Sermon Notes + Quotes:
Transcript:
We study through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel. We’re studying the book of Genesis and we’re calling our study of Genesis “In the Beginning.” That’s the way the book opens, of course. And here we find in this ancient literature some of the answers to some of the biggest questions people have asked for all time:
- Where did everything come from?
- What does it mean to be a human person?
- What’s gone wrong with the world?
- Is there a God? And if so, what kind of God exists?
I am so excited as we start to come to the close of this last little storyline here in Genesis chapter 24, which we started last week. We kind of had a little bit of a teaser there at the end of our study, but this is an amazing story. It’s historical narrative.
I’ll remind you that [between] Sarah and Abraham, Sarah has passed from the scene at the age of 127 years—the only woman whose age is given in the Bible, and Isaac would’ve been about forty (40) years of age as we open up Chapter 24. And we’ve already read the first 14 verses, so if you weren’t with us last time, I’m going to encourage you to read that on your own.
Generally speaking, as an overview of what’s happened before, Abraham has described to one of his servants—likely Eleazar—from Chapter 15, that he would like to find a bride for Isaac. And what he would like Eleazar to do is to travel all the way to Abraham’s homeland, which is probably Mesopotamia, likely a 400-mile journey. And he would like him to go there with this important task, this important job, of finding a wife for Isaac.
Of course, his first question after receiving instructions from Abraham is, ‘What if I can’t find one? Or what if the one I find doesn’t want to come back with me?’ Then verse 7 and 8 of chapter 24 here in Genesis, Abraham responds by reassuring him (Eleazar) that an angel of the Lord will go with him and will watch over him. And further, that if the woman is unwilling to return with him, that the servant will not suffer any sort of repercussions for that.
So, we resume the reading at verse 15, and I’ll remind you this again, as historical narrative, it’s intended to tell us a story and it does so masterfully. I mean, I’m just blown away! Here’s something describing 4,000 years ago—the story of Abraham roughly 4,000 years ago—and it’s so well told. It describes a noble mission, an arduous journey, a great adventure, and the intrigue of the unknown. We’re given just enough detail that we can visualize each scene as it unfolds. And then, at the end of the chapter, it all climaxes in what reads like a slow-motion scene where two lovers seeing one another from a distance, they begin to run toward each other embracing in each other’s arms. The music swells, they embrace, he lifts her off the ground, they begin to twirl and spin, then fade to black, roll the credits… I mean, it just reads like a movie.
It’s a lot of text today. So, here’s what I’m really excited to tell you. I have a one-point sermon today, and I’m really excited about that. But there will be other little things along the way, of course. I wouldn’t want to leave you with just one point, but there’ll be other little things along the way. But there is one essential thing that we need to walk away from this story with. And so, I want to encourage you to listen for the story behind this story, and the greater love story that’s behind this love story that people often will call the love story of Isaac and Rebekah. So, let’s pick up on the text in verse 15 after I say a prayer:
Lord, thank you for your word that it’s living inactive. Thank you for these very real people whose real lives you buy your grace invaded, giving us the hope, Lord, the encouragement, the inspiration to trust you and believe that you will also invade our lives and bring redemption to us, we pray in Jesus’ name, amen and amen.
So, Abraham’s servant gets there and he’s got a little plan. And in verse 15, it came about that as his plan—which is spelled out just a little bit—it’s going to be reiterated a couple times so I don’t need to read it again.
But he finished speaking in his prayer to God. “And behold, Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel, the son of Milkah, the wife of Abraham’s brother Nehor, came out with her jar on her shoulder.”
So, the narrator tells us, and we already get some insight behind the scenes here (it hasn’t been made clear to Eleazar just yet) but the narrator is basically telling us that this woman that’s coming, this young woman that’s coming along, Rebekah is indeed from the family of Abraham, which was part of the mission. He, Eleazar, was sent by Abraham to find somebody from the broader family of Abraham for Isaac to marry. Well, “the girl was very beautiful,” we’re told, “a virgin and no man had relations with her. And she went down to the spring and filled her jar and then came up.”
