SPEAKER_00: This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church, please visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You can have a seat.
SPEAKER_00: If you've got a Bible, I want to invite you to open it to Genesis chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible as well in your row, I'm on page eight.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, as you know, we're in a series about our core values.
SPEAKER_00: What do we value uh uh as a church?
SPEAKER_00: And there are basically four things we value that kind of guide what we do around here and inform the process of how we do it.
SPEAKER_00: And our four core values are very simple.
SPEAKER_00: We've been talking about them one each Sunday in January.
SPEAKER_00: We started off talking about the gospel, and then we talked about community uh because the gospel produces a community of people that do life together and they stay in relationship to each other.
SPEAKER_00: We don't get our feelings hurt, pack up our marbles, and go home.
SPEAKER_00: No, as Lance said so beautifully, we stay woundable, we stay in proximity to other people.
SPEAKER_00: We want to have people in our lives that speak to us and help shape us and conform us and cause us to look and think and act more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But gospel, and then secondly, community, and then thirdly, last week we talked about mission, which is being intentional and purposeful uh in everything we do towards everybody we do it around.
SPEAKER_00: And today we come to our last core value of blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it in the Bible, this is comes out of Genesis 12.
SPEAKER_00: Uh now up to this point, God's created the heavens and the earth.
SPEAKER_00: He makes Adam and Eve, he puts them in the garden, he makes He makes Adam, and then he creates all the animals, brings them to Adam, and Adam names them.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
SPEAKER_00: A little history here.
SPEAKER_00: Adam names them, whatever he called them, that was their name thereof.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so God says, It's not good that man should be alone.
SPEAKER_00: I'll make a helper suitable for him.
SPEAKER_00: So God causes a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and Adam wakes up and there's a beautiful naked woman right there beside him.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
SPEAKER_00: And Adam reaches for a pen and makes a note, memo to self, take more naps.
SPEAKER_00: Good stuff happens when you sleep.
SPEAKER_00: It's in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And then so, say, and God says to them, Be fruitful and multiply.
SPEAKER_00: And all the men in the world said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You're kind of like, right now you're like, oh, I love the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Keep talking, dude.
SPEAKER_00: And so they go along there, and everything's hunky and dory, but they disobeyed, they don't trust God, and they disobey, sin enters into the world, and things begin to come off the rails right there.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine that.
SPEAKER_00: When you don't trust God and don't obey God, bad stuff happens.
SPEAKER_00: And so Cain kills his brother Abel, and then wickedness is just breaks out on the earth, and God says, Hey, I'm gonna kill everybody and start over.
SPEAKER_00: You're not even in Genesis chapter 6 yet.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're talking about reading the Bible, it's kind of like, hello.
SPEAKER_00: And so God wipes out everybody and floods the earth except Noah and his descendants, and so afterwards a little dove comes and Noah says, Land ho! And then to celebrate, Noah gets hammered drunk.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all are like, that sounds like my family reunion right there.
SPEAKER_00: And his sons walk in and they said, Don't look upon your father.
SPEAKER_00: They throw a blanket on him, like, here, Dad, get some clothes on.
SPEAKER_00: And then it's the descendants of Noah, and you get to chapter 11, and the people go, Come, let us build a tower to the heavens and make a name for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: This can't be all about God, it's got to be about us.
SPEAKER_00: And we drop in on chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis chapter 12, verse 1 says, Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, and so that you will be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: I will bless those that bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: And so Abram went.
SPEAKER_00: Just underline those three words in your Bible, if they're not underlined.
SPEAKER_00: So Abram, uh Abram went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him.
SPEAKER_00: Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll we'll we'll just stop right there.
SPEAKER_00: Abram, God spoke, and then God promised, and then and then and then Abram went.
SPEAKER_00: You say, well, what's this got to do with blessing?
SPEAKER_00: If you looked up on our website, if you're checking out our church, and a lot of places that the first place people go is your website, and you clicked on about us, and then clicked on core values, it would come up, and under blessing would be this paragraph, and it would say, When God set his affection on his people, he rooted this relationship in blessing.
SPEAKER_00: His words to Abraham were, I will bless you, and you will be a blessing, and through you all the nations of the world will be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: Because God has faithfully demonstrated this reality in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We are now empowered with the privilege of being to others what God has been to us.
SPEAKER_00: Whether through our efforts to alleviate poverty, to practice spirit-led generosity, or engage in international assistance, we take seriously the biblical mandate to be who the Bible says we are.
SPEAKER_00: All of these efforts are fueled by our desire to help others see God for who He really is and themselves for who they can be.
SPEAKER_00: You say, well, what that's a big long thing.
SPEAKER_00: That's on our website.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you don't have to read it.
