lead and let me lead as God in your life.

Guess what? That's where you're going to

find the abundant life that only He can supply.

And so right away, all the way, obedience is only going to

happen if Jesus is your highest allegiance in your life.

Can I just ask you this question, students?

Why don't you think about this? Can right away all the way

obedience happen in your life right now?

Because Jesus is your highest allegiance.

Moms and dads, parents, senior adults, is this even possible in

your life? Life skill one-on-one?

Because Jesus is your highest allegiance or something or

someone else, maybe yourself on the throne that only God is

designed to sit on. You see, God is driving

Abraham's life. God is guiding Abraham's life.

God is in charge and Abraham is following his direction and

letting him follow the shot, called the shots.

This is the pattern of the Christian life.

Number one. God desires obedience.

That's all the way and right away, but then the Bible goes on

to say something really interesting.

Look back at the text in verse 4.

It says here, So Abraham went as God had said, go as the Lord had

told him and then watch this next statement and Lot went with

him. Now at first glance, that sounds

really great like oh wow, the more the right it's a party.

Let's let's all go all right, That sounds like what could be

wrong with that. All right.

But as we keep reading it, it's going to become more and more

clear that this may not. And I'm using the word may

because I'm just, can I just be honest with you?

I, I may be wrong on this right here and God may correct me when

I get to heaven. All right, So I'm holding this

out humbly, all right. But I think sometimes the text

tells us things without having to actually tell us things if

we're paying attention. And what's going to come clear

is that this decision for a lot to go with Abram may not have

actually been a great idea. In fact, I honestly, maybe more

realistically think this could have been a slight breach of

following God's command all the way.

He definitely went right away. But I wonder if this was not an

all the way instance of obedience in Abram's life.

What did God say to Abram? Leave your house, home country

and and kindred, he said leave your extended family, not take

some of your extended family right when you get right down to

what God said. It seems that this may not have

actually technically supposed to include Lot, right?

But this is what Abram does and no pun intended, it's going to

cause him a lot of that's a dad joke right there, but it works,

right? It's going to cause him a lot of

problems and it's going to just start compounding on itself.

All right, I mean, let me, let me put it like this, whether or

not I'm right or wrong, this is true of us.

How many times do we know what God has said, but we put our own

spin to how we're going to obey. How many times do we know what

God has said, but we think we can customize it a little bit

and improve upon it? How many times do we know what

God is clearly revealed, but we're going to choose to obey

our way rather than exactly all the way that God has said to

obey, right? Abram obviously thought this was

a great decision. He wouldn't be totally starting

over. He'd have some family with him,

a friend for the journey. He's old, right?

He's he. He's beyond and his wife's

beyond childbearing years. Lot was like a son to him.

Perhaps. Maybe he thought his offspring

would come through Lot. We don't know.

All we know is God's command doesn't mention Lot.

And then all of a sudden the Bible goes out of the way to

tell you, guess who's going along?

Lot is. That's interesting.

I want to be very honest with you for a moment.

If this is in fact what I think it is, whether or not it is,

here's what I know. We're all me included, a little

bit like Abraham. Here's what I mean.

Many if not most I'm choosing my language carefully here.

Follow me. Many if not most students, I

want you if you don't hear anything else I say, I want you

to listen real close to the next like 3 to 4 minutes.

Most if not all of our could have been avoided.

Problems are a result are a result of us not obeying clearly

the revealed will of God in our lives.

I'm not saying that there is not problems and pain that come into

our lives that we can't control. There certainly is so many

things we experience and walk through under God's Providence

and sovereignty happen that we're not responsible for.

But listen to me close. Many, if not most of our could

have been avoided. Problems and pain go back to the

not so wise decisions we make that we're outside the revealed

will of God. Let me just show you a picture

of that to try to make myself explicitly clear what that looks

like. Y'all check this out on the

screen. I, I mean, y'all know what's

coming for this guy, right? And it's not going to be pretty,

but he's doing it anyway, right? God has revealed his will so

clearly in our lives that oftentimes we do some things,

sometimes things so foolish, so outside the bounds, outside the

things that we think are a great idea.

You know why? Because everybody else is saw in

the limb, everybody else is doing.

This is normal. Pastor Kyle, are you kidding me

right, but most, if not all of our could have been avoided.

Parliaments and pain come from doing things outside the wisdom

and revealed will of God student system.

I'm going to get real specific with you.

You may not like me for this, but I'm just going to tell you

the truth, all right, Because listen, I long for you to

experience God's goodness in your life, but it's going to

take some sacrificial decisions to to obey the will of God.

