Genesis 23:13-20 Bible Study | Episode #294

November 24, 2022

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

Genesis 23:13-20  Bible Study | Episode #294

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're working our way through Genesis 23.

We're uh, dealing with some principles that we find in Genesis chapter 23, Some principles that make Moses who he is and as a man. Man of importance yesterday, we understood that finding favor with other people, and that doesn't mean to buy their favor, and that doesn't mean to. Be fake. That means that it's important as you grow older to find favor with those around you, with the with the world around you.

And we see Jesus doing that in Luke chapter 2 22. Luke chapter two, verse 52. It's easy for me to say. And So we understand that the, there's another principle when Abraham is buying or bartering or coming and asking for the land in which to bury Sarah and to bury the rest of his dead.

And ultimately he will be buried there. And ultimately his his lineage and generations to come will be varied on this piece of property. And there's a principle that's at work here that is being played out as they talk about the property and they talk about the property that, the exact piece of property.

Abraham wants, and for me as an attorney, this is a a great study in in property law. And a lot of the property law that we have today comes from. This type of understanding that we find here. It's also a great understanding of contract law and gifts. And biblically speaking, if you wanna take those to a spiritual level it's important to understand that we are in a covenant relationship with.

And that covenant relationship with God is a eternal contract which means it is a contract that lasts be beyond time and space and the place we live, it is a contract that exists outside of all that. And it exists between us and God, because we are both eternal beings. And that contract is a contract of love.

It's a contract that costs both parties something. And it's a contract that that has great importance, God. Gives all of himself to us and we give all of ourselves to him. And it is a powerful contract. It's an important contract. But you need to also understand that contracts are enforceable.

They're that in courts they are enforceable. Gifts on the other hand are not enforceable against the one who receives the gift. And and that's, I. Because gift there, there's three, there's three aspects to a gift. And once the gift is given it cannot be rescinded, meaning it cannot be taken back.

Once I receive a gift from you, if you get mad at me or I don't live up to your expectations, you can't come and take it back. And the reason you can't come and take it back is because the law says once a. Once the, all the print, all the principles and a gift are executed then once that happens, it can be taken back.

And you say what are they? It's real easy to wait to remember it. It's a female name. It's Ida, Id a it's the best way to remember what a contract is. And a contract has intent, meaning I intend, I intended for. For whatever I'm giving you to be yours. I had the intent of it being yours.

I didn't have the intent of you borrowing it or using it. I had the intent that it ha that you have ownership of it, that you take ownership of it, that it be given to you. Then I have to also just because I want it to be yours doesn't mean I've given it to you. There has to be a delivery. There has to be, There has to be.

There has to. You receiving it and it being delivered into your hands. And that's a great under, that's something you gotta understand about gifts. Just because I intended to be yours, I have to deliver it to you. And then ultimately there has to be acceptance. person who.

Receiving the gift. The person who is the who's the principle of the gift, meaning they're getting the gift, that person has to accept that gift. And the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ is Is between us and God. And he had the intent of giving us eternal life. He delivered that through his son, Jesus Christ.

And his death on the cross. It cost him something. He had a cost that went with it. And then we. Notice you have to have the intent and the delivery before there's any accepting in it. So there is the intent and he delivers to us eternal life. Meaning we have it. We have it, and then. Once we realize that it's been delivered to us, it's in our hands, it's in our possession.

We come to a realization that it's there. Then we receive it, we accept it, we turn to it. It's called our conversion experience. It's called repentance. It called, it's called Turning Toward God. Once, Once we once we. God's intent fully delivered to us. Then we receive it to ourselves, and that's the process of salvation, is receiving that free gift of eternal life through God.

And we do that throughout the rest of our lives. We learn how to hold onto, to use, to walk in, to accept, to receive that gift. Once that's done, it can't be revoked. And that's why the Bible says the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable, meaning God does not revoke those things. He doesn't.

He doesn't pull them back. And it's not possible that, that would happen. God does not do that, and it's not possible that he would do that. And so we have in intent delivery and acceptance now now that we have the acceptance of eternal life, which God has given us once we have turned toward.

