Well, we come to a passage in Genesis which is probably less known than many others. Genesis chapter 21, the second encounter that Abraham has with Abimelech and Phicol, his general. This is from Genesis 21. I'll start reading at verse 22 to the end of the chapter, and then I want to read just a small passage in Acts chapter 1. Because what happens here is Abraham, in our passage, he claims a well. He dug the well, and it's his. So he has ownership of the well. Or he has free access to the well, perhaps. But this is a very small beginning, I think, of the land promise, the promise that all of the land would be given to his people, which really points forward to other and even greater things. So I want to read from Acts chapter 1 as well. But first, Genesis 20. Beginning at verse 22. At that time Abimelech in Phicol, the commander of his army, said to Abraham, God is with you in all that you do. Now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity. But as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have sojourned.' And Abraham said, I will swear. When Abraham reproved Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech's servants had seized, Abimelech said, I do not know who has done this thing and you did not tell me and I have not heard of it until today. So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech. And the two men made a covenant. Abraham set seven hew lambs of the flock apart. And Abimelech said to Abraham, what is the meaning of these seven hew lambs that you have set apart? He said, these seven hew lambs you will take from my hand, that this may be a witness for me that I dug this well. Therefore, the place was called Beersheba. because there both of them swore an oath, so they made a covenant at Beersheba. When Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, rose up and returned to the land of the Philistines, Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines. Acts chapter 1, 6 verses, beginning at verse 6. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said to them, it is not for you to know the times and the seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. You may not have noticed it, but the promise of a land. They thought he would be a king in Israel at the time. That wasn't his plan, but he's going to send them in all the world so that all the world would become the land of God and of his people, for it all belongs to him. And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you, believers. Dear Heavenly Father, we pray that you would write your word upon our hearts and minds, that we would be your children, and that you would be our God. For we ask this in Jesus' name, amen. As Bible-believing Christians, knowing the sovereignty of God over all things, we say and we believe that every square inch of this world belongs to God. It's His. He has made it. It belongs to Him. When Jesus, before He was taken up, it was said, all power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. And we actually believe that. And we call Him King Jesus. For He rules over His church, yes. He rules over everything. So we believe that all of life must be brought under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. There is nothing on earth that is purely secular. There is nothing on earth, in other words, that doesn't belong to God. There is nothing that is not spiritual. There is not one stray molecule in the universe that does not belong to God. I think it is one of the most damaging and dangerous errors of our time to think that there is a place that is separated from God. There is a realm of authority that is separated from God. There is part of this universe that God doesn't have any control over and He has no claim over. Philosophers in our day call it the sacred and the secular divide. and they describe it this way. Modern society is characterized by a sharp split between the sacred and the secular spheres, with work and business defined as strictly secular. And as a consequence, Christians often live in two separate worlds, commuting between the private world of family and church, where we can express our faith freely, and the public world, where religious expression is firmly suppressed. It's about 115 years ago that Abraham Kuyper said this, No single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest. And there is not a square inch of the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine. One more. If believers allow Christian truth claims to be pushed into an upper story of mere opinion, while suggesting that science and other forms of knowledge deal with facts, we surrender the integrity of faith itself, and are reduced to offering Christianity as a form of spiritual therapy, rather than as a message of transforming truth. So we believe that we, as His people, are to live under the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all of life. He is our King and He is our Lord. And we are to bring the truth claims of King Jesus, the crown rights of King Jesus to bear upon all of life because everything is spiritual and everything belongs to Him and He has power and authority over everything. There is nothing purely secular. So we can agree with this, I suppose, this grand vision of the greatness of our Savior, that He is the Lord and Master of all things. But how can we, in our day, in our circumstances, how can we live that out? How can we be faithful to that calling to bring the crown rights of Jesus to