And let me tell you some things that the world just says and by

honestly, the world just accepts as normal that it and then

perhaps you just think, well, maybe this is the way my life is

going to go too. They're going to put you saw and

on the limb you're sitting on physical intimacy before

marriage or outside of marriage. I get it.

Everybody else is doing it doesn't mean you need to walk

off the Cliff too. You'll save yourself 1000

heartaches if you'll wait. I realize that's so unpopular in

our culture today, but I'm just telling you, you're sawing the

limb you're sitting on. If you choose not to do that, if

you choose friends, your primary friends, and if they don't love

Jesus, you are sawing the limb you're sitting on.

It's going to fall one day and it's going to hurt if you

choose. Listen to me, please.

If you choose to marry somebody who does not love Jesus with all

their heart, you are sawing the limb out from under your life.

Do not, do not do it. If you choose persons, places,

or things. My grammar teacher in fifth

grade that stuck with me. That's a noun.

Y'all get that person, place, or thing.

She did her job. If you choose persons, places,

or things to be involved in, to hang around or to participate in

that are clearly not God's best, you're sawing the limb you're

sitting on. Now let me say this.

Lots of us have sawed limbs that we've been sitting on.

Praise God for God's grace and forgiveness.

Hallelujah. Can we all say Amen?

All right, praise God, but let's be honest with ourselves and

not, not not pretend, right, that we could avoid so many

things, so much of the pain, so many of the consequences if we

just set ourselves to say God, by your help and the Holy

Spirit, help me to obey what you've clearly said.

Praise God. If I mess up and get out of line

or find myself in the ditch, God, you're there to to RIP us

back out. Praise God.

And many of you have Hallelujah. All right, have been there as

soon as if you're there right now, God can pick you up from

where you are right now and set your feet right back on the path

that he wants you to walk. So don't give up.

Don't walk away if there's breath in your lungs.

Praise God for his forgiveness and grace.

But a lot of times I'm trying to give some preventative upstream

things before you get downstream of some things that could have

been avoided. Y'all with me?

All right, now, don't go to sleep.

But that was my main thing for students.

All right, y'all, It says here they set out for the land of

Canaan. When Abraham gets to the land of

Canaan and knocks on the door, he's expecting maybe nobody to

live there. But guess what?

It's full of people. God, you sure?

If you know your Bible pretty well, you're going to find out

too. Hey, God, these people pretty

big. These people are kind of

intimidating. They set out for the land of

Canaan. Abraham's got to be wondering,

God, this is the right direction, is this the right

place? Is this, is this the promise?

Abram's got to be having some questions.

And guess what God does for Abram right when Abram needs it,

Verse seven, look at it there. God graciously appears to Abram.

This is what we call. Can I give you some fancy words

for a moment? This is what we appear call a

theophany. All right.

That's an appearance of God in physical, temporary, visible

form. This is more specifically not

just a theophany appearance of God.

This is what I believe is specifically a christophany.

This is a physical, visible, temporary but very real

appearance of the second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God,

who by the way, one day, years in the future, will take on

human flesh and His name will be called.

Oh, come on now, they need to be stronger than that Jesus, right?

This is Jesus before Jesus was born and named Jesus.

Now, in case you either didn't know or forgot that Jesus has

always existed, let me just remind you, John chapter one

verse one in the beginning was the and the word was with God

and the word was all right. And then it says in verse 3,

watch this, all things were made through him and without him,

that's Jesus was not anything made that was made.

You know what that means? That means Jesus was the one in

the six days of creation, speaking light into existence,

speaking animals into existence, speaking all of creation into

existence. That was Jesus, the second

person of the Trinity, the Son of God, who's always been God

and always been with God from eternity past.

And then we know it's Jesus in John 1 because verse 14 it says

and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we've seen

his glory. And so this is what this is what

Abram I believe is experiencing. This was I believe actually not

just Jesus being in the beginning creating all things.

I believe when God walked with man in the garden in the cool of

day, I think they were walking with Jesus.

I believe it was Jesus who was walking with Enoch.

You can read about him students who walked with God.

And guess what God did. I love how one preacher put it.

He said, Enoch, we're closer to my house than we are to yours.

So why don't we just go on home with me today.

And God took him, right? This is appearing to Abraham.

How did it happen? What he looked like, we don't

know. We just, it's just very clear.

This is the Son of God. Now you may read this and say,

well, Kyle, my goodness, if I got a physical visible

appearance of Jesus to me, I could pick up and go and obey

right away all the way too. But God hadn't done that for me.