And walked in it and received it. You gotta take hold of it. You gotta take dominion over it. You gotta take control over it. You can't. Somebody can't just walk in and say, Hey, listen, I brought you this, and lay it on the table and say it's yours. You have intent and delivery, but you never pick it up. You never act upon it.

You never do anything. You don't have acceptance. They walk back in and they see that you didn't do anything with it, and they take it back. That it wasn't a gift. You see how that works? It wasn't a gift. I came in, I had the intent that you have it. I delivered it to you, I laid it on the table, and you never, ever accepted or received it.

Then it's not a gift. Now God does not take back like that, but. Other people do. Oh, I didn't know you didn't want it. You left it laying here. So I kept it. And let me tell you, if that were to happen to somebody they would not, it would not be enforceable by law that they get it. It wouldn't be that way.

That being said, a contract cost you something and that is the most important thing in order to. Relationship in order to have the relationships of life the really important just powerful relationships of life, you have to have the, they are all of them are are contractual.

They're give and give. I tell people that are getting married that a lot of people go into a marriage thinking this is a 50 50 deal. You give half and I give half. And if we meet in the middle, there's an old country song. We will, It'll all be great. And that is not true. It's not true in a marriage.

It's not a 50 50 contract. It's hundred percent contract. What does that mean? I give all to you and you give all to me and for the most important relationships of life marriage, children. Parents God, it is a giving of yourself. It's a giving of yourself and it's a given yourself, even though you might not receive what you think is do you back, it is a hundred percent giving of yourself.

And let me tell you something, what we give to God is a far less value and far less importance than what he gave to us. But for him, it's very important and he wants it, He desire. A relationship with us. So to him, the value is complete. It's complete. And so when Abraham comes to this place, he understands that I want a piece of property to bury my debt on.

And I don't want it to be a gift. I want it to be, I want it to be contractual. I want it to be enforceable. I want it to be something that cost me something. And if you'll notice, Jesus said, Look I'm gonna be giving you my, my, my life. I'm going. He tells us the cycles over and over.

I'm going to be the son of man's gonna be crucified. He's gonna be dead, buried and raised. Raised again. On the third day, I'm going to, I'm going to be handed over to the Gentiles. I'm going to be, I'm going to be beaten. I'm going to be crucified. He says it over and over again to his disciples, and they don't understand and receive it.

What he's saying is, I am giving to you. But then he says to them, if they wanna be his follower, his disciple if they want to actually be one who walks with him and follows him and receives all the goodness that comes from that, remember, you have eternal. The free gift of eternal life, and you turn to God and accept it, and you take it up and you use it but if you're gonna actually be a follower of Jesus Christ and receive all the power and the greatness that comes to that, you enter into that covenant relationship and you walk in that it's gonna cost you something.

That's why Jesus said, that's why Jesus said to him he said if you wanna be my disciple, you gotta take up your cross and follow me. Why? Because the, it's, he's going to the cross for that covenant relationship. And you are taking up your life and you're laying it down. For him. It's a life.

For a life. And Abraham knew that. And so he says in verse 12, Abraham bowed himself down before the people of the land, and he spoke to Efron in the hearing of the people of the land saying, If you will give it, please hear me. Notice he, he's saying, If you're gonna give me this, I want you to understand I, y'all are intent delivering and accepting to me.

I want you to understand, though, I will give you money for the. Take it from me and I will bury my dead there. What he's saying is, I want this to be a contract and a contract for land has to have a certain price to it. It has to be identified in some way as far as Where it's located, it has to have date, it has to have signatures.

It has to be written. There's things that are very important about a land contract. And Abraham understood that. Abraham says you could say you could bury my dead there, but then you could not give me access later on. I don't want that. I don't want it just to be a free gift in the sense that that I can just put my dead there because at some point in time you could take it.

And then I would have to fight you for it. And I don't want it to be that way. I want it to be a contract. I want it to be, I want it to cost me something. I want it, I want what we're doing here to have cost me something. And he says, Take it from me and I will bury my dead there. Andron answered.

Abraham saying, My Lord listened. The land is worth 400 checkers of silver. And that's very important there. There we have the silver and that's the blood price and that's the atonement price. And so when you have silver, you understand, Okay, we're talking about a very important spiritual issue here. We're talking about the pr he, cuz it's very important, he says, I'm going to give you this amount of money.

