So as we're in Genesis 18, though, I want you to notice that Abraham is just going about his business Like he's just staying faithful. He's continuing to serve. And so as we read through this, let's start off in verse 1 It says and the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre and so he's just sitting there doing his thing Remember he lives in a tent All right, he travels around he kind of moves where his herds are and so he has settled here on these plains and he's just minding his business and again, he's waiting for the Lord to come through and he's just Continuing to stay faithful and and you look he says the Lord appeared to him on the plains of Mamre Again, this has been a long time coming as he sent as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day And he lift up his eyes and look and lo three men stood by him and when he saw them he ran to meet them from the tent door and bowed himself toward the ground and Now, we know that at least one of these is the Lord. Now, whether this is a manifestation of the Trinity, whether this is the Lord and two angels, it's unclear, because again, two of them are gonna leave and go towards Sodom. So we assume this is the Lord as one of the figures, and the other two are angels that are gonna head off towards Sodom and take care of that in just a sec. So there's a lot of stuff going on here, but you see three figures that just randomly show up. And so here's the point. First application, right off the bat is, we just keep being faithful and doing what God has asked us to do, and we wait for him to come through. Like the promise has been made, the scripture has been set, we just sit back and we do what God asks. And so he is just living his life, he's living in the promised land, he's continuing to be faithful, and he is not forgetting to be hospitable. So this second thing, there are opportunities that God is gonna put in our path, take them. Opportunities to witness, opportunities to serve, opportunities to be hospitable, those ideas. I love the verse that says, be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for some have entertained angels unaware. And this idea of, this is literally Abraham, he is not forgetful to entertain strangers, he sees these three men coming up to visit him, and look at what he does to take care of them, And he quite literally is hosting the Lord and some angels apparently. And so I want you to notice this because look what it says. It says, and he lift up his eyes and lo, there are three men stood by him. And when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door and he bowed himself to the ground. You then verse 3 he said my lord. So apparently he knows who this is He said my lord if I have found favor in thy sight pass not away I pray thee from thy servant let a little water I be I pray you be fetched wash your feet and rest yourself under a tree and I will fetch a morsel of bread and Comfort you your hearts after that you shall pass on for therefore you are come to your servant and they said so do as thou has said And so again, we just kind of see this spirit of service amongst Abraham. We see him, again, he's 99 years old. He's the patriarch. He's the guy who God has had no shortage of dealing with. But you see a great level of humility here, where he is basically putting himself out there. He is greeting, he is, now, this is gonna be an interesting contrast to Lot, because Lot actually does the same thing. So when we get to Lot's story in the next chapter, Lot will do the same thing. He finds these guys, and in a spirit of hospitality, he brings them into his house. He protects them. And Lot actually goes so far as to kind of stand as a barrier between the sinful city and his own guests. So I want you to see that when we bad mouth Lot, he actually is not irredeemable. Like he actually does have a lot of good traits. He has a lot of the hospitality, the kindness, the protection, but Lot kind of screwed it up the rest of it. All right, and so I want you to start kind of noticing these contrasts. And so here with Abraham, he's going out, he's getting food, he's getting water, he's taking care of these men. All right, in verse six, and Abraham hastened unto the tent, unto Sarah. All right, so again, 99 years old, he's hot-footing it around the campsite, he's getting everything ready to go, and he is just going out of his way to serve these men. And he says, hastened under the tent to Sarah, make thee ready three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth. And Abram ran unto the herd, and he fetched a calf, tender and good, and gave it unto the young men, and he hasted to dress it. So it seems like he himself is actually doing a lot of this work, like he's not, He's not even delegating this one. I'd be like, you know, you're the 99-year-old patriarch. You think you could tell the young buck, you know, go get the animal and let's take, like, this is something where he's like, no, no, no, I'm doing this myself. This is important to me. And so he's hastening, he's making it, verse eight, and he took butter and milk and the calf, which he had dressed, and he set it before them and he stood by them under the tree and they did eat. And so, again, what do we see in this passage? Well, first of all, verse one, we just see this idea of God will sometimes give us divine appointments. I don't know if you ever thought about this, just opportunities to witness for him. Our