The Promise

Thank you, Julian.

Maybe whilst we're doing that, can I invite us to stand for the word of the Lord.

Thank you, Julian.

And said, do not go down to Egypt.

Dwell in the land of which I shall tell you.

Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you.

For to you and to your offsprings, I will give all these lands.

And I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham, your father.

I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven,

and will give to your offspring all these lands.

And in your offspring, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.

Because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please take a seat.

Please take a seat.

Thank you.

I had a deja vu moment this week.

As you can see, we're in Genesis 26.

And we've been going through Genesis since Easter.

So it's been a long time that we've been going through.

We're just plodding through this book and had a deja vu moment as I read this chapter this week.

Actually, I was having lunch with Ken, and we were just talking about how Genesis just feels like it just keeps going.

And actually, especially this chapter, it was like, whoa, haven't we read this before?

Doesn't this sound quite similar?

And I deliberately asked JP just to stop there because I want to retell the story.

There are small differences in it, but my goodness, it feels the same.

It feels the same as what we've read before.

It feels exactly like the stuff that his dad, Abraham, went through, and we're here again.

It really made me reflect on one thing, which was actually maybe that is just part of the human life.

It is just part of journey, that actually we keep subjecting ourselves often to the same old things.

We keep facing the same old problems.

We keep doing the same things, and we are just trapped in this cyclical existence.

Of course, we've already established earlier in Genesis, the Christian faith isn't one that's linear.

It isn't the moment you commit.

Suddenly, you're on a rocket ship to heaven.

That's not quite what it is.

If anything, it's just this slow grind, and it's just a constant cycle of wrestling with the different problems.

The same shadows keep appearing, and we have to keep fighting, and we have to keep growing.

But in our growth, the hope, the prayer, is that we get closer and closer to Jesus.

And so what we see here is that even though there are these same old problems,

there is also the same old grace that keeps appearing time and time again.

This chapter is the only chapter that is focused on Isaac.

Remember, there are the founding fathers of the faith.

You have Abraham, and then you have Isaac, and then you have Jacob.

Isaac is stuck almost as the middle child of this three musketeer set up.

He had a great father.

He will have a great son.

But he's kind of stuck in the middle with just one chapter to him, and that's it.

And even this one chapter feels very similar and feels very same old to the one of his dad.

But we're going to look at it, and what we're going to find out is that humanity seems to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

Of course, I'd encourage you as we look at this and go, Isaac, you're pretty stupid.

To kind of go, wait.

Wait, is that me?

And honestly, I look at this book, I often think, especially the Old Testament, it just feels like a mirror to the stuff that's going on inside of my own heart.

Chinese, what?

You look at this, and you just see a goblin in this book, and you're like, oh, I do.

That goblin is me.

And so what we see here is the same old thing.

And it does sound repetitive, but what we can see is that there is something that also keeps popping up again and again.

And I want to focus on that today.

And if this chapter is on anything, it's actually not even Isaac.

It's once again about God.

It's once again about he is good.

It's once again about how he has grace, despite whatever we do, however far we run, whatever stupid mistakes we make, he is still here.

And so that's what we're going to see here from 26, which is going to fly straight through, verse 1.

Now there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine, that was in the days of Abraham.

So the writer almost knows this and says, hey, this has kind of happened before, which tells me one thing again.

Actually, the chapter before, chapter 25, verse 11, if you just flick over there, you see his dad dies.

Abraham dies.

And immediately after that, God blesses Isaac, his son.

So in the midst of grief, he gets a blessing.

In the midst of grief, he gets the blessing.

And so you see here, what's interesting about the blessing that is different to how we think about blessings sometimes is when we think we're going to get a blessing from God, we think things are going to be going great.

Actually, this is going to be a good year.

My investments are going to go well.

My work is going to go well.

My family is going to go well.

But what you see here is God blesses.

Isaac receives it in a moment of grief, in a time of grief when he loses his dad.

And what happens straight after?

Famine.

It's important for us to just deconstruct, just deattach, that when we think about God's blessings, it always means just complete harvest.

And of course, we know reality is it is not always harvest.

In fact, life often, more often than not, is hard.

And I've said before, the book of Genesis just seems like just a story of grief as well.

What is the main grief from that initial misstep, that initial mistrust?

You end up with people who die.

Genesis chapter 5, and he dies, and he dies, and he dies, and he dies, and he dies.

Genesis 5 · chapter mention

I've also said that grief is actually a gift from God.

I've felt that this is something that's been true of my life.

Last week, I shared briefly that an aunt that's very, very dear to Joe and I, who was just part of our childhood growing up,

was, if honestly, if you think about why we were so connected to Hong Kong and so connected to Chinese culture, she would be the one.

We would come home to Hong Kong every summer, and our family of four would go and stay in her tiny little flat in Yunlong,

with her family there, all packed in, one toilet, one bathroom, and she would just display this immense hospitality to us throughout the whole summer.

Can you imagine that?

I don't think I could do that.

And she would shower us with gifts.

I remember the first time I brought Christina to go see her, the first thing that she did was just stuff Christina's pocket with money.

Just like brown notes.

And I was like, whoa, whoa, what's that?

Why does she get it?

Just intense generosity that we got from her.

And it was sad to say, on Monday, we went to the hospital, and it was her final few hours.

And I got to hold her hand.

And I got to joke with her kids.

And there's just this beautiful moment where I was holding her hand, retelling some of these stories.

And we were laughing.

At this point, she was so heavily dosed with morphine, she couldn't hear us anymore.

And as we were joking, the nurses run in and say, she's gone.

