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Good morning.
If you've got your Bible, and I hope you do, I want to invite you to join me in Genesis chapter 21.
And here, in just a moment, we'll start reading in verse eight a couple of things really quickly.
Come back tonight.
We want to see all of you.
We're going to hang out, have a wonderful time together for our harvest hangout.
So please come and just spend some great time of fellowship with us, get signed up for our discipleship studies.
We're excited about them.
There's lots of topics that we're going to be covering over the next seven to eight weeks.
And so I want to encourage you to be a part of that and then really looking forward to our missions night.
And there's so many different ways that we can help and engage each other in thinking about missions and what God's doing.
Excited about the team that's going to be going to New York and all that.
The Lord is doing.
Well, if you haven't been here over the last couple of weeks, maybe you're not aware, but we had a team that recently got back from India, and I was on that team.
We went to Jpor to work alongside of our ministry partners that we have.
And on November 19, Sam will be here.
Dr.
Sam will be here and to be able to share about the ministry and all the work that's happening there.
And so one of the things that I want to begin to build in to the culture as we become more and more ascending church.
I believe by the end of this calendar year, I may be wrong, but I believe we'll have mobilized five different teams onto the mission field outside of our community, headed places like North Carolina, Utah, New York, India, as well as supporting our missionaries that we partner with all over the world.
But one of the things I want to do and kind of build into our culture is when a team gets back and maybe not taking a whole Sunday, but having a moment where we can, at the very beginning of the message, speak to the work of what God did during that.
So I'd like to do that first, I want to publicly thank Pastor Dave and Adam Venters for speaking and for teaching from God's Word while I was gone.
It's such a huge relief to know that there are those who value God's word and are willing to dive in and study and then share the truth of God's word.
And so to have both of them come and do that was a great honor, and I thank them for that.
I also want to thank you as a church, every time we mobilize a team onto the mission field.
There is that call of the team that says, yes, I will go.
And they have to take vacation.
They pay for themselves or raise funds to go.
But what you do as a congregation is you send us you give us that opportunity to go, and then with your tithes and your offerings that you give, you allow us to do the work that is there.
There's not a single missionary that is sent from our church where 100% of the cost of their trip and the work that they do comes from them.
It comes from you as well.
And so I want to begin by thanking you for allowing us to be a church that says that our money needs to be spent on ministries that happen inside this wall, but also that we understand that our money needs to be spent on work that happens outside of this wall as well.
And we seek the Lord and his guidance for what we do with that.
And so I want to thank you as a church for giving to that mission that goes beyond you and your comforts in all of those things.
And so thank you for that.
I want to tell a couple of stories real quick, and as we go, we did some great work.
God used us to do some great things that have never been done there before in the context of this ministry and in our church.
And honestly, I could stand here for hours and talk about the work, talk about all the things, talk about people from our church and how proud I was of them to see them rise above what they thought they were going to do to do more, to do everything that God was calling them and commanding them to do to step out of their comfort zone.
But as I prayed through this this week, where I kind of landed is I want to talk to you about two people that we met while we.
Were over there, two people that we.
Had the opportunity, one through ministry and, honestly, one through shopping as we were there.
First person I want to tell you about is a man that we met, a man by the name of we were we were at our ministry site doing work.
And if you haven't been to India, if you haven't been to Jaipur, maybe you don't know this, but one of the things that they're known for that you can go there and buy is jewelry.
So about half of our team was ladies, and they were like, we want jewelry, right?
And day one, we were supposed to go get jewelry, and then our schedule didn't work quite out, and I had to go up to some of these ladies and say, we can't go get jewelry.
I'm even seeing some ladies in here that are shaking their head no at me, and they weren't even on the trip.
And they smiled and said, okay, but you know, like when you don't really believe somebody?
So I said, all right, tomorrow, I promise, we're gonna go and get some jewelry.
And so the next day, we're there, and there was a man that we had met that I've met before, a guy by the name of Kenny.
And Kenny and his family have moved from North Carolina they're in the process of moving from North Carolina to India.
To set up an authentic pizza and Italian restaurant in India, right?
