Genesis Week 30 | Building a Family Culture (Part 3)

Sunday, March 17th | Beau Bradberry

"And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, '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.'" — Genesis 26:24

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Beau Bradberry

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Well, good morning.

If you got your Bible, and I hope you do, I want to invite you join me in Genesis, chapter 26 as you turn there.

Easter coming up in a couple of weeks.

Looking forward to that day.

I hope you can join us.

These cards are out there.

We got an 08:00 service, a 1015 service.

Both of those service are identical except for location.

All right, 08:00 will be outdoors.

1015 will be in here in the auditorium, and sandwich right in there.

In between will be a breakfast that we can have together as a church family.

And so here's the encouragement for you.

If you come here at 08:00 for the outdoor service, be a wonderful time of worship together.

Probably a little bit chillier, right?

That's kind of been our tendency here recently in past Easters.

Now that I've said that we'll break a record, it'd be like 95 degrees at 07:00 a.m.

All right, but if you come for the 08:00 service, plan on staying a little late for the breakfast afterwards.

And if you're going to be here for the 1015 service, plan on coming a little early, getting here so that we can join together as a church family.

We're excited.

It is a big, important day, and it is a wonderful day for us.

To gather as a church family.

Well, we are in week.

I think we've now hit like 54 weeks so far that we've been in Genesis.

All right?

And you guys are encouraged me, and we're plugging right along.

But within Genesis, we're in week three now of moving into this kind of subtopic or series that we're talking about, about building family culture.

And this has been an important thing for me in our home and in our family.

For Aaron and I, it's been a very important thing here as a church staff.

I had somebody recently asked me just about our church staff, and I was bragging on our church staff, just the privilege and the honor that it is for me to serve alongside with them.

And the person that was asking me said, well, what makes it for you so sweet to work alongside those individuals in ministry?

And I said, honestly, it's that we're bought into the same culture.

We understand where we want to go, we understand how we want to get there.

And we had to adjust some things to see what God had for us over the last several years.

But now that we're there, the culture that we're pushing for, for the name of the gospel and for the kingdom of God is unified among us, and it feels like we're heading in the right direction.

And so, as we read over these chapters in Genesis, we're focusing on the family because we see this, whether for better or for worse, for good or bad, in the life of Abraham, and we see some repetition in Isaac, in his family.

So that draws that for me.

And I know so many of you wrestle with building a healthy family culture within the context of your home.

And I say that whether it's you as an individual, whether it's you as a couple, you as a family unit, whatever that looks like, building that, but building a healthy culture, we can take all of these things as well, and we can plant them not only where we live, but where we work, where we play, what the cultures that we're building around us and what we're called to do and who we're called to be.

And so what I'm hoping you're getting encouraged with as we're walking along through this is we're extending ourselves some grace so that as we take on these practices, as we see these things, these truths come from scripture.

What we can begin to do is build disciplines that become practices in our everyday life.

They become those things that I have to do, and I have to remind myself to do them so that eventually they just become naturally who I am and what we're about.

Because I would say this to you like you are building, you are establishing, you are practicing a culture, whether you're doing that intentionally or not, right now, in your home, at your work, amongst your friends, with what you do, you are pouring into that environment a culture.

The question is, are you being intentional about the culture that you're pouring into?

And then with that, are you pouring into a godly culture, or are you pouring into an ungodly culture?

I would argue with you there's not a midground.

There's not this in between.

We're either pouring into and building into a culture that seeks to glorify, exalt, and live for the name of Jesus, or we're pouring into a culture that wants to pull back from that and run from that and build our own.

Kingdom, establish our own name, or build the name of anyone or anything else other than Christ.

And so next week, we're actually start our Easter series, but this week, we want to kind of continue on and see.

So let's look at Genesis 26, verses twelve through 14.

And we're going to finish up, I.

Believe, all of 26 by the time we get done.

It says this.

And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold.

The Lord blessed him and the man became rich and gained more and more until he became very wealthy.

He had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants so that the Philistines envied him.

You're like, I can get alongside those verses, right?

Like, Bo, you're about to tell us, be a family of great wealth, right?

We're not that church.

All right?

Be a family of hard work.

Not what we were hoping for, right?

Be a family of hard work.

Abraham was wealthy.

Abraham had power.

He had wealth.

He had influence.

