SPEAKER_00: Our scripture passage this morning comes from Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be reading verses 1 through 9.
SPEAKER_00: We are starting a new summer series today.
SPEAKER_00: Living by Faith Lessons from Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: And particularly for most of this series, we're going to be looking at the life of Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: How do we learn how to live by faith through the patriarch Abraham?
SPEAKER_00: I was grateful for singing this song that we just sang in preparation.
SPEAKER_00: I found myself confessing sin as I was singing.
SPEAKER_00: The songs that we sang this morning.
SPEAKER_00: By faith we sang, we will fix our eyes on him, our soul's reward.
SPEAKER_00: And I felt like the Spirit searching my heart.
SPEAKER_00: Tom, is he your soul's reward?
SPEAKER_00: Tom, what are you living for?
SPEAKER_00: What are you living for?
SPEAKER_00: And then we just sang, Christ is mine forevermore.
SPEAKER_00: Come rejoice now, O my soul, for his love is my reward.
SPEAKER_00: I think the Spirit is trying to reach my heart this morning.
SPEAKER_00: How about yours?
SPEAKER_00: Is his love my reward?
SPEAKER_00: Or am I looking for a different kind of reward?
SPEAKER_00: Am I looking for something more tangible?
SPEAKER_00: No, this is good.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, worship team, for leading us.
SPEAKER_00: Now we're going to read about the call of Abram.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house and the land that I will show you.
SPEAKER_00: And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: So Abram went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him.
SPEAKER_00: Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran, and Abram took Sarah his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan.
SPEAKER_00: When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Mora.
SPEAKER_00: At that time the Canaanites were in the land.
SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your offspring I will give this land.
SPEAKER_00: So he built there an altar to the Lord who would appear to him.
SPEAKER_00: From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east.
SPEAKER_00: And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reading of God's holy, precious word.
SPEAKER_00: Let's ask the Spirit's work in us today.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the call of Abram.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the call of each of us who have been called by faith into your service, into your kingdom, into your family.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, we pray, even as I preach this morning, I pray that you would be our reward.
SPEAKER_00: Would you be our reward?
SPEAKER_00: May we not be searching anywhere else for such a reward.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Living by faith, lessons from Genesis, this new summer sermon series.
SPEAKER_00: Why this series now?
SPEAKER_00: Well, this is a good time for this church to live by faith.
SPEAKER_00: As you hear often these days.
SPEAKER_00: How many times have you heard the word transition?
SPEAKER_00: Are you getting tired of that word?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it is.
SPEAKER_00: It is a time of real transition in many ways.
SPEAKER_00: Transitions, not just churches transitions, but I think of all ages.
SPEAKER_00: I think of transitions in as a pastor just in the last year of people who have had to move into assisted living after giving up their earthly house for many decades.
SPEAKER_00: I think of some friends of mine who have moved into assisted living.
SPEAKER_00: That's a transition.
SPEAKER_00: I think of students going off to college.
SPEAKER_00: About a dozen from here going off.
SPEAKER_00: That's a transition.
SPEAKER_00: I think of graduates from high school, junior high, kindergarten, you little ones, you little ones getting ready to go to kindergarten next fall.
SPEAKER_00: That's a transition.
SPEAKER_00: Transitions in many ways.
SPEAKER_00: Starting, adults, starting new jobs, making changes.
SPEAKER_00: I also think this text is special because of the status that is given to Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that Abraham is mentioned 74 times in the New Testament?
SPEAKER_00: That's really striking.
SPEAKER_00: The chosen channel, human chosen channel of redemption.
SPEAKER_00: Only person in Scripture who's called in the Old Testament, the only person in the Old Testament that is called a friend of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's quite the description.
SPEAKER_00: That's quite the compliment.
SPEAKER_00: We read about that in Isaiah chapter 41, verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: In the New Testament, James chapter 2, verse 23, refer to Abraham, the friend of God.
SPEAKER_00: So you get it.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot we can learn from this man.
SPEAKER_00: His faith.
SPEAKER_00: His God, most of all.
SPEAKER_00: Let's dive in.
SPEAKER_00: Certain words and phrases stand out from this text before us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to focus on three words: a voice, a tent, and an altar.
SPEAKER_00: A voice to hear.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first point.
