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Welcome to the Hope Community Church! Hope is a multi-site church community with locations around the Triangle in Raleigh, Apex, Northwest Cary, Garner, and Fuquay-Varina. We are here to love you where you are and encourage you to grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ! We strive to speak the truth of the Bible in a way that is easy to understand, helpful in your current life circumstances, and encouraging. No matter who you are or where you come from, you are welcome here!
0: Thank.
1: Holy,
holy in Jesus name ain't name.
In Jesus righteousness
we say,
anybody believe that?
And
when he shall come with trumpet sounds, Jesus is coming back
in the presence of
singing forever.
Lift your voices, your voice,
his place Let of,
because he's of worthy of every shout and every declaration of his goodness.
Come on.
2: Well it is great to see all of you. Welcome to Whole Community Church.
My name's Dwayne.
I'm one of the pastors here and I get the privilege of welcoming you here today.
Now we are excited as we always are for the opportunity to worship God and
that's what this time is really all about.
And we're starting a brand new series today and we're excited.
It's called Called. And you're gonna hear for the next two weeks, um,
from two of our leaders here, hope Community Church today you get to treat,
we get the privilege.
I'm excited to spend this time together with our lead pastor Jason Gore.
Y'all give Jason some love right from the very beginning of our time together.
Now, if you are new to Hope Community Church,
I want to let you know that we would love to get connected with you.
Like we would love to help you to find your place as a part of the family of
God.
And one of the ways that you can easily do that here at Hope is an area called
the next steps area At the end of service today,
we would love it if you would stop by there. Uh, as you exit,
just let us know that you're new and we'll do everything that we can to
relationally walk you into the family of God and spend time getting to know you
and help you and encourage you as you spend that time trying to discern where
the Lord is leading you. Now, at each of our physical campuses,
we have a next steps area and we would love to meet you there and we're gonna
continue to worship together. And before we get there,
I want you to take a moment and simply greet each other, welcome to each other,
to church. And I wanna tell you, welcome to hope.
3: Our church. We're gonna continue to worship together.
We're gonna declare the name of Jesus all across.
0: Us.
3: Oh Jesus,
I speak declare
name.
0: Speak the name of Jesus,
fear and.
3: Speak.
0: Jesus.
3: Come declare the name of Jesus.
0: Today we ing.
3: I just.
0: The name of Jesus
name is
strong. Shine the
forever because your name is God. Name,
healing name is.
3: Strong.
0: Shine.
3: Jesus the mountain.
Oh Jesus the darkness.
Oh Jesus. For my family I speak.
0: Jesus. Jesus, Jesus.
Shout Jesus. The
Jesus.
3: Jesus.
0: Jesus,
Jesus.
Your name is power. Your name is healing,
your name is alive. Yes, it's we declare.
So the
name
shine,
we declare the name.
3: Of Jesus. We
come on wherever you we to declare.
0: The name.
3: Of Jesus. Come on, Jesus.
Jesus,
Jesus we love.
0: You.
3: Oh Jesus, we love.
0: You.
3: Oh Jesus, come on church, let's give him some praise. He's good,
he's faithful. Oh Jesus.
1: This Jesus we sing to And this Jesus that we talk about is referred to in one of
the most famous passages in all of the Bible. And that is Psalms 23.
I'm gonna read that over us today. The Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not one. He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake.
Even though I walk to the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil for you are with me.
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies,
you anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days
of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever. This is the word of God.
We're gonna sing a new song together today that's called Good plans.
And this is what the song is about.
That regardless of what you brought into the room today,
whether it is a desert or whether it is a garden,
our God who is holy and faithful yesterday,
today and forever, he has good plans.
The Bible says He knows the very number of heirs on your head and he is worthy
to giving your life to.
And so for those of us who make Jesus our Lord and Savior,
we can say with confidence that our God has good
plans. So we're gonna sing this together today. Let me pray for us.
God, we thank you that you are beyond faithful,
that you are beyond merciful. May we learn to trust you.
And if anyone today doesn't know you as this shepherd when they know you today,
in Jesus name, amen.