Abraham was a man of importance.

We saw when we looked at the life of Abraham he was known of and sought out, even though he was not a king, he was not a ruler, but he was a man of influence.

He was a man of means.

He was a man of power.

He was a man of money.

And Isaac would have received enough money in his inheritance to where he would not have had to worry about money or about work.

We're talking generational upon generational money that would have been handed over to him in his inheritance.

That to think that I've got to go to work, to think that I've got to worry about finances would have not have been the reality of Isaac's life.

And you're like, well, I wish that would not be the reality of my life, but it was the reality of his.

And he could have simply taken what was given to him and lived off.

Of it, built his own kingdom, made his own name, sit back and just let the day go by.

But what do we find here?

We find a pattern.

It says, first that Isaac sowed.

So he worked the land.

No tractors, no equipment.

He worked the land.

He then reaped from what he sowed.

Right?

Which means if you garden, he watered, he weeded, he managed, he trimmed, he pruned, he did all that he needed to do.

He reaped one hundredfold.

So he didn't say, I've arrived.

It says that he became rich.

So what did he do?

He gained more and more.

So he got flocks, more servants, more herds.

He expanded, he worked hard.

He worked hard.

He didn't say, it's enough of what.

I have at any point in time.

Instead, he kept doing and kept doing and kept doing the work that God had for him.

And my encouragement to us today as we build cultures within our family, and we're going to talk about different areas in which we need to work hard.

In which God's called us to work hard is be a family of hard work, right?

Not as punishment, but as reward.

In Genesis 128, all the way back about this time last year when we got started and God blessed them, and God said to them, now, this is pre fall.

This is before sin has entered the world.

Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.

Work and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

God says to Adam in perfection, here's my plan for you, man.

Go and work.

Be a man.

In God's perfect culture, the culture that is embraced within this is a culture of hard work.

Paul says in Colossians 323, whatever you do, blue collar, white collar, whatever you do, employed, retired, unemployed, whatever you do, the job that you pay for, the job that you get paid for, the job that you volunteer for, whatever you do in school, out of school, work heartily, work hard as for the Lord.

And not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance of your reward, you are serving the Lord Christ.

Work hard.

Work hard.

Work hard.

Paul says he gives us two expectations.

We work hard and we work for the Lord.

That teacher's not fair.

You're working for the Lord.

They don't respect me at the job.

You're working for the Lord.

I don't like my job.

You're working for the Lord.

I don't make enough.

You're working for the Lord in every single thing that you do, you're working for the Lord.

And we're going to see the importance of this here in a little bit when it establishes who we are.

God's expectation always has been, and God's blessing has been found in the work that he gives us.

Right?

What does your work look like if you see your work not as what you have to do, but as a blessing from the Lord, whether it's keeping your grandkids, whether it's working in the garden, whether it's working at your job, all the list of things that you have that you say, this is the day.

This is what God has for me to do today.

May I do it in such a way that brings glory and honor to his name.

I feel like if that's our mindset, do you know what doesn't creep into that mindset is lazy.

What doesn't creep into that mindset is toxic.

What doesn't creep into that mindset is pushing off for someone else to do instead.

We're people of hard work.

So what areas of our life, number one, we need to work hard physically, right?

We need to work hard physically.

We need to prepare the body.

This is what God has for us.

We need to care for it.

We need to work.

Whether you're blue collar or you're white collar, we're not just talking about the jobs that God has given us.

We're talking about how we do with what God has given us within our body.

We need to be people who are willing to get our hands dirty.

We need to be people who are willing to get a little bit of sweat on the brow.

We need to be people who said, when it's time to step in, I'm the one willing to jump in.

We need to be the people.

When somebody calls and says, no one else would do this, no one else would help me, no one else would partner alongside with me, are you willing to do the hard work that needs to be done, that we need to be the people, physically speaking, that says, yes, I'm here, yes, I'm willing, yes, I will do this.

Because this is what God has for me.

And for some of us, that's easy.

For some of us, that's hard.

Here's what I would say.

As we continue to build the culture, we continue on in building the culture of being willing to embrace the physical and the things that are hard.

Now, let's pause here for a second.

Some of us think we've got 1234 more areas.

Some of us think on this one.

And on the other ones, well, you know, I work hard with this so that I can ignore the rest.

And the challenge for us today is going to be not people who just.

