1 00:00:00,867 --> 00:00:03,870 Genesis chapter 11, verses one through nine. 2 00:00:05,038 --> 00:00:08,041 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 3 00:00:08,608 --> 00:00:11,361 And as people migrated from the east, 4 00:00:11,361 --> 00:00:14,447 they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and settled there. 5 00:00:15,498 --> 00:00:17,667 And they said to one another, 6 00:00:17,667 --> 00:00:20,670 come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly. 7 00:00:21,571 --> 00:00:24,557 And they have brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 8 00:00:24,808 --> 00:00:27,744 Then they said, come, let us build ourselves 9 00:00:27,744 --> 00:00:30,747 a city and a tower with its top in the heavens. 10 00:00:30,947 --> 00:00:32,932 And let us make a name for ourselves, 11 00:00:32,932 --> 00:00:35,935 lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. 12 00:00:36,753 --> 00:00:38,455 And the Lord came down to see the city 13 00:00:38,455 --> 00:00:41,458 and the tower which the children of man had built. 14 00:00:41,875 --> 00:00:45,228 And the Lord said, behold, there are one people. 15 00:00:46,079 --> 00:00:47,514 And they have all one language. 16 00:00:47,514 --> 00:00:50,333 And this is only the beginning of what they will do. 17 00:00:50,333 --> 00:00:54,020 And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 18 00:00:54,738 --> 00:00:58,341 Come, let us go down in their confuse their language, 19 00:00:58,708 --> 00:01:01,077 so that they may not understand one another. Speech. 20 00:01:02,212 --> 00:01:02,579 So the 21 00:01:02,579 --> 00:01:05,582 Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth. 22 00:01:05,698 --> 00:01:08,101 And they left off building the city. 23 00:01:08,101 --> 00:01:10,370 Therefore its name was called Babel. 24 00:01:10,370 --> 00:01:13,373 Because they are the Lord confused the language of all the earth. 25 00:01:13,623 --> 00:01:16,443 And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face 26 00:01:16,443 --> 00:01:19,429 of all the earth. 27 00:01:19,429 --> 00:01:20,330 Genesis chapter 28 00:01:20,330 --> 00:01:23,333 12, verses one through three. 29 00:01:23,700 --> 00:01:26,719 Now the Lord said to Abraham, go from your country 30 00:01:27,020 --> 00:01:30,123 and your kindred, and your father's house, to the land that I will show you. 31 00:01:31,007 --> 00:01:33,243 And I will make of you a great nation. 32 00:01:33,243 --> 00:01:35,728 And I will bless you and make your name great. 33 00:01:35,728 --> 00:01:38,131 So that you will be a blessing. 34 00:01:38,131 --> 00:01:40,316 And I will bless those who bless you 35 00:01:40,316 --> 00:01:43,019 and him who dishonors you I will curse. 36 00:01:43,019 --> 00:01:45,688 And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. 37 00:01:50,260 --> 00:01:50,727 Everybody, good 38 00:01:50,727 --> 00:01:53,730 morning and welcome to Christ Community Chapel. 39 00:01:53,730 --> 00:01:56,733 We're really, really glad that you're here. 40 00:01:56,749 --> 00:01:59,252 Thanks for coming and being a part. 41 00:01:59,252 --> 00:02:01,921 Are we kick off our new sermon series. 42 00:02:01,921 --> 00:02:04,607 This week we're going to spend the next ten weeks 43 00:02:04,607 --> 00:02:07,977 in the Old Testament looking at the life of Abraham. 44 00:02:08,278 --> 00:02:11,281 And we're calling this series promises Made 45 00:02:11,331 --> 00:02:14,334 and Promises Kept. 46 00:02:14,567 --> 00:02:16,402 In 2010, a movie 47 00:02:16,402 --> 00:02:19,405 came out, called Night and Day. 48 00:02:19,772 --> 00:02:24,427 It was a comedy, starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. 49 00:02:24,444 --> 00:02:26,129 It's a cute movie. 50 00:02:26,129 --> 00:02:28,281 I in the movie, Tom cruise plays 51 00:02:28,281 --> 00:02:31,284 a CIA agent, as usual. 52 00:02:31,401 --> 00:02:34,487 And then, Cameron Diaz is an unsuspecting kind 53 00:02:34,487 --> 00:02:37,490 of civilian who gets roped into the adventure. 