Older & Younger

Well, good morning. Again, I’m glad that you’re here joining us this morning. My name is Ben. I’m the vicar, which simply means pastor and training. Not much longer in training, but still pastor in training.

And we’re glad that you’re joining us this morning. We are continuing forward in this series of Genesis as we continue to break up the book of Genesis. We’re in part three only for another week as we’re going to bring this to a close, as we’re going to approach Holy Week here soon. Also, I want to say welcome to anyone that might be a guest either here in person this morning or a guest joining our line. We’re glad that you’re joining us today to do a quick recap. And just as you may take a snapshot of where we’re at in Genesis and what we have been talking about is, yeah, this text, the very first book of the Bible, and you go, what does that have to do with today? And you look at what we’ve been talking about going back a couple of weeks ago, we talked about widows and widowers.

A few weeks ago, we talked about being single and looking. We last week spoke about marriage and love. And this week you can see we’re going to be talking about a lot today because it’s right there in the text. Infertility, sibling rivalry and parent favoritism. And then next week before we head into Holy week are last week in Genesis, part three, we’re going to look at this idea of being a sellout. And so you can even just see on that list there that around these are these weeks is this big idea of family. Being a widow, losing a loved one that’s close to you, looking to start a family with someone if you’re single, becoming married, falling in love and in starting that journey as a family together. And then here we’re going to see a family and all that comes with family. Because let me just ask this morning, has anybody been born into a perfect family? Even with one less hours sleep, you’re all still with it. Enough to understand you did not come from a perfect family, did you? Today we’re going to see it again and again is that there is sin in families.

There’s sin in the world. And with that comes brokenness. Not to say that everybody has a broken home, but there is a level of brokenness that we all experience, that we all inherit from our parents. And so we’re going to take a look at that today. And so as we jump into the text, we’ll also note this as well. And we’ve seen this as we’ve gone through the Book of Genesis and as we continue to is there are times that scripture moves really slow and it just kind of examines what’s happening day to day. And there’s other times it goes really fast. And what’s happening here at the start of Chapter 25 is is going really fast is because our patriarch, the guy we’ve been following since September, as we’ve been in this series, with the exception of having a series on Christmas, is we’ve been following Abraham. We’ve been talking about a week in and week out, and we’ve been talking about his day in and day out and sometimes very quickly, sometimes very slowly. 

And now it’s going to go really quick. And the way I look at it, as I’ve heard before from those that are like, you’re in H.R., they like long hellos and quick goodbyes saying, Hi, Abraham, you’re here, we’re glad you’re here. Here’s what’s happening in your life. Oh, you’re going to die. Okay, let’s just finish. Let’s wrap this thing up and let’s keep the story moving forward. And so we see starting in 25, Abraham, he had taken another wife, which is not something we often talk about. He had another wife who bore him. How many sons got to count them? 12 was Ishmael. There’s six here. So if there’s six sons born to him from this wife, how many total sons does Abraham have? Eight. Fantastic. Hanging on to that. He has eight sons. Ishmael from Hagar, the son of Promise Isaac. And then these six sons that are recorded as well. That’s as far as we know. And here it moves very quickly in just a few verses outside of giving the genealogies, we see that Abraham lived 175 years, and then Abraham breathed his last at a good old age. 

How many would you say? 175 is a good old age. It’s pretty good old age. Yes, good years. An old man full of years. And he was gathered to his people. His people, meaning all of his sons and his grandchildren around him, to his people. And so what’s going to be left of Abraham at this point? It’s not a question that often that many of us maybe think about, but maybe you have thought about it. What what are you actually going to leave? Not just some sort of monetary inheritance, not some sort of family business, but what are you going to leave behind? And and when we ask that question, we have to delineate between these two things that there is a difference between leaving a lineage and leaving a legacy. All of us here are part of a lineage. All of us can follow back in some sort of family tree who married who? When did they move here? What did they do? Where did you where did your name come from? All these sorts of things. I know in my family it’s my older brother. He’s dated it back. 

