Patterns & Promises

Well good morning. Glad that you are joining us this morning. A special welcome to anyone that might be a guest here this morning. And of course, welcome to those that are joining us online as well, because we are kicking into part four of Genesis. And all God’s people said, this is an exciting thing. If you’ve been with us for the last little bit, we’ve been working through the book of Genesis. We’re coming up on two years now, and of course, we’ve been taking breaks in between and we’re jumping back into it in this season. And so if you’re not a regular attender, maybe this is your first Sunday here and you’re like, well, now I’m in part four, what do I do? Well, you can go online. You can find all of our messages, as we’ve worked through the book of Genesis, so you can go back and find a part one, two and three, all the sermons that have been given so far throughout the book of Genesis. maybe you have been with it, with us, and you just want to, by way of reminder, go back and watch some of those as well. I encourage you to do so. it would be a great thing to do. And so here’s part four. This is kind of the syllabus day. Just so you know. So on the front end we’re just going to lay some of the ground rules.

Also this is church. So take a look around where you’re you know who you’re sitting by right now because that’s your seat now right. Like you’re going to be here for the next 11 weeks. That’s where you’re going to stay the whole time. So get comfortable with your classmates. but we want to encourage you to, to engage with us as we work through this section of Genesis. And it won’t actually come to a conclusion at part four. We still have part five coming that will begin in January. Actually. But for this part, we’re going to be looking at Genesis chapter 26 through 36. It’s going to take us from today through, almost the month of November, and it’s going to be 11 weeks. And the reason that we do that is it takes so long is because we don’t skip a chapter. We don’t skip a verse. We don’t skip a word. As we work through that, we know that God’s Word is powerful, it’s effective, and that we don’t want to skip anything because we believe that there is power in all of God’s Word and to the point of us not skipping anything. The book of Genesis has some stuff that people often skip over. Those would be our PG 13 weeks. 

And just so for all the parents out there, just so you know, that these things are coming September 29th and November 17th, there are some topics that are more PG 13. And like I said, we’re not going to skip a word of Scripture. And so we encourage you that we do have a SG kids available for our kids that are from birth, all the way up to sixth grade, and they are learning the same lesson at an age appropriate level. So it’s not PG 13 over there. that’s your call as a parent where you would like them to be, but just want to make you aware that those things are coming as well. And then following those 11 weeks will be into the Christmas season. Believe it or not. And then December 1st through the 24th, we’ll take a break from Genesis or focus on Christmas and then come in January. We’ll be back into Genesis yet again. But for the next 11 weeks, can we challenge you? We want we want you to grow in your faith. And we know that that growth happens by God’s power and through His Word. And so I would like to invite you I’d like to call you up into a challenge that for the next 11 weeks, could you do this? Could you be present in worship, simply coming here, being able to worship God, and most importantly, receiving from him, hearing His word preached to you for your benefit? 

Because as God’s Word goes forth, it does not return void that will bring about the fruit and the change that he seeks for it. To do that, you would actually engage in the text during the week as well. If this isn’t something that is part of your pattern or your habit right now, that this is a very simple way to follow along for the next 11 weeks and do a simple Bible reading plan along with us as we continue to work through the book of Genesis and then finally invest in your family. We try to make resources available for you, just not just here for Sunday morning, but outside of Sunday morning, so you can have conversations, whether it be on the car ride home or around the dinner table or on the way to sporting events that you can discuss what is being taught here at church, what is being preached here, what’s being taught in SG kids because you’re learning the same thing as your kids. And so you can find these resources on our app. You can find them online that you can follow along with a reading plan. The reading plan will never really be more than a single, chapter of the Bible for any given week. There’s also dig deeper questions where you can have conversations with a small group or your spouse, or even just for yourself in self-study. 

Or there are family questions like I mentioned, for you to have conversations with your kids about what’s being covered as we work through the book of Genesis. And you’ll notice this as we’re going through, and we’re preaching every single week, there should be an SG kids verse. There’s one in our message here today as well, because that’s what they’re learning over there. And we’re covering it in here as well. So is that all sound good? It’s next 11 weeks. We’d love for you to engage in that. If you can’t be here, we always, of course, stream online. We’d love for you to follow along, because we know God has things in store for all of us, and that it comes through his church.

