Genesis 24:1-6 Bible Study | Episode #295

November 25, 2022

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

Genesis 24:1-6  Bible Study | Episode #295

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. Morning Bible studies. Good to be with you this morning by starting a new chapter in the book of Genesis.

We're in Genesis chapter 24, and we're studying through Abraham's life. We've been in Abraham's life for a good long while here because Abraham's life takes up not. Majority of the Book of Genesis, but it check takes up good 40, 45% of the Book of Genesis. And he is a picture of the Man of Faith.

He's a picture of he's a picture of the father in many stories in many ways. He's a picture of the man of faith who chooses to walk with God, who hears God, and listens to. And does what God says because he's obedient, because he trusts God. He believes God. And so we're we're in Genesis chapter 24, and he has finally gotten old.

And you say he was already old and you're right, he was already old. He was he was really old when he had Isaac. And Isaac has now become a young man and his wife, Sarah. Or Sarah now is passed away and he's found the place in Canaan to bury her. But he's got an issue and his issue is that he needs a bride for his son.

He needs to give his son a bride so that the promises of God can be carried out. And that's what's going on here. That is the the context of the story we're in right here. But let me give you a little bit of understanding. This is a beautiful picture. The last few chapters have all been important laying the framework or groundwork for prophecy that is coming up down the road.

And so when we read this and when you look at it, You need to understand that God has given us pictures and those pictures are things that are happening in the future. Those pictures are things that foreshadowings of things that are going to go on down the road. And this is a picture of God.

And his son Jesus and the bride, which is the church. And I'm gonna go through it and we'll see how. They work together, how they come together and the pictures are perfect in foreshadowing or giving us a foretelling of God's plan thousands of years after this. But he is laying the framework through his word.

To continue to tell that constant story of what God is planning to do to glorify himself, to make himself known, and to show who he is. And that's what's going on with Abraham. That's what's happening this morning with Abraham. He says, Now, Abraham was old, advanced in age, and the Lord had br had blessed him in all things.

Notice Abraham had been blessed in everything. And why had Abraham been blessed in everything? Why was Abraham. A man a blessing. The reason is because he trusts God. And I can't over emphasize that enough. If we're gonna study Abraham, we have to think about how much Abraham trusted God, how he was willing to do whatever God told him to do and believed him.

And we also have to understand how much God blessing because of it, the blessings or the. Opening of the Kingdom of Heaven, Kingdom of God in our hearts starts by faith. The key that opens all that the kingdom is prepared to do through us and give us, is opened by faith. And that is the only way it's opened.

It's opened by faith and Abraham opened that power. He opened that kingdom in his own. Regularly because he was unashamedly. He was aggressively faithful to God. He, he chased after God with everything he had. And God blessed him. God showed him who he was. It says, So Abraham said to his oldest servant, And I know, and I want you to notice here this is the oldest servant.

This is the servant with no name. It is a servant that Has no identification. If you'll think about it the Holy Spirit is a interesting figure in human history. He is an interesting figure in the Trinity. He's an interesting figure in everything because the Holy Spirit is the one who opens our eyes and our ears.

He opens our mind. To who God is. He gives us the possibility of knowing God to know who he is and to know how he moves and that. That is that's just a powerful, it's a powerful understanding of who the Holy Spirit is. The Holy Spirit is our Perle. He's our counselor. He's always with us.

He's always advising us in antiquity times, he would've been that teacher that was hired by the parent to go through life with the student or the child and teach the child regularly about the world and about the things that are going on. And that did happen. Those things did happen for the very better wealthy and that's what's going on.

And Allity right here as we're studying this the Holy Spirit. Is our constant guide and companion through life. He shows us everything that we're to do and he provides for us as we go through life. He makes sure that we see what we need to see. He makes sure that we walk in what we need to walk in.

He is our constant guide and this oldest servant. Anytime in the Bible you have a servant who is unnamed who we don't know who he. That servant is always the Holy Spirit. That servant is a picture of the Holy Spirit moving in the life of the believer. And that's what's happening here.