SPEAKER_00: I just read it to you.
SPEAKER_00: Why did you read it to us?
SPEAKER_00: Because what what you just heard read about is rooted in what we're we're gonna look at this morning in the life of Abram.
SPEAKER_00: There's five things that we as a church and we as a people learn from the life of this man Abram, whose name would later become Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: And the first one is this right here a right knowledge of God is our highest priority.
SPEAKER_00: A right knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so for us as a church, if you're checking out our church and thinking, I might want to be a part of this church, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Uh just let me just say up front that the thing we want most for you is for you to have a right knowledge of God, not based on hearsay or bad experiences with church or church people, but uh but but but a clear biblical understanding of who God is.
SPEAKER_00: You say, why?
SPEAKER_00: Because Abram is 75 years old.
SPEAKER_00: And let me just read it again the way we probably should hear it.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1, it says, Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house with all that free built-in babysitting.
SPEAKER_00: Marcy and I have friends that have family here in the city, and they're kind of like, Yeah, we dropped our kids off at the in-laws.
SPEAKER_00: And I hear this and I kind of go, Oh, good for you.
SPEAKER_00: You ever say something and outwardly you mean it, but inwardly you resent it?
SPEAKER_00: Like someone said to me the other day, yeah, my in-laws came and got the kids and took them for the whole weekend.
SPEAKER_00: And then my thought was, I want to kill you.
SPEAKER_00: That's never, we've never lived around our family.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a downside to that too, because the people that say, hey, our in-laws came and they uh, you know, hey, my mother-in-law just showed up the other day for four hours.
SPEAKER_00: That's never happened in my life.
SPEAKER_00: But but this is what God says, leave everything that is familiar now.
SPEAKER_00: Now, by the way, let's don't miss the fact that he's 75 years old, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And his wife is old too.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, she's got a vast collection of yadro figurines, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Picture your grandma's house.
SPEAKER_00: The older you get, let's just face it.
SPEAKER_00: Let's get down to the get down.
SPEAKER_00: In America, by the time you're 75, you have earned the right to do what you want to do and not do what you don't want to do.
SPEAKER_00: That's why some of your grandpa's are rude and compelling all at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: If you want someone to deliver bad news, get grandpa.
SPEAKER_00: Who's gonna tell grandpa to shut up?
SPEAKER_00: Grandpa is off the reservation.
SPEAKER_00: You can't rein that cat back in.
SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to be 75.
SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to get around my grandkids and just tell them crazy stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And then take them home at about 10:30 at night and just open the door and go, go tell your mom, Big Poppy said hello.
SPEAKER_00: And they just drive off and leave them on the sidewalk.
SPEAKER_00: Whoa! Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm 75 and I do what I want.
SPEAKER_00: Can you not wait for that?
SPEAKER_00: Abram's there.
SPEAKER_00: And look at this.
SPEAKER_00: God says, leave the land of your kin, the country, leave your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.
SPEAKER_00: Translation, he didn't say this is where we're going.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say, hey, property values are kind of going up.
SPEAKER_00: Housers are selling.
SPEAKER_00: It's a selling market.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, consult your broker and see where you are.
SPEAKER_00: Are you strategically positioned where now's a good time to bow out of the market?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: God says, hey, say goodbye.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, hey, leave the land of your forefathers and go to a land I will show you.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, what's that got to do with a right knowledge of God is our highest priority?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what it's got to do with that.
SPEAKER_00: We don't need to know where we're going, we just need to know who's driving.
SPEAKER_00: And for many of you in this room, the wrong person is driving your life.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you are like, and done.
SPEAKER_00: We'll be visiting another church next week.
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
SPEAKER_00: This will still be true.
SPEAKER_00: They may or may not tell you that.
SPEAKER_00: They may do a little monkey dance and say, hey, we got a gyrating slide for your kid to come down.
SPEAKER_00: And SpongeBob's gonna be a Sunday school teacher.
SPEAKER_00: Great.
SPEAKER_00: This is still true.
SPEAKER_00: This is the blessing.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, what's it got to do?
SPEAKER_00: Because to have this right knowledge of God, there's no age at which God can't tell you anything that you don't just go, I'm for it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just picture God saying, hey, leave the land of your forefather, and a 75-year-old man comes out with no shirt on, smoking with a cowboy hat.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
SPEAKER_00: And I just think, yes, that.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to know where you're going.
SPEAKER_00: J.I.
SPEAKER_00: Packer, you just need to know who's driving.
SPEAKER_00: J.I.
SPEAKER_00: Packer wrote a great book.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to read a good book sometime this year, read a book by J.I.
SPEAKER_00: Packard entitled Knowing God.
