We have arranged it so that our church phone number rings directly through to my cell phone. And it's become clear, a little bit surprising over the few months that we've been here as a church, that what the most common sorts of phone calls are that come through to our church phone number. I can tell, you know, when it rings in, whether it's coming through our Cedar Point number or whether it's someone from my address book. And what would you think the most common kinds of phone calls that we receive would be? They've kind of landed in two categories. I think the second most category are people either from the Texas Spurs or from the Austin Stars, the local minor league hockey and basketball teams, trying to sell us group discounts on tickets, and with the special benefit of having the opportunity even to sing the national anthem. So I haven't told you about that. You've really missed out. Sorry. That's the second most common category. The most common category of phone calls that we receive to our church number are actually from people, almost always people that we don't know, people who are in tough spots, who need money either to have a place to stay or to be able to put food on the table. Now, you've had similar conversations, I know, and I'm sure that we have all come into contact with people who are not telling the truth, but I have every confidence that in many of those cases, if not most of those cases, there are real, legitimate needs behind those phone calls. And the sermon is not about what we should do in those circumstances today. I would ask you, just as a little side message, would you pray for us as a church and for me as I take those phone calls to know how to speak to those men and women who are in times of severe circumstance and great need? It's certainly not possible for us to meet every need that exists in this community, not even every need that we hear about. Pray for wisdom. Pray for wisdom in what I should say. Whenever I receive a phone call like that, there's two things going on in my mind, two messages that I feel like those people need to hear, in addition to alleviating whatever real financial needs might be the case. The first message that I feel like they need to hear is they need to know that God is aware of their immediate need for food and shelter. And whatever they're experiencing in that moment is not outside his sovereign control. But there's another message I think is even more important. And that second message is that there is something that for these men and women and the children affected, there's something that is even more important for them than their very real and serious need for food and shelter. And perhaps it's possible that this is what God is doing, is pointing them to that deeper need. Because the deeper need for them to understand and get help with, is to understand and receive help in their relationship with God. They need to understand where they stand with God. And it is possible, it's certainly possible that God is using the pressure of the circumstances to make them aware of that need. Both parts matter. Both the immediate physical needs and the immediate and eternal spiritual needs. Both matter, both matter a lot. But where they stand, where we stand with God, matters more. Where we stand with God is a matter of life and death. It's not just about where we'll stay or what we'll eat over the next few hours or days or months. But where we stand with God is about forever. What struck me about this text is that both of these needs are addressed in our text this morning in Genesis chapter 21. Both parts. Both the immediate need of food and shelter and the eternal need of a home with God. We see in this text this morning a picture of life without a house. Now I realize they didn't have 2,000 square foot, two story, three bedroom, two bath homes in this age where this comes from. But life without a house, even if it's without a tent, but we also see a picture of life without a home. Life without a house and life without a home. We'll be reading in just a moment from Genesis chapter 21 and I'm going to start reading with verse 8 of Genesis 21. We'll read the first seven verses in just a few minutes. But what we see in the first seven verses, a brief summary, is that finally God's long-awaited promise, the promise that He had made to Abraham and Sarah more than a decade before, The promise that he had made that God would, through them, build a great nation, a nation that would bless all the nations of the earth, and not just through an adopted son, or a son of Abraham alone, through another woman, but no, a son through Abraham and Sarah. This promise, long awaited, and seemingly impossible to them, this promise now comes true. The son, Isaac, is born to Abraham and Sarah, but instead of this being the fulfillment of their hopes, It immediately provokes a crisis. This is what we read about, this crisis in Genesis 21 beginning in verse 8. And the child, Isaac, the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing." So this son, at Sarah's instigation, the son that Abraham had had with Sarah's maid, this son is now laughing at the son of Abraham and Sarah. Ishmael is laughing at Isaac. Verse 11, "...and the thing was very displeasing to Abraham. So Sarah said to Abraham, cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac." The thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. God said to Abraham, be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you. For through Isaac shall your offspring be named. And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring." So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder along with the child and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bow shot. For she said, let me not look on the death of the child. And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy. And the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Up, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand for I will make him into a great nation. Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. And God was with the boy and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with a bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt. This crisis results in the casting out of Hagar and her son through Abraham, her son Ishmael. So that we find them in this text in the wilderness without a home. Now the event that precipitates it is this laughing, what the text describes as Ishmael's laughing at Abraham and Sarah's son Isaac. It's unclear exactly what form this laughing took. Was it some form of mockery or teasing or something that put Ishmael in a place of being in the same status? with Sarah's son Isaac, whatever it is that arouses Sarah's maternal instincts, so that she sees, as we look at verses 9 and 10, she sees that this boy Ishmael is a threat to her own son's standing. He is a threat to her son's inheritance. So that she insists that he be thrown out. Paul calls in Galatians 4, he calls what Ishmael did to Isaac, he calls it persecution. This is the son of Hagar persecuting the son of the promise. So Sarah demands that Abraham, I need to put the language a bit crudely here, but accurately reflecting the language she uses, she demands that Abraham throw her out, just toss her out into the dirt. Now remember, remember where this hostility comes from. This hostility between Hagar and Sarah arises because of Abraham and Sarah's unbelief. Remember, God had promised something good to them. He had promised them a son who would become a mighty nation, who would bless all the nations of the earth, and they had laughed. Both Abraham and Sarah had laughed at this promise on different occasions. And when Sarah was in a moment of unbelief, she came up with a plan to alleviate what God was not doing. They had no son. They were old, far beyond the years at which people would normally produce children. God had promised good to them, but the good did not arrive on their timetable. It didn't come when they expected it, when they wanted it, and it didn't come at all so that they believed that they needed to help God out. And so Sarah came up with a plan. She offered her handmaid to Abraham. that he might produce a child for himself and in a sense for Sarah through Hagar. Sarah treated Hagar, her handmaid, as an instrument to get what she thought would be good for her and Abraham. And they got what they wanted. They got a child, the child of Abraham and Hagar. But once the child comes, Sarah learns now that it was not good. They got what they thought would be good and it proves only to increase hostility and anguish inside the family. What she thought, what Sarah thought would satisfy them, what she thought would meet the longing in their hearts and even fulfill God's promise through their own ingenuity. Instead, it brings shame, jealousy, conflict here in Genesis chapter 21. Brothers and sisters, we've seen this lesson many times already in Genesis. Let us hear it once again. Let us confess it to be true. And if we are living in disobedience against it, let us repent. Let us repent right now. This lesson that we see again and again in the book of Genesis is that pursuing what seems to be good, but pursuing it in rebellion to God's plans, pursuing it in rebellion against him is like chasing a mirage in the desert. You see what appears to be good and chase after it. And when you get to where you think it is, you find that you're hotter and thirstier and more lost than you were before. Pursuing what seems to be good in disobedience against God's word leaves us in a worse situation than we were before. This is what we see with Abraham and Sarah. And friends, can we not, can you and I not look back at circumstances in our lives where we tried to get for ourselves something that was good, something that seemed as though it would bless us and those around us, and we went about it in ways that were disobedient to God, ways which violated His commands and His will? And friends, do we look back on those memories? Ways in which we violated God's will to get what we thought would be good. As we look back on those memories, did what we got turn out to be good for us? Or did it introduce brokenness into our hearts, into our lives? Perhaps brokenness that we still live with even today. But we see in verses 11 and 12 that the situation is not outside God's control. Let's look at those verses. The thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you. For through Isaac shall your offspring be named. And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring. Maybe some of us are under such pressure that the circumstance that you and I are facing, it seems hopeless. It seems out of our control, perhaps even seems outside God's control. You know, maybe on the one hand, you're like Hagar. Maybe