The marshes all the way back to the 1500s. And that’s cool, you know, that he’s taken all that time. And now I know that some of the marshes were actually some Vikings that were hired by the French, but then invaded England. And now I know I have Viking blood in me, you know, and I don’t know what part of my lineage. But a better question for us is, what’s your legacy? Not just what are the the what’s the genetic code and how did it travel down? Who are the parents, grandparents, great grandparents, The legacy, what has been carried forward, not just out of happenstance, but on purpose? What has been carried forward from generation to generation? We’re going to look at that and see what Abraham is actually handing down to Isaac and what’s been handed down even through his line. See his two sons, the two prominent sons that we hear the most about his sons, Isaac and Ishmael. They bury him in the cave at Megalith, near memory in the field of Ephron, son of Zohar, the Hittite. 

We heard about this field before because this is the field that Abraham had bought from the Hittites when his wife Sarah, passed away. And so Abraham was buried there with his wife, Sarah. What’s important to note about this? I mean, all these words matter. It’s moving quickly, but it makes note of this. And what we can recognize is that this is a physical place, that there is a tomb of the patriarchs, that we know where Abraham and Sarah and other patriarchs are buried in Israel. And so all of a sudden, this just makes it much more real that it’s not just some fairy tale, not just some story, but this is a real historical event, a real person in history. And so take different note that this is not not something that we should just look at lightly. But this is God’s word. This is true. And I know Pastor Tim has mentioned to some here on staff that wouldn’t it be nice to go to Israel, you know, in 2025 or later on how many of you would like to actually go to Israel, see some of these physical places? 

It’d be an amazing thing to actually see the Bible come to life, see these actual cities, see these buildings, see these landmarks where God was at work. And then much in the same way that Abraham story comes to a close, all the much quicker Ishmael story comes to a close as well. The last that we hear of him is that he lived 137 years. He breathed his last and he died and he was gathered to his people. He his story just comes to a close. We’re just closing Abraham. We’re closing the story of Ishmael, even though we had heard a little bit about him. And we’re going to be moving forward with Isaac. We have to go back a few verses in chapter 25 to see why is this happening. All these chapters are closing for these authors. Abraham Sarah was already dead. Abraham’s dead. Ishmael is dead. Okay, where are we going to move forward? And we see in verse five that there is a clear frontrunner of where Genesis is going to continue to take us. 

Because Abraham had left. What Abraham left everything. He left everything he owned to Isaac. Wait a second. How many thousands of you? Eight. There are six by the one wife. There is Ishmael. And then there’s Isaac, the son of promise. And he left Isaac everything. A few gifts went off to the other sons. But not only did it’s property, not only did his servants, not only did his flocks go forward with Isaac, but the promise that had been given by God to Abraham is now going forward through the line of Isaac. That’s why all these other sons just get some simple gifts and everything’s going to Isaac. Now, I don’t know if I can speak for you, but if you are one of the other seven brothers, might you say something like, That’s not that’s not fair. There’s no he’s not even the oldest born. Ishmael is all is born. He should get a double portion or you’re born to another woman. And all of a sudden, like all of them, he’s getting everything. And then we get just like a trinket, like a party favor in your sent off to say we’ll go live over there because. 

Because Isaac is the one that’s not fair. It makes absolutely no earthly sense. Why would he get everything even going back to with a patriarchy? There are certain portions that were given off to certain sons, but it’s simply not fair. We’re going to see this theme come up again and again, this idea of fairness, because I think all of us have an internal judge, internal moral compass that will go off. Alarms will start to fire. When we see things that are not fair, they go off a little bit when we see it happen to someone else, but they certainly go off when there’s something going on in our world where we feel that it’s not lining up and it’s just not fair. So we’ll see where those things rear their heads. See, Isaac, we’re going to move forward. This is our new guy. This is our new patriarch. He was 40 years old when he married Rebecca. We already have covered this, but his father had sent someone to go find him. A wife. He has a wife now. And you would think Abraham waited 25 years for this child to be born. 