testimony is really only useful if we use it to share with other people. If you have a testimony of what God has done in your life and you can share that with someone, they start understanding, oh, there's something different about you. And I know some of you have done that at work and you've done that just in your community where you've said, hey, let me tell you what the Lord has done. You're just faithfully going about your work. You're faithfully going about your business, but then now you can share what God has been doing in your life on a personal level because you're just living your life. You're not being a hypocrite, you're just living your life, and if the opportunity arises, you take opportunity. And so what he's doing here is, again, he's just doing what he normally does. He's living his life, he's sitting in the tent door, and he sees these men walking up, and he just goes and he greets them and he takes care of them, and it's just Abraham living his life, but he gets this divine appointment. Some of the divine appointments, I remember one time I had one, I consider a divine appointment, Years ago, back before COVID, Black Friday sales were actually a thing back then and you had the Thursday night where Walmart would open and you could get all the discounted stuff. We didn't really care too much, but we accidentally one time, my wife and I, we accidentally discovered the Thursday night Black Friday deals because we were driving back home from a Thanksgiving meal and we're like, what are all those people doing at Walmart? So we just decided on a whim, we're driving home. We got nothing else to do tonight. Let's just swing into Walmart and see what the whole hubbub is about. And we're like, oh, this is kind of fun. We travel hours for fun, so we're kind of strange people. And so we just kind of popped in, and we just kind of were like, oh, this is kind of neat. Crowds, sure. And so we just kind of made it an unofficial tradition that after Thanksgiving meal, we would just go out to Walmart and just kind of see what the craziness was all about. And so it was kind of a dumb tradition. I get it. We've mostly dropped it because it's just not fun anymore. But I remember one time. I was traveling back, I had had Thanksgiving over in Folsom, and I was traveling back to Grass Valley, and you've got that Sierra College Walmart right there, kind of at the corner right before you get on 80. And I remember, I was walking into Walmart, and there's all these crowds of people coming and going, and some Mormon missionaries walked up. And it was one of those things where I'm like, I kind of like talking to people of other religions. And so they came up and they started asking me some questions. And so I was like, hey, Deb, you go on ahead. I'm just going to stand here and talk. And it was one of those opportunities where I just got, because I had been studying Mormonism, and I was like, let's just stand here. And I am perfectly fine just talking. And I went Columbo on them. So I just started asking questions. I didn't make any assertions. I didn't really do anything. Hey, is it true that you guys believe this? Hey, is it true? I've heard this. And I just, I kind of played ignorant, and I just talked. And at one point in the conversation, they're like, you know a lot about Mormonism. And I'm like, I've been outed. You know, but it was one of those things where you just stand there, and I'm like, I could go in and shop. I got nothing in there I really want to buy. I was just curious. But here I am in a parking lot, and these Mormon missionaries, and it's a double benefit. Because not only do I get to witness to them, I get to stop them from witnessing to anyone else. And so it's kind of, I'm tying, it's like a telemarketer. You know, you get on the phone with a telemarketer, and you kind of tie them up for like 45 minutes, and then you're like, okay, I don't want to buy what you're buying anyway. And you've now protected a bunch of other people from, you know. Sorry, if you're a telemarketer, I'm thinking more of the phone scammers, not the telemarketers. But you know, you tie them up for a while, you get those good conversations going, and what was that? That was a divine appointment. That was, if you wanna think about it, that was a divine appointment where God said, I'm gonna orchestrate it so that this random couple wanders by just the time you happen to randomly wander by, and you just happen to be studying it, they happen to be wanting to convert you, and there you go. Now did it go any farther than that? No, because I think they realized I wasn't Really in their wheelhouse to be converted and probably if they sent anyone to me They might be deconverted rather than converted. So I realized they probably pulled them back and said no you can't go visit I I don't know but but look at those opportunities. Look at those divine appointments. What was it? I did not go out specifically to be like I'm going to go Mormon hunting today. I What was it? I just was going about my business saw some Mormon missionaries. They came over to talk and I just talked It's a divine appointment. Look at Abraham. He's just minding his business in the tent door. He's just chilling out And this is why I I kind of wish more came by the doors these days I know Jehovah's Witnesses don't do it so much anymore, but it's kind of nice because it's like reverse door-to-door They come to you and you can just stand there