bear on all of life? How do we do it in detail? How do we live as, some people call it this, as worldview Christians in all of life, in the midst of a fallen and a hostile world? What can we do? That's a big question. Up in Michigan, maybe you've heard of this store, they started a brand new fast food franchise. I'm really up on these things. This was years ago, but it was called Hot N' Now. It was a hamburger place. They took McDonald's prices and they cut them in half. It was primarily a drive-thru service, and they did what they said. It was hot and it was now. You go through, you pay, it's there. You had exactly what you wanted immediately, and we, as Americans, we love that. We want everything hot and now. It fits into our culture perfectly. We want them now, we want them easy, we want them cheap. And because of that, I think we are a bit hasty and impatient. We are an I-need-it-now kind of people. You know, it's not going to make sense to me unless I can see it before me in the next week, the next day, the next hour. I'm not patient enough to wait for three weeks or four weeks. We want them now, we want them easy. We live for today and not for tomorrow, and certainly not for the distant future. And I think that's why almost everybody's in debt. And we often fail to save for the future. But God has long-term plans. God has plans that cross generations. God has plans that span millennia. God has bigger plans than just what am I going to do tomorrow? And these plans of God, it seems impossible to us when we are still bound by our time and our circumstances. So how can I be part of this massive millennia project of God? What can I do today to contribute to this massive movement of God throughout the centuries? Abraham, he had received promises of God. Astonishing promises. And he waited long for them. And he actually sacrificed much to see them achieved by God himself. He waited long for the promise of the seed, 25 years perhaps. And he also waited even longer for the promise of the land. But the promise of the seed just recently was fulfilled in Isaac. Isaac was born in a very miraculous way, and the seed promise was fulfilled, was beginning to be fulfilled, because the seed actually pointed forward to others. It pointed forward to Isaac, and it pointed forward to Jacob, it pointed forward to David, to Solomon, to Christ, and those who would be in Christ. The promise of the land also was beginning to be fulfilled here in a tiny way, in an ordinary circumstance. God was working his millennial plan by giving Abraham a well. But this well pointed forward to all of the promised land. It pointed forward to Israel. It pointed forward to the earth. It pointed forward to heaven itself. This was a small down payment, an earnest perhaps, of what God was going to be doing for thousands of years. And we need to begin to see that perspective to gain a better perspective on what we do today. So how did Abraham live in light of the promises? How was he part of this grand plan? And how do we live knowing the truth of God? Does it really make a difference? How can we learn from Abraham and what happened to him about living based upon the truth and based upon the promises? But then here also, how does the outside world see us? What do they see when they look upon Christians? What do they see when they look upon you? Here, how does a pagan king see Abraham? What does he see in Abraham? So first, the blessings of God acknowledged. A pagan king sues for peace. Abimelech, perhaps he was invited to Isaac's bean-weaned party. Maybe, you don't know, it's not in the text. Or maybe he was coming because he heard there were some rumblings about this well. He denies that in the text. But for whatever reason, he was there. He was there to sue for peace with his army general. And he was coming to Abraham to beg for peace. But the astonishing thing for me, anyway, that's in the text is Abimelech, the pagan king, looked at Abraham and said, God is surely with you. Now, how could he say that? Remember how Abraham treated him before? Lied to him. And then when he was confronted with his lie, he blame shifted. Wasn't a very good start. He wasn't a very good witness. But still, this pagan king could see that God was with Abraham, even in his failures. God was with Abraham. And that's how he begins the conversation. God is with you in all that you do. That's an amazing statement. When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. Proverbs 12. But Abraham started out lying to him, disrespecting him. So what did Abimelech see in Abraham? And again, we only see a few things from the text, but, well, was it the miraculous birth of Isaac? Here this 100-year-old person who has a 90-year-old wife, and they have a child, and that's unheard of. Maybe he heard of that. Wow. God is really with them. Maybe it was news in the neighborhood. Maybe it was the evident prosperity of Abraham. Abraham was a rich man. In the coin of that day, he was rich. Maybe it was in a distinctive way that he worshipped. You see, Abraham was a little odd. He didn't fit in with everybody else. Because he knew God, God had changed the way that he lived and the details of his life. So he was a little different, he was a little strange in a very good way, I take it. And maybe it was Abraham had different convictions than everybody else. But whatever guesses you might have, the one thing that's certain that he knew about him was that God answered Abraham's