Lord is my shepherd. And
so will not.
0: Worry.
1: I'll not be the end me.
He said that he loves me.
He said that He's with me though I walk through the valley
of shadow and death. And he.
0: Good.
1: He has.
0: Good.
1: He has good.
0: He.
1: Watching over the Lord is my Savior.
The Lord is my Savior. Why
the waters the.
0: He has good plans. He has good,
good. He has good.
We trust you Lord. Oh, we trust you Lord.
We're gonna sing. Surely goodness and mercy will follow after me.
So I have no reason to fear. Come on, we sing surely.
Goodness. And
and
that finally, surely, surely, surely,
surely the
God he has good plans.
He has good
good
a church in His A, in his
creatures.
1: Say, praise God. Praise the.
0: Yes.
1: God, we thank you.
We thank you that you hear
those secret cries of our hearts.
We thank you that you care about even the hairs on our head.
We, we learn to trust you with every breath
in the good days and in the bad days.
0: Because.
1: You are worthy of all of our trust in all of our life.
We honor you, we glorify you. And it's in the name of Jesus that we pray.
Amen. Church, did you take a seat? Will you give God some Thanksgiving today?
Amen. Amen.
We're so excited to share what God is doing here at Hope Community Church.
We got an awesome story for you to check out.
4: Well my name is Bree Biman.
My husband Mike and I have been at Hope since 2007 right before Apex Campus
opened.
We were at Holly Springs High School and at the time my boys were very little.
They're now 14, 12, and nine. Um,
and I was a stay-at-home mom and I was exhausted and I wanted to do more.
I wanted to serve but I didn't know how to do it and I was scared.
And when we were at the high school, all the elementary kids in Kid City,
K through five were in the gym.
And I would walk by and see them doing the worship and singing the songs and
dancing. And I felt like God was like, you need to be in there.
And so then Apex Campus opened, um,
and I became the worship team lead for our campus.
I really felt like God was prepping my heart to be in Kid City before I was
ready to take that step. And when I finally found the courage to take that step,
I really related to the worship piece of it.
I grew up in a Presbyterian church where we would read the Bible, you know,
and do all the things,
but the worship in the music is where I really heard from God.
And so growing up music was a huge part of my life and it's been a huge part of
my faith journey. And that's the part with Kid City that I really related to.
When you're a stay at home mom, my concern was where's my kids gonna go?
How is this gonna work? How am I gonna have time to do this?
And I think what really convinced me was just meeting the other volunteers and
they gracefully just came around me and said, here, we're gonna help you.
Let's show you where intersection is,
which is where the kids go when you're serving.
And so that they're in a safe place while you're serving.
And I think weekend by weekend and year by year,
I was just guided and supported and they were able to show me like, look,
your kids are great. You know,
they're doing all these amazing things and you get to serve.
When I finally took that step,
I really felt God had put a calling on my heart that worship needs to be
elevated, it needs to be more than that.
Kid City does does such an amazing job with their curriculum.
We've really evolved to it really being about a heart of worship.
What does that mean to praise God? Why do we praise God?
Why is this important in our faith journey?
Music has always been a huge piece of my life.
One of my son's music is a huge piece of his life.
There's a lot of kids that relate to music and I feel like if we can bring them
closer to Jesus through worship and through music generally those moments of
jazzing the kids up and hearing them sing and watching them dance and praise the
Lord, it's just so pure. What an amazing thing to be part of that. And I just,
I think that's just my heart,
that God gave me that heart to serve by taking that chance and getting involved.
He's opened my community to people that I may not have ever rubbed shoulders
with, that I can pray for them, they can pray for me,
we can walk in life together. And,
and that's even families of some of the kids that I serve with in Kid City.
Like you just never know who's God's gonna bring in your path.
There are just so many ways that you can make an impact.
God shows up big time and he confirms like, this is why you're here.
I am where God needs to be. And I know that God does that for other people too.
5: Yeah, celebrate that man. A hello Hope family. Listen,
I love that story. You know, we,
we talk around here at hope about being the church, being a family,
right?
