Good morning, everyone. It is great to be here together
with you. I'm glad to see you all who are
here. I know we have several visitors
today and I'm happy that we're able to worship with you
together. We do not love know how long we
have on Earth to be here and to give our lives to God.
But we're here today and is honored to be able to spend it
with you, and to direct our study today.
There's nothing, I'd rather be doing and then studying God's
word. With you today, we have Hebrews
chapter 11, we're going to do part, To and that's just where I
stopped last time around verse 16 or 17 of Hebrews chapter 11,
and we're going to pick up right there and move along.
I know we have a lot of a lot of visitors today and so this may
be a random pick up for you. You don't know where in the
world we are and all this. So a quick pick up the book of
Hebrews is written to Jewish Christians who are dealing with
the switch, from the transition, from the old, lots of the New
Covenant, Covenant. So, when Jesus came, he
fulfilled, the Old Testament, which is kind of that back,
two-thirds of your Bible. That's the Old Testament.
And the New Testament is, where Jesus came.
He died. He set up his church.
And now that's the Christian age.
We are Christians. The Old Law was Jews today.
We are Christians, because Jesus fulfilled, all the prophecies
that would happen in the Old Law and this book of the written to
the Hebrew Christians is called Hebrews.
Because that's who it's written to.
It's written to people. Who are trying to deal with this
transition of going into Christianity and really facing
challenges because they don't the writer does not want.
These new Christians to go back to Judaism.
And so what he has going through different arguments in this book
to a test. Why they should follow Jesus.
Because number one, he's even greater than Angels.
Jesus is deity. He is not some lower life form,
he is greater than Angels who did All these amazing things in
the Old Testament, he's greater than the prophets and the Old
Law. They revered their profits
because they gave them God's word.
They were that hand and sharing the truth of God's of the, the
Old Testament. They had all these things
delivered through them, but even Jesus is greater than their
profits, he's greater than everything that came before them
and more specifically where we're getting out in Hebrews 11
and he's trying to help connect them.
To these Heroes of Faith to show them that it took faith.
I love the Denny LED that song right before the study this
whole chapter is about by Faith by faith, all these things
happen, and the writers trying to show us how Faith was working
in these people in the Old Testament and faith has to be
working in us today as Christians, if we are going to
please God, we learned that without faith, it is impossible
to please him. We have to have faith in God.
That transcends? What?
We can see with our own eyes to please Our God.
So, we talked about a couple examples and Hebrews chapter 11
so far. We talked about Abel, Enoch,
Noah, Sarah, and we're going to pick up with Abraham and verse
17. So some people left on our list
to talk about, we're going to talk be talking about a
deceitful liar. We're going to be talking about
a murder and a prostitute who are all commended for having
faith. We might not get to all of them
today. But one of the things I wanted
to pull out as we go through this, study of faith, is how
these people weren't perfect. These people were commended for
having faith, but they had some past, they had some events going
around in their life that were not necessarily the best.
And, and many times were really bad.
So keep that in mind as we pick up this study, will be talking
about some of those mistakes with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Verse 17 says by faith, Abraham, when he was tested offered up
Isaac and he who had received the promises offered up, his
only begotten son of whom it was said and Isaac, your seed Shall
be Called concluding that God was able to raise him up even
from the dead from, which he also received him in a
figurative sense. Okay.
So we're going to go back and explain a little bit more eye of
Abraham in You're not familiar with who this guy is.
But here's a couple things that tells us in the verse in
Hebrews. It says, he this man was tested
by God. So he went through some kind of
trial by God, in which he was tested, and you're going to
learn to use tested to prove whether his faith was
illegitimate. He offered up, Isaac who was his
only begotten son, his only son, Isaac Abraham gave up, and he
who had received the promises, offered him up of whom, it was
said in Isaac, your seed shall be called.
So this is a quote to the Old Testament where this man Abraham
was told by God, you are going to have a lineage of people that
come after you, through this child, Isaac?
Okay. Well, this is his only son and
it says that he was going to offer him up and sacrifice him
to God. Yes, it was by faith.