prayers. Remember when his people weren't becoming pregnant because of the situation with Sarah and Abraham. And Abraham prayed and they began to get pregnant again. He answered their prayers. So Abraham, in Abimelech's eyes, this man, weak and misguided that he was at times, he knew God. Or perhaps even better, God knew him. And it was evident in his life that God was with him. I think that Abimelech, when he looked upon Abraham, he didn't see a perfect man. He didn't see a shining example of godliness, necessarily, in all points. He saw an ordinary man, but behind him he saw an extraordinary God. An ordinary man, and behind him, living with him, through him, an extraordinary God. God is with you, Abraham, in whatever you do. Even when he failed, God was still with him. And God still used him. God still called him a prophet. God still answered his prayers. God is with this one. And he knew it. He wasn't perfect. But there was something about Abraham that was different, that was real, that was solid, that was enviable. He knew God. And God was with him. And God was favorable to him. So I guess that leads me to a question. What do people see in you? Again, I'm not asking for perfection. But can they say, as they look at you, God is with them. I can see God working in them. I can see God blessing them, forgiving them. I can see God dwelling with them, giving them wisdom, giving them forgiveness, giving them guidance. God is evidently real in their lives. Is that what people see in you? Does God shine through the windows of your life? Somehow. Again, not perfect. You're not perfect. Abraham wasn't perfect. I'm not asking for that. But can other people see God living in you? In fact, one of the things I do, I think I told you this before, is that there are times when I can see or detect, determine that God is working in the lives of other people. And I can tell them that. God is using you. God is blessing you. That service, that prayer, that activity, whatever it was, I can see that God is with you. In fact, sometimes when I see you, I see God's hand. And that's a really encouraging thing to be able to say to somebody else, I can see God in you. Can others see that you are different by the way that you live? Because you live with God and God lives with you. Is there something strange and wonderful about you? Are you a little odd in a good way? Is there a faithful consistency of God walking with you? Is there evidence of growing grace and love and kindness? Is there evidence of divine wisdom and comfort in your life? So, I guess I want to boil the whole thing down. Can other people see in your life God in the ordinary details of your life? In the everyday? In the now? Can they see that God is with you? That God is blessing you? That God is owning you? Perhaps even for Abraham, can they see that God is with you even when you make mistakes? Because Abraham did, and Abimelech could still see God with him. So how are we in the midst of the world to bear witness to the God that is within us? The God that we believe, the God that we follow, the God that we worship. How are we to bear witness to the world around us that God is with us? And the simple answer is just be yourself. That may sound a little odd, but just be yourself in the midst of your circumstances. If God is with you and you're walking with him, he will be evident. He will be present. He will be, if I could put it this way, made visible through you. So just be yourself, and God will show His blessing on you and through you. But be distinctively different, for God is in your life. He is the center and the substance of your life. See, Abraham's life announced the goodness of God to those around him, even in his failures, even in his mistakes. He enjoyed the evident blessing of God, and it was evident to the eyes of other people. There was an army chaplain who was stationed out in Korea, and he sort of told this story about one of the people under his charge, and I'll just call him Chip Daniels, that's not his name. But people were coming up to the chaplain and talking about Chip Daniels. He says, you know, chaplain, I'm an army guy, I've never been very religious, but when I look at his life, I want some of what he has. I want his God. And how can I find him? How can I be with him? There's something about the way that he lives, the way that he speaks, the way he interacts in the ordinary details of his life that manifest God. What an amazing testimony of Chip Daniels. They could see God in him. Even unreligious people could say, whatever he has, I want some of that. Does God show in your life? And again, I'm not asking if you're perfect. But are you walking with God, you have him by the hand as it were, and is God evident in your daily life, in the details of your daily life? Can other people see him there? Abimelech could with Abraham, and he says, I want what Abraham has to some extent. I want to have peace with this man and with his people, because they're good people. So he wants perpetual peace with Abraham because he can see God working. I can see the comfort of God in your life. I can see the peace and the joy of God in your life. So does God show in your life. And Abimelech was looking for kindness. He's looking for covenant loyalty, not only for today, but for tomorrow and for the future. When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. And in all of this, Abraham agrees, yes, I will live at peace with you. And then he