1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,600 Welcome to the Love and Context podcast of Unscripted Conversation with Ben and Spence. 2 00:00:05,600 --> 00:00:10,400 We're so glad that you could join us today, whether that's from your car, office, home, 3 00:00:10,400 --> 00:00:13,080 church, or wherever you're at. 4 00:00:13,080 --> 00:00:17,200 We did have a few sound quality issues with our first few episodes. 5 00:00:17,200 --> 00:00:18,340 Those have been resolved. 6 00:00:18,340 --> 00:00:22,160 So if you do notice that the sound is funny in the first couple episodes, we do apologize 7 00:00:22,160 --> 00:00:23,200 for that. 8 00:00:23,200 --> 00:00:28,820 If you want to contact us, you can email us at loveandcontext.gmail.com. 9 00:00:28,820 --> 00:00:32,840 Also follow us on Instagram at loveandcontext. 10 00:00:32,840 --> 00:00:36,280 All right. 11 00:00:36,280 --> 00:00:37,800 Well welcome into the podcast. 12 00:00:37,800 --> 00:00:43,380 I'm Ben and I'm here with Spencer and we're going to be talking about some Abraham getting 13 00:00:43,380 --> 00:00:47,840 his name changed and also some of Isaac today. 14 00:00:47,840 --> 00:00:50,080 And we're going to do it in context and love. 15 00:00:50,080 --> 00:00:51,080 Yeah. 16 00:00:51,080 --> 00:00:52,080 Yeah. 17 00:00:52,080 --> 00:00:55,160 In case you didn't know what this podcast is called, it's kind of weird because this 18 00:00:55,160 --> 00:00:59,080 is like nine episodes in so hopefully you didn't just be like, oh, it's the Randall 19 00:00:59,080 --> 00:01:00,080 McRandall sins. 20 00:01:00,080 --> 00:01:01,080 Random, random sins. 21 00:01:01,080 --> 00:01:02,080 Oh, we're renaming it that. 22 00:01:02,080 --> 00:01:03,080 Yeah. 23 00:01:03,080 --> 00:01:04,080 The random Rick McRandall sins. 24 00:01:04,080 --> 00:01:10,920 So two weird randos talking about Bob. 25 00:01:10,920 --> 00:01:17,880 So the last, the last episode ended with God making a covenant with Abraham, Abraham at 26 00:01:17,880 --> 00:01:18,880 the time. 27 00:01:18,880 --> 00:01:19,880 Yeah. 28 00:01:19,880 --> 00:01:21,160 And walking both ends of the covenant. 29 00:01:21,160 --> 00:01:22,160 Right. 30 00:01:22,160 --> 00:01:27,040 So it kind of just kind of keeps high stepping through Abrams life here. 31 00:01:27,040 --> 00:01:31,400 So one of the things I find interesting right after this is that God makes a covenant and 32 00:01:31,400 --> 00:01:34,820 so God speaks, makes clear what he's going to do. 33 00:01:34,820 --> 00:01:40,360 And then in the next chapter, they're like, Hey, what if we just accomplish God's will 34 00:01:40,360 --> 00:01:43,920 because clearly like this is what he wants to do. 35 00:01:43,920 --> 00:01:44,920 Yeah. 36 00:01:44,920 --> 00:01:53,480 You know what's terrible about this is this like, I feel this because I am terrible at 37 00:01:53,480 --> 00:01:58,080 waiting on the Lord because I'm convinced my timing is better than his. 38 00:01:58,080 --> 00:02:02,880 And there's a passage of time between 15 and 16. 39 00:02:02,880 --> 00:02:06,760 And we don't know like, we don't know the length of that, but there's a little bit of 40 00:02:06,760 --> 00:02:08,360 a passage of time there too. 41 00:02:08,360 --> 00:02:09,360 Yeah. 42 00:02:09,360 --> 00:02:15,760 I know that Sarah feels old and that Abraham is no spring chicken. 43 00:02:15,760 --> 00:02:20,040 Ironically, we're talking about spring chickens and I can definitely hear your spring chickens 44 00:02:20,040 --> 00:02:21,040 outside. 45 00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:22,040 Yeah. 46 00:02:22,040 --> 00:02:23,040 Yeah. 47 00:02:23,040 --> 00:02:24,040 Yeah. 48 00:02:24,040 --> 00:02:27,520 So I do think it's interesting also that the very reason that the even would have Hagar 49 00:02:27,520 --> 00:02:33,760 here because she's an Egyptian was because they were in Egypt and probably shouldn't 50 00:02:33,760 --> 00:02:35,320 have been there to begin with. 51 00:02:35,320 --> 00:02:36,320 Right. 52 00:02:36,320 --> 00:02:38,840 So I just think that you kind of got these things compiling. 53 00:02:38,840 --> 00:02:42,360 I do think also we see here that God still hasn't chastised him. 54 00:02:42,360 --> 00:02:43,360 Nope. 55 00:02:43,360 --> 00:02:44,360 He hasn't. 56 00:02:44,360 --> 00:02:46,600 But we are seeing some of the ramifications of choices, right? 57 00:02:46,600 --> 00:02:47,600 Yep, we are. 58 00:02:47,600 --> 00:02:48,600 All right. 59 00:02:48,600 --> 00:02:55,880 So spoiler alert, if you have not read Genesis chapter 16 through, let's just say 20, 22, 60 00:02:55,880 --> 00:03:00,520 really everything to do with, I think it's actually longer than that, but Abraham through 61 00:03:00,520 --> 00:03:06,400 Isaac, just make sure that you have stopped the podcast and you're going to read that. 62 00:03:06,400 --> 00:03:07,400 We'll be here when you get back. 63 00:03:07,400 --> 00:03:08,400 Don't worry. 64 00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:09,400 We're not going anywhere. 65 00:03:09,400 --> 00:03:12,040 In fact, we're digital recording, so we'll be here forever. 66 00:03:12,040 --> 00:03:13,040 Yes. 67 00:03:13,040 --> 00:03:17,520 Or as long as we use technology, right? 68 00:03:17,520 --> 00:03:18,520 Pretty much, right? 69 00:03:18,520 --> 00:03:19,520 All right. 70 00:03:19,520 --> 00:03:24,760 So humans try to solve God's promises. 71 00:03:24,760 --> 00:03:26,120 Yeah. 72 00:03:26,120 --> 00:03:29,000 I can't think of a more relevant story for the church. 73 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:30,000 Well. 74 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:31,000 Okay. 75 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:35,240 And then it immediately goes to poop. 76 00:03:35,240 --> 00:03:36,240 Right. 77 00:03:36,240 --> 00:03:37,240 Pretty much. 78 00:03:37,240 --> 00:03:40,320 So Abraham, have you ever tried to solve God's promises on your own? 79 00:03:40,320 --> 00:03:41,320 Yes. 80 00:03:41,320 --> 00:03:42,680 How'd that work out? 81 00:03:42,680 --> 00:03:43,680 It didn't work well. 82 00:03:43,680 --> 00:03:44,680 Okay. 83 00:03:44,680 --> 00:03:45,680 Yeah. 84 00:03:45,680 --> 00:03:46,680 Right. 85 00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:48,240 I mean, I've tried to, my life, it was horrible. 86 00:03:48,240 --> 00:03:49,240 Yeah. 87 00:03:49,240 --> 00:03:54,320 I'm reminded of like times that I've served in church ministry, right? 88 00:03:54,320 --> 00:03:57,120 And like, you know what God wants you to do. 89 00:03:57,120 --> 00:04:01,160 And instead of waiting for God to speak, you're like, oh, well, we're just going to go and 90 00:04:01,160 --> 00:04:02,160 do this. 91 00:04:02,160 --> 00:04:05,200 And it's not necessarily even like a biblical precedent. 92 00:04:05,200 --> 00:04:07,720 It's just something you're like, oh, it's going to work. 93 00:04:07,720 --> 00:04:08,720 Yeah. 94 00:04:08,720 --> 00:04:10,160 And then it like all falls apart. 95 00:04:10,160 --> 00:04:11,160 Right. 96 00:04:11,160 --> 00:04:14,120 And then you're like, well, this was, this was a colossal waste of time. 97 00:04:14,120 --> 00:04:18,080 And then like, God speaks and then you go do the thing he told you to do and it's highly 98 00:04:18,080 --> 00:04:19,080 effective. 99 00:04:19,080 --> 00:04:20,080 Uh huh. 100 00:04:20,080 --> 00:04:21,080 Right. 101 00:04:21,080 --> 00:04:22,080 Yeah. 102 00:04:22,080 --> 00:04:25,720 So in this story, like, I'm just going to kind of high, high step it through here. 103 00:04:25,720 --> 00:04:33,560 Sarah, Sarah, I brings Hagar to sleep with Abraham, Abraham at that time and she gets 104 00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:34,560 pregnant. 105 00:04:34,560 --> 00:04:40,920 Um, so apparently his stuff is still working and then she bears a kid and his name is Ishmael, 106 00:04:40,920 --> 00:04:42,280 right? 107 00:04:42,280 --> 00:04:46,640 And she starts to despise Sarah and that Sarah gets mad and Sarah starts abusing her. 108 00:04:46,640 --> 00:04:48,400 And then like, she's like, I gotta go. 109 00:04:48,400 --> 00:04:52,760 So she bails as she runs away and God meets her in the desert and says, go back. 110 00:04:52,760 --> 00:04:57,480 I'm still going to make sure that you're taking care of him and we'll bless you. 111 00:04:57,480 --> 00:05:03,920 And then, uh, sorry, that actually happens twice, once with, uh, uh, before, uh, before 112 00:05:03,920 --> 00:05:08,520 she has a baby and then once after the first time she goes and she is out there and she 113 00:05:08,520 --> 00:05:13,800 calls God, the God who sees me, which by the way, just circle that in your Bible because 114 00:05:13,800 --> 00:05:15,240 that's going to come back around. 115 00:05:15,240 --> 00:05:17,640 Yeah, it is. 116 00:05:17,640 --> 00:05:24,920 Um, but then she has, has the kid, his name is Ishmael and Abraham is 86 years old when 117 00:05:24,920 --> 00:05:25,920 Hagar born. 118 00:05:25,920 --> 00:05:26,920 Okay. 119 00:05:26,920 --> 00:05:32,520 So when Abraham was, when Abraham was 99 years old, okay. 120 00:05:32,520 --> 00:05:35,560 So he was 86 years old when Ishmael was born. 121 00:05:35,560 --> 00:05:39,920 He's 99 now, which means that Ishmael is at least 13 at this point, which in their, in 122 00:05:39,920 --> 00:05:42,200 their culture would have been at least fan of it. 123 00:05:42,200 --> 00:05:43,200 Right. 124 00:05:43,200 --> 00:05:47,720 And God comes and he makes a covenant with Abraham and he specifically is established 125 00:05:47,720 --> 00:05:51,840 in the covenant of circumcision and, and, uh, God makes the covenant. 126 00:05:51,840 --> 00:05:53,420 He says, this is what I'm going to do. 127 00:05:53,420 --> 00:05:54,420 All these different things. 128 00:05:54,420 --> 00:05:55,800 And Abraham was like, well, what about Ishmael? 129 00:05:55,800 --> 00:05:56,800 Can he participate in this? 130 00:05:56,800 --> 00:06:00,880 And Abraham says, listen, I'm going to take care of Ishmael, but this covenant is actually 131 00:06:00,880 --> 00:06:04,280 between you and Sarah. 132 00:06:04,280 --> 00:06:11,520 By the way, um, for my feminist listeners, I love that God specifically is a huge feminist 133 00:06:11,520 --> 00:06:12,520 here. 134 00:06:12,520 --> 00:06:14,920 And he's like, no, no, no, no, no. 135 00:06:14,920 --> 00:06:17,260 It's actually not just you, Abraham. 