54 00:02:38,158 --> 00:02:41,361 And when she realizes the danger she's in, she wants out. 55 00:02:42,378 --> 00:02:46,432 But Tom cruise is trying to explain to her that she would actually 56 00:02:46,432 --> 00:02:50,253 be in more danger if she tried to get out than if she stayed in, 57 00:02:50,870 --> 00:02:52,255 and what he was saying to her. 58 00:02:52,255 --> 00:02:55,308 Annie, there's one scene where he's trying to explain attorney saying, 59 00:02:55,308 --> 00:02:58,611 listen, you need to know that your chances of survival 60 00:02:59,329 --> 00:03:02,148 are higher with me than without me. 61 00:03:02,148 --> 00:03:06,019 With me, without me, with me, without me. 62 00:03:07,253 --> 00:03:10,340 That's what these two passages of scripture are about, 63 00:03:10,340 --> 00:03:12,892 that we just had read to us, 64 00:03:12,892 --> 00:03:15,895 about being with God or without God. 65 00:03:16,713 --> 00:03:18,498 It's actually the theme of the Bible. 66 00:03:18,498 --> 00:03:21,501 It's the theme of your life and mine. 67 00:03:22,068 --> 00:03:25,622 So if you have your Bibles, you can go ahead and turn to Genesis chapter 11. 68 00:03:26,222 --> 00:03:27,440 Genesis chapter 11. 69 00:03:27,440 --> 00:03:30,026 If you're going to use one of our Bibles in the pews, 70 00:03:30,026 --> 00:03:33,947 and I can tell you it's on page seven, it's really early on. 71 00:03:34,347 --> 00:03:37,817 And then, Genesis chapter 12 will also be looking at that. 72 00:03:37,817 --> 00:03:40,820 That's on page eight. Right. 73 00:03:41,037 --> 00:03:45,208 And here are the three points that I want to pull out of these two passages. 74 00:03:45,858 --> 00:03:48,745 I want to talk about the rebellion 75 00:03:48,745 --> 00:03:51,748 of the call and the promise. 76 00:03:52,382 --> 00:03:54,918 The rebellion is really life without God. 77 00:03:54,918 --> 00:03:58,972 The the call is an invitation to be with God. 78 00:03:58,972 --> 00:04:02,508 And then the promise is what life is like 79 00:04:03,092 --> 00:04:06,079 when we're with God, when we surrender to him. 80 00:04:06,629 --> 00:04:10,883 At first the rebellion, this is what it says in Genesis chapter 11. 81 00:04:10,883 --> 00:04:12,385 Let me read it again. 82 00:04:12,385 --> 00:04:14,120 So it's fresh in your mind. 83 00:04:14,120 --> 00:04:18,324 It says, now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 84 00:04:19,108 --> 00:04:22,211 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plane 85 00:04:22,929 --> 00:04:25,098 in the land of Shinar and settled there. 86 00:04:25,098 --> 00:04:30,019 And they said to one another, come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly. 87 00:04:30,737 --> 00:04:33,740 And they had breakfast, stone and vitamin for mortar. 88 00:04:34,107 --> 00:04:37,727 And they said, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower 89 00:04:38,278 --> 00:04:42,048 with this top in the heavens, and let us make a name 90 00:04:42,048 --> 00:04:46,019 for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. 91 00:04:46,970 --> 00:04:48,021 And the Lord came down to 92 00:04:48,021 --> 00:04:51,808 see the city and the tower which the children of man had built. 93 00:04:51,808 --> 00:04:54,811 And the Lord said, behold, they are one people, 94 00:04:54,927 --> 00:04:56,429 and they all have one language. 95 00:04:56,429 --> 00:04:59,632 And this is only the beginning of what they will do, and nothing 96 00:04:59,632 --> 00:05:02,852 that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 97 00:05:03,303 --> 00:05:04,771 Come, let us go down. 98 00:05:04,771 --> 00:05:08,908 And they're confused their language, so that they may not understand one another. 99 00:05:08,908 --> 00:05:09,359 Speech. 100 00:05:09,359 --> 00:05:11,461 So the Lord dispersed them 101 00:05:11,461 --> 00:05:14,897 from there over the face of the earth, and they left off building the city. 102 00:05:14,897 --> 00:05:17,900 Therefore its name was called Babel, 103 00:05:18,201 --> 00:05:21,354 because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, 104 00:05:21,988 --> 00:05:26,459 and from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth. 105 00:05:27,777 --> 00:05:30,263 The building of the Tower of Babel 106 00:05:30,263 --> 00:05:33,383 is kind of the the last chapter 107 00:05:34,067 --> 00:05:37,070 of a rebellion that started in chapter three. 