It's going to be amazing.
And so he said to me, he.
Said, what are you doing today?
I said, we're going to go jewelry shopping.
And we've been jewelry shopping before.
And he said, there's a shop that I know and an owner that I know actually know his family.
They're like family to us.
They're Muslims.
Would you go to his shop?
I said sure.
So he coordinated that, gave our driver where we're supposed to go, and so we head that way.
Now, somebody asked me this morning, ross Laffade asked me this morning.
He's like, how was traffic?
So here's the best description I can give you traffic.
I've gotten used to it.
I love it.
Americans, we spend thousands of dollars to go to theme parks and ride roller coasters.
You just need to go experience Jpor traffic, right?
And then you won't do it anymore.
So it's about 10 miles, is where we is the distance that we have to drive.
And an hour and 15 minutes later, we get there.
That's just the beauty of it.
And so we walk in and we meet Oslam.
We meet his kids.
And we're talking, and people are asking.
About prices and doing different things.
Aaron found some things for Emma, and so we're making purchases, and he's cracking jokes with us.
Man, I love this guy.
Later on, his wife comes in.
They're Muslim.
This isn't uncommon in Jaipur.
And she comes in, and she's wearing her full black burka.
All we see is right here she goes, and she stands behind the counter.
Now, I know Kenny's been witnessing to him and doing those different things and building that relationship.
And so we were there.
Credit cards may have been maxed out.
From some know, and we're getting ready to go.
And I said, awesome.
Can we pray for you before we leave?
This man's a Muslim.
He knows that I'm a Christian.
Can we pray for you?
He says, Absolutely, which is common.
That didn't surprise me.
But what he said next surprised me.
He said, Would you pray that God would bless me?
And I said, sure.
And then he said this.
He said, I'm not talking, though, about the blessing of finances.
I'm talking about the blessing that can only come from God.
Yes, we'll pray.
So standing there in that shop, a group of Christians from the United States prayed over a Muslim family that they would receive the blessing that can only come from Christ and Christ alone.
So I want to challenge you as you pray, to pray for the salvation of that family, to pray for us.
And we believe that God is doing a work.
The second individual that I want to talk about.
And there's so many that we met, and I hate that I'm leaving some of these individuals out.
But another one?
And this kind of shows us that the story will point to god always has more for us than what we.
Can imagine is a guy by the.
Name of Coach V is what we called him.
We couldn't pronounce his name, so we left it at Coach V, right?
And so my group that I was a part of, we were teaching basketball to a group of people that largely had never played basketball before.
So it took my C to D plus level of basketball and made me feel like an all star for a week.
You know what I mean?
I'm like, watch this.
I can do a layup and make it half the time.
And so Brent Hawkins was leading our group, and Brent and Coach V formed this great and here's the part that I would tell you is so many times what's happening.
I taught over there about the parable.
Of the sower as you scatter seed, scatter seed, scatter seed.
And one of the days that we were there doing our ministry, doing our work, we are there to do basketball.
We're not teaching Bible studies.
We're there to do basketball and to ask whether it's basketball, reading, nursing, music.
God, how can you take this and use this for your name and for your glory?
And so we'd get done with our time doing basketball.
And I would sneak in to watch Aaron do teacher development, and Brent and Coach V would go to another spot of the school to discuss the day for honestly, Brent to kind of coach him on, this is what it looks like to be a basketball coach.
Coach V is Hindu.
He's not a Christian.
And something happened in that conversation between Brent and Coach V.
So that night, jump forward a few hours.
We came, and Sam wanted us to do a concert at the church.
And so we had three of our ladies that got up and they had.
Practiced and they sang songs, and it.
Was just a wonderful time of worship.
And they had some people from their church that had some songs prepared, and.
They did those as well.
And I get ready to leave, and we're talking and shaking hands and doing all of that.
And I look over to my right, and I see standing in the doorway, still in the clothes that he had.
On to coach basketball that day was Coach V, a Hindu man who came to a church, who heard the gospel of Jesus Christ because he sat in a room with a believer who traveled halfway across the earth to teach basketball.
But in that moment, God made it more than basketball.
