Genesis 22:15-19 Bible Study | Episode #290

November 18, 2022

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Genesis 22:15-19 Bible Study | Episode #290

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Alive, Applying God's Word to your daily life.

Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to.

And allow you to see him and to know him, and to know his will, that you might glorify him, and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus' name. Good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's Morning Bible study. We are in Genesis chapter 22. We're not gonna finish Genesis chapter 22 this week.

We're going to get a long way toward that goal, but we're not going to finish it. We're going to continue to move through it, but not reach the very end. We'll be in Genesis chapter 23 tomorrow. There are a couple more chapters actually about Noah and his law. Moses, Abraham, easy for me to say.

That's that's that is a a very funny joke. The question is, how long did it take Abraham? I'm Abraham to build the arc. He didn't build the arc . Sometimes, when you're talking about Old Testament characters, Abraham, Noah, Moses all run together and they do run together because they're all right there in the book of Genesis together.

Moses is at the Moses comes in later on. But anyway, it, they're all together and they're all men of great faith. And what's what I love about them is they're all men that are flawed and clearly and no doubt about flawed, but they are flawed individuals. And In the midst of that flaw God's grace is able to reach in, is able to change their character in nature, is able to focus them on his will and his way for them, which is their best.

A lot of times we say we, when we're talking about God's will we, we always see it as opposed to our will. And it's a struggle and it is it is, it's completely a struggle. But. In the midst of it, God's wills our best and our will is not. And empirically, just on the surface, just, as a logical fact Our will is not very good.

It's it's not very helpful. It doesn't do a whole lot for us but God's will always leads to his very best for us. And the truth is, the choice is not a hard choice. It's just a hard choice for for us right now. It's just a hard choice where we stand in the moment we're in right now because because we have so much, so many other things that we struggle with.

And when we look at these men, that's what I love about Genesis. All the men and the women of Genesis are clearly Presented as flawed human beings, as human beings that are not that are not perfect. And perfection is the thing that we strive for. But the thing will only attain when we're before him glorified and perfect before him.

That won't, that will never be attained on this earth in any in any real sense. That doesn't mean that it's not the goal. The goal is always the best, even if we don't attain to the best. The goal is always the best, even if we don't reach. It says in verse 15 after Abraham has taken his son Isaac and it was willing to sacrifice him.

As a burn offering, as a toning sacrifice for himself. And and was willing to do that. God provided the ram and gave him a sacrifice to be made. And so in verse 15, it says, Then the angel of the Lord noticed. This is consistently and regularly. It's Jesus who's talking to him.

The angel. The Lord called out and said Abraham. Abraham, remember back a few verses ago, and now the angel, the Lord is talking to him. It's the same angel that was talking to that came to him and told him that If he'd go to a place he did not know and live among the people he did not know and make him a great nation, same angel that came to him and told him that Sarah would have a child in her old age, the same angel of the Lord who came to him with the other two angels when he was going to destroy Cido and Gilmore.

See, Jesus is actively involved in the creation that he is one day going to die for. He is regularly involved in that creation and the angel of the Lord. Is Jesus. It's the supreme incarnate Christ. And he is calling out to Abraham and he says he calls to Abraham a second time out of heaven.

Notice he, there there's a difference between the two. There's times when the angel Lord comes and personally talks to Abraham, and there's times when he calls out to him from heaven. And so those two instances, those two differences that are going on there as. As Abraham is going through life is really a sim symbolism of how God deals with us.

Sometimes God gets just so intimate and direct with us. It's almost as if he's in the room. You ever been in a worship service and it was one of those times in your life where God just came and he met with you right there. He spoke to you deep inside your heart. Those are great times.

And then there's sometimes where God's just directing you from heaven. He's directing you you're you're on the path. You're you're being obedient by faith. And he's just, as you go through life he's going to say, Go this way and go this way, and do this and that.

 And he's just giving you directions from heaven. And it's as if y'all. It says if it's if you're flying the B 52 bomber and he's directing you into the target, he's trying to take you exactly where he wants you to be. He's trying to bring you exactly where he wants you to be at.