SPEAKER_00: A voice to listen to.
SPEAKER_00: That was true for Abram.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to have a hard time always calling him Abram.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: Abram, Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: The name change comes later.
SPEAKER_00: Abram heard God speak.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1, God spoke to Abram.
SPEAKER_00: And what did he say?
SPEAKER_00: Leave your country, leave your people, leave your home.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sending you somewhere else, and it will be for your good.
SPEAKER_00: Leave.
SPEAKER_00: At that point, he was 75 years old.
SPEAKER_00: He lived in the land in the biblical times called Mesopotamia, which today is Iraq, probably southern Iraq, is where he started off from.
SPEAKER_00: And this middle-aged man apparently was very settled in his life.
SPEAKER_00: The city of Ur was a port city, rich in commerce, culture.
SPEAKER_00: He had so much comfort surrounding him in so many ways at that time in his life.
SPEAKER_00: And yet God said, leave.
SPEAKER_00: Leave all of this behind.
SPEAKER_00: And then the second verb in the text is be, be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to be a blessing, but you will be a blessing by going and going with me, God says.
SPEAKER_00: But go.
SPEAKER_00: So let's break down this voice call.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: First of all, it's a sovereign call.
SPEAKER_00: God's voice is like no other voice.
SPEAKER_00: How does God speak to us?
SPEAKER_00: God speaks to us from his word.
SPEAKER_00: From his word by his spirit.
SPEAKER_00: His spirit is able to use his word to speak directly to you.
SPEAKER_00: This is not just a general call, if you happen to hear it.
SPEAKER_00: It's a sovereign call.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to dig into this covenant life that he lived.
SPEAKER_00: It's not between two equals.
SPEAKER_00: God is clearly the sovereign.
SPEAKER_00: He is the vassal.
SPEAKER_00: We'll get into that more in the series.
SPEAKER_00: But it's God's voice that matters most.
SPEAKER_00: The most significant call for all of us from God is the call to salvation.
SPEAKER_00: We can agree on that.
SPEAKER_00: In our Reformed theology, we refer to that as God's efficacious call.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, when God calls directly to a person, when God has something in mind to say specifically that's important, he says it clearly and powerfully, effectually, so you hear it.
SPEAKER_00: You don't miss it.
SPEAKER_00: Why do we call it an efficacious call?
SPEAKER_00: You can't miss it because this is his voice, and his voice is all powerful.
SPEAKER_00: C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis talked about his testimony.
SPEAKER_00: Looking back on those years later, to his surprise, to his surprise, he heard God's call after years of being an agnostic.
SPEAKER_00: As the dry bones shook and came together in that dreadful valley of Ezekiel, so now here this philosopher, very much cerebral, began to stir and heave and throw off the grave clothes and stood upright and became a living presence.
SPEAKER_00: God became a living presence in his life at that moment.
SPEAKER_00: I was allowed to play as a philosopher no longer.
SPEAKER_00: It might, as I say, still be true that my spirit differed in some way from others.
SPEAKER_00: But I could not argue anymore.
SPEAKER_00: God said, I am the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I am that I am.
SPEAKER_00: I am.
SPEAKER_00: And I knew it.
SPEAKER_00: People who are naturally religious find difficulty in understanding the horror of such a revelation.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, what is he saying?
SPEAKER_00: Until it happens to you, you're not going to get it.
SPEAKER_00: And that might be you.
SPEAKER_00: Until it happens to you, you're not going to understand this.
SPEAKER_00: But it might happen to you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: It might happen this morning that God speaks directly to you, powerfully, graciously, efficaciously.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden you hear his voice.
SPEAKER_00: And you can say, Yeah, but I thought I heard his voice before.
SPEAKER_00: I've read the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's different when you come to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And you know it.
SPEAKER_00: And you know that you believe like you have not believed before.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he's saying.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis goes on to say, to me, as I then was that day, they might as well have talked about the mouse searching for a cat.
SPEAKER_00: You get that, right?
SPEAKER_00: Mice don't search for cats.
SPEAKER_00: Cats search for mice.
SPEAKER_00: He's just saying, I wasn't really looking for them.
SPEAKER_00: I was religious.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you.
SPEAKER_00: No, I, yeah, I'm I'm good with God.