and talk to them So I would encourage you take those opportunities if you see, you know Jehovah's Witnesses just sitting there trying to hand out their paperwork and you know enough about it go have a conversation if you see Mormon missionaries and they are up to talking to you or if you see people or if you even have a way just to insert your own testimony and tell them hey Can I tell you what God's been doing for me? it might go nowhere. It might end right there, and that's the extent of the conversation, and they go, thank you, have a nice day. I knew of a guy who, he's in apologetics now, he does debates with all sorts of different cult groups and other things, and he said when he started his ministry, it started out with the Mormons. And he said he had a sister, sister-in-law now, his sister-in-law, He said she was being visited. And so she knew he was studying it. So she said, can you come over here and help me? And so he came over and he started witnessing back and forth with these, these, these elders, which if you ever see them with the elders, that means they're like 18 years old and they're on the mission. So they're not really elders, but that's the term they give them. And he said, it got to the point where he was witnessing to so many Mormons. They literally had a picture of him that basically said, do not engage with this man. And one time he was sitting in a window waiting for the Mormon missionary to show up. And the Mormon missionary rode by kind of looked up in the window, saw him. and just kept going and didn't stop. So he kind of got notorious to be like, no, no, no, you're not allowed to talk to that guy. And so you might have that happen where you do a good enough job and your ministry opportunities are shut down. Who cares? It's in God's hands. And so I would encourage you, if you get that opportunity to praise the Lord, to honor the Lord with what he has shown you, what he has done in your life, take those opportunities. And again, I think it's really interesting to just sit and talk and be able to witness in that way. But this goes far beyond that. There are times where you can talk about how God provided. And this is what I would call reverse complaining. We all understand what complaining is. Complaining kind of wires the brain to be cynical and always kind of see the negative side. But I don't know if you've ever tried reverse complaining, where things are going wrong and you intentionally start talking about all the good stuff God's been doing in your life lately. And like you're, you know, you don't always feel it. Sometimes you feel like you're underwater in the bad things happening, but you intentionally turn it around and you're like, hey, let me tell you the cool things God's doing. And so so those are the types of things I would say let's let's focus on saying let's we just go about our life We honor the Lord we seek opportunity where it may be found and that's exactly what Abraham's doing in this passage Now again as you look at this, like I said, there are these things called divine appointments God just kind of drops it into your lap and you go. What am I supposed to do with this? You just serve him. You just honor him. And then as you look at this, like I said, referencing that verse, some have entertained angels unaware. You just serve. You serve other people. And again, I keep bringing up the fact of Abraham's age and his position, because again, Abraham was 99 years old, and he was in a position of great honor and authority, and yet look at how he served. Look at how he went out of his way. He could have said, I'm too good for this. I'm not serving you. But look what he did. He goes out of his way. He goes and gets the cow. He goes and gets, now I'm not saying you can't delegate. Obviously you have to. But I'm saying there are things where you can say, no, no, no, I've got the time. I've got the strength. Let me serve you. And that's what Abraham's gonna do. And so again, I just challenge, we take advantage of those divine appointments. We take advantage of the opportunity to serve. But then, if you look at verse three through eight, I think the application here is this. You serve the Lord with the best of your ability. I don't know if you've, so we'll talk about Wolf Mountain a bit today, because it's camp registration Sunday and we're getting ready to both go to camp as men and also send kids to camp this summer. But if you go to Wolf Mountain and you wander around, you're going to see these concrete benches everywhere. And they were done by a guy named Harrington. And Harrington was like the premier concrete manufacturer in this area. He made really nice stuff. And if you travel around, you will actually find his stuff. I think it's called like Harrington Precast or something. Like you will find his stuff everywhere. He was the concrete guy. He made concrete tables and benches. And I mean, like I said, like I have wandered around to parks and I've looked and I'd be like, oh, that's a Harrington product. Like he is everywhere. So what happened was he went to Wolf Mountain decades ago. And as he was at Wolf Mountain, he looked around and he realized things were not really upkept well. And so he said, okay, I've got all these seconds. And so he was working with concrete. And so things that couldn't be sold, they were the seconds. And he said, you know what? I've got all this extra seconds material. I'll give it to camp. And that way