SPEAKER_00: And in the book, he talks about the difference between knowledge about God and knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: He says this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, How can we turn our knowledge about God into knowledge of God?
SPEAKER_00: The rule for doing this is simple but demanding.
SPEAKER_00: It is that we turn each truth that we learn about God into a matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, anytime we learn something about God, we think about it strategically and intentionally.
SPEAKER_00: We meditate upon it.
SPEAKER_00: We just keep thinking about it until it kind of works its way into our heart.
SPEAKER_00: And then it just kind of comes out of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: For example, this weekend I was in uh Burleson, which is south of Fort Worth, speaking at a gathering of students.
SPEAKER_00: We crammed 900 middle school and high school kids in a room, and I spoke to them Friday night, and I spoke to them Saturday morning, and I spoke to them last night, and then I drove home from Fort Worth after I was done.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all like, that explains a lot.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: I stopped two times and got coffee, and the guy's like, dude, it's just me and you up at this hour.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I'm great with that.
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing now?
SPEAKER_00: I just got done preaching to a bunch of kids in Fort Worth, and I'm gonna go home and preach to my church three times in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: What time are you gonna get home?
SPEAKER_00: Let's don't focus on that right now, okay?
SPEAKER_00: You just bill me for this coffee and I'll get out of here.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, what what what's the deal?
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm sitting there at this thing, and you got 900 kids packed into this surround sound thing with a band and lights and swirly stuff going up on the walls, and I leaned against the wall, and the music was so loud the wall was vibrating, coming through my chest, and I was like, my heartbeat's getting off rhythm.
SPEAKER_00: And the band slowed down, and the guy started reading from the Bible, and it was great, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I know I'm old because I was like, man, this is really loud.
SPEAKER_00: Are these kids deaf?
SPEAKER_00: Are we just preparing them to be deaf?
SPEAKER_00: Can we just, you know, and then the guy they kind of brought it down, he read from the Bible, and they started singing some song I'd never heard before.
SPEAKER_00: And out of my mouth, I kind of pushed off the wall, and I just went, whoa! And all the kids were like, oh my gosh, the old man's dying over here.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because these things that I'd just been thinking about, I've been reading in the Bible about God, all of a sudden I've been meditating on them, and all of a sudden, just just just this praise to God just kind of boom came out of me.
SPEAKER_00: And then I was like, oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And you ever just you just focused on the words because I didn't know the song, and I didn't want to stand there like a kid in choir and going, banana, banana, banana, banana.
SPEAKER_00: And I just I didn't realize it, but I just started moving closer and closer to the stage while I was singing because I was like a moth to the flame.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, yes.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because there's a difference in knowing about knowledge about God and knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: When somebody gives you an opportunity to say something that you've been thinking about just in your head, and you're just like, yes.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we mean when we say a right knowledge of God is our highest priority, because if you don't have a clear biblical understanding of who God is, everything God calls out to you to do is going to sound like an offense to your better ideas.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you're 75 or 25, or 45, or 55.
SPEAKER_00: Second thing we see from the life of Abram about this blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, the promise of God is our highest security.
SPEAKER_00: The promise of God is our highest security.
SPEAKER_00: By security, I don't mean secure, like safe.
SPEAKER_00: I mean currency.
SPEAKER_00: It's the greatest value.
SPEAKER_00: The promise of God is the best thing we have to bank and build our life on.
SPEAKER_00: Every relationship involves a currency.
SPEAKER_00: Your relationship with your kids has a currency.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, my kids like different things.
SPEAKER_00: I got two daughters, and and and they're alike in a lot of ways, and they're real different.
SPEAKER_00: Like last night I was driving home, and because I knew my 15-year-old slept till 2.30 yesterday afternoon, she would be up till 2.30 this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And so when I'm coming down the road and no one's out except some crazy people over here at Safari, Texas in the middle of the night are lighting these lantern, these paper lantern things that you light, like from the movie Tangled, and setting them off.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that, but when I cut through off of the Grand Parkway to come through here, there's like these eight balls of fire floating in the sky, and I stopped my truck and said, My God, the aliens are coming.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm standing out in the road just thinking, I'm gonna take one for the team.
SPEAKER_00: You ain't getting my kids.
SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, What in the world?
SPEAKER_00: And then I got back in my truck thinking, I'm just tired.
SPEAKER_00: Because I thought, look at the airplanes, and I thought, those aren't airplanes, they're on fire.
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm just hallucinating.
SPEAKER_00: And then I went a little further, and all of a sudden, two of them took up over the church.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, they're looking for me.
SPEAKER_00: I better hurry.
SPEAKER_00: And then I got closer, and what and the two over the church are just hovering right over the building, and they were balls of fire.