The church isn't just something that you show up to so that other people can
only serve you like in a family. We all have roles,
we all have responsibilities.
And so seeing that actually come to life so meaningful.
And I would say to you like,
if you've been around here for any length of time and you're looking for a way
to connect, if you're looking for ways to,
to find out more about what it means to follow Jesus.
If you're looking for a place or a way to share hope,
we'd love to have you jump on one of our teams.
Just go to next steps at whatever campus you are currently residing. Uh,
if you're listening online or if you'd prefer you can just text the word serve
to 7 2 9 8 9. We would love to follow up with you. We are in a series right now,
we're just starting it this week, two week series it's called.
And the series is all about what, what are we actually called into, uh,
as people who love God,
as people who follow Jesus as people who want to share hope with the world
around us. And so this week we're gonna look at the life of Abraham.
Next week we're gonna be looking at the life of Esther.
And I wanna help you understand, I hope you understand,
if we really were to try to unpack the life of Abraham, uh,
and and how it fits in the overarching narrative of scripture,
it would be have to be like an anywhere from an eight to a 52 week series.
Or we could do it in one message, but it would take like eight to 52 hours.
And so I don't think either one of those are a good idea.
And so what we're gonna do is, uh,
we're just gonna look at a few key moments in the life of Abraham.
We're gonna make some OB observations.
We're gonna look at how we can apply those to our life and then we're gonna head
on outta here. Uh, quick story. Uh, this past week I asked my son,
my 15-year-old son Aiden,
because as a family we're reading through the Bible together in a year.
And so I said, Hey son, I'm talking about Abraham this week and you know,
we were in Genesis back in January,
what was it that stood out to you about the life of Abraham? And he said,
you know, dad, I think it was that he just had a lot of faith.
And I thought, okay, well that's good.
At least we remember something from the story.
What is it that stood out to you specifically? And he said,
he's like the only man that at least I've come across so far in the Bible that
was ever actually asked to sacrifice his own son.
And he was willing to do it because he actually had faith in God.
Now I'm just gonna let that sit for a moment and, and we'll come back to it.
But what I want you to know though is hey,
kids can understand the Bible and,
and one of the most powerful things that we can do is dads as moms within our
families,
to actually just spend time opening up God's word and reading it like they can
digest it, we can digest it together and apply it to our lives.
Before we jump into, uh, Abraham, I wanna ask you a question.
Have you ever found yourself in a place where you thought,
I thought by now I was gonna, it's like, hey, I,
I thought I was gonna have a different job.
I thought life was gonna be a bit more stable. Uh,
I thought I was gonna have a better marriage. Uh,
I thought I would was gonna have a marriage by now. Um,
I I thought I was gonna have a chance to watch the Miami Dolphins in the Super
Bowl at some point in my lifetime. And, uh,
some things stretch your faith a little bit more.
But what we're gonna find is when we look at the life of Abraham, what,
what God really wants to call us into is a life of faith. In those moments,
if you have your Bibles, I'm gonna encourage you turn to Genesis chapter 12. Uh,
we're gonna start right at the very beginning there, verse one.
I say this regularly when, when I get up here and talk, if you have a Bible,
bring it with you. Uh, this week in particular,
just the way this story rolls through the Old Testament,
we're gonna read probably a lot more scripture than we normally do.
And so I just think it'll be helpful if you can bring it. Uh,
and so I'm gonna jump right in Genesis chapter 12, verse one.
Now the Lord said to Abram quick, uh, side note here,
his name is Abram. Now God at some point changes it to Abraham.
I might even skip when that happens. His wife's name right now is Sir Rise.
They're gonna change it to Sarah later. He's about 75 years old right now.
His wife is 65. They've not been able to have kids.
But I wanna tell you that now 'cause I might say the wrong name and I just
wanna, I don't want you to be distracted. It's probably gonna happen now.
The Lord said to Abram,
go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your
father's house to the land that I will show you.
I will and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your
name great. And so you shall be a blessing.
And I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you. I will curse.
