pages again. Genesis chapter 21, starting in verse 22. There we go. 21-22. At that time Abimelech and Philcol, the commander of his forces, said to Abraham, God is with you in everything you do. Now swear to me here before God that you will not deal falsely with me or my children or my descendants. Show to me in the country where you now reside, as a foreigner, the same kindness I have shown to you. Abraham said, I swear it. Then Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech's servants had seized. But Abimelech said, I don't know who has done this. You did not tell me, and I heard about it only today. So Abraham brought sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a treaty. Abraham set apart seven new lambs from the flock, and Abimelech asked Abraham, what is the meaning of these seven new lambs you have set apart by themselves? He replied, accept these seven lambs from my hand as a witness that I dug this well. So that place was called Beersheba, because the two men swore an oath there. And hone in on these two verses, because this will be the focus of what we talk about today. After the treaty had been made at Beersheba, Abimelech and Philcol, the commander of his forces, returned to the land of the Philistines. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the eternal God. And Abraham stayed in the land of the Philistines for a long time. Let's open in prayer. Heavenly Father, I pray that you'd be with us now as we seek to open up your word and understand it without your spirit What we're doing here is fruitless. So I pray your spirit to lead us into all truth, to fuel the passion that, God, I pray we have, or the passion that maybe needs to be reignited, or the passion that's never been lit to begin with. And I pray, God, that begins by going with you to the grove. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. You see that the NIV, when it talks about in verse 23, it says, Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba. And there he called on the name of the Lord, the eternal God. And if you look at translations such as the New King James or maybe the King James, it'll use the word grove instead. And the idea is the same. It's a tree. It's something that is put into place that has a longevity that is a reminder. It's almost like the Ebeneezer's that we talk about the nation of Israel eventually starting to do. They'll build these stone structures as remembrances. But the idea of this Tamarisk tree or this grove is that it's more than just a sign of remembrance. It's a place that Abraham puts into his life to call on the eternal God. And that's the first time this name for God is used, the eternal God. We'll dive into that in a minute. But this tamarisk tree, at this point in time, is a place where Abraham goes and he calls on the eternal God. It's his place of fellowship with the Lord. And we're gonna see some different truths about this, but throughout this message, I want you to be asking yourself the question, what is my grove? Do I have my grove? Do I have my tarimisk tree? Do I have my place where I specifically have to set aside fellowship with God? and worshiping God and spending time with Him. Because if we're trying to muster up the fruit of the spirit in our own effort. If we're trying to muster up spirituality to be not just present at VBS, but to be witnesses and testimony for, witness and a testimony for Christ, if we're trying to do that in our own efforts, and we're not going to the grove to worship the one true God and to get the strength we need from him, then we're gonna fall short. and we are going to burn out. And maybe you have, or you are experiencing this right now when you walk with the Lord. And so let this be a challenge as we walk through what exactly is the grove? What does this tamarisk tree represent? Let it be a challenge for you to ask yourself, do I have this? And am I giving it the proper time? So, number one, the grove is a place of planting. You see, Abraham, he puts in the work. It says he planted a tamarisk tree. He toiled and he labored. And all of this was for the purpose so he could there call on the name of the Lord, the eternal God. And it's not just the idea of He's doing it one time. He's not just planting the tree, calling on the name of the Lord one time, and then going and forgetting about the tree. The idea behind what is said there is that He spent time calling on the name of the Lord. It's a place of planting. It's a place of toil. It's worth the pain. And that's what I want you to see in your relationship with God and your own individual grove, that it's worth the toil and the effort that goes into putting it into place because it takes time. It takes energy. It takes dedication to take time out of your day to find a location. It could be outdoors. I find that to be one of the best places, to be alone in nature with the Lord, with your Bible, opening up the Psalms. It may take 10, 15, 30 minutes. If you have the time, you may be able to take two or three hours out there. Some people I know, they can't. Are you willing to put in the work? Or are you allowing the frivolous things that this world has to offer to inundate your life? Are you allowing yourself to just sit in