The Extra
The Extra is a podcast hosted by Crosspoint Christian Church in Conyers, Georgia. Senior Minister, Curtis Zehner, and his friend, Ken Pierce, talk through each week's sermon unpacking the extra material that didn't make the cut for the weekend message. Curtis' and Ken's conversational and relaxed style lend itself to listeners of all ages and spiritual maturities.
The Extra
Genesis pt. 3 | Father Abraham
Discover how embodying the presence of God over personal preferences can transform your worship experience. Join us as we take you on a spiritual journey through the life of Father Abraham, whose steadfast faith and obedience have left a lasting impact on believers.
Check out more at www.CrosspointConyers.com
Today on the Extra Marcos Padilla, and I talk about Father Abraham and how he obeyed the Lord always Welcome to the. Extra. Hey Marcos, what's up? What's happening man?
Speaker 2:Not too much. Well, actually we got a lot going on at the church, but good things.
Speaker 1:Very good things. Wednesday nights are popping. We had our men's night of worship a couple nights ago.
Speaker 2:Men's night of worship was awesome.
Speaker 1:We had some of the folks from McDonough Christian Church.
Speaker 2:You men have what it takes to be not just a man, but a good man, a godly man.
Speaker 1:A man of God.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You know, but we're going to talk about Father Abraham in this episode, but I just one of my favorite phrases that came from Sunday night was that when we're at church, we need to be people who are more concerned about the presence of God rather than our preference for what we might experience. Be presence-minded, not preference-minded. Whoo, hit me right between the eyes. That's something that I hope for our church that we would be people who just love being in the presence of God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not about our favorite songs during worship. It's not about how you know our favorite songs during worship. It's not about you know how loud the music is. It's not about who is sitting next to us, but it is all about you know, while we are worshiping, are we focused? Are we, you know, dialed into what God is doing? Because I believe that God is doing a great thing in our world, but especially, I think, in Conyers, here at Crosspoint Christian.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. We had another baptism on Sunday. Yes, pretty, amazing stuff.
Speaker 2:Praise God for Kelly. Congratulations, if you're listening.
Speaker 1:Congratulations, kelly. I'll tell you there is one thing that matters when you go to church what, what shoes the preacher is wearing? Oh, yes, they have to be at least five hundred dollars on stock. Um, someone, someone told me recently that they uh they look at my shoes, uh, to determine, like, what style shoes they should be wearing. And I just laughed out loud, because, I promise you, there is zero thought behind what pairs of shoes I have. I have, like, the oldest pair of nikes. I don't wear them often, though, so they're white and yeah, so they stay white, because I I never wear them outside of a Sunday morning, but like they were on sale at Academy one time Like that's so great.
Speaker 1:I'm not like there's no effort.
Speaker 2:Curtis, I look up to you mostly because you're taller than me.
Speaker 1:Well, that's true, All right, Father Abraham. Uh, this weekend I really enjoyed this message because, um, it was very meta.
Speaker 2:Do you know what I mean by that?
Speaker 1:It was just it was a very big overview and just kind of hit on a larger theme of scripture and I get that. You know what. That might be a little frustrating for maybe the listener in the audience, but it was fun on Sunday to kind of take it out of the box and try and see something that we don't normally see from the Abraham narrative. I mean, it's only 12 pages long.
Speaker 2:But, of course, but I think that a lot of what you're doing is we're interpreting scripture the way Jesus did, and a lot of Trying to Trying to. That's the point I think that we're trying to make, though, is is, if everything does point to Jesus from A to Z, like, how did the apostles interpret the things that were happening in the Old Testament? And I think that's what's super helpful about viewing these books as not just as the tiny part of text, but really as an entire narrative.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's. The goal is to try and interpret it the way that Jesus did, which requires a lot of work to figure out what the first century context of the reader was. Okay, so let's not get too nerdy about some of those things. The sermon focused on the obedience of Abraham, that he obeyed God even though he didn't know where he was going when God called him to leave his land and go to Canaan. He obeyed God even though he didn't know how God was going to provide a son. Like his wife was barren Medically speaking, they could not have a child but Abraham believed and obeyed what God was calling him to do, even though he didn't know how.
Speaker 1:He obeyed God even though he didn't know when the promise was going to be fulfilled. And it actually goes deeper into that. I was reading even this morning in Genesis. I'd have to go back and look. But when God makes the covenant with Abraham, saying that this land will be yours, when he actually changes his name from Abram to Abraham, he makes a promise that his descendants would inherit the land of Canaan and that it would be four generations later, like from the time of captivity in Egypt, like God even said.
Speaker 1:I know that your people will live as foreigners in the land of Egypt and be slaves, and for 400 years they would not have this land. But four generations later they are going to come into this land of Canaan. So Abraham obeyed God, even though he didn't know when God was going to fulfill that promise of the land.