And in you, all the families say all the families, all all the families.
Let's try it one more time.
I know that was a surprise you didn't know it was coming. Say all the families,
all the families turns out like when you get into translation,
that really means all the families of the earth will be blessed.
And so like he's saying, I want you to go from your country, from your family,
from your relative. He's saying, I, I'm calling you.
I want you to be willing to leave every part of your past that you know is
comfortable. And I I'm curious, just think to yourself,
if you've ever been in that place where everything that you knew you somehow
God called you out of that into a place of the unknown.
And so this was a go for something I will do later.
And so everything else is future tense. So he says, I want you to go,
but I'm not gonna tell you how.
I'm not gonna tell you exactly what I'm certainly not gonna tell you when.
So he goes, Genesis 12, four, we see.
So Abraham went away as the Lord had spoken to him and lot went with him.
Lot was his nephew and a,
now Abraham was 75 years old when he departed from Heron. Okay?
All of us are most likely tempted to believe that when God calls us into taking
a step of faith,
we step into that step of faith and we just expect life to get
better. Right?
Wrong doesn't always work that way. So he takes that step of faith.
The first thing that happens is a famine hits. So I take a step of faith,
I leave everything you say. You say you're going to bless me, a famine hits.
Now I'm gonna sprint through some of this.
We don't have to read every single verse. So because of the famine,
they have to go to Egypt, they're going to Egypt.
And Abraham realizes, Hey my sir Siri, you're beautiful.
I'm nervous that the Egyptians are gonna see you,
think you're beautiful and then kill me so they can have you.
So I've got this great idea. Let's tell them that I'm your brother.
And so they go into Egypt, they say is their brother, and then they sit,
I mean the plan works and that they don't kill 'em,
but then they end up taking his wife into Pharaoh's house, all right?
And so they end up in the house together,
then a curse comes on Pharaoh's house as as a result a plague.
And so they end up departing from the area there.
And then in chapter 13 there's essentially a family dispute involving
his nephew that actually leads to the family splitting apart.
And so just to sum it all up, to be clear, God said, go and I will bless you,
Abraham went and he's experienced a famine,
made a really dumb move and now his family's split up due to bickering,
not exactly what you'd expect. And so in that moment
we would be tempted to think like, did I miss something
or have I actually done something similar to what Abraham did that has actually
discounted me from the blessing that it is that God has for me. Maybe I,
I've made a move I shouldn't have made Genesis 13.
And what I want you to see here is God's commitment to his faithfulness.
I want you to see God's commitment to his promises. Genesis 13, 14 through 18,
the Lord said to Abram after lot had separated from him. He says,
now Abram,
raise your eyes and look from the place where you are northward and southward
and eastward and westward for all the land which you see I will give to you
and to your descendants forever.
I will make your descendants as plentiful as the dust of the earth.
So that if anyone can count the dust of the earth,
then your descendants could also be counted. So God shows up again. He says,
listen, you're gonna have this land. He says, you're gonna have descendants.
I made a promise you're gonna have descendants.
I made a promise and I'm gonna keep it.
So God just reaffirms his promise. So this is where things get better.
Chapter 14, a war breaks out around them and then he finds out,
remember the family that split apart due to the bickering he finds out his
nephew is actually kidnapped by one of the people groups that are a part of this
war. And like in one of the lesser talked about stories in the life of Abraham,
Abraham and like 300 of his best fighters have to go like Liam Neeson in the
movie taken and rescue them out.
So like it is not getting any easier. And again,
are we tempted to think maybe God's not in it?
This isn't what I signed up for. Did I miss my calling?
I want you to see the faithfulness of God. Genesis 15 after these things,
the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision saying, do not fear a Abraham.
I am a shield to you. Your reward shall be very great.
He's going this reward, this promise. But Abraham said, Lord God,
what will you give me since I'm childless?
Now I want you to understand like at this point it's been years, right?
And so you're faithful, you're faithful, you're faithful,
but at some point you like have this breaking point.
And I don't know if you've ever been there, I promise you I have been.
