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Listen now to God's holy word
from Genesis chapter 24 beginning in verse 29. Rebekah had a brother whose name
was Laban. Laban ran out toward the man
to the spring. As soon as he saw the ring and
the bracelets on his sister's arms and heard the words of Rebekah
his sister, thus the man spoke to me, He went to the man, and
behold, he was standing by the camels at the spring. He said,
Come in, O blessed of the Lord. Why do you stand outside? For
I have prepared the house and a place for the camels. So the
man came to the house and unharnessed the camels, and gave straw and
fodder to the camels, and there was water to wash his feet and
the feet of the men who were with him. Then food was set before
him to eat, But he said, I will not eat until I have said what
I have to say. He said, Speak on. So he said,
I am Abraham's servant. The Lord has greatly blessed
my master, and he has become great. He has given him flocks
and herds, silver and gold, male servants and female servants,
camels and donkeys. And Sarah, my master's wife,
bore a son to my master when she was old, and to him he has
given all that he has. My master made me swear, saying,
you shall not take a wife for my son, the daughters of the
Canaanites in whose land I dwell, but you shall go to my father's
house and to my clan and take a wife for my son. I said to
my master, perhaps the woman will not follow me. But he said
to me, the Lord before whom I have walked will send his angel with
you and prosper your way. You shall take a wife for my
son from my clan and from my father's house. Then you will
be free from my oath when you come to my clan, and if they
will not give her to you, you will be free from my oath. I
came today to the spring and said, O Lord, the God of my master
Abraham, if now you are prospering the way that I go, behold, I
am standing by the spring of water. Let the virgin who comes
out to draw water, to whom I shall say, please give me a little
water from your jar to drink, and who will say to me, drink,
I will draw for your camels also. Let her be the woman whom the
Lord has appointed for my master's son. Before I had finished speaking
in my heart, behold, Rebecca came out with her water jar on
her shoulder, and she went down to the spring and drew water.
I said to her, Please let me drink. She quickly let down her
jar from her shoulder and said, Drink, and I will give your camels
drink also. So I drank. and she gave the
camel's drink also. Then I asked her, whose daughter
are you? She said, the daughter of Bethuel,
Nahor's son, who milked a boar to him. So I put the ring on
her nose and the bracelets on her arms. Then I bowed my head
and worshiped the Lord and blessed the Lord, the God of my master
Abraham, who has led me by the right way to take the daughter
of my master's kinsman for his son. Now then, If you're going
to show steadfast love and faithfulness to my master, tell me. And if
not, tell me. Then I may turn to the right
hand or to the left. Then Laban and Bethuel answered
and said, The thing has come from the Lord. We cannot speak
to you, bad or good. Behold, Rebekah is before you.
Take her and go, and let her be the wife of your master's
son, as the Lord has spoken. When Abraham's servant heard
their words, he bowed himself to the earth before the Lord.
And the servant brought out jewelry of silver and of gold, and garments,
and gave them to Rebekah. He also gave to her brother and
to her mother costly ornaments. He and the men who were with
him ate and drank, and they spent the night there. When they rose
in the morning, he said, Send me away to my master. Her brother
and her mother said, Let the young woman remain with us a
while, at least ten days, and after that she may go. But he
said to them, Do not delay me, since the Lord has prospered
my way, send me away, that I may go to my master. They said, Let
us call the young woman and ask her. And they called Rebekah
and said to her, Will you go with this man? She said, I will
go. So they sent away Rebekah, their
sister, and her nurse, and Abraham's servant, and his men. And they
blessed Rebekah and said to her, Our sister, may you become thousands
of ten thousands, and may your offspring possess the gait of
those who hate him. Then Rebekah and her young women
arose and rode on the camels and followed the man. Thus the
servant took Rebekah and went his way. Now Isaac had returned
from Bir Lahairoi and was dwelling in the Negev. And Isaac went
out to meditate in the field toward evening. And he lifted
up his eyes and saw, and behold, there were camels coming. And
Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she dismounted
from the camel and said to the servant, Who is that man walking
in the field to meet us? The servant said, It is my master.