SPEAKER_00: There's a place in my life for God.
SPEAKER_00: That's not Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is understanding that when he speaks to you with this powerful voice, all of a sudden you understand he's God and you're not.
SPEAKER_00: And you're a sinner and you need a savior, and only Jesus Christ can save you.
SPEAKER_00: And you believe it.
SPEAKER_00: And your life is changed.
SPEAKER_00: And you realize, you realize that you weren't searching for God, he was searching for you.
SPEAKER_00: In a different way.
SPEAKER_00: A voice to hear, it's a sovereign call.
SPEAKER_00: God has a voice.
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says in John chapter 5, verse 24, I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word, whoever hears my voice, and believes him who sent me has eternal life and is crossed over from death into life.
SPEAKER_00: That can happen to you right now.
SPEAKER_00: By the power of the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, it's a definite call to specific people, to specific places, at specific times.
SPEAKER_00: God called Abram by name.
SPEAKER_00: He always does.
SPEAKER_00: I know some of you grew up in different churches that don't believe this.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us grew up in churches that believe that he just gives a general call to everybody.
SPEAKER_00: Just let the leaflets fly out of the plane, and whoever they land on, they land on.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: He has you in mind when he calls you.
SPEAKER_00: Your name, your face, your story.
SPEAKER_00: He has you in mind.
SPEAKER_00: And when he calls efficaciously, he wants you, and he's going to get you.
SPEAKER_00: Because he's way more powerful than you are.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't just call out to crowds.
SPEAKER_00: He calls people with names and stories to accomplish a particular task once they come to him.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say this: nothing just happens in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Did you hear that?
SPEAKER_00: Nothing just happens in your life.
SPEAKER_00: There's a purpose for everything.
SPEAKER_00: And you're beginning to understand life and understand wisdom when you begin to understand that.
SPEAKER_00: These things come from the hand of God.
SPEAKER_00: He's got his hand on you, and he's got a purpose for your life.
SPEAKER_00: He has a call in your life, Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And thirdly, it's a gracious call.
SPEAKER_00: It's a very gracious call.
SPEAKER_00: Seven times he says, I will.
SPEAKER_00: This is all about what God can do, not what you can do.
SPEAKER_00: I will bless you.
SPEAKER_00: I will make you a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: I will give you a land.
SPEAKER_00: I will bring people.
SPEAKER_00: There will be more people that come from your family line than the sands in the shore, than the stars in the sky.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you hear that, what do you think?
SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
SPEAKER_00: Abraham's family is a big family because of God.
SPEAKER_00: It's a gracious call.
SPEAKER_00: The contrast between Genesis 11 and 12, and if you want to take the time later today, look, just go back and read Genesis 11.
SPEAKER_00: That's about the Tower of Babel where all these ungodly people say, remember what they said?
SPEAKER_00: Come, let's build a city for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: That's what they said.
SPEAKER_00: So that we will make a name for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that sound like people around you?
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that sound like Washington, D.C.?
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna make a name.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna make a name for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna build things that are gonna make us look good.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: That's not for us.
SPEAKER_00: He said, chapter 12, we get to Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: If we are truly blessed, it's only because God Himself blesses us.
SPEAKER_00: That's true.
SPEAKER_00: There's not a blessing that you have that's worth keeping if you had it made it happen.
SPEAKER_00: But everything that God gives you is gold.
SPEAKER_00: To be blessed by God, he's our reward.
SPEAKER_00: A gracious call.
SPEAKER_00: These are God's unconditional promises to Abram.
SPEAKER_00: It's been said, I think Jim Boyce said it, in its unconditional nature, the promise of God to Abram does not depend on Abram's ability to see it, to see how it can be fulfilled, nor in the ability of himself or his descendants to live this out.
SPEAKER_00: God's commands are not always accompanied by reasons, but they are always accompanied by promises, either expressed or implied.
SPEAKER_00: Take that to the vag.
SPEAKER_00: God's promises are not always accompanied by reasons.
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't we like that?
SPEAKER_00: God walk me through this that you want to do in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Give me the plan, please.
SPEAKER_00: Let's lay it out.
SPEAKER_00: I want to know where I'm gonna be every step of the way, where you're gonna be and what you're gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't do that.