136 00:06:17,260 --> 00:06:20,880 It's actually you and Sarah. 137 00:06:20,880 --> 00:06:25,280 Then the kid that you two have together is actually going to make a big difference. 138 00:06:25,280 --> 00:06:26,280 Yeah. 139 00:06:26,280 --> 00:06:28,040 That's where the line of promises coming through. 140 00:06:28,040 --> 00:06:29,040 Yeah. 141 00:06:29,040 --> 00:06:37,280 Now, while that may not feel significant reading that in the 2023, that is a huge, huge thing 142 00:06:37,280 --> 00:06:39,160 in this time period. 143 00:06:39,160 --> 00:06:40,160 Yeah. 144 00:06:40,160 --> 00:06:47,040 One of the things in the story that, uh, before we get too far away from Hagar is, uh, as 145 00:06:47,040 --> 00:06:51,280 you're reading a story, ask the question, like, where does it say God's mad at her? 146 00:06:51,280 --> 00:06:52,280 Right. 147 00:06:52,280 --> 00:06:57,160 Like we've been, we've been talking about this, uh, throughout the podcast about how 148 00:06:57,160 --> 00:07:02,200 understanding God, especially in the old Testament through a loving lens, like in this story 149 00:07:02,200 --> 00:07:08,160 highlights it so well, like there's no spot where God says he's mad at Hagar or frustrated 150 00:07:08,160 --> 00:07:10,040 or disappointed or anything like that. 151 00:07:10,040 --> 00:07:11,320 He does the exact opposite. 152 00:07:11,320 --> 00:07:16,120 He says, Hey, I'm going to bless your kid, even though I, this isn't the way I intended 153 00:07:16,120 --> 00:07:20,280 it, even though this isn't the, um, what I have planned, I'm still going to bless your 154 00:07:20,280 --> 00:07:22,120 kid and I'm still going to bless you. 155 00:07:22,120 --> 00:07:24,160 I'm going to take care of you. 156 00:07:24,160 --> 00:07:25,960 On the flip side of that too. 157 00:07:25,960 --> 00:07:26,960 Yeah. 158 00:07:26,960 --> 00:07:30,080 He does acknowledge that he's sending her back into a bad situation. 159 00:07:30,080 --> 00:07:31,080 Yep. 160 00:07:31,080 --> 00:07:34,520 Like, so I think one of the takeaways here too, is that even when God's going to bless 161 00:07:34,520 --> 00:07:37,560 you, it doesn't mean that your situation is going to improve dramatically. 162 00:07:37,560 --> 00:07:38,560 Yeah. 163 00:07:38,560 --> 00:07:42,160 It means that there's something beyond your current situation that God's calling you to. 164 00:07:42,160 --> 00:07:43,160 Right. 165 00:07:43,160 --> 00:07:44,160 All right. 166 00:07:44,160 --> 00:07:50,120 So, uh, right here, God lays on a new covenant, which is a covenant that can't lose, um, circumcision. 167 00:07:50,120 --> 00:07:53,680 I don't know if you're aware, but it's not something that you can just like lose. 168 00:07:53,680 --> 00:07:58,120 In fact, uh, you would get, you actually get it by losing something. 169 00:07:58,120 --> 00:08:09,440 Um, so, um, so God, uh, in states, the covenant of circumcision and, uh, here is, they actually 170 00:08:09,440 --> 00:08:10,600 are given a name change. 171 00:08:10,600 --> 00:08:11,600 Yeah. 172 00:08:11,600 --> 00:08:12,600 Right. 173 00:08:12,600 --> 00:08:13,600 So Abraham becomes Abraham. 174 00:08:13,600 --> 00:08:17,400 And so we'll, we'll stop saying his name wrong and Sarah becomes Sarah. 175 00:08:17,400 --> 00:08:22,040 Now specifically, his name becomes Abraham because he is going to be the father of many 176 00:08:22,040 --> 00:08:23,040 nations. 177 00:08:23,040 --> 00:08:24,040 Right. 178 00:08:24,040 --> 00:08:27,640 And her name is going to be called Sarah, which, because she is going to be the mother 179 00:08:27,640 --> 00:08:28,640 of nations. 180 00:08:28,640 --> 00:08:30,000 Right. 181 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:35,080 And as soon as his name is changed, and this, this is actually fundamentally changing Abraham's 182 00:08:35,080 --> 00:08:38,360 identity, which, I mean, it's kind of funny at 99 years old. 183 00:08:38,360 --> 00:08:39,360 Yeah. 184 00:08:39,360 --> 00:08:43,720 He falls down on his face and laughs and he's like, am I going to have a kid at a hundred 185 00:08:43,720 --> 00:08:44,800 years old? 186 00:08:44,800 --> 00:08:45,800 This is crazy. 187 00:08:45,800 --> 00:08:46,800 Oh. 188 00:08:46,800 --> 00:08:52,280 So the name change thing is huge. 189 00:08:52,280 --> 00:08:53,280 Yeah. 190 00:08:53,280 --> 00:08:56,640 Uh, I don't sidestep that. 191 00:08:56,640 --> 00:09:01,440 I feel like we often do sidestep that or we're like, Oh, Abraham, Abraham, same dude. 192 00:09:01,440 --> 00:09:02,440 Right? 193 00:09:02,440 --> 00:09:06,160 No, this actually is a huge point where God is saying you're no longer going to be known 194 00:09:06,160 --> 00:09:07,160 as this. 195 00:09:07,160 --> 00:09:08,320 Now, Abraham was wealthy. 196 00:09:08,320 --> 00:09:09,320 Yeah. 197 00:09:09,320 --> 00:09:10,700 Like he was well known. 198 00:09:10,700 --> 00:09:14,120 He had people, he had money, he had monetary things. 199 00:09:14,120 --> 00:09:18,960 And God is saying, we're taking that name, we're setting aside or changing your name 200 00:09:18,960 --> 00:09:26,360 to Abraham so that your identity, your wealth, your power can be known by me, not by yourself. 201 00:09:26,360 --> 00:09:27,440 Yep. 202 00:09:27,440 --> 00:09:30,200 And then Abraham's answer is to laugh. 203 00:09:30,200 --> 00:09:32,440 And then be like, well, what about Ishmael? 204 00:09:32,440 --> 00:09:34,880 Because it seems a lot easier than having a new kid. 205 00:09:34,880 --> 00:09:37,680 You got to remember Ishmael is 13 years old. 206 00:09:37,680 --> 00:09:41,240 So he's just already gone through raising a kid from adolescence to teenage years. 207 00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:42,240 Yeah. 208 00:09:42,240 --> 00:09:43,240 Right. 209 00:09:43,240 --> 00:09:45,280 And so do I have to do that again at a hundred years old? 210 00:09:45,280 --> 00:09:51,760 Well, I mean, it's a justified response on Abraham's part. 211 00:09:51,760 --> 00:09:55,200 If I start calling him Abraham through the rest of the episode now that his name has 212 00:09:55,200 --> 00:09:56,200 changed. 213 00:09:56,200 --> 00:09:57,200 Yeah, it's so hard, right? 214 00:09:57,200 --> 00:09:58,200 Yeah. 215 00:09:58,200 --> 00:10:00,440 I mean, it's a justified response though. 216 00:10:00,440 --> 00:10:06,840 Like, I mean, think of it if you're at work and you forgot something and someone reminded 217 00:10:06,840 --> 00:10:07,840 you of it, right? 218 00:10:07,840 --> 00:10:12,480 Or if there was a task you're supposed to get done and someone's like brings it up all 219 00:10:12,480 --> 00:10:15,280 the time. 220 00:10:15,280 --> 00:10:18,840 Like those responses justified if something's not getting done. 221 00:10:18,840 --> 00:10:19,840 Right? 222 00:10:19,840 --> 00:10:24,920 And so Abraham at this point is like, well, God, where's my kid? 223 00:10:24,920 --> 00:10:25,920 Right? 224 00:10:25,920 --> 00:10:26,920 Yeah. 225 00:10:26,920 --> 00:10:30,640 And not only that, like, God, I already raised a kid for 13 years. 226 00:10:30,640 --> 00:10:32,200 Like one that you said you're going to bless. 227 00:10:32,200 --> 00:10:34,200 Like, I got to do this again. 228 00:10:34,200 --> 00:10:37,240 And God's like, yeah, because it's with the raw woman. 229 00:10:37,240 --> 00:10:38,240 Yeah. 230 00:10:38,240 --> 00:10:39,240 Yeah. 231 00:10:39,240 --> 00:10:40,800 God's like, you did it your way. 232 00:10:40,800 --> 00:10:42,400 And now you're going to do it my way. 233 00:10:42,400 --> 00:10:43,600 That's not what I had planned. 234 00:10:43,600 --> 00:10:44,600 Yeah. 235 00:10:44,600 --> 00:10:49,880 And once again, we pointed out God does not chastise Abraham or Sarah or Hagar. 236 00:10:49,880 --> 00:10:50,920 He does not. 237 00:10:50,920 --> 00:10:52,080 He does not. 238 00:10:52,080 --> 00:10:54,880 But he actually makes a statement. 239 00:10:54,880 --> 00:10:56,480 He's like, nope, you did it this way. 240 00:10:56,480 --> 00:11:02,040 But the covenant, the promise, what we're doing is actually supposed to go through Sarah. 241 00:11:02,040 --> 00:11:03,040 Yeah. 242 00:11:03,040 --> 00:11:06,800 And now because we're going to do this, we're actually going to fundamentally change your 243 00:11:06,800 --> 00:11:10,640 identity and call that out into your person. 244 00:11:10,640 --> 00:11:15,720 Now for my charismatic listeners, like, this is a prophetic declaration, right? 245 00:11:15,720 --> 00:11:20,800 They are literally calling, God is literally calling out who Abraham is going to be. 246 00:11:20,800 --> 00:11:21,800 Yeah. 247 00:11:21,800 --> 00:11:22,800 Right? 248 00:11:22,800 --> 00:11:23,920 All right. 249 00:11:23,920 --> 00:11:29,040 So everybody is circumcised now. 250 00:11:29,040 --> 00:11:32,480 All the men in his household, all the foreigners that are living with him, everybody who is 251 00:11:32,480 --> 00:11:35,440 part of Abram's household is circumcised. 252 00:11:35,440 --> 00:11:41,000 And then in the next chapter, God is going to show up in the form of three visitors. 253 00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:44,320 If you want to write in a thing, I'll be like, hey, what's with the three visitors? 254 00:11:44,320 --> 00:11:45,320 I don't know. 255 00:11:45,320 --> 00:11:46,320 There's a lot of speculation about it. 256 00:11:46,320 --> 00:11:50,080 All I know is that it's God and Abraham knows it's God. 257 00:11:50,080 --> 00:11:51,080 Yeah. 258 00:11:51,080 --> 00:11:52,080 Right? 259 00:11:52,080 --> 00:11:55,520 And Abraham's going to be really, really hospitable. 260 00:11:55,520 --> 00:11:58,500 And there's going to be this thing about running and 3C as a flower that's going to connect 261 00:11:58,500 --> 00:11:59,500 to the story of Jesus. 262 00:11:59,500 --> 00:12:02,280 And you know who has some great content on that? 263 00:12:02,280 --> 00:12:03,280 Baima Podcast. 264 00:12:03,280 --> 00:12:04,280 Yeah. 265 00:12:04,280 --> 00:12:05,280 Baima Discipleship. 266 00:12:05,280 --> 00:12:08,880 And we're going to direct you guys over to that one to talk about that. 267 00:12:08,880 --> 00:12:10,640 But God shows up and he comes in. 268 00:12:10,640 --> 00:12:14,480 He's having a conversation once again with Abraham. 