Speaker 1:And he obeyed God, even though he didn't know why God was asking him to do some of these things. And he obeyed God even though he didn't know why God was asking him to do some of these things, like when he finally got his son Isaac his promised son from his wife Sarah. God told him to go and sacrifice Isaac on top of what was the name of the mountain.
Speaker 2:Mount.
Speaker 1:Ararat. No, oh man, no-transcript. Okay, so it's a.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was the land of Moriah, mount Moriah, yeah, mount Moriah.
Speaker 1:Which is actually the land of Jerusalem. Yeah, no, it ended up being Jerusalem Some scholars think that the mountain or the hill that Jesus was killed on is maybe in the same vicinity, or possibly even the same mountain that Abraham almost killed his son.
Speaker 2:They also look at it, if you want to get super meta, as the same place that Adam was formed from the earth, which is why it's called Golgotha, or the place of the skull.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that does okay, we're going to get super nerdy. The garden was in between Tigris and Euphrates.
Speaker 2:That's not in the same vicinity. I know there are certain traditions who hold to that Not in my tradition.
Speaker 1:Okay, so Abraham had faith and obeyed, even though right, and we read from John, chapter eight and the Israelite people not the. Israelite people, the Jewish people listening to Jesus, kind of bucked up a little bit like Jesus. What do you mean? We're slaves. We're not slaves to anything. We belong to Abraham. And Jesus called him out and said if you really were Abraham's descendants, you would do as Abraham did.
Speaker 1:And so what? I think I would like to spend the rest of the time on this podcast Marcos is talking about. If we skip down to John 8 and what is it verse? Maybe start in verse 54 and read through those three verses, we might get a better picture of how Jesus fits into this.
Speaker 2:Jesus says if I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. My father, about whom you say, he is our God, he is the one who glorifies me. You do not know him, but I know him. I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. Your father, abraham, rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad.
Speaker 1:Read that verse 56 one more time, because I really want that part to hit home.
Speaker 2:Your father, abraham, rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad.
Speaker 1:So in Hebrews, chapter 11, it says these people died having faith. They died while still having faith of the things that were yet to come.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Hebrews 11, 1 talks about faith being the assurance of things not seen, and so they were looking forward to the day and they would have totally looked forward to Jesus. However, the Pharisees are saying we are sons of Abraham, we're sons of God. You're saying that you are, but we're the real and true sons of God, and you're actually a Samaritan, is what they're saying. And so Jesus is like well, if you were children of God and you're actually a Samaritan, is what they're saying. And so Jesus is like well, if you were children of Abraham, you would be looking at me, knowing that Abraham was looking forward to my day.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, they were missing it.
Speaker 2:They were standing in front of Jesus, seeing what Abraham hoped for, but they didn't recognize it, even though they saw it with their own eyes, yeah, and there's another place where Jesus says that the Pharisees, and really the Jewish people of that time, they searched the scriptures thinking that in them that they will have life, but they were missing Jesus throughout the entire thing. Yeah, and so we have to look at like, okay, if you were children of Abraham and you would do the things that Abraham did, then if you were truly walking in faith, you don't just believe in God, but you believe God. You believe the things that God says about life. You believe in faith that, hey, if I obey God, then God will bless me and God will make me into a new family and a new nation and all of these things. And we have been grafted into that nation as the church now.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And so if the motivation for Abraham was to like, the motivation to obey, was that there was something coming in the future that was worth obeying for.
Speaker 2:Am I are you tracking with me on?
Speaker 1:that. So if there was this great thing coming that made it worth obeying in the moment, then I think we can also say the same things for ourselves that we can live like Abraham lived obey, even though we might not know where or how or when or why or whatever, because we're looking forward to a day that has not yet come.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I look at it as, growing up, my dad was a really big Dairy Queen ice cream lover type of person, and so-.
Speaker 1:Got to get a parfait man, Come on.
Speaker 2:We were blizzard, people loved it and something that I remember especially very little like, hey, if you guys are good, like I have a surprise for you at the end of this right, and the way I look at really life in obedience to God is like we have like an extra large blizzard, really, but something that is so much greater than that that we can find in Christ that doesn't leave our stomach hurting at the end either.
Speaker 1:Well, I love the part where they, like they, turn it upside down. You order the blizzard and it has to be proven that it won't fall out of the cup. I went to Dairy Queen recently and I forgot that they did that, and so the lady stuck it out and like turned it upside. It was a huge surprise. Like this is awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's what God's going to do he's going to turn Jesus upside down.
Speaker 2:Maybe not, I don't know. He will turn our lives upside down. Way to bring it back.
Speaker 1:Way to bring it back. Dude, that is such a great point that, yeah, we have something to look forward to. It's a reward that's do for us. If even in, like the trial moments, the moments where it's really hard to obey, if we would center our focus on that great prize, that big dairy queen in the sky that's coming later on, is that sacrilegious?