Back then they would dig a well and oftentimes there would be—and I’ve visited some of these archeological sites in Israel before, maybe you have as well—[a pathway] all the way down, spiraling down some staircases before you ever get to the water.
And this young girl is there to get some water. “And the servant ran up to meet her and said, ‘Please, let me drink a little water from your jar.'” And this was a part of his prayer to God that if he would say that to a young woman who comes along and that she would not only give him a drink but also offer to get water for his camels, then that would be the one that the Lord would choose for Isaac. So he says, “The servant ran up to meet her,” verse 17 and “‘Please, let me drink a little water from your jar.’ And she said, ‘Drink my lord.’ And she quickly lowered her jar to her hand and gave him a drink.” This is promising, isn’t it? This is leaning in the right direction. If you’re Eleazar, you’re really excited. “So now when she had finished giving him a drink, she said, ‘I will draw also for your camels until they have finished drinking.'”
You got to remember he’s got 10 camels. They can each drink probably somewhere in the neighborhood (I looked it up online, you can do some research of your own) of 25 gallons of water. I mean, that’s a lot of water per camel. These are like huge Hummer SUV type vehicles that he’s brought along in this sort of travel train, the camel convoy if you will, all the way to this place. And so, she’s offering now, and she can see what he’s got there in terms of camels. And she says, “I’ll draw for your camels also until they finished drinking,” in other words till they’re full.”
“So, she quickly emptied her jar into the trough and ran back to the well to draw. And she drew for all his camels.” Wow. I mean if they do drink 25 gallons of water, you realize that’s 250 gallons of water. She was willing to get down those steps, get that and keep coming back up and fill in the trough up until each of those camels drank. Well, “Meanwhile, the man was gazing at her in silence,” he’s probably just blown away, right, “to know whether the Lord had made his journey successful or not.”
Now, sometimes we’re like that. We pray, “Lord, if you’ll do this and we ask for some kind of sign or some kind of somebody to speak to us,” whatever. It happens, and we still find ourselves wondering, “Is that really you, Lord? Lord, are you really speaking to us?” And it seems like he might have been there just like us.
Verse 22, “It came about when the camels had finished drinking, the man took a gold ring weighing a half shekel and two bracelets for her wrists weighing 10 shekels in gold. And he said, ‘Whose daughter are you? Please tell me is there room for us to lodge in your father’s house?’ And she said to him, ‘I’m the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milkah whom she bore to Nehor,'” and Nehor you’ll remember is Abraham’s brother. “Again she said to him, ‘We have plenty of both straw and feed and room to lodge in.’ And so the man bowed low and worshiped the Lord.”
Again, it’ll be referred to here, not by his name because we’re not actually told it’s Eleazar. I’m just speculating that that might be the case. But he’s seen over and over again, bowing low to the Lord and worshiping the Lord. This is quite an amazing character here in chapter 24, this servant of Abraham, amazing in terms of his godliness, amazing in terms of his loyalty and his faithfulness to his master Abraham and to this mission he’s been sent on. And it’s just beautiful to see someone with such faithfulness on display here. And so, “he bowed to worship the Lord.”
Verse 27: “He said, ‘Blessed be the Lord the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his loving kindness and his truth toward my master. As for me, the Lord has guided me in the way to the house of my master’s brothers.'” So, he’s starting to connect the dots now that she’s told him who she is. “The girl ran and told her mother’s household about these things. Rebekah had a brother whose name was Laban and Laban ran outside to the man at the spring. And it came about that when he saw the ring and the bracelets on his sister’s wrists, and when he heard the words of Rebekah, his sister saying, ‘This is what the man said to me,’ he went to the man and behold he was standing by the camels at the spring and he said, ‘Come in, blessed of the Lord. Why do you stand outside since I have prepared the house and a place for your camels?’
“So, the man entered the house, then Laban unloaded the camels and he gave straw and feed to the camels and watered to wash his feet and the feet of the men who were with him. But when food was set before him to eat, he said, ‘I will not eat until I have told my business.’ And he said, ‘Speak on,'” (meaning Laban said, ‘Well go on. Tell what is your business?’ And I appreciate this man, again, the servant’s integrity here doesn’t want to just take advantage of their hospitality without letting them know why he’s actually there.