That did that that he did that verse 19.
He concluded Abraham was reasoning that God was able to
raise him up, even from the dead.
This Abraham was going to sacrifice his son.
And he had him from an old age. So Abraham was never supposed to
have this child. As we're going to see in a
minute. It was not by natural way, that
he had Isaac his son. He received him in a figurative
sense from the dead. And he was assuming, you know,
what, God gave him to me when I was 100 Year somewhere around,
100 years old, he can raise him up from the dead, if he wants to
and it was all by faith that faith that he did this.
Okay, so that's what we're given in Hebrews chapter 11, but I
want to go back just to kind of fill in this picture a little
bit more. So, we And Abraham who he is.
So in Genesis chapter 11, this is pretty close to the creation
of the world. Relatively, the world is not
that old at this point, and we read about this man named
Abraham. And God, basically calls him out
in chapter 11. We learn that he leaves this
town or the city of are right here.
So, the war in the Middle East, this is the Mediterranean Sea.
This is called the Fertile Crescent.
This is where a lot of the early civilization was developed in
the world. It was a real fur.
It'll area. Good growing good water supply
and it was surrounded by a lot of desert.
So people really settled in here.
So he starts out in chapter 11 right here or of chaldea and he
travels up to her on in chapter 12, verse 1, God calls him, out
of her on. So he gets his call from God.
He says you need to leave your family.
You need to leave, where you came from, you need to leave and
go out to this Promised Land. I'm going to give to you and I'm
going to give Descendants and I'm going to bless you and
you're going to be special and he calls him out.
There, we study about that last time we read it by faith.
Abraham went out, not knowing where he was going, he was
called out right there in chapter 12 of Genesis.
So once you leave is there, he gets in 12:5 to the promised
land. So it's in this region right
here. That is the promised land in
chapter 12. That's where he arrives from.
There he goes down to Egypt. So there's a famine in the land,
so he goes, Down to Egypt to get food and get some things to
provide for his family. And then in Chapter 13, he ends
up going back into the Promised Land.
I think when he was called out, I believe it said he was 75
years old. So this is an old guy getting
around. Getting God's promises.
Getting God's call to go. He is no spring chicken and I
can't imagine that the toil and the burden of doing all these
things to fulfill God's plan in chapter 14.
It's in here that he gets the blessing from Melchizedek.
We talked about Melchizedek and Hebrew, so there's a little kind
of pin in it. From what we said earlier, he
gets that blessing. And in that blessing,
Melchizedek. Basically he pronounces the the
special blessing that, you know, God will be with you and all
these things and in chapter 15 is we're going to read a couple
of verses 22 to zoom in on, in Genesis chapter 15 verse 1 after
Melchizedek blessed it, blesses him, it says, after these
things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.
So his name is Abram. God changes his name later to
Abraham, but for now it's Abram. The Lord came to Abram in a
vision saying, do not be afraid a room.
I am your Shield, your exceedingly, great reward.
So this is a super important point that he calls that he,
that he addresses Abraham with, I'm your protector and I am your
reward. Okay.
We're going to come back to that but Abram said, Lord God, what
will you give me seeing? I go childless and the air of my
house as Eliezer of Damascus. This guy up and Damascus is.
We're down here. This guy have a Damascus is
going to be the are, what are you going to give me?
I'm an old man. Who's going to be the one who is
my descendants. You I was going to have this
great family and I was gonna have all this happen after me.
Where is it? It who my are the next person to
get? It's going to be this guy up in
Damascus. Then Abram said, look, you have
given me no Offspring. Indeed one born in my house is
my indeed. One born in my house is my are
so he's complaining to God right after God said, I'm your
exceedingly, great reward. So in his faith we're going to
see a Journey of Faith and the The first thing that happens
when God is assuring him that he is Abraham's reward.
He's trying to figure out the pieces, he's trying to get it
all straight. How is it going to happen, Okay?
Genesis 15 verse 4 and behold the word of the Lord came to him
saying, this one shall not be your Heir.