Do the hard work.

That's easy for us, but do the work, the hard work that God has for us.

All right, number two, work hard mentally.

Work hard mentally.

Challenge the mind.

Challenge the mind.

Wake up every single day ready to what I can learn, ready to what I can understand, ready to how I can grow, read, challenge, listen, seek out, become and embrace the mind.

I heard a professor talk about this.

He said, one of the greatest travesties in Christian.

So four, 5600 years ago, the leading.

Minds in the intellectual world were mainly Christians.

Do you know that the leading minds.

Most of your universities, your oldest universities, were established not by pagans, but by Christians.

And they said, the mind needs to grow.

The mind needs to be developed.

And then we got lazy and about 50 to 80 years ago, science and education started pushing against Christianity.

And you know what Christians did?

They walked away from it.

Well, they're just smarter than I am.

And I guess they know more.

And science is just from the devil.

No.

Do you know who created science?

God.

God.

So, instead of pushing into and challenging ourself intellectually, we got lazy.

And now we're shocked when every major field is dominated with a worldview that's not that of Christ.

So the greatest thing that we can do is push into those worlds, understand, learn, expand our mind so that we can go out into this world and proclaim a worldview.

In science, in mathematics, in arts, in engineering, in the medical fields, in every single way that speaks to that God is our creator and that we're here to live for his name and his name alone.

So, do we need more missionaries and more pastors?

Absolutely.

You'll never hear me say any different.

But just as important, if not more, we need more christian scientists, doctors, teachers, students.

Get your PhD and go hang out at the University of South Carolina, Clemson, Citadel College of Charleston, every single one of them, and teach for the glory of God and expand and influence the minds of generations.

We got to sharpen.

We got to work hard mentally.

All right, the third thing, we got to work hard financially.

We got to work hard financially.

So many times, people say, man, I'm working hard.

I got to make money.

Do you know what they're saying?

I got to work hard and make.

Money so that I can spend money.

That's what most people think.

I'm going to work hard financially means I just want to make more money.

But here's what I would push into, and we got to move through these next three.

Work hard financially means this.

Create financial discipline, save.

Don't dive into debt.

Instead, work hard.

It's a whole lot easier to keep on going when they promise you a free t shirt if you apply for the credit card, than it takes the 10 seconds to fill out the thing for the credit card.

It's really hard when you're at Lowe's and you really want a massive zero turn lawn mower for the quarter acre that you've got to mow.

Right.

And to keep going.

Right?

Work that body.

You're 32, man.

Push that mower.

All right?

Push it so that we can save, so that we can create financial discipline.

And here's the beauty.

Here's the beauty of it.

And I love this when I see this in the lives of so many.

Men and women in our church, they've.

Created financial discipline not so that they can be scrooge that sits on their pile of money, but so that they can give sacrificially, extremely generous.

There's a handful of individuals that are.

Here at our church.

I'd never say their names publicly because they don't want it to be said publicly because of what they're doing in.

Private, but will come up to me repeatedly over and over and over again and say, hey, I know that there's a mission trip.

I know that there's a youth trip.

I know that there's kids camp.

I know that there's things going on.

Listen, if there's somebody who can't, I'll write that check.

If there's somebody who needs it, I'll write it.

You just let me know.

And what they support over and over and over and over again.

Right.

Create financial discipline to live.

Sacrificial generosity.

Number four.

Work hard relationally.

Work hard relationally.

Right.

God's given us one another.

God's given us each other as church family.

God's given us as our individual families.

Right.

Work hard relationally.

Here's what that means.

Mom and dad, I know after a long, long day, you're exhausted, but do you know what you don't get the clock out on being is a mom or a dad.

Work hard relationally.

Well, you don't understand the age that they're at.

They just push me away.

They don't want to talk.

They don't want to have a great conversation with me in here.

Like, you've got to finesse that.

You've got to work, that.

You've got to massage that relationship a little bit better.

But you know what it's becoming?

That relationship is becoming harder and harder, which just means this.

You've got to work harder and harder.

And teenagers in the room.

I get it.

I get it.

Believe it or not, like, I can.

Still remember what it was like to.

Not get to not hurt when I get out of the bed, I remember that.

Also remember what it was like to get out of the shower, and 30.

Seconds later, the hair on my head wasn't dry.

It's like I just walked out, and instantly, this is all dry.