Let me just remind you of a couple things #1 Abram did not

have this right here, and Abram did not have the Holy Spirit in

dwelling him on the inside either.

All right, guess what? You got two things even better.

Because if Abram was going to have any chance of obeying the

specific unique will of God for his life, God was going to have

to show up and speak up. God has shown up and spoken up

in His Word. And if you believed in Jesus as

your Savior, He's given you the Holy Spirit to guide you in

every single specific, detailed decision of your life without

exception. Unbelievable, unbelievable.

What we have is Christ's followers.

All right. And then I just want to remind

you students too, that God still shows up when we need him.

Now, you may not physically see him, and it may not be a

Christophany, but when God knows you need him, God will show up

in your life in clear, unmistakable ways.

Listen to a story of a man by the name of Tyler Frazier most

recently. I love stories like this when

God shows up. But this, this gentleman was

interviewed on a podcast. He was a former gang member of

the motorcycle gang, the Iron Horseman.

I'd never even heard of them. Maybe I'm out of the loop, I'm

not sure. Anyway, they sounded pretty bad

when you listen to them. All right, so Tyler was raised

in a home by a father who claimed to be a Christian.

Tyler's father would raise his hands in worship at church and

then take his son home and beat him and even put him in a 55

gallon drum and leave him. The deception of the enemy who

was out to kill, steal and destroy is so depraved that what

he's willing to do in the level of deception.

Can you imagine what Tyler Frazier thought of Christianity

based on what he experienced at home and as his father did, that

would often quote Bible verses as he did it?

Tyler Frazier was sitting in his shower after looking for life in

all the wrong places, ready to take his life.

And Tyler said, God, if you're real, if you're real, will you

show me? And all he said he could hear

was inaudible. It was internal, but it was all

he could hear. It was ringing in his ears.

All he could hear was call Craig.

Call Craig. That's not really what he was

looking for, but it's all that was resonating within his body

and his mind was called Craig and he waited a few days.

Finally he doesn't take his life and he calls Craig.

Well, guess who Craig is? A Christian.

Tyler and Craig taught. Guess what happens to Tyler?

Tyler gets saved. Why am I telling you that?

Because it was just two words, but it was God showing up.

God may not show up in a Christophany.

He might not show where you can physically, visibly see him.

But when God knows that you need him to show up, I can guarantee

you can mark it down. God's going to show up.

When you seek God with all you've got.

When you say God, you've all that I've got.

I've got no hope without you. I need you.

And here's the deal. What I want to remind you of is

most days of Abram's life weren't days of seeing the Son

of God. He had a few that were

interruptions or punctuations on long stretches of life that were

ordinary days of simply obeying what he had already heard God

tell him to do. Listen, just to testify for a

moment. I can tell you in my own life,

99.9% of my days have been ordinary days where I've just

simply by the Holy Spirit's help, tried to implement what I

know God has already said. Some days I do better than

others, all right. And yet I can name you four or

five times when God is interrupted and put punctuation

Marks and shown up so clearly, unmistakably, that it was in a

way He started, He showed up, and then that defined the whole

next set or season of days that were very ordinary.

But when he showed up, He changed things.

When God saved me as a nine year old boy, God showed up.

I remember the distinct feeling of the conviction of sin in my

heart, the the draw that I felt to trust Jesus, right?

This was God showing up. I didn't see him, but I could

sense it on the inside. I remember when God was calling

me to preach and it was like I could, all I could see on the

Bible was preach the word and it was as if it was resonating in

my mind and heart so loud. I could not, I couldn't, I

couldn't, I couldn't deny it. I remember when God called me to

serve at the seminary I served and y'all, I can remember where

I was and the passages I was reading when God called me to

serve CFBC, a senior pastor I can name on just just about one

hand at times. Now God has spoken to me in all

sorts of other ways and sometimes daily ways.

But I'm talking about when it's like this, unmistakable, I'm

talking about radical, like, Oh my goodness, this is undeniable.

God showed up. This is what Abraham's

experiencing. God will do the same for you

when he knows that's what you need, but the majority of your

days are going to be ordinary days of seeking to implement the

obedience to the word of God that you've already heard.

What does pre Incarnate Jesus say to Abraham?

He says to your offspring, I will give this land.

This is huge because remember when God said go, he didn't say

go where? Now God's fulfilling his promise

that he said, I will show you. Now He's showing him, this is

the land, Abraham. God is making good on his

promise. This is what God does.

So God desires obedience. That's right away all the way #2

if you're taking notes. God is faithful.

Despite our lack of faithfulness.