It's not going to be Eliezer but one he'll come from your own
body shall be your Heir. So it's not going to be somebody
else's kid. It's going to be yours who's
going to be your heir. verse 5, then he brought him outside and
said, look now toward heaven And count the Stars.
If you're able to number them. Go outside and try to count all
those stars out there. He said, now the city disrupts,
our view of a lot of the stars and he was out in the
wilderness, where there would have been no lights, he could
have seen countless Stars, if you go up into the mountains
it's unbelievable. How many you can see, sometimes
they look like clouds of white because you there's so many of
them. He said, if you can count on go
out there Abraham try to count them.
And he says and he said them. So shall your descendants be
somewhere around 80 year old man is being told by God who this
man has no kids, you are going to have descendants that look
like the stars in number. And he, so Abraham's response
and he believed in the Lord and He accounted it to him for
righteousness. So God, I counted to Abraham
righteousness, because he believed in the Lord, in this
promise, that I'm going to take care of you, I'm going to give
you this great nation behind you.
But what goes on the happen. He gives him this promise, but
then it doesn't happen, right away.
And So, eventually Abraham's wife is like, I can't give you
any kids. Take my servant Hagar and have a
child with her. So your descendants can happen
because obviously, something's not working here.
So, Abraham goes and okay. And he has, he has a baby with
his servant, with his lights, with his wife's servant.
Out of this comes Ishmael. Now this is not the way God
intended it to happen. Ishmael is not the child of
Faith Ishmael is going to be the child that comes out of Isaac
and sitar Abraham and Sarah going.
We got to figure this out because we're not having any
kids and so we're going to make our own way of doing this.
And Ishmael is the firstborn son of Abraham.
Now, eventually when, when Ishmael gets older, they send
Ishmael and Hagar away because it becomes a problem in their
house because eventually, Isaac, or Abraham does have a kid.
God says, okay, now it's time, you're going to have a child.
That's what we talked about last time.
Sarah laugh, like, you gotta be kidding me.
I'm gonna have a baby. This old God made it happen.
God made from a reproductively dead, man.
And woman, he gave them a child. And his name was Isaac.
And it was Sarah's faith, that has committed for being able to
have this baby. Okay, so there is now two on the
scene, there's Ishmael the first born who was the result of them
being like, we got to figure this out.
We gotta, we gotta make sure you have a descendant and an
afterword. God says, no.
Now I'm going to give you a baby to you old to people.
You're going to have this child and in their faith.
They had that child. That was the child of faith and
that's a big thing. In the Bible, the child of
Faith, the child of Promise who come through.
Okay. So now we've got these two and
then becomes a conflict. There's an issue between Hagar,
and and Sarah, because ishmael's the older son, and the Old
Testament, that was a big deal. You are the older son, you got
bigger Birthright, you've got more inheritance.
It was all part of the superiority.
And So eventually Sarah's like you got to, you got to get her
out of here. So Abraham goes along with it
and, and Sarah or Hagar and Ishmael are sent out into the
wilderness. They're sent out into the
Wilderness and they go near death.
At one point Hagar goes away from her son and says I can't
watch my son die they were so close to death that the Lord had
to miraculously provide water. The god of heard Hagar and her
suffering, even though it wasn't the The Chosen lineage to go
through Hagar and to go through. Ishmael God, heard them and he
provided for them and he cared for them.
Our God is so good. And so, Before.
Little pause right here. Did you know that?
This is where Islam started? Then in the Old Testament, we
read about these two people. Isaac is the child of promise
and all the Jews come through, Isaac, that's the promise
lineage. And so they come through Isaac,
Christianity and zip coming through Isaac's lineage, but
the, but the Muslims say, no, Ishmael was the first born son.
He should have been given the air and so he is the one that
all their descendants follow through.
And that's where Islam all started.
God said that this Always going to be a warring people and that
he was going to be a violent man.
And, you know, That was no small mistake, Abraham, and Sarah, did
they were supposed to have faith in God and have faith that he
would provide in his time. But they took matters into their
own hands and not ended up being a big mistake today.