So she took her veil and covered herself. And the servant told
Isaac all the things that he had done. And Isaac brought her
into the tent of Sarah, his mother, and took Rebekah, and she became
his wife, and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after
his mother's death. Grass withers, flowers fade,
but the word of our God endures forever. And so let us ask his
blessing upon our reading of this word, a moment of prayer. Well, Lord, we ask your blessing
now. Open our ears and our eyes and soften our heart to your
word. May your spirit drive it home to us that we might bring
you the greater glory. In Jesus name, amen. The chain of events found in
Genesis chapter 24 has all the trappings of a divine appointment. That's what we discovered last
week. Nearing the end of his life, Abraham sent his most trusted
servant off on a journey to find a wife for his son. If the covenant
were to be passed down, it would take some grandchildren. And
so the patriarch set about providing a mate for Isaac in the days
of arranged marriages. Consequently, Abraham's servant,
we saw, set off alone with some other servants. for a matchmaking
expedition in Mesopotamia, which is where Abraham had first come
from. He did this at Abraham's command so that Isaac might remain
in Canaan without being forced to take a wife from Canaan. Both of those things were crucial.
Isaac needed to remain but his wife tended to be from somewhere
else. And so the servant adopted the agenda that Abraham had set
for him and he went off in search of a woman. And what we saw in
verses 1 through 28 of this chapter is that God was at work long
before the servant ever set out. Everybody in those first 28 verses,
they showed up in the right place at the right time saying the
right things. indicating that God had prepared
not just any woman, but a particular bride for Isaac. There at that
well, on the outskirts of the city of Abraham's brother Nahor,
the servant met with Rebekah, Nahor's granddaughter, Abraham's
great niece. And resembling her uncle Abraham
in her actions, Rebekah showed the servant great hospitality,
giving water both to the servants and to the camels, which is what
he had prayed for, thereby revealing herself to be the answer to his
prayers for success. But what we saw, especially in
his conversation with Abraham, was that one of the servant's
chief fears before he had ever agreed to go on this journey
was that he might find a woman who was unwilling to return to
Canaan with him. What sort of woman wants to travel
hundreds of miles to go back and marry a man who didn't bother
to come meet her himself? What then? Abraham had forbade
the servant from taking Isaac to Mesopotamia. So what if Rebekah
and her family balked, sending him back empty handed? All those
questions are answered here in our text. They're answered here
in the second half of this chapter where we learn that Rebekah and
her family, they are not going to balk. In fact, Rebecca turns
out to be something of what I've called here a Lady Abraham. A Lady Abraham. How so? Well,
she was willing, like her great-uncle before her, to depart the house
of her father in search of the promised land where she would
enter the covenant which had been established by God. She
was willing to leave Mesopotamia behind and travel to Canaan. entering the covenant of the
Lord. So that's what's happening in these verses. We want to work
our way through the story and then we'll explore its implications.
Now when we pick up in verse 29, there is a swarm of activity
going on as we prepare to transition from the scene at the well to
the scene which will follow in the home of Rebecca and her family.
At the end of last week's text, verse 28, Rebekah was running
home to tell her family about her encounter with Abraham's
servant at the well. And now, in verse 29, Rebekah's
brother Laban is running back to the well, having seen the
jewelry worn by sister having heard the report which she gave
of the man that she had met in that place. Evidently he wasted
no time in going to retrieve the servant of whom she had spoken
because Laban found him standing by the well with his camels just
as Rebecca had left him. Laban is also quick in noticing
that this servant had come from a wealthy household. Seeing him
standing there with his camels loaded down with gifts, he pronounces
him, blessed of the Lord. He makes this pronouncement evidently
on appearance alone. And he invites him to join them
back at the house. We're going to see in the book
of Genesis, not just here, but also later, that Laban is a man
who is very interested in riches. He's a man who's very interested
in acquiring possessions. That's going to drive a lot of
his actions in regard to Jacob, who is later on going to come
back to him looking for wives himself. And so he sees the blessing
of the Lord through the material means which this servant had.