And so when we come back in the report of this trip, I would love to be able to say that.
There were hundreds, thousands, even a couple of people that came to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
But I can't say that.
But I can say that there were.
Men and women that God allowed for.
Us to meet that were able to.
Hear about who Jesus is, were told.
About who Jesus is, and whatever their thoughts were about.
Christians were able to be loved.
And God used silly things like basketball and music in reading.
Not that that's silly, right?
And nursing to allow us a platform to bring glory to his name.
And so I just challenge you.
To think differently about what God would have for you to look at what God has given passionately to you, right, and ask God what you can do with that.
We took basketball basketball and had an opportunity to share the gospel with someone.
Who, up until that day, may or.
May not have had a clue who Jesus was.
But now a seed has been planted.
So I want to encourage you to pray for these relationships that were formed by our team that God brought us together for this.
And this is the reason why we partner, so that as we continue to go, as we continue to do what.
God has for us right, that there'll be more and more opportunities to sow.
Seeds, more and more opportunities to build relationships.
Not so that we can have more.
Friends, but so that we can share the gospel of Jesus Christ and men and women and children can place their faith in Him and him alone.
All right, let's pray.
And then I'm going to jump into Genesis 21.
God, thank you so much for this morning.
God, I pray for all of those.
Individuals that we met.
I pray for Oslin.
I pray for his family.
I pray for Coach V.
I pray for our driver, Babu.
I pray for the many teachers and students whose names we learned, whose faces we will always remember.
Lord, I thank you for the wonderful opportunity that you gave us to go and to engage into the work that.
You'Re doing on the complete other side of the world.
And Lord, I pray that as we sowed the seed that was there, lord.
I pray for the harvest.
Lord, I pray that there will be more conversations.
Lord, I pray that your spirit would work and move.
And I pray that these people would.
Come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Lord, I thank you for this church.
That acknowledges that we are called to.
Go and that we will go for your name and for your glory.
And it's in Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
So let's jump in.
Genesis, chapter 21.
This morning we're going to start reading here in verse eight.
If you weren't here with us a couple of weeks ago, we've been navigating through we've been reading through, studying the life of Abraham, and we've been building up to this pivotal moment where God has promised him and his wife Sarah a son.
And in the very beginning of Genesis, chapter 21 of what we read several weeks ago, we find out that this son Isaac, that he is born.
Next week we'll look at Genesis, chapter 22, the Sacrifice of Isaac, one of my favorite passages in scripture.
I'm excited about preaching that to you next week.
More the more common of what most of us know of with here.
But there's this other dialogue that's going to happen that I want us to look at before we get there.
So let's start reading in verse eight.
And God's word says, and the child grew and was weaned.
And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.
But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had born to Abraham, laughing.
So she said to Abraham, cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.
And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son.
But God said to Abraham, do not be displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman.
Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you for through Isaac shall your offspring be named, and I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also because he is your offspring.
So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder along with the child and sent her away.
And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Bersheba.
Verse 15 and when the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes.
Then she went and sat down opposite him, a good way off about the distance of a bow shot.
For she said, Let me not look on the death of the child.
And as she sat opposite of him, she lifted up her voice and wept.
And God heard the voice of the boy.
And the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, what troubles you, Hagar?
Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is up.
Lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand for I will make him into a great nation.
Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water, and she went and filled the skin with the water and gave the boy a drink.
And God was with the boy, and he grew up.
He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow.
He lived in the wilderness of Peran and his mother took a wife for.
Him from the land of Egypt.
There's a lot going on here.
Jewish tradition and history says that Isaac was around three years old when he was weaned.
And as was the custom, the dad, Abraham, throws him a party.
And in this party, we see conflict.
Now, if you've been reading through and you've been with us, you can see that this conflict is not a surprise to us, right?
And if you haven't been, we don't have time to go all the way back and understand this.
But we have to all agree this conflict was inevitable.
Two moms, two sons, one dad.
That's just an uncomfortable holiday moment, right?
That just doesn't play out well.
This is a recipe for conflict.
And as we see this, just briefly the story, right?
Sarah and Abraham, they want a son.