There is a lot of people, I'm sure there's a lot of good
people. I know of Muslims that are very
very good people. That's not the claim on making
that they're not. But because of Abraham's mistake
it led to a whole lineage of people who would be led away
from God and serving the true God and his plan through faith.
That's the difference between Isaac and Ishmael one is the
child of faith. And whole point of our religion
is to have faith in a God who will provide and Ishmael was the
product of going away from God without faith.
Okay. So as we consider Abraham, this
is the guy who in verse 17, who made all these mistakes, this is
the guy who it says by faith Abraham.
So let's consider his perspective.
He had a long life and he had trouble having kids.
He had a he lived a rigorous life, he went out, he was called
out, you follow God, he had made mistakes, And then eventually,
like I said, he had that Miracle happen where he was able to have
a son through his old wife. So in chapter 22, this is where
we build up to how great of Faith.
He had to have to do this. The verse that we read in
Genesis chapter 22 now it came to pass after these things.
So after God had given him this child Isaac.
He said to him Abraham and he said, here I am then he said,
take now your son, your only son, Isaac whom you love and go
to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on
one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.
So we're going back to when Isaac was a lad.
The word lad can be anywhere from a kind of a younger boy all
the way up to somewhere in his 30s.
And many commentators believe he might have he was probably in
his 30s, it tells us Clues. Like when he went up to this
mountain, Isaac are Abraham. Put the wood that he was going
to burn. His son all on on the back of
Isaac. Isaac was strong enough to carry
enough wood, to make a burnt sacrifice of himself.
What in the world this this guy's about to sacrifice his son
and Berman burn him altar. Well, what happens is God ends
up when Isaac has the altar prepared or in Abraham as the
ultra prepared? His son, Isaac is laid on that
altar. He's got the wood, he's got
everything ready. He lifts up his knife to do it
and Hebrews 11 doesn't say he was waiting around for God to
stop him. No, Hebrews 11 says he was gonna
do it because he believed that God, if he promised him that he
was going to rate that he was going to have lineage through
Isaac. He promised him that so he
believed that, even if he killed him and sacrifice him, God was
going to raise him up from the dead.
So Abraham had enough Faith to sacrifice his own son and give
up his hope to God. But what happens we do know is
when he was about to sacrifice him, God says stop.
Don't do it for now. I know that you would give up
your only son for me. Now, side note, we should be
hearing, we should seeing pictures of Jesus and what God
did for us as he laid his son down to be sacrificed for our
sins on the altar, of all of our mistakes.
But there was no one to stop God's hand.
There was no one to say, no, I'm going to cover for you.
God, sacrificed his son on the cross, his only son who is
somewhere around 30 years old. And his son died willingly.
So we could be saved. There's so many pictures here
that are drawn from the Old Testament so we can see the
gravity of God's love. Above All Else.
But even, but regardless of the picture we have a, we have God's
stopping Abraham's hand from sacrificing Isaac.
And God says, now there's a, there's an animal to sacrifice
over here. Go ahead and sacrifice it
instead and so Isaac does not end up being sacrificed, okay?
And in this process, we see a journey of faith for Abraham and
starts out that he had enough Faith to go out.
He's commended by his faith, to leave his father's house to go
and get the promised land when he didn't know where he was
going, and maybe for you today. Maybe you feel like you need to
make changes that are going to disrupt what you are comfortable
with what you are used to, because it will take, that's
what faith requires of you. Do you have the faith to step
out of your comfort zone and follow God in the way he asks?
So Abraham did that and in chapter 15 God affirms I
highlight that verse it. God said I am your reward but
you remember Abraham kind of What past that I said, but what
are you going to give me? His Hope was in Isaac, his
future was in Isaac. His descendants were in Isaac.
That's why it is such a big deal in chapter 22.
When he lays Isaac down. That was his hope.
That was everything to him. And the beauty of his faith when
he didn't did that is he was surrendering everything to God
and God was his reward. God was Abraham's reward when he
trusted God enough to give him everything that's when God,
truly was his reward and his inheritance.