And I think that's powerful. I think it's wonderful. I think it is is an exciting thing for God to do. And he does that. If you're tuned in and you go how am I? How am I gonna be tuned in? These people are flawed people and they heard from God. How can I hear from God?

You've got to start, you've got to start acting upon what you hear. If you put somebody in a room and you put on a TV and you then you put on a podcast and then you put on a radio show, and then you have a couple of people talking on the couch, and then you have a few people talking in the kitchen, which is in my house really in, in the same room.

We just have it separated out by. By furniture. And then you have somebody talking out, Let's say I had my back door open and you had somebody talking out there on the porch. So you've got seven or eight or 10 things going on all around you. Do you know what, which one you're gonna listen to?

If you're a woman, you can listen to two or three of those conversations. I do know y'all have that power. It's a superpower and you do use it well, but for a man, that's not gonna be as easy. I ha I can listen to two conversations at the same time and get something out of them. Most of the time I just.

The part I'm listening to of one conversation and then the part I'm listening to of the other conversation, I don't have that superpower that y'all do. And I'm I'm just gonna be honest with you I'm jealous about that. I would love to be able to listen to three conversations and know what everybody said in all three of those conversations.

But y'all are good. And let me tell you, y'all get it at a young age, I can. When I was one time in the car with my daughters and they were both very young, like four and eight or five and nine and Kathleen and the radio was on and I realized that. They were all talking at the same time and the radio was on listen about something they were all listening to, and that's what they were talking about.

And I realized that they were all talking at the same time and hearing what the other one said and listening to the radio show that they were talking about at the same time. That spooked me out just a hair. It just a little bit. It made me a little bit spooked out just a little bit when then I realized that women have that superpower.

And that is a neat superpower to have to be able to do that. I wish I could, but I are a man. I have that limited insight into that. Anyway I do know that women can do that. It, but the one you're gonna listen to is the one that's the most important to you.

The truth is the one you're gonna the conversation, if all those conversations going on around you, the one you're gonna tune into is the one that's most important. A lot of times a lot of times we allow the things of this world to be more important than the things that God is saying to us.

And so we tune God out. When you tune God out, it becomes more difficult to tune God back in. You, your tuner gets a little off your your spiritual senses. Get a little dull, I guess is the best way for me to describe it. You become dull or you become hardened in your heart.

And that's what I was talking about last Sunday morning. You become a little bit, you become a little. Dull toward God. You're not listening to God, you're not hearing God. You're you're just dull toward him. You're, you can hear him fading in and out, but not really, and that's because you're not hearing him and you're not trusting him and you're not acting in obedience.

See when we hear. And when we trust him by faith and when we become obedient to that, remember it's an obedience not to some code or something. It's actually an obedience to a relationship. When when we're obedient to a relationship with God and we tune him in, See when ca, I can hear Kathleen's voice anywhere.

Why? I try to be obedient to her. I try. No, that's not it. Because she's my wife. She's my wife, and I have been with her for a long time. We're very, I know what she, I know what she's thinking. I know when a situation happens, what's going to happen with her, and I'm just very tuned into what she says and does.

That's. Just natural because, we've been together for almost 30 years of marriage and we've been together five years before that. And, I'm only 40 years old, so we must have got together at five, I think. I'm not sure. Anyway that, when you're doing, when you're doing those things you just tune in.

The question is, are you tuned into God? That does when God speaks to you not in those really powerful moments in your life when you really need a word from God and he comes down and really gives you a word from God. But I'm talking about during the just regular walk of life when you're walking with God through.

Do you hear God's voice? And I would say to you today you people say preacher, you're a preacher, and that God's gonna talk to you like that. That is not the, that's not biblical. It's not biblical. We all have the same anointing from the Holy Spirit. We all have the same.

We're, we got the same new birth, we have the same power. We're all priest in kings before him, not just the pastor. We're all priest in kings before him. We all have a ministry that God has for us to do. We all are gifted by the Holy Spirit, and we have spiritual gifts for for our own personal walk with him.