108 00:05:37,854 --> 00:05:42,025 In Genesis chapter three, Adam and Eve come into contact with Satan, 109 00:05:42,959 --> 00:05:46,679 and Satan tempts them to break relationship with God, 110 00:05:47,163 --> 00:05:49,832 and he does that by kind of selling them 111 00:05:49,832 --> 00:05:55,071 on the idea that true freedom, true flourishing, will only happen 112 00:05:55,071 --> 00:05:59,542 if they take control of their own lives and of their world. 113 00:06:00,777 --> 00:06:03,112 And so Adam and Eve, they 114 00:06:03,112 --> 00:06:05,965 they buy into that lie, they break away from God, 115 00:06:05,965 --> 00:06:10,820 and they take control of their own lives and of their world. 116 00:06:11,687 --> 00:06:14,690 And then chapter three to chapter 11 117 00:06:14,874 --> 00:06:17,844 is kind of chronicling the slow 118 00:06:17,844 --> 00:06:20,847 spiral into darkness, 119 00:06:21,297 --> 00:06:23,699 into greater and greater 120 00:06:23,699 --> 00:06:27,153 oppression, greater and greater corruption, greater 121 00:06:27,153 --> 00:06:31,674 and greater violence, deeper and deeper brokenness. 122 00:06:32,725 --> 00:06:35,478 There's a law in physics that is commonly 123 00:06:35,478 --> 00:06:38,481 referred to as the law of entropy. 124 00:06:39,298 --> 00:06:41,868 The law of entropy is basically that things 125 00:06:41,868 --> 00:06:45,238 in the physical universe go from order to disorder, that 126 00:06:45,772 --> 00:06:48,925 everything disintegrates over time 127 00:06:49,342 --> 00:06:52,245 unless there's an intervention. 128 00:06:52,245 --> 00:06:57,750 I used to do, marriage seminars, and sometimes I would use, a cup of coffee. 129 00:06:57,750 --> 00:07:01,587 I'd have a cup of coffee up here, and I would tell the couples, 130 00:07:02,488 --> 00:07:05,691 when I poured the coffee in there 40 minutes ago, it was hot. 131 00:07:06,409 --> 00:07:08,094 Now it's cold. 132 00:07:08,094 --> 00:07:10,430 That's the law of entropy. 133 00:07:10,430 --> 00:07:12,482 It's not just for the physical world. 134 00:07:12,482 --> 00:07:18,688 It's for our relationships that over time, relationships grow cold. 135 00:07:18,688 --> 00:07:20,273 And that's why 136 00:07:20,273 --> 00:07:24,827 married couples who have a good marriage talk about working on their marriage. 137 00:07:24,827 --> 00:07:28,848 What they're saying is we we add energy back into the system, 138 00:07:28,848 --> 00:07:32,218 otherwise it will slowly deteriorate over time. 139 00:07:33,202 --> 00:07:34,403 The law of entropy is a 140 00:07:34,403 --> 00:07:39,442 law that cuts across physically, emotionally, spiritually, 141 00:07:40,409 --> 00:07:42,562 and what we see in chapter 11 142 00:07:42,562 --> 00:07:47,567 or chapters three through 11 is the further people get away from God, 143 00:07:47,567 --> 00:07:52,021 the more they descend the civilization disintegrates. 144 00:07:52,021 --> 00:07:55,007 So God decides to intervene, 145 00:07:55,341 --> 00:07:59,028 and he does so by, confusing their language. 146 00:07:59,512 --> 00:08:02,331 And that stops the project. 147 00:08:02,331 --> 00:08:05,301 And the reason that stops the project is because 148 00:08:05,301 --> 00:08:08,304 if the language is confused, you ask your buddy for a hammer 149 00:08:09,021 --> 00:08:12,024 and he looks at you all of a sudden confused and hands you a washcloth, 150 00:08:12,291 --> 00:08:14,060 you're not going to get much done. 151 00:08:14,060 --> 00:08:15,328 And that's what happens. 152 00:08:15,328 --> 00:08:18,631 And then the people find other people that understand them. 153 00:08:18,631 --> 00:08:22,618 They understand they form little tribes and they disperse throughout the earth. 154 00:08:23,369 --> 00:08:27,240 So it's a weird story for a number of reasons. 155 00:08:27,840 --> 00:08:31,727 But one of the reasons is that it seems like God is kind of threatened 156 00:08:32,211 --> 00:08:35,147 by the idea of human beings 157 00:08:35,147 --> 00:08:39,685 forming a civilization and leaving him out. 158 00:08:40,937 --> 00:08:42,922 I don't think that's the case. 159 00:08:42,922 --> 00:08:45,925 I don't think God was threatened. 160 00:08:46,008 --> 00:08:49,879 There's an author named William Golding who wrote a book in 1954 161 00:08:50,780 --> 00:08:53,065 that became a classic. 