It comes through His Word that he is going to make a difference that has made a difference in all of our lives. So before jumping into part four, let me give you a brief recap. We’ve been following a number of characters in part one through three. We of course started with Adam and Eve, then Noah and his family and the flood, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau. And it’s part three came to a close. We still had Isaac and his wife Rebecca, and we’re going to be picking up on Jacob and Esau, and that’s what we’re going to be hanging for all of Genesis part four, where we’ve said goodbye to Abraham, we’ve said goodbye to Adam and Eve long ago, and now we’re going to be focusing in on these main characters, Isaac and Rebecca, primarily today, and then Jacob and Esau as we continue to move forward. But again, I want to encourage you that we’re going to focus on every chapter, every verse, every word. And for that reason, we do have a reading today that we’re going to watch in a video. 

I pray that, that it blesses you as if we know it well, because it is God’s word. And preceding that reading, there’s going to be a short recap to just get you caught back up to where we’re at. So right now, I invite you to turn your attention to the screens for this video. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, bringing forth light, life, and all of creation. We saw how Adam and Eve, the first humans, were formed in God’s image and placed in the Garden of Eden. But they were deceived by the serpent, leading to their fall and the introduction of sin into the world. As humanity grew, so did wickedness, until God determined to blot out man from the face of the land. But Noah, a righteous man, found favor in the eyes of the Lord. And through Noah and the ark, God preserved life during the great flood, renewing his covenant with all living creatures. Man was commanded to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. But as the generations passed, man did not obey this command, and the world was scattered. After the Tower of Babel, where God confused the language of the people. 

In this time of separation, God called Abraham, later named Abraham to leave his homeland and follow him. Abraham obeyed, and God promised to make him a great nation. We witnessed Abraham’s faith tested when God asked him to sacrifice his son Isaac, only to provide Ram in Isaac’s place. God’s covenant with Abraham was reaffirmed, ensuring that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. In the journey so far, we have seen God’s hand in creation, judgment, and covenant, setting the stage for the promises that will unfold through the lives of Isaac, Jacob and beyond. And now a reading from Genesis chapter 26. Now there was a famine in the land besides the previous famine in Abraham’s time. And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines. In Gara the Lord appeared to Isaac and said, do not go down to Egypt, live in the land where I tell you to live. Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you, and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands, and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham. I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring, all nations on earth will be blessed. 

Because Abraham obeyed me and did everything I required of him, keeping my commands, my decrees, and my instructions. So Isaac stayed in Deraa. When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, she is my sister because he was afraid to say she is my wife. He thought the men of this place might kill me on account of Rebecca, because she is beautiful. When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked down from a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebecca. So Abimelech summoned Isaac and said, she’s really your wife. Why did you say she is my sister? Isaac answered him, because I thought I might lose my life on account of her. Then of Melek said, what is this you have done to us? One of the men might well have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon. So Abimelech gave orders to all the people. Anyone who harms this man or his wife shall surely be put to death. 

Isaac planted crops in that land, and the same year reaped 100 fold, because the Lord blessed him, the man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy. He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him. So all the wealth that his father’s servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth. Then Abimelech said to Isaac, move away from us. You have become too powerful for us. So Isaac moved away from there and encamped in the valley of Gora, where he settled. Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died, and he gave them the same names his father had given them. Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and discovered a well of fresh water there. But the herders of Jerusalem quarreled with those of Isaac and said, the water is ours. So he named the well Isaac, because they disputed with it. Then they dug another well, but they quarreled over that one also. So he named it Sidner. 

He moved on from there and dug another well, and no one quarreled over it. He named it Rehoboth, saying, now the Lord has given us room, and we will flourish in the land. From there he went up to Beersheba. That night the Lord appeared to him and said, I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham. Isaac built an altar there, and called on the name of the Lord. There he pitched his tent, and there his servants dug a well. Meanwhile Abimelech had come to him from Gera with Ahuja, his personal adviser, and fight. Call the commander of his forces. Isaac asked them, why have you come to me since you were hostile to me and sent me away? They answered, we saw clearly that the Lord was with you. So we said, there ought to be a sworn agreement between us, between us and you. Let us make a treaty with you, that you will do us no harm, just as we did not harm you, but always treated you well and sent you away peacefully. And now you are blessed by the Lord.