269 00:12:14,480 --> 00:12:19,200 And Sarah now hears God make a comment about that there's going to be a baby next time 270 00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:20,700 he comes to visit. 271 00:12:20,700 --> 00:12:21,960 And she laughs. 272 00:12:21,960 --> 00:12:23,800 So Abraham laughs, she laughs. 273 00:12:23,800 --> 00:12:28,360 And once again, God does not get angry. 274 00:12:28,360 --> 00:12:32,640 Guys, you're probably starting to catch a theme here. 275 00:12:32,640 --> 00:12:34,720 God doesn't get angry, but he does call her out. 276 00:12:34,720 --> 00:12:35,720 He does call her out. 277 00:12:35,720 --> 00:12:36,720 Yeah. 278 00:12:36,720 --> 00:12:37,720 He's like, Hey, did you laugh? 279 00:12:37,720 --> 00:12:38,720 And she's like, No, no, I didn't. 280 00:12:38,720 --> 00:12:42,120 I mean, I've had this conversation with my four year old all the time. 281 00:12:42,120 --> 00:12:43,120 Like, did you do this? 282 00:12:43,120 --> 00:12:44,520 No, that wasn't me. 283 00:12:44,520 --> 00:12:45,520 Yeah. 284 00:12:45,520 --> 00:12:46,520 But yeah. 285 00:12:46,520 --> 00:12:50,320 Well, in her defense, like, I mean, if God is asking you, did you laugh? 286 00:12:50,320 --> 00:12:55,880 And like your experience with God in this culture, right? 287 00:12:55,880 --> 00:12:58,160 Like who is God usually? 288 00:12:58,160 --> 00:13:02,160 God's in this culture usually judgmental, angry, out to punish. 289 00:13:02,160 --> 00:13:06,440 And they're out to literally wipe you off the face of the planet for any slight. 290 00:13:06,440 --> 00:13:07,440 That's not who this God is. 291 00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:09,560 And by the way, that's going to become really important because we're going to be talking 292 00:13:09,560 --> 00:13:12,440 about Abraham and Isaac and there's this mountain scene coming up. 293 00:13:12,440 --> 00:13:13,440 Yeah. 294 00:13:13,440 --> 00:13:14,440 Right. 295 00:13:14,440 --> 00:13:19,360 So God says, No, no, you did laugh. 296 00:13:19,360 --> 00:13:22,960 And then he gets up to leave and he says, tells Abraham, he's like, or actually talks 297 00:13:22,960 --> 00:13:26,920 to himself and he says, should we tell Abraham what we're about to do? 298 00:13:26,920 --> 00:13:27,920 Yeah. 299 00:13:27,920 --> 00:13:28,920 Right. 300 00:13:28,920 --> 00:13:32,720 So there's a nice parody here between like Sarah laughs and then he's like, why'd you 301 00:13:32,720 --> 00:13:33,720 laugh? 302 00:13:33,720 --> 00:13:34,720 She's like, I didn't laugh. 303 00:13:34,720 --> 00:13:36,680 And then like, God's like, yeah, you did. 304 00:13:36,680 --> 00:13:37,680 But you know what? 305 00:13:37,680 --> 00:13:41,120 I have something that I'm holding back, but I'm not going to hold it back from Abraham. 306 00:13:41,120 --> 00:13:43,920 I'm actually going to have this conversation with him face to face. 307 00:13:43,920 --> 00:13:49,020 So God tells Abraham that he says, I'm going to go down to Sodom and I'm going to go see 308 00:13:49,020 --> 00:13:52,980 if it's as bad as everybody says that it is. 309 00:13:52,980 --> 00:13:59,120 And I think historically, the church has had a not necessarily complete teaching. 310 00:13:59,120 --> 00:14:00,120 Yeah. 311 00:14:00,120 --> 00:14:01,480 On Sodom. 312 00:14:01,480 --> 00:14:05,120 Because I think a lot of the times they focus in on this idea of Sodom and Gomorrah was 313 00:14:05,120 --> 00:14:07,120 destroyed because of homosexuality. 314 00:14:07,120 --> 00:14:08,440 Right. 315 00:14:08,440 --> 00:14:10,200 And that's not actually what the Bible teaches. 316 00:14:10,200 --> 00:14:14,920 Actually, in Ezekiel, the prophet addresses it directly. 317 00:14:14,920 --> 00:14:21,380 In Ezekiel chapter 16, verse 49, it says, Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom. 318 00:14:21,380 --> 00:14:26,480 She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned. 319 00:14:26,480 --> 00:14:28,840 They did not help the poor and needy. 320 00:14:28,840 --> 00:14:32,200 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. 321 00:14:32,200 --> 00:14:35,040 Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. 322 00:14:35,040 --> 00:14:36,040 Yeah. 323 00:14:36,040 --> 00:14:37,040 Okay. 324 00:14:37,040 --> 00:14:38,600 Now, are detestable things in there? 325 00:14:38,600 --> 00:14:40,440 Yeah, they are. 326 00:14:40,440 --> 00:14:41,440 Yeah. 327 00:14:41,440 --> 00:14:44,520 But in a list of importance, where does it show up? 328 00:14:44,520 --> 00:14:46,240 At the end. 329 00:14:46,240 --> 00:14:49,680 The bigger issue is that they were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned. 330 00:14:49,680 --> 00:14:51,760 They didn't care for the poor and needy. 331 00:14:51,760 --> 00:14:57,200 And by the way, church, maybe we should listen to that very closely. 332 00:14:57,200 --> 00:15:02,600 There's a tie in there on Matthew 25, where Jesus, when Jesus is separating out the sheep 333 00:15:02,600 --> 00:15:11,160 and the goat, he's saying the big thing in there is, did you take care of those in need? 334 00:15:11,160 --> 00:15:12,160 Right. 335 00:15:12,160 --> 00:15:15,000 And we've, I think- I was hungry. 336 00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:16,000 Did you feed me? 337 00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:17,000 Yeah. 338 00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:21,960 And I was like, I've heard the church be like, oh, well, it's an analogy for the spiritually 339 00:15:21,960 --> 00:15:22,960 needy. 340 00:15:22,960 --> 00:15:26,360 I was like, I don't necessarily agree with that. 341 00:15:26,360 --> 00:15:28,080 I think there's some truth to that. 342 00:15:28,080 --> 00:15:33,240 But also, he's literally talking about food, feeding the needy, literally talking about 343 00:15:33,240 --> 00:15:37,760 giving clothes to those who need it, visiting those in prison. 344 00:15:37,760 --> 00:15:38,760 Right? 345 00:15:38,760 --> 00:15:39,760 Right. 346 00:15:39,760 --> 00:15:42,840 So there's a tie in there that that's what we should be doing. 347 00:15:42,840 --> 00:15:44,920 And that should be a call on our lives. 348 00:15:44,920 --> 00:15:45,920 Right. 349 00:15:45,920 --> 00:15:46,920 Right. 350 00:15:46,920 --> 00:15:54,640 And the question is, is when you, when your needs supersede those of the people around 351 00:15:54,640 --> 00:15:59,640 you, you're no longer adhering to this idea of love, God, love of the people. 352 00:15:59,640 --> 00:16:00,640 Right? 353 00:16:00,640 --> 00:16:03,440 Because Jesus' greatest command, he says, love the Lord, God, love your heart, soul, 354 00:16:03,440 --> 00:16:06,560 mind, and strength, love your neighbor as yourself. 355 00:16:06,560 --> 00:16:08,200 Okay? 356 00:16:08,200 --> 00:16:12,200 If you're okay with people being hungry and poor and on the street and all those different 357 00:16:12,200 --> 00:16:14,480 things and not doing anything to help them. 358 00:16:14,480 --> 00:16:15,480 Yeah. 359 00:16:15,480 --> 00:16:19,920 I'm going to have a really hard time understanding that second half in your life. 360 00:16:19,920 --> 00:16:25,640 Now, you can't solve the entire world's problems, but to be unconcerned. 361 00:16:25,640 --> 00:16:26,640 Yeah. 362 00:16:26,640 --> 00:16:27,640 Right? 363 00:16:27,640 --> 00:16:30,720 To be unconcerned at all. 364 00:16:30,720 --> 00:16:33,640 Like it doesn't even move your heart. 365 00:16:33,640 --> 00:16:38,680 Like what kind of person do you have to be that you know that there are children, women, 366 00:16:38,680 --> 00:16:43,840 even drug addicts on the street that are hungry, dying and found an addiction and you don't 367 00:16:43,840 --> 00:16:44,840 even care? 368 00:16:44,840 --> 00:16:45,840 Yeah. 369 00:16:45,840 --> 00:16:49,080 Like I got news for you. 370 00:16:49,080 --> 00:16:52,000 You look like something and it's just not Jesus. 371 00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:53,000 Right? 372 00:16:53,000 --> 00:16:58,440 Well, and you don't have to, you don't have to solve the whole world problem. 373 00:16:58,440 --> 00:16:59,440 Right. 374 00:16:59,440 --> 00:17:02,360 Like where is it at in your community and how can you help with that? 375 00:17:02,360 --> 00:17:03,360 Yeah. 376 00:17:03,360 --> 00:17:06,120 So there is a, there is a local group here in town. 377 00:17:06,120 --> 00:17:07,120 Okay. 378 00:17:07,120 --> 00:17:10,400 That they provide food for people on the street. 379 00:17:10,400 --> 00:17:11,720 Yes. 380 00:17:11,720 --> 00:17:14,680 If you gave them $10 a month, you know how much of a difference that makes? 381 00:17:14,680 --> 00:17:16,080 Huge amount of difference. 382 00:17:16,080 --> 00:17:19,720 And you know how much $10 a month makes to the average budget? 383 00:17:19,720 --> 00:17:21,080 Like the $0 difference. 384 00:17:21,080 --> 00:17:22,080 Yeah. 385 00:17:22,080 --> 00:17:23,080 Right? 386 00:17:23,080 --> 00:17:26,680 Like a lot of us are getting coffee at least twice a month and it's going to be at least 387 00:17:26,680 --> 00:17:27,680 $10. 388 00:17:27,680 --> 00:17:28,680 Yeah. 389 00:17:28,680 --> 00:17:32,800 Now some of you, if you're listening and you don't have that to spare, like listen, man, 390 00:17:32,800 --> 00:17:34,360 give them your time, give them your energy. 391 00:17:34,360 --> 00:17:37,200 Like if you don't have the money to spare, you have other resources. 392 00:17:37,200 --> 00:17:38,980 It's called, it's called you. 393 00:17:38,980 --> 00:17:42,320 If nothing else, lift them up in prayer. 394 00:17:42,320 --> 00:17:47,640 Like give what you have into the kingdom and then don't be surprised when God blesses it. 395 00:17:47,640 --> 00:17:48,640 Yeah. 396 00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:50,920 Now this idea here, right? 397 00:17:50,920 --> 00:17:55,000 And we, I want to carry it on because God says, Hey, I'm going to have to go down to 398 00:17:55,000 --> 00:18:00,920 Sodom and see if this is as bad as it's all the cries out are being. 399 00:18:00,920 --> 00:18:02,520 So there are people crying out. 400 00:18:02,520 --> 00:18:03,920 There's people who are abused. 401 00:18:03,920 --> 00:18:09,120 There's people on the outside that are being abused in the, in the city. 402 00:18:09,120 --> 00:18:10,360 Right? 