And so he invites him back and Abraham's servant returns with
him where the camels are fed and a meal is prepared for him. The servant is up front with
labor. He makes it clear this is not a social call. No doubt he would have been thankful
for a home-cooked meal after such a long journey. He announces
in verse 33 that he will not eat until he has said what he
has come to say. It is time to convince Nahor's
descendants to send their daughter off to live with the family of
Nahor's brother. Time to make his pitch. And as
soon as Laban grants this servant permission to speak, he identifies
himself as Abraham's servant, and he launches into a... Don't
miss how amazing this is. A lengthy rehearsal of his mission
and its execution. Hebrew narrative, Hebrew story,
is so sparse on detail. It only tells us what we need
to know. It tells us much less than we
want to know. And so when we find a lot of
detail, it's important. So it's amazing that this is
the longest chapter in the book of Genesis and that we hear a
speech from the servant which basically repeats everything
we've heard for 30 verses. He's going to reiterate it. That's
unusual. But we see here that it provides
an important turning point in the book. He tells Laban and
his family that he's there on behalf of Abraham, the long lost
brother of Nahor who had departed so long ago. And he also tells
him that since Abraham's departure many decades prior, the Lord
had indeed blessed him. Laban was right about that. The
man had grown rich, and he had grown abundant through the benevolence
of the Lord, and the Lord had worked miraculously in his life,
giving his wife Sarah a son in their old age. This was an important
point for the servant to mention in the hearing of Rebecca's family
because it implied that the generational difference between Isaac and
Rebecca didn't necessarily entail a drastic difference in age.
Remember, Abraham and Nahor were brothers. And there's now a marriage
being proposed between Abraham's son and Nahor's granddaughter. Generational difference. But
he tells the family, this was an unusual boy. And so the drastic,
the age difference is not so drastic as might first be thought.
Important to note. Anyways. The Lord had given Abraham
a son, and that son had become the heir, and that heir needed
a wife in order to obtain an heir of his own. And so Abraham
had sent his servant to his father's house and to his clan, seeking
a wife, assuring him of angelic assistance on his way to success. Now he does conveniently leave
out the fact that Abraham had forbidden him from bringing Isaac
to Mesopotamia. That might have struck them as
somewhat offensive. That Abraham wants one of our
daughters to come be the wife of his son, but he thought his
son was too good to come back and visit. So the servant leaves
that out. He leaves it out, but he does mention that the Lord
had been at work. An angel had come. Isaac didn't
come, but the angel of the Lord had come, granting him success. And he had received that assistance
from the Lord. and he had had success as he
explains in verses 42 through 49 where he recounts his meeting
with Rebecca at that spring of water. When he arrived at the
spring he had prayed to the Lord asking for a sign. The woman
who was willing to respond to a request for water by giving
water to him and to his camels would be, he hoped and prayed,
the woman divinely appointed for Isaac by the Lord. In God's
providence, we saw last week, and he recounts here again for
us, that Rebecca was the one who appeared there at the well
in front of Abraham's servant before he ever stopped praying.
And when he asked her for water, she tirelessly watered the servants'
camels too. We talked last week about how
that would have been no small task, no little offer. It would
have been dozens of trips between the well with her jug of water
to the trough for the camels. And so this was unusual. It was
an answer to prayer. And that's why the servant had
jumped into action. asking about her family to verify
that she was indeed from Abraham's clan and that's why he placed
the jewelry on her. God had sovereignly provided. And thus the servant had worshipped
the Lord who according to verse 48 had led him by the right way
to take the daughter of his master's kinsman for his son. The servant
is seeking to persuade the family that this had been no merely
human coincidence. God had identified a wife for
Isaac that he approved of, so all that was left was to get
the approval of the family. You can see he's presenting this
in a somewhat one-sided way. The Lord's approved, what do
you think? And so we read something of an emotionally charged and
weighted ultimatum in verse 49. Now then, if you are going to
show steadfast love and faithfulness to my master, Tell me, and if
not tell me, that I may turn to the right hand or to the left. We might paraphrase Abraham's
servant a bit like this. If you're going to do the right
thing, let me know. If you're going to do the wrong
thing, you can let me know that too, and I'll act accordingly. He is insinuating to Rebekah's
family that to deny this request would be to deny God himself
and it would be to mistreat their family member, their relative,
Abraham. And after listening to this grand
narrative, Rebekah's family, pagan as though they have been,
cannot deny that Abraham's God Yahweh was up to something. He must be up to something, and
so we hear a response from Laban and Bethuel, Rebekah's brother
and father. It is somewhat surprising, you
might have picked up on this, that Rebekah's father, Bethuel,
she plays a very small role in this story. Her brother and her
mother do most of the talking for the family for whatever reason.
Maybe Bethuel was up there in age, maybe he was infirm, perhaps
They followed more, some people insinuate maybe they must have
followed a more matriarchal pattern in that family as opposed to
patriarchal. Maybe Laban, his whole purpose
here is to act as a spokesman for his father. It's hard to
know exactly what's going on there. But either way, in this
instance we do know that Laban and Bethuel are agreed. I say
this, the thing has come from the Lord. We cannot speak to
you bad or good. What does that mean? It's something
of a Hebrew saying. We cannot speak to you bad or
good. It means this. If God has brought all this together
by divine appointment, who are we to say no? Who are we to say
yay or nay? It's obviously His working and
so we simply stand back and let Him do what He's going to do
and therefore what they're doing is they're offering Rebekah up.