God's promised them a son.
This is what's going to happen, but it's not happening.
And so Sarah gives Abraham her servant, Hagar because Sarah could not provide a child.
But Hagar does.
And this is where we see the boy, Ishmael.
And then later on, what God does is god remains true to his word and fulfills his promise and gives Sarah and Abraham a son.
Isaac, 13 years after, Ishmael's born.
So God is faithful to what he says he's going to do.
But what's been happening, what's been brewing under the surface and sometimes outside of this comes to conflict here in verse nine, where Sarah, mama of Isaac, while at her son's party, sees her husband's other son from another woman laughing or scoffing at her son Isaac.
And every mama bear in the room gets it right.
Not on my kids day, right?
And this is it.
And this is this conflict.
And in the situation that happened in Genesis 21, probably about 4000 years ago, we still live in the reality of this conflict today.
What we see from scripture, what we know from history, the descendants of Ishmael will become the Arab people.
God said he'd make a great nation, and he did.
From these people will come the Islamic faith, the direct descendants of Ishmael.
And what we see from the direct descendants of Isaac will be the Jewish people.
And what we will see throughout the course of history in God's word, throughout.
The course of history in our textbooks, throughout the course of history in our.
News today is this source of conflict.
We're going to see this play out.
But in this moment, the conflict builds.
And Sarah says something to Abraham.
She doesn't say, Tell them to stop.
She doesn't say, Tell them to leave.
She says cast them out.
Remove them from this place.
They're not welcome here.
And Abraham is torn.
Abraham is heartbroken.
Why?
He loves Sarah.
He's never not loved his wife.
It's not about a second wife because that's not the situation.
It's about a son whom he loves.
And God tells Abraham so Abraham goes to God, what's he to do?
And God tells him to do what Sarah tells him.
Wes told him to.
Why?
Because God has a plan.
I don't know that this is a.
Thing anymore in worlds of technology, but growing up for me, there was a.
Game called Connect the Dots.
Does any of y'all remember playing, like, connect the dots?
Did you do that?
Most of the time in school.
It was, like, in math class, and there would be numbers at the dots.
And then we would have questions to answer.
And as we would answer those questions, we could connect the dots, and you would go from the first answer to the second answer to all of those things, and at the end, it would form a cat, and then the teacher could check your drawing.
This was the game that we played, but it was really a sneaky way to make us do a quiz.
Right now, I'm kind of not kind of.
I'm an instant gratification guy at the deep part of my sinful nature.
It's like, why wait when this is right here?
You know what I mean?
And so I'd get in trouble on connect the Dots, because I'd start the first answer, the second answer, the third answer.
Now I figured it out.
There's no reason to answer all the other questions because I know that it's a cat.
And so I finished drawing the cat to realize this isn't a cat at all.
But now the teacher's collecting my work, and it's a star.
You know what I mean?
What I find that what we do is this can kind of be how we walk out our faith with the Lord.
Question number one cool step.
Question number two, god reveals cool step.
But I don't have time to wait for 3456 and seven.
And what I see in this is.
God telling Abraham, trust me.
Stop trying to connect the dots yourself.
Trust me.
And so as we look at this, I think it's important to acknowledge that this is what it means to follow God's plan by faith.
Here's the truth for so many of us.
And if I point the finger at you, I'm pointing the fingers back at.
Me as well, is that so many.
Of us with our mouth, we want.
To follow God by faith, but our actions say, I want to follow God by faith and answers.
God, tell me, what's the end of.
The equal sign before I take the no, no, you've got to take the step.
God told Abraham that he would provide a son through Sarah, and Abraham tried to connect the dots himself.
God told him that he would provide and bless Ishmael, but that God's promise would be through Isaac.
Yet we still see that Abraham was.
Still trying to connect the dots himself.
Oftentimes, faith is lived out by the.
Next step we take, not the miles that we run.
We're going to run the race, as Paul describes it, that God has for us.
The problem is we don't know if we're running a five K, a ten K, or a marathon.
And we want to know the parameters and know the distance and know the rules and know all of the things that line it up so that we can go and we can go and we can go.