403 00:18:10,360 --> 00:18:13,340 And by the outside, I'm not saying outside the city I'm talking about on the outside 404 00:18:13,340 --> 00:18:15,080 of power. 405 00:18:15,080 --> 00:18:17,980 Right? 406 00:18:17,980 --> 00:18:19,960 But Abraham has learned something here. 407 00:18:19,960 --> 00:18:20,960 Right? 408 00:18:20,960 --> 00:18:23,780 And, and, and I, and I want to see what you think about this because I've been thinking 409 00:18:23,780 --> 00:18:27,160 about this argument that Abraham has with God and people don't look at it as an argument. 410 00:18:27,160 --> 00:18:28,520 I look at it as a little bit of an argument. 411 00:18:28,520 --> 00:18:31,440 He's being, he's being ticky tack with God. 412 00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:34,880 And he's like, well, what if there's 50 righteous people there? 413 00:18:34,880 --> 00:18:36,880 That's not who I've understood you to be. 414 00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:40,140 God's like, ah, you know, and he's like, well, what about? 415 00:18:40,140 --> 00:18:43,040 And what about, and what about, and all the way down to 10 people. 416 00:18:43,040 --> 00:18:44,040 Right? 417 00:18:44,040 --> 00:18:48,440 And I wonder when I look at this, like, did God want him to go further? 418 00:18:48,440 --> 00:18:50,520 Maybe. 419 00:18:50,520 --> 00:18:51,520 I don't know. 420 00:18:51,520 --> 00:18:52,520 Right? 421 00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:55,680 Like, because it seems like God is not offended at all. 422 00:18:55,680 --> 00:18:59,320 Abraham is way more worried about offending God than God has offended the situation. 423 00:18:59,320 --> 00:19:00,320 Yeah. 424 00:19:00,320 --> 00:19:01,320 Right? 425 00:19:01,320 --> 00:19:04,200 And it seems like God is actually having this invitation like, Abraham, are you going 426 00:19:04,200 --> 00:19:07,840 to be the kind of person who lays yourself on the line for other people? 427 00:19:07,840 --> 00:19:12,440 I would, you know, as we're talking, I would actually argue, I think God did want him to 428 00:19:12,440 --> 00:19:13,440 go further. 429 00:19:13,440 --> 00:19:14,440 I mean, he did. 430 00:19:14,440 --> 00:19:22,680 Because, I mean, back up to a few episodes ago, the flood, right? 431 00:19:22,680 --> 00:19:24,440 God found one person. 432 00:19:24,440 --> 00:19:25,440 Right. 433 00:19:25,440 --> 00:19:32,080 Yes, he rescued his whole family, but he found one person and then did away with the rest. 434 00:19:32,080 --> 00:19:33,760 So and that was with the world. 435 00:19:33,760 --> 00:19:36,200 We're talking just, we're just talking a couple of cities now. 436 00:19:36,200 --> 00:19:37,200 Yeah. 437 00:19:37,200 --> 00:19:45,440 And I think like, if God found one person within a couple of cities, I would argue that 438 00:19:45,440 --> 00:19:47,640 he did want Abraham to go further in the conversation. 439 00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:51,040 Well, and I'm going to jump ahead a little bit and this is going to be a few episodes 440 00:19:51,040 --> 00:19:55,200 from now, but in the book of Exodus, Moses is going to go up the mountain. 441 00:19:55,200 --> 00:19:56,200 They receive the covenant. 442 00:19:56,200 --> 00:19:59,160 Israel is like, yay, God, we're going to follow you. 443 00:19:59,160 --> 00:20:00,160 Woohoo. 444 00:20:00,160 --> 00:20:01,160 Yeah. 445 00:20:01,160 --> 00:20:03,640 And then there's this thing called the Golden Calf, it's that, right? 446 00:20:03,640 --> 00:20:05,000 And all this is happening. 447 00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:06,000 What's that? 448 00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:07,000 We never built those. 449 00:20:07,000 --> 00:20:09,320 We never do. 450 00:20:09,320 --> 00:20:12,840 And while Moses is on top of the mountain, right? 451 00:20:12,840 --> 00:20:19,200 And they're like partying down below, having their crazy calf worship in time, right? 452 00:20:19,200 --> 00:20:20,200 Because that's what you do. 453 00:20:20,200 --> 00:20:21,200 You worship cows, right? 454 00:20:21,200 --> 00:20:23,560 Somebody in the Midwest is like, that is what you do. 455 00:20:23,560 --> 00:20:25,040 I mean, you do in Hindu culture. 456 00:20:25,040 --> 00:20:26,040 Yeah, that's true. 457 00:20:26,040 --> 00:20:27,040 Yeah. 458 00:20:27,040 --> 00:20:29,160 That's, you know, let's just cut that out because that's, that's going to be mildly 459 00:20:29,160 --> 00:20:30,160 offensive. 460 00:20:30,160 --> 00:20:31,160 Yes. 461 00:20:31,160 --> 00:20:37,320 So while they are down at the bottom, worshiping these gods that they've made, God is at the 462 00:20:37,320 --> 00:20:41,880 top and he has this interesting conversation with Moses, right? 463 00:20:41,880 --> 00:20:48,520 And it's really interesting to me because he comes down and he says, my fury is bridled 464 00:20:48,520 --> 00:20:49,600 against these people. 465 00:20:49,600 --> 00:20:56,080 I'm just going to wipe them out and just start over again with you, Moses. 466 00:20:56,080 --> 00:21:00,600 And on the surface level, it looks like he's, God is just upset. 467 00:21:00,600 --> 00:21:06,400 But I noticed something and I pointed it out that in the text, like Moses then steps in, 468 00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:08,840 he says, no, God, that's not who you are. 469 00:21:08,840 --> 00:21:11,240 Do you really want to defame your name? 470 00:21:11,240 --> 00:21:13,600 You just took down Egypt. 471 00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:15,440 You just brought them out of the land of Egypt. 472 00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:16,920 You brought them here. 473 00:21:16,920 --> 00:21:20,000 Your people, do you really want to be the God who just wiped them out in the desert 474 00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:21,080 because you got annoyed? 475 00:21:21,080 --> 00:21:22,080 Yeah. 476 00:21:22,080 --> 00:21:23,700 That's not who you've been the whole time. 477 00:21:23,700 --> 00:21:29,540 If you need to take out your rage on somebody, why don't you take it out on me? 478 00:21:29,540 --> 00:21:35,800 And God says, okay, I'll forgive them. 479 00:21:35,800 --> 00:21:41,400 Then Moses goes down the mountain and he sees the people and what they're doing. 480 00:21:41,400 --> 00:21:43,920 And he's got these stone tablets and he is annoyed. 481 00:21:43,920 --> 00:21:45,680 He's like, what is going on? 482 00:21:45,680 --> 00:21:48,000 This sounds like the trumpets of war. 483 00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:52,840 And he throws the tablets down and he breaks them. 484 00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:56,600 I believe it's Joshua, but it might've been Aaron, but I think it's Joshua. 485 00:21:56,600 --> 00:22:00,880 He says, because he's like, that's it, these people are the worst. 486 00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:03,440 Moses says, we're going to wipe them out. 487 00:22:03,440 --> 00:22:09,160 And once again, somebody comes and they say, well, why are you so mad? 488 00:22:09,160 --> 00:22:13,280 You know that the people are a stiff neck people coming out of captivity. 489 00:22:13,280 --> 00:22:15,800 Can't you have some compassion on them? 490 00:22:15,800 --> 00:22:22,860 So the difference is, unlike God, Moses' anger isn't relented. 491 00:22:22,860 --> 00:22:27,160 Now I also noticed that God doesn't chastise Moses for his chosen leadership style, but 492 00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:31,440 I do notice that they are confronted with the exact same situation and they do not react 493 00:22:31,440 --> 00:22:33,960 the same. 494 00:22:33,960 --> 00:22:38,920 And it's these kinds of things that we want to critically read when we read the Bible. 495 00:22:38,920 --> 00:22:41,840 Because sometimes I think our temptation is be like, oh, we always just need to act like 496 00:22:41,840 --> 00:22:42,840 these guys. 497 00:22:42,840 --> 00:22:43,840 Yeah. 498 00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:46,400 No, we're supposed to call back like God. 499 00:22:46,400 --> 00:22:50,880 This actually calls forward to even calls, it even calls further forward to the words 500 00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:54,320 of Jesus, where Jesus is like, hey, pray for your enemies. 501 00:22:54,320 --> 00:22:55,320 Yes. 502 00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:57,200 Pray for those who persecute you. 503 00:22:57,200 --> 00:22:58,560 Right. 504 00:22:58,560 --> 00:23:00,920 It's really easy to intercede for the people we like. 505 00:23:00,920 --> 00:23:01,920 Right. 506 00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:04,400 It's not easy to intercede for the people we don't. 507 00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:05,400 Correct. 508 00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:11,000 But we're still called to love them and we are called to intercede for them. 509 00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:14,560 So coming back to Abraham, because we got way off there, but whatever, it's a great 510 00:23:14,560 --> 00:23:15,560 tangent. 511 00:23:15,560 --> 00:23:21,960 I mean, it ties back in because you have Abraham interceding for if there are righteous people 512 00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:24,560 on Sodom, Moses doing the same thing. 513 00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:25,560 Totally. 514 00:23:25,560 --> 00:23:28,000 Well, and as far as rabbit trails go, it's a good one. 515 00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:29,000 Yeah, absolutely. 516 00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:31,160 I mean, that's where we found like bugs bunny down that rabbit trail. 517 00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:33,160 We like rabbit trails. 