162 00:08:53,065 --> 00:08:56,068 The title is Lord of the flies. 163 00:08:56,269 --> 00:08:59,121 You might have read it when you were a student. 164 00:08:59,121 --> 00:09:03,743 The story is about some school age boys who get 165 00:09:04,860 --> 00:09:07,413 on a on a deserted island, and they're shipwrecked 166 00:09:07,413 --> 00:09:10,399 on a deserted island with no adults. 167 00:09:10,399 --> 00:09:12,652 And the story is really how things just 168 00:09:12,652 --> 00:09:16,789 devolve into greater and greater darkness, 169 00:09:16,789 --> 00:09:21,477 greater and greater violence, greater and greater brokenness. 170 00:09:22,495 --> 00:09:25,197 And at the end of the book, there is a rescue. 171 00:09:25,197 --> 00:09:28,067 A ship comes and rescues the boys. 172 00:09:28,067 --> 00:09:32,271 And you, you kind of realize that if if there had not been a rescue, 173 00:09:32,271 --> 00:09:33,356 then there was no. 174 00:09:33,356 --> 00:09:40,413 And no bottom to the violence and the darkness that was going to happen. 175 00:09:42,114 --> 00:09:44,417 That's what God's doing. 176 00:09:44,417 --> 00:09:48,421 God is initiating a rescue 177 00:09:49,288 --> 00:09:52,291 because there is this slow 178 00:09:52,592 --> 00:09:55,645 devolving into greater and greater 179 00:09:55,645 --> 00:09:58,764 corruption, greater and greater violence. 180 00:09:58,764 --> 00:10:03,269 And he begins this rescue with a man named Abraham. 181 00:10:04,070 --> 00:10:07,740 And that brings me to the second point, which is the call. 182 00:10:09,692 --> 00:10:13,796 So into the darkness, into this spiral, 183 00:10:13,796 --> 00:10:17,967 into confusion of a world that is moving away from him. 184 00:10:18,451 --> 00:10:19,702 God speaks. 185 00:10:19,702 --> 00:10:22,321 And this is what God says. 186 00:10:22,321 --> 00:10:24,407 Now the Lord said to Abram, 187 00:10:24,407 --> 00:10:27,593 go from your country and your kindred in your father's house, 188 00:10:28,277 --> 00:10:30,863 to the land that I will show you, 189 00:10:30,863 --> 00:10:34,233 and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you 190 00:10:34,233 --> 00:10:38,154 and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 191 00:10:38,754 --> 00:10:43,309 I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you 192 00:10:43,559 --> 00:10:47,279 all the families of the earth shall be blessed. 193 00:10:48,297 --> 00:10:50,333 All right, 194 00:10:50,333 --> 00:10:53,119 so God calls to Abraham. 195 00:10:53,119 --> 00:10:55,671 Now I call him Abraham. 196 00:10:55,671 --> 00:10:58,007 Later on his name will be changed to Abraham. 197 00:10:58,007 --> 00:11:00,843 In chapter 17. God changes it. 198 00:11:00,843 --> 00:11:05,281 Abraham means father, Abraham means father of many. 199 00:11:06,032 --> 00:11:08,551 And that's a promise made and a promise 200 00:11:08,551 --> 00:11:11,537 kept that will cover in a few weeks. 201 00:11:12,355 --> 00:11:16,075 But Abraham is actually introduced at the end of chapter 11. 202 00:11:16,759 --> 00:11:20,546 His father's name is Terah, which means moon, 203 00:11:21,447 --> 00:11:24,500 and they come from a his family comes from a place called 204 00:11:24,500 --> 00:11:29,722 ur of called Dia, which is a center of lunar worship. 205 00:11:30,873 --> 00:11:32,875 So Abraham, 206 00:11:32,875 --> 00:11:35,628 belongs to a family that worships the moon. 207 00:11:35,628 --> 00:11:40,916 They're idol worshipers, and God calls to Abraham. 208 00:11:41,600 --> 00:11:45,621 Okay, there are three things that I want to point out about the call of God. 209 00:11:46,188 --> 00:11:49,191 First, God initiates the call. 210 00:11:49,375 --> 00:11:50,726 God initiates the call. 211 00:11:51,777 --> 00:11:55,314 The call of God always changes you 212 00:11:55,981 --> 00:12:01,137 in responding to the call of God will always involve surrender. 213 00:12:01,771 --> 00:12:04,857 I first God initiates the call, 214 00:12:06,041 --> 00:12:06,175 right? 215 00:12:06,175 --> 00:12:11,147 There is nothing about Abraham that is particularly impressive or outstanding. 