you feel, you or I feel like her. That we're suffering because of someone more powerful than us has mistreated us, has used us. I mean, think about who Hagar is. Think about what sort of woman she is here. She's a single mom. She's been sexually exploited in reality by Abraham and Sarah. She's been mistreated by her employers. Situation feels as though it is out of her control. It feels hopeless. Or maybe we identify more closely with Abraham here. because some of us have grief or complicated baggage in our lives because of decisions that we have made, bad decisions that we've made long ago. Maybe we have elements of both in our heart where we've both been mistreated and exploited and a part of that responsibility is ours. Friends, look at this text and remember that God knows, that God sees, and that God is sovereign. Whether we understand it or not, notice, do you see who this conversation is between? This conversation about Hagar and Ishmael and about how God would care for them, about how He would sustain for them, this conversation happens without Hagar and Ishmael knowing about it at all. It's God talking to Abraham. It's so much like what we see in the book of Job, where here is Job, who is suffering the most incredible duress that we could imagine, losing all of his children, having his wife tell him to curse God and die, having his friends blame it on him, having lost all of his children and all of his wealth. And we know, because we're reading the narrator's part of the story, we know that this is all started because God intends to display His grace and His glory, because Satan was assaulting God's character. And all that happens from the narration. And God, from the beginning of the book to the end, never explains that to Job. Similarly here, Hagar is in a situation where she's being thrown out of the household. Perhaps partially because of her own sin, but certainly not entirely because of her own sin. And she doesn't get this explanation that God gives to Abraham for what he would do. She is cast out with no reason for us to believe that she had any hope of survival. Situation is not outside of God's control. But do we believe, do we believe that God either doesn't care or that there's nothing he can do? I mean, isn't that what we functionally believe sometimes? Is, yeah, we may have it in our heads that yeah, God is in control, yeah, he's doing good things, but in those moments when we struggle with doubt, we feel as if he either doesn't know or doesn't care or there's nothing he can do. Friends, this text, like so many others we've seen in Genesis and will continue to see, reminds us that God is acting for good, even when we can't see it. And look at verses 16 and 17. Hagar has put her child down. The distance of a bow shot away so she wouldn't have to watch him die. And there at the end of verse 16, as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy. I don't know why God heard the voice of the boy, why that's what we read here, rather than hearing that he heard the voice of Hagar, but he heard the voice of the boy and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, what troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Up, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation. Now, now Hagar is brought in on the secret. God has heard the voice of the boy, just as Hagar named him, just as God promised that she should name him Ishmael back in Genesis chapter 16. Ishmael, God hears is the meaning of that name. Now that name takes on real life significant meaning as God hears the voice of the boy crying as he is near death. In verse 17, this angel of God speaks. God hears. Through the angel of God, he speaks. He opens, verse 19, he opens Hagar's eyes. And in verse 20, we read that God was with the boy. The decisive actor in this story at every step along the way is God. He is the one who secures life for the people who cry out to him. God's with the boy, he's with Ishmael in verse 20, but later in the text we read that God was with Abraham as well. God is with his people. My suffering friends, cling to these bedrock pieces of God's character. Cling to them, plead, plead for the fulfillment of his promises, plead for you to find a way to rest in his commitment to keep his word. Friends, I've said this many times, God stakes his own reputation on keeping the promises that he has made to his people. From Genesis 1 to the end of the story in eternity. God stakes His reputation on fulfilling the word that He has given to Abraham, to Sarah, to Hagar, and to us. No, friends, no, that it is better, it is better for God to be with us while we suffer without food and shelter. It is better to be with God while we suffer than it is to have our immediate pressing needs met. while He is far away from us. Friends, you may be prosperous, but if you have not the presence of God in your life, if you are not confident of your standing with Him and that your standing with Him is based on the merits of His Son, then friends, we have nothing if we have not that. Perhaps the question arises, what does it mean for God to be with us? You know, He's with Ishmael, God is with Abraham. What does it mean for God to be with us? Well, we've seen in the earliest pages of Scripture, in Genesis 1 and 2 and 3, it was a normal thing for God to be in the garden with His people, to be right there with them, making them out of the dirt, speaking