God remains faithful. Hallelujah.

Praise God despite our lack of faithfulness.

Abraham then does what you would expect him to do in response to

God's faithfulness. Notice Abraham worships.

He worships by building an altar.

In fact, he builds 2 here. If you remember, if you don't

know what an altar is, it would be like a square raised platform

on which to place animals for sacrifice to God.

All right, so this is what Abraham does.

He's building an altar in which to worship and call on the name

of the Lord. Remember, there's no sanctuary,

there's no temple, there's no Tabernacle.

There's no church building or designated place where God has

instructed people to worship at this point.

This is kind of helpful to remember that before sin entered

the world, God and man walk together in perfect fellowship,

and sin was not a barrier to man and God.

What a day that must have been. What a day that will be one day,

by the way, when that's fully taken away.

So sin was not a problem, but then Adam and Eve sin, and guess

who makes the first sacrifice? Because the Bible says without

the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sin.

Guess who makes the first sacrifice back in the garden?

God does provides animal skins as a sacrifice and a covering

for them. So now a man's having to live

with this sin issue and the sacrificial system comes in

right where Abraham starts making sacrifices to worship

God. This will lead to the Tabernacle

and the temple and the Old Testament sacrificial system

which Fast forward will lead to the final altar that is raised

on earth for the final ultimate full complete sacrifice for sin.

It was called starts with the CA.

What a cross where Jesus, the final Lamb of God, the perfect

Son of God, was placed on that altar of that cross for you and

for me, for my sin and for yours.

Why? Because an animal never could

quite cut it. One just like us, but without

sin, had to pay my sin debt and yours.

And this is what Jesus did on the cross for you and for me.

And this is where Jesus died for what you've done and what I've

done. And Jesus went to the grave

tasting death. And Jesus walked out alive so he

could offer you and me life forever, forgiveness forever.

I pray. And I just want to say right

now, if you've never trusted Jesus as your Lord and as your

Savior for life and forgiveness and hope and eternal life, you

can call on Jesus right now to do that.

He is the Lamb of God. The Bible says who takes away

the sin of the world. That includes your sin and mine.

And the Bible just says you have to ask for it in faith.

You have to ask. Call on Him to ask.

Say God, I'm yours, take my sin. He gives you his righteousness.

What in exchange, by the way, that means we no longer have a

need for animal sacrifices. You know, the kind of sacrifice

God ask of you every single day is not a dead animal, but it is

a living you. It is a living you, a living

sacrifice. Romans 12/1 Therefore, in view

of the mercies of God, in light of all God's done for you and

for me, He says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, I'm getting

King James only because that's why I memorized it so.

All for your bodies as living sacrifices which are holy and

acceptable unto me, which is your spiritual act of worship.

So the students listen to me every day.

God wants you to wake up and the Bible puts it like this.

Take up your cross, that is put yourself on the altar, saying no

to you as the boss and no to you as your highest allegiance and

yes to God as your highest allegiance and offering your

right away all the way obedience as a pattern of life because of

God's faithfulness to his promises to you, especially his

Son Jesus, and saying, God, my life is to be lived for you

today by your help. Help me.

Let it be. Lord, I just want you to think

about for a moment when we gather for worship too, what

this looks like in the life of the church, because oftentimes

we might think of this as first and foremost a stage, but I

don't want you to think of it that way because there's no

human performance. This happening here when we

gather for worship. Oh, there's human activity, but

it's not a performance. So when our people stand here to

worship and lift their voices in song, they're standing here at a

place that we often refer to as an altar, if you will, to lead

us in offering what in worship to God, our songs and our

voices, we're lifting from this place as living sacrifices.

And then, yes, a man stands here most of the time.

Me to proclaim the word of God, which points us to who the

living word of God because he's the one that has been on the

altar for us and we are now seeking to live our lives on the

altar every day for for him. This is why in the invitation

and response time, I'll often say use these steps as an altar

to put yourself as a living sacrifice to say God, I'm here

to make a decision and worship and an obedience to you.

This is often the way we refer to it as God calls us to live as

a living sacrifice. So here's the deal.

God desires right away all the way obedience.

God is faithful despite our lack of faithfulness. 3rd and

finally, God made us watch this pattern to worship Him, depend

on Him, and follow him. God made us to worship him,

depend on him, and follow Him. You can't help but see here, as

you read this chapter of the Bible, that Abraham's on a

journey. He doesn't have all the details,

He doesn't have all the answers. He doesn't have every step,

right? He's got to be dealing.

I just want you to think about the level of uncertainty that

Abraham's got to be dealing with.