And I was like, wow.

What a gift from God that I got to hold the hand of someone whom I loved, who had a profound impact on me.

And I got to watch her step from one side to the other.

Grief was God's gift to me.

He opened up the curtain to show me that life isn't just what there is in this life.

I then got to carry that grief into every meeting and into every interaction, often about worldly things and things that we're facing in this world.

And I'm like, oh, but it doesn't matter.

I don't know if you're carrying grief.

I know that I've been with some of you in the hospital these last few weeks.

And I remember hugging you and saying, this hurts.

This is grief.

But this is exactly why Jesus came.

Jesus didn't come just to give us a fun and good and pleasurable life and comfortable life.

He came to deal with the very thing that we really find is horrible.

Death, disease, sickness.

Grief is God's gift to us to show us there's something more.

And the gift that I got from what I learned from my aunt, I realized I now pass on.

The things that we do, Joe and I, we do, we don't even know it.

And we realize, oh, that's where we got it from.

Again, just being grateful for the people that we have in our lives.

But life is really just the same old thing.

The same old problems that just keep coming back again.

But how do you then not get sucked into that place where you are then just grieving without hope,

which is what 1 Thessalonians 4 talks about?

No, because whilst there are the same old problems,

there is also the same old grace that keeps coming up, back up and up.

And every time, again, every time you meet something, there's a problem.

You make a mistake, you trip, you fall.

Grace is there to catch you.

That's why we're here.

It's funny.

God blesses Isaac and straight away there's a famine.

And here is something really interesting.

Without even really thinking about it, he does exactly the same thing his dad does,

which is what?

He heads straight to Egypt.

The land that he was in was in famine.

He's like, what do I do?

I need food for my family.

I'm going to head straight to Egypt, which is exactly what Abraham did.

And of course, that's where you see in Genesis 12, his story there,

which I won't go through today.

But you see Isaac doing exactly the same thing.

But this time, there's something different.

God stops him.

So he heads towards Egypt and he stops in a place called Gerar,

which is literally just in the middle.

And there he meets the king Abimelech of the Philistines.

But this time, God intervenes.

Last time, he let his dad Abraham go straight to Egypt.

This time, he actually speaks and says, verse 2,

Do not go down to Egypt.

Dwell in the land of which I shall tell you.

Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and will bless you.

For to you, to your offspring, I will give all these lands

and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham, your father.

Abraham is dead, but the God of Abraham is not.

And now the God of Abraham is now the God of Isaac.

If you follow me, if you trust me, if you obey me,

the blessing will now be yours, is what he's saying.

Don't follow the same mistakes that your dad did.

You can trust me.

I'll call the Jew.

You don't need to go to Egypt.

How often do we, when the moment we have trouble,

the moment we have problems, the moment we have anxiety,

we go back to our Egypt.

We go back to the things that we think,

You know what?

This isn't going to provide for me.

Let me just go back to Egypt real quick.

And then what happens?

Then you get stuck in Egypt.

You see the same thing happening here.

So Isaac settles in Gerard.

And here's where I'll retell the story.

And we won't read through all of it,

because it just feels and sounds like deja vu.

He goes to Gerard.

And from there, when the men of the place asked him about his wife,

coincidentally, his wife was just as beautiful as his mother.

But he runs into the same thing.

He is afraid.

He's afraid that these people in this foreign land

were going to take his wife,

and not only take his wife, but kill him in the process.

So he does the same thing, which is,

Wait.

She's not my wife.

She's my sister.

And I'm just like, are you kidding me?

We're reading this again for the third time?

That there's a founding father of the faith.

Lies about his wife.

And so at this point, I nearly switched off.

I was like, here we go.

Just another same old story.

And so he says, she is my sister,

for he feared to save my wife,

thinking lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebecca.

What's interesting is they think that she's the sister.

But then the king, actually, on one random day,

catches Isaac talking to his wife.

And actually, they're just laughing and giggling and flirting.

So he's actually caught flirting with his own wife.

And the king comes up to him and goes, whoa.

Why are you flirting with your sister?

Whoa, she's not your sister.

She's your wife.

How are you going to do us like that?

Do you realize the guilt that you're going to put on us

if we did that?

And then Isaac says, because I thought, this is verse 9,

lest I die because of a...

Abilenech said, what is this you have done to us?

One of the people might easily have lain with your wife,

and you would have brought guilt upon us.

Isn't it interesting when someone outside of the church

calls someone inside the church to a higher place?

When we act even just sometimes worse than the people outside?

For the third time, this happens.

And thankfully, God intervenes and stops,

and it doesn't happen.

And it tells me one thing.

And we were reflecting on this over as a team this week.

Isaac wasn't around when his dad did it for the first two times.

So where would he have got it from?

And it makes me think, and maybe I'm imagining a little bit more here,

but it goes back to actually what I said about my aunt.

It goes back to what I said about just some of the things

that we catch from our parents

that we don't even realize that we've caught.

Because he didn't see his dad lie about his mom.

But you better believe that there were conversations at the dinner table

joking about this topic.

Do you remember how we got rich?

Do you remember when we went to Egypt and there was famine?

And then dad was scared?

And then he thought he'd lie about mom.

And then God just blessed the whole situation,

and we came out of Egypt even more rich than we were before.

It makes me think, how much of what we hold is actually coming from our parents?

How much of what we hold is coming from the people

who have been holding important roles in our lives?

I often find, actually, so much of it is,

and they say this about discipleship,

they say this about any kind of teaching,

it's caught, not taught.