to them, fashioning a woman out of the body of the man, walking with them in the garden. It was a normal thing for God to be with His people. God created us. He created all of humanity to be in His presence, to be in fellowship, to be near to Him. But we know what happens to that story. We've seen it in Genesis 3. Through human rebellion that began with Adam and Eve and continues through the whole human race, God casts his people, the people he created, out of his presence. We now live outside of that beautiful place, that perfect place of Eden. And we endure the real suffering and the life outside that garden. But that was not the end of the story. God intended, God planned to send His Son to enter into human flesh once again to be with His people. With His people. Walking once again alongside them. Speaking with them. Healing them. Hearing them. Making more promises to them. That's why one of Jesus' names is Emmanuel. which means God with us. Jesus is God who is with us. And even though He doesn't walk among us in physical flesh today, He has sent His Holy Spirit to be God with us. And as we sang this morning, as we prayed this morning, Christ will return again to fix what was broken in the fall. But friends, there is still the threat of life outside of God's fellowship. Not outside of His presence, Because even under eternal judgment, God is still present in His wrath. He is present in His justice and in His judgment. The only way for us to be in God's presence, in fellowship with Him, seated at His table, feasting with Him and enjoying His inheritance as we will remember at the Lord's Supper today, only way for us to experience that fellowship, that relationship, that nearness to God is through the work that Christ has done and our dependence upon Him alone. It is not through our good deeds that we can buy our way into God's presence, but through what His Son has finished on the cross and through what the Father has confirmed in raising Him from the dead. as not only a confirmation of His obedience, but in hope, as a confirmation that we will receive eternal life as well through Him. This is what it means for God to be with us. To have the present awareness, the present ministry of His Spirit, and the promise of eternity with Him. That is life. That is a picture of life without a house. Life even without a house. Even when you or I or others outside this building live life without food and shelter, God hears those who call, just as He heard Ishmael. But we all experience life without a home. We see this in Genesis chapter 21. We'll pick up reading in verse 1 and notice it'll become more clear as this text goes on. We left off in Genesis 20. Abraham was living in the territory of Abimelech. Abimelech is the guy who Abraham and Sarah went to journey in his land. They told a lie and said, hey, you know, if we bump into anybody in this land, Sarah, tell the men of this land that you are my sister so that they won't kill me to get you. She winds up in Abimelech's harem, essentially. And God protects Abraham and Sarah from both the threat of adultery and the threat of Abraham's death. And they're still in Abimelech's territory. Here Abraham has shelter. He has shelter in Abimelech's land. He even has prosperity in this land. But he doesn't have a home. He's living under God's promise, remember, that God would give him a land, a vast, expansive land that would be not just his, but would belong to his descendants as well. But it's still not his, he's a wanderer. Let's see what happens here in Genesis 21. Well, I'll read verses one through seven. The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh over me. And she said, who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have born him a son in his old age. And in her old age as well. She would have been about 90 years old at this time. Look at verses 1 and 2 while I summarize what's happening there for you. Look at this kind of repeated theme. The Son came as God had said, as God had promised, at the time of which God had spoken. God does exactly what He said He would do and He did it even exactly when He said He would do it. That is how God keeps His promises. We may not always know exactly how, we may not always know exactly when, but God will fulfill His promises. And notice, the right response to this, there in verse, I think it's in verse three, the right response to God doing what He said is, is verse three, Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac, and Abraham circumcised his son as God had commanded him. This is the right response to God making and keeping His promises is for us to respond to Him in obedience. Friends, this theme may get old, but we're going to keep seeing it in the text. We're going to hear it again and again and again that God does what He says He will do even when His people doubt Him. One of the basic keys to following Jesus is learning how to preach the good news, to preach the gospel to ourselves, to preach God's character and attributes to ourselves. Paul Tripp, a helpful biblical counselor, has written lots of great things. He writes that there is nobody in your life who talks to you more than, more than who? More than you do. Nobody talks to you more than you. I don't care how much your children talk to you, how many questions they ask, how much your spouse talks to you. Nobody talks to you more than you do. and learning to use the