Isaac then made a feast for them, and they ate and drank. Early the next morning the men swore an oath to each other. Then Isaac sent them on their way, and they went away peacefully. That day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had done. They said, we found water. He called it Sheba, and to this day the name of the town has been Beersheba. When he saw was 40 years old, he married Judith, daughter of Biri the Hittite, and also Bassem, a daughter of Ellen the Hittite. They were a source of grief to Isaac and Rebecca. I love that last line. Those daughters in law were a source of grief, and God’s Word is still true to this day. Oh no you can’t. Hopefully you’re not sitting near your daughter in law in laws are still a source of grief. Thus says the Lord. If you’ve been following along with us at all, you may have already seen that here in this reading account of Isaac’s life here in Genesis 26. It’s like Abraham part two. There are so many little things, and we’re going to take a look at some of these repeated patterns that are in the life of Isaac that he had either learned that he had either seen or are just plain out in his life, just like they played out in his father’s life as well. Because we all have habits, we all have patterns that we sometimes fall into, don’t we? 

I mean, how ] many out there love habits? Patterns like you love a routine? Are there folks out there that love having a routine? Now you’re getting into your fall routine. It’s estimated a couple of studies that I looked at this week said that somewhere between 40 and 50% of our daily actions, their patterns, their habits, they’re habitual. They require little conscious thought and there has to be at least one person out there who’s like, oh, 100% of what I do requires little conscious thought. I mean, I’m just going through life, but there are so many things about how we carry yourself through the world. It could just be your your morning routine, your morning drive, maybe the routine that you have once you get into work. It could be deeper than just some of these habitual ways that we carry ourself through the world. It could even be like, how do you respond when someone cuts you off in traffic? How do you respond? There’s a habit, there’s a pattern because you all immediately pray, right? They must be running late. I’m going to pray for them right now. Right. 

Or maybe there’s a different pattern or different habit you have when you’re stressed, and all of a sudden that you don’t see as much in the bank account as you were really hoping to see, what’s your what’s your pattern? What’s your habit? Is it fear when someone asks you, did you get that thing done and it’s not done? Do you tell the truth or do you have a pattern and a habit of well, actually this, that the other thing and you work your way around it? We all have developed patterns in our lives. Some of which we may have inherited. We we saw Mom and dad. They functioned in the world in a particular way. And we either thought, well, that works, that looks pretty good, or I’m going to have a different pattern. And you worked against it. But if you’re a parent here this morning, you recognize there are patterns you are living out right now, habits that you have that little ones are watching because they watch what you do a lot more than they watch what you say, don’t they? And all of a sudden, you can start to see some of the patterns that you might have in your life when you see it come out in your kids, when they sound like just like a little parrot version of yourself and you’re like, oh, where’d they hear that? 

Oh, oh, they heard that from me again. What we’re seeing here in the life of Isaac, and we don’t know how exactly, but he is going through his life in a very similar pattern to the way that his father Abraham did. It begins in this way in Genesis 26 one now there was a famine in the land. Besides the previous famine in Abraham’s time. So already the the landscape of what’s going on in the world, the outside circumstance that Isaac finds himself in is the same that Abraham had at one point. And Isaac went to a bema, like a bema, like is the name of a king that Abraham interacted with. And now it’s a king that his son Isaac is interacting with two different kings, likely the same lineage. And so now we see these patterns start to play out. Similar circumstance, similar king, but the same God throughout all of it. In verses two through six it says this. The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, do not go down to Egypt. This is where it breaks the pattern. Before Abraham went down to Egypt. But now God’s intervening not only to give Isaac the same promise that he had given Abraham, but to actually change the pattern. Say, I want you to stay here. 