Now, how did that happen?

Because I got about eight of them that are hanging out right here.

They're just gelled together, right.

I know what it's like.

I remember those days.

I remember watching my parents press and press and press and me thinking, why won't they just leave me alone?

If you think that about your parents, let me tell you this.

You've probably got some really good parents, because what they're doing is they're pressing into the hard work, into the hard work, into the hard work that's there.

And I just want to plead with you, right?

If you're a teenager right now and you're like, man, move your hands from like this to like this and watch the relationship that you can have with your parents and how God can work and move in your life with that.

Work hard relationally in your home, outside of your home, and then with this, work.

Work hard missionly.

Work hard missionly.

Impact the lives of those around you.

For the gospel, work hard missionly.

Every day is an opportunity to live for his name and for his kingdom.

And every conversation we have is an opportunity to speak the love hope of Jesus Christ into those relationships.

And so I want to encourage you to work hard missionally.

All right, let's continue on.

We got a lot of verses, a little bit of time.

Verse 15.

Now the Philistines had stopped.

Remember, they were envious.

Okay?

They were envious of Isaac.

So now the Philistines had stopped and filled with earth all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham, his father.

And Abimelech said to Isaac, go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.

So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the valley of Gerar and settled there.

And Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of Abraham his father, which the Philistines had stopped after the death of Abraham.

And he gave them the names that his father had given them.

But when Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a well of spring water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdmen, saying, the water is ours, right?

So he called the name of the.

Well Essec because they contended with him.

Verse 21.

Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that, too.

So he called its name Sitna.

And they moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it.

So he called its name Rehoboth, saying, for now the Lord has made room.

For us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.

So, number two, not only do we need to be a family of hard work, but we need to be a family of persevering faith.

And I left hardworking faith out in.

The first because I think they connect.

But I wanted to use this word, persevering faith.

Be a family of persevering faith.

Isaac is working.

And God is blessing.

If you've ever been in that spot of life, you know that is the sweet spot of life.

You're doing what God has for you.

God's blessing it.

God's blessing, it.

God's blessing, it.

But then conflict comes.

It's probably come in your life.

It comes in the life of Isaac.

Isaac is there where God has told him to be and doing what God.

Has told him to do, but still faces conflict and strife.

Please remember this, always remember this, that.

Being a child of God doesn't remove you from the struggles of this world.

We think that we want that.

We hope that bad preachers preach that.

Obedience.

And being a child of God does not remove you from the struggles of this world.

In fact, God's word tells us to expect them.

To expect them.

You're going to face persecution, you're going to face trials, you're going to face.

Hardships, you're going to experience these things.

And it's within that that we understand that our theology directs us to that, our theology of life, because we've been there, we've done that, we've experienced this.

So the question becomes in this, if you're a child of God and hard times come, what do you do?

What do you do?

Where do you move from there?

While Isaac moves, what he does is he stays in obedience where God has placed him.

He doesn't move close to the river.

He doesn't head to Egypt.

Instead, he moves around in this area known as stay.

While he is staying in Gerar, he is doing what is required to live in the land.

He's having to dig wells in order to survive, and digging Wells is hard.

Now, remember, who does he have?

He's got his family.

He's got servants.

He's got herds, he's got flocks.

There's a lot of people that have got to provide water for and in order to provide water in the region where he is, it's desert land that has sand and rock.

That's it.

And he's got to dig.

This past summer, my father in law had an idea that he was going to dig a well in his backyard.

So he called me.

He said, hey, I bought a well digging kit.

I'm like, all right, you got me interested, right?

He's like, I've got the equipment, rented.

This compressor bigger than a boat, and we're going to be able to dig a well.

You want to come help me?

Yes.

That was a lot of fun for about five minutes.

All right.

We thought he had sand.

He did have sand for about six inches.

Finney had red clay and rock, right?

And for hours, I stood over this hole about this big in the ground, holding this contraption that he had ordered to digging this well.

That water and air are shooting down, and it's got this big blade on it that's turning, and it's sucking the sand out, and it's shooting it out the back.

And we've now got a mountain in the back of his yard.

And we're digging and we're digging and we're digging, and we're like, oh, we got some water.

We see water come up, and so we pull this out, and then all of a sudden, what we hear is Kushum.

And now we've got water underneath, more red clay and more rocks.