216 00:12:12,031 --> 00:12:17,903 You know his family worships the moon and his dad was named after that. 217 00:12:17,903 --> 00:12:21,557 God, there is nothing in Abraham's life 218 00:12:21,557 --> 00:12:24,560 that makes you think that he is special. 219 00:12:25,311 --> 00:12:27,897 You know, there's a commercial that's running right now. 220 00:12:27,897 --> 00:12:30,900 It's, about financial planners, 221 00:12:31,200 --> 00:12:35,788 and a woman is in a doctor's office, and she's becoming increasingly alarmed 222 00:12:36,272 --> 00:12:41,427 at the doctor's cavalier attitude and his obvious lack of medical knowledge. 223 00:12:41,427 --> 00:12:44,930 And finally she says to him, are you even an orthopedist? 224 00:12:45,498 --> 00:12:48,501 And he looks up and he says, no, I'm a Sagittarius. 225 00:12:48,601 --> 00:12:49,919 Okay. 226 00:12:49,919 --> 00:12:52,438 And the point of the commercial is, if you don't 227 00:12:52,438 --> 00:12:55,674 trust your money to somebody who's not qualified, right. 228 00:12:55,674 --> 00:12:58,711 That was that's the exact opposite of the call of God. 229 00:13:00,179 --> 00:13:00,830 God never 230 00:13:00,830 --> 00:13:03,833 calls somebody because he needs them, 231 00:13:04,083 --> 00:13:06,502 because they are so qualified that he 232 00:13:06,502 --> 00:13:10,289 he wants them to be a part of what he's doing. 233 00:13:11,307 --> 00:13:14,310 If you're here, that means that God 234 00:13:14,877 --> 00:13:16,879 has called you 235 00:13:16,879 --> 00:13:19,882 or is calling you, whether you realize it 236 00:13:19,915 --> 00:13:23,219 or not, and God has initiated that call. 237 00:13:23,219 --> 00:13:27,573 It's much more like when when I was a kid and we'd go out in the schoolyard 238 00:13:27,573 --> 00:13:32,328 for recess and we we're going to play kickball or football, whatever. 239 00:13:32,695 --> 00:13:35,447 The two best athletes would be captains, and then they would 240 00:13:35,447 --> 00:13:39,134 begin to pick their team, and they would pick the next best person 241 00:13:39,151 --> 00:13:41,437 each time until everybody was picked. 242 00:13:41,437 --> 00:13:44,440 They were always be a couple of kids that were never picked. 243 00:13:45,474 --> 00:13:48,327 It's much more like God being a captain 244 00:13:48,327 --> 00:13:51,630 and looking at the kids that were never picked and said saying, 245 00:13:52,281 --> 00:13:56,602 I choose you, I pick you, I will carry this team. 246 00:13:56,602 --> 00:13:59,572 I don't need you on this team. 247 00:14:00,990 --> 00:14:02,491 Listen, 248 00:14:02,491 --> 00:14:05,327 you are here because God initiated 249 00:14:05,327 --> 00:14:08,364 a call to you, not because you're particularly qualified, 250 00:14:09,832 --> 00:14:12,835 but because he says, I want you, 251 00:14:13,969 --> 00:14:16,171 I call you. 252 00:14:16,171 --> 00:14:17,389 That's the first thing. 253 00:14:17,389 --> 00:14:20,543 The second thing is that the call of God changes you. 254 00:14:21,527 --> 00:14:24,747 In chapter 11, we find out that that Abraham's family 255 00:14:25,014 --> 00:14:27,566 was moving from earth called Dia. 256 00:14:27,566 --> 00:14:28,918 They were on their way to Canaan. 257 00:14:28,918 --> 00:14:32,087 They stop at a place called heron, and they just. 258 00:14:32,087 --> 00:14:34,940 And the rest of the family says this is good enough. 259 00:14:34,940 --> 00:14:36,141 We're going to settle here. 260 00:14:36,141 --> 00:14:38,961 And God says to Abraham, not you, 261 00:14:38,961 --> 00:14:42,932 not you, you, you keep going, right? 262 00:14:43,082 --> 00:14:46,068 The call of God is very personal. 263 00:14:46,518 --> 00:14:48,771 He calls Abraham 264 00:14:48,771 --> 00:14:50,906 my point is, it's not enough 265 00:14:50,906 --> 00:14:55,160 to be a part of a family that believes in Jesus is strong enough 266 00:14:55,160 --> 00:14:59,031 to be a part of a church that believes in Jesus. 267 00:14:59,782 --> 00:15:01,517 You have to hear the call yourself. 268 00:15:01,517 --> 00:15:04,219 My. My kids grew up in this church. 269 00:15:04,219 --> 00:15:05,788 My kids grew up in a Christian home. 270 00:15:05,788 --> 00:15:08,657 They know Christian morals. They're good people. 271 00:15:08,657 --> 00:15:11,060 That does not make them Christians. 