SPEAKER_00: We think, well, I wish he would.
SPEAKER_00: But the truth is we would not grow.
SPEAKER_00: We just would not grow living in that kind of comfort.
SPEAKER_00: We've been talking about God's voice.
SPEAKER_00: Now let's talk about tents.
SPEAKER_00: A tent to pitch.
SPEAKER_00: From there he moved to the hill country and Abram pitched his tent.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, some of you love living in tents, but not me.
SPEAKER_00: How many nights have I spent in a tent?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Like one.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I God bless you guys who love living in tents.
SPEAKER_00: I prefer cabins when I'm out roughing it.
SPEAKER_00: What about tents?
SPEAKER_00: Two things.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, tents remind us that we're not home.
SPEAKER_00: We are pilgrims.
SPEAKER_00: For all the promises that God gave to Abram about becoming a great nation, possessing a great land, Abram never owned land except his burial ground.
SPEAKER_00: Abram never paid taxes.
SPEAKER_00: Abram never paid real estate taxes.
SPEAKER_00: Think about it like that.
SPEAKER_00: He was in a tent.
SPEAKER_00: And he could pick up the tent and move whenever God told him to.
SPEAKER_00: And he would stay as long as God told him to.
SPEAKER_00: Let's take a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Let's flip over if you're in your Bible to Hebrews.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: This is really great, great teaching.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear those pages flip.
SPEAKER_00: Love to hear those pages flip.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to bring your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Bibles on phones are good.
SPEAKER_00: They can be helpful, but it's good to bring your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Just back and forth and take notes.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews chapter 11, verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: And he went out, not knowing where he was going.
SPEAKER_00: By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise, for he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.
SPEAKER_00: If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.
SPEAKER_00: But as it is, they desire a better country.
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that there's a better country?
SPEAKER_00: It's a heavenly one.
SPEAKER_00: It's not this one.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared for them a city.
SPEAKER_00: Those words, those are good words, I guess, for congregations to recite probably every week.
SPEAKER_00: That wouldn't be too much.
SPEAKER_00: Acknowledging that we're strangers and we're exiles on this earth.
SPEAKER_00: So we don't get Too attached.
SPEAKER_00: How long does it take you to get attached?
SPEAKER_00: Kids to your favorite new toy.
SPEAKER_00: Adults to your favorite new toy.
SPEAKER_00: How long does it get you, how long does it take to get attached?
SPEAKER_00: I just don't want to keep it.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to go where I go, it's going to go.
SPEAKER_00: As much as possible.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's good to remind ourselves every Lord's day that every one of us are pilgrims.
SPEAKER_00: Not drifters.
SPEAKER_00: There's a big difference between being a pilgrim and a drifter.
SPEAKER_00: A drifter really doesn't know where they're going.
SPEAKER_00: A drifter doesn't have any particular place in mind.
SPEAKER_00: A pilgrim does.
SPEAKER_00: There's a big difference.
SPEAKER_00: There's another passage I came across this week studying that I just, man, I love this passage.
SPEAKER_00: This is Stephen talking about the call of Abraham in Acts chapter 7.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and fathers, hear me.
SPEAKER_00: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia.
SPEAKER_00: What stands out to you when you hear that?
SPEAKER_00: The God of glory called me.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about that.
SPEAKER_00: Unless we encounter God's glory, we will always be trying to make a home out of this world.
SPEAKER_00: That's true.
SPEAKER_00: We will attempt to do so through our careers, perhaps, through relationships, through families, through our achievements.
SPEAKER_00: Until you're captured by the glory of God, you're going to be too comfortable in this world.
SPEAKER_00: This world is going to feel like it's your home.
SPEAKER_00: And you're going to live for this world even though you go to church.
SPEAKER_00: And you're going to live for this world, even if you call yourself a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Until you and I encounter the glory of God, then we're ready to pick up stakes.
SPEAKER_00: Then we're ready to say, God, I will go where you lead.
SPEAKER_00: I will follow you.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: We will either live for comfort or we will live for God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot do both.
SPEAKER_00: You can't.
SPEAKER_00: You can try.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll be miserable.
SPEAKER_00: If you're trying to live for God's glory and you're trying to live for comfort, you will be miserable.