We all have. And so you can't say to me God doesn't speak to me like that. You're just not hearing God. I'm just being just straight up with you. You're not hearing him. And the reason you're not here him is because when you have heard him in the past you didn't listen. You weren't listening to him.

And so you tuned him out. And and that's the dangerous part of even being in a marriage relationship. If you find yourself at some point in time in your marriage where you're beginning to tune out your spouse and when. When they've got things to say to you, you're tuning them out. And this is especially important for men.

You are in a very dangerous place in your marriage. You are because you're you're putting yourself in a position where you're not hearing what the other party has to say. And so your life is beginning to detach from them. And that is a very dangerous place to be. If you've got a business partner and you're not hearing your business partner your business is about to, it's about.

A wonder if you've got if you're, if I'm a pastor I want to hear my people. That's, I if you'll notice on some, whenever we're together, I want to move around. And at least hear my flock's voice at some point in time to the during the day. And the reason I want to do that is because I, the only way I can know where we're at as a congregation as a whole in the aggregate is to hear from my congregation in the special specific or the individual.

And so I you'll see Brother Terry doing the same thing that I'm doing. Pastor Terry, he's gonna be out there doing the same. And we actually discuss where we are as a church not where individuals are all the time, but where we are as a church. And why? Because we, we get a measurement in the aggregate of what's going on in the congregation.

And you can tell and, but you gotta be tuned in and you gotta be listening. And what I'm trying to teach you this morning is to have. Spiritual ears to hear, because when you have spiritual ears to hear, you can hear God's instruction. When you hear God's instruction, you can become obedient to it by faith.

And when you're obedient kit by faith, he guides you into his best. And the that's really the only way to do this. That's this, that's it's, there's not really any other way to. Do that. And you, I know you want Jesus to walk on water across the Lake Martin to you and bring you all that you need and just totally fix the situation.

But the problem is this God didn't make you so that he would just do miracles and you not be involved in what he's doing. That's not how he is. That's not how're that relationship works. He wants you to actually engage Jen. What he's doing with him. He's like that old grandfather who's working on the, working on his truck and he's got the he's got his grandson standing on the tire looking over in there.

The grandson has no idea how to fix that truck, and it really doesn't have any capability fixing that truck. But Granddaddy wants him to see what's going on and to see how doing it. Why, Because grand. Granddaddy wants him to experience what it's like fixing the truck because one day that boy, that little boy might be able to fix that truck.

Let me tell you something. God wants you to experience what he's doing around you each and every day, so that one day when you're not standing on the tire, you're standing on the solid ground and you're grown. You could reach in there and do. The same thing he does.

He's made us to be his representation in the earth. And so you're gonna have, you're gonna struggle if you're not, if you're not learning the ways and the will of God each and every day. And the only way to do that is to hear God. And the only way to hear God regularly is to be tuned into him. And the only way to tune into him is to be regularly hearing him and trusting him.

And acting in accordance with what he's doing. And you can't do that. You can't do that if you're tuning him out. You can't do that with your spouse if you're tuning her or him out. You can't do that with your business partner if you're doing that. You can't do that. You can't do that with a friend if you're tuning them out.

You can't be of any service or help or join them in anything of any importance if you're tuning them out. And the same is true of God. And if you'll notice, God speaks to Abraham in a multitude of ways and Abraham is regularly hearing God. And that's how Abraham got to the place he's at. And the way he got that way is he trusted God.

He believed God. God credited him his righteousness and he gave him his very best because of it. And he said by myself, I have sworn notice, he's not swearing by anything on the earth. God is swearing by his own self. Because he's the greatest thing to swear on. There's nothing to swear to other than him.

He says, By all my own self, I have sworn notice, Past tense says the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son. What he's saying is I am. I had once you trusted me. And once you were willing to do what I told you to do, even though in the physical sense, it seemed like it was something that shouldn't be done in the physical sense.