words that you speak to yourselves, learning to discipline the words that we say to ourselves, not even out loud, learning to have those words be drenched with truth about the character and promises of God is fundamental to living in faith in God's promises. We have got to learn to preach the truth about God to ourselves when Satan is whispering lies into our ears. Notice in verses 3 and 4 how Abraham obeys, both in naming his son and in circumcising his son. This is, as I said, the natural response to God keeping His promises. This is the response of faith. Faith in the fact that God has done what He had said, that this realization that God has done what He said He'd do, and that He will continue to do it. And notice in this text how prominent laughter is. We've seen it before back in chapter 17, Abraham heard this promise of a son and he laughed. In chapter 18, Sarah heard this promise of a son and she laughed. And God said, you know what? Name this child Isaac, which means he laughs. Here in this text, we see that Isaac, he receives this name of laughter. And in verse six, Sarah says, God has made laughter. A little bit of a play on the words here. God has made Isaac or God has made laughter for me so that everyone who hears about what has happened, they will laugh over me. And this isn't the mocking laugh of Ishmael. This is the laughter of joy that everyone who hears the remarkable work that God has done in bringing a child to a 90 year old woman will just laugh with. in credulity and amazement and joy over how God kept His promise to her. And then in verse 12, God says it, through Isaac, through the one who laughs, through this one who laughs, through this thing you laughed about, through this child that you laughed about, through what you thought was impossible, this is the one through whom my promises to you will be fulfilled. Your offspring. Your descendants and the inheritance will not go through the child that you manufactured a way to produce, but through the one that God provided against hope. Friends, what's the point of all this? The point of it is that God, naturally, ordinarily, we ought to expect that God will keep His promises to us in ways that will make our logic, make our rationality, that will make it look silly. And in ways that will make our expectations about what He will do look tiny. Expect God to work in ways that make our reason look silly and our expectations infinitesimally small. That is the kind of God who loves to work in that way because it shows His power and glory and confounds human wisdom. So that we stand back and say, who would have imagined that God would do this just as Sarah does? Who would have thought? Who would have said that I would bring forth a child for Abraham? Friends, What's the who would have ever said that kind of question that applies to you? Think about your life, your biography, the people who've known you in different phases of your life. What are the things that you could say to them, who would have ever thought that this would happen to me? Who would have ever thought that I would do this? Not because of your wisdom and ideas and strength, but because God has worked in your life in ways that you never would have imagined. What are you struggling to believe? What are you struggling to believe that God could accomplish through you? Because God loves to do His work. He loves to accomplish His purposes through people that nobody ever would have imagined. Maybe you're an introvert, or maybe you don't know the Bible as well as you feel like you should. Maybe you're not a great speaker. Maybe you feel like your life or work is insignificant. Praise God. That's fantastic, because He's got you right where He wants you. God takes introverts and people who think their lives are insignificant and people who aren't great speakers and people who are poor and people who are marginalized and vulnerable and insecure and weak. God loves to use people like that because they give the praise to Him. They're not deluded into thinking that they deserve the praise themselves. So if that's who you are, trust God to work in you. I'll pick on Dana since he's away. You can tell him later, I don't think he'll mind. I look out over this congregation and I could tell stories about others of you who are here as well. So that's incentive to show up at church because if you're not here some Sunday, I might start telling stories about you. But I'm going to pick on Dana. Many of you know this. There was a time in Dana's life when Dana's friends would have thought it would be more likely for him to be in prison than to be holding weekly Bible studies in prison. You know, pray for Dana as he goes about that work. Hey, join him in that work if you have the ability. It doesn't matter if you feel like you don't know your Bible well enough right now. Go along and learn and we will help you and equip you. Dana has grown over the years just as you are growing in so many ways in spreading the gospel and in encouraging one another. That is the kind of God that we serve, that we serve. He takes people who seem most likely to be on the other side of things and then turns them into his ministers, into his fruitful ministers. I wonder about our congregation in particular. What if the primary obstacle to God working through this congregation, what if the primary obstacle to God doing more through us isn't our small size? What