front of the TV watching mindless nonsense for hours on end when you could be going to the grove with God? You could be putting in the work that is necessary to build true and proper fellowship with God. It's a place of planting In your relationship, you start from the ground up, but of course, it's never going to grow if you don't keep working at it. This is true in any relationship, and of course, it's true in our relationship with Almighty God. Can you get to the point where you can cry out as Jesus did in the garden, Abba, Father, Daddy, without it being emotional hullabaloo, without it being you just kind of taking his words on and saying, yeah, I have that relationship with the Lord. I have the ability to go to God the Father and call him Dad. in my moment of deepest woe? Or for you, is that too touchy-feely? Would you rather prefer God as something you know intellectually? You'll pray to Him in one sense, but you don't know Him intimately and personally. Because of Christ, God has given us the ability to do that. But it requires work. It's a place of planting, and it is a place of prayer, Abraham's whole purpose in planting the grove or planting the tree was to spend time with God in remembrance of what God had done in his life. Just to recap this, remember where Abraham was. He was in a comfortable living arrangement. He obviously had a lot of money. He was with his family. He had everything going for him. And then all of a sudden the Lord comes to him and says, hey, Abram, get up from your family. Go into a land that I'm going to show you. I'm not even going to tell you what it is yet. I'm going to direct you along the way. Follow me. Go to a land that I will show you, and I'm going to make of you a great nation. And I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you, and in you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. And you have Abram who's there in the comfort of his home with his family, with lots of money because he's a man of great wealth already. And he's told to up and leave it all. And certain parts during the journey, it's not as though the whole ride is smooth, is it? God promises him a son. And he says, I'm in my old age and my wife is in her old age. There's no way this can, I mean, what? How can this be possible? And at this point in the narrative, that promise still hasn't, that promise has just been fulfilled. That promise has just been fulfilled after 20 years of waiting. And so Abram is recapping, Abraham is recapping all these things that have just now started to come to fruition after 20 years of following the Lord. And really in that 20 years, there being a lot of heartache. Some of it because of Abram's, Abraham's own problems and some issues of lacking faith here and there. But some of the issues were just from following the Christ. And we did a, a lesson on this back in I think November where we talked about the life of faith and we were using Galatians but we referred back to back to Abraham and how the life of faith certainly isn't perfect. And you look at Abraham's life and it certainly wasn't perfect. And yet at this point in the story, we see that God is starting to fulfill those promises that he made so long ago in Abraham's life. The promised seed has been born. Isaac has been born. He's in the promised land. He's in Beersheba. There has been a measure of protection where God has given them in the land of the Philistines. And just now, we don't think of this in our modern day because we live in a first world country, but there is a well, there is water, If you don't have water, you can't live very long. And that was kind of an issue back in this day. And of course, it still is in our day and age, except being in a first world country, we don't really wrestle with that. We wrestle if we don't have hot water. That's something that drives us up the wall. I don't have hot water. Well, in this day and age, it wasn't just about comfort. It was about survival. and God had just provided them with a well, so they had a way to be sustained. And so all these things are starting to come together in Abraham's life. And then of course, there is pardoning at the grove. So under prayer, there's the promised seed, there's a promised land, there's protection being offered, there's provision through the water, and then there's pardoning. And this was of course after Abraham doubted. We know that Abraham, he ended up going into Hagar and bearing a son with Hagar because he thought, it sounds like a good enough idea. I mean, maybe that's how God's gonna fulfill the promise of the promised seed because it doesn't seem like Sarah is having, it doesn't seem like we're having any luck. So okay, well, Sarah, you're right. Maybe I should listen to you. I'll go to Hagar and we'll bear the promised seed through Hagar. Then he does it and then God tells to him, no, No, Abraham, no. I have a plan. I have the promised seed prepared. Wait on my timing. So even in that season of pain, Abraham was pardoned. God still forgave him and Abraham knew this. Because of this, because of all these things coming together, Abraham wanted to go with God to the grove. He wanted to plant the tamarisk tree. He wanted to personally spend time with God