What Isaac learned from Abraham,

maybe at the dinner table,

maybe just living in everyday life,

is choose, when you're afraid, lie.

When you are in a foreign land,

do anything to preserve yourself.

I wonder what we've been listening at our dinner tables

that maybe we don't even realize

that we've actually received from our parents.

There's a quote that's from Tim Keller

from the book The Empty Counterfeit Gods.

We tend to pass on to our children,

not what we preach to them,

but what we functionally love and fear.

Parents, adults, just listen to that again.

We tend to pass on to our children,

not what we preach to them,

but what we functionally love and fear.

If a father fears the opinion of man

or relies on deceit for safety,

his children will absorb that functional theology

far more quickly than his verbal creed.

I think that's always the battle.

Why is life cyclical?

Why do we keep running through the same old problems?

Because we're on the same track of choosing,

do I believe, do I have faith,

or do I have fear?

And we all know,

we've sat at tables with our family,

with our parents,

who have chosen one or the other,

and you cannot underestimate the impact that has on a child.

So even though he didn't see it happen,

we know there's something there

that is passed on generationally

that we cannot escape.

Vodhi Bochum says this,

we do not sin in a vacuum.

So often we think we sin in a vacuum.

So often we think we make our decisions,

and actually our kids won't see

or the people around us won't see

because it's just to do with us,

and what you realize is actually

our decisions are not made in a vacuum.

We are communal beings.

Every decision we make impacts the person

sat next to us, in front of us, behind us.

We do not sin in a vacuum.

Our choices construct a spiritual environment

for those who follow us.

Unconfessed sin in a parent

sets up a momentum of compromise

that requires intentional,

spirit-empowered resistance for a child to break.

Don't we have that?

I just want to sit there and part there for a second.

Because I think about my life.

I think about my kuma.

I think about my dad.

I think about, actually,

growing up I used to say one thing about my dad is,

my dad is a lot shorter than all the other people

because he was five foot three.

So, I mean, the genes were always against us

from the beginning.

But he was really good at parking.

Like, really good at parking.

Just like one hand, swerving.

You know, you put the arm on the back seat

and you go like this.

Like this.

I admired it.

So, I was like,

my dad might be shorter than yours,

but my dad parks better than yours.

Something else about my dad

that I've shared about is just punctuality.

Like, honestly,

if you're not five minutes early,

you are ten minutes late.

And we'd always sit there going,

why are we waiting for those?

I love it.

Just people,

just couples looking at each other as we...

Anyway, I'm not going to address it.

And we used to sit as kids in the car going,

look, dad,

let's be sensible here.

We know that family that we're meeting

is going to be half an hour late.

We know it.

So, why don't we just show up

the time that we know they're going to be?

And he'd say,

just because they're late

doesn't mean that we will be late.

And so, we will sit in the car

and we will wait.

And we don't have smartphones,

so you're just going to listen

to the songs that I'm listening to,

Eric Clapton,

and we're just...

And that's going to be it.

I realized I caught that.

I caught that from him.

He didn't necessarily...

He did teach as well.

But I caught that.

I wonder what you have.

Let me go around here and ask.

What did you catch?

Aidan, what have you caught from your parents?

I illegally park a lot.

You illegally park a lot.

Woo!

I haven't had a ticket

since last year's summer.

Oh, pride comes before the fall.

You haven't...

You illegally park a lot

and you haven't had...

Which means, actually,

you've more than broken even.

Like, that's how I find...

That's how I...

Sometimes I'm also prone to doing this.

But I'm also like,

if I can get away with it for 10 times,

I've already broken even.

So, you can charge me whatever you want.

Sorry, but it's being recorded.

Oh, it's being recorded.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

I will pay the fine.

I will pay the fine.

Debt has to be paid.

Janine, I don't think I've ever picked on you.

I want to pick on you today.

What did you catch from your parents?

Their heart to host.

My goodness.

And I can see that in you.

The way you just invite people.

And you were actually...

Did they teach us that?

Did they sit you down and say,

hey, we're going to have a couple of lessons

as a family on hosting?

No, you just see it.

You catch it.

You see it.

And you just...

And it follows suit.

Can you see the impact that we have,

that our families have on us?

And it makes you think,

what are the things that I've caught?

The good and the bad.

What is the voice of the parent

that is going on inside you?

It's something to think about

because we see here Isaac falling

into the same traps his dad did.

And it carries on.

But before that,

in verse 12,

if something happens,

okay, so the plot is gone.

Rebecca is his wife.

It's settled.

He lies.

And he gets away with it.

Verse 12.

And Isaac sowed in that land

and reaped in the same year a hundredfold.

The Lord blessed him.

This challenges most Christian thinking

because we think when we do something bad,

then God will punish us.

Correct?

Things won't go well for us.

Or when some things don't go well for us,

you wonder,

oh, is it because I'm not reading my Bible enough?

And what you see here is

the same old problems come,

but the same old grace always overcomes that.

And so even though he lies

and even though he's forced into the same generational sin

that his dad does,

verse 12,

God still blesses him.

He blesses him 100 fold.

The standard rate of that time

is if they made an investment into a farm,

it would have been 10 fold.

Maximum 30 fold

would have been a very good year.

Imagine he makes an investment

and he gets a hundred times back.

This would have been,

people would have looked at him and gone,

something's going on with this guy.

No one makes an investment

and gets a hundred times back.

Something's going wrong.

Well, not something's going wrong.

Something is different about this guy.

Well, maybe not about this guy necessarily,

but about his God.

And so then you see the Lord blessed him

and the man became rich

and gained more and more

until he became very wealthy.