SPEAKER_00: And y'all are like, sure they were.
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead, preacher.
SPEAKER_00: People over at Safari, Texas, that got married and then celebrated late into the night, and they were setting off those lanterns.
SPEAKER_00: And so I called my 15-year-old.
SPEAKER_00: I knew she'd be up and I said, Hey, go out in the front yard.
SPEAKER_00: You ever tell your kids to do something and they start asking you questions?
SPEAKER_00: I'm just like, do I just want to whip you on the phone?
SPEAKER_00: Shut your mouth and go outside.
SPEAKER_00: Well, in the front yard?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: What do you ask what I mean when I say go out in the front yard right now, right now, right now.
SPEAKER_00: Dad, well, what do you mean, the front yard?
SPEAKER_00: How many front yards do we have, Madison?
SPEAKER_00: Just like, man, am I getting dumber or are my kids getting smarter, or vice versa?
SPEAKER_00: So she goes out in the front yard.
SPEAKER_00: By the time I'm whipping in the driveway, I said, I wanted you to see that.
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, oh my gosh, it's like the movie Tangled, only better.
SPEAKER_00: And then she ruined the moment by saying this.
SPEAKER_00: I want to have those at my wedding.
SPEAKER_00: Shut up and go back in the house.
SPEAKER_00: You're not getting married.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to think about that right now.
SPEAKER_00: I just wanted you to see that because I know she'd appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00: It's just floating up there.
SPEAKER_00: Just there, there, there you go.
SPEAKER_00: You see, every relationship has its currency.
SPEAKER_00: I have a currency with my kids.
SPEAKER_00: One of them values some things, and my other one, my younger one, values some different things.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: You have a currency in your relationship with your spouse.
SPEAKER_00: Like right now, everybody in my family's been sick.
SPEAKER_00: Like the past two weeks, it's been a cloud of sickness hovering over our house.
SPEAKER_00: First, it started with our youngest, and then my wife got it, and I got all mouthy last week if you were here, and I said, My wife's been kind of mouthing me, and the Lord has afflicted her with sickness.
SPEAKER_00: And then Tuesday night, wham.
SPEAKER_00: I was in bed all day, Wednesday and Thursday.
SPEAKER_00: I went to the doctor and got some drugs.
SPEAKER_00: They gave me some cough syrup with codeine in it.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't get out of bed from Wednesday till Friday morning.
SPEAKER_00: You think I'm kidding?
SPEAKER_00: I would just get up, my wife brings it to me in little doses, and I was like, I don't need that little cap.
SPEAKER_00: I just put it there and just go, go, goom.
SPEAKER_00: I'd set it down.
SPEAKER_00: I'd wake up six hours later and get me another nip.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what day it was.
SPEAKER_00: It was on Tuesday or Thursday one.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if Wednesday happened last week.
SPEAKER_00: Could have been a black hole in the universe.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't here.
SPEAKER_00: I was just passed out.
SPEAKER_00: And but I woke up Thursday and there were people in my bedroom and folding chairs in a circle.
SPEAKER_00: Hi, Neil.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, and it was all my friends and family members, and they're like, we're here to talk to you about your codeine addiction.
SPEAKER_00: Hang on just a second.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be right with y'all.
SPEAKER_00: What time does the meeting start?
SPEAKER_00: Hi, my name's Neil, and I'm a codeine addict.
SPEAKER_00: I I was dying, and so my wife's still getting over getting sick, and so she's just about there.
SPEAKER_00: And so the currency in our relationship, see, when I first got married, I thought what would bless my wife is that, oh, I want to take you to breakfast this week.
SPEAKER_00: I want to take you to lunch.
SPEAKER_00: You've had a hard week.
SPEAKER_00: And it will be that.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, indeed, this week.
SPEAKER_00: I need to take my wife to breakfast.
SPEAKER_00: I need to take my wife to lunch, spend some time with my because the fog is lifting, we're coming back out into the world, the sun does shine after all.
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00: But I also know this, because when I'm telling my wife that, I'm thinking this is blessing her.
SPEAKER_00: She's looking at me like, uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00: And what she's really thinking is, I need you to get these kids off of me.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to get off of me too.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to need anything from me.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, I want to disappear like about eight o'clock one morning, show up two days later after founding a Miranda Lambert concert somewhere that needs attending.
SPEAKER_00: And so I know that that's a currency of our relationship because I know what the currency is.
SPEAKER_00: I know how to relate to my wife, okay?
SPEAKER_00: It's the same way in your relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: You need to understand what the currency is, what the security is.
SPEAKER_00: The promises of God is our highest security.
SPEAKER_00: See, when God tells Abram, hey, leave the land of your uh of your fathers and go to a land that I will show you.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say this.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have time to preach this today.