She may go, she may be the wife of Isaac, and hearing this, a
wave of relief, a wave of gratitude washes over Abraham's servant,
and he bows down again, pious man that it is, and he worships
before the Lord. And then when he rises up, he
brings out more jewelry, he brings out more garments for Rebekah,
as well as gifts for Laban and Milcah, her mother. See, in God's
providence, Everyone seems to be on the same page. What a joyous
occasion. Everybody's on the same page,
right up until they're not anymore. The shared consensus, which they
come to, it's threatened the next morning. You know, sometimes
you get excited, you say things, you make promises, and then you
sleep on it. You're not so sure if you should
have promised that. You're not so sure you'd do it the same
way if you could go back again now that you've slept on it.
And so after the excitement of this blessed meeting and a welcome
night of sleep, Abraham's servant wakes up. He's happy with what
happened and so he's ready to go. He has no interest in an
extended Mesopotamian holiday. He's ready to get back. He's
ready to present the fruit of his labors to Abraham. He's ready
to please Abraham in this way. And he's ready to bless Isaac
with a wife. But understandably, I think,
Rebecca's family's not so eager to get the show on the road.
This is an old concept for Abraham's servant. He's been mulling this
over for a month or more as he's traveled from one place to the
other. But this is new. This is new
for Rebecca's family. And so her brother and her mother
want her to remain at least 10 more days. They want to be able to come
around on this idea like the servant has, and they want time
to say goodbye. They're willing to host the servant
during this period of time as long as you'll stay, she'll stay,
and then they can go. But the servant... It might almost
seem rude. He's unwilling to waver from
his mission. He has a sense of urgency that surely must have
felt inexplicable to Rebecca's family. He says in verse 56,
do not delay me since the Lord has prospered my way. Send me
away that I may go to my master. So we reach what is really, in
this portion of the chapter, the primary point of tension
in the text. This is the action point. After
so much success, will everything be foiled by Rebekah's family? Will the entanglements of family
life keep Rebekah from entering the Abrahamic covenant through
marriage to Isaac? You see, two competing visions
for her life are clashing in this moment. Servants or families. Fortunately, Rebecca's family
is willing to let her cast a tie-breaking vote. They ask Rebecca, will
you go with this man? And her whole life and all of
history changes because of her simple answer, I will go. Like Abraham before her, she
is willing to be called out of Mesopotamia, out of the house
of her father, and into the promised land. And with that definitive
answer, they grant her wishes. They send her away with her servants,
obviously they had some means as well, and they send her away
with a blessing. Our sister, may you become thousands
of ten thousands, and may your offspring possess the gate of
those who hate him. Those words sound so familiar
to us when we compare them to the promises made to Abraham
and to Isaac. The Lord had promised Abraham
that his offspring would increase, and the Lord had promised Abraham,
actually back in Genesis 22, the very specific promise that
his children would come to possess the gates of their enemies. And
so now, from the lips of his relatives, Rebekah's family,
we learn that Rebekah is indeed going to be one of the women
who makes that possible. Her vision and the vision for
Isaac are aligned. Offspring, blessing, conquering
the gates of enemies. At the end of all this, Rebecca
travels back to Canaan with the servant, where Isaac is dwelling,
we now find in the southern part of the land, which is laid down
by the wilderness. And as this chapter comes to a close, we
find that he's like his father. He's a godly man. And so he's
out meditating in the field, probably praying is what that
means, towards evening. And as he is engaging in this
activity, he looks up and he sees the caravan coming. The
caravan sees Isaac too. Rebecca hops off her camel. And
when she learns that she is seeing her future husband for the first
time, she veils her face in preparation for their marriage. And interestingly,
in this moment, Abraham is nowhere to be found, at least insofar
as we are told. As far as the narrative of Genesis
is concerned, Abraham's story is drawing to a close. In the
next chapter, we're going to read about his death. And Isaac
is now taking center stage. And therefore, we read that in
the aftermath of his mother's death, he brings Rebekah to his
mother's tent and they marry, and Isaac loves her. That's a
happy ending as far as the world of arranged marriages go. It
was not always guaranteed that the wife picked for you would
be pleasing to you and that you would love her. But they have
this wonderful privilege of not simply joining together in marriage,
but joining into a happy marriage where they love one another. And just like that, The generational
expansion of the Abrahamic covenant begins to come into clearer view. God had promised to make of Abraham
a great nation. He had promised to Abraham to
make him an accountable number of offspring. And he had promised
that his blessing would rest upon those offspring And through
now Rebekah, the solitary son of Abraham is going to produce
children of his own who will receive that blessing, one of
whom will come to be called Israel, the father of the 12 tribes. And so the Lord is indeed going
to use this marriage, this union, and the children which it produces
to fulfill his promises to Abraham. And while this was progressively
revealed in history, Abraham didn't know exactly how this
was going to work out, God knew that all this was going to happen
when he first called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans. In
fact, he knew that all of this was going to happen from the
foundation of the world. You see, from Abraham's perspective,
there were times in which it was not clear how, if at all,
God's word could be fulfilled. How is he going to keep his promises?
