Charlie Loften: Hello, and welcome to the Grove Church podcast. I'm Charlie Loften, the lead pastor there, and we are so glad that you're joining us. Whether you are a member and you're just catching up on a sermon that you missed or you're someone who's brand new, we are really glad that you are joining us. And if you are new in some way, and I know that a lot of people will do that, we'll listen to sermons first before they visit. I want you to know that we would love to meet you at any point.
You can join us live in our services on Sunday, nine and 10:30 or our streaming service at 10:30. Either way, we would love to be able to get to know you. And regardless of why you are here listening to this sermon today, thank you so much for joining us.
Charlie Loften: Hey, good morning. If you're new, welcome to The Grove Church. Really glad that you are here. I'm Charlie, lead pastor, and so glad all of you are worshiping with us. And I was not able to be here last Sunday, and actually I've been traveling off and on for the last couple of weeks.
Just kind of want to give you a little update on some things had the privilege of doing. Two weeks ago, I went down to Florida, to Palm Coast, Florida for a couple of days, and then to Orlando for a couple of days to interact with some college students that are part of a ministry that we support, that have several missionaries over the years, including some still currently that serve with them. So first, there was a group on Monday where I got to speak. We got a picture up here. Perfect.
It's coming. It's coming. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Several 100 college students from the U of A, from UCA, from Missouri State, and again, some missionaries that we support. It was really cool.
Palm Coast is pretty close to like Daytona Beach. Really cool just being there for a couple of days. And then was in Orlando for another group of people, I was there speaking to some staff and leaders from Student Mobilization's Oklahoma region, which if you know this name, Kat Leach, used to be Kat Coyle, was a part of our church for a dozen years or so, is now serving with this college ministry in Oklahoma, got to love on and encourage them and do some speaking there as well. So I got to speak for a few days, and it turns out, you know, you're in Palm Coast, Florida for a couple days, and you're in Orlando for a couple of days. Suddenly you wake up and you're in Orlando.
And for those of you who know me, meant, yes, yes, I'm not gonna show you those pictures. But I did just I just checked, see if Disney World's still running. It is. It was good. We had a great time.
And then actually last Sunday, the reason why we weren't here, I got to speak at Camp War Eagle, have that picture here, this is a little chapel service that they have before the campers come, and I know a lot of our kids here from our church are actually here during the week, including our youngest Layla, who's 14. She was there this last week. So I get to go speak and kind of at this little chapel service for their staff, and then we get to check Layla in, and she has a great week. Let me tell you this, I brag about this every now and then. We get there to Camp O'Riegle about 09:45, and at this point there are already almost 20 car, I kind of think it was 17.
There were 17 cars in line at 09:30 in the morning at Camp O'Riegle. The gates do not open to accept people until 01:30. So four hours early there are almost 20 cars there. Okay, here's how this works. I get to go in, I go to this little chapel service, I speak, they're really thankful because I'm quote serving them.
And I'm speaking at this thing, they feed us, and then we take Layla to her cabin, get her all set up, then we get her fully checked in, and then we say hug her, and we're goodbye, and we're out the gate at 01:00, thirty minutes before the gates open where there are literally hundreds of cars now, and I had the great opportunity. This was a very special thing. I got to roll down the window, and there were several Grove families that I got to give a very pleasant hello to as they were waiting in that line, and we were leaving. But the director of the camp, Leslie and her husband Derek Seton, they've been a part of our church forever. There were several students there at the chapel service that are a part of our church, either late high school or college that are serving there.
So it was just a great opportunity over the last couple of weeks to go love on and encourage several of the missionaries, people working for ministries in our church. And also, guess while we're here, Happy Father's Day to you dads out there. Here's the thing that I know, I know quite a few guys, know quite a few dads. We don't want a whole lot of fuss. No, not a whole lot of fuss, but we don't like being ignored either, right?