It seemed like something that, that should be abor. But you were willing to because you heard my voice. He says, Blessings. I will bless you and multiply, I will mul multiply and I will multiply your descendants. Notice I am going to bless you and I am going to multiply your descend. As the stars of heaven and as the sand, which is on the seashore, and your descendant shall possess the gate of their enemies.

Notice, he says, I am going to, I am going to give you full power over, over everything. I am going to multiply you out and make you a great nation. And your descendants are going to have full access to the full access to the. To the entry points of the power places of your enemies, and that is a spiritual blessing and a physical blessing.

It's a spiritual promise and a physical promise. He says they shall possess the gates of their enemies. In your seeds, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. Notice that's that promise of Israel being a blessing to the world, being alike to the Gentiles. He what? That's what he's saying.

Now. The Gentiles don't exist yet because the Jews are just now beginning. But he says, I'm going to make your descendants, the Jews, a like to the Gentiles, a blessing to the Gentiles. And they have been. And they have been. And we know. And that's why even though the Jews have rejected Jesus Christ, that's why we still we still know that God has a plan for them and hope for them.

And that's why we continue to stand with them as believers. Because God's purposes are still being worked out in the children of Abraham. And and we have full expectation of that and we hold Even though those promises are not promises to us, they were promises to them. We hold those promises as special and important and we hold that that God is going to deliver his plans to them to.

Just as he's delivered his plans to us. And that's why we're in the position we are as a people and as a as Christians. We, we trust God for for Israel. And so he says, in your seat, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. And why wouldn't we do that? Because our Lord is a Jew, and why wouldn't we do that?

Because many of the people of great faith who we learn from and we grow from we're Jewish people. In fact, most of the great people of the Bible are Jewish people. And we have an affinity for them. The enemy would want to destroy them. The enemy has tried for millennia pass to destroy them.

He can't, he's not going to. And God's going to protect them and he is going to place a sword in their hand and give them the strength to hold. And we're going to stand with them as the nation. That's just a little bit of side note right there. He says, In your seat, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice.

Notice. They're blessed because he had to hear it to obey, He heard. He believed and he obeyed and there's really not any way to get that. You gotta hear what God says. You gotta believe it. And you gotta obey in order for you to begin the process of regularly walking with God and doing what God says.

And a lot of times that leads as places we don't wanna be. A lot of times we wanna, we like our comfort zone. A lot of times we like to be where we are. We are right now and we wanna. We want our comfort zone to not be changed. Don't be, I'm all snuggled up here in the bed. Don't get me outta the bed, Lord, and get me into anything dangerous out there.

I'm sorry. That's just not how things work and that's not how the world works around us, and that's not how God works. He takes us out of our comfort zone because our comfort zone oftentimes involves our sin. He takes us out of our comfort zone and he places in us right in the middle of his work, he puts us right on top of that tire looking into the hood of that truck.

And he shows us how to work on that truck, even though we're not really even old enough to even have any idea what he is working on. But we see it and we begin to understand it and we begin to know it. He says, So Abraham returned to his young men and they rose and went together to be Sheba. Where they had been before and Abraham Dwt at Bear Sheba.

God tested Abraham. God tried Abraham's. Faith. Faith, Abraham's faith was found to be full and complete. It was found to be righteous and holy and Abraham walked in the promises of God. And God blessed him for it. That's just really the plan. That's what happens. That's how these things work and that's how these things operate.

And I hope that's how you're learning how to do things. I see it every day. Many people in our congregation who are growing, who are becoming, who are figuring out many of 'em, who are going through difficult difficulties and struggles. And I don't want to, I don't wanna minimize.

There are great difficulties and struggles that come along with trusting God and hearing what God has to say. There are those things that are gonna happen, but in the midst of those struggles, we find our footing by faith, and we find our ability to walk by faith and not by sight. And then we begin to hear God regularly, we begin to act upon what he's got to.

We begin to be able to be directed into the center of his will. We walk in that will and and we become greater and we become overcomers of the things that we were struggling with and we were facing. And those things are continual and that work is a continual work in our lives.

As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.