272 00:15:11,060 --> 00:15:14,880 They are not Christians unless they have heard God's call to them 273 00:15:14,880 --> 00:15:18,901 personally and responded in the calls. 274 00:15:18,901 --> 00:15:20,002 God always changes you. 275 00:15:20,002 --> 00:15:23,672 The very first word that God says to Abraham is go, 276 00:15:24,740 --> 00:15:26,191 you go. 277 00:15:26,191 --> 00:15:26,992 This is that. 278 00:15:26,992 --> 00:15:29,478 If you say that you've become 279 00:15:29,478 --> 00:15:33,532 a follower of Jesus, but there's no real change in you 280 00:15:33,532 --> 00:15:38,070 from when you were not to when you are, you probably are not a Christian. 281 00:15:39,204 --> 00:15:43,008 Christianity, always being a Christian, always changes you. 282 00:15:43,142 --> 00:15:46,829 God comes to Abraham where he is, but he doesn't leave him where he is. 283 00:15:46,829 --> 00:15:49,648 He says go. 284 00:15:49,648 --> 00:15:52,701 The final thing is that the call of God response 285 00:15:52,952 --> 00:15:56,338 to the call of God always, always involves surrender. 286 00:15:57,623 --> 00:15:58,440 Trust. 287 00:15:58,440 --> 00:16:03,629 But if you're going to trust someone, that means you surrender control to them. 288 00:16:04,530 --> 00:16:07,349 Oh, for my 10th anniversary 289 00:16:07,349 --> 00:16:11,303 with my wife many years ago, I decided to surprise her. 290 00:16:11,520 --> 00:16:14,223 I took her to dinner down in canton. 291 00:16:14,223 --> 00:16:16,642 That was not the surprise. 292 00:16:16,642 --> 00:16:20,279 But during dinner at the end of dinner, I said, hey, I have a surprise for you. 293 00:16:21,063 --> 00:16:23,098 I'm going to take you away for a long weekend. 294 00:16:23,098 --> 00:16:25,701 I've arranged for the kids to be taken care of. 295 00:16:25,701 --> 00:16:27,686 I packed a bag for you. 296 00:16:27,686 --> 00:16:29,071 Our flight leaves in an hour, 297 00:16:30,022 --> 00:16:33,025 and she said, where are we going? 298 00:16:33,175 --> 00:16:35,160 And what did you pack? 299 00:16:35,160 --> 00:16:38,147 Right. 300 00:16:38,814 --> 00:16:41,066 Now, I was like, don't worry about it. 301 00:16:41,066 --> 00:16:43,369 It's going to be great, 302 00:16:43,369 --> 00:16:44,603 trust me. Right? 303 00:16:44,603 --> 00:16:46,739 But just say, no, I'm not an idiot. 304 00:16:46,739 --> 00:16:49,258 I had her her sister pack the bag. 305 00:16:49,258 --> 00:16:50,242 I had no idea. 306 00:16:50,242 --> 00:16:53,245 But the fact. 307 00:16:55,164 --> 00:16:57,683 My gift to her was this. 308 00:16:57,683 --> 00:17:00,502 Hey, I have plans for you. 309 00:17:00,502 --> 00:17:02,938 They're great plans. 310 00:17:02,938 --> 00:17:05,724 Her gift to me was to say, 311 00:17:05,724 --> 00:17:07,760 okay, 312 00:17:07,760 --> 00:17:11,930 okay, I will trust you, I will surrender. 313 00:17:13,048 --> 00:17:17,252 It's not an uncommon for somebody who's thinking about becoming a Christian 314 00:17:18,137 --> 00:17:21,140 to ask questions like, okay, if I become a Christian, 315 00:17:21,707 --> 00:17:24,209 what will have to stop doing? 316 00:17:24,209 --> 00:17:25,677 What will I have to start doing? 317 00:17:25,677 --> 00:17:27,930 Do I have to quit living with my boyfriend? 318 00:17:27,930 --> 00:17:29,581 Do I have to start going to church? 319 00:17:29,581 --> 00:17:31,100 You have to start reading my Bible. 320 00:17:31,100 --> 00:17:33,118 Do I start giving whatever it is? 321 00:17:33,118 --> 00:17:35,387 And those are the wrong questions. 322 00:17:36,455 --> 00:17:37,222 But because 323 00:17:37,222 --> 00:17:40,225 God is saying, I'm calling you, 324 00:17:40,743 --> 00:17:43,278 it's like he's reaching out his hand 325 00:17:43,278 --> 00:17:46,281 and he's saying, I, I want you to trust me. 326 00:17:47,449 --> 00:17:51,120 To really follow Jesus means to say to Jesus, 327 00:17:52,254 --> 00:17:55,190 okay, okay, 328 00:17:55,190 --> 00:17:57,326 whatever you want me to do, 329 00:17:57,326 --> 00:18:00,229 I'm in whatever you want me to stop doing, 330 00:18:00,229 --> 00:18:01,914 I'm in. 331 00:18:01,914 --> 00:18:04,917 I surrender to you. 332 00:18:05,300 --> 00:18:06,602 And Jesus. 