I want you to live here. Stay here for a while, and I will be with you, and I will bless you for you and your descendants. I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath. We have to circle back to this idea of this oath, this promise, this covenant that’s being made with Isaac here and now that he’s being reminded of this original covenant that was made with Abraham, now it’s being echoed with Isaac, and we’re going to see at the end of our message how this oath plays out. The swore to your father, Abraham. Abraham, I will make your descendants numerous. This is what we heard before seven different times. Seven times previously in the book of Genesis, in the life of Abraham, God came to Abraham and made a promise with him, reminded him of the promise, reminded him of the promise, reminded him of the promise over and over again. And rather than Isaac having to live on dad’s leftover promises, God’s coming to this generation, to Isaac now. And he’s reaffirming, reconfirming the promise that he had made to Abraham. So that’s a beautiful pattern to it’s not just for Abraham, it’s for Isaac as well. 

But it’s not all good because we see some sinful patterns that were in Abraham’s life. They remained in Isaac as well. In verse seven it says this when the men at that place asked him that is asked Isaac about his wife, he said, she is my sister. Sound familiar? This happened twice in the life of Abraham because will you say this with me? Just the bold. Because he was afraid. Every little detail in Scripture matters, and it actually shows us the heart of Isaac here in this moment. Why is he doing this? What is leading him to do this? Because that is not his wife. He was afraid to say she is my wife. He thought the men of this place might kill me on account of Rebecca. Because she is beautiful. Oh, that’s so sweet. He thinks his wife is so beautiful. Abraham’s wife was so beautiful. But there is so beautiful that he’s fearing for his life. There’s something inside of him that is saying I need to preserve myself. I need to protect myself. And it all stems from not only fear, but fear connected with this question what if? What if she’s so beautiful? And what if they are attracted to her? And what if they’re not kind people? And what if they’re violent people? 

And what if they might want to take my very life so they could be with her? What if I’m not safe because she’s so beautiful? What if I’m not safe because they’re so wicked? Oh, this is not unique. Just to Isaac. This is true for all of us as well. That asking the question what if is not inherently wrong, but asking it from a posture of fear, where you start to project out futures that will never be, but you just live in that fear and you begin to wonder, well, what if? What if we don’t? What if my family member doesn’t get better than one? What if I lose my job and I can’t provide for my family in the way that I want to? Then what? What if that strife in my family continues forever and I can never have a real, genuine relationship with my siblings or cousins or parents, whatever it may be? What if I said what I really thought? What if I what if I told the truth? But telling the truth doesn’t feel safe? I got to preserve myself. I got to do something for myself because something out there is not safe. So I got to take it into my own hands. It can play out in so many different ways. 

In my own world right now, one of the things that we’ve been doing lately is with his beautiful weather, going for a walk in our neighborhood to about a half mile away is there’s a little library. You guys familiar with the little libraries that are around, right? So someone so kind of have this in their front yard and you can go and drop off books and pick up books. And so my boys have loved doing that. So we go there’s books for adults, there’s books for kids. Sometimes there’s even stickers. And so just about a week ago, one kid grabs a bike, another kid grabs a scooter, the youngest is in the stroller. We’re doing our little half mile walk through the neighborhood on a beautiful day. We get there and there weren’t wasn’t books that we were interested in. It wasn’t stickers. It wasn’t coloring books. But get this. Pokemon cards. Chess in the little library. Because that is amazing. I mean, we like it’s like we struck gold for these kids. They they each have their own binders. They’ve been collecting cards. This was amazing. This this type of find. And so immediately the oldest two in particular were like, you know, just shuffling through them to see what a value is there. 

And my wife and I were like, okay, there’s a nice stack here. Someone was kind enough to leave these cards. Let’s just take two. Each oldest scrap to the youngest one at this point had already become disinterested, and he’s doing something else. And the middle grabs a couple and he’s struggling to get them in his pocket. And I ask him. How many cards do you have? Two. And he’s just trying to trying to get him in his pocket. Like, look, let me give you a hand with that. So I grabbed him out of his hand. One, two three. Underneath that was this question. What if. By the mind of a four year old, the question, I believe, was probably what if? What if this is the only opportunity that I have to get this Pokemon card? What if after we leave here, someone comes and takes the rest of them? What if my parents are not loving and not good and they don’t give me all the Pokemon cards I need that I need to take this into my own hands here and now, and I need to grab a third card instead of just to like dad asked, what if I just need to do this for myself rather than do what’s right? So of course we had a little conversation. We put the card back. 