for all he had done in his life and all that he had promised to do. There's something about the Tamarisk tree that you may not know. It is a very, very, very slow growing tree. Usually it only grows about an inch a year, and it takes upwards of 400 years to reach its full height. Why do you think Abraham planted this specific tree? Because he knew that the promises of God didn't work according to his own timetable. He knew that every time he looked at that tree and he saw it growing inch by inch as the years went by, that was how God chose to work through his promises. And it was a reminder to him that, you know, it took God 20 years before he fulfilled the promise of giving me the child of promise. So every time I look at this tree and I'm questioning whether or not God's gonna fulfill his promise, I need to realize that he's gonna do it, but it may not be according to my timeline. God has promised us so much in his word. Will we go to the place of remembrance and give thanksgiving to God? It's a place of planting, it's a place of prayer, and it's a place of power. This is where we see Abraham use a new name for God. He calls on the name of the Lord, the eternal God. I think this is in connection with the Tamarisk tree, but he's attaching a quality to God that may have been understood, but it was never given words on paper until this very moment. So at this point, Abraham recognizes that God is from everlasting to everlasting. Maybe it was something he was questioning up until this point. Maybe it was something he was wrestling with. But right here, right now, he says, Lord, you're not just someone who came to me and promised these things, you're someone who has the capacity to fulfill these things even after I'm gone. Even after I'm out of the picture. Because God, you've made all these promises, you've said that you're gonna make a great nation of me, but I probably won't be in the picture or in the equation when that nation comes about. But I realize now, that your promises to me outlive me. Because they're made and they're based upon your own character. That was only something Abraham could glean and understand through meditating on the promises God had given to him. And he could only do that by spending time with him. Are you taking time to meditate on the promises God has given to you in his word? And if so, do you trust them? Or are you looking for him to work according to your timeline and your timetable? Or are you thinking that if things aren't fulfilled in your lifetime, that if your children or your relatives don't come to the Lord in your lifetime, then God wasn't faithful. Because you said, Lord, I raised them up in the nurture and admonition of you. And you said that when they're old, they're not going to depart from it. But God, right now, they're living in rebellion. God, right now, they don't have a desire to follow you. And are you thinking that it's contingent on your timeline to see them come to Christ? Go with God to the grove. Realize that His timeline is different than yours and that His promises are faithful, even if He fulfills them when you're out of the picture. It's a place of power, and it is a place of permanence, and this thought is cool. Think about trees for a minute. What do they do? Well, they grow, and then what do they do? They start to flower, and then once they reach the point of being able to flower, maybe depending on the type of fruit, they'll produce the fruit, and then what happens? The fruit gets eaten, or the fruit falls to the ground, and then what happens? Well, the fruit decays, And then some of the seeds, what happens? They reproduce. The idea of a tree is that it's permanent. That tree itself may die, but it lives on through the trees that follow and will continue to follow hereafter. Maybe I'm wrong in saying this, but there's a good probability that this tamarisk tree that Abraham planted still has trees that could trace back to this tamarisk tree's lineage. It's permanent, and that's the thing about this grove. It's meant to be a permanent reminder of our worship to God. And then, another aspect of the grove is that it's a place of preparation. This immediately after Abraham takes this time and stays in the land of the Philistines and calls in the name of the eternal God, the God, the fulfiller of all these promises and with the expectation that God is going to fulfill all the other promises that he's made, regardless of whether Abraham's in the picture or not. Immediately after that, Abraham is tested with the greatest test that we could ever imagine. God tells him to get up and offer his son on the altar as an offering. And we think, what in the world? Of course, we know the rest of the story, but in this time period, child sacrifice wasn't foreign. a God demanding child sacrifice was common. And so, that's not to say it was easy, but for a God to say, thou shalt offer your firstborn son or you have to offer your sons on the altar, that's why it was being done to Ashtaroth and to Baal. Because it was commonplace that you were supposed to offer an offering to these gods. And by God, Doing this, Abraham had every right to believe that he was gonna have to follow through with this. It's a place of preparation. You