He had possessions of flocks,

so just basically how rich he was.

But then something happens.

Verse 14,

so that the Philistines envied him.

So the moment he started getting more,

envy started to creep up around

from the people around him.

So they envy him.

And after that,

they not only envy,

they actually then start sabotaging

his wealth in verse 15.

Now the Philistines had stopped

and filled earth with all the wells

that his father's servants had dug

in the days of Abraham his father.

Bear in mind, it's a famine.

What do you really need in a famine?

What do you need for human existence or life?

You need water.

Where do you get the water from

in those kind of places?

Wells.

So wells are extremely important

to the survival of a group of people.

And so what did the Philistines do?

They envy him from far.

Why is this guy getting so rich?

Why is every investment he makes

comes back a hundredfold?

Let's slow him down a little bit.

Otherwise, he's going to get too powerful.

So what do they do?

In the middle of the night,

they grab a group of guys

and they're going to fill all his wells with dirt

to stop them from having water,

to sabotage his wealth.

After that, verse 16,

Abimelech says,

you know what?

That's enough.

Go away from us

for you are much mightier than we.

You know what?

We don't even want you in our land anymore.

Why?

Because you're getting too rich from our land.

Go away.

So they envy him.

Then they sabotage.

And then they actually exile him

and send him away.

What is Isaac's response to all of this?

Remember, this is the only chapter we have on Isaac.

So we have to glean everything that we can

about this man from this one chapter.

So Isaac departed from there

and encamped in the valley of Jerar

and settled there.

And then, verse 18,

he dug again the wells of water

that had been dug in the days of Abraham.

The Philistines had stopped after the death.

And then he does it.

But what happens when he digs that well?

Verse 19,

the herdsman of, verse 20,

the herdsman of Jerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsman,

saying, the water is ours.

So they called the name of the well, Isaac.

So this happens twice.

So they go.

So actually, interestingly,

even though he is a man of fear,

because that's why he lied about his wife,

throughout this journey,

you start to see him building the muscle

that is called faith.

So you start to see him change.

And you start to see him change before your eyes.

Because now there's an enemy

that is trying to sabotage him,

trying to push him away.

But instead of fighting him,

remember, Isaac is super rich.

His dad was also super rich.

And actually, he had 318 men

that actually overcame a king

that was ruling over five kingdoms.

So his dad was a powerful man.

The assumption here is that Isaac's the same.

At any moment, he could have said,

why are you destroying my wells?

I'm going to destroy you.

I have way more power than you.

Why am I even letting you do this?

But he doesn't.

Because I think if he went that way,

it would have been the way of fear.

But instead, he chooses the way of faith.

And what does he have faith in?

Actually, you can do whatever you want to me.

But my God is more powerful

than anything that you can ever do.

And I'm not afraid of you at all.

And so what does he do?

He digs a well, finds water,

but then they come and quarrel with him.

And then they actually contend with him.

So he's like, you know what?

I'm going to leave it.

You have that well.

I'm going to call this well

the well of contention.

And it's all yours.

And then he goes.

And he goes and finds another well.

And from that level,

he finds water again.

And then they come and go

and fight him for that.

And so actually that well,

he calls the well of hostility.

So he's like, okay,

this well of contention is all yours.

I don't care for it.

You take it.

This well here,

you're fighting me?

Fine.

You take it.

You start to see this man start to build his trust in God

to the point where he doesn't have to fight people anymore.

He doesn't have to lie anymore.

Why?

Because he knows God will ultimately give him what he needs

because God promised him that in the beginning of the chapter.

And so finally,

they find a final well.

And he moved from there.

And this time,

they did not quarrel over it.

So he called the name Rehoboth saying,

for now the Lord has made room for us

and we shall be fruitful in the land.

There is trust.

You can take my stuff.

You can take my job.

You can take that promotion.

You can take all these things

because ultimately,

I have a God who is in complete control,

who is sovereignly for me,

who knows what I need,

doesn't always give me what I want,

but I'm provided for.

If you're going to fight me for it,

you take it.

I wonder how many of us

can even carry that attitude into our workplace.

Especially if you work in an area like finance,

where it's a dog-eat-dog world.

Can you be in a place where you're like,

hey, everything I have comes from God anyway.

And actually,

even if you try to take it away from me,

if God wants me to have it,

he'll let me have it.

I'm not going to have to scrounge and fight

and lie and be deceitful.

Because why?

Because God's got my back.

You see, Isaac,

the same man that lied about his wife,

is starting to learn.

And he gets to the place

where he actually

finds that God provides for him.

And then when God provides for him,

God speaks again.

I am the God of Abraham,

your father.

Fear not,

for I am with you

and will bless you

and multiply your offspring

for my servant Abraham's sake.

So he builds an altar there.

He gets so rich

to the point where

Abimelech comes back.

So the guy who drove him away

comes back and says to him,

and he doesn't come back on his own.

He comes back

with Ahuhazaph,

his advisor,

and Fickle,

the commander of his army.

Likely the same Fickle

that went to Abraham

in a very similar situation

in chapter 20 and 21.

And they come to him

and Isaac's response to them is,

why have you come to,

this is verse 27,

why have you come to me

seeing that you hate me

and have sent me away from you?

Verse 28,

we see plainly

that the Lord has been with you.

That is the dream.

That is the prayer.

That someone in your workplace,

your boss

who has been mistreating you,

your family member

who just always,

always just messes with you,

comes to you and says,

you know what?

I can see

and it's pretty clear to me

that your God is with you.