We want to be noticed, but we're not looking for a lot of fuss, so I just grant you the appropriate amount. Happy Father's Day. We see you, and we are proud of you, and thank you for what you do. Yeah. So, just a gentle round of Not going to hoop and holler, just, yeah, good Good job, dads.
We see you, and we love you, and thank you for all you do. We all over, we've been traveling. A lot of my daughters have been traveling. Really for the first time in a while, we were all hanging out together yesterday. We're celebrating my wife's birthday, that was actually earlier this week, but we all got to celebrate it yesterday, and we were just hanging out and having a great time.
And our middle daughter, Lauren, she had been to some manor of thrift store, which is the if you a woman and your last name is Loften, this is just what you love to do. You love to go to these thrift stores, and she's doing what she's unveiling her haul of stuff that she'd gotten. And there were several normal things that one would get at a thrift store, clothes, shoes, some nice things. And this is a really long explanation. Wasting a little bit of time here, but from my heart, we're not really wasting time here.
And the last you'll never be able to guess this last thing I got. And we took a couple of shots at it, no one even came close. And what she pulls out is a bag, and it is full of like party material, like banners and cupcake things that you would have for a themed birthday party, all based on the Timothee Chalamet movie Wonka. And you may think, why would you ever want that? But here's the thing that you need to know about being a Loften.
You see that, and you know you need it. I can't explain to you in words why you would need it, but you would absolutely, we need that. We try to talk Heidi until we're celebrating your birthday. We've got birthday decorations right here now. That wasn't that, but my guess is when November rolls around, my birthday will be Wonka themed.
And so some of the people hadn't actually seen the movie, they asked me, I have, of course. I saw that, what did you like about the movie? The people who hadn't. And my immediate reaction, first of all, Timothy Chalamet is actually very talented. Secondly, I love an origin story.
Love an origin story. Right? If you got a great movie, a great book, a great TV series, or whatever, and you can give me like an origin story of like some major character, or especially a villain, right? Here's a villain origin story, like you know, the Star Wars prequels that came out or book six of Harry Potter that kind of gives the villain origin story. We can debate if you would like about whether or not Willy Wonka in the original movie is a villain or not.
I think those kids I think those kids died. Did that? I don't know. Anyways, it's a it's actually a fun it's actually a pretty cool, fun, little origin story, and so I enjoyed the movie. I love an origin story.
That's why I'm this series that we're doing, I really like it because, you know, we spend a lot of time talking about what Jesus has done and the power of the gospel, And kind of we spend a lot of time in Paul's letters reflecting on what Jesus has done. But there are some really actually some pretty powerful stories in the Old Testament that I don't necessarily women necessarily get their full due, some of them we might, and I think some of them like we did two weeks ago, Adam and Eve, kind of the ultimate origin story. Where did humanity even come from? Where did these problems that Jesus is solving here, how did they come about? And then Mark last week, it was in the book of Noah, and again, it's an story.
And in this series, what we're trying to do is put together kind of eight stories from the Bible, four in the old, four in the new, that really just kind of define our faith. Define who we are, and it's kind of helped us kind of progressively understand who we are and what we believe. And one of these things we're gonna see today in the story of Abraham, I think really is it's a very significant origin story. It is the beginning of the Jewish faith and really of the Jewish people period. Right?
Before Abraham, there was no Jewish religion. There were no Jewish people. The development of Israel and the Israelites came about through, you know, Israel is actually one of Abraham's descendants, like these names, like they came from this people. And so there's this phrase that gets used a lot about the Jewish people, about Israel being God's chosen people. And I think even before, you know, even years ago, I think there's been a lot of confusion about that.
I think people feel a lot of misunderstanding that somehow God is playing favorites. And especially in the last couple of years, I don't know how neck deep you are in the news, but just kind of Israel's role currently in the world, and the Jewish people and their role in the world is kind of bringing in a lot there's just a lot of anxiety, angst around that issue, and I think it is causing a lot of problems, and I think we as Christians, I think it's important for us to understand, what does this really mean? Because I think a lot of our concerns, whether they be political or they be even kind of spiritual, like why does God have a favorite people, I think comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of the origin story that we find here in Genesis chapter 12, starting verse we'll just be looking at verses one to five. The Lord had said to Abram, 'Go from your country, your people, and your father's household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you.