Now, the beauty is our God is so good that even when we sacrifice
everything when we surrender everything and said, God, I
don't know what all you're going to require me, but I'm going to
give it all to you. Whatever you ask, whenever we do
that, we glorify God. And we put him first in our
lives, and when we do that, the beauty is God provides Better.
It's like when a parent has something for their child that
they want them to hand over. Maybe it's something that
shouldn't be eating. Maybe it's a piece of glass that
they don't want them to throw in their mouth and they said, him
me that I've got something else for you.
Just trust me give it to me when they really they have a piece of
candy to give back. I don't know if that that
analogy lands with you, but the idea is God will always ask us
to do something. He will ask great measures of
faith. Some times where we have to
submit and just trust him but we can be assured.
God's way will always be better and even if we Handover
something we think is what we want.
God will provide better and God ends up.
Providing a sacrifice in place of Isaac.
And a lineage that is innumerable as the Sand by the
seashore, in the stars, in the sky comes after through this
process. Our God will always provide
better. And if you're wondering today,
you know what? I'm starting to see that.
God is calling me up. God is asking things of me and
some people might lead you to believe that.
That's an easy thing. That's a simple thing, just
believe, God. But that's not the god that of
the Bible. The god of the Bible says, I
want everything you have. If I'm not first in your life,
I'm nothing. I'm not really God until you
trust me with everything and until you're willing to
surrender. To me belief, the Bible says,
even the demons believe in God demons, understand God, but
they're opposed to him or they don't follow him.
So even if the demons believe, that doesn't mean there, there
are Servants of him. But when we fully surrender to
God, That is when our faith becomes real, that is where God
becomes the first, our life. And for you today, it will be
worth it. You may give things up But I
believe with all my heart, you will get back better really in
this life. And the next, I believe, God
will replace the challenges with nobody challenges, but victory's
challenges with no hope to challenges with a victory so you
can have faith. You can surrender to a God who
will bless you beyond what you could ever imagine giving
yourself if you were to keep and hold back for him.
So how did he do this? Well, one of the few things we
know is that God told him it was going to happen.
So he must have just been grounded in the promises of God.
He was grounded to the point that, you know, maybe he could
have feared, he could have feared thinking I'm gonna have
to sacrifice my son because of sins that I committed and we
learned in the Old Testament. This was a problem and the Old
Law people saw as like, if you messed up, God, punished you.
And if you did good, God bless you.
So he could have seen this as God's way of punishing him by
sacrificing his son, but he didn't.
He had Faith so strong and God's promises.
That he knew God was going to do what he said.
Do you believe in God's promises?
He believed in the Lord and it was accounted to him for
righteousness. Okay, so that was Abraham.
We don't have a ton more time so we're going to step into Isaac
is the next verse and chapter and verse 20 of chapter 11
Hebrews. So Isaac is his son by faith.
Isaac blessed. Jacob, and Esau concerning
things to come. So Isaac has two sons, Jacob,
and Esau in the Old Testament, they are twins.
They come out of the womb together, but Esau is the
firstborn on Esau's way out. He grabs on Jacob grabs onto the
foot of his brother to where they both come out basically
together. But Jacob is the heel snatcher.
And that is now an idiom and Judaism to describe someone
who's deceitful, someone who trip someone else up.
Jacob his whole life turns out to be this guy, who's always
deceitful to get ahead. He makes these moves.
These sly pieces of trickery to get his way to get his
Birthright and so In there, when they are going to get their
blessing these are the two guys. It's coming to Jacob.
And Esau now, we learn that. We learned that Jacob is a guy
who's a little more delicate. He's a little more of a mama's
boy, but Esau is a man's man. He's hairy, he comes out red,
he's a hunter, he likes all those things.
And so his father, Isaac, like, seesaw better.
It's just it's carnal and might not be like a very admirable
thing for him to have a preference.