Speaker 2:No, I don't think so, but I think that it's a good illustration of things and remind me of your question one more time we're thinking about ice cream.
Speaker 1:How would life change, how would our perception change or the way that we act during the trials of life, if we were focusing our attention on that big prize that's coming at the end?
Speaker 2:I think it gives a lot of purpose, especially to our suffering and the things that we go through, especially to our suffering and the things that we go through, knowing that we shouldn't be surprised when we suffer, because we follow a God who did also suffer as well. And so it gives a lot of meaning and purpose to our suffering. And we don't always have to be answering the questions of you know, is it because somebody is guilty that I'm suffering?
Speaker 2:A lot of the ways that Job's friends kind of try to answer the question of the problem of evil and suffering and all these other things. But we can know that even the things that don't make sense, eventually one of—a pastor who I worked under he kind of described life as like a tapestry and right now, the way that we live, we're almost like looking at the backside of it and it's kind of being weaved and it looks kind of messy on the backside of it. But really when we get to be with Jesus we get to see the other side of the tapestry, which is a big and beautiful picture. And sometimes it is painful to go through and obedience is not easy, but it's always worth it Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Let me bring I'm going to start in 2 Peter 3, in verse 12. It's the second half of verse 12. That day, meaning the future day that we're talking about, that day will bring about the destruction of heavens by fire and the elements will melt in the heat. It's a big day that's coming, yes, but in keeping with his promise, we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness dwells. Okay, I'm not done yet, but let me you know me, I like to take things verse by verse.
Speaker 1:In keeping with his promise, abraham met a. That's a call back to Abraham. He made a promise to Abraham and Abraham was looking forward to that promise. So, just like Abraham, in keeping with his promise, we now are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness dwells, no more evil, no more unrighteousness, no more sin Verse 14,. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. It continues on, and I could keep going. We'd have a longer podcast. There it is. We, just like Abraham, have been given a promise, and that promise is motivating to remain faithfully obedient.
Speaker 2:Yes, and may I add that when Abraham was called, he wasn't just told to stay where he was, but it was a walk, and as we continue to walk in faith that God will be trustworthy to keep his promise, the only way that we receive that promise is by continuing to walk in faith, because I think a lot of times the way that we view faith is we don't want to be works-based or anything like that.
Speaker 1:And that's not what we're saying. But a lot of times I way that we view faith is.
Speaker 2:You know we don't want to be works-based or anything like that, and that's not what we're saying. So you know. But a lot of times I think that sometimes you know, we look at, you know walking in obedience, and you know we can point at something like, oh, that's works-based. But actually the reason that we do our works is to continue to walk in faith, to continue to walk in the grace that God has provided for us, and the path that has already been provided has been paved by Jesus and all of his work and his death on the cross and through death, the resurrection that we will once see at the end of time.
Speaker 1:What you're getting to is what James says in James 2, verse 14. What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith without deeds save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them go in peace, keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical need, what good is it? In same way, faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say you have faith, I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one god good. Even the demons believe that and shudder. Jesus says the same thing in Matthew chapter five, and it's actually a verse that I used in the sermon Matthew five and verse. Bear with me. I know myself If I try and take a stab at it without just looking at it, I'll.
Speaker 2:I'll.
Speaker 1:I'll botch it. Matthew five, and I'm just going to read 13 through 16. You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It's no longer good for anything Except to be thrown away and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house In the same way. Here's he wraps it all up. Let your light shine before others. Let your faith have deeds.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:That they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Praise God, all right. So what are we taking away today, marcos?
Speaker 2:I think that it is not enough to just observe or see the things that Jesus did, or see the things that Abraham did and, yes, we can claim that promise in faith but in the same way, we also ought to walk the walk.
Speaker 1:Because that faith should change you into a new person.
Speaker 2:Yes, change us from just sitting there and really doing nothing meaningful and with our lives and walking the walk that we can really walk towards God and towards Jesus. Walkity, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk.
Speaker 1:Faith in Christ should change you.
Speaker 2:And that's really what we're getting at.
Speaker 1:And the message of Abraham is obey because of your faith. And the message of Abraham is obey because of your faith. And yeah, I hope that that's what we do today, even though we don't know why or where, or how or when, but we look forward to that day, just like Peter says, when we will see a new heaven and a new earth.
Speaker 1:Let that be your motivator today. Marcos, Amen, Amen. Thanks for joining us on the Extra today. Hope you'll join us next week as we continue our walk through Genesis. We're getting to Exodus soon. We're going really fast through Genesis, but you know what? Next week is Joseph and we're going to have a great time. Thanks for joining us. I'm Curtis. I'm Marcos. Yeah, that was really really good, Marcos. See you guys next week.