Abraham was tested, and he actually showed that he had faith in this child. This is the child of promise. This is a child that God sat through. You are going to bless the entire world. And so here he is, Isaac, 40 years old. He’s married. And now things are going to work out, right, Because Abraham waited 25 years. Isaac waited 40 years for a wife. And the very next thing we see happen for Isaac and Rebecca is that they are asked to wait. You see, Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was childless. Something that was all too familiar to Abraham. And Sarah is now being experienced in a very real way by Isaac and Rebecca that they knew, just as Abraham knew, that the promise was actually supposed to come through them. It’s supposed to come through Isaac. He now has everything his father gave him. He has all these earthly possessions. And the thing that the promise is supposed to come through, through children is the very thing that he doesn’t have. 

What’s unique, though, is that there’s something different about how Isaac responds versus how Abraham responded. Because if you recall Abraham and Sarah, in the face of being childless, in the face of infertility, they conjured up a plan. Sarah came to him with a plan about, okay, if it’s not going to be through me, then maybe it’s going to be through my servant, Hagar, and they try to take things into their own hands. Isaac, on the other hand, likely knew full well all that had transpired because he knew he had an older brother, Ishmael. He just buried dear old dad with Ishmael. And so rather than taking things into his own hands, he’s literally a child of promise, literally a miraculous child being born. And so he goes to God instead of trying to take matters into his own hands. It’s interesting that Abraham, Sarah struggled with this, that Isaac and Rebecca struggle, and we see others throughout Scripture that struggle with infertility as something that has become all too common within our society today. 

It’s said that one in five couples in the United States are unable to get pregnant after a year. You know, if you’re a married couple and that you’ve come together and that you seek to have children, you want to grow your family, that you waited for one another, that you prayed for one another, and you can see all these other people around you that seemingly are able to have children just so easily or on accident, not on purpose, or the couple that they all do, all they have to do is look at each other the wrong way and they have another child. And to be a couple that one in five every year a year. I mean, and some of you I know some of you here in this room, some of you watching online, this is what you walk through that week in, week out, month in, month out, that there’s that there’s hope and then and despair. And then there are moments that no one else would see that you hear announcements of friends and family that are able to can see that you see others baby bumps and the excitement and joy that they have and you feel in your heart just disconnected, disappointed, not knowing what to do with that feeling because it’s not fair. 

Right now, it’s estimated that 9% of men, 11% of women experienced some sort of fertility challenges. There is no answer anyone can give someone who’s walking, a couple who’s giving, who’s walking through a season of infertility, or that’s the path that they have. And it would be so wrong for us to say, well, look to Abraham or looked at Isaac and he prayed and just wait. Because often we have these like trite Christian clichés. It’s like it’s in God’s timing and that and we can build up this in our head that we’re just feeling a tension between our will and our timing and God’s will. In his timing, this is certainly true that God is sovereign and He He is certainly in control. But to say to someone who’s struggling and  hoping and praying and is down on their knees asking God for a child and wondering why everybody else is able to conceive and waiting years, not just months, but years for a child to come. And this is a good and right thing. God, you asked us to be fruitful and multiply. Why is it not happening? And I say, Well, it’s just God’s will. 

It’s to timing on this side of eternity. Sometimes God’s will is that we all would be fruitful and multiply. But his timing isn’t here on this side of eternity. And you have to see that there’s there’s a tension that we feel between God’s sovereignty, the fact that he’s in control, but also our sin. And I end up please don’t mistaken me for saying that folks don’t conceive because they’re sinful. I’m saying there’s sin in the world. There’s sin in our bodies. They don’t work. Has God originally designed. We feel the ache of that sin, especially as we age, especially as things break down and that sin, that consequence of that original fall is now felt by everyone. And so God is good and loving and we still have sin and we look at a single God. But this sin like I didn’t bring this sin upon myself. It’s not fair. It’s not fair that I have to walk through this. You’re right. It’s not fair. Our heart goes out to those that walk through that. And please just know that this congregation loves to come alongside you, to pray with you and for you, and that there aren’t necessarily answers. 