And so we dug and we dug and we dug and we dug and we dug.

Got there about nine.

At about six, I said, hey, Aaron really needs me to come home.

Kids are out of control again.

I don't know what's going on.

I got to go, right?

He's like, well, what's next weekend?

Look, man, I would come.

I'm supposed to pray and fast all day.

I signed up and committed for that, so I'm not going to be able to make that either.

And he kept on.

The point is, man, with equipment, this is hard.

With machinery, this is hard.

But Isaac has to continue on with this.

And in order to be obedient to God, what he had to do was persevere through the difficulties that he faced, right?

Not run from the difficulties, not avoid the difficulties, but instead to build within himself the attitude and the mindset of perseverance.

The apostle Paul writes in two Timothy, chapter four, verse seven.

He writes to Timothy, who he considers his son in faith.

Paul, who knows that his death and execution is coming soon.

Look at his words.

I fought the good fight.

I have finished the race.

I've kept the faith.

Kept the faith.

The word fight that he uses there is the word that would be used for a hand to hand battle, point of death.

Paul's imagery that he gives right here, it's not a fight of words.

It's not a fight of pushing.

It's not a passive aggressive, but it's a fight that in the end, what you feel like is your body is done.

Paul says, in order to be obedient to what God has for you and the beatings that he took in the miles that he put on his feet, and the jail sentences that awaited him, Paul says, I didn't avoid them.

I persevered through them.

I fought the fight.

He says, I finished the race, right.

Guy asked me the other day, he said, would you like to go for a run with me?

He's a couple of years older than I am.

He's in really, really good shape.

He's like, it'd be pretty easy.

He's like, we can maybe do, like, get started, like 8 miles.

At like.

Ten minutes a mile.

I'm like, man, I think I'm more.

Right now like a walk at the mall than I am.

Know.

Some of us are trying to live our faith like the walk at the mall.

Paul says, I finished the race.

This imagery is not there of a sprint.

The imagery is not there of a stroll.

The imagery that is used is what we would think of and we would consider with a marathon.

It's grueling.

It's hard.

It's difficult.

I know a few people who have run a marathon, a few, not many.

Some of you in here have run a marathon, and I've asked you, how was the marathon?

You know what?

No one has ever said to me.

That was really fun.

It was easy, man.

We were just out there.

We were just talking.

We were laughing, like, having a good time, taking selfies.

No, it was grueling.

I lost a toenail.

I was dehydrated by the end of it the next day.

It's like me laying in a bed with a drip of water and Gatorade all day long.

Hard, difficult, but worth it.

But worth it.

Like, let's don't fool ourselves in this christian walk.

It is hard.

It is grueling, but it is so, so worth it.

Matthew four, nine through 13.

Difficult passage of scripture that Jesus gives us says this.

Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake.

That's probably not the verse that most churches are using for their catchy church phrase, right?

And then many will fall away and.

Betray one another and hate one another.

And many false prophets, prophets will arise and lead many astray.

And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.

This verse 13.

But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

The one who perseveres when things get tough will be saved.

And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations.

And then the end will come.

If your walk with the Lord looks like this, as long as I'm living in the goosebumps of Jesus and in the overabundance of blessings upon blessings.

How you've defined blessings of Jesus, then I'm great to walk with Jesus, and I'm great to fall on my knees before him.

But the moment that strife and contention and persecution and trials which in our world that we know of here is minimal, and if your response in that moment is to shake your fist at God and wonder why you.

If you are saved, if you are saved, scripture would say that your faith is immature, and I would ask you to truly examine the heart you have for Christ.

And are you only in this to use him as a giver of gifts, that the gifts are the beneficial ones that you say are good for you?

Expect it.

Expect it.

This life is not a cool, simple walk around the block.

It's a fight.

It's a marathon.

There will be struggles.

There will be pains.

There will be trials.

There will be temptations.

But our call is not to run from around, but instead run through with Christ.

One John five, four through five.

But everyone who has been born of God overcomes this world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith.

Who is that that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the son of God?

Isaac was willing and determined to be obedient, but to be obedient meant he had to dig wells.

Those wells weren't fun.

Those wells were hard.

But he dug them.

And he dug them, and he dug them.

Let's keep reading.

Genesis 26, verse 23.

And there he went up to Bersheba, and the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, 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 built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there and there.