Remember, Isaac is the son of promise. He's the one that God's going to bring about his promises through. He's the one who's going to carry on the blessings that God promised Abraham far beyond his own. That he would be the father of a great nation or great nations actually, and that his offspring would be as far as as many as the sands of the seashore and as, as many as the stars of heaven.

And the truth is ever since he walked the face of the earth the people of faith that have come behind, And as a result of his faithfulness have gained faithfulness themselves. All those people. Every one of them. Every one of them that's come after. Are a part of that promise.

They're, they are the ones that are numbered as the sand of the seashore and the stars of heaven. And so we're a part of that too. The Bible says that we've been grafted in, We're a part of that. And notice that Abraham says to the oldest servant at his house who ruled over all that he had noticed that servant is actively involved in taking care of everything that Abraham.

It's a picture of the Holy Spirit. It's obviously a picture of the Holy Spirit. He said, Please put your hand under my thigh and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites. Among whom I dwell.

Notice he is telling him I want a bride that is not from, I want a bride that's not from the people that I'm around. And the reason is because the people that he was around were the people of Ham. They were under the curse. The, and especially Canan, the Canan night. People were under the curse.

And we'll, we see that. They they're into a. They're into all kinds of sinful living. They God had destroy cido and Gamora because of the greatness of their sin. And they worship other gods. They don't worship the one true God. They they're into as the children of Israel go into Egypt, into captivity, which is a picture of being enslaved to the world, God's people being enslaved to the world.

What are the Canaanites doing where they're increasing? In number, and they're increasing in their sinfulness. And eventually they get to the place where they are even sacrificing their own children to the God mole. And they are as depraved and defiled to people that you can ever know or ever see in scripture.

And in fact, God's recipe for dealing with them when the children of Israel get back to Canan is to wipe 'em out. Not leave one of them alive because they are such an evil people. And God says, I don't want anybody from that. I want you to go find him a bride. From my people from the people of faith.

I want you to go, I want you to go find a bride from those who trust me. And and you go how do we get Jew and Gentile here? You can't really play that story in this regard because the only Jewish person in this whole group is Abraham, and he's really not Jewish.

Because Israel is not completed and formed until we get to Jacob. Jacob gains the name Israel and his 12 sons become the 12 tribes of Israel. But that promise that is passed down from Abraham all the way through Isaac to Jacob, that promise. Is continuing. And so what God's saying is, I want you to go get me a bride.

I want you to go get me a bride from the people of promise, from my own people. And to understand that you have to really get an idea and understanding of who God is. God knows. Who his people are. And God has always known who his people are. His people of faith, those who will trust him. He's always acted as if he's known him.

He's always acted as if he knows what's going on. And he operates under that context. He, that's who he is. He operates under the context of trusting of those who trust him. And if we're a people that trust God, if we're a people that want to see. Moving in our lives, if we're people that hear God, believe God and act upon that, if that's who we are let me tell you something.

Life's gonna be good. Life's gonna be. Life's is not gonna be easy. It's not gonna be without trouble. It's not gonna be without difficulty, but it's gonna be good because I'm walking with God who made everything, who knows my yesterday as, as intimately as he knows my today and tomorrow. He's actively involved in what I got going on and I can trust him in that.

And he says go find me a bride. From my people. Don't find me a bride from the people that are not people of faith. Find me a bride from the people that are a people of faith. Go find for my son a bride. What, That's just a clear, it's a, it's the foreshadowing of the Son of Promise, having a bride of promise, and that's who we are.

That's what the New Testament Church is all about. We're the bride of Christ and Christ is. Christ is the promised one. He's the one who brings about all the promises of God. He unlocks the kingdom of God for his people. And we are not only his people, but we're actually his bride. And in the New Testament we see that he's the bride groom and we're the bride.