And so, he said, verse 34: “‘I am Abraham’s servant and the Lord has greatly blessed my master so that he has become rich and he’s given him flocks and herds and silver and gold and servants and maids and camels and donkeys. Now Sarah, my master’s wife, bore a son to my master in her old age…'” Remember she was 90 when Isaac was born. And again, she’s passed away at this time, but she was 90. And so “‘she bore a son to my master in her old age and has given him all that he has. And my master made me swear saying, ‘You shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites in his land I live, but you should go to my father’s house to my relatives and take a wife from my son.'”
So concerned was Abraham for the spiritual heritage [of his future family] to ensure that what would be passed along wouldn’t be the kind of thing that came from the Canaanites, who worshiped these other false gods that had led them to the kind of depravity where they were actually sacrificing their own children to these false gods that they had made up. They’d turned their back on Yahweh, the real God who is really there.
And so, Abraham wants there to be some kind of spiritual continuity, spiritual purity. And so, he’s going to go back to his family and find a wife for Isaac. He is relaying this to Laban, that Abraham sent him there with this in mind to find a wife for his son. Verse 39. “‘And I said to my master, “Suppose the woman does not follow me.” And he said to him, “The Lord before whom I’ve walked will send his angel with you to make your journey successful and you’ll take a wife for my son from my relatives and from my father’s house and then you’ll be free from my oath when you come to my relatives. And if they do not give her to you, you will be free from my oath.”‘” And so again, as I said, he’s repeating essentially what we had learned in the first 14 verses that we studied before.
Verse 42. “So, I came today of the spring and I said, ‘Oh Lord, the God of my master Abraham, if now thou will make my journey on which I go successful, behold I’m standing by the spring and may it be that the maiden who comes out to draw and to whom I say, “Please let me drink a little water from your jar.” She will say to me, “You drink and I will draw for your camels also.” Let her be the woman whom the Lord is appointed for my master’s son.”‘”
Here he is recounting to Laban—this is the brother, of course, of Rebekah—but he’s recounting this to him just as he had prayed it to the Lord earlier and just as he even spoke it out loud in his prayer of thanksgiving in this chapter that we’ve already studied. So, this is a little bit of the same reality, but look at the specificity and notice how important that is. The narrator doesn’t want us to miss that. And so, he’s essentially being told the same thing a couple of times.
She does this “‘And before I’d finished speaking my heart, behold,'” verse 45, “‘Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder, went down to the spring and drew and I said to her, “Please let me drink.” And she quickly lowered her jar from her shoulder and said, “Drink and I will water your camels also.” So, I drank and she watered the camels also.'” Again, remember how many times she had to go up and down those steps, how industrious, how generous this Rebekah is. Not to mention the fact that we’ve already been told she was beautiful too. And so, he just has to feel like his mission is right on track and that not only will he be pleased in being faithful to Abraham, but that Isaac will be thrilled with Rebekah as his wife as well.
“‘And then I asked her and said, “Whose daughter are you?”‘” Verse 47: “‘And she said, “The daughter of Bethuel, Nehor’s son, who Milkah bore to him,” and I put a ring on her nose and the bracelets on her wrists. I bowed low and worshiped the Lord and blessed the Lord the God of my master Abraham, who had guided me in the right way to take the daughter of my master’s kinsman for his son.'” Verse 49: “‘So now if you are going to deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me and if not let me know that I may turn to the right hand or to the left.'” Remember, he’s just about to accept the hospitality, but he wants Laban to know exactly why he’s there and he wants to be forthright in all of this.
“Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, ‘The matter comes from the Lord. So, 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.’ And it came about when Abraham’s servant heard their words that he bowed himself to the ground before the Lord.” This is the third time he’s done that. If anything marks this man is that he wants to honor God in what he’s doing. This is so beautiful. “The servant brought out articles of silver and articles of gold and garments and gave them to Rebekah. He also gave precious things to her brother and to her mother. Then he and the men who were with him and drank and spent the night. And when they arose in the morning, he said, ‘Send me away to my master.’ But her brother and her mother said, ‘Let the girl stay with us for a few days, say 10. Afterward she may go.’ And 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.'”