Isaac's servants dug a well.

Number three, be a family of legacy of worship.

Be a family of legacy of worship.

Let me add to that.

Be a family of legacy of worship of Christ, your family, every family in this room.

And you right now, you worship something.

Well, the question is, is it Jesus?

Is it Jesus?

You worship something.

Well, everyone worships.

That's one thing we don't have to learn to do.

We don't have to learn to worship.

We know how to worship.

The question is, are we worshiping the idol or are we worshiping the creator?

We worshiping the creator.

God appears to Isaac, reminds Isaac of God's plan, reminds Isaac of his faithfulness.

God's faithfulness.

Right.

Seems to be the first time that this has happened.

It's the first time that's recorded in scripture.

What did Isaac do?

He did what his dad did.

He built an altar.

He worshipped.

He stayed in scripture.

The word remember is used 234 times.

Most of the time it's used in the context that God does not forget what he promised.

And we love that.

We love that God, Dave said this, God knows, remembers you.

He knows, he remembers me.

That is so good that he knows me.

But the other places is used in the context of personal and corporate worship to remember where God has been faithful.

And so what we have here in this moment is Isaac saying, no, no, we're going to build an altar here.

And here's what we're going to remember.

We're going to remember the faithfulness of God.

We're going to plant the worship of the living God and who he is and what he is doing.

The greatest legacy you can leave behind is not a legacy of wealth, is not a legacy of education, is not a legacy of anything that we can define, but a legacy of who God is, of what God has done, and a legacy that celebrates that God is faithful to his promises, and that God.

Will not forget the legacy of that.

The legacy of that.

When worship of Christ is not primary, when worship of Christ is not essential in your home, when it becomes secondary.

I'm talking about worship in the moment.

And I'm talking about worship on the day.

Do not be surprised when the legacy that you've left behind is that worship is not essential, that it's not important.

When we've taught the generation behind us to fill the calendar of our day and to fill our calendar of the Lord's day with everything else other than the worship of the Lord.

And then when it's their time to set their own calendar and it doesn't even make the notes on the bottom, don't be surprised.

But I don't understand.

But this is where we find build a legacy of worship of Christ.

What Isaac does here in verse 25, it says that he will remember and others will know that this is what God has done.

Verse 26, when Abimelek went to him from Gerar with Asuth, his advisor in Ficol, the commander of his army, Isaac said to them, why have you done this to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?

And they said, we see plainly that the Lord has been with you.

So we said, let there be a sworn pact between us, between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you that you will do us no harm.

Just as we have not touched you and have done nothing to you but good and have sent you away in peace, you are now the blessed of the Lord.

So he made them a feast, and they ate and they drank.

And in the morning they rose early and exchanged oaths, and Isaac sent them on their way, and they departed from him in peace.

That same day, Isaac's servants came and told him about the well that they had dug and said to him, we have found water.

And he called it Sheba.

Therefore, the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.

Number four.

Be a family of visible faith.

Be a family of visible faith.

Abimelech led a kingdom.

He had an army, he had money, he had power, and he had influence.

But yet he sought a treaty with Isaac.

Why?

Not because of Isaac's military response.

There was none.

Not because of Isaac's boycott of Abimelech's goods, there were none.

Not because of Isaac's appeal through financial resources, there was no appeal.

Not because of Isaac's shrewd negotiation skills.

There was none.

Abimelech decided to come to Isaac because it was evident that God was with Isaac.

And so Abimelech said, this is what I see in you and who you are.

So I come to you.

Here's four questions we could continue on.

Number one, do people know your favorite sports team but not know what God you serve?

Do people know your political alignment but not what God you serve?

Do people know everything about your favorite hobby, but not what God you serve?

Do people know your financial status but not what God you serve?

In all of this, what Abimelech says that he looks at, that he sees is he sees that Isaac is a man of God.

Matthew 516.

Jesus says, in the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven?

The biggest is that we could live.

A visible faith that our kids, our coworkers, our friends, our neighbors, our family, everyone around us, they know a lot about us, but they know, most importantly, the God that we serve, the God that we serve.

So it seems like.

Doing it right, man, Isaac's working hard, man.

His kids probably going to turn out to do everything the way that they're supposed to.

Verse 34.

When Esau was 40 years old, he took Judith, the daughter of Bariah the Hittite, to be his wife, Anne, Anne Bastema, the daughter of Elon the Hittite.