We don’t want to give you trite Christian clichés, but to recognize that God is good and loving, that He is with you in the midst of this. And even if his answer is not, not yet, is possibly know that his love for you never changes. So that was our first topic and a heavy one, Most certainly, Vince Fertility and how we see God at work in that it’s not fair. Want to look ahead and see that in the case of Isaac and Rebecca, the Lord actually answers Isaac’s prayer again. This moves quickly, not slowly. It moves quickly. We see exactly how long this took Isaac and Rebecca and a number of verses ahead. And his wife became pregnant. And then we see our next theme pop up. The baby’s jostled each other within her, and Rebecca said, Why is this happening? And so she went to inquire, The Lord. So she kind of follows suit with what Isaac has already done, saying, okay, I don’t have the answer If I don’t know what to do that I’m going to go pray. I’m going to try to seek out God because I don’t know what’s happening in here. 

And I can tell you this. What she’s about to find out is that there’s not just one but two children. And as a father of three boys, I can confirm that there is not just jostling that happens inside the womb, but there is a great deal of jostling that happens outside with a seven year old, four year old and two year old. I can also confirm this, that two year olds get away with whatever they want. Boys are going to be boys and they’re going to wrestle at least a seven and four year old. They have some restraint because they’re bigger. That two year old, he will literally pull the hair out of your head and he has no remorse. He is the expert jostling within our family. So she goes and she inquires. And the Lord said to Rebecca, two nations are in your room. Two people from within. You will be separated. One will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger. This goes against everything that we know about a patriarchy. The oldest gets more just by being older. That’s what’s supposed to happen. But what we see time and time again in Scripture is that God actually looks to the younger, the weaker the lesser, and he looked upon them favorably. 

And here we see it again, this thread, this theme that comes out the older is going to serve the younger. And Rebecca hears this and she knows this and she takes it to heart. But what happens is within a family unit, if you were the older, then you’re going to know what you deserved and that’s going to lead to infighting, tension and sibling rivalry. Right. You know, that that that righteous judge inside of you is going to rear its head and say, that’s not fair. I’m the oldest. I deserve a little bit more because I am simply just the oldest. We see it play out. I bet you see it play out in your own family as well. If your sibling had something that you didn’t, if the oldest sibling was the one that had their own room or got a car, but you didn’t, or when you get a cell phone or don’t get a cell phone, we become these righteous judges. And again, it’s not anything that’s new. We see it in Scripture and we see it in our own lives. We see it in our city as well. See it with Coney Dogs. If you’re not familiar, there’s there’s two Coney dog restaurants that are right next door to each other who is in favor of Lafayette? Coney Island? 

They are Lafayette. Coney Island person. Okay. Who has bad taste in likes American Coney Island. I’m just teasing. Yeah, I haven’t actually been to either. But what happened here is that two brothers opened this a century ago, American Coney Island, that there was some infighting, there was a conflict that led to a divide. And so one of the brothers, rather than starting his own restaurant in a different town, rather than starting another restaurant across town, rather than starting a restaurant across the street, decided, you know, where to start a restaurant right next door. You know what? Let’s let’s just share a wall. We’ll share nothing else. But we’re going to share a wall in between us, leading to a great divide that now some still feel to this day of having to choose which is the better. And we can laugh, but we I imagine many of you know that there are family members, that there may be our friends, even outside the family, that all it took was the wrong thing that was said, the wrong interaction, and all of a sudden there’s a divide. 

But all of a sudden now there’s silence or animosity between two parties that should be very close. And a rivalry starts to rear its face, leading to a divide that doesn’t belong whatsoever. And the longer that you stay inside those divides, the stronger and the higher those walls become much more difficult to break down. But see the divide that happens between these two twins, the twins inside of Rebecca’s womb, God knew that it was going to happen and God had chosen the younger because he had a purpose. We actually see if we fast forward all the way to the New Testament and Paul’s writings in the Book of Romans says When Rebecca had conceived children by one man are for Father Isaac, they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God’s purpose in plan might continue not because of works, but because of Him who calls. She was told the older will serve. The younger Isaac wasn’t being a better baby. Isaac didn’t have prayer time three times a day in his mother’s womb and was earning the righteous favor of God before he was born. He had done nothing, nothing to earn God’s favor, nothing to lose God’s favor. But God looked upon Isaac and said, I need to accomplish my plan and my purpose, not just for Isaac, but for the entire world. 