see, one thing that keeps us from going to the grove with God is that we know that the closer we get to God, the more we develop a relationship with him, the more we're gonna see and experience his heart, and the more pain we're gonna feel for our own sin, for the sins of others, and it's scary, because we don't want to feel that pain. We want comfort. We say, God, I want to know you on Sundays. I want to know you when I can sit in the pew and just hear the pastor preach and live my spirituality through him. God, that's what I want. I don't want to know you intimately, because God, the closer I get, the dirtier I look. God, I don't want that, I'm scared. And so we don't go to the grove. And yet it's in the grove that we also, after being in the grove and developing that heart and then experiencing the testing that he gives to every single one of his children, not Not as punishment, but sometimes as chastening, or other times just to bring us closer to his own heart and our need for reliance on him. It's only through that that we really let the gospel light shine through our lives. Because if we're no different than the world around us, why do people think they need Christ? It's a place that prepares for something we could call the dark night of the soul. And there's a beautiful worship song. I'd try and sing it, but every time I played on my guitar, I'd tear up, and I don't think it's something I could play. And it's not even that, it's that emotional of a hymn, but something about it just strikes me. And it's called Your Grace Finds Me. And I know Matt Redman sings it, and I'm sure some other people have sung it too, but there's just, It's talking about God's grace. And like some of the lines are speaking of God's grace, it's there on the wedding day. It's there in the weeping by the graveside. It's there in the trials of this life. Your grace finds me. And there's a line, and I believe the second verse that says, it's there in the darkest night of the soul. It's there in the sweetest songs of victory. Your great grace. When we talk about this idea of the darkest night of the soul, I'm not talking about the issues that result from sin in our lives. Because we know that that separates our fellowship with God and we can't blame God for that. If we have sin, if we're harboring sin in our hearts and we say, God, I just feel so distant from you. I just feel so cut off from you and I don't know why. Come on, you're only deceiving yourself. I'm talking about the times where you look at your heart and your life and you say, God, search me. See if there'd be any evil way in me. I don't know. I've confessed my sins to you. I've gone to those who I've wronged, and I still feel so distant from you. There's a book called The Celebration of Discipline, and there's a chapter in it called Solitude. And in it, the author Richard Foster, he talks about this idea of the darkest night of the soul, and he explains it in such a way. What does the dark night of the soul involve? We may have a sense of dryness, aloneness, even lostness. Any over-dependence on the emotional life is stripped away. The notion often heard today that such experiences should be avoided and that we always should live in peace and comfort and joy and celebration only betray the fact that much contemporary experience is surface slush. The dark night. is one of the ways God brings us into a hush, a stillness, so that he may work an inner transformation upon the soul. And you see this in scripture in Isaiah chapter 50, where he asks, who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant, who walks in darkness and has no light, yet trusts in the name of the Lord and relies upon his God? It's not talking about them walking in darkness as in walking in sin. It's as though they trust the Lord. They believe in the Lord and they feel oppressed still. And they feel as though there's a time of silence that they've entered where God doesn't speak to them in the same way as before. And this may be a season in which God has brought you so that you seek him all the more, and you seek that stillness, and you seek a place to plant a tamarisk tree. It's a place of planting. It's a place of prayer. It's a place of power. It's a place of permanence. It's a place of preparation. And finally, it's a place meant for every person, including you. In one sense, the grove or the tamarisk tree, it represents our commitment to God, but more than that, it represents God's commitment to us. Because every time we look at that, we go to that place of remembrance, we go to that place of worship, and we pour our hearts out to the eternal God. We're not resting in our own efforts at that point. We're wholly devoting and committing ourselves to him who judges rightly. It's a place where we set everything else aside and simply come before him in humble awe and worship of who he is. I've shared this before, but I hope it speaks to you anew, especially after looking at that passage and diving into understanding what an aspect of it means and entails. How is your grove doing? Let's expand it a little bit more. How is your garden doing? How's your time of fellowship with the Lord doing? One thing about gardens is they're portrayed in Scripture. They're