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. So Abram went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he set out from Haran. He took his wife Sarah and his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, And they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
It's actually a wild story. For those of you who are familiar with it, you know, some of these details may have been lost, but we're living in a very tribal world right now. A just lot kind of family clans, and these clans, you know, you kind of you were born into one of them, and you stayed there with your clan, with your tribe, and when you had kids they stayed, and you traveled together, you fed each other, you shared things, you had your own things, we kind of existed together as a clan, and you are going to be with your clan for the rest of your life. You did not, you know, get married and then go get a house in some other town, in some other community. Your community, your town, your people, your life was fully defined by your tribe, the clan of people that you were born into.
And God comes to this guy, Abram. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to leave all of that, everything that has defined your life, everything about who you are, where where your security comes from, your life, your family, everything. I want you and your wife to leave and go somewhere future tense that I will tell you. I want you to leave everything that you know.
In exchange, I want you to go someplace that I'm not going to quite tell you just yet. And not only that, it is it is kind of known at this point that, not through the story, but we'll find out later, that Abram and Sarah both knew at this point that she was that they did not have any kids and that they really were unable to have kids. And so we want what I want you to do, Abram, is I want you to leave your family, your security, your clan, and I want you to go to some future unnamed place with your wife who you will not be able to, in your reckoning, not be able to build a family with, and I want you to go to this other place. And here's what I'm going to do. I am, in fact, going to turn you into a to, again, a nation, a people.
I'm gonna make you a great, the greatest of tribes. That is what I'm going to turn you into. Even though at this point in your life you cannot conceive of even having one kid, much less becoming a great and powerful tribe, a great and powerful nation, This is what I will do for you, but in order for you to do this, you're going to have to leave everything that you know and and walk away, and trust me. The thing that God asked him to do, it is not as easy as sometimes we can kind of make it out to be. He's like, oh man, was really kind of wrestling over this decision.
I got this job offer in another town, and I feel like whether or God wants me to leave, and I read about Abraham, Abraham, he was willing to leave, maybe I should be willing to leave. Maybe that is we all have faced tough decisions like that before, but that is not near on the level of the decision that he made. He did not have a job offer. He did not have any assurance of housing or being able to acquire it. He had no sense of everything that he knew was here.
And God comes to him and says, will you leave everything that you know, all the security you'll ever have, to do to go someplace that I'm not gonna tell you just slit in order for me to create something through you that I know that you understand to be impossible. It's an incredibly it's powerful story, and it gives us some insight into kind of who God is. And I think one of the powers of this kind of this series that we're doing is we see glimpses in these stories of the things that God is going to do in his ultimate fulfillment through Jesus Christ. We see we kind of see the foreshadowing and glimpses of what is about to happen in the future when Jesus Christ comes. And so what we're going to do, we're going to spend some time just really kind of figuring out, kind of deprogramming some of our misunderstandings about what this call of Abraham was to become this great nation, and then also kind of get some a picture of these theological nuggets that God is this trail that he is leading of us that is ultimately going to point us to Jesus.
And the first thing that I want us to notice here is that God is the one. God is the one that chooses. Now in Romans, Paul is going to reflect on this moment and other moments as well, and reflect deeply and theologically around the issue that we would call predestination, and how God knows things in advance, and how He predestined certain things, and whether or not people what it means to be chosen, is it the same as being predestined? He has some deep, powerful theological reflection to make there. And I encourage you to read it, but that's not what we're talking about here.
That's just I'm not avoiding it per se, I'm just trying to say it in this moment. In this moment, this is not about predestination or the deeper theological depths of this God knows something in advance, and what does it mean for God to choose? You mean that He's not choosing? Not that. Just very simply, just very simply this idea that God chose Abraham.
