SPEAKER_00: Today, we're going to talk about two people, Abram and Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we read about Abram right at the beginning of the Lord's Word in the book of Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: And the stories about Jesus are much, much later, thousands of years later, and we read about them in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
SPEAKER_00: But the interesting thing is that there are connections between these stories.
SPEAKER_00: We can learn something about what Jesus experienced by hearing about what Abram experienced.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Abram, can you see, is he a young man or an old man?
SPEAKER_00: He looks pretty old.
SPEAKER_00: And you can also see him in the pamphlet.
SPEAKER_00: If you have the pamphlet, it's got his picture on the front there.
SPEAKER_00: And you can see he's got white hair.
SPEAKER_00: He's an old man.
SPEAKER_00: He's maybe more the age of a grandpa or even a great-grandpa.
SPEAKER_00: And he really wanted to have children, but he had no children.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord had promised him he would have children, but the years kept going by and he still had no children.
SPEAKER_00: So he was feeling pretty worried and anxious about that.
SPEAKER_00: This might be surprising to know, but Jesus also sometimes felt worried and anxious.
SPEAKER_00: There was a part of him that was from Mary that was like Abram and was worried.
SPEAKER_00: For him, he was worried also about his people.
SPEAKER_00: Would any of his people want to love and be good people and learn from him how to be kind, good people, or would nobody want to do that?
SPEAKER_00: Would everyone want to just do the things of religion so that they could get stuff for themselves?
SPEAKER_00: There was part of him that wasn't sure.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in the Abram story, he wasn't alone.
SPEAKER_00: We can't see in the picture, but Jehovah was with him.
SPEAKER_00: Jehovah is one of the names for God in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And Jehovah told Abram what to do.
SPEAKER_00: He said, well, first he made him a promise.
SPEAKER_00: This is what he said.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be afraid, Abram.
SPEAKER_00: I am a shield for you.
SPEAKER_00: Your reward is multiplied exceedingly.
SPEAKER_00: Abram, I'll protect you and I'll give you good things.
SPEAKER_00: And in Jesus, there also was Jehovah.
SPEAKER_00: For him, it was his soul.
SPEAKER_00: Jehovah was his soul.
SPEAKER_00: The divine love, all the goodness of God was within Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And that part of him knew that things were protected, things would be good.
SPEAKER_00: It was just the lower part of him that still wondered, just like we have a part of our mind that can feel doubtful and wonder about things.
SPEAKER_00: And so Abram in the story wasn't convinced yet.
SPEAKER_00: He said, What shall you give me since I go childless?
SPEAKER_00: I still have no children.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what the Lord said.
SPEAKER_00: He brought him outside and said, Look now toward heaven and count the stars if you are able to count them.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to him, So shall your descendants be.
SPEAKER_00: He took him outside.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we need to go outside to change our point of view.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Look at all the stars of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: That's how many children you're going to have.
SPEAKER_00: Can you count how many stars are in this picture or on the picture in the pamphlet?
SPEAKER_00: How many would you guess?
SPEAKER_00: You can count them afterward, and you can let me know what you counted.
SPEAKER_00: I found it hard to count them.
SPEAKER_00: There's so many of them.
SPEAKER_00: That was what the Lord was saying.
SPEAKER_00: As many as the stars of heaven, so many stars, so many children you're going to have.
SPEAKER_00: And for Jesus, the love within him, the Jehovah within Jesus, from that he could say, Oh, there will be lots of goodness and truth in all the people that I'm going to have.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't have stories about Jesus looking at the stars, but we do have stories about Jesus telling people, when you're worried, when you're anxious, go look at the flowers.
SPEAKER_00: Go look at the birds.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord cares for the flowers and the birds, so probably he'll care for us.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a passage for the older kids and grown-ups in the pamphlet that talks about how the Lord can help our eyes to look at things in the natural world, like stars and flowers and birds, and think about heaven and the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So you can do that too.
SPEAKER_00: When you're feeling upset, you can go outside and look at things that the Lord made and think, oh, maybe the Lord's going to care for me too.
SPEAKER_00: Now you might know that Abram did eventually have children.
SPEAKER_00: And those children had children, those children had children for lots of generations.
SPEAKER_00: And eventually, those children were some of the children that Jesus put his hands on and blessed.
SPEAKER_00: And there were people that wanted to love the Lord, that learned about how to be good people from him.
SPEAKER_00: So in both cases, for Abram and for Jesus, Jehovah's promises came true.
SPEAKER_00: And so we can hopefully find hope in the Lord by looking at things outside and trust that he will care for us just like he cared for Abram.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.