And so I need him. I need the younger, I need the weaker. And I want to use him. And so often it can be very easy for us to look upon our siblings or those around us in our community and go, Well, why do they have that? Why do they got they have that. That’s so much easier for them. That’s not fair. And to recognize again that there is God’s sovereignty is still at work today, that you and I don’t know the ins and outs of everyone else’s life, but we look at the exterior and it’s so terribly easy for us to become these righteous judges that want to say, that’s not fair, so easy for them. It’s not. So that’s not fair. My older sibling, they had it so much easier than me. But recognize that even in your own life, your siblings life, your coworkers, your family, your friends, that God continues to work his purpose in his plans. He is the one at work and that we need not be the judge because he ultimately is. So when the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb and the ones that are jostling within her, the first one came out was red. His whole body was like a hairy garment. 

So they named him Esau. How would you like if your name was in Scripture? And what was written about you was that you were red and you were hairy like a garment. It gets better because all that we see about you, Thor leaders, we see him a couple of times. He’s a reoccurring character. We also see that he’s foolish. So, I mean, you’re you’re Perry Red fool. And that’s how for throughout all history you’re going to be recorded. He’s the older brother and you already see that he’s unique and different than his younger brother. So after this, his brother came out with his hand grasping Issa’s heel. So he is named Jacob, which can be translated. He’ll grabber deceiver. And what we know, if we continue as we continue on following Jacob is that he is a heel grabber, that his name is very fitting, not just from his birth. He is a deceiver, he is a swindler. And you look at that and you go, okay, I thought we just read that God wants to work his plan and his purpose through through the younger one. Yes, the younger one who is a liar and a cheat, that’s who. God chooses. And all of us said, amen. This is good news. You have to see this is good news for all of us that God would look upon a liar and a cheat and say, I want to choose you and I want to work in and through you and I want to bless the whole world through you. 

And we see here Isaac was actually 60 years old when Rebecca gave birth to them going back. They got married at when Isaac was 40. They’ve been waiting 20 years. Abraham in Syria had to wait 25 years after receiving the promise from God. Now Isaac and Rebecca wait 20 years that God calls them to wait 20 years before showing up and working this miracle for them. God was not in a hurry, that he had a plan and a purpose, and he was not trying to speed things up. And we see that the boys grew again, very different. Not only are they different and the one that is red and hairy, I mean, imagine just Elmo, right? And the other one is not one is saw. He’s a skillful hunter, a man of the open country. While Jacob was content to stay at home in the tents. So, again, we see this greater divide. Okay, they’re different. They’re jostling. One’s older, one’s younger than the younger one’s going to rule, the older ones going to serve. And now we see not just this rivalry that’s going to happen between them because they are so terribly different, but the fuel that happens to be their parents, the Isaac who had a taste for wild Game, who did he love? Esau. Isaac loved Eve. So Isaac loved the guy who hunted wild game. Isaac loved his provider. 

He loved the kid who brought him beef jerky. That is who Isaac loved. He loved red meat. He loved Esau. This is the one that can provide for me in the way that I want. This is the one that maybe is like me in the most ways. I mean, that is the case. It’s an appearance, you know? Okay, maybe you don’t have to admit it, but I know it to be true that the kid that is most like you is often your favorite, which probably also the hardest on them because you know how you were. And also you want the best for them. And you sometimes in our in our weaker moments, we want to vicariously live through our kids right? Is that just me going back couple of years, I made All conference as a linebacker and football and I have not yet decided which of my three sons is my favorite. But I have determined it’s whichever one of them is all state as a linebacker so they can achieve things I have not yet achieved for myself and I could live through them. We laugh, but there’s there’s a bit of truth behind that, isn’t there? We want to live through them. We want we want them to do things that we couldn’t do ourselves. 