SPEAKER_00: You'll just feel, you'll have, you'll walk around, and maybe you do.
SPEAKER_00: You'll just have a lot of this low-level chronic guilt.
SPEAKER_00: This low-level chronic, yeah, I'm not sick.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have 103 fever, but I have a 99.9.
SPEAKER_00: I have 100.
SPEAKER_00: I don't feel great.
SPEAKER_00: Do you hear me?
SPEAKER_00: Physically.
SPEAKER_00: Like spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: You'll wonder why.
SPEAKER_00: Why don't I why don't I have the joy of the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Why don't I have the peace of God?
SPEAKER_00: Because you're trying to live in two worlds.
SPEAKER_00: You're trying to live.
SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't work that way.
SPEAKER_00: Tents remind us that we are not home.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, tents stretch us, don't they?
SPEAKER_00: Tents stretch us.
SPEAKER_00: Tenth living isn't easy to be on the move.
SPEAKER_00: APC has been on the move physically for 36 years.
SPEAKER_00: It's not easy.
SPEAKER_00: As I think back, and if you want to know what that looks like pictorially, just go down that hallway, this level, down that hallway, you'll see photographs of all the tents this church has lived in.
SPEAKER_00: From the Campania Center in Old Town to Seventh-day Adventist Church on Russell Road, to Delray Baptist Church on Russell Road, to Alexander Bible Church on Braddock Road, to where you're sitting now.
SPEAKER_00: Each of those photographs says a whole lot to me because I was in those tents.
SPEAKER_00: And I think back of what was required to believe God's promises.
SPEAKER_00: And every time God said to get up and move, oftentimes through days of prayer and fasting, we heard him.
SPEAKER_00: And we got up and we moved at just the right time.
SPEAKER_00: Not too soon, not too late.
SPEAKER_00: I like this tent.
SPEAKER_00: I do.
SPEAKER_00: Not gonna lie.
SPEAKER_00: But it's a tent.
SPEAKER_00: It's a tent.
SPEAKER_00: It's not our home home, as beautiful as it is.
SPEAKER_00: Tents stretch us.
SPEAKER_00: Tent living is designed to keep us on our knees, trusting God, learning how to pray, not depending on our circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: It's not moving around, listen to me, it's not moving around that grows us.
SPEAKER_00: For some of us, it requires more faith to stay than to move on.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say more about this.
SPEAKER_00: It's in my notes at the end.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to start thinking about that.
SPEAKER_00: That brings us to our third word, altar.
SPEAKER_00: There is an altar to build for Abraham and for us.
SPEAKER_00: Tent, Donald Gray Barnhouse from 10th Presbyterian Church said this decades ago.
SPEAKER_00: A tent and an altar was all Abram ever had.
SPEAKER_00: A tent and an altar was all that he had.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7, the Lord appeared to Abram with great promises.
SPEAKER_00: So he built, Abram built an altar.
SPEAKER_00: Finish the sentence because you've got to finish the sentence.
SPEAKER_00: Abram built an altar to himself.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: To the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Not all altars are built to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Only your heart reveals who your altar is dedicated to.
SPEAKER_00: We can say with our lips, oh, that altar is to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But have you had the experience like I've had where my heart says, no, it's not?
SPEAKER_00: Have you had that?
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you have.
SPEAKER_00: If you have the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He built an altar to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love going back and reading the old preachers.
SPEAKER_00: F.
SPEAKER_00: B.
SPEAKER_00: Meyer, a great Baptist minister, said this a long time ago.
SPEAKER_00: Let us remember that the altar means sacrifice, whole burnt offerings, self-denial, self-surrender.
SPEAKER_00: In this sense, the altar and the tent always go together.
SPEAKER_00: It is of utmost importance that the children of God should live this life as a testimony to the world.
SPEAKER_00: How will people believe us when we talk about our hope in God if it does not wean us from excessive attachments to the things around us?
SPEAKER_00: Man, is this gold?
SPEAKER_00: How many professing Christians' testimonies just get slammed because our actions don't match our words?
SPEAKER_00: And we keep wondering, why don't people ask me for my hope, the hope that I have for Christ?
SPEAKER_00: You know, some of us learned that verse early on, and we've been waiting all of our lives for somebody to ask us.