But the Bible tells us, I think like you saw better but his mom
likes Jacob better. Okay, so we're just Setting the
scene here, we are told here that the faith before I get into
some of the Weeds on about these guys, I want to be clear that we
are told that by faith. He blesses them concerning
things to come. So when Isaac is about to die,
he pronounces a blessing on his children.
Okay? And so we know that he has faith
in God's trustworthiness and a heart that would look to the
future of his descendants in God's sight.
So that's kind of the first layer of this we know Isaac had
Faith to bless his children. In God's sight cave.
Let's give a little more into the story with Jacob and Esau
because It's an interesting time to say that Isaac had Faith
because of all the issues surrounding this family, they
had a lot of issues. So we talked about how he was
the one who snatched the heel, the difference in the two
children, and there's an event, where they're both old enough to
be taken care of themselves. Where Jacob is making some stew.
His brother comes in from the field.
He didn't get her anything on his hunt.
And so, he basically says, Esau says, hey man, give me some of
that stew. And Jacob says, we'll give me
your Birthright. Give me your inheritance.
And he says, like if I'm gonna die from Hunger, who cares about
my inheritance and so he gives him this.
You in exchange for his Birthright.
We learned later that that was just a foolish Mistake by Esau.
He was always concerned about what do you got now.
Now now and that learn it led him to trade in his inheritance.
Okay. This is a fast version of a lot
of events in the Old Testament so when it comes time after the
birthright to get the blessing, what happens is his mom says I
want you to get the blessing Jacob, instead of your older
brother, the older brother is Posed to get this special
blessing but I want you to get it instead and he was like, how
is this going to work? When my father?
My father has bad eyesight. He's getting old and so he's
gonna but he'll still be able to feel me.
You can tell that I'm a maybe Jacob was a scrawny man.
He wasn't quite so hairy as his brother and manly and so she
said he said how am I going to make this work?
How can I convince him to give me the blessing?
And so his mom says we're going to do this when it killed goat.
We're gonna put his fur around your arms.
So that your father thinks it's your brother.
He must have been hairy. Dude.
To think that was that was his brother, so that's what happens.
He goes gets the goat, kills it. They provide a meal out of that
goat and she wraps him up in his fur.
And so he comes in with this costume of fur, to speak to his
father. His father is in bed.
He is near death, he's old, and he's dead.
Is not old enough to see that, it's not his, the Sonny thinks
it is. And so, he gives him the meal of
the goat that he cooked and he says, come here, let me feel
your skin. He's like, sure enough, it's as
hairy as Esau and zillions up blessing.
Jacob. So He blesses Jacob, then Jacob
leaves with this blessing. He's all happy.
Now he got this blessing. Now I'm going to be the one who
has Authority in the family, Esau comes in, and he's like,
father, I'm ready to get my blessing.
See. He's like, what are you talking
about? I just gave you your blessing,
and eventually Esau realizes and Jo and Isaac.
Realizes, he blessed the wrong guy.
Esau, was supposed to get the first blessing, the older
sibling but Jacob was the tricks your though, he was he was the
heel snatcher from the beginning and he pulled ahead and he took
the blessing from him. Okay, so in all of this, we're
told that Isaac had faith and blessed his children to come.
It's a weird time to me to pronounce a blessing.
But there's a couple things in here that we already said, he
had Faith to bless his descendants and once he realizes
God, either wanted to bless him or God.
However, it happened. Jacob got the blessing and and
Isaac is trembling. And he says, you know, that's
going to be it. If it's God's will that's going
to be what happens. And I cannot change that, but I
have faith and God's promises. So he had faith in blessing his
children. But what's a little bit?
Not clear. As we don't know, all the
details. Now one commentator I was
reading after I will explain to you what he thinks on this and
you can decide for yourself. I think I'm willing to go into
it because I think the application regardless is true
that we're going to draw. We know that he wanted, Isaac
wanted to give the blessing to Esau.
And it was contrary to, you might call it the promise or the
prophecy, or both that the older Shall Serve the younger.
There was a prophecy made that the older sibling is going to
serve the younger one. So, Jason Jacob was all along.