they can have these nice maintenance-free concrete benches. I'll just give it to them. So he gives them to camp. And again, he had been part of their men's retreat and other things. And then the Lord convicted him because the Lord said, you just gave me your castoffs. Like, you just gave me your seconds. Like, you can't sell those. You wouldn't sell those because they're not good enough to go to customers, but now you're saying they're good enough to donate. And so he actually felt convicted about the fact that he had just given God all of his Seconds and so he went and he took all them back and he gave it all the new stuff And so he provided and and if you go around camp you will find concrete benches and tables Absolutely everywhere. I mean that is an unbelievable value amount of stuff that he just gave to honor the Lord because he saw the need and And if I get my story correct, he actually got to the point where he would actually show up even after the new crew took over in 2011. He would show up because he's like, I noticed like the grass isn't being mowed and I just want to make sure like things are looking good. And he would actually go and start like mowing the lawns and stuff and John had to kind of pull him back to be like, we will get someone to mow the lawn. You do not have to be the guy to go mow. But that was just his level of service where he looked and he had a concern for the, again, if we are gonna serve God well, let's make sure it's done beautifully. Let's make sure it's done well. And look what he's doing. He came and he said, no, no, I am going to give the best that I have. I'm not gonna give the seconds. I'm not gonna give the cast offs. I'm gonna give the nice stuff. Because if the Lord is worthy, he's worthy of the best. And so again, you look around camp and decades. Those concrete tables are still there. And so if you drive into camp, we actually have a section named after him. It's called Harrington Hill. It's where all the RVs and stuff get parked. But it's just kind of an homage to a guy who just said, no, it's not good enough for me to give my second best. I'm going to give my best. And he didn't do it for honor. He didn't do it for recognition. He did it out of a concern because he said, the Lord's doing a work here, and I want to be a blessing to it. And I found that amazing because here's a guy who nobody, like nobody who's not in a concrete business would understand even that that was second best. I mean, a concrete bench to me is a concrete bench. But he looked at it, he said, I know the difference. I know that wasn't my best. I know that wasn't the best work I could give. And if I'm not willing to sell it to a customer, I shouldn't be willing to give it to God. And you'll see that throughout scripture because God will say things like, the sacrifice I expect is spotless. And he starts getting on the Jewish's case because what they're doing is they're offering the lame and the poor and he's going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you wouldn't give that to your king, would you? And if you wouldn't give it to your king, why would you give it to me? And so what you see with Abram, and I think it's a real challenge to us, Abram he steps up and he gets the fatted calf and he gets the fine meal and he gets I mean you look through the description He says like I will serve you and he goes I'll get you water and then he says I'll wash your feet Again, I don't that's the low servants job You know what? I mean? And here here he is the patriarch the old man who should be the one being served and he goes No, no I know who this is and I'll wash your feet because it's an honor for me to wash your feet. I mean, think about it. If God walked in the door right now, we would probably scramble to find ways to serve him. Like if he physically appeared, none of us would think twice about washing God's feet. Like we would find a way, even if like we didn't have knees that functioned, we would find a way to get down and wash God's feet. But what the Bible says is what you've done to the least of these, you've done unto me. He says, if you give a cup of water in my name, someday I will shout it from the housetop. But he says, you visited me in prison. You served me when I was sick. And he says, people are going to go, when did we do that? And that's why he says, if you've done it unto the least of these, my brother, you've done it unto me. And so those are the types of things where we have these opportunities to serve. And by serving others, we really are by proxy serving the Lord in that way. And so just a good reminder that we have to think about. And so as you keep going, look at these descriptions of quality. Verse five, I will fetch a morsel of bread and comfort you your hearts. So he's not just concerned about meeting just the needs. He is actually trying to make them comfortable. He is trying to serve them. They've been traveling. He's trying to find ways to say, hey, I'm gonna give you, I'm giving you a relaxing time. I'm helping you out in this way. And so what he says is he says, Hey, I'm going to give you food. I'm going to give you bread. I'm going to wash your feet. I'm going to give you a way to relax. There's no, there's no shame in serving people that way in serving someone and saying, Hey, take a load off. Yes, I know. Like technically I am higher than you, but let me help. Let me let me honor you in that way. He keeps going and he says