And they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebecca.

Be a family who grieves sin.

In closing, Esau took two wives.

What we see right here, he's going to take more.

Polygamy is seen a lot in the Old Testament.

It's always a sin.

It's always a sin.

It's never not a sin.

I don't care who does it.

In the old Testament, polygamy is always a sin, even though it is commonly practiced.

What does he do?

He lives in a lifestyle of sin.

Not only did he take two wives, he took two wives from canaanite people, which were prohibited by God to do.

He breaks from what is there.

Scripture tells us that this made life bitter for Isaac and Rebecca.

The exact word is, and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebecca.

Here's what that made life bitter means.

They grieved.

They grieved because of the decisions their son was making.

Be a family who grieves sin.

Here's what they didn't do.

They didn't ignore, they didn't overlook, they.

Didn'T enable, they didn't excuse, they grieved.

As you raise and build the culture in your family, you will point your family and you will point yourself in a direction of following the Lord.

And here's what will happen.

We'll break, we'll move, we'll chase other things.

And our response is so important, when sin comes in, whether it's your sin, whether it's your spouse's sin, whether it's your kids sin.

Sin will come into a church staff.

Some will come into a church.

Sin will come into your work, some become into your neighbors.

Sin will come into relationship.

And the important thing that we look.

At is what do we do with it?

What do we do with it?

When sin is there and we're building a culture that glorifies God, what do we do?

What do we do?

What I found in my life and in the life of so many that keeps me and keeps so many in a pattern of sin is we ignore it.

We don't act like we don't see it.

Even though we do, we overlook it.

We try to breeze by and just turn our back.

We excuse know, that's the temptation that I face every day.

Satan just got me.

And in doing that in our life and in the life of so many others in our life, we enable it.

We enable it.

The Bible calls us to grieve sin.

To grieve sin, sin, the reason why Christ came and died on the cross, to make the payment, to pay in full so that we can be brought in the relationship with God so our sin is paid for at a great cost, the cost of our savior, the son of God, of his life.

And when we do anything else other than grieve the sin in our own self and grieve the sin that we see in others, we mock the sacrifice of Christ.

As you look at building all that there is, man, there's so many positives of what we can do.

We can see what we know, draw from, from scripture, but never miss the point last week and this week to be a people of confession and repentance before the Lord, grieving over the sin and pursuing all that God has for us.

Would you pray with me.

God?

I come to you this morning, Lord, thanking you for your word.

Going to be seeing a passage of scripture that on the surface is just about a man and his work and issues that he faces and things that hinder him.

But what we find, Lord, so much of what you have for us is who you're calling us to be so that we can live a life of testimony to others, not shining our light, but shining the light of Christ, so that others would come to know you and respond to you and give glory to our Father who is in heaven.

God, I pray this morning, well done.

The leading and the guiding and the work of your holy Spirit, Lord.

You would take that area of our heart that we're ignoring, the area of our heart that's becoming hard.

The power of your holy spirit, Lord.

You would soften us.

We would understand, Lord, that your grace is enough and it is sufficient, Lord.

And that we would come to you.

In brokenness and repentance.

Lord, I pray that we would be people of persevering faith, living boldly for your name, not just when everything's going well, but, Lord, when things are difficult, understanding that you've called us, you've called us to sacrifice.

So that our testimony is not just in the good, that you are good, but is that in the good and the bad and the easy and the difficult and the climb up and the climb down.

Lord, you are great and you were kind and you were compassionate and you were loving.

And that through it all, through it.

All, Christ and Christ alone is sufficient.

God, I pray if there's anyone here who doesn't know you, or today would be a day of not trying to figure out what faith looks like, where they can persevere.

But, Lord, simply saving faith is that they admit that they're a sinner.

They believe that Christ came and died on the cross for their sins, making a way to be forgiven, but also making a way that they may have life, life eternal, both here on this earth and for all of eternity, that they would be adopted and brought into the family of God.

And that God, what you ask of them is not a long list of works, but it's to confess Christ as Lord and savior of their life and.

That today will be the day of their salvation.

It's in Jesus name we pray.

Amen.

Thanks again for listening, and be sure to check back next week for another episode.

In the meantime, you can visit [e-mail] or by searching for Willow Ridge Church on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.