And by the way, when you purchase land today, there in a contract, there has to be a. A specific amount of money in the contract for it to be a valid contract for land and he says, It's only worth 400 chuckles of silver. Now what this man was doing in this time period is he was identifying what he was willing to take for the land.

He's actually telling Abraham. This is what I think it's worth. And, but he's telling him in such a way as he's saying, I will give it to you. I'm just gonna give it to you. I'm gonna intent delivery and accept. And you accept it. And when you accept it, it's gonna be yours. And Abraham does not want it to be a gift.

He wants it to cost him something. And why does Abraham want it to cost him something? Why didn't he take it? Just take it and use it and enjoy it and take it as a gift. The reason he doesn't wanna do that is. He's bearing his dead there. It's very important to him, and he wants it to have value in his own heart.

And by the way gifts that are given to us oftentimes have less value than that which we earn. And you need to get that. And that all the time, even with our eternal life that we receive from God. Those of us who, who receive eternal. And walk in it. And we give our lives to God and we, we pay with our lives to experience.

All that comes with that. We grow place great value on the eternal life in the relationship we have with God. But folks all the time who know. They have a relationship with God in that God has provided them the turning sacrifice for sin. He's taking care of them. He is. He they've made a profession of faith, but they don't walk in it.

It doesn't cost them anything. It doesn't have any value to them. And when it doesn't have any value to you, you. You don't have any hope in it. It's just empty and, people that are part-time parts of the church, they're part-time parts of the kingdom. They're and their faith has little value and sometimes it makes you question whether or not they have faith and.

That's a good question. I, it's a question for them to answer. It's not one for me to answer. I can't answer that. I don't know it, and there's no way for me to determine it completely. God is the one who's the arbiter and author of that, but I can promise you this. I can tell that a person has faith when it costs them something when they are in the midst of the struggle.

And it that is eternal life when they're in the midst of the struggle, which is the pain and the anguish that goes along with with eternal life when they're involved in that. I know that they're born again. Why? Because they're in the midst of taking up their cross and following Jesus.

And when you're taking up your cross and following Jesus, it's obvious that you have a contract because it's costing you something. And if something's costing you something, you're getting something in return. You have something that's there in return. People don't work for free. Usually people don't do things for nothing.

And so it is with our relationship with. It is a hundred percent. A hundred percent. And we understand that. We give all, and we get all and that is important. And Abraham understands, I want this to be something of great importance. I want this to be something that's lasting. I want this to be something that that I can point to in the future that cost me something.

And when my dead are there, including myself. It'll have value for those to for those now and for those to come. And he says, What is it between you and me? So bear your dad. He's saying, Listen, four shackles, silver, that's no big deal between me and you. We're friends. I love you. I want you to have it.

And Abraham says, Listen. He says he weighed out the silver for Efron, which had named in the hearing of the sons of. Silver currency of the merchants. So the field of Efron noticed Abraham gives him the money. He says, I know it's nothing between us, but I'm gonna give you the silver.

So the field of Efron, which was in Malka mal. Mac, Pella which was before memory. The field of the cave, which was in it, and all the trees that were in the field, which was within all the surrounding borders were deeded. Notice there's a, there is an actual legal description there of where that property is that Abraham bought for a lawyer that's real interesting.

He makes sure that there's a legal description in scripture. Of what was purchased by Abraham to Abraham as a possession in the presence of the sons of he. Notice there's there's people there to witness the contract before all who went to the gate of his city. And see it says, And after this, Abraham buried Sarah, his wife, in the cave of the field of Macel before ma that is in Hevron in the land of Canan.

So the field and the cave that is in it were deeded to Abraham by the sons of he as property for a burial place. Wow. What you have here is God's showing us that the promises of God, because by the way, there's the blood price in silver and there is the land which is, represents the promises of God.

There's silver given. And there is the promises received. And when that happens you have a binding covenant contract, an eternal contract, a contract that can't be broken, and that's what we have. In our relationship with God, we have a binding contract with him a covenant contract with him.

One that is eternal, one that never goes away. And the more you invest in that contract, the more of the promises of God you experience. That's the principle of today. The more you invest in. Contract, the eternal life, which God has given you, the more of his promises and his best you experience. So your investment has great value and you ought to invest.

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.