333 00:18:06,602 --> 00:18:09,321 Then, of course, says, 334 00:18:09,321 --> 00:18:11,690 I have great plans for you. 335 00:18:11,690 --> 00:18:15,928 And that brings me to my third point, which is the promise. 336 00:18:16,378 --> 00:18:19,381 This is what God says to Abraham. 337 00:18:19,498 --> 00:18:22,701 Now the Lord said to Abraham, go from your country and your kindred, 338 00:18:23,302 --> 00:18:26,305 and your father's house to the land I will show you, 339 00:18:27,055 --> 00:18:31,160 and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you 340 00:18:31,160 --> 00:18:34,730 and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 341 00:18:34,730 --> 00:18:39,601 I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you 342 00:18:40,202 --> 00:18:43,856 all the families of the earth shall be blessed. 343 00:18:46,074 --> 00:18:47,960 God says, 344 00:18:47,960 --> 00:18:52,247 Abraham, if you will hear my call, if you will respond, 345 00:18:52,247 --> 00:18:55,250 if you will surrender to me, this is my promise to you. 346 00:18:56,752 --> 00:18:59,755 I will make your name great. 347 00:19:00,022 --> 00:19:03,025 It's interesting to me that you're in this story, that 348 00:19:03,959 --> 00:19:06,662 the Tower of Babel is about a group of people 349 00:19:06,662 --> 00:19:10,232 that get together and they say, let's make a name for ourselves. 350 00:19:10,232 --> 00:19:13,101 What they're saying is, let's make our name great. 351 00:19:13,101 --> 00:19:16,104 We don't know a single one of their names. 352 00:19:16,788 --> 00:19:19,791 No one does. 353 00:19:19,892 --> 00:19:22,878 But everybody knows Abraham. 354 00:19:23,428 --> 00:19:26,431 Every Jewish person knows Abraham. 355 00:19:26,582 --> 00:19:29,418 Every Muslim knows Abraham. 356 00:19:29,418 --> 00:19:32,421 Every Christian knows the name 357 00:19:33,238 --> 00:19:35,357 Abraham. 358 00:19:35,357 --> 00:19:38,360 Because God said to Abraham, 359 00:19:38,610 --> 00:19:40,112 if you will trust me, surrender to me. 360 00:19:40,112 --> 00:19:42,147 I will make your name great. 361 00:19:42,147 --> 00:19:43,949 But in the Bible it's no way. 362 00:19:43,949 --> 00:19:48,871 He's not only saying, I'm going to make your name famous or renowned in the Bible. 363 00:19:48,871 --> 00:19:52,941 Whenever it talks about name, it's talking about character. 364 00:19:53,659 --> 00:19:57,112 Like when it says the name of the Lord shall be praise. 365 00:19:57,112 --> 00:19:59,698 That's talking about the strength of his character. 366 00:19:59,698 --> 00:20:02,184 What what God was telling Abraham is this 367 00:20:03,168 --> 00:20:06,171 if you trust me, surrender to me, 368 00:20:06,889 --> 00:20:10,909 then I will make you the very best version of yourself, 369 00:20:11,660 --> 00:20:14,663 and the very best version of you will be a blessing 370 00:20:15,864 --> 00:20:18,867 to the people around you and to the whole world. 371 00:20:19,851 --> 00:20:22,020 And then in Matthew 372 00:20:22,020 --> 00:20:25,007 chapter one, verse one, this is where it begins. 373 00:20:25,340 --> 00:20:28,527 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, 374 00:20:29,761 --> 00:20:32,731 the son of Abraham. 375 00:20:32,731 --> 00:20:35,784 God uses Abraham to bring Jesus 376 00:20:36,952 --> 00:20:37,886 to the whole world. 377 00:20:37,886 --> 00:20:39,922 That's the blessing. 378 00:20:39,922 --> 00:20:41,790 Do you see? 379 00:20:41,790 --> 00:20:44,793 Do you see the same invitation 380 00:20:44,960 --> 00:20:47,312 God makes to each one of us, 381 00:20:47,312 --> 00:20:50,299 to you and to me? 382 00:20:50,816 --> 00:20:53,452 God says, and that continue them of you 383 00:20:53,452 --> 00:20:56,788 being in control of your life, in you surrendering to me. 384 00:20:56,788 --> 00:21:00,993 The closer you get to surrendering to me, the better version of yourself 385 00:21:00,993 --> 00:21:06,498 I will make your name great, and the best version of you 386 00:21:07,582 --> 00:21:10,585 will be a blessing to everyone around you, 387 00:21:11,570 --> 00:21:14,573 but can also be a blessing to the whole world. 388 00:21:15,207 --> 00:21:18,477 Henry David Thoreau has a famous quote. 