It’s just a Pokemon card. But again, I think we do this all the time. We ask this question and we do so out of a position of fear. What if? What if I just need to take it into my own hands? What if no one else is going to bring justice into my life? What if no one sees just how hard I’m working and no one else is working as hard and I need to do this to self preserve, to make sure that I’m okay because no one else is looking out for number one. And that’s what we see here in the life of Isaac. Again, this these small, little, seemingly small details. He lied about his wife. There’s so much more underneath the surface. And we’re just getting started. The Isaac had been there a long time. We don’t know exactly how long. Abimelech, the king of the Philistines. He looked down from a window, and he saw Isaac caressing. Just a fun note here. Isaac’s name. Does anyone recall from the previous parts? Isaac’s name means laughter. The Hebrew root root for the word caressing is similar to that of laughter. 

So it could be read as he looked down from the window and saw Isaac, Isaac and his wife Rebecca don’t know exactly what Isaac is. It could mean laughter, could mean caressing. It means something between a married couple, because what follows is a Amalek summoned Isaac and said, she is really your wife. Why did you say she is my sister? What’s astounding here is so the character we’re following, the main character is Isaac, the one. And that would be the one that you would naturally think is righteous. He’s upright. He’s the one that’s chosen by God. Yet here, the king, the king of the Philistines, these ungodly people. And the king is appalled at what he does. Why would you lie? And why would you lie about your wife? He is actually showing himself to be the more righteous person in the story. Already. If he. Why did you say she’s my sister? And Isaac answered him, because I thought I might lose my life on account of her. And he’s actually saying to the king, and again, you have to for him to see this. He’s saying to the king, your people are wicked and evil, I thought, and violent, and they would kill me to be with her. And he’s saying that to the King. It’s astounding. Are you saying that he’s evil? And that’s why that’s his rationale. He was filled with fear. These people just might be evil. So I had to take it into my own hands. Let’s try to make it personal for a second. When have you done this? When have you said. She is my sister.

Might not be that exact phrase. But are there been times where you’ve bent the truth and you’ve looked out for number one more than you’ve been concerned about? Anybody else? I would venture to say you. You’ve likely have. That we are deceptive, that we lie, and sometimes we even lie to ourselves and we don’t even realize it could be something just as simple as, like, you’re running late and you just drive like a maniac and you’re the one that is cutting people off. But you know what? What you’re saying in that moment is you getting to where you need to get on time is more important than the well-being of the lives of those around you. What about somebody else? Where are you? Simple text message, simple conversation on a phone. But has ever been a time that you were somewhere you shouldn’t be? You might respond in a way like this. She’s my sister. Bending the truth. Or is that assignment done? Whether it be school or whether it be work? And maybe you’re halfway through, but you say, yeah, yeah, sure. But it’s not quite done yet. What about. What are you looking at? What are you watching? It’s going to be sitting in the same room with your spouse. What’s on your phone? Nothing. Just Instagram. 

Rather than telling the truth, rather than facing up to what reality is actually taking place and unfolding in your life in that moment to preserve your self, you want to say, she’s my sister. I you know, let me just bend this a little bit. Let me twist it just a little bit because I want to save face. It could even be projecting your life out there to the world on social media, where you’re showing people how great it is, and even in doing so, it’s a subtle deception because people don’t actually see what your life is actually like. Because we’re afraid to be honest. We’re afraid to tell the truth. We’re afraid of the consequences that will follow. Jumping back into our text, we see what does follow. It wasn’t what Isaac thought at all. Then Abimelech said, what is this you have done to us? Still being upright, still being honest, one of the men might well have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.