But from God's perspective, the durability of the covenant and
the validity of his words, those things were never in doubt. He
always knew what was going to happen. He had planned it that
way. In the words of Westminster Confession
of Faith, Chapter 5, Paragraph 1, on that chapter on providence,
we read this, God, the great creator of all things, does uphold,
direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things
from the greatest even to the least by his most wise and holy
providence. according to his infallible foreknowledge,
and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise
of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy."
And so we see, as we reflect theologically on this text, that
the success of the covenant depended not on Abraham's ingenuity, the
success of the covenant depended not on the skill of the servant,
But ultimately, the success of the covenant depended upon God's
sovereign and providential preparation of a wife for Isaac to the praise
of his own glory. His promise was not brittle. His promise was not in danger. His promise was being sovereignly
and providentially administered. And as we've already noted briefly,
the wife that God does prepare for Isaac is presented in Genesis
chapter 24 as something of a Lady Abraham. She exhibits those noble
characteristics possessed by Abraham in remarkable ways. Like Abraham, she excels in hospitality. She welcomes the servant like
Abraham had welcomed the Lord into his camp so long ago. Genesis
18. Like Abraham, she responds to the call which is placed upon
her with faith. She believes what she's hearing
from the servant. She's willing to act on it. And
like Abraham, she chose to depart for Canaan on the basis of this
faith, leaving her former life behind for the sake of the covenant. And all of this Abraham-esque
activity It opens the door for her to join Abraham's family
and receive Abraham's blessings through marriage to his son Isaac.
God in his providence, his sovereign plan, he had prepared not just
a bride, but the perfect bride for Isaac. And he supernaturally
led Abraham's servant to the well in order to find her. Congregation, we observed last
week, perhaps you'll recall this, the similarities between Genesis
24 and John chapter 4. We saw in John 4, comparing it
to this passage, that Jesus, the one who fulfills the covenant
of grace introduced to Abraham, Jesus took an opportunity in
the course of his public ministry to act like Abraham's servant,
like Jacob, Like Moses before him. Like these three figures,
Jesus in John chapter 4. He goes, for those who have eyes
to see, in search of a bride. Who could extend the covenant
line, and he goes in search for her at a well. Jacob's well in
faith. Now in Jesus' case we know, don't
misunderstand, he's not looking for a literal bride to marry
on this earth. He's not looking for the consummation
of some physical union. No, he's looking in that chapter
for a spiritual bride that by virtue of faith union with him
would be able to inherit eternal life with him in glory. Inheriting
the covenant promises. And the great irony of the way
in which Jesus played this role and conducted His search is that
He did it among the Samaritans. Speaking to an outcast woman
with a tainted and sinful past at Jacob's well. And that's instructive
to us because it teaches us, it reminds us that Christ's bride,
the church, is made up of people, well many people, far less noble
than Lady Abraham. Because his messianic work would
make possible the profuse proliferation of abundant grace to those who
receive him by faith. And so when the church continues
the apostle's mission of preaching the gospel to all nations today,
it is doing work, like we see in John 4, calling on sinners
to receive Christ's grace and to join his bride by faith. But the difficulty of that gospel
call, the difficulty of that evangelistic work, the difficulty
of that Christ mimicking behavior, is that all who receive the gospel
call face the same conundrum faced by Rebecca. When you hear
the gospel, when you hear Jesus' call upon your life, you come
to a fork in the road. And there are many entanglements
in this life which threaten to crowd out the sound of the gospel
call. People and places and pleasures,
they all fight for our allegiance. But Jesus is not willing to play
second fiddle. He will not play backup in the
band. Like Abraham's servant, he does
not want his bride to enjoy her past life for ten more days.