verse 6 and Abraham as they are like relaxing Abraham hastened to the tent. He tells Sarah go make food, you know go make bread Probably because Sarah was better at it than he was and so he says go get go get these measures of fine meal You know don't spare any expense Let's let's serve them well and verse 7 and Abraham ran to the tent and he fetched the calf tender and good he gives it to a young man to go take care of it, but he's I mean he is he's doing all of this work to give them quite a spread and all of it is the best quality he possibly can. He's serving the Lord to the best of his ability. Verse eight, he takes butter and milk. I mean, you think you could stop at the, I gave you water and I washed your feet. Okay, I gave you water and I washed your feet and I gave you a place to sit down. I gave you water, I washed your feet, I gave you a place to sit down and now I'm making you like a muffin. Okay, and I mean, he just keeps going more and more and you're like, Abraham, There's three of them, but he's throwing the whole banquet out. He's saying, I am serving you guys as top notch, top quality as I possibly can because you're worth it, because you're worth serving in this way. And again, verse eight, and he took butter and milk and the calf, which he addressed, and he set it before them. And then look what he did. He stood by them under the tree and they'd eat. So he's like a waiter. I don't know if you've ever been, you know, like a fancy restaurant or even a, you know, like Olive Garden. I'm just kidding. But, but, you know, like you, you stand, you go to a fancy restaurant and you'll, you'll have that waiter who like shows up and you're like, oh, we're good. Thank you. You know, and they kind of wander over and they hover for a little bit and, you know, that's kind of what Abraham's doing. He, he's standing there just waiting to see if they need anything else and he's just standing by, waiting to serve more. And again, that, that level of humility, that level of saying, Again, I know I'm in position more than you. You could say, I'm better than you. But he recognizes who he's serving. And let's take this a different direction. I remember we used to joke at camp that the passage where Jesus washes the disciples' feet was like the camp counselor passage. And the reason we said that is because there's a lot of stuff that we would say as camp counselors to our campers. And the whole idea would be, you'll get it later. You'll understand what we did later. You don't understand it this week, but Lord willing, as you meditate on these things, you'll get it later. And I want you to think about when Jesus washes the disciples' feet. They come in. They're all jostling. I mean, they've been going back and forth on, who gets to sit by your right hand when you come into the kingdom? And they're all jockeying for power. Some of them even bring their mom into the mix to be like, hey, can you get involved and ask him for a favor? I'm like, guys, come on. And they're all jockeying for power. And Jesus says, if you're going to be the chief, you're going to be the servant. And the last shall be first, and the first shall be last. He's trying to get them to understand that it's not about their position, not about their power. And one of the last things he decides to do as an object lesson is he puts off his robe and he wraps himself in a towel and he kneels down and he starts doing the dirtiest, lowest servant's job. Remember I said like if God were to walk in the door right now, we would rush to serve him. Like physically God walked in, okay, we'd probably all fall on our face. But if we had the ability to serve him, we would run and serve him, no doubt. But what is Jesus's picture? Jesus goes and he says I am going to wash the very nasty feet of Those who are just about to turn on me I mean, think about that. Someone pointed this out the other week. He still called Judas friend at this point. He knew exactly what Judas was about to do, and he washed Judas' feet. He knew exactly what Peter was about to do, and he washed Peter's feet. And they don't get the illustration. They don't understand what he's trying to do, but he's trying to get that picture across to them to say, this is the ability, this is the way you have to serve each other. If you have to get down and do the nasty, dirty, lowest person's job, then you get down and you do the nasty, lowest person's job, because it's how you serve one another. And so you see it with Abraham, you see it with other people, I mean, you see it with Lot, and you see it, like I said, with Jesus, where Jesus is going out of his way to do a job no one else, again, think about the disciples. Jesus would say this, like, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and you don't do what I say? You know, like you say you love me, but you don't listen to me. Like this is what Jesus is saying to his disciples. And yet none of the disciples go, you know what, there's no one around to wash anybody's feet. I better get to that. None of the disciples do that because what are they doing? All the disciples are jockeying for that top spot. And so Jesus basically says, fine, I'll do it. And Jesus is the last person from an earthly perspective who should be doing this. He's the last one that should be bending over and washing anybody's feet. But what he's doing is he's showing us a pattern for service that we've seen throughout the scripture all the way up