This is interesting because he’s pushing back a little bit here, even though they’ve made this request. “And they said, ‘We will call the girl and consult her wishes.'” Verse 58: “Then they called Rebekah and they said to her, ‘Will you go with this man?’ And she said, ‘I will go.'” Wow, that’s just amazing. Now of course in our day and time, there’s going to be a lot of hurdles for us to jump culturally, from a religious standpoint (the traditions of marriage and all that sort of stuff), lots of hurdles to jump, but I think that’s just fascinating that that’s her response.
Verse 59: “Thus they sent her away, their sister Rebekah and her nurse with Abraham’s servant and his men. And they blessed Rebekah and they said to her, ‘ May you, our sister, become thousands of ten thousands. May your descendants possess the gate of those who hate them.'” So, they’re blessing her as she goes and telling her that they hope and pray that she’ll have many, many children, many descendants and that they’ll be successful in all that they do and that they’ll actually sit in the gate of their enemies as well.
Verse 61: “Rebekah arose with her maids and they mounted the camels and followed the man. So the servant took Rebekah and departed,” and here you have this camel caravan, ten of these thousand pound beasts and they’re going to travel this entire 400 plus mile journey to get back to Isaac.
“Now, Isaac had come from going to Beer Lahai Roi, for he was living in the Negev.” The Negev is another way of saying it’s like the southernmost part of Israel. If you were to visit there today, this would be the area that’s mostly desert-like wilderness type land. It’s mountainous terrain and there are flash floods that happen sometimes. So, there are these dry stream beds—wadi beds, W-A-D-I. But he’s gone to the Negev, he’s been living down there and likely he’s doing some kind of work for his father and for all that they have there because they, lots of cattle, lots of sheep, lots of flocks, everything—very industrious.
“Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward the evening,” verse 63, “and he lifted up his eyes and he looked and behold camels were coming,” off in a distance, he can see this right? “And Rebekah lifted up her eyes.” There she is riding on the camel, right? “Rebekah lifted up her eyes and when she saw Isaac, she dismounted from the camel,” and so they see each other from a distance “And she said to the servant, ‘Who is that man walking in the field to meet us?’ And the servant said, ‘He is my master.’ Then she took her veil and covered herself.” I love that. That’s just so beautiful in their customs.
“And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done and then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent and he took Rebekah and she became his wife and he loved her. Thus Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.”
This is just an amazing story. So masterfully told, as I said. I hope you could see some of these different scenes as we were going through it. I wonder what would you call this chapter, our study of this chapter or our sermon on this chapter? There have been lots of people who’ve thrown in different ideas. I’ve read a lot, of course, on this. I’m always reading eight or nine commentaries and listening to sermons online, all that sort of thing.
I always ask the question, “What was the authorial intent, the person that wrote this, the one that got inspired to preserve this record for us and to the best of our ability?” “Can we tell what that is?” “Why is it in our Bibles?” in other words. “What does it reveal to us about God? What does it also tell us about ourselves, about our life with God?” And how this chapter ought to shape us in some part will be determined by how we look at it. “Is this about how to find a spouse?” Man, I sure hope not because I don’t know very many people with ten camels and who are willing to send somebody, some employee, out there to go get him or her. Or, “Is it about how to discover God’s will?”
Again, this story describes some things in the historical setting—real people’s lives. And I think that’s all very important and we can certainly extrapolate some principles out of this chapter, but you got to love the cultural distinctions that we read about here in the Bible. And I don’t know if any of you here, in the West anyway, have ever imagined your wedding or your marriage to somebody being arranged in this manner.