And so he says, I want you to swear that you won't take a bride. You won't take a bride. The Canaanites, the people of the cursed people. They are. And you won't take a bride from them. You'll take a bride from my people, the people that I know, the people that I'm intimate with. He said, But you shall go to my country and to my family and take a wife for my son, Isaac.

Now that is a beautiful picture. But it also for this servant is a problem because remember, this servant is not familiar with his home nation. This servant is not familiar with the place. In a practical sense, this servant doesn't know where or of the calians he's not ever been.

And you can see how that's a worry because Abraham is advanced in years and he's about to go on a long journey. And it's not like he's gonna take the interstate and jump in his car and he'll be back tomorrow with the bride. He's gonna have to journey a long way. At least a thousand, maybe 2000 miles.

Using the modes of transportation that they had, which were walking camels or donkeys. And he's gonna have to use that mode of transp transportation, pass through many areas of kingdoms and places of people that he doesn't know. And he is gonna have to get there and then find a. That is from the family of Abraham, and he's gonna have to find a perfect bride.

She's gonna have to be one who's not had a husband, not known a man, and she's gonna, he's gonna have to find one that is willing to come with him back and be the bride of Isaac and have not met him, Hasn't met Isaac, doesn't know Isaac. Doesn't have any idea about Isaac. And there's some pretty pictures here about how God chooses or how the Holy Spirit is at work making those choices of the bride and the character that he's looking for.

The character of faithfulness, the character of humility, the character that is willing to trust God and willing to to walk in what God is doing. He a, this servant's sitting there think. Man I've been serving you for a long time, and you give me the dossy at the end, you give me the big one, the one that seems like it's impossible.

And the servant said to him in verse five, he says, Perhaps the woman will not be willing to follow me to this land. What he's saying is, How am I gonna go find a woman over there that's of great character and great promise, and. Find one that is willing to follow me and know Jesus or no Isaac. It how am I gonna ha how am I gonna get that to happen?

What if she's unwilling to do it? God already knows that there's a promise there. God already knows that. There is one who is willing God knows who we are. He says he knew us before he knew us in our mother's womb. And so the issue of whether or not there is somebody out there who's willing to trust, Is not a mystery to God himself.

The private, there's prophet in the Old Testament who said, I'm the only one Lord. I'm the only one who trusts you. And he says, God says you're crazy man. I got 500 other prophets that are living in the caves and they're trying to hide from, They're trying to hide from Ahab and Jebel also just because you don't see faithfulness around.

Doesn't mean that there's not faithfulness. And let me tell you something. When a people of faith actually act on upon a peaceful of faith, there's a couple of things that always happen When a people of faith come together and say, We're gonna trust God and we're gonna ask for God to do the big things, we're gonna ask for God to do the huge thing.

Let me tell you the first thing God always does. God adds to their number. People who are people of faith. I wanna say that to you again. The first thing that happens, When a people of faith come together and say, We're gonna trust God for big. We're going to we're gonna chase after God for the big stuff.

God always adds to their number of people of faith because he's going to, in order for him to do big things, he's gotta have a lot, He wants a lot of people to enjoy and to experience that. And so he begins to send people, and let me tell you, he sends people from places you don't. And he sends people from areas that you don't know.

Sometimes it's people from the area that you live in that you never expected to show up at at what God's doing. You've known them for all their lives and you just never expected them to be there. Or maybe they were a part of something else that was going on and they're looking for the movement of God in their lives right now.

Right where they. You're go, you're gonna have people come in from other places that nobody knows like Rebecca is, like this bride that the Holy Spirit's going to look for. They're gonna be called in by God from other places and places, unknown and places un unseen. A lot of times when we're trying to find a movement of God and search for God and see God at work in our lives and see big things from.

We look around and say we just don't have enough to make that happen. Remember God already knew that he was going to have this great movement himself. He already had that in, in his plans. He already devised that. And so he's out there, he's out there calling people in bringing people in and prepar.