518 00:23:33,160 --> 00:23:34,160 Yes. 519 00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:37,460 So they have like, Abraham has this conversation with God. 520 00:23:37,460 --> 00:23:41,640 And I just, I look at this and I was like, I feel like the invitation here in Torah is 521 00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:45,360 to be the kind of person who's willing to have this kind of conversation with God. 522 00:23:45,360 --> 00:23:49,280 And all throughout scripture, it seems like these are the kind of people God's looking 523 00:23:49,280 --> 00:23:50,480 for. 524 00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:53,860 People who are going to push back against what God is doing. 525 00:23:53,860 --> 00:23:59,120 Not because they don't trust God, but because they're like, I know your nature. 526 00:23:59,120 --> 00:24:00,880 Is this really what you're doing? 527 00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:01,880 Yeah. 528 00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:04,720 By the way, you're going to hear a lot of that on this podcast because we're going to 529 00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:09,000 talk about what we see God doing in the Bible and what we see him doing around the world. 530 00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:11,320 And then we're going to talk about what we see happening in the church. 531 00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:14,800 And we're going to say, hold on a second. 532 00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:17,640 I understand you're saying that you're following God. 533 00:24:17,640 --> 00:24:20,960 Why doesn't it look like him? 534 00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:24,440 And it's not because we want to bag on the church. 535 00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:30,000 We love the church, but we also love you too much to leave you that way. 536 00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:37,120 And the church, people are drawn to the church and the church just explodes in growth and 537 00:24:37,120 --> 00:24:43,080 people come into know Jesus and believers say, Hey, I am going to intercede for those 538 00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:46,360 who persecute me, for those who hate me. 539 00:24:46,360 --> 00:24:48,800 I'm going to intercede for them. 540 00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:55,480 It just every time, like every time in scripture that happens, there's redemption one way or 541 00:24:55,480 --> 00:25:00,220 another and you'll actually, you'll actually see like hint of redemption in the Sodom and 542 00:25:00,220 --> 00:25:07,080 Gomorrah story too later on. 543 00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:12,160 So we're going to, we're going to skip over the Sodom and Gomorrah actually being destroyed 544 00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:15,520 and not because it's not a good story, but there is some great coverage once again on 545 00:25:15,520 --> 00:25:16,520 the Baymell podcast. 546 00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:17,520 Check that out. 547 00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:18,520 Yeah. 548 00:25:18,520 --> 00:25:19,960 I think that they do a great job with it. 549 00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:23,920 And we're really trying to focus in on like, when we're talking about the church, how do 550 00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:31,760 we look at the context of Torah and how do we live it out? 551 00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:38,080 We don't want, there's people who have done really deep dives and we want to refer you 552 00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:39,080 to them. 553 00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:40,080 Correct. 554 00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:44,520 So Baymell podcast, Bible project, they've done some really deep dives and go look up 555 00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:45,520 their stuff. 556 00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:47,680 They can really help you if you're wanting to learn more of that. 557 00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:48,680 Yeah. 558 00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:49,920 There's also some really good stuff. 559 00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:57,160 Once again, we quote from him liberally, liberally, liberally, words are good today. 560 00:25:57,160 --> 00:25:58,320 Yeah. 561 00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:03,360 There's also some really good stuff from a Jewish rabbi, Rabbi David Foreman. 562 00:26:03,360 --> 00:26:07,400 He's got great content, alephdata.org. 563 00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:12,720 And that is a Jewish site, so there's not going to be a connection to Christianity, 564 00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:15,760 but it's going to help you understand Torah and its language and context. 565 00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:16,760 Yes. 566 00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:17,760 Right. 567 00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:18,760 All right. 568 00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:22,760 So Sodom and Gomorrah is destroyed and there's a lot more to that story. 569 00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:26,080 Once again, every time you come into a story where things are different, like, so we talked 570 00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:27,080 about the flood, right? 571 00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:30,480 We're like, Hey, this isn't a story about why God destroyed the world. 572 00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:31,480 Great pond, by the way. 573 00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:32,480 What did I say? 574 00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:33,480 A lot more. 575 00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:34,480 Oh, a lot more. 576 00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:35,480 I didn't hear myself say that. 577 00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:37,920 Oh man, I am so punny. 578 00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:42,240 I didn't even mean to. 579 00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:45,640 But often in these stories where we're like, Oh, there's complete destruction and blah, 580 00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:46,640 blah, blah. 581 00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:47,640 We think that's the point. 582 00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:48,880 Yeah. 583 00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:54,840 And you need to look beyond the event to what, why would they actually put this down in text? 584 00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:59,680 Because even the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, there's actually way more about the cities 585 00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:01,000 than the actual destruction. 586 00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:02,000 Yeah, absolutely. 587 00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:08,240 There's a lot more going on with the characters, which tells me it's probably not a story about 588 00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:13,920 how it happened as why and who are these people, right? 589 00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:17,340 So then we come to this part with Abraham and Abimelek. 590 00:27:17,340 --> 00:27:19,600 And it's very familiar to what happened in Egypt. 591 00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:23,440 I was like, this is almost a play by play exact same thing. 592 00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:26,120 Abraham does the exact same thing. 593 00:27:26,120 --> 00:27:31,480 The one thing that I thought was interesting here that is different is that Abimelek, one 594 00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:35,400 doesn't send Abraham away, right? 595 00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:41,480 He does give him stuff like so Abraham grows even more wealthy, which is not surprising 596 00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:42,940 in this situation. 597 00:27:42,940 --> 00:27:50,400 But also one of the things that I love that God does here is Abimelek is stricken with 598 00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:53,360 the disease, right? 599 00:27:53,360 --> 00:27:58,280 And he makes a right and he's like, Hey, go live wherever you want. 600 00:27:58,280 --> 00:27:59,520 It's all good with me. 601 00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:04,760 But then Abraham actually has to pray to God and then God heals him. 602 00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:09,200 And then God also opens up the wombs of the women in their society again, which is a very 603 00:28:09,200 --> 00:28:10,200 big deal. 604 00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:11,200 Right? 605 00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:15,720 Yeah, it says here that the Lord kept all the women in Bimelek's household from conceiving 606 00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:19,120 because Abraham's wife, Sarah. 607 00:28:19,120 --> 00:28:22,840 And then the next chapter is God's gracious to Sarah after these women are able to become 608 00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:23,840 pregnant again. 609 00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:31,880 Sarah became pregnant and bore a son and his name is Isaac, which means he laughs. 610 00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:32,880 Yeah. 611 00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:33,880 Yeah. 612 00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:37,880 Good old mothers, mothers issue there, right? 613 00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:39,400 Yeah. 614 00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:44,880 So when his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised as God commanded him. 615 00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:49,000 Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 616 00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:53,640 By the way, you need to really pay attention to these ages here because there was like 617 00:28:53,640 --> 00:29:00,320 this small like one verse section where Ishmael was zero years old and he was 13. 