And whilst you chose fear

at the beginning,

I'm starting to see

that there is worth

in having faith

in your God.

And so they come

and so they say,

hey,

can we make a deal?

Do you remember how

we actually treated you quite well

and we did no harm to you?

Which is ironic.

Verse 29,

he says,

that you will do us no harm

just as we have not touched you

and have done to you

nothing but good

and have sent you away in peace.

If I'm Isaac,

I'm like, bro,

you have short-term memory

because you did not

do me no harm.

Every well I dug,

you came to fill.

Every time I had success,

you pushed me away

and you sent me

into work.

And yet now you dare

come to me and say,

hey,

do you remember

how we were good friends

and we were just cool

with each other?

Does Isaac retaliate?

Does Isaac even have

a snide,

passive-aggressive comment?

He does not.

Why?

He's growing.

He's growing.

He's growing in his faith.

So what does he do instead?

Verse 30.

So he makes them a feast

and they ate and drank.

I don't know.

If someone does

that kind of stuff to me,

I don't think I'd be comfortable

buying them lunch.

But so often I live,

a lot of my decisions

are based and driven

out of fear.

But if they're driven

out of faith

in a God

who looks after me

no matter what

and nothing happens to me

without his say-so,

that then allows me

to sit and stare

at someone in the eye

who has mistreated me

and go,

you know what?

Let me buy you lunch.

Can you see the audacity

in that?

Can you see the recklessness

in that almost

and the mindset?

That's the Christian faith

starting to appear.

So they have dinner.

In the morning,

they rose early

and exchanged those

and Isaac sent them

on their way

and they departed

from him in peace.

That same day,

that same day

that that happened,

Isaac's servants came

and said,

hey, we found water.

And you think,

wow.

And that's pretty much it,

actually.

We don't hear much more

from Isaac's life

than that.

But what you see again,

the same old famine,

the same old lies,

the same old problems,

but the same grace.

Why?

Not because of Isaac,

not because of Abraham,

but because they had a God

who was relentless

and consistent

and good for his promise.

This whole book

is not about faithful people.

Those two guys

both made it,

Abraham and Isaac.

But as we've learned,

they're not really

that faithful.

But what we see here,

even though there is

generational sin,

even though the same problems

that we keep going back to,

God keeps coming back

and God keeps ruling

and reigning

in the same way.

So, blessings.

They're not always easy.

It doesn't mean

we won't have famines.

We do have famines.

But what it does mean

is another opportunity

to say,

will I trust in God?

Instead of escaping

to my own Egypt,

will I trust in God?

Will I not rely

on the things

that I think will work,

but will I trust in God

because he can be trusted?

The God of Abraham

and the God of Isaac

is actually our God too.

Of course,

we all know now,

and I hope

this is not a surprise

to you every time

we open up this book

that is called

The Bible,

it's not really about

Abraham and Isaac.

It's not really about us.

It's not really about you.

It's about Jesus.

It's about the one

who is the true Isaac,

who eventually comes

to fulfill

all the promises

through him.

The one who actually

had to surrender

his rights

time and time again.

The decision to come

to earth.

The decision to live

among men.

The decision to be born

in a stable.

The decision to be born

to a carpenter.

The decision to be born

in Nazareth.

The decision to be nailed

onto a cross

for something

that you did not do.

Relinquishing his rights

so that we would have life.

The shepherd in Psalm 23, 5,

it kind of pays tribute

to this story here.

What does it say?

You prepare a table

for me in the presence

of my enemies.

That's what Isaac

got to do.

He had enemies

come to him.

He's like,

you know what?

I'm not afraid of you.

You can come and sit

at my table.

Why?

Because I'm not even

the host.

Who's the host?

God.

And the very fact

that you can sit here,

the very fact that I can sit here

is not because of us,

it's because of him.

So Psalm 23,

when it says,

you prepare a table

before me in the presence

of my enemies,

it's saying,

God is relaxed

and God is in control

and God has sat down

and he's prepared the table.

He says,

come and sit down.

That anxiety

that you have about work,

that anxiety you have about,

that fear you have about this,

come, child,

take a seat.

I've prepared a table.

We should eat.

That faith,

that faith

that allows us to live

in a way

really comes from Jesus.

Jesus,

Jesus,

when he starts

his first ever sermon

in Matthew 5,

he said,

blessed are those

who are the peacemakers,

they are the sons of God.

And he himself

was the ultimate peacemaker.

Ephesians 2 talks about this,

that we were hostile

to him

and yet he came

to preach peace

to those who were near,

peace to those

who were far off,

to bring them together,

to bring us all together

so that we would all

have access to the Father

through him,

the ultimate,

the son of God himself.

Then we have to turn

that around to ourselves

and go,

well, okay,

well, if we're

children of God,

are we peacemakers?

Can we invite enemies

to our table

and sit and say,

hey,

let me buy you lunch.

You've been mistreating me.

You've been stabbing me

behind my back.

And guess what I know?

I'm not stupid.

I'm just not afraid of you

because my God

is bigger

than whatever

you're trying to do.

Why?

Because Jesus.

Because I'm trying

to follow the true Isaac.

I'm trying to follow

the shepherd

who prepares a table

for me

in the presence

of my enemies.

Keller,

in his book,

I've been reading this

called Walking with God

Through Pain and Suffering.

We're trying to make sense

of everything bad

that's happening

in this world.

It says this,

Isaac surrendered

his rights to the wells

again and again,

choosing peace

over retaliation.

In doing so,

he demonstrated

that he believed

God's promise

was greater

than his immediate defense.

True peacemaking

is not weakness.