if it's not the location where we meet or the fact that we can't be in this building on Easter? What if the primary obstacle to us isn't our our flawed strategy for going about gospel work, or our lack of spiritual gifts, not having the kinds of gifts we wish we had. What if the obstacle is not any of those things, but what if our obstacle is the fact that we don't trust His promises enough? Is that possible? Is it possible that the biggest obstacle to God bringing more people to faith in Christ through us and to have people trained and equipped to take the gospel to other places is not the fact that we're so weak, but that we think He's so weak? Friends, let us repent of our faithlessness, of our frequent failure to trust God to do the work that He has said He would do. Are we laughing at the thought that God would use us? or use this church to reach a people group somewhere in the world where there is presently no gospel witness. This is Abraham's life outside a home. While he is living in Abimelech's territory, God is keeping his promises to him and leading Abraham and Sarah to greater faith. But even though God has now kept His promise to Abraham of a son, He's not done with Abimelech yet. He's still living on Abimelech's land. So let's pick up the story in verse 22 of some further contact between Abraham and Abimelech. Now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity. But as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have sojourned. And Abraham said, I will swear. when Abraham reproved Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech's servants had seized from Abraham. Abimelech said, I do not know who has done this thing. You do not tell me, and I have not heard of it until today. So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant. Abraham set seven new lambs of the flock apart. And Abimelech said to Abraham, What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart? He said, these seven ewe lambs you will take from my hand, that this may be a witness for me that I dug this well. Therefore, that place was called Beersheba, because there both of them swore an oath. So they made a covenant at Beersheba that Abimelech and Phichol, the commander of his army, rose up and returned to the land of the Philistines. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines." Now this isn't, as we said before, this isn't Abraham's first contact with Abimelech. What Abimelech knows so far about Abraham comes out in his first words there in verses 22 and 23 of this part of the chapter. Abimelech knows from previous experience with Abraham that God is with Abraham, but he also knows that he's not so sure whether he can trust Abraham. Abraham had lied to him before and just about got Abimelech in a whole bunch of hot water. So you can see here that when Abimelech speaks to Abraham, he speaks to Abraham and affirms that God is with you, but also demands that Abraham be honest with him. He had every reason to raise both of those issues. Notice how the situation might be a little surprising here. So here in these verses, in verses 23 and 24, who's the ruler of the land? It's Abimelech. And the ruler of the land of Bimelech is coming to Abraham asking this sojourner, this wanderer, for a blessing. The greater is coming to the presently lesser and asking for commitments and promises and blessings from him. This is the beginning of the fulfillment that God would bless. As he said, God would bless all nations through Abraham. And in verses that follow, Abraham offers these sheep, first sheep and oxen, and then these specific seven sheep as a token of his word. Now Abraham is finally blessing the others, he's blessing other nations rather than taking from them. When Abraham went into Egypt, and then when he went into the land of Abimelech and lied about Sarah, he wound up receiving riches from the nations. He was a taker rather than a blesser, and now he is beginning this work of blessing. And he leaves behind in this land a tamarisk tree. It says in verse 33 there, he plants a tamarisk tree and he calls on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God. What's this all about? We moved up here, you all know this, just about a year ago from Austin up to Leander. And there were no trees in our backyard when we moved in. Since we moved in now, we've planted 13 trees, none of them taller than me. Some of them not even up to my knees when we put them in the ground. Planting those trees is for us, you know, it's a declaration of our intention to live in that house for a long, long time. You know, if we were going to be there for a couple of years, I wouldn't put any money and effort into putting trees down in the backyard. We plant those trees because we intend for this to be a home where we'll see our children and maybe even our grandchildren live in it one day. It's our declaration of our anticipation of the future. We are cultivating for the future. It's a way for my family and for us to say that we are hoping and experiencing, we're hoping that we as a family will experience the fulfillment of God's good promises for us in this place. And I think that's part of what Abraham is doing here. He's planting a tree in the anticipation that it will last and that it will bless in years to come. He's improving the land for his descendants. He's improving the land for their sake. But even more than this, I suspect that this