And like something snaps and even our posture towards God changes a bit.
And he says, Lord, what will you give me since I'm childless?
Remember you said I will have descendants and the heir of my house is Azar of
Damascus. I'll explain that in a minute. Abraham also said,
since you have given me no son, one who has been born in my house is my heir.
So Abraham is replying like whatever reward that you give to me,
it's gonna end up going to Azar of Damascus.
He was like the patriarch of his family. He didn't have any children yet.
He was so, so Azar was essentially like a trusted servant to him in his home.
And so no child,
that means anything that he has is going to go to him as the descendant.
But verse four, God says,
then behold the word of the Lord came to him saying,
this man will not be your heir,
but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.
And then he took him outside and he said,
now look towards the heavens and count the stars if you're able to count them.
And he said to him, so shall your descendants be. And so the Lord says,
listen, you still don't get it. Like,
but I'm faithful to what I promised and you're gonna have real descendants and
you're gonna have a real land. My promise still stands.
And then watch this in verse six,
and I want you to underline it if you actually have your Bibles. He says,
then he believed in the Lord
and he the Lord credited it to him as righteousness.
I want you to see that, um, in the midst of God's promises to us.
Like it's not our actions that take us to a place of righteousness before God,
but it's our belief and we're gonna come back to that. But you,
you gotta remember like in this moment,
it wasn't that Abraham left where he was to go to this foreign
land, it's that he believed and had enough faith in God to go.
And in this moment he's saying, I have faith in what it is that you're saying.
So now he's, he's shown this belief, he's shown this faith,
it's credited to him as righteousness.
Now is when everything's going well because we know when we believe in God,
that's when we don't make mistakes. Chapter 16,
Sarah Abraham's wife has a great idea.
She says, listen, I'm still barren. I haven't been able to have a child.
We have my maid servant Hagar.
And so would you consider laying with our maid
servant and see if she can conceive and then we will have a child in the home.
And man, I just gotta tell you real fast, if your wife ever says that to you,
it's a trap.
6: .
5: Don't go for it. Okay? Um,
Abraham has already shown some of his decision making. And again,
I want you to understand our decision making is not what ties us to God's
faithfulness. Okay? So we see some decision making here.
He actually does make the decision to lay with Hagar.
She does conceive and then shockingly more dysfunction. And there's the picture
immediately. Sarah's wife's now frustrated with her husband. And uh,
I just wanna highlight for a minute,
like these types of things are what happened.
When we don't trust God's timing Mean,
how many times in our lives have we thought, you know what?
I think I know what it is that God has for me,
but it's not happening fast enough.
So maybe I start to control the situation a little bit.
Maybe I start to manipulate the situation a little bit.
Maybe it's a situation at work and it's like, you know what?
I know God has that promotion for me.
And so maybe I actually say something in a room that might make somebody else
look a little bit better than they really are so that maybe I look a little bit
better than I am.
6: Um, I.
5: If you play this out, here's a spoiler alert.
So at some point Abraham does have a child, he does have a descendant.
And what I want you to know is, um,
that leads to the Jewish people which then
end up in this land of Canaan, which is present day Israel.
And then you have this son from Hagar who is Ishmael,
who um, in that lineage, um, is Muhammad.
And I'll just leave it at that 'cause I'm not trying to have any conversation
about a holy War.
But what I want you to know is that this bickering did not stop with Sarah and
Hagar because of one decision that was made that did not trust in God's timing.
And man,
we make these decisions and we try to push things and we don't put our faith in
God entrusted. It's him that fights our battles. And I'm telling you,
messes happen. We just gotta be mindful.
But then we get to Genesis chapter 21
verse one. Then the Lord took note of Sarah as he had said,
and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised.
So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age at the appointed
time of which God has spoken to him.
Abraham named his son who was born to him, the son whom Sarah a bore to him,
which was Isaac.
If you go back two chapters you see in Genesis 18,
they're still struggling towards believing what it is that God really wants to
do. And I'm intentionally going back to these places 'cause I just gotta believe
that most of us have some situations in our life right now that we might be
having a difficult time continuing to put our faith in what we believe God has
in front of us.