Can you imagine being Isaac? What if he lived in our day and time? Your mom and your dad? No worries, your dad selects one of his employees and sends him out on a long trip to a country you’ve never been to, tells him to pick out a spouse for you, someone you’ve never seen, never emailed with, never FaceTimed with, never WhatsApped with. You won’t know their name, you don’t know what they look like and you certainly don’t know how they’re going to respond to you when they find out what you look like. You don’t know if they’ve got a bunch of really bad hygiene habits. You don’t know if they’ve got weird ticks, if they have some kind of strange fetishes that they wrestle with. You have no idea. It would be a complete shot in the dark. There wasn’t any kind of ancient version of eHarmony or jewishsingles.com or something like that for you to be able to find your chosen one.
But also think about if you’re on Rebekah’s side of this, because it’s not just a one-sided deal here. Some dusty stranger rides into town and says he’s been sent to your family by a long lost relative. He wants you to leave your family and friends, man up on a 1,000 pound hairy camel and ride 450 miles across the desert so you can become the wife of his master’s son. Sure, he’s making a lot of promises and tossing around a lot of cash and jewelry and gifts and things like that, but you’re just not sure you want to bet your entire future on this particular stranger.
So, as with any 4,000 year old storyline, it’s bound to stir up a lot of questions. And I’m sure as I was reading you probably had some yourself. Is there just one right person out there for you to marry? Is that what the Bible teaches, or do you marry someone and become the right person for them? What is marriage? What does that mean? Does God have a plan for our lives? Is it this meticulous, this detailed? Is God’s will for our lives more on an individual level or is it communal or familial like this family type thing? What’s it like? What is God’s will like and how can we come to know God’s will? Is it proper and right to fleece God, kind of like this servant did? ‘Lord let this happen. If this happens, I’ll know it’s you. If this doesn’t happen, I’ll move on.’
Special circumstances do occur from time to time. But normatively I have to say nowadays we think with the lens of the New Testament and we look into our Old Testament through that lens, being far better equipped to be able to discern God’s will, God’s ways, God’s wisdom because we have the completed canon of Scripture. Remember they didn’t even have a Bible back then. So, when we say, “study through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel,” it’s not just because we want to be religious, it’s because we’re hungry for God’s wisdom. We want to know God’s will as best we can. We want to discern it and we want to know what God thinks. We want to know what his ways are and to be able to walk in his wisdom and his will and his ways, that’s why we study through books of the Bible. That’s why we have God’s Word.
So, in the end, what we find in the Bible is a God who is eager to reveal Himself, has shown himself doing this over and over and over again. And with the canon, what we have is this beautiful library of sixty-six books written in three time-trapped languages that had original authorial intent and it’s all pointing to and finds its fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ who is this long ago promised seed of Abraham through which God intends to bless every nation.
So, I’m going to give you my one-point sermon, it goes exactly like this and then I’ll talk a little bit about discerning the will of God. I think there are some helpful things we can extrapolate out of this. But here’s my one-point sermon for today: God’s plan throughout redemption history is personal, global, supernatural and offered by grace. I love that. I mean, that’s the kind of thing I just want to remind myself of over and over and over again. See, we live in a world that thanks and acts apart from God or as if God might exist whenever we need Him. And we want to feel the warm fuzzies of romanticized religion, but we really don’t want Him meddling in our lives. So, we live in a world that lives effectively without God.
In Abraham’s day and time, the same was the case with the Canaanite nations that surrounded him. They had turned away from the God who’s there, they turned to gods of their own making that had eyes but cannot see, little statues with eyes that cannot see, mouths that cannot speak, ears cannot hear, feet cannot move, cannot do anything. And here we are reading about the God of the Bible who made everything out of nothing, who speaks to Abraham, who has spoken His Word throughout the ages and has preserved it in a divine way—superintendent. This collection of Scriptures for us, to be able to know what God thinks and what God wants us to know. We live in a world that thinks it’s really all about the self and it includes both religious and irreligious people. I’ve got to make that point and I think we’ve got to drive this home. I hope you’ll be able to see what I’m talking about because I’m not just a “Negative Nancy” or sort of a “Debbie Downer” here at all. I’m just doing an honest assessment of the world that we live in.