He chose him. He is a chooser. He looks at people and chooses them. He's like, I want you to be a part of my family. This this is what I want.
God is a loving father choosing to add people to his family. Some of the stories, including the one that we looked at last week, as Mark kind of helped us with, we kind of misunderstand. Some of the stories, if we just focus on a few stories in the Old Testament, and we look at them the wrong way, in isolation, we get this picture of just a very angry, vengeful God. But God is a loving Father who is wanting to invite people in. He is he is choosing people to connect with, and that is what he does here with with with Abram.
He he picks him. I I I see you, and I want a relationship with you. Now that you know, the year 2026 after two thousand years of theological reflection about who Jesus is and the life that we can have in him and however many years that you've been following Christ, that may not seem particularly shocking to you, but it is nonetheless incredibly powerful that God is looking for people to be a part of his family and is lovingly choosing them. There were some friends that we had growing up. It was actually my mom's best friend, growing up, and they just remained friends all throughout their adult lives, even until they've you know, starting to pass away, her friends, but we were kind of couple friends, family friends with them.
They lived in Houston, we lived in South Arkansas, and we spent just a lot of time together. And there was four boys, my older brother who was six years older than me, and then their oldest was two years younger, two years younger, and I was the youngest. There was two years apart between all of us, and we thought that was really, really cool. And we spent a lot of time together. Now of these two brothers of the other family, the older one was adopted and the younger one was not.
And there was this thing that the younger one would say when he would get really mad at his older brother, And he would talk about him being adopted and would say it as an insult. Well, you're adopted. And ultimately, he came up with a one liner that ended all of that. His younger brother would say that to him, and he was like, well, here's the thing. Mom and dad, they chose me.
They got stuck with you. And that just kinda that just kinda ended it. Right? It just kinda ended it. They they they picked me.
You know, many, many years later, we've had that incredible privilege in our family. As some of you know, maybe not all of you know, our youngest, Layla, who's 14, she's adopted. I don't talk about it as much now as I used to when she was younger, because she's a teenager now, and she's you know, when you're processing a lot of things as a teenager, don't want her identity to be wrapped up in that, especially your church family to kind of think of her exclusively through that lens. But having walked through this, I think it really just kind of has given me and our whole family really just kind of insight to the loving care of God. And so just quick recap for some of you, and new information for others, we'd become foster parents, and Layla was born on a Sunday.
DHS called us on Tuesday. We got to meet her on Wednesday, and we brought her home on Thursday. So we joked that we found out we were pregnant on Tuesday, we had the baby on Thursday, forty eight hour pregnancy. It was a wild forty eight hours, but I remember on that Wednesday, and I'll remember it forever, she was in the NICU. The four of us went up there, and our two daughters who were 11 and almost 14 at the time, were they weren't able to go in, so they showed her to us.
When they kind of Lion King'd her up to this little window there at the door, and in that moment, all of our hearts just melted, just at the the wondrous opportunity. And I think we would all say that this is the greatest thing that has ever happened to our family, to be able to look at this precious little baby who had no one and to be able to say, I choose you. And we chose her to be a part of our family. We we wanted her. And from the moment that we laid eyes on her to this very day and forever, she is ours, and she is ours because we chose her.
So when you think about this idea of God choosing Abram or how that reflects on you, how God is choosing you, Save the theology and the deep reflections on all these things. Save that for another time. Right now, think about what it means that the all powerful God of the universe has chosen you to be a part of his family. And the interesting thing about this, and this is gonna be really helpful for us as we're trying to understand, again, what does it mean that God's, you know, the the chosen people? What has he called Abram to?
This is gonna be really important, because not only is God the one that chooses, but God chooses not based on what we have done. God is the one that chooses, but he chooses not based on what we've done. In the text, Abraham had not done anything. The he had not done anything. There's not some story that I'm hiding from you in Genesis chapter 10 or Genesis chapter 11 that describes Abraham as this great person who's done all these great and mighty works, and who had demonstrated faithfulness far and wide, and was very obvious that there was some sort of global contest that God was holding to decide who he was going to choose to be the captain of his team.