SPEAKER_00: The command of God is rooted in the promise of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now think about that for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: The command of God.
SPEAKER_00: When God tells you to do something, he's just not making you do calisthenics.
SPEAKER_00: Remember when you're in the sixth grade and you had gym coach?
SPEAKER_00: Made you do all that stuff just because they were the coach and they could do it, and you were kind of like, Why do we gotta do 50 jumping jacks and the fat guy's got the whistle around his neck and he's not doing any?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so those are just my thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: You should be doing sit-ups, okay, coach?
SPEAKER_00: Can we call you coach?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, is that really a good word to use in reference to you, my man?
SPEAKER_00: Mix in a salad, why don't you?
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, when you say that as a sixth grader, you get whipped.
SPEAKER_00: Not that we know or anything.
SPEAKER_00: See, the command of God is rooted in the promise of God.
SPEAKER_00: God says, go to a land that I'll show you.
SPEAKER_00: And it sounds uh nebulous and fuzzy and unclear, but God says, Oh, and by the way, and he makes six promises.
SPEAKER_00: This is what we mean when we say the promise of God is our highest security.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's a thing that we can bank on.
SPEAKER_00: Six promises.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is, I'll make you a great nation.
SPEAKER_00: Now you're kind of like, yeah, who wouldn't like that?
SPEAKER_00: God told Abram, I'll make you a great nation.
SPEAKER_00: Now you gotta understand the context.
SPEAKER_00: Abram and his wife have been wanting children for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: He is 75 years old.
SPEAKER_00: And God says, I'll make you a great nation.
SPEAKER_00: And Abram's mind is just exploding.
SPEAKER_00: He's thinking, Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, okay, you uh, oh, okay, I I mean, wow, I'm 75.
SPEAKER_00: Which means that most of us in this room should ask yourself, I know you're like, hey, we got two kids, we're done.
SPEAKER_00: You should ask yourself if you're done.
SPEAKER_00: You may not be done.
SPEAKER_00: That noise coming out of here, that was we're done.
SPEAKER_00: We've asked the Lord, and the Lord has said, you're done.
SPEAKER_00: You may be done having them, but you might not be done adopting them.
SPEAKER_00: Uh oh, did you feel that?
SPEAKER_00: I think I need to say that again.
SPEAKER_00: Guys got somebody's name out in here.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: We want more of you.
SPEAKER_00: I know I know how you think, Close.
SPEAKER_00: You look at me like we want it.
SPEAKER_00: We just couldn't have that many.
SPEAKER_00: After we had our second one.
SPEAKER_00: She said, You should all right, have four or five more.
SPEAKER_00: And she wasn't joking.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, That's the problem with America.
SPEAKER_00: The wrong kind of people have all the kids.
SPEAKER_00: People that can't even be a parent.
SPEAKER_00: Just having kids over and over and over.
SPEAKER_00: And people that are great parents don't have enough kids.
SPEAKER_00: And so, hey, you may be done having them, but you may not be done adopting them.
SPEAKER_00: We done with that.
SPEAKER_00: We need to move on.
SPEAKER_00: We beat all the soap out of that.
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all are like, please don't get my wife going.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you men are like, There goes the afternoon right there.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go home.
SPEAKER_00: As soon as it gets still, she's gonna come into my room and kind of go, Do you think the preacher was talking to us?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I am.
SPEAKER_00: Here's my point.
SPEAKER_00: You never get to a point where you've earned the right to say to God, Leave me alone.
SPEAKER_00: Your worst day is when God leaves you alone.
SPEAKER_00: That is hell.
SPEAKER_00: Hell begins the day God leaves you alone.
SPEAKER_00: He said to Abram, I'll make you a great nation.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, he said, I'll bless you and make your name great.
SPEAKER_00: This is right on the hills of the Tower of Babel, where the people said, Come let us build a tower into the heavens and make a name for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: God says to Abram, You don't have to make a name for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: I'll make your name great.
SPEAKER_00: You say, I don't get it.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you went to camp as a little kid or vacation Bible school, and they sang the little song, Father Abraham had many sons.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, singing.
SPEAKER_00: And many sons had Father Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: Keep singing.
SPEAKER_00: And I am one.
SPEAKER_00: So let's.
SPEAKER_00: That's enough.
SPEAKER_00: See, you didn't know this day would come when you were singing that song.
SPEAKER_00: You think they just sang that song because they just punished us.
SPEAKER_00: I remember the first time I was at Day Camp Council, we sang that song, and I was thinking, what's the big deal with Abraham?
SPEAKER_00: Can we not sing this song?