It is the ultimate

expression of faith

that God is your vindicator.

Imagine that

if we left today

carrying that spirit

into every fight

that we have,

into every job

that we have.

But God is for us

and not against us.

Tozer,

in the pursuit of God,

says we must be convinced

that God is able

to provide for us

in the presence

of our enemies.

The table he prepares

for us in Psalm 23

is set right in the sight

of those who oppose us.

You do not need

to fight for a seat

when God himself

is the host.

I think more often

than not,

we fight for seats

for ourselves.

We fight for those wells.

We fight for those things.

And all that indicates

to us is we have forgotten

how faithful

and how in control

God truly is.

I'm actually going

to stop here now

for a second

because I'm going

to invite a friend

up to talk

because I don't want

you guys to fall asleep.

And it's this actually,

I asked Gabs

to reflect on

these last two chapters

that we've been going through

really to think about

what are the general

rational things

that we've passed

and we've been passed on,

we've received

from our families.

What are the things

that we're still facing

almost because of that?

And how's God showing up

through all of those things?

So Gabs, come on.

Should we give him

a round of applause?

A little bit about Gabs

as you'll be able to hear.

He's also from England.

England.

England.

He's from a very obnoxious

city called London.

London.

And actually,

I first get,

you're just going to

repeat everything I say.

I am.

That's my job.

And actually,

I first met Gabs

when we worked

at Young Life together.

So he,

actually, you can say,

why are you here in Hong Kong?

Because God called me here.

Yeah, in a grand sense, yes.

But originally,

why don't you look

at my stuff?

Oh my goodness.

So originally,

I came here on exchange.

I was at Hong Kong U.

I did one year here.

I had a really

pivotal experience

of community

when I came on exchange.

I grew up as a Christian,

but I think it was my experience

of community on exchange here

that gave me

a bigger sense of God.

So when I went back to the UK

to finish my degree,

there was always a sense

in my heart

that I wanted to be back

around those people

that I experienced

that community with.

So when I graduated,

I came back

and I actually was working

with Young Life

for five years.

And yeah,

that was kind of

why I came back

and kind of,

since then,

it's now been 10 years,

which is kind of crazy to think.

And what do you do now?

So I'm a,

I do events.

I do financial events.

So after working

for Young Life

for five years,

there was a sort of

a transition period

and I moved into

sort of the corporate world now.

And a part of that calling

was I remember feeling like

a lot of the guys

who I was discipling

and walking with,

a lot of them I knew

weren't going to go

into full-time ministry.

And I felt like

I had this conviction

in my heart

where I wanted to give them

an image of someone

who was pursuing Christ

who wasn't in full-time ministry.

So that was actually

really the reason.

And yes,

I've had a chance

to practice that

and it's been difficult.

It's been very tough

and James knows

it's been quite tough for me,

but yeah,

that was kind of the heart.

I mean,

I resonate with that.

Sometimes when you're

in full-time ministry

as a pastor,

you try and convince,

hey,

let's be serious

about the faith.

Let's read the Bible.

Let's do this

and this is what I'm doing.

And sometimes it's like,

well,

that's okay for you.

You're a pastor.

And I'm like,

no,

I wasn't always a pastor.

I wasn't born a pastor.

But so that's your calling.

You came out

and how's that working out for you?

Yeah,

it's been tough.

It's been tough,

but it's been good.

I think

in a really interesting way,

being in this space

I've been in

for the past four years

since I left full-time ministry

has made me have to rely

on God

in a different way.

I think the hardships

that I've faced,

which in the grand scheme

of life

aren't hardships,

but relative to my experience

that God knows me,

these are hardships.

I think they've just given me

reason and opportunities

to fully rely on Him

and just be like,

I can't do this.

And it's only by God's strength

I'm able to make it through

right now.

So I think that's actually been

really good for my faith.

That's good.

And I asked you to look at

actually Genesis 25 and 26

and just as you

mull over that transition

from Abraham to Isaac

and start sharing.

What came out for you?

Before I go into it,

can I pray?

Lord,

this is all about you.

Jesus,

we thank you for the sacrifice

that you've made for us.

Truly,

everything that we say

and that we do,

we want it to reflect

your goodness

and your glory in our lives.

Lord,

this sharing isn't about me,

it's not about my mom,

it's not about my family,

it's about your goodness.

Lord,

I pray that

the words that are spoken,

Lord,

would it be empowered

by your Holy Spirit

and would the exact thing

that needs to be received

for your children,

for your congregation,

Lord?

Would it be spoken

to the hearts,

the people in this room

and the people listening?

In Jesus Christ's name,

amen.

Amen.

Thank you.

So yeah,

so over Genesis 25 and 26,

I think

one of the biggest themes

I can see

is dysfunction.

It's dysfunction in family,

it's brokenness in family,

it's lying,

it's cheating,

it's self-preservation,

and despite all of this,

there's the reality

that we see

that we know

that this is the family

that God has chosen

to bring his glory through

and for them

to be a blessing

to all of the generations.

Like it says

at the beginning

of Genesis 26,

the purpose

of God

being with Isaac

and the line of Isaac

is so that

many,

the multitudes,

the generations,

the world,

not just their family

would be blessed.

So as I see

the dysfunction

over the past two chapters,

I'm also seeing,

wow,

God's provision,

God's providence,

God's goodness,

his faithfulness

is consistent,

is persistent

through all of this.

So yeah,

I know,

I ended up thinking

about my own family

and I guess

it was really timely

because over the last

couple of weeks,

there's just been

a lot of opportunities.