They will want them to go further. And in doing so, we’re we’re pushing and trying to make them mold into us. But rather than letting them be their own people. And Isaac’s not alone in this. Rebekah Love Jacob. Each parent chose a son. They chose their camp, and in doing so, they’re already adding fuel to the fire of the divide between the two boys. The boys are already born different because they’re different people. They had a different plan and a purpose from God. And now the parents choose the favorite. And this is what happens. You see, Isaac got something right. He didn’t try to take things into his own hands in trying to conceive. He did one better than his dad. Abraham tried to take things into his own hands. Isaac didn’t. But the thing that will not fail is that we will pass down our sin to our kids. And so Isaac didn’t sin in the way of sleeping with someone else, but Isaac sinned in the way of having a favorite showing favor to his son. And so he’s creating new ways, new sins that he can pass on to his own kids. And we actually see that we’re going to see that thread follow throughout the Old Testament, that favoritism towards kids actually leads to destruction. It leads to infighting. 

It leads to even siblings wanting to kill one another. It leads to divide. Yet we’re fallen in perfect parents and we have to lean on God and to love each of our children. If God has blessed us with children as the unique gift that they are, because often it feels like this. How many all children are out there all on your own? Figuring it out on your own. That’s why you’re the most independent and everybody else is incompetent. Youngest children. You’re the star, right? And the youngest children out there. Oh, yeah. You shouldn’t raise hands. You should say me. Yeah. I’m the youngest. And as a middle child, I can confirm that this photo is an accurate representation of reality. All this has all the skills trying to be the valedictorian. The youngest is the star of the show Middle, who doesn’t really matter. There’s a middle child. If we go back to our own families and if you were part of a family unit like that, especially if you’re a middle child, this is a common phrase. That’s not fair. It’s not fair to the youngest is treated like the baby because they are in fact, the baby or the oldest gets things that the others don’t get. And the parents even try, as they might do, treat each child differently. 

But again, you have to see that there’s this righteous judge that rears its face inside of each of us is not exclusive just to our own families of origin. But it happens for all of us each and every day. I mean, think back, even on this last week, last month, last year, when have you thought to yourself, when have you felt that righteous judge rise inside of you and say, that’s not fair. It’s not fair where we’re the grocery prices are going? That’s not fair. It’s not fair. What’s happened in my place of work, It’s not fair. Certainly when someone cuts me off on the road. Right. That is the quickest way to see your righteous judge. All of a sudden when speeding past you, cutting you off in traffic, you know what it is for you that there is a time, there is a place, there is something where you know immediately the difference between right and wrong. Everything becomes black and white and you go, That’s not fair. And anything can be, again, these areas of suffering God, why? Why that diagnosis? God, Why that loss? God, Why aren’t you answering our prayers? It’s not fair. We’re we’re we’re obedient to you. But what I actually proposed to us this morning is that she’d be quite thankful. She extremely grateful that things aren’t fair. 

In Galatians chapter five, we actually hear about God and who he is and his character, a God who is just but he’s not fair to you. In the fullness of time had come. God sent forth his son, his one and only son, born of a woman born under the law. Hang on a second. His only son, his son from eternity, the one who is co-creator with him. The actual word that everything came into being from that one was born where under the law, under sin in human flesh, it’s not fair. And why was he sent to redeem those who are under the law? To redeem those who are under the law, The ones that are sinful, the ones that are liars, the ones that are that Scripture says dead in their trespass is the one that in Romans five says that our enemies of God. So the perfect, righteous holy Son of God from all eternity steps down into human flesh and the work that He has set before him is to redeem people and not to redeem people by teaching them or train them or have them pull themselves up by their bootstraps to be better people, but rather this son from all eternity coequal with God, now steps down into humanity so that he might die and that he might die for sinners. That’s not fair. 