Got to be the one who got this. So, This commentator is reading
after said that was God's promise, and Isaac should have
taken heed to that, or paid attention to that and not try to
give the blessing to Esau instead.
We don't know for sure if he was contrary to God in this, but we
do know that he liked, you saw better and that's what he was
wanting to do for his own reasons.
And we learned that afterward, he comes, he's trembling when he
realizes what happened. Now, some people think that he
was trembling, because he realized he was in opposition to
God's will. I don't know if that's the case
but I'm going to draw some application.
Sometimes our faith is in its greatest moment, even kind of
surrounded by a lot of mistakes. Sometimes in war against God,
when we have a change of heart and turn around and go the other
way, we have our one of our greatest most admirable moments
of Faith so that you might be in a bad situation, you might have
a pattern of Disobedience, but that moment where you take where
you are going and you shift direction that takes That takes
faith and it takes. It takes faith in submission to
God's word. So even though you might not be
in a spot that you're proud of right now or even at times in
your life where you weren't proud of where you're at.
Any time, you submit to God and you turn from your way to his
way that is Faith, and that is commendable by God.
Now, I don't know if that's the point of why Isaac was commended
here was for his turning to God and Faith to say, you know what,
this is God's will. It's going to happen, I don't
know, but the point stands. Maybe you're a place where you
don't feel like you're living out God's will.
You can show Faith to b day that is commendable to God by turning
your life, to live for him. The way he wants you to live.
The last one we'll talk about and we'll close by faith.
Jacob. So it's tracing down the lineage
Now by faith Jacob, when he was dying.
So he's kind of in the same situation as father was in when
he was dying. Blessed each of the sons of
Joseph and worshipped leaning on the top of his staff.
So he had very little strength. He was old enough to where he
was probably bedridden. And he leaned on the top of his
staff to worship God. Now, I see two main things, I
see number one, someone who's so old, and an example of faith,
and we have people in this building who were old and you
were a week and physically, but they will still continue to
worship and praise God. And I get that picture.
Sometimes in my head, when I see some of our older folks here
worshipping or doing what they can Services, I see Isaac, Jacob
leaning on the top of his staff. But his admirable as this is.
I think the second point is to remember maybe why he's leaning
so heavily on his staff. We lead about, we read about all
these deceit that Jacob had the difficult life he had and how he
was often in opposition. And we learn about a situation
in Genesis 32, where he wrestled with God or a wrestled with the
man that says there, whatever. That necessarily means I don't
have it all figured out but we know that he wrestled with
either an angel or something or something with God.
And in that fight, that being touched his hip and knocked it
out of socket. Kind of a strange situation, but
maybe that's why he was leaning so heavily when he was
worshipping. that he's leaning on hip from his life of
opposition to God opposition to people and the problems that he
created in his family and with God, And he worshipped leaning
over that hip Maybe. Sometimes our past isn't always
what we want it to be but wherever you're at you can
worship God. You can praise God and we know
regardless that his worship was a demonstration of faith in
God's goodness. And he blessed the sons of
Joseph because he had faith in the security of his descendants
that God was going to bless his descendants and that they would
be. All right, going forward.
So we're going to stop there for today, and a couple just
conclusions to summarize so far. We've talked about people who
have who have fought the long fight for God and Noah and so
sometimes you just need to hold on through whatever you're going
through and hold on to your faith.
We learn about people who have not always been faithful but who
had moments of faith and today wherever you're at you can start
your walk, you can reaffirm your walk, you can get back on the
right track in faith to our God. If you Started that walk you can
come believing in him. We cannot have faith in God
without Understanding God's word and believing him changing our
life. Living a practically submissive
life to God. And saying, God, I'll do what
you want me to do repenting changing our life confessing
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and being baptized for the
remission of our sins and water. And if you've already done that,
and you want to be, you need some help, getting back on the
right track. You need the prayers, whatever
you need, we can take care of anything of this. nature this
morning while we stand in, seeing the song of invitation We
thank you for listening to our podcast, put on by the Church of
Christ at 22:15 plans. Road in Bakersfield, if you
would like any additional information or you would like to
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