I've come face to face

with the dysfunction

of my own family,

you know,

and just seeing

oh wow,

there is so much

brokenness in the world

but like here,

right here.

And I'm sure many of us

can resonate with that.

So yeah,

recently there was just,

I guess,

jumping forward a bit.

The tension in my family

really comes down

to my grandma

and my mother.

So in that relationship,

there's a lot of hurt,

there's a lot of brokenness.

And it stems from

things that even started

when my grandma

was a young woman.

You know,

my grandma

got married to my grandpa

when she was 14.

And even there,

he had multiple wives.

And there was so much

brokenness in that

original relationship

between the two of them.

My mom is the firstborn

of my grandma.

So much of that pain

went into my mom.

And to this day,

there's been just so much

tension and dysfunction

between the two of them

because of that

original time.

My mom is the oldest of four.

And then,

long story short,

my grandma

and my grandpa split.

They both moved to the UK.

My mom has a lot of

half-sisters and half-brothers.

Even within those relationships,

the brokenness continues.

The dysfunction continues.

There's favoritism.

There's lying.

There's deceit.

And I've just seen

recently,

because my grandma

did pass a week ago,

actually.

So there was a big situation

that happened leading up

to this

where she had a really,

really progressive

and sudden battle of cancer

within two months.

She was healthy,

two months,

and then she passed away.

And my mom and my grandma

had not spoken

on good terms,

let's say,

for maybe 15 years.

And I remember,

I grew up going to my grandma's house

and it was actually

a really joyful space.

And then I remember

at some point

in my childhood,

it was like,

oh, that just stopped.

And I didn't know why,

but I just remember,

it was like,

okay, we don't go to grandma's house anymore.

We don't talk to, like,

all of these uncles

and all of these aunties anymore.

And I've gotten older,

I've had conversations

with my mom

where I've been able

to understand

why that happened.

And yeah,

it's, like I said,

it's rooted

in all of just this,

oh, I don't believe

you have my best interests

at heart.

I think you've done something

to cause the pain

in my life.

The decisions

that you've made

have not been the decisions

I want you to make.

So now,

we are at odds.

We are enemies.

And this is within the family, right?

And then this trickled down

to my aunties and uncles.

I find it,

I mean,

we actually hadn't planned

this week to be,

we actually planned before.

So I'm sat here just going,

okay, well,

we both had loss,

experienced loss

this week.

We both come from families

that are dysfunctional.

And it's so in,

just in line

with what we're reading

in scripture.

Like the same things

you just described

about your family.

Like, well,

we covered all of those

in the last few chapters.

Like,

so as you relate

to scripture

and the word of God,

what things come to mind

for you?

Yeah.

So you may have heard me

talk about my mom before.

My mom is a wonderful lady.

She's a flawed woman as well.

Very flawed.

But she's a wonderful woman.

And the reason

I emphasize those two things

is because

I genuinely do that

throughout the two chapters,

25 and 26,

and all of Genesis so far.

The emphasis is once again

that the faithfulness of God

isn't dependent on humanity.

Even within the flaws of humanity,

even within the brokenness

of humanity,

the faithfulness of God

is consistent.

And I see that

in my mom

because

with all of that context

I just gave you,

which is very brief,

my mom is a person

who

has dedicated her life

to Christ.

She met Christ

in her teenage,

in her teenage years

and,

like,

by herself.

And I believe that

Christ has been

an anchor for my mom.

And one thing

that I've seen

in my mother

is that

she has demonstrated

this willingness

to be malleable

to God.

And that's actually

something she's prayed.

And this is a prayer

I've heard her pray.

I've heard her,

you know,

on her knees

with her hands out

saying,

Lord,

let me be malleable

to your spirit.

And what I have seen

in that

is that

in all of these moments

where I feel like

this brokenness

and dysfunction

could manifest,

I've seen that

similar to the way

you mentioned

that Isaac

in the latter half

of 26,

he's now in this place

where he's beginning

to put his trust

in God

over his fear

of man.

I think

as I've grown

and as I've,

you know,

grown and seen

my mom grow

in her own faith,

I've seen that

same thing happen

with her

where as she's prayed

to be malleable

to the spirit,

I've seen that

the Lord has been

faithful to that

and that she's changed.

My mom's very fiery.

If you ever meet my mom,

she will probably,

like,

prophesy over you

and then pray for you

even if you don't

welcome it.

She's that type of person.

But all of it

is really rooted in

the Lord has been

my mom's anchor.

That's it.

Everything else

my mom has felt like

has failed her in a way

and the Lord has been

her anchor.

So that's why

she holds onto

her faith so strongly.

But at the same time,

she's so quick

to be humble.

She's so quick

to accept fault.

She's so quick

to recognize

where she has done

something that maybe

has grieved the Holy Spirit

in her.

And that's something

I've heard her say,

like,

Lord,

forgive me for the things

that I've done

that I've grieved

your spirit within me.

She's quick to recognize

those things,

even with us as kids.

Like,

she would say something

to us,

she would punish us

or something,

and then she would be

quick to recognize

that this was coming

from herself.

And this wasn't coming

from the Lord

using through her.

So she was so sensitive

to that.

So I don't know,

as I've looked

at that transition

or that growth

of Isaac,

I feel like that's

kind of what I've

recognized in people

in my own life

within my mother as well.

And just,

I wonder how common

that is,

especially if you've

grown up in the Chinese

culture,

when was the last time

you heard your parents

kind of rebuke you

and then say,

you know what?

I overstepped the mark

and I apologize.

Has anyone ever had

a Chinese parent

apologize to them

for anything?