Chapter 18 verse nine, then they,
these three men that showed up that were really representing God on his map,
it says, where is your wife, Sarah? And he said, they're in the tent.
And he said, I will certainly return to you at this time next year. And behold,
your wife Sarah will have a son. And Sarah was listening at the tent door,
which was behind him. Now,
Abraham and Sarah were old advanced in age to say the least.
Sarah was passed childbearing. So Sarah laughs to herself saying,
after I have become old, am I to have pleasure?
My Lord being old also, verse 13. But the Lord said to Abraham,
why did Sarah laugh saying,
shall I actually give birth to a child when I'm so old? And this is verse 14,
and I went ahead to show you that the Lord does deliver on his promise.
And so then when you back up, this is what it is that the Lord says,
is anything too difficult for the Lord
at the appointed time?
I'll return to you at this time next year and Sarah will have a son. And I,
I wanna pause for a moment. Um, as you should do when you read scripture, uh,
especially large amounts of scripture like this, and um,
just really model what it is that we should be doing when we engage God in
scripture. And that's just to take some time to reflect.
Abraham is a hundred years old. Sarah is 90 years old.
Is there anything too difficult for the Lord?
My car just broke down and I'm outta cash.
My parents are aging and I don't know how to meet their needs.
I'm single and I don't know if I'm ever gonna find someone.
I'm struggling with my identity and I don't know if I'm gonna make it through.
I wanna be generous with the church,
but I'm worried about my lack of time or what's in my bank account.
Is there anything too difficult for the Lord?
And at some point we've gotta recognize that God is calling us into living lives
of faith,
not based on our situations or our circumstances or with the places that we find
ourselves in. So again,
you fast forward to 21 Sarah Bears a child, the name of Isaac.
And so now everything is good.
The promise has finally been experienced. Everything is smooth. Sailing
Chapter 22, verse one.
Now it came about after these things that God tested Abraham,
I just wanna hold up for a minute. I was talking to Dwayne in the back.
Anytime you read something like that in scripture, God tested Abraham. Are you,
are any of you in here with me? And like, Hey,
I'm kind of tired of being tested.
Like I feel I've gone through some tests and at some point you're just,
but like, here it is again. God tested Abraham. And he said to him, Abraham,
and he said, here I am. Then he said, take now your son,
your only son whom you love Isaac,
and go to the land of Mariah and offer him there as a burnt
offering on one of the mountains, of which I will tell you.
6: What, what.
5: Like you, you told me to leave this place all my comfort, everything I knew,
everything that I was comfortable with and I left.
And I went through this and I went through that and I made that dumb decision.
And I finally get to a place to where you actually answered that prayer.
And I can actually see the hope that I'm banking my future on.
And now you're gonna take it.
I don't know what it is. I don't know if Abraham's just gone through so much.
You know, I actually taught a couple months ago, James chapter one. It says,
consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds because the testing of
your faith develops perseverance,
which actually leads to a maturity and a completeness.
And it seems like maybe some of that's worked itself out in the life of Abraham.
'cause of verse three,
Abraham got up early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took again,
I told you we're gonna be reading a lot of scripture, man,
you gotta get in these stories. It's great reading.
He saddled his donkey and he took two of his young men with him and his son
Isaac, and he split wood for the burnt offering.
And he set out and he went to the place of of which God had told him.
And on the third day,
Abraham raised his eyes and he saw the place from a distance.
I can I just pause for a minute. He's walking with his only son and,
and there could be somebody that's hearing my voice like,
I haven't been to church for a while.
I certainly have never heard a story in the Bible.
We're talking about something that seems a bit, I get it man. This this is hard.
But I want you to know this is a real man with his son that's trying his best to
be obedient to God. The neighbor have said to his young men, he said,
stay here with the donkey and I and the boy will go over there and we will
worship and return to you.
I want you to note like there's something in a level of faith there that says
we're gonna go worship and we are gonna come back.