So that we might receive adoption adoptions. His sons adoptions. The sons and daughters to be children of God. That the Son of God would step down from his throne, die for us, that He would take a cross, that each of us deserve this this tool of execution, to go in our place, of execution, to go into the tomb, that we deserved to die. And so that to might be empty so that our tomb is empty, too. Not only that, so that we actually are his sons and daughters. That’s not fair. That doesn’t make any sense. Why would he have to do that when there’s no merit, nothing on our part that deserve that kind of grace and that kind of mercy. And so, like I said, I want to propose to you. We should be grateful, thankful, we should be ecstatic that. God is not fair, but he is merciful and in his mercy and in his grace upon grace that now we are his children, and even more than that, as these verses move forward, it says now because we are sons, God has sent his spirit. 

The spirit that we saw come through the waters of baptism earlier in the service, into our hearts. Now we cry of a father, and now we call him Father, not just simply God, but he is our father. You are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son than an heir. So not only do you have hope, hope that your sins are forgiven and that all of your wrongs have been righted by the very Son of God who died in your place, but even more than that, that your name is written in heaven and he is preparing a place for you. Do you see this is not fair. This is Grace. We should be thankful. And it doesn’t take away from the fact that there is suffering for every family that is struggling to conceive for every family that suffers loss, for every family that gets a diagnosis that they don’t want to hear for everyone that is fighting still with their siblings or their families or their coworkers. But you need to hear this this morning that God died for all of those things and that we do believe that he is in fact, sovereign and that he can take the broken parts of our lives and he can use them for our good and for his purposes. Goddess sees every single couple in distress. God sees every broken family. 

God sees you, He knows you. He loves you right where you’re at. And he has a plan and purpose for you. Going back to that statement we heard at the beginning, there’s a difference between leaving a lineage and leaving a legacy. You are going to pass on your traits to your kids. You’re going to pass on your sin. That’s going to be your lineage. There will be a family tree for those that God is blessed with children, what might I ask you? Consider what legacy do you want to leave? What inheritance. Just as God has now called each of us an heir, that we have a hope of heaven, will you consider having a legacy of faith because parents and grandparents, there is no greater legacy that you can leave behind because that legacy of faith, a legacy of faith as a humble child of God, recognizing there is nothing that you did in or of yourself to earn eternal life that you can place, you’re hoping, Jesus Christ, you pass on that faith, that legacy that is one that actually goes with your children and grandchildren and to eternity, because it’s through that faith that not only do you get to see your savior face to face, but you know that one day long after you’re gone, that you get to see your children and your grandchildren and their children and their children. 

You get to see them face to face as well. So let us be the people that take our eyes off of the infighting and the sin and all these questions that arise here and fix our eyes. And the fact that God has now called us heirs and gives us the unique opportunity as believers to leave a legacy. Amen. Well, this morning, I do want to bring to some of your attention some of you are already aware that earlier this morning, Pastor Tim’s oldest son was having his appendix taken out. He was taken to Royal Oak Beaumont yesterday with some pain and inflammation. And it came out that he needed to have his appendix out. So I would love to invite you to pray with me, to pray over Pastor Tim and Lisa, and of course, to pray over Henry as well, that that surgery all went well and that there is healing to come and that God is working, of course, and their family as well. Will you join me in prayer? Heavenly Father, God, we thank you. Thank you for your word and thank you for this beautiful reminder that even in the midst of all of our brokenness inside of our families and inside of ourselves, God, that you don’t treat us fairly, but you treat us with mercy and grace. 

God, let that mercy and grace saturate us, turn our eyes to you and the finished work of Jesus through the cross and the empty tomb and God. Right now we do ask in Jesus name that you wrap, Pastor Tim and Lisa and Henry in your loving arms as the surgery comes to a close that you faithfully work through the doctors and the nurses and accomplish what needed to be accomplished. And in the days and weeks to come that you bring healing to Henry’s body, there will be a full healing, and that would be a quick healing as well. I pray all these things in Jesus name, Amen