The congregation preparing the body so that he can do the big things. So you can see the big things at work in, in. That group of people that are seeking out faithfulness, who are seeking out big things from God. That's what God does, and you know what he does? He also calls us to forget about the things that are around us, the issues that are going on around us and chase after the big things that he has ahead of us.

And, that's difficult. He didn't want to have a bride from the Canaanite. Why? Because Canaanites were never gonna trust him. They were never gonna walk with him. They were always gonna chase after other gods. He wants the people that are hungry for him. He wants the people that are knowledgeable.

About him that have already had the Holy Spirit revealing to them and that are listening and wanting to hear God say, Go here and do that, just like Abraham did when he first heard God, he first heard God say, Go to a people you don't know and a land that you don't know, and I'll make you a great nation.

There are a lot of people out there that are searching for the plan of God in their lives. They're actively searching for the plan of God in their lives. That's what they're doing all the time. And God is. Is preparing a place for them to come to, to see that purpose and that plan at work. And when you have that going on around you you ought to see when you see people being drawn in and being developed and being prepared that you would've never imagined would even be there.

You couldn't even if you made plans to, Okay, we're gonna do this and we're gonna use this person for this and this person for that. And the people that you have now you didn't even know exist. A year or two years ago. That's easily obviously the plan of God at work and he is drawing in people to do something big in his kingdom.

He is, he's, he is drawing upon the resources of his kingdom. That's what goes, is going on here. Abraham, Sandy servant. I want you to go get a bride. From a people of promise, a people of faithfulness, a people that will actually trust trust God, trust me. And so the servant said, Damn, perhaps the woman will not be willing to follow me to this land.

Must I take your son back to the land from which you can? No. He said, do I need to? If I can't find anybody, now I need to come back and take your son and let him go find somebody. No, that's not the plan. The plan is for the Holy Spirit, who is the picture of this servant, to go find the bride and to go bring the bride to.

If you'll notice, that's what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit goes and convicts the Bible calls it in the New Testament, the wooing or the calling of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit calls those who are going to be people of faith. He places them in New Spirit, and then he calls them to come and to turn from their own ways and to trust God and.

In this story, Abraham says, Listen, no, you don't take my son there. You bring the bride to him. And that's what the Holy Spirit's always doing. He's bringing the bride together. And whenever you're in a situation where God is bringing the bride together, where he's calling, People of faith together, and you can see those people of faith beginning to trust him and beginning to move.

When you begin to see that happening in the world around you, when you begin to see that going on you know that God's at work. And when you know God's at work, you need to get to work. You need to you need to get to work. You don't need to come up with a different plan. You need to be, you need to be about doing what God has been showing you to do because the reason he's bringing those people.

As he's bringing them there for mighty work, he's bringing them there. Not for no purpose, but for great purpose. And so what I'm gonna say to you this morning is this, You need to regularly be looking around and looking for the hand of God at work. And if he's not working around where you're at.

Go find where he is working and if he is working around where you're at, you need to invest all into it. You need to throw everything you got into it. It's one of those things where you find the perfect invention and you take all that you got. And you buy the patent on that invention.

In the Bible. The picture is you find a great treasure, a great pearl buried in a land and you realize this is a great value to you, and you spend everything, you've got to buy that piece of property so you can buy that treasure. When you see God moving around you, that's when you go all in.

That's when you invest everything you've. And God move in big ways and you get to be a part of the movement of God. You don't get to see it. You get to actually experience it. And that's what God's calling on this servant to do. He's telling this servant I'm about to do a big work.

I've already promised it from ages past and I've been at work doing this and preparing this for a long time. Now it's time to do it. Now it's time to bring about my promises in their fullness. And We see that in this story and God's preparing in this story to do a major work to complete the plan and the promises that he's made to Abraham.

I hope you're actively this week looking for the promises and the plans of God at work in your life. And if you have found God at work somewhere, I hope you're willing to invest all that you might receive all from him. And As you go this week, look for that

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.