618 00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:05,080 And now it's been like one year's time and we've covered like three chapters. 619 00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:08,200 Like you really have to pay attention to how much time is actually passing. 620 00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:09,200 Yeah. 621 00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:14,040 And to be 100 years old as a newborn, like I can't even imagine that. 622 00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:17,940 Yeah, no kidding. 623 00:29:17,940 --> 00:29:27,560 So here is the place that we want to get to and have this conversation today. 624 00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:32,720 I think like this is going to be the crux of our conversation today, probably Mount 625 00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:35,320 Moriah, right? 626 00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:39,680 So we have been talking about these events that God is, there's these events going on 627 00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:43,680 where God is interacting with his people, right? 628 00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:45,520 And we need to look past the event. 629 00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:53,480 So God comes to Abraham and he says, hey, you know that kid I just gave you? 630 00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:58,240 I need you to go to the top of the mountain and sacrifice him. 631 00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:04,280 Now on a broad level, I look at this as a father and I'm like, what? 632 00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:05,280 Right? 633 00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:06,600 Yeah. 634 00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:12,160 But in the culture of that day, most of the gods required your firstborn son for sacrifice. 635 00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:13,160 Yeah. 636 00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:19,520 And I'm like, as barbaric and horrific and everything that it is, this is not uncommon 637 00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:21,640 in this culture. 638 00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:26,800 So you hear this story and you're like, God is barbaric and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 639 00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:28,420 And it's all about faith. 640 00:30:28,420 --> 00:30:31,080 And I think there's some great illusions that we're going to have to the future about like 641 00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:36,280 Jesus and coming down as the son and laying himself down and offering himself for the 642 00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:38,120 father and all these different things. 643 00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:39,560 And that's great. 644 00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:43,240 But in this moment, why is God doing this? 645 00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:47,920 Do you think that when Abraham leaves that mountain, he's ever going to think God is 646 00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:50,320 like the other gods around him? 647 00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:53,540 No, no. 648 00:30:53,540 --> 00:30:56,540 So Abraham's actually going to be on top of this mountain. 649 00:30:56,540 --> 00:31:02,240 And like Hagar says, God is the God who sees me. 650 00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:09,680 Abraham is going to say, God, he's going to name this mountain, the Lord will provide. 651 00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:17,760 So Abraham's lesson moving forward is to actually fix everything that was broken in the past. 652 00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:18,760 Right? 653 00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:22,280 Because what was the issue with Hagar and Ishmael? 654 00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:29,000 They got their mission, but they decided to provide themselves the solution. 655 00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:31,320 And you can even take that all the way back to Lot. 656 00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:32,320 Right? 657 00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:36,880 They take Lot with them because if Abraham's going to have a descendant and we know that 658 00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:42,240 Sarai is barren, then if it's going to come through his line, it's got to go through Lot. 659 00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:44,440 And then God takes away Lot. 660 00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:48,040 And he's like, okay, well, God, you made this, you know, as Eliezer. 661 00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:49,600 And he says, nope, it's not going to be Eliezer. 662 00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:53,040 It's going to be your seed. 663 00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:54,560 Abraham's like, oh, I got it. 664 00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:55,560 Okay. 665 00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:57,040 So let's go together with Hagar. 666 00:31:57,040 --> 00:31:58,040 No. 667 00:31:58,040 --> 00:31:59,040 Okay. 668 00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:02,400 I can just see God like scratching his head. 669 00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:08,000 He's like, no, not that. 670 00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:11,080 And he's like, he's like, no, no, let me explain it. 671 00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:15,000 It's going to go through you and Sarah. 672 00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:17,180 Those are the important people in this equation. 673 00:32:17,180 --> 00:32:20,860 You two are going to have a child and I'm going to do it in such a way that nobody else 674 00:32:20,860 --> 00:32:26,080 can understand that or can, and I'm going to do it in such a way that nobody else can 675 00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:30,160 claim that it happened anyway, except God did it. 676 00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:31,300 Okay. 677 00:32:31,300 --> 00:32:33,440 Then they have the kid. 678 00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:36,560 And in a lot of ways, they still haven't learned their lesson because they're still having 679 00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:39,640 things with Abimelech and they're still having things like God's not providing, like we're 680 00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:42,880 going to go and, and create for ourselves. 681 00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:45,240 And so God says, okay, Abraham, here's the deal. 682 00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:49,040 And this is the way that I read it. 683 00:32:49,040 --> 00:32:51,840 I want to know if you really trust me. 684 00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:54,040 So I want you to take your kid up there. 685 00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:58,960 And I really want to know if you've learned who I am. 686 00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:00,680 And Abraham is really faithful. 687 00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:03,840 And it says here that he's like, he's like, I don't know how it's going to happen, but 688 00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:05,800 I'm going to follow God's word. 689 00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:10,160 And even if he has to bring Isaac back from the dead, I'm going to do what God tells me 690 00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:11,160 to do. 691 00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:15,720 And God stops him and he says, okay, now I know you are God who provides the Lord will 692 00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:17,520 provide. 693 00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:22,280 And it's from this point forward that we start seeing Abraham actually trust in that and 694 00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:26,760 not in his own craftiness. 695 00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:30,320 But I think this is also going to be a problem throughout his generations. 696 00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:34,760 And I think through our generations and, and so like, let me kick this over to you because 697 00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:38,360 I've been talking way too much, right? 698 00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:47,120 I think that the tendency with us is a God gives a promise and we're like, we will provide. 699 00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:53,120 And I don't want to discount us participating with God, but we, we try to provide not what 700 00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:54,120 God actually wants. 701 00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:58,320 We try to put our own two cents in and then it just ends up being a frigging mess. 702 00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:01,280 Oh, totally. 703 00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:08,600 So something in the story is that I think we often skip over to is, so they're going 704 00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:11,840 up on the mountain and Isaac. 705 00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:13,880 And so this is picking up in verse seven. 