That doesn't sound like he really believes
that he's gonna go there and end up sacrificing his son. Or even if he does,
if God wants to raise him back from the dead, he can. Verse six,
and Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering
and he laid it on his son Isaac.
So he's got his son carrying the wood up the hill and he took in his hand the
fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.
Isaac spoke to his father And he said, my father.
And Abraham said, here I am, my son. And he said, look, the firewood is here,
but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?
So he's starting to put some pieces together and Abraham said,
God will provide for himself the lamb, for the burnt offering, my son.
So the two of them walked on together,
then they came to the place of which God had told him,
and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood and he bound his son
Isaac and laid him on top of the wood.
And Abraham reached out with his hand and he took the knife to slaughter his
son. Verse 11.
But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham.
And he said, here I am. And the angel,
do not reach out your hand against your boy and do not do anything to him.
For now I know that you fear God
since you've not withheld your son, your only son from me.
Then Abraham raised his eyes and look and behold behind him was a ram that was
caught in the thickets by his horns.
And Abraham went and took the ram and he offered it as a burnt offering in the
place of his son. Jumped to verse 15,
then the angel of the Lord called Abraham a second time from heaven and said by
myself,
I have sworn to declares the Lord because you have done this thing and you have
not withheld your son. Your only son. Indeed,
I will greatly bless you and I will greatly multiply your seed
as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore.
And your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. And in your seed,
all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice.
I I I want us to make some observations, uh, from the life of Abraham.
The first is this, God calls us to trust him with our past.
Um, you could be hearing my voice and I don't know what's going on.
May maybe you've got, um, um, maybe you've got a job
that used to be a part of your identity and for some reason that's not the,
the place that you're sitting anymore. Maybe you're, um,
maybe you have a relationship that's not what it used to be.
Maybe God's calling you out of, uh,
the pub like the secular workforce into something to start a nonprofit or to
start a ministry. Maybe you've got some,
I mean,
maybe the past that God wants to call you out of is some type of sin that you've
been keeping hidden for years.
But I want you to know that God calls us to trust him with our past.
And I want you to know that in light of who God is and in light of what God has
done, what we've done does not define what we can do.
Who we've been does not define who we can become.
God wants us to trust him with our past.
God calls us to trust him in his timing.
I I've heard someone say God usually has three answers to prayer, yes,
no, or wait.
And I want you to know,
I i know exactly what it feels like to go through a season to feel like, man,
hey, I took this step of faith. Hey, I've been obedient. Hey,
I've done this thing. Why are we not on the other side of this yet?
And for some reason, we see all throughout scripture,
God allows his children to sit in these places where we have to learn to trust
his timing. But the truth is it prepares something inside of us
Oftentimes for something else that he actually has for us in the future.
Lastly, I I I want you to know that God calls us to trust him with our future.
And you know, for Abraham,
everything actually pointed to his son,
like if he's going to have descendants to be a blessing to all the nations,
like it has to start with one.
And so then he gets this son and he has it like this is the future.
And God says, but would you be willing to give that up as well?
And in that moment when Abraham lays Isaac on the altar,
what I want you to know is he's not actually saying, yes,
I will sacrifice my son. What what he's really saying is, yeah,
I will lay on the altar my ability and my desire to control the outcome of what
I think this is supposed to look like.
I think if we're honest with ourselves,
each and every one of us walk through life by saying, Hey,
this is really what I'm clinging tightly to. And the truth is,
while we have a gracious God, we also have a jealous God.
And being called into a life of faith means that we're actually gonna trust him,
not just with our past, not just with our present, but also with our future.
And so I wanna ask you this question,
What's the area of your life, past, present,
or future that God might be calling you to lay on the altar?
So I want you to spend some time thinking about that this week. Um,
maybe you tell somebody in your small group, maybe it's your spouse,
somebody gonna trust,
maybe somebody that'll reach back out to you and hold you accountable.
But the truth is, God calls us to a life of faith.
You might be hearing this and be thinking, um, a life of faith.
You, you don't have any idea where I've been.
You don't have any idea what I've done.