God, you've told me to move here.

You said this is the land. God, there's a lot of people

here. God, you said you're going to

give me biological offspring. God, I don't know if you

remember my age or the age of my wife specifically, but God, this

is not looking good, right? I mean, Abra's got to be

wondering. God, this isn't quite making

sense. Abram is daily facing all the

uncertainties of life. Every single day does that.

Does that not sound like life and living for us too?

Every single day you wake up and face uncertainties, unanswered

questions. You don't know all the steps.

But guess what? God gives you the next one that

you need. And maybe the next one seems

impossible. And maybe it totally is without

God's intervention. But that's exactly where Abraham

is. So what does God expect of us to

live out this pattern? We don't have all the answers.

We don't know the next step. When maybe life looks

impossible, what does God ask of us?

Well, look at Abram. What does he do #1 He worships

God. God calls you and me, in the

face of all the uncertainties and unanswered questions of

life, to worship Him. You know how the Bible puts in

the New Testament? Seek first the Kingdom of God.

Wait, you don't. You're not going to have all the

answers. You're not going to always know

the next step. But you know what?

God calls you to do that cause you to worship.

God calls you to honor him that cause you to put your eyes on

Him and trust #2 Abram calls on God's name.

God calls us to call on his name to walk and talk in a personal

relationship with Him. Like second, Peter says to grow

in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ in that

relationship with him as our Lord and Savior, growing and

walking with him as we worship him and call on him.

And 3rd and finally, Abram followed God's lead and God

caused us to follow his lead. I love the way the New Testament

says it says walk by the Spirit. You know, the Bible couldn't say

walk by the Spirit to Abram because he didn't have the Holy

Spirit indwelling him. If you're a Christ follower, you

do. And so we walk in sensitivity to

the Holy Spirit. But guess what?

If you're not worshipping God, if you're not calling on the

name of God, you won't know how to recognize the voice of the

Holy Spirit of God. These three go together.

They're a pattern of life to embrace, a pattern of living

despite all of life's uncertainties, right?

God desires your worship, your dependence, and your obedience.

Finally, in your notes you see some blanks.

Here I'm going to give them to you.

When you do life God's way, When you do life God's way, life is

good because God is good. When you do life God's way, God,

life is good because God is good.

I didn't say life will be pain free.

I didn't say it'll be perfect, but I said it'll be good because

God is good. John and praise team are about

to come out. And I was thinking about this

this week as I was processing this text and studying for

today, I remembered something my mother used to say often when I

was a kid. She would often when we'd run

errands, when we'd go to Walmart, we'd find our way back

to the sewing section, you know, where they had like all the

fabric wrapped around those things.

And my mom used to sew and she still does to some degree.

But I just hear my mother say I need to pick a pattern.

Any of y'all done that before? That took me a while to really

figure out what that meant because that was usually my

excuse to try to, you know, scoot over to the hunting

section or something in Walmart and then find her after she got

done with the cloth and the pattern picking.

You are picking a pattern that you're living right now.

You've picked a pattern. I don't know that pattern, but

but but God does. And you may know that pattern

real well. You may not really know that

pattern real well. You may be thinking, man, I need

to think about my pattern. But you've picked 1.

The question is, is it God's revealed one or have you

customized it, retweaked it to your liking, You know, put your

spin on it, justified it. So oh God, this God certainly

wouldn't mind me doing it like this.

You saw it on the limb you're sitting on at all.

Maybe you're like Kyle. I'm not sure.

Maybe maybe I need to ask God. And that's what I'd encourage

you to do. God, what pattern am I living?

Where am I sawing on the limb that I'm sitting on?

Students, what is it that maybe you're flirting with right now

that God's calling you back from to save you 1000 heartaches?

If you'll embrace this pattern, maybe you need to give your life

to Christ. Maybe you need to lay something

on the altar as a living sacrifice.

I don't know what it is, but I'm going to invite you to, I'm

going to invite you to say yes to Jesus by faith.

I'm going to pray that I'm going to invite you to stand and we're

going to respond. Heavenly Father, I want to pray

and I pray especially for these students and I pray for all of

us gathered with them today that you would have your way in their

lives. You would have your way in our

lives. God, I thank you for what you're

doing among them. I think they're boldly taking

steps of faith to live for Jesus, unlike I have seen in

generations. Lord, God, you're working.

God, I pray that you'd have your way in our lives in this next

few moments, that we give our lives and hearts to you as

living sacrifices for you to be honored, you to be worshipped,

and us to walk in your goodness And Jesus, I pray, Amen.