But God says, no, this is what I'm going to do.
And what I need you to do is to take step after step after step after step.
The amazing part of all of this is we've read through this with Abraham.
If there's one thing as in just a couple weeks, we're going to move out of talking about Abraham that we need to get that needs to penetrate our minds, in our hearts and in our lives is this every single time that God gives a promise, god fulfills what God says he's going to do.
And that's what we can hold to.
That's what we can trust.
That's what we can see.
And even in the areas where we're going to find in scripture that we're.
Going to see conflict, god's still in control.
God's still got a plan.
So we can go home today and cut on the news and we can know that God's still in control and that God's got a plan.
And with whatever happens tomorrow, in the days, in the weeks moving forward and the years moving forward, god's got a plan.
So Abraham doesn't desire to cast out Hagar in Ishmael, but he does.
And so he gives them some food and water and sends them on their way.
They leave.
They run out of water.
In this situation, it's bleak.
Hagar prepares for them to die.
That's what she does.
She hides her son away so that she doesn't have to see it, and she cries out and ishmael under the bush, cries out as well.
Charles Spurgeon said this about this passage of scripture.
A lot of times I don't put quotes on our screen, but I wanted to make sure we had this one.
Up for this morning.
Here's what he says about this interaction with Hager and her son.
He says, Behold the compassion of a mother for her child expiring with thirst.
And remember that such a compassion ought all Christians feel towards souls that are perishing for lack of Christ.
Perishing eternally perishing without hope of salvation.
And that landed.
That landed.
That is the compassion that she had for her own son.
That ought to be the compassion that all Christians feel toward all souls that are perishing for lack of Christ, perishing eternally perishing without hope of salvation.
What does it mean to be a person of compassion?
What does it mean if you and I embrace that we are going to be that we're going to be people of compassion?
I think what we find is that when we follow God's plan by faith and not answers.
What it provides us is deeper opportunities of growth.
There's lots of questions that I have.
There's lots of things that I don't understand of why God handles things the way that God handles, of why we see from this conflict here that we live in a world that is marked by this moment and the moments leading up to this why.
And I find that in my questions, what God is creating in me is opportunities to trust Him more and opportunities to grow in my faith.
My prayer for the team that went.
With me to India, to go to.
A foreign land, to a foreign people, my prayer for you, my prayer for me as well is that what God would build in us?
As I read the story of His Word from Genesis to Revelation is this not only a growing love for the bride of Christ, the growing love for the church of Jesus, the growing love for one another in faith, but the growing love for those who do not have Jesus.
Jesus encountered a man like this.
He was a rich, young ruler.
We're not going to jump and read the whole story of what's there, but it's a man who believed in his religious standing, that he was worthy before God.
That's the mark of every world religion.
They believe in their works, they believe in themselves, they believe in their own earned right standing before God.
And this is this man and I love.
In Mark 1021, how Mark describes the.
Heart of Jesus says this and Jesus looking at him.
What?
Say it, say it.
Jesus looking at someone who rejected Him, loved him, loved him, and said, you lack one thing, go and sell all that you have.
Give it to the poor.
You will have treasure in heaven.
Come, follow me.
Just those words, loved him.
God, despite all ishmael, was and all he would become, showed him compassion and loved him.
And as we feel the ramifications of this conflict still today, I want to ask you, does the love of Jesus Christ penetrate that for us in our home, in this situation that is there is difficult.
It's hard.
I've got a cousin right now, today who is on a warship right off.
The coast of Israel waiting for the call to do what his country's called to do.
And you know men and women like that as well.
There's a couple, I can't say their names because we're live streaming, but who were dear friends of ours and who served as missionaries in Gaza for three years.
And in their ministry, in their time there, god allowed them the opportunity to share their faith and see Muslim men and women and children step out of the lie that is Islam and step into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
Listen, I'm not here, I'm not here.
Oh, I've prayed about the words to use I'm not.
Here to influence your politics.
I believe as the people of God we pray against evil and for Godliness.
We pray to trust in the plan that God has.
But my concern is that we live in a world we live in a reality that wants our hearts to hate.