I've kind of alluded to this a little bit. Um,
what happens through Isaac is God's chosen people. The, the Israelites
continue to move forward as God's people, as the descendants of Abraham.
But through that seed, through that lineage comes the Son of God, Jesus Christ,
to this earth.
Jesus lived the life that we could have never lived.
Just like Isaac had wood on his back walking up a hill and Jesus carried
across up a hill Only this time,
instead of finding a ram in the thicket, Jesus was the lamb of God.
And I want you to know that
that promise to Abraham of being a blessing to all the nations led to
Jesus. And that is the blessing for all the nations.
And while you're sitting here right now thinking you don't know where I've been,
you don't know what I've done, you don't know what I've been through.
I'm telling you,
you don't understand the promise that God made back then to Abraham.
And you may not understand what,
what's been happening for thousands of years to get to the moment where Jesus
said, I'm taking this on so that you don't have to.
And so I just wanna invite you
Just to be willing to come before God and say, God,
I I don't understand this stuff. I know that I've got a past,
I know that I've got struggles in my present.
I have no idea what the future looks like, but I'm gonna put my faith in you.
The life of Abraham. What it teaches us is that we're not called,
we're not called to put our faith in our past.
We're not called to put our faith in our present.
We're not called to put our faith in our future.
We're not called to put our faith in our job.
We're not called to put our faith in our worldly possessions.
We're not called to put our faith in what we are called to put our faith in the
one who is faithful. And that's Jesus.
Is there anything too difficult for God? Father,
I I thank you for your word.
I I thank you for being able just to step back and to take a look at the life of
Abraham. Lord,
I thank you for the picture of redemption that we see.
I thank you for how it so clearly points to son Jesus.
Father is your sons and daughters.
I pray that every man, every woman, every student that could hear my voice,
would know that you are calling them to take steps of faith.
And oftentimes that's uncomfortable.
And most of the time it's not in our timing. And so, Lord,
give us the strength,
give us the peace and give us the faith to trust you even
when we don't see it. Lord,
would we experience the blessing that you have made available to us through your
son Jesus?
And would we be a church that goes out and shares that with the world around us?
We love you and we pray these things and His name and everyone said amen.
Love you.
2: Ladies and gentlemen. Can we give some love for Jason Gore, lead pastor here,
hope Community Church.
We are so thankful, uh, for his faithfulness, um,
his obedience before the Lord. And so we thank God, uh,
for the messages we just shared, uh, we're thankful. Now here's what I know. Um,
when you hear a message like that, uh,
it may prompt you to wanna make some decisions for Jesus Christ.
And we want to help you in that journey.
And so at the beginning of service our time together,
we talked about the next steps area.
I want you to know that that area is available to help you to take those very
steps of faith that you might desire to take. Now,
if you have been around hope any amount of time, uh,
you know that there are, uh, ways that we are faithful in our journey.
And one of the ways that we are asked of the Lord to be faithful in is in our
serving. And so, uh,
you saw a video earlier about a person who stepped into serving and they thought
that they were gonna do it and it was gonna change everything,
but truthfully it changed them. And that's what serving kind of does.
It takes your focus off yourself and puts it onto others. And when you do that,
it has the power to change us from the inside out. And so I want to invite you,
if you are all ready not serving somewhere at Hook Community Church,
inside or outside the church, you want to invite you into serving,
one of the easy ways you can do that is just simply text the word serve to the
number 7 2 9 8 9.
There's gonna be a whole list of opportunities and the steps that you need to
take in order to get you connected, to be a servant,
and to be faithful in the gifts that God has given every single one of us.
And speaking of our faithfulness and gifts,
one of the ways that we're also faithful is through our generosity and at hope.
Every week we'd like to share with you ways that you can give here at Hope
Community Church.
Know that your gifts do make a difference in how we're able to do ministry in
and around a triangle.
And so we thank you in advance for your giving and there's a couple ways on the
screen and you can give. Guys, we love you.
It has been an honor to spend this time and worship with you,
and we do hope to see you back here next week. So God bless you.
We'll see you soon.