So a beam of light gave the order to all the people. Anyone who harms this man or his wife shall surely be put to death. It wasn’t what Isaac thought at all. Actually. His life is preserved. And now anyone who would come near his wife or himself, now their life would be threatened, is quite the inverse of what Isaac had originally thought. But Isaac, in fear, projected out the worst possible construction on these other people, that they’re not gracious, that they’re not loving, that they’re not kind, that they’re violent and they’re wicked people that would take his life. And at least partly the reason that Isaac does this is because he’s forgetful. Now, what exactly did Isaac forget? Well, just just a few verses ago, the living God, the Alpha and the Omega, had come to him in the same way that had come to his father seven different times. And it finally came to Isaac to say, I am with you. I am for you. I’m going to bless you. And if that wasn’t enough, even if you went back just another chapter and realized that his wife, who is barren, had given birth miraculously to twin boys, and if you go back even a little bit further, when his father Abraham was taking them off a mountainside when he was a young man to sacrifice him, that 

God provided for him in a miraculous way by giving a ram caught in the thicket, and just Isaac being alive, just the sheer fact that he is alive, born to a 100 year old man is miraculous. What did Isaac forget? He’s forgotten all of God’s faithfulness when he asked the question, what if, when he was beginning to lie and deceive others, he was focused so much more on this fearful future that he was creating, rather than the faithfulness of his God? We do the same thing, but I’d like to propose that instead of fearing the future, instead of coming up with all these scenarios that will never be, they. Rather we actually spend more time recounting God’s faithfulness in your life. You might not have an encounter with a burning bush. 

You might not have a living God come and tell you. But the promises that were true for Isaac and Abraham are true for you. That God is with you, that he is for you, that he’s been faithful in your life. You have clothes on your back. You drove a car here today. You had some food this morning. Some of you had coffee. Amen. God is with you and he is for you. He provides for us richly and vastly every single day. But we spend more times projecting out fearful futures, then looking back and recounting his faithfulness. And that’s where Isaac gets himself in trouble. And that’s where we get ourself in trouble, too, when we don’t trust our God is good and faithful and loving, and we have to take it into our own hands, then we have to go into self-preservation mode and then we can self justify. Well, I only bent the truth a little bit. It was only a little lie. But what he was doing in line to preserve his own life was he was risking his wife’s. Well, we don’t realize that we do that same thing when we deceive and we lie others that we are actually hurting and harming and sinning against not only God, but sinning against those closest to us. What’s astounding, though, is God’s mercy and faithfulness throughout this whole thing. Because as it moves forward, Isaac continues to be blessed. He planted crops. Now this is where the pattern breaks. He’s the first to actually plant crops. Doesn’t just have sheep and goats, he plants crops. And he must be a great farmer because he reaped 100 fold. Or it’s because the Lord had blessed him.

He became the man, became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became a very wealthy God continues to pour out his blessing, so much so that those around him, the Philistines, are envious. And they do. They do want to push him out. In verse 15 and 16 it says this. So all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up because they’re envious, filling them with earth. Then Abimelech said to Isaac, move away from us. You have become too powerful for us. So they’re not harming him, but they are hurting his livelihood. You can’t have crops. You can’t have animals, you can’t have servants. You can’t survive without water. And they’re literally filling in all these wells. 

And this is where we go back to these patterns. Isaac is God’s chosen one. Isaac is blessed by God, hears from God himself, lies about his sister. And then here he’s going back to the same wells that his father had dug decades earlier. And then what’s interesting is these situations are unique and different to Isaac, but he actually names the Wells the same names his father did, following that same pattern his father had. But his situations actually spoke to each of the names of the wells. We’re not going to recount all the text that was already covered in the video regarding the wells, but these are the English translations of those words for the Wells. He had strife with them. He was contending with them. One well was called contention. The next one was entity. And then the third one finally there was enough room. So he named it room. But after God comes to him a second time, and after King of Amalek comes to him and makes a promise, makes an oath that they can have peace between the two of them, he finally names the final well oath. Here’s a little lesson inside of here, too, that he’s not able to actually rest. He’s not able to actually find some semblance of peace until he can rest on a promise, and he can rest on an oath. 