so often and sadly seen as a place of betrayal. But I don't think that's the reason why they exist, because we know that there are going to be trees, well, as Revelation tells us, in the great city of Jerusalem, of the New Jerusalem. I think the primary reason, primary purpose of seeing gardens in scripture is that they're a place of intimate fellowship with God. Just as God had to banish Adam and Eve from that garden, from that complete communion with Almighty God. And then we see Jesus often going to the garden to pray, or a mountaintop. But the night before He's crucified, He goes to the garden to be intimately in fellowship with His Father. How is your garden doing? How is your place or your relationship of fellowship with the Father? Are there places you're scared to enter into? Are there aspects of life you don't want to go over to? Are you afraid that If you venture out into other areas of the garden, God will reveal things in your life that he doesn't necessarily want you to be doing. And you're saying, I want to leave that untouched, God. I don't want you to go over there. I'll keep treading the same paths over and over. I'll praise you for who you are. I'll worship and adore you. I'll say I'm committed to you and sharing you with my family. And I'll keep walking the same path over and over, treading it down until it's a path But that section over there where you've called me to holiness and righteous living, I don't want to tread over there. And you've let weeds grow up and it's become unkept. And yeah, when you start walking that path, it's going to hurt. There's going to be pain. Every single weed that's been pulled up that you thought was a flower, God's gonna say, that's not what I have for you. That's not what I have for you. That's not what I have for you. Over that right there, see that? That's like hidden underneath all the weeds. That right there, that's gonna be a beautiful tree. And because of all of these weeds that you've let grow up, it crowded up that tree so it can't grow. But by me taking away all these things that aren't, that just aren't necessary but aren't good for your testimony and aren't good for your relationship with me, I'm gonna allow that thing to grow and you aren't going to be able to imagine how amazing things are going to be if you just allow me to work. How is your garden doing? Are you venturing deeper and deeper into more thorough worship? Go to the grove, plant your tamarisk tree, and when you venture further and further into the beauty of God's worship, you'll find one thing. You'll never want to leave. I remember Writing this poem, it's nothing fancy for sure, but I remember writing this poem after studying this passage, because this was actually a message that I had done in my hall meeting as an RA down at college. It wasn't anywhere as in-depth as we went into today, because I only had about 10 minutes there. But I remember going over this again, and through this book, Celebration of Discipline, by Richard Foster. It just, I felt as though this is where we needed to go before VBS week, to remind ourselves of the necessity of our personal relationship with God. And I remember in preparation for this message for the guys in my hall, after I had worked through the message some, I sat down and I was just praying. And sometimes when I pray, I write. It helps me. And sometimes it comes out in poetry. And this time I wrote a poem called Going with God to His Grove. Lord, and it's written in old English, because I was in a college that espoused the King James, so forgive me. I haven't revised it yet and updated it. Lord, take me to thy grove today and let my heart there be consumed with your almighty love, consumed with only thee. Allow me time to walk the trails or venture off the way, exploring all around your grove as I do humbly pray. And then when life beckons me go, reluctantly I'll turn back to its strife, but for your grove, my heart will ever yearn. There's been so many times that that hasn't been my prayer. And I hope today that going forward personally, this is my desire and I hope it's your desire as well. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this time we could spend together. Thank you for the power of your word and that it's timeless. Thank you for your goodness, which you've so freely shown to us and sending your son to die on the cross for our sins and give us new life in him. I pray that you be with our hearts, that they have been moved through your word today and that we all can be more closely following you more intimately acquainted with you. And I pray, God, that if people's hearts were moved through your word, that we don't just stop there, and as soon as we leave the church, we act as though nothing happened, because that's exactly what the enemy wants us to do. He wants us to forget your word the moment we walk outside of the church and start thinking about lunch. God, I pray that each of us in here plants that tree, metaphorically or physically, in the realization that you will fulfill your promises, that you are the eternal God, you are mighty to save, and that we can rest in you and your word. Help us to know you more every day, day by day. In Christ's name we pray, amen.