Genesis 26, our portion today is verses 12 through 25. These are God's words. Then Isaac sowed in that land, and he reaped in the same year a hundredfold, and Yahweh blessed him. The man began to prosper and continued prospering till he became very prosperous. For he had possessions of flocks, possessions of herds, and a great number of servants. So the Philistines envied him. Now the Philistines had stopped up all the wells which his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father. And they had filled them with earth. And Abimelech said to Isaac, go away from us, for you are much mightier than we. Then Isaac departed from there, and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there. And Isaac dug again the wells of water which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham. He called them by the names which his father had called them. Also Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found a well of running water there. But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, the water's ours. So he called the name of the well Issach, because they quarreled with him. And they dug another well, and they quarreled over that one also. So he called its name Sitnah. And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Rehoboth. because he said, for now Yahweh has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land. Then he went up from there to Beersheba, and Yahweh appeared to him the same night, and said, I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for my servant Abraham's sake. So he built an altar there, and called on the name of Yahweh, and he pitched his tent there, and there Isaac's servants dug a well." So far the reading of God's inspired and inerrant word. So on the coming Lord's Day, the first song is, fill thou my life, O Lord my God, in every part with praise. And the desire of the song, and we'll sing it when we're done thinking about this passage, the song helps us to think and pray according to that biblical truth or principle, that those who belong to the Lord should display it. This is one of the main reasons for the entire book of Deuteronomy, as it was given to the Israelites, that they would be such a godly and good people, that everyone from around them would see them and say, what a wonderful people this is, who has such a God so near to them, as their God is to them, who has given them such wonderful commandments. Of course, Israel never lived up to that. But believers are supposed to be salt and light and to display both what Christ is like and that the grace of Christ transforms sinners more and more into the image of Christ, as His Spirit, whom He has given them, bears the fruit of His character in them. That's what's supposed to happen with Christians. and the Lord granting us to attend upon his means and find him faithful to use them and to hold one another accountable and walk with one another and encourage one another in the gospel of Christ, he will produce that. It's one of the things we pray for when we pray for reformation and revival that the Lord Jesus would be known and that his means would be attended upon through faith in him and dependence upon his spirit and that God would bring an age of the gathering in of many into his church, and the work by which he throughout this life perfects them into the image of Christ, and makes display of what kind of Savior he is. But for each of us who know him, who trust in Him, who belong to Him by faith. It is our personal desire, or ought to be, as we are hearing and listening, ought to be our personal desire that the glory of belonging to God and the difference that He makes in a man's life will be displayed in our lives. Now if you read this passage like a Philistine, you notice sowing and reaping a hundredfold and multiplying possessions. There are lots of people who want the glory of the nearness of God to be especially that which a Philistine sees. And now it's true that God was with Isaac, and since it was for his good, that he would reap a hundredfold, he gave him to reap a hundredfold. And since it was for his good, that he would multiply flocks and herds and become mighty, he granted to him to do so. Possibly, perhaps, probably, perhaps, because that was a means by which Isaac would get separated from Philistines, who were so bad friends spiritually. But the goodness of God, the goodness of Yahweh in Isaac's life, is seen especially spiritually. First, that he was willing to try sowing and reaping. He had never been a stationary man, which you have to be to be a crop farmer. But once he kind of got to hang out with the guys in Garar and he became stationary, he has flocks and herds and now he's not moving from place to place with his flocks and herds and they need food. So he has to raise crops. So he's willing to be diligent and to try something new and to work hard at it. We assume he did. It's implied that he did from the passage and yet it's something he's never done before. So diligence and the exercise of wisdom is part of the difference that Yahweh makes in him here. But even more than that, peaceability. You notice he doesn't have the grown-up equivalent of a temper tantrum, which the Philistines and Gerar were probably afraid that he might, because they say, you are mightier than we are. And he could have said, well, if I'm so mighty, maybe I should just be your king. Maybe you should go away and I should stay here. But he doesn't do that. And even as he gets further and further away and puts in the hard