SPEAKER_00: We had to turn around, jump up, sit down.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, please don't sing Father Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: It is eight minutes of like aerobics at 7.30 in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, the camp that I worked at, if you were late to staff meeting, which happened at 7.30, you had to stand in front of God and everybody and sing Father Abraham all by yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I had a little bit of resentment towards Abraham because I got to sing him a lot.
SPEAKER_00: Third promise God makes is you'll be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, what?
SPEAKER_00: God makes a promise to Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, by extension to you and I, you'll be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do anything.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to stop doing this and start doing this.
SPEAKER_00: If you've got to make some major changes in your life to be a blessing, something's wrong with how you're living.
SPEAKER_00: Same thing as last week, when God said, I mean, when Jesus said, go and make disciples in the Greek language, it's literally, as you're going, make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, I said last week, I said, hey, if you've got to, if you've got to stop what you're doing or do something differently in order to make disciples, you're either doing the wrong thing or you're doing the right thing the wrong way.
SPEAKER_00: Same thing with, oh, and by the way, you'll be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the promises of God.
SPEAKER_00: You being who God created and fashioned you to be is a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be like me.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to have my personality.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be like anybody else, but you do have to be you because there's people out there that are only going to be blessed by being around someone like you.
SPEAKER_00: And God says that, and you'll be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Fourthly, God says, I'll bless those who bless you.
SPEAKER_00: Fifthly, I will curse whoever dishonors you.
SPEAKER_00: You hadn't got always got to be looking for a fight, man.
SPEAKER_00: God says, I got your back.
SPEAKER_00: I will curse whoever dishonors you.
SPEAKER_00: And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: Now that sounds like a, whoa, well, there's a to-do list right there.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's not a, hey, we're gonna go out and register voters and and teach them Alechites how to plant crops and teach their kids to do math.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what God has in mind.
SPEAKER_00: He has something bigger when he talks about it in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: The third thing we learn from the life of Abraham, or Abram, Abraham, about blessing is that obedience is our highest form of worship.
SPEAKER_00: Obedience is our highest form of worship.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're in Genesis 12, but if you jump forward 10 chapters into Genesis chapter 22, because in Genesis 12, God speaks, and the Bible says in verse 4, so Abram went as the Lord had told him.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't need anything else.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't need to know where we're going, he just needed to know who was driving.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't have just knowledge about him, he had knowledge of him.
SPEAKER_00: He had tasted and seen that the Lord was good.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, shotgun, let's go.
SPEAKER_00: So Abram went.
SPEAKER_00: Just as the Lord had said.
SPEAKER_00: That's obedience.
SPEAKER_00: And so because God knew he had a commodity he could work with ten chapters later, he's now got his kid.
SPEAKER_00: He's got the child of promise, Isaac.
SPEAKER_00: Just like God said he would.
SPEAKER_00: In Genesis chapter 22 begins in verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: And God speaks to Abraham and says, Take your son, your only son, Isaac, and offer him up on a mountain that I will show you.
SPEAKER_00: There's again, you you get going, I'll let you know where we're going.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says that Abram got up, took his son, took a servant, they start off on a journey.
SPEAKER_00: He at one point looks to the servant and says, Stay here, I and the child will go and worship and we'll return to you.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we mean when we say that obedience is our highest form of worship.
SPEAKER_00: Song, music, songs, this, that, and the other is an expression of worship, but obedience is the highest form of worship.
SPEAKER_00: Fourth thing the life of Abram tells us is that experiencing the fruit of obedience is our highest joy.
SPEAKER_00: You say, No, that's a mouthful.
SPEAKER_00: Just stay with me.
SPEAKER_00: I show you what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: Experiencing the fruit of obedience is our highest joy.
SPEAKER_00: Now, remember, are you still with me?
SPEAKER_00: Remember in verse 1 of Genesis 12, God spoke to Abram and said, Hey, leave the land of your forefathers and go to a land that I will show you.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
SPEAKER_00: And we read all the way to verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pick up the story in verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all the possessions 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 Moray.
SPEAKER_00: And at that time the Canaanites were in the land.
SPEAKER_00: And then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your offspring I will give this land.
SPEAKER_00: So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, what's this got to do with experiencing the fruit of obedience is our highest joy?
SPEAKER_00: In verse 1, look at me, beloved.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 1, God says, Go to a land I will show you.
SPEAKER_00: Abram obeys.
SPEAKER_00: And in verse 7, God says, By the way, I don't want to just show you this land.
SPEAKER_00: I want to give you this land.
SPEAKER_00: I will show you because I will give you because of obedience.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot have as motivation what God intends you to have as experience.