The philosophical landscape can be summed up using a couple of terms that have been used by the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor in his books, Sources of the Self and also A Secondary Age, and the British theologian Carl Truman in his book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. In the opening of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, there are a number of endorsements for Carl Truman’s book, one of which is by Rosaria Butterfield. And she uses these two terms that really do, I think, describe the landscape of the philosophical landscape of the world around us.
Mimesis is that finding excellence by imitating something greater than yourself.
Poiesis, finding authenticity by inventing yourself on your own terms.
–Rosaria Butterfield
You see there’s two completely different ways of looking at reality and they really are philosophical in the sense that the one is all about the self, poiesis. It’s all about us creating our own selves, our own identities, our own realities. And we’ve gotten sort of used to that because we have some technology that, at least, allows us to make some fake selves and some fake scenarios—and I’m not, again, down on any of that. When that begins to shape and influence what you think about the real reality that exists, then I think you’re in for trouble. Or when it begins to replace real relationships and a real understanding of who you are, then I think we’re in trouble as human beings and we’re severing our tether from reality itself. So, these two terms, mimesis is really important, poiesis is really important, as we take stock of the world in which we live and ask ourselves what kind of a view, a worldview, am I going to nurture and embrace myself and if I have children or others that look up to me, what do I want to pass along to them?
Abraham was very concerned about that all the way back 4,000 years ago. We should be as concerned about the same thing here in our own day and time—for those who believe in God and truly want to know what God’s will is, what God wants, and who are really not merely just using God to fit him into their agenda, to get God to serve their ambitions and their goals. The God of the Bible has been really faithful to make certain we can know his will for us.
There are a few principles that I’ll throw up on the screen for you. I’ll do this in pretty rapid fire because we don’t have a lot of time.
Asking the question “How can we come know the will of God?” at least begins with:
1. Become generally interested in living within God’s will. All right, so God’s will is not some salad bar you step up to, ‘I’ll just take and pick, choose what I like and I’ll leave the rest,’ or worse, ‘I’ll bring a few things to the salad bar and leave them there and eat on those and maybe leave them there for others and contaminate their salad as well.’ No, no, no, no… That’s not it at all. If we’re really interested in God’s will, if there really is a real God who is really there, occasionally we ought to find ourselves pulling on the end of the rope and God pulling back on the other end of the rope. Otherwise we are God. He’s not God otherwise. If God just likes everything I like and doesn’t like everything I don’t like, again, I’m God. He’s not God. And I’ve deluded myself.
“Hearing God makes sense only in the framework of living in the will of God.”
–Dallas Willard, Hearing God
If we neglect God in one area of our life and are knowingly living in sin, we should not expect that we will be very good at being able to discern the will of God. You see, we’ve got to turn away from our sin, from our self-centeredness, our selfishness, which is what we’re being trained up in this world. It’s all about the self and these are burdens that are far too great for any person to bear. I see the wreckage of it all the time. I see it in the world around me. I see it in our community. I see it in my own family, too. The havoc that these burdens that are far too great for us to bear is wreaking in the lives of people I love and that you know and that you love as well. We just never were created for that. That’s why we need to turn away from the thinking of the world and turn toward this God of the Bible who has revealed Himself, His wisdom, His will and His ways, in His word.
2. Pray and ask God for wisdom and guidance. This is fairly obvious, but part of my job is actually to state the obvious and then next week state the obvious again. Okay, so I’ve got a pretty easy job in that regard, although I’ve got to continually not only state the obvious but live in it myself and I’m living in a world where it’s a bit of a salmon swimming upstream for myself, for others who want to trust God, who want to believe and hope in God. And Abraham has to send far and wide to find somebody that he can trust who will share that same kind of belief and trust and hope in Yahweh. And so he does that. So we need to pray, we need to ask God for wisdom.
“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all generously and without reproach and it will be given to him.”
James 1:5
That is a command and a promise that you and I can actually move out on, alright? If you need wisdom from God, if you have a sense of hunger to hear from God on something or just to hear from God in general, like point number one, right, be in the Word. This is so important.