confronts him. I think the order is important here. He says, yes, I will live at peace with you, but we have a problem. He didn't say, if we can solve this problem, then I'll live at peace with you. He committed to peace because peace, peace even with unbelievers is a good thing. We need to learn how to get along with unbelievers a little better. But anyway, Abraham did and he was willing to make a covenant with him. But then he said, you know, there's still a problem here because I dug a well and your people took it. So we got to resolve this. If we're going to live at peace with each other, we need to resolve this issue. So he confronts Abimelech. He reproves him. This well was seized by your servants, taken by force, is really the force of the words. It was seized. You know, we would think, well, this is just a well. What's the big deal? If you ever lived in a desert, a well would be really important. If you had to feed all of your livestock, a well was really important. A well was a treasure in that time. And it took a long time to find the water and to dig it out and to make it useful. And he did, and then it was taken. So Abraham, he could have started a war. Instead, he started a covenant. Isn't that a novel idea? Let's work through the issues and have peace with one another. But let's work through the issues. Let's not have a false peace where there's still these raging issues behind us, but let's deal with them openly and honestly and then have peace. So he started a war instead of a covenant. He was different, Abraham was. He was a little odd. In fact, I think of this. Why didn't Abraham say anything before? He was defrauded, but he didn't say anything until now. That's interesting. But he did say something, eventually, when the time was right, when something could be done about it, and he did it. But this was his portion of the land, as it were, and it was taken from him. Perhaps this was a land promise, but he didn't force it with his own hands. And this guy came to him and they established peace, and he eventually got the well back. So they, the blessing of God assured, cutting the covenant. We talked about that before. They took these animals and they would slice them up and basically say, this is the agreement, and if I fail to keep my part, if you fail to keep your part, may what happened to the animals happen to us. That's sort of what the cutting of a covenant was. That was the agreement. And so they did that. It was a self-maladictory oath, they call it. If I don't keep my end of the deal, may what happened to the animals happen to me. So it was a guarantee, it was extending the right hand and shaking on a deal, it was signing your name on a contract and knowing that there were consequences if you failed. But then, after he sealed the covenant, he took out these seven hue lambs and gave them to him. And this was a little odd, even for Abimelech, he didn't know what it meant. So what does it mean, these seven hue lambs? He says, well, this is the earnest, this is the guarantee that this is my will, that what I'm saying is true. And if you accept these from my hand, you're agreeing with me that this well belongs to me. That's what you're saying, that I dug it, it's mine. This is the earnest, this is the pledge, this is the guarantee. Now this was also Abimelech's language, I suppose, when he let Sarah go, gave her a thousand pieces of silver as the guarantee. I'm saying I never touched her and this is your guarantee that I never touched her. That's the earnest, the guarantee, that's the commitment that he had. And so this was the commitment that Abraham wanted to seal, that this really does belong to me, and I want you to agree to it, and I'm going to give you these seven new lambs, and that's what sort of Beersheba means, the well of the oath, or the well of the seven, that's what it means. And so he made it there. And that got me thinking about how does God further assure us of His Word and of His covenant? How does God sign on the dotted line, or how does God shake our hands, as it were, to guarantee what He says? What does God give as His earnest money or as His guarantee? Like Abraham gave seven ewe lambs here, well, God gives Himself as the guarantee. God gives His Word. God gives His sacraments. God gives His Spirit. God gives His Word. And even for us now, many of the promises of God are fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. They eventually all will be, but we already have a long track record of Jesus fulfilling the promises. And so we have a further guarantee that all the promises of God are yea and amen in him. So, he establishes peace with Abimelech, and then he works out an issue with Abimelech, and he's given the well, and now he plants a tree. This is the blessing of God acknowledged. Both in the beginning and the end of our text, God is acknowledged. God is with you wherever you go, and then at the end as well in verse 33. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, And he called there upon the name of the Lord, the everlasting God. God, this is a conversation with a local ruler. This is working out the water rights. And these are part of God's revelation. These are all part of God's big plan. The ordinary in Abraham's life was part of God's transcendent plan. him signing a contract, if we could call it that, his relations to the state, to the governing officials. You can almost look upon the earnest money as paying taxes of a sort on his property, water rights, and now even planting a tree. But there's something more going on here. Abraham, who was given the promise of the land as well as the promise of the seed, he was given a place. He was given a well. It was guaranteed to be his, that he could use it, he had access to it. And he planted a tree. It seems like a small, ordinary thing, doesn't it? He planted a tree. What is a tree? You know how long it takes a tree to grow? Years. And he planted it there by the well, perhaps for shade. Whatever. But it was his. This is home now. You've got to picture Abraham. He was a wandering nomad. He had no place to lay his head, as it were. He traveled all over the place. But he was given the promise of the land. And really, some people say the only thing that he actually owned when he died was his grave. But perhaps there's a beginning of this even in the well. This is a place that's more permanent. You've got to remember, Abraham and his wife, they're in their old age at this point. And they're wandering nomads. But this is a place I can go home. This is a place I can plant a tree. This is a place I can call upon the name of the Lord. This is a place I can establish a church. Which is what he did. I am home now. I have an enduring place in the land. I have a permanent well. I can build a family around this. I can build a city around this. And he established a church. And he called upon the everlasting God. El Olam. The everlasting God. The God who plans for thousands of years. Had forwarded his plan in that one day with Abraham. where he could plant a tree and sign a contract and make peace with a ruler. God's plan that was spanning thousands of years, and he was working his plan in Abraham's day. And he's working his plan in our day as well, with our relationship to our neighbors, with how we dig a well, with how we plant a tree, with how we plant a church. All of these little things, all of these ordinary things, are part of God's massive plan. And Abraham here was celebrating God's hesed, God's covenant loyalty, the faithfulness of God. The God who plans forever plans today. The God who plans eternity has planned Monday for me. You can say that and you can believe that. You can walk in the full confidence that God is with you. So God had brought him the seed promise in Isaac. And that pointed all the way forward to Christ. And God brought him at least a down payment on the land promise with this well in Beersheba. And that pointed forward to heaven itself. So God was faithful to Abraham. God was kind to Abraham. And Abraham could be faithful and kind to Avimelech. And he was, making peace with him. You see, when I say God has plans for thousands of years and they span generations, We don't see that today is very important, but it is. What we do today matters. What we do today matters for eternity. So how can we be part of the crown rites of King Jesus in every area of life? Well, let me make it really simple. We are to soak up the love and the faithfulness of God and the Lord Jesus Christ for ourselves. We are to know Him and we are to walk with Him. We are to live out of the kindness of God under the cross all the time. And then we will live before the eyes of the watching world with wisdom. How did Johnny Appleseed get his start? He planted one tree, and then he planted another, and then another. Then maybe he had his son plant a tree, and his neighbor plant a tree, and it just snowballed. There's apple trees everywhere. So how are we to fulfill this massive plan of God? Well, we plant one tree, like Abraham did. We worship together, we bask our soul in the love and the mercy of God in Christ, and then we live in the light of that truth before the eyes of the watching world. We are to, this isn't necessarily our foremost in our mind intention, but we are to drive people to envy at the relationship that we have with God. They are to want something that we have. It's to be evident that we have God, that we walk with God, that God is blessing us, that God is behind us, that God is for us, that everything we do, God blesses. He's present. And others will see that, and it will drive them to Him. So others should see it. They should see an extraordinary God behind you as an ordinary person. May they say, well, I've never been religious, but I want whatever it is that they have. I can see God and His evident blessing in them. There's something different about them, even in the ordinary details of their life. Amen, let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are the extraordinary God of the ordinary, that you fulfill your grand design by what happens today, that what we do in calling upon your name in reading your word, in raising your children, in witnessing to the world, what we do matters for eternity. And Lord, we are part of your grand design, and we thank you for that. We pray, Lord, that you would show through us, that you would be evident through our lives, through our families, through our decisions, through our sacrifice, through our service, through even the way that we ask for your forgiveness, but that others would know that you are with us, that you are present, that you have taken up your abode within us, that they would be driven to ask a reason for the hope that is in us, that we would be able to say, it is Christ living in me. So bless us, Lord, as we live ordinary lives with an extraordinary God, for we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.