tamarisk tree points to something more. I found out that a tamarisk is a fairly common Middle Eastern evergreen tree. The fact that this is an evergreen tree might even point to what Abraham is confessing about God here, that he is the everlasting God. He is the God who does not change. Maybe what Abraham has learned through his faithlessness with Hagar and with the Egyptians and with his time with Abimelech, perhaps finally he has learned that God never changes, that God's character stays the same even when Abraham is faithless. We end this portion of the story with him still a sojourner in the land of the Philistines, and God watches over him even when he is a nomad outside of his home. Now friends, you might say this is a nice story about Abraham, great God took care of him, what does it have to do with us? Well friends, in a very real way, you and I are the homeless today. We are sojourners. Wanderers, in some ways even nomads. It is clear that this world as it is right now is not our home. If our hopes were fixed on this world, they must be small hopes indeed for it to be fixed on nothing more than we see right now. But the text we read earlier, the text in Hebrews, gives us a bigger, more eternal perspective on our life in this age. Abraham, we read in Hebrews 11, by faith, Abraham went to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land. The land that God promised to him was like a foreign country to him. Living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city, not just the land, but he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. And the story goes on. All these people that Hebrews talks about their faith and their trust in God's promises, these all died in faith, not having received the things promised. but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city." And that is the city that we read about at the end of the Bible, the city where heaven fuses with earth and where God dwells with his people from the very center, the holy city, the New Jerusalem. center of the new heavens and the new earth. That is the place that God is preparing for us. And as we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we celebrate in anticipation of that day where God brings heaven to earth and recreates it to be all that it was intended to be, and if anything, even more. We prayer walked this neighborhood last Sunday, and we see the houses in this neighborhood. These houses, the people that we talked to, wandering, not wandering, walking, sitting, talking, People on the footsteps of their houses in this neighborhood, these are the closest things to a home that the residents of Cedar Park will ever know, apart from God's saving grace. But these homes, their homes are only temporary. God promises His people. God promises us something better. We need to be the people who expect this better home for us and who point others to that eternal better home. So whether your house is a tent or a mansion, relative to eternity, it's just a short-term rental. You know, it's an Airbnb. It's a glorified bed and breakfast. It's the sort of thing somebody who comes into town for South by Southwest, who finds a couch to surf on for a week. That's what your home is. That's what this world is for us right now in light of what God is preparing us for in eternity. And as Abraham's offspring through Christ, as that is what we are, it is our mission to bless this community. treat the men and women of this city with kindness and dignity and respect and fairness, even in dispute, as Abraham did here with Abimelech, to give them the hope of an eternal city. Friends, we've spent the last two weeks talking about the brokenness, the brokenness that has infected our world, and how this infection came because mankind has rebelled against what God designed for us and what He designed us for. We've seen the brokenness in sexuality, in marriage, and in our work. But that brokenness that we looked at doesn't simply infect our sexuality and marriage and work. It infects and distorts everything. Like Hagar, some of us will suffer the loss of food and shelter. And like Abraham and Sarah, all of us suffer in one way or another in a land that is not home to us. God created us for a better place, and God is preparing this congregation, He is preparing us to live in that place. The Lord's Supper paints to us a picture of our hope, of full cleansing, of a seat at His table. In the meantime, we wait in hope and anticipation. We trust in His promises, and we seek to bless. Friends, what is it that you have struggled to believe is good for you over this past week? Which of God's promises are you struggling to believe that He will keep? Friend, you do not struggle alone. You sit in this room with several dozen others, the pastor among us, who we all struggle in this way. Let us be, for one another, brothers and sisters who encourage one another with the facts of the past, from Abraham to our present day, how God has kept his promises. Let's pray. Father, we confess our faithlessness. We plead in hope for your forgiveness. Teach us, even through this Lord's Supper, Teach us to remember how you kept your promises to us by offering your own son. And how will you, who have freely offered your own son for us, withhold anything, any truly good thing from us? Oh, Father, through your Holy Spirit, help us to believe. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.