3. Become a discerning listener and make sure it is God’s voice that you’re hearing. Learn to discern the difference between the voice of your ambitions and your anxieties. How can you tell the difference? You say that, ‘That sounds like that’d be pretty hard to tell.’ Well, it is. It isn’t always easy. Sometimes it is hard.
My ambitions typically are motivated by me wanting to be in control and to be the one who’s deciding when something’s going to happen or if something’s going to happen and how it’s going to happen and what, all of that. My ambitions start to reveal that a sort of struggle for control between me and God, for instance. And my anxieties, if that’s the voice of my anxieties that are speaking to me and not God’s voice, it’s usually something that sounds a lot like fear. It’s usually something that starts me off in a direction of creating my own narrative, my own reality. And it’s usually a broken reality and it’s a burden too great for me to bear. I may want to live in a poietic world, but the reality is we live in a mimetic world. I love the tenacity of God’s truth. I love the resolution of God’s reality and that we have a fixed point on the horizon to live in the security of a God who has taken care to make sure all of that happens. Become discerning listener. Make sure it’s God’s voice that you’re hearing when you’re listening for God’s voice.
There are really four legs of a table, which is a great little illustration if you want, but here’s the way I would describe it: God’s Word, communing in prayer with God, godly counsel, and circumstances. These are four guides that help us recognize God’s voice, and discern it as different, as it being different from the voice of our ambitions and our anxieties and just the culture flow.
Four guides that help us recognize God’s voice:
God’s Word. And by the way, Abraham didn’t have this, but God was speaking to him, we’re told over and over again and again. It’s why we study through books of the Bible: we have this sure, certain word from God.
Communing prayer. This is that kind of prayer we see exhibited in the life of Abraham and in this servant where they’re communing with God, they’re listening, they’re watching and they’re constant. It’s not just “Here, God; do this.” It’s that kind of communal prayer unlike how some of us pray, just bringing our list of things to do to God. And listen, He’s delighted when we come to Him at all, but we are missing out on an abundance of the relational aspect of our life with God if we aren’t also listening to Him in prayer.
Godly counsel. These are friends that love you enough to tell you what you need to hear, not just what you want to hear you. You can probably think of friends that you have that will tell you just what you want to hear. But can you think of any friends that love you enough to tell you what’s right, what you need to hear, what might reveal something to you about yourself that’s a little uncomfortable or awkward? Blessed is the person who has friends like that, right?
Circumstances. The practicalities, the resources, the trajectories, the possible outcomes, all that sort of thing. We think about those things all the time too, but I recommend you do these in that sort of order too because God’s Word is the most objective and our understanding of the circumstances and interpretation of that can be the most subjective.
4. Be prepared to act on God’s guidance and direction. Get busy. Do what you already know is God’s will and as you’re walking in obedience, you’ll be able to hear more clearly what the Lord is saying. Oswald Chambers said it this way:
“God will never reveal more truth about Himself till you obey what you know already.”
–Oswald Chambers
He’s already told you something about His will for your life in the Bible; it’s full of specifics about God’s will for our lives. We need to get busy doing those and not become so obsessed with what I’m supposed to do in this particular circumstantial thing that may or may not really be ultimately important in God’s eyes. We want to be able to see what God sees and the way He sees, right?
5. Remain eager to bring glory to God. This servant kept falling on his face over and over again, worshiping God, giving God the glory and that is as it should be. That’s the ultimate will of God for all of our lives, that His glory would flow into and be reflected out of our lives. This is why we were created in the first place. I love Derek Kidner’s commentary on Genesis. He says:
“Success which inflates the natural man, humbles the man of God. The servant’s first thought is for the Lord, his second is for his employer and his final one, with unaffected delight, was for himself.”
–Derek Kidner, Genesis
And we saw that in Genesis 24. This guy, again, I think this nameless servant in chapter 24 who might be Eleazar, I think he is an amazing display of somebody who’s hungry to know the will of God and hungry to see the glory of God brought about in his own life.
This is a great love story. That’s true, but it points to the greater love story behind it all. J. I. Packer talks about it. He says:
“To know that nothing happens in God’s world apart from God’s will may frighten the godless, but it stabilizes his saints.”