work of digging a well, and he has mouths to feed and to give drink to, doesn't he? Many, many mouths to feed and to give drink to, yet he's a peaceable man. He doesn't... He doesn't pretend that wrong hasn't been done to him. You can see that in the names that he gives the wells, so that every time they go to the well and they hear its name, or every time they refer to the well by the name of the one who'd given to it, by the one who dug it, they remember that they were in the wrong. And yet he doesn't insist upon demanding his rights. He, in order to keep peace, goes on and does more hard work further away, and he keeps going. but willing to work hard in order to maintain peace and trusting the Lord to be his avenger. That's a much greater fruit, that's a much greater evidence for him than hundred-fold crops or multiplied possessions. It is good for you to work hard at your school and as you get on up and you're working in other things, to work hard at those things and be diligent. It's not wrong for you to desire and pray to God that he would establish the work of your hands, even that he would show, as we're gonna see in a couple of days in the Colossians passage this week, show by the way that you work, that you work for a master who's in heaven and not just for masters who are on earth. Those aren't bad things, it's a good thing. but it's a much clearer display of Christ in you when you are peaceable, when you don't have temper tantrums. I know you're tired, Sophia, but you need to hear this one especially. You want people to see that Jesus is a great savior by how he helps you to not have temper tantrums. and those of you who are older and still from time to time having temper tantrums and maybe you've gotten good enough at stopping it from coming out of your mouth but still in your heart there is not that peace ability like we heard about last week in Colossians. Let the peace of God rule in your hearts. It's good for us all to remember that this is one of the ways that God's true nearness, spiritual nearness to a man or a woman is displayed in his life, is that he's peaceable. So we see that Isaac is diligent, we see that he's peaceable, and we see also that he is a worshiping man. We see in verse 22, one of the reasons why he was willing after, well, Esek got to take, or quarreled over, and well, Sitna got quarreled over, that he was willing to keep moving and moving and moving. Because he didn't think, because I am so great, I have had a hundredfold crop." And he didn't think, because I am so great, I have all these flocks and herds and possessions. And he didn't think that, because I am so great, I have dug a well, which turned out to be Isek. And he didn't think that, because I am so great, he dug a well, which turned out to be Sitnah. You see in verse 22 that when he names it Rehoboth, he says, for now Yahweh has made room for us. You see what comes out there. It will be very easy after you've done all of these good things and our fleshliness never goes away from us. It always tempts us. You know, suppose you do well for an entire day. working hard at your school, not having temper tantrums, being peaceable even in your heart, and whatever else you are especially working on in your walk with the Lord, you get to the end of the day, which your flesh is tempted at the end of such a day to say, I really did good today. But the new man in you from Christ Jesus would say, Thank you, God, for your being near me by your grace today and granting to me to work hard, granting to me to be peaceable. That didn't come from me. You did that for me. You see, the way Isaac talks about the new well, Rehoboth, in verse 22, how he would have been tempted to say, after all that I've done, finally I've achieved, and I've achieved all those other things, I really did well in all of this. But the way he responds is not with pride, but with praise. Yahweh has made room for us. And he goes up to Beersheba, and the Lord appears to him and makes him promises. And so what does Isaac do? He rebuilds the old altar. He built an altar there, verse 25, and he calls on the name of Yahweh. And he pitched his tent there, and they re-digged that well, too. And if we were going straight through Genesis, we would find out more about that in the next passage. But that's the greatest evidence that instead of a pride man, he's a praise man. That he sees the Lord's goodness to him, and he offers it continually as worship. And so we should seek that the Lord would fill our lives with that kind of praise unto him. Let's ask him to do so. Our Father in heaven, we thank you and praise you for this passage and for the opportunity to sing what your spirit teaches us from this passage. on the coming Lord's Day. We pray that you would make its truth to take root deeply in our heart so that when we hear the word read in the public worship, these truths about you and your gracious work and your praiseworthiness would all come flooding back to us by the mercy and work of your Holy Spirit. We pray that the rest of the congregation might also be studying so that When we do come to sing it on the Lord's Day, we will sing it as your words, which you have put in our mouths, rather than our words. And we pray that you would fill our lives with praise. Not just that we would do well, but that by your producing the doing well in us, you would be glorified, and especially by our own hearts that see it not with pride, but with thankfulness. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.