He just says he chose Abram. And if there's anything that we get the indication of that was involved in God's choosing was the fact that from Abram's perspective, it would have been impossible for him to have become a great and powerful nation on his own. It was an incredible opportunity for God to show what he can do. Not to reward somebody for what he has already done, but as an incredible way to show what God can do. Because you can create a mighty nation out of someone who is incapable of having a child.
That demonstrates the power of God, not the goodness of people. Now what what the rest of Genesis is filled with is lots of stories of Abraham responding well to God, being a righteous person, doing the right thing, growing, connecting with God relationally, deepening in his character, deepening in his faith. We see story after story after story, but in this moment he's not any of these things. He's just a guy, Not chosen based on anything that he's done, but just as someone that God wants to do incredible things through and for. And that is of incredible importance, because I think that kind of what happens in our brain sometimes, at least in my brain, is yeah.
I mean, I'm down for the theology. We talk about this a lot here at The Grove that, you know, our relationship with God is not based on works. All the work that needed to be done was done by Jesus on the cross. We saw glimpses of this in the Adam and Eve story. They tried to cover themselves with leaves that was insufficient.
The work that needed to be done to cover their shame was done by God. He sacrificed an animal and created skins for them. All the work that needs to be done is done by God. It's not based on anything that we do. The gospel is completely and totally free.
I'm a 100% in on that. You know? But you know, it's been a few years. Right? I mean, for me, it's been, you know, over forty years since I gave my life to Jesus.
And, you know, I mean, I didn't I didn't didn't do anything to earn it, but I mean, let's just be honest. Right? I mean, it's kinda lucky. He wanted me on his team. Right?
I mean, he knew, like, he knew. He knew the kind of guy I was gonna be and what I was willing to do, and he's like, I'm picking him up. It's not based on words, but really, like, you know, it's me. Right? Like, and you can start to think, like you give yourself retroactive credit for things that you've done after this moment as if that shows how I really I earned it.
And sometimes the Jewish people, and you see this throughout the Old Testament, even into the New Testament, right, Then kind of reflecting back and say, well, Abraham was just this great person, and that's why God chose him. We're giving him credit for all the things he did here, for what God did right here. And so we have to ask this question, did God choose him because he was good, or was he good because God chose him? Like, we wanna give him credit. Like, this is the reason why God did this.
What if it's God did this and this is the result of that? Because what we have here, again, like we have these tribes, we have these clans, and the way that they would fight, you know, every clan had their own god, And then they would fight, and the winner of the of the battle would kind of absorb the other one, and their god was shown to be the stronger and more powerful god. So this is the world that God, at least in this moment, revealing himself to. So how can I show a tribalist world that I am actually the only one and true God? And sometimes we think, well, he picked his favorite.
He picked his favorite and said, I'm gonna make this my tribe, and then I'll show all these other tribes, but that is not what he did. He did not pick any of these tribes. Says, I'm going to create my own tribe. I'm gonna create a tribe. I'm build one.
I'm not gonna choose my favorite. I don't have a favorite. I'm going to create one, and I'm going to bless it, and it's going to show all of these other tribes what it would actually look like if their tribe were actually governed by capital g God, and I'm going to bless Abram and his generations from him so much that in fact the entire world will be blessed. And the Old Testament is full of stories of their faithfulness to this and their lack of faithfulness to this. The ultimate fulfillment coming in Jesus Christ himself.
Jesus Christ is a result of this of this tribe that God has built, and so he builds something. He does all of the work. He created this thing, and through it he has blessed the entire world. So God is not playing favorites, he is inviting people to be a part of his family and creating and building and doing all of these incredible things in and through people so that everyone in the world can be blessed. This is what it means that Abram was chosen.