SPEAKER_00: There's things in life you just got to obey God on.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta say, you know what, we're good stewards.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not calling for irresponsible, irrational behavior.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying, oh, let's just go home and go crazy.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: But there comes a point you just got to pull the trigger and say, you know what, God, I think this is you.
SPEAKER_00: And I sense this is you.
SPEAKER_00: This is what you're saying.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna obey.
SPEAKER_00: That's how I will show you becomes I will give you.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you in this room may be thinking, well, you know, God promised, we feel like God promised us some things, and blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: You might be waiting for God to give it to you as motivation.
SPEAKER_00: You need to obey.
SPEAKER_00: I talk out of my own life.
SPEAKER_00: I told you I went to Fort Worth, actually, I was in Burleson this weekend.
SPEAKER_00: Uh 900 kids crammed into this beautiful facility, great for students.
SPEAKER_00: And and and we're there and big stage and band and everything.
SPEAKER_00: And guy walks up to me.
SPEAKER_00: His name's Scott Burks.
SPEAKER_00: Scott used to be a youth pastor in West Texas, and he's we got to talking, and he says, Man, I can't wait to hear you.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I know that sometimes people think you know you're like a bit much.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, like my wife and kids, maybe, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And and he said, but I and he got all serious on it.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, but I I want you to know, man.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I don't know if you remember this, but you're at my church years ago.
SPEAKER_00: I brought you and Billy Beats and the guys to West Texas.
SPEAKER_00: And when he said that, I went, in my mind, I was like, I yeah, because I he says, I don't remember if you had a guy in a t-shirt, and I was like, outwardly, I was like, oh, really?
SPEAKER_00: Inwardly, I was like, how could I ever forget?
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the worst weapons I ever took in my life.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Yeah, there was a guy, a kid in my church, you got up to speak, and he was had a Christian t-shirt on.
SPEAKER_00: And you just looked at him and said, Hey, do you mean that?
SPEAKER_00: And the kid's like, What?
SPEAKER_00: You just said, he said it was weird and but it was direct.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I remember you were like in that kid's grits, and you just said, Hey, do you mean that?
SPEAKER_00: Because if not, take the shirt off, turn it inside out, and put it back on.
SPEAKER_00: We got enough Christian liars in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And the kid was just like, Well, Scott didn't know is when I got done speaking, and then I just said, you know, the kid's like, Yeah, I mean, I said, Okay, I'm just curious.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not hating on you.
SPEAKER_00: Prayed, preached, went to go out in the hallway and get water, and somebody's grandma caught me out there by the water fountain.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, yanked me up short, and she was fit to be tied.
SPEAKER_00: And she's like the queen of the WMU.
SPEAKER_00: Let me, she had a finger about that long, and she kept pointing that thing in my face, and I was like, I can't go back any further.
SPEAKER_00: And so she was like, Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: That was nothing but and this is a verbal bullying.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know who you think you are, and blah blah blah.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I don't want to hit somebody's grandma, God, but uh because when we were we were during worship, I just looked over and saw the kid, and I was just like, and the Holy Spirit's like, ask him if he means that.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I don't know that kid.
SPEAKER_00: And God's like, I do.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Yeah, but see, because you know, I it's gonna sound harsh.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care what they think about you.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to preach.
SPEAKER_00: You think you came here just to preach?
SPEAKER_00: You came here to obey.
SPEAKER_00: Obedience has other forms besides preaching.
SPEAKER_00: You want to keep this conversation going, Neil?
SPEAKER_00: No, I asked the kid about the shirt.
SPEAKER_00: Got it, thanks.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just stood out there and took my weapon from somebody's grandma.
SPEAKER_00: I just want you to know that it was hard for me to listen to you preach after the way you tormented that young man.
SPEAKER_00: And in my mind, I'm thinking, tormented?
SPEAKER_00: Somebody asking you if you mean that?
SPEAKER_00: Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_00: But I didn't say that because the Bible says when you speak to elder, you speak to them like you speak to your father.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just sat there because my dad used to yank us up by the ear and twist it and only just talk to us.
SPEAKER_00: You understand what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I can only hear out of one ear, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So I took my whooping two days ago.
SPEAKER_00: Scott Burks walked up on me and says, I don't know if you remember that he says, Y'all don't even remember you came to my church and there's a kid in a t-shirt, and I was like, Oh yeah, yeah, I think that woman's not here, is she?
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna roll somebody out in a wheelchair with a cane.
SPEAKER_00: I got my eye on you, young man.
SPEAKER_00: Scott said, Hey man, that guy, what that that kid, that you don't understand, Neil, that changed his life.
SPEAKER_00: He got married, he has four or five kids now.
SPEAKER_00: He and his wife sold everything and went to Africa as missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: He points back to that point when he said, That Neil guy came and just pointed at me and said, Do you mean that?