to this point. And again, I want you to kind of notice that. And so as we look through the life of Abraham, just in these few passages, we see the idea of divine appointments come when you just serve the Lord the way you just go about your business. Go about your business, serve the Lord, take the opportunities when they arrive. There are times where we are given the opportunity to be hospitable. We don't know who we're serving. We serve to the best of our ability. Continuing that theme, we give our best. We don't give what's left over. We give our best. And I think that's why God challenges the idea of the tithe. Because what is the tithe? It's saying, I'm gonna give you the first fruits. I'm gonna give you right off the top, the best. I'm not gonna hold it until it molders a little bit, and then I'm gonna bring it in. It's the idea of, no, no, no. The first fruits are theoretically the best. And the idea of giving God your best says, I'm trusting you to make the rest of this just as good. I'm trusting you, if I give you the first, And if I give you the best stuff I have, I'm trusting you to take care of whatever comes after, because this could have been sold for a lot of money. But I'm honoring you by saying, I trust you enough to provide, and I love you enough to give you first. And that's the idea. Even that concept of the tithe, it's not about the 10%. It's not about nickel and diamond, God. It's the idea of saying, I am going to give my best right off the top just to show God how much I love him. And that's where God's like, it's not about the number. I mean, if you look at what the Israelites gave in offerings, and it was way, way above the 10%, you know, with all, so people get caught up, oh, is it net or gross, or is it, you know, and Jesus is like, that's not the point. If you don't love me, if you don't actually care about the things I care about, Your sacrifice stinks to me. Obey is better than sacrifice. Hearken than the fat of rams. I'm not concerned about the stuff, but what are you doing? You are showing him that you're bringing him your best. You're showing them that you're putting him first. And that's what Abraham did. Again, Jesus showed that love there. And then you, you of course see that throughout scripture. So again, As we keep going though, when we do give our best to God, we trust him to bring the flourishing. We're trusting him to come through. We're trusting him to give. I knew a guy and he didn't have a whole lot of money and he basically had the attitude. He said, oh, I'll give when God gives me more. You know, when I have enough to give, then I'll start giving to God. Again, that is the wrong attitude. You've got it backwards. Because what is God asking us to do? He asks us to trust Him. He asks to give of our best. And we trust Him to make up that difference. And I watched, because I watch people. And I watched this guy who basically said, I'll give when I get enough. Every time he gets two nickels to rub together, he goes out and buys another junk car. And he can't afford to pay it, and it gets repossessed. I mean, the dude, I don't know if he even drives, and he's got multiple cars, because he just keeps buying a new car every time he gets enough money to do it. And he just got himself upside down in debt. And I look at that, and I go, if you cared more about God's stuff than your own stuff, I think he'd save you from a lot of this trouble. But I just watched, as he never gets ahead. And again, we don't give to God to get ahead. But I'm just saying, there is a level where, like you look in the Old Testament with the minor prophets. They said, you saved all this money, but you don't care a lick about what God thinks, and God blows on it. Figuratively speaking, you put it into a bag with holes, it fell right out of your pocket. And those are the ideas where you'll see that. And to end the illustration, I remember there was one guy I grew up with, his dad actually got saved because his dad was a businessman, he wasn't a believer, and his wife was saved, and his wife was giving. And his wife was given to the church, and he thought that was ridiculous. He just thought that was stupid. And so she challenged him. She said, the Lord tells us to test him with our giving. And the Lord says, you can't out-give me. So I would just challenge you. Put God to the test. And so she challenged her husband on, and he's like, yeah, whatever. And he started giving, and it actually, God blessed it. And it was enough that he was like, okay, there's something genuine to this. And I'm not saying that's going to be the case. I'm not saying, you know, every one of you to be, give your 1776 and you'll get 1776 back. No, but it was just this one case where this guy, he literally put God to the test because he's like, I don't believe this. And he just said fine, I'll just give and it it did and that's how he got saved It was just it was the kind of a crazy story. I've only heard that one one time But I would challenge you give the best you have to the Lord serve him with what you have But again, you just keep doing your business and you take those divine appointments as they come Anyway, I wanna, we got five minutes left. I wanna open it up for questions or comments. And then Lord willing, next week we'll dig a little deeper into what God actually has to say to Abram. But I wanted to set the stage for Abraham's character as we go forward in chapter 18. David, was that okay?