But,

of course,

what we're talking about

is just this humility

that she's developed

whilst being fierce,

which is very possible,

but that's the key

to all of it, right?

Right.

And like I said,

with that context

I gave you about my mother,

I think it would have been

very expected

for her to not be like that.

It would have been

very expected for her

to be very harsh,

to be very jaded,

to carry that hurt

in our relationship

with us.

But I genuinely believe

that the only,

only reason

that she is not like that

is because of Christ in her.

because she has been willing

to surrender herself fully

to God

and her fear of the Lord

overrides her sense of self,

that she's been able

to take every,

all of those generational traumas

and generational dysfunction

that could have been

passed on to us

and say,

this isn't what the Lord

has for my family.

And so I'm going to turn that on you.

As you look at your family

from grandma down to mom

and the whole wider family,

so Scabs is someone

who's actually very reflective

and very insightful

in his own kind of,

just where he is.

As you think about the things

that you may have inherited

from the dysfunction,

how do you go about surrendering

and letting God,

you know,

mold you?

I think it really comes down to

what my,

I've seen in my mom,

what I've seen her demonstrate

that I've caught

is a willingness

to recognize

the power and authority of God

and to be changed by that.

I think my mom is in awe of God.

I haven't always been in awe of God

and I would say in a large extent

I'm still learning what that means.

But that's something I see her practice

and because of that,

I know that God,

and through my own experiences as well

where I've now seen God show up

in my own life

and his faithfulness in my own life,

I know that he is worthy of our praise.

So in that,

I think there's this journey

of recognizing that

if there is something

that is of God's heart

and I feel like I am missing something,

I try my best,

whether it's in surrounding myself

with the people

who can give me good counsel,

whether it's just spending time

in the world,

to be realigned with God's heart.

Because I almost,

almost assume

that I'm missing something

in a way.

So I'm like,

God,

I don't see the full picture

and I know I don't see the full picture.

I want to see the full picture.

So I think that's kind of something

that I've gained from my mom

where it's like quick to

minimize self

and to maximize God

in that experience

and say like,

God,

what is actually your heart right now?

And so that's something good

that you've taken from it.

What are some of the challenges

that have come from?

Oh,

there's a lot I can go into actually.

For the sake of this,

I think one of the things

that my mom used to say is,

and I've told some people this,

my mom is quite dramatic

and she would say,

Gabriel,

you have no friends.

You only have brothers

and sisters in Christ

and acquaintances.

Oh.

Yeah.

Right, right, right.

So it's quite dramatic

and I think in a lot of ways,

that is actually why

in some ways I've been quite,

what's the word I want to use?

Independent

and I like go off.

People who know me well

know I do this.

Well, I'm just like kind of

to myself a lot

because it's just like,

no one understands me,

only God understands me.

And I'm just like,

I'm in this by myself,

got no friends.

So I think,

so I think there's like

a side of that

where I,

the heart behind

what my mom was saying

is really good.

But I think in reality,

I think sometimes

it's manifest in this

sort of like,

no one will fully understand

I'm by myself in this,

so I need to face this

by myself with God

and no one else.

So I would say

that's kind of like

the flip side.

That's interesting.

Wow, your mom

sounds like Vin Diesel.

Okay.

In that exact voice.

What's the final reflection

from just the word of God

for you?

Yeah.

So I actually,

I had a call with my mom

before I was going

to come up today

because I was going

to share this story

about her,

so I wanted to get her

one permission.

But also I asked her

directly to say,

what do you have

for the congregation?

Like what's actually

something that you would

want me to share

with the church

this Sunday?

And her words were,

one,

being malleable

to the Holy Spirit.

believing that

if God is who

he says he is,

any of the changes

that he is calling

you to make

and any of the changes

that he is encouraging

in your life

are worth it.

Be open to those,

be surrendered to that.

The second thing

that my mom wanted

to share

was the word forgiveness.

I didn't go into it

too much,

but very quickly,

just before my grandma

passed,

my,

like I said,

my mom and my grandma

hadn't spoken for many,

many years.

She knew,

well, my mom didn't even

know at this point,

but she knew my grandma

was sick

and she felt the conviction

to say,

hey, I really need

to see her.

So she called

her siblings.

Her siblings were

hanging up the call.

They weren't picking up.

She found out

through one of her

other sisters

who still talks to her

where my grandma was,

went to see my grandma.

She gets to the location.

Some of her siblings

are there.

They're shouting at her,

telling her to get out.

I can tell you more

about the story,

but just for a bit

of context,

the reason that there

is tension

isn't because of

something bad

that my mom did.

It's really just

because of jealousy.

But my mom gets

to the location

of my grandma.

They're screaming,

telling her to get out.

My mom gets a chance

to kneel beside my grandma.

And at this point,

my grandma's nonverbal.

She's not able to speak.

She holds her hand.

She prays with her.

She says,

this is your firstborn daughter.

I love you.

She tells me that

that whole journey

going up to see

her grandma again,

she was crying

and she had so much pain

in her heart.

She gets into that room

and then she gets

on her knees

and prays.

And after 15 years,

she feels her mother

squeeze her hand.

And in the background,

her siblings are still

showering her to get out.

But she feels her mother

squeeze her hand.

And then after praying

and kneeling next to her,

saying,

I forgive you,

she leaves.

My grandma passes away

three days later.

And this story

is unresolved

in the sense that

my mom,

in her faith

and in her understanding,

believes that

between her and her mother,

the Lord has restored that.

there's still a lot of

unreconciled feelings

and relationships

with her siblings now

to this day.