389 00:21:19,511 --> 00:21:22,097 The famous quote is the mass of men 390 00:21:22,097 --> 00:21:25,100 live lives of quiet desperation. 391 00:21:25,917 --> 00:21:28,820 What he's saying is that the the vast majority of humanity 392 00:21:28,820 --> 00:21:31,823 have no idea, no purpose. 393 00:21:32,941 --> 00:21:34,710 And that is just not true. 394 00:21:34,710 --> 00:21:36,511 If you are a follower of G, it's not true. 395 00:21:36,511 --> 00:21:39,498 If you are part of this church. 396 00:21:39,898 --> 00:21:43,318 If you want to know why we are so passionate in this church about 397 00:21:43,318 --> 00:21:49,141 what happens outside of these walls, why we are passionate about 10,000 people 398 00:21:49,257 --> 00:21:53,695 within a ten mile radius coming to know Jesus in the next 30 years. 399 00:21:53,695 --> 00:21:57,382 While we are passionate about planting churches all over Northeast 400 00:21:57,399 --> 00:22:01,586 Ohio, about participating in global missions around the world, 401 00:22:02,571 --> 00:22:05,090 this is why. 402 00:22:05,090 --> 00:22:07,259 Because we are people 403 00:22:07,259 --> 00:22:09,711 that want to be passionate 404 00:22:09,711 --> 00:22:11,747 about moving on that continuum. 405 00:22:11,747 --> 00:22:12,898 I want to trust God. 406 00:22:12,898 --> 00:22:14,783 I want you to trust God more. 407 00:22:14,783 --> 00:22:16,918 This week than you did last week. 408 00:22:16,918 --> 00:22:19,921 To surrender more next week than you did this week. 409 00:22:20,422 --> 00:22:24,659 And each time we take a step to that side of the continuum, 410 00:22:25,344 --> 00:22:28,347 we become a better version of ourselves. 411 00:22:28,914 --> 00:22:30,866 And the very best version of you 412 00:22:30,866 --> 00:22:33,869 will be a blessing to everyone you're sitting around 413 00:22:34,202 --> 00:22:37,189 will be a blessing to your family, 414 00:22:37,222 --> 00:22:39,474 but we'll also be a blessing 415 00:22:39,474 --> 00:22:42,711 to the whole world because God will use you. 416 00:22:42,711 --> 00:22:44,996 Use us 417 00:22:44,996 --> 00:22:47,215 to bring Jesus 418 00:22:47,215 --> 00:22:49,134 to the world. 419 00:22:49,134 --> 00:22:52,137 Do you see? 420 00:22:52,187 --> 00:22:54,206 With God, 421 00:22:54,206 --> 00:22:56,308 without God, 422 00:22:56,308 --> 00:22:59,311 with him, without him. 423 00:23:00,379 --> 00:23:02,280 That's the promise 424 00:23:02,280 --> 00:23:05,267 God makes to you with me. 425 00:23:05,517 --> 00:23:06,835 I will make your name great, 426 00:23:08,120 --> 00:23:10,889 and I will make you a blessing to all the world. 427 00:23:10,889 --> 00:23:13,892 Promises made, promises kept. 428 00:23:14,543 --> 00:23:17,546 Would you pray with me? 429 00:23:17,662 --> 00:23:18,897 Father in heaven. 430 00:23:18,897 --> 00:23:21,900 Thank you that you did not, 431 00:23:21,917 --> 00:23:26,521 just allow us on a free fall into darkness 432 00:23:27,539 --> 00:23:29,274 and just 433 00:23:29,274 --> 00:23:30,592 decay. 434 00:23:30,592 --> 00:23:33,595 But instead, you decided to intervene to rescue us. 435 00:23:34,830 --> 00:23:38,066 And you did it by bringing Jesus into the world. 436 00:23:38,066 --> 00:23:41,520 But you also did it by calling us to yourself. 437 00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:43,822 Initiating a call. 438 00:23:43,822 --> 00:23:45,323 I pray for every person here. 439 00:23:45,323 --> 00:23:48,326 I pray for those who are hearing the call for the first time, that 440 00:23:48,326 --> 00:23:51,329 this could be the day that they surrender and say, 441 00:23:52,731 --> 00:23:55,434 I want to be with you, not without you. 442 00:23:55,434 --> 00:23:58,520 And for those of us that know you, I pray that this would be a day 443 00:23:58,520 --> 00:24:03,091 we will take a step closer to you, surrender more to you 444 00:24:03,859 --> 00:24:06,478 so you can fulfill your promise 445 00:24:06,478 --> 00:24:10,649 to us, to make our name great, to make us a blessing 446 00:24:11,366 --> 00:24:14,369 that the whole world may be blessed through us. 447 00:24:14,669 --> 00:24:15,737 Thank you. 448 00:24:15,737 --> 00:24:18,056 Thanks for your grace. Thanks for Jesus. 449 00:24:18,056 --> 00:24:20,525 We pray this in his name. Amen.