This is what it means to be God's chosen people. Not that you are God's favorite, but that God is going to do a work through you so that everyone can know him. Which leaves us with this. God is the one that chooses not based on anything that we've done, and this call, this choosing, it requires a response. It requires a response.
It you you you respond. God said all of this and it says, and then and then Abram, he just he did it. He did it. He stepped out in faith and chose to trust God and stepped away from his family, stepped away from his clan, walked away from everything that he knew, and chose to trust God to go to a place that he would figure out where it is along the way. And again, story after story after story of God just being incredibly faithful to Abraham.
Blessing him with a son, growing his family, growing his character, molding Abraham into this to this legend. He wasn't born a legend. He wasn't chosen because he was a legend. He grew into this legend because he had a faith filled response to the call of God on his life. God chose him, and then he chose God.
We got to pick up Leila from camp yesterday, and kind of the first step is you kind of stop and you tell him how many kids you got, what gender they are, what cabin they're in. So I'm used to this routine. Roll down the window. We've got one girl, Cabin 4, named Laila Loften. They give you the right little sticky note or whatever.
And what happened to me, one of Laila's counselors was there. Oh, you're Layla Loften's parents? Like, yep. They said, she is so funny. And I was so excited she said that.
Some of you normal people would have been like, what you want to hear is, well, she's really sweet, she was really kind, she was very nice. Yeah, sure, whatever. Funny, funny, that's what we're going with. Funny. That's what I would yeah, thank you.
Thanks. That's a great compliment. Because the reality of it is we chose her to be a part of our family, and she is. And she chooses us as her family. She is one of us.
I don't I'm I'm at this point, she's not becoming like one of us. She just is one of us. That is what it means to be a part of this family. Everything that she is is what it means to be a part of this family and to watch her over the years just be one of us has just been an incredible joy and and at the same time, of course, being her own person but one one of us And God is inviting you, he's choosing you to be a part of his family, and to be a part of his family is to become like him. To begin to reflect the character of the God who chose you, to do and be what the God has called and asked you to do and be.
This is what it means to be a part of the family. He's choosing you, and you have a faith filled response to accept that, to step into that family, and then you will become you will become what he's choosing you to be. I'm choosing you to be a part of a family, and the natural response of that is to become that. And this is the journey that we are on. Some of you are still at the beginning, right, trying to figure out, am I really going to choose this?
Am I really going to choose to be a part of God's family? For others of us, we're still making decisions every other day with the ups and downs that we see all throughout Genesis. In this moment am I going to respond? In this moment am I going to choose to become more and more like the God that chose me? Am I going to continue to allow him to make me to make me more and more like him?
So that then, like Abram, like his descendants, like these people, like Jesus, and like the disciples, like everywhere along here, God does this incredible work in you so that then you can bless the whole world through the work, not that you do, but the work that God is doing in you. And so we leave with this question. How will you respond to the call of a loving God who is inviting you to be a part of his family? Let me pray. God, I thank you for the story.
Thank you for Abram, who becomes Abraham. I thank you for his faithfulness. Thankful that he was just a guy. God, that the pressure is off. I don't have to be great now.
I just have to respond to you. I gotta thank you for the fulfillment we see in all of this in your son, Jesus Christ. We gotta thank you for the work that he's already done, for the life that we can have in him. And so God, I pray that everyone here would realize, God, that you are choosing us to be a part of your family. That God, I pray that we would respond and allow you to turn us in, your sons and daughters.
And we're so thankful for Jesus who makes all this possible. And it's in his name we pray. Amen.
Charlie Loften: Thanks again for joining us on our sermon podcast, and you can learn more about us at thegrovechurch.org. If you go to thegrovechurch.org/connect, there's a form you could fill out. Just let us know that you've been listening. And if you wanna dig deeper on some of these topics that we cover in our sermon podcast or just another issues of dealing with culture or theology, those kinds of things, you can check out our cultivate podcast. Which is on the same feed however you found this particular podcast.
So again, this is Charlie, the lead pastor at The Grove, and thank you so much for joining us.