SPEAKER_00: I'm serious.
SPEAKER_00: That they may ask you for the reason for your hope.
SPEAKER_00: Has anybody ever asked you for the reason for your hope?
SPEAKER_00: It's got to be real.
SPEAKER_00: It's got to be genuine from the heart.
SPEAKER_00: That's what F.
SPEAKER_00: E.
SPEAKER_00: Meyer is saying.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read that again.
SPEAKER_00: It is of the utmost importance that the children of God should live this life as a testimony to the world.
SPEAKER_00: How will people believe us when we talk about our hope if it does not wean us from excessive attachments to the things around us?
SPEAKER_00: If we are as eager for and dependent on the pleasures of this passing world as they are, our neighbors, may they not begin to question whether our profession is true on the one hand, or whether, after all, there really is a city and a home waiting for us.
SPEAKER_00: That's a fair question.
SPEAKER_00: God said, Go to a land I will show you.
SPEAKER_00: We don't get all the details of the plan with God, as we said before.
SPEAKER_00: There are many blanks in the plans, and that disturbs a lot of us.
SPEAKER_00: Those blanks in the plans unsettle us.
SPEAKER_00: I'm willing to go if I know.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you, Sharon and I had a hard time wrestling with that, whether to come here 35 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: We wrestled with that.
SPEAKER_00: But Lord, we want to know.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's a lot at risk.
SPEAKER_00: Six months.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I got it wrong the first time.
SPEAKER_00: Should I should we go?
SPEAKER_00: Because I want to know.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's tough.
SPEAKER_00: But God has to pry our fingers off of the control of the plan and every detail.
SPEAKER_00: There are many blanks in those plans that God gives us.
SPEAKER_00: So we learn how to pray through the unknowns.
SPEAKER_00: So we go where God sends us, not because we have a clear picture of everything.
SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
SPEAKER_00: So we pray through the unknowns.
SPEAKER_00: So we go where God sends us, not because we have a clear picture of everything before us, but because we serve a promised keeper.
SPEAKER_00: We go.
SPEAKER_00: We have Him.
SPEAKER_00: He's our reward.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just finish that story 35 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: We couldn't go until we actually believed that God could use us, whether we stayed or whether we went.
SPEAKER_00: We couldn't go until we held the freedom where God said, Tom and Sharon, I love you.
SPEAKER_00: I have good plans for you.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to be with you.
SPEAKER_00: Here in Southern Virginia or in Northern Virginia.
SPEAKER_00: That freed us.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel freed us.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't have to have all the details printed out.
SPEAKER_00: So as I say in closing, the real journey that takes place is not measured by miles.
SPEAKER_00: There's 400 miles between Abingdon, Virginia, and Alexandria, Virginia.
SPEAKER_00: It's not measured by miles whether you're obeying God in that sense.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's measured by the depths of our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe, as I said earlier, maybe the risk is to stay where you are.
SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of pastors who, I'm convinced, leave way too early.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of pastors get in trouble or they find it hard.
SPEAKER_00: The church is hard.
SPEAKER_00: And they just say, Well, I think it's time to pick up and go.
SPEAKER_00: I'm convinced many of them leave prematurely.
SPEAKER_00: It's not whether you stay or go in terms of mileage, but what is going on in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: That's what matters most.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the risk is for you is to stay.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe for you the risk is to go.
SPEAKER_00: God knows.
SPEAKER_00: But keep building your altars to him wherever you are.
SPEAKER_00: Keep building your altars to him.
SPEAKER_00: Learn how to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Really pray.
SPEAKER_00: Learn how to call out on the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And watch what he'll do for you as a church.
SPEAKER_00: Watch what he'll do for you as an individual.
SPEAKER_00: Watch what he will do for you as a family.
SPEAKER_00: And so we do say, by faith, take my life and let it be.
SPEAKER_00: Father, would you let us understand that?
SPEAKER_00: Show us, teach us, grow us.
SPEAKER_00: Teach us how to live in tents.
SPEAKER_00: Teach us how to hear your voice.
SPEAKER_00: Teach us how to build altars to capture our beautiful encounters with you and to celebrate the greatest encounter of all when you when you spoke to us.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.