–J.I. Packer
You see, God was working very hard to preserve that line through which Messiah will come. And we see as we go through our Old Testament, you see over and over and over again, God just playing the role of shepherd, shepherding the details, providentially leading and guiding each person’s life so that we ultimately get to and find the person and work of Jesus.
Genesis 24 beautifully illustrates and foreshadows other aspects of the gospel story, God’s plan of redemption put on offer for us. The parallels are simple. Let me put them up on the screen.
Abraham: the father willing to offer his son as a sacrifice and the father arranging a bride for his son.
Isaac: the promised son, the willing sacrifice, now ready, eager, awaiting his bride.
The servant: if it was Eleazar, interestingly, his name actually means “one called alongside to help,” and I love this because the Holy Spirit is the paraclete, He’s the one, He comes alongside, He’s the helper, the comforter, if you will. And so Eleazar is sent out to draw the bride to the son just like the Holy Spirit draws us, the church, to Jesus.
Rebekah: the willing bride, like the true bride of Christ, responds positively to the question, “Will you go?”
And the answer is, yes and amen! True Christians, true disciples, followers of Jesus, we’re not just flirting with faith. Our faith isn’t just faith in faith itself and our faith certainly isn’t faith in Self, as the world would present it. We’re not just dating Jesus, see. We’re not just casually using Jesus to get him to do what we want him to do or to give us a certain sense of some kind of romantic spirituality once in a while. True disciples of Jesus are those who are ready to hear the call of Jesus when he says, “Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.” And that has implications that are far, far reaching.
Ultimately, I believe Genesis 24 is meant to remind us about that one-point sermon summary. God’s plan throughout redemption history is personal, it’s global, it’s supernatural, and it’s offered by grace. And we see this here in this ancient story, don’t we? Very personal. The camera lens zooms all the way down to the bucket that Rebekah carries down into the well, the servant. We see him, his camels. We see Isaac as he’s just thrilled with what he sees coming in the distance. He sees that camel caravan and here comes his wife and he’s just so happy and just it will go on to follow their story a little bit more. God is working very personally.
Globally as well here. This is almost an international story, Abraham moving through all those surrounding nations, going off to where his own ancient homeland was. It’s supernatural because of the way God just continues to show up in this story and lead and guide with great precision. Eleazar the servant to the exact spot. I mean, think about the statistical probability of that happening?
And then it’s offered by grace. This is so beautiful. I just love this about our Bibles. Who wouldn’t want that? This is what is on offer to all of us, the heart of God for His people. David Jackman said:
“The necessity and provision of redemption is at the very heart of God’s plan and the plan of His heart.”
–David Jackman
You see, folks, the Bible is the greatest love story ever told. He loves you. No matter how broken you are, no matter how much you’ve turned your back on him, no matter how much I’ve been inconsistent in my faith, no matter how much I don’t have figured out, no matter how many times I find myself kind of wrestling and struggling with doubts and all that sort of thing. God has set his love on you, and it wasn’t because necessarily you were such a good little boy or girl or I was such a good little boy. It’s not because of that at all. It’s because God’s heart just overflows with love for sinners like me and sinners like you. How do we know this? Well, that’s why we study through books of the Bible. That’s why this book of God’s revelation is so important to us and we hope that you’ll continue to study along with us.
I’ll close with this quote by John Stott:
“Without revelation we cannot know God, and without redemption we cannot reach Him. That is why evangelical essentials focus on the Bible and the cross and on their indispensability since it is through these that God’s Word to us has been spoken and God’s work for us has been done.”
–John Stott, Evangelical Essentials
And I have the great news to be able to remind you of each and every week that God has done everything necessary for you to come to know Him, be reconciled to Him. This isn’t about you following religious rules. This isn’t about you being holier than thou. As a matter of fact, you can’t be holy and holier than thou at the same time, it can’t happen. This is a work of God in our lives. Because He loves us, we respond to Him in faith, believing, repenting, turning away from our sin and turning to Him to trust in Him as our Lord and Savior.
(Edited for Reading)