Inside the story, Isaac could potentially be referring to the oath, of course, with the king that he’s talking to. But if you go up another level, there’s the oath that we already refer to that God made with him. And before he finally names this well, God reminds Isaac a second time. Now, in one chapter, the second time of his presence and his promises with Isaac that night the Lord appeared to him and said, I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with with you. I will bless you and increase your number of your descendants. For the sake of my Abraham’s servant, our servant Abraham. Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord. There he pitched his hand, and his servants dug a well, that well of oath, the well of promise, the well of covenant, the well that he could continually return to, that God is faithful, that God is just, that God is loving, that God is with him and for him. And again, this isn’t just for Abraham, and it’s not just for Isaac. We see this echoed throughout all of Scripture in the book of Isaiah. You hear the same words. Don’t they sound similar? Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. 

That throughout all of this, even throughout all of his lying and deceiving, that God was still faithful, that God was still with and he never left Isaac’s side. It’s actually interesting, if you realize this, to actually go back and to look at the story, but look at it through a slightly different lens, it’s easy to see Isaac’s shortcomings and how we parallel with those as well. But if we take a closer look, I believe we can see a glimpse of the gospel inside of this story as well. If we go back to verse seven, it says this. Now when the men of that place ask him about his wife, he said, she is my sister. Why? Because he was afraid to say she is my wife. He thought the men of this place might kill me on account of Rebecca, because she is beautiful. Now, on the surface you can’t quite see it. But you have to understand that there’s another thread that’s running throughout all of Scripture and that is elucidated. Once you get to the New Testament. That Christ himself refers to himself as a groom, as the bridegroom. And you know who is bride is. See, you. It’s the church that he calls beautiful, that he loves. That even though it’s sinful and blemish blemished and has deception and lies on our lips, that he still looks at us and he calls us beautiful. 

He calls you beautiful despite the fact that he knows every one of your shortcomings, every one of your lies, that he still looks at you and calls you beautiful. And unlike Isaac, he is a better Isaac because as he comes down into this world fully God, but fully man into this brokenness that he no, that he knew full well exactly what he was stepping into. Isaac made the speculation that these men might just kill me, but Jesus himself fully knew that as he stepped down into humanity in his creation and put on flesh that he was going to face men, not just Romans and not just Pharisees, but he was going to face broken people like us that were in fact going to kill him. He didn’t lie. He didn’t try to self preserve. He didn’t self justify himself, but rather he knew full well that these men, these men were going to cause his death, his suffering, that he was going to be beaten and bruised and insulted. And his closest disciples were going to betray him and backstab him and deny even knowing him. Yet he never out of the word. She’s my sister. 

He still did it for his bride, and he still did it for you. He went up on to a cross that each of us deserved to. And he still did it for you. And now, through his perfect life, through his death and through his resurrection, that we have a better groom, that we have a better Isaac, that we have hope that he did for us, that we couldn’t do for ourselves, that he fulfilled the promise that we never could. You see the glimpse, the glimpse of the gospel that’s found in this. She is my sister, this little lie to preserve myself that he is the best. Version of Isaac that there could ever be. He did what none of us would be willing to do, and that none of us could do. And if you move forward all the way into Romans, it speaks of Abraham, but it applies to Isaac, and it applies to us. It’s not through the law. It’s not through works. It’s not through not telling lies and doing the very best you can that Abraham or Isaac and his offspring receive the promise that he would be an heir of the world, but through the righteous righteousness that comes by faith. 

Because here this if that the spirit has pierced your soul this morning, and you have heard, I have been deceptive, I have been dishonest, I have been lying to others, and I have been lying to myself. I’ve been more concerned about me than I have been about my own family or my own friends, than it is good and right for you to tell the truth. It is good and right for you to be honest. But your way to salvation and your way to Jesus is not based off of your actions. Those are good and right to do. But as we hear here at the end of this verse, that righteousness comes by faith for you to fully and completely trust in the fact that Jesus has done for you what you could never do for yourself. Cling to that truth, cling to that righteousness that he is bestowing upon you, and know full well that as you come to him. Not filled with fear, like Isaac. But fear filled with hope. Knowing that you have a God who is faithful. And just as it says in first John chapter one, verse nine, that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and he will forgive us of all unrighteousness.

Amen.