No, when Jesus calls, the only right answer is an immediate,
yes Lord, I will go. I will follow you. That's the motto of Christ's
bride, the church, and all of the disciples within her walls.
And we learn as much in that passage from Luke chapter 9 which
we read earlier in the service. There we read of Jesus traveling
along the road and as he travels along the road he encounters
three individuals who are faced with the decision of whether
to follow him or not. One wants to follow him, but
he must face the fact that he will no longer have an earthly
home. The second is commanded to follow him, but he wants to
go home and bury his father first. The third agrees to follow him,
but he wants to go home and say goodbye to his family first.
And we don't necessarily know what happens to the first. We
know that Jesus warns him. But we do know that Jesus rebukes
the second and the third, saying, Leave the dead to bury their
own dead. And as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.
And no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is
fit for the kingdom of God. You see, the call of discipleship,
which is the call placed upon all who would join Christ's bride,
forces us to shake off the entanglements of this life which would keep
us from Christ, whatever they are. When we believe on Christ
and come to repent of our sins, the world, the flesh, and the
devil must be denounced, and many good things in this life,
many valuable, noble, worthwhile things must be deprioritized. in order to give Jesus the ultimate
authority over us as Lord. And so the question that we must
ask ourselves when we consider the way in which Genesis 24 points
forward to the decision that we face, whether to enter the
covenant through marriage to Christ or not, the question we
must all ask ourselves is, how will I and how am I responding
to the gospel call? Is my life marked by repentance
and belief? Have I joined Christ's bride?
Am I following like Rebecca, willing to say, I will go, wherever
you want to go, I will go. Or are we tempted, like Rebecca's
family tried to tempt her, tempted to wait around in hopes of a
more opportune time, in hopes of a more convenient way to follow
the Lord, if it ever comes. Folks, the proper response to
the Gospel call for all of us, each and every day, is, I believe,
I repent, I will follow. Each and every day, we must be
willing to say, Jesus died for me, Jesus lives for me, and by
faith I will go. As maybe you know the hymn expresses
it, from heaven He came and sought her to be His holy bride. With his own blood he bought
her, and for her life he died. That is the good news of the
gospel. That is the precious gift which we cannot earn. That
is the salvation which we receive by faith alone. But when we do
receive it by faith, that ought to bring with it, that ought
to stir in us, if we have indeed understood, that ought to bring
with it a wholehearted devotion to Christ. Here's how Paul puts
it in 1 Corinthians 6 verse 20. The proper response to learning
that you have been bought with a price, he uses that language
there in 1 Corinthians 6, the proper response to learning that
you have been bought with a price is to glorify God with your body. Setting sin aside and serving
Him. And so if you would tonight count
yourself, and I hope you do, if you would tonight count yourself
among Christ's disciples, If you profess to have joined Christ's
Bride of the Church, ask yourself, assess yourself, think about
this in light of Scripture, are you actively following Him? Is
He your chief delight? Is He your top priority? Does everything else take a backseat
to the demands which He places upon you? It must be so. And if it's not, then you need
to repent and ask the Lord to sanctify you and to set your
loves in the right order. To set your priorities in the
right order. Your bridegroom Jesus Christ,
if He is indeed yours, He deserves, He demands the most tender love
of your heart and your absolute submission. The sort of submission
that says, I will go, no question about it. And so when Christ
calls us in the gospel, we respond with faith, and having responded
with faith, we pick up our cross and we follow Him, wherever He
calls us to go. And in this way, we do come to
resemble Rebecca. And in this way, we come to resemble
Paul, who said in the Epistle to the Philippians, Whatever
gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed,
I count everything as loss. because of the surpassing worth
of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered
the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, in order that
I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness
of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through
faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. Have you counted everything else
as loss? Have you counted it all else as rubbish? For the
surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus your Lord, in whom, by
faith, you find your righteousness in standing before God." Consider
that, and make it so, as you say, yes Lord, I believe, I will
follow you. Let's pray.
Lady Abraham
Series Genesis
| Sermon ID | 63251821203078 |
| Duration | 39:57 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | Genesis 24:29-67 |
| Language | English |
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