SPEAKER_00: He said, That changed my life.
SPEAKER_00: Well, for me, it always been one of those, yeah, I said something awkward and people got offended.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine that.
SPEAKER_00: Experiencing the fruit of our obedience is our highest joy.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, this morning, I just say to you, the gospel is the highest blessing.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: He says, verse 4 says, So Abram went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him.
SPEAKER_00: Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.
SPEAKER_00: Why is it necessary that he kind of go?
SPEAKER_00: Because the gospel is the highest blessing.
SPEAKER_00: We're in chapter 12, and you're probably thinking, why'd you tell us all that stuff from Genesis 1 through 11?
SPEAKER_00: Because in Genesis 11, when they built the Tower of Babel, see, everything God does, God does with a purpose in mind.
SPEAKER_00: God does not relate to us out of our circumstances, but he relates to us out of his nature.
SPEAKER_00: And so he tells us to do things that, quote unquote, don't make sense to us, but make a difference for him and his name and his gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And so in Genesis chapter 11, they said, Let's build a tower to the heavens and make a name for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And they did, and God looked down and said, No, no, no, no, no, no, you're not gonna do that.
SPEAKER_00: And so God came down and confused their languages.
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's called the Tower of Babel.
SPEAKER_00: And the people were scattered, and the ethne, the people groups, were started right there.
SPEAKER_00: And so God sets it up.
SPEAKER_00: And there's Genesis chapter 11, and then immediately in chapter 12, God says, Hey, these people don't speak the same language, they don't understand each other.
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you what, I got it, I got it, I got a response to all that.
SPEAKER_00: I'll bless you, and you'll be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: And hear this, beloved, and through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: The nations just came into play in the previous chapter.
SPEAKER_00: God already has a plan for the nations.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm gonna bless Abram.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Why?
SPEAKER_00: He said, He's just gonna go like do good deeds for all the nations.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: For us to go to India and take money for rice and beans and houses for beak, our pastor and his family, and not preach the gospel is to damn those people to hell.
SPEAKER_00: It's just to make them more comfortable, meeting physical needs without preaching the gospel is making people comfortable on their way to hell.
SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna do that.
SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna preach the social gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's just give people bread and just trust that they're gonna believe it comes from God or God as they understand him to be.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: God's on the record as to who he is.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is the highest blessed.
SPEAKER_00: The nations come into being.
SPEAKER_00: God says, I'm gonna bless you, and through you, all the nations of the world are gonna be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: Or how are they gonna be blessed?
SPEAKER_00: Not because they get his stuff, but because through Abraham and his sons and daughters.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Father Abraham?
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is gonna be passed down, and the Messiah is gonna come, and and all this is gonna come into play because God sets it into motion.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you read the New Testament, if you got your Bible, I want you to turn there and mark this, and we'll be done.
SPEAKER_00: Galatians chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: You still with me?
SPEAKER_00: Galatians chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: I'll start reading verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?
SPEAKER_00: Don't you want to get a letter like that at least once in your life?
SPEAKER_00: Instead of my sweet granddaughter.
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't you love your grandma sent you like a birthday card?
SPEAKER_00: Hey, you little brat.
SPEAKER_00: There's no money in here.
SPEAKER_00: Me and my friends went to the boats in Shreveport.
SPEAKER_00: You would be like, this is offensive and magical all at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, foolish Galatians, who's bewitched you?
SPEAKER_00: It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?
SPEAKER_00: Are you so foolish, having begun by the Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: Are you now being perfected by the flesh?
SPEAKER_00: Did you suffer so many things in vain?
SPEAKER_00: If indeed it was in vain, does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith?
SPEAKER_00: Pay attention.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to all come together right here in verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: So then those who are of faith are blessed, along with Abraham, the man of faith.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we believe as a church, that's why we teach as a church that the gospel is the highest blessing.
SPEAKER_00: So we have so four simple core values around here that drive everything we do.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel, which produces community, which sends us on a shared mission, which involves being a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: And the highest blessing is the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: So we come back to where we started.
SPEAKER_00: We believe as a church, that's what God's called us to be about, and we believe as a church, that's not church is not an institution, it's individuals who share this common faith and this common mission.
SPEAKER_00: That's why one of our four core values is blessing.
SPEAKER_00: God says, I'll bless you, and you'll be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: I want us to spend just a few moments just thinking about what it would look like for you to be a blessing to somebody this week.
SPEAKER_00: Stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_00: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_00: You are a blessed people.
SPEAKER_00: And your father has blessed you on purpose, not by accident.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're blessed, you now have the privilege of being a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Depart now and be a blessing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Bless you.
SPEAKER_00: You're dismissed.