That's not what we see from God.
And so our prayer in the midst of the tragedy, our prayer in the midst of the conflict, our prayer in.
The midst of everything that is going.
On is the peace of Jesus Christ would rule and reign in the Middle East.
Just like we pray for the peace of Jesus Christ to rule and reign in this place.
Don't hate.
There's a terrorist in scripture.
His name was Saul.
Everybody hated him.
And God captured his heart and he saved him and he sent him to the people whose families he would have killed.
All for his name and for his glory.
I don't have the answers of why God saved ishmael I don't have the answers of why things are happening today.
I don't have the answers if what we're experiencing.
Is a close telling of an impending end of times.
But I do know this, that every day that passes we're one day closer to Jesus returning.
Every day.
Every day that passes is one day closer to Jesus.
And when he returns my prayer is that your heart will be filled with love and not hate.
Feel the difficulty in Abraham.
I know who he is.
But I love him and God's faithful.
We're going to end here.
I've got more.
We're going to end.
I'm invited our worship team to go ahead and come up on stage.
Here's what I'm going to encourage us to do.
We're going to go into a time of response.
The prayer encouragers will be on either side of the auditorium.
Down front is open.
It.
I'm looking at the clock.
We're even early.
Here's what I like for us to do.
Let's pray.
Let's pray for the people in the Middle East.
Let's pray for the people in India.
Let's pray for the people in our backyard.
Let's pray.
Appreciate mike and Tim came out and put we've got some little kneeling benches that we've purchased.
So I just want to invite you.
In just a moment the band is going to play.
Our worship leaders are going to lead and let's pray.
Let's pray for our soldiers.
Let's pray for them.
Who you and I are making plans of what we're going to eat for lunch and they don't know what's going.
To happen in the next 5 seconds.
Let's pray for the moms and dads.
My aunt got a phone call from her grandson yesterday.
Let's pray for them.
Let's pray for comfort and peace of Jesus Christ.
But above all of those things, above them all, can we pray that there would be a work of God that would happen and would move.
Because the Bible tells us that every tribe, every nation, every tongue will proclaim that Jesus Christ is lord, can we pray?
Could we pray?
And I want to challenge you with this.
If your heart is filled with hatred, let me say this.
I get it, I understand.
I've felt that.
Could you confess it to the Lord and ask him to take that from you and to give a heart of love and a heart of compassion?
Here's the truth.
There is not a single lost person.
In this world that deserves Jesus.
But there's not a single saved person in this room who deserved him either.
But God is good and he is faithful.
Would you join me in prayer?
God, I come to you this morning.
God, I can't make heads or tails of why things are going the way that things are going.
Lord, I know the sinfulness of man.
In the pursuits of our heart.
Lord, I pray against those who desire death and evil.
Lord, I pray against those whose motives are driven by hate.
Lord, I pray for your peace to ring true.
Lord, I pray for the work of God to happen and to take place and Lord, to spread like a wildfire.
Lord, I thank you that right now, today, that in the country of Iraq is the fastest growing church movement in the world.
And I celebrate you for that because that's only what you can do.
Lord, we live in a country that will pack megachurches full of people who claim to follow Jesus.
But there will be a group of men and women who it could cost them their life to profess Christ as their Lord and savior.
And Lord, they will do it over and over and over again.
And I thank you for that.
Lord, may the impact of that church may the impact of your global church, lord, reign and rule all over that region.
Lord, I pray right now for the men and the women who are the believers in India, lord, who believers in China who are believers in North Korea, lord, who are believers in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Malaysia and Indonesia, lord, who simply by owning a bible, could cost them their life.
Lord, I pray for their boldness of faith, lord, I pray for the believers in Israel.
I pray for the believers in Gaza, lord, that the light of Jesus Christ would shine from them, that the message of the goodness of God would radiate from them, lord, and the hearts that we think are unsavable, lord, would be saved for your name and for your glory.
Lord, we pray for the peace of.
Jesus Christ or be with our soldiers, be with our leaders.
May we make decisions as a people and as a country that bring praise and honor and glory to your name.
It's in Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
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