706 00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:20,120 Isaac turned to Abraham and said, father, yes, my son, Abraham replied, we have wood. 707 00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:23,960 We have, we have the fire and we have the wood. 708 00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:28,600 The boy said, but where is the sheep for the burnt offering? 709 00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:31,120 God will provide the sheep for the burnt offering. 710 00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:36,720 My son Abraham, Abraham answered and they both walked on together. 711 00:34:36,720 --> 00:34:39,600 So Abraham, Abraham here is like, I know God's promise. 712 00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:41,360 I know he's going to provide. 713 00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:42,360 Right. 714 00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:50,120 But I'm still going to walk down this path that he asked me to walk down. 715 00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:53,520 I would like to make the argument that we don't do that as a church. 716 00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:57,880 I would like to make the argument that we're like, okay, we know God is going to provide. 717 00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:02,280 So we're going to, we're going to do more of the Abraham and Hagar situation and try 718 00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:07,920 to try to make that provision happen ourselves. 719 00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:12,480 And so, you know that, I mean, you know this in my job that I have to do a fair amount 720 00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:15,640 of fundraising for a bunch of different things. 721 00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:20,020 And that's part of my job. 722 00:35:20,020 --> 00:35:23,400 Fundraising explodes when I pray about it. 723 00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:26,760 When I pray about it and do little, it explodes. 724 00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:32,960 When I don't pray about it and put my hands to the grind and just try to get it done. 725 00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:38,240 You know, a little bit still happens here or there, but that's not when it takes off. 726 00:35:38,240 --> 00:35:43,600 When things take off is when I say, okay, Lord, I am going to lean in to what you have. 727 00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:46,000 I know you're going to provide. 728 00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:48,040 He gives everything he needs. 729 00:35:48,040 --> 00:35:54,160 He gives everything he needs to for us so that we can be successful in what we do. 730 00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:59,560 Well, and what happens when you take that hand of faithfully praying into something 731 00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:01,080 and putting your hand to the grind? 732 00:36:01,080 --> 00:36:02,080 Yeah. 733 00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:03,080 And how do you combine those? 734 00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:04,080 Oh, amazing things. 735 00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:05,080 Amazing things, right? 736 00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:06,080 Amazing things. 737 00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:07,880 It's almost like two hands work a lot better than one. 738 00:36:07,880 --> 00:36:08,880 Yeah. 739 00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:09,880 Right? 740 00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:11,440 But it's keeping the focus to focus, right? 741 00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:16,320 Like I got to put God first in the prayer part and then put my hands to the grind. 742 00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:17,320 Right. 743 00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:19,040 Then put my hands to work. 744 00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:27,760 When you reverse that order, I've actually had the Lord show up in my life and be like, 745 00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:28,760 you got this backwards. 746 00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:29,760 Right. 747 00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:31,400 You need to adjust this in your life. 748 00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:32,400 You need to fix this. 749 00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:34,000 You need to pray about it. 750 00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:40,080 Come to me first and then start moving. 751 00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:44,800 So I don't want to, I think that we talk about this story a lot and there's some really good 752 00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:46,600 takes on it. 753 00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:49,680 A lot of really good takes on this particular story. 754 00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:55,240 And I don't want to discount like the vision of Jesus, but I also want us to verge us not 755 00:36:55,240 --> 00:37:00,120 to run to Jesus so quickly and forget the point of the story where we're sitting. 756 00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:03,200 Right? 757 00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:06,160 This is something I was talking about with my wife recently. 758 00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:07,160 Right? 759 00:37:07,160 --> 00:37:11,360 And I said, one of the issues that I have with the way that we read the Bible is we 760 00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:19,000 want to read Jesus into everything rather than reading through the Bible and into Jesus. 761 00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:20,000 Right? 762 00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:21,600 Because Jesus steps into a context. 763 00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:23,040 Yeah, he does. 764 00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:24,040 Right? 765 00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:29,040 And so then he's speaking into generations of context that people are just like blowing 766 00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:30,040 past. 767 00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:32,320 Yeah, he is. 768 00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:39,080 And it's just, it's unfortunate that we're in such a hurry to get to the New Testament 769 00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:42,040 that we forgot that it started in Genesis. 770 00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:43,320 Yeah. 771 00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:48,880 Well, and it's hard to actually make sense of the story when you don't understand the 772 00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:51,040 nature of what it was supposed to be. 773 00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:52,040 Right. 774 00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:57,760 And we've talked about this, but you can't, like if you just jump into the context of 775 00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:06,040 where Jesus is at, okay, and you forget everything that happened in Torah, right, you actually 776 00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:12,600 have a pretty big issue because there is a design that God put in place for us. 777 00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:17,680 And when we live outside of that design, that's when we find that we separate ourselves from 778 00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:19,440 God. 779 00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:28,480 And this is a tough one to talk about, but we can do that with Jesus, where we can say, 780 00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:32,760 oh, well, I'm following Jesus, but then when in reality we're living completely outside 781 00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:36,720 of the design God has for us. 782 00:38:36,720 --> 00:38:42,080 And it comes back to Matthew 25 for me, where when Jesus turns to the goats and he's like, 783 00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:44,280 away from me, you didn't do these things. 784 00:38:44,280 --> 00:38:46,320 And they're like, well, what do you mean we didn't do? 785 00:38:46,320 --> 00:38:47,320 Like what? 786 00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:53,960 We know who you are, we followed you, and Jesus is like, sorry, he's like, away from 787 00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:57,960 me, you didn't do these things, you didn't take care of the hungry, you didn't take care 788 00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:02,240 of the poor, you didn't take care of those who need clothes. 789 00:39:02,240 --> 00:39:05,160 Essentially what's going on there is Jesus saying, you didn't live into the design that 790 00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:08,120 God had for you. 791 00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:15,000 So one of the things I think is really evident throughout the story of Abraham is God is 792 00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:20,880 starting to reveal to Abraham how he is different. 793 00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:25,920 So we tend to think of holy as like people singing in the cathedral, right? 794 00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:30,280 With like the high choral movements and like somber. 795 00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:33,560 I was like, but that's not actually who God is, right? 796 00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:36,760 I mean, I'm not saying that God's never somber or serious. 797 00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:38,740 I think a lot of times he shows up, he is serious. 798 00:39:38,740 --> 00:39:41,600 But if you've read the Bible for any period of time, you also know that God has a sense 799 00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:42,600 of humor. 800 00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:43,600 Oh yeah. 801 00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:48,040 Right, and if you don't see that, then man, I feel for you. 802 00:39:48,040 --> 00:39:49,440 Right? 803 00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:54,320 But God is revealing to this family now who he is because he's going to use this family 804 00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:56,800 to put his story on display. 805 00:39:56,800 --> 00:40:01,040 And so he starts it with Abraham and he's looking for a specific kind of person, but 806 00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:05,000 he also is cultivating in Abraham and Sarah to be a different kind of person, to raise 807 00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:08,960 a child, to be a different kind of person who's going to raise children, to be a different 808 00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:10,400 kind of people. 809 00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:11,720 Yep. 810 00:40:11,720 --> 00:40:15,320 By the way, what do you think discipleship is? 811 00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:16,880 Right? 812 00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:18,520 Right? 813 00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:20,920 Yeah. 814 00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:24,820 Discipleship is not, I want you to ask Jesus into your heart. 815 00:40:24,820 --> 00:40:27,540 Discipleship is, I'm a follower of the way of Christ. 816 00:40:27,540 --> 00:40:30,720 Do you want to follow with me? 817 00:40:30,720 --> 00:40:34,200 Are you interested in becoming like me as I become more like Christ? 818 00:40:34,200 --> 00:40:35,200 Yeah. 819 00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:37,480 Like that's the invitation. 820 00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:41,480 And you were talking about like Matthew 25 where he's separating the sheep and the goats 821 00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:48,360 and I remember I saw this video and it was an unfortunate video and I don't want to quote 822 00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:49,360 these people out of context. 823 00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:52,480 I'm not even going to mention who they are, but they were talking about how there was 824 00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:59,280 a church in Portland who goes and administers food and first aid and all these things to 825 00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:02,240 people on Saturday nights in the red light district. 826 00:41:02,240 --> 00:41:06,240 Like they take care of these people and they meet with them that are hungry and sick and 827 00:41:06,240 --> 00:41:11,240 poor and drug addicted and all these different things and they just go and meet their needs 828 00:41:11,240 --> 00:41:16,040 where they're at and they look for opportunities to share the gospel, but their primary purpose 829 00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:19,040 there is to actually just care for the outcast. 830 00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:20,480 Right? 831 00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:26,080 And the pastor got up and he said, this is not gospel work. 832 00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:33,560 The work of the gospel is to proclaim Jesus in all situations and Jesus himself says, 833 00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:36,800 you'll always have the poor with you. 834 00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:38,760 Friends. 835 00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:46,240 That is the worst use of contextual scripture that I've ever heard. 836 00:41:46,240 --> 00:41:51,720 Now I'll explain to you why it's the worst because it betrays the very heart of Jesus 837 00:41:51,720 --> 00:41:57,440 in the community and you do not want to be that. 838 00:41:57,440 --> 00:42:02,480 If you're modeling your life after Jesus, Jesus healed, right? 839 00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:03,480 Jesus fed. 840 00:42:03,480 --> 00:42:06,480 He fed, right? 841 00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:10,560 There's times where Jesus healed and fed and proclaimed who he was, right? 842 00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:14,120 There's also times where Jesus just said, you're healed. 843 00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:19,800 And he didn't proclaim who he was. 844 00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:27,560 And so it's more important in my mind, it's more important to be Christ in the community, 845 00:42:27,560 --> 00:42:30,840 live it out because people are going to see that. 846 00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:33,000 That doesn't mean you're not going to talk about Jesus. 847 00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:35,000 Let's be clear on that. 848 00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:38,040 But if you live it out, people are going to see that and they're going to want to know 849 00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:39,680 what's different. 850 00:42:39,680 --> 00:42:40,680 Correct. 851 00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:41,960 Yeah. 852 00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:48,960 And I think there's a conversation to be had because if all you're doing is feeding people 853 00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:56,240 and you're never actually taking care of their bigger problem, then I liken it to this. 854 00:42:56,240 --> 00:43:02,960 If somebody comes in to me with an ongoing headache and a knife on their side, my first 855 00:43:02,960 --> 00:43:05,320 thing is going to be to dress the knife in their side. 856 00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:06,320 Yeah. 857 00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:08,280 Now, I'm not saying that the headache isn't important. 858 00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:14,560 They might have cancer, they might have seizures, they might have just a regular headache, right? 859 00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:18,520 I don't know what that is, but I can tell you the immediate need is the knife in their 860 00:43:18,520 --> 00:43:20,000 side. 861 00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:23,560 And very often there is something that is affecting people and maybe it's a long-term 862 00:43:23,560 --> 00:43:26,320 cancer in their body, right? 863 00:43:26,320 --> 00:43:29,440 I'm speaking metaphorically here by the way. 864 00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:34,600 But they've got a knife in their side in the terms of like hunger, housing, medical, whatever 865 00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:36,520 it is. 866 00:43:36,520 --> 00:43:37,800 And you have to address that first. 867 00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:43,720 Now, if you don't believe me, go to Isaiah and it says, a king will rule in righteousness 868 00:43:43,720 --> 00:43:46,640 and princes will rule in justice. 869 00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:52,240 Each man will be like a stream of living water in a thirsty land. 870 00:43:52,240 --> 00:43:56,000 And then the eyes of those that can see, okay? 871 00:43:56,000 --> 00:44:04,360 So they can see will be open and the tongues of those that can speak will be loosed. 872 00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:06,120 Okay. 873 00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:11,460 They can already see, hear and speak, but they're not able to because their thirst is 874 00:44:11,460 --> 00:44:14,280 overpowering in a thirsty land. 875 00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:18,960 You are supposed to be living water first. 876 00:44:18,960 --> 00:44:23,360 And we're not getting as far in this podcast as I'd hope we would, but I think this is 877 00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:24,360 important. 878 00:44:24,360 --> 00:44:25,360 Yeah, right. 879 00:44:25,360 --> 00:44:34,520 I can hear the clickety clackety of the keyboards, right? 880 00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:37,520 As the emails come in from our seven listeners. 881 00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:40,640 We've got more than that. 882 00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:41,640 I don't know. 883 00:44:41,640 --> 00:44:43,480 I've listened to it quite a few times. 884 00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:48,560 I can hear the clickety clackety of the computer's screen as like people are typing towards us, 885 00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:49,560 right? 886 00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:53,640 And they're like, well, but you can't just do good and not share the gospel and I'm going 887 00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:54,640 to be with you. 888 00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:57,800 But why don't you try being good first? 889 00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:04,360 Church, why don't you just try being good first? 890 00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:09,960 Like can you imagine if the church, like everybody who claims to follow Christ in America tomorrow 891 00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:19,080 went and fed one hungry person and they gave a shirt to like somebody who's homeless and 892 00:45:19,080 --> 00:45:25,360 they gave one dollar to solve the problems in America each. 893 00:45:25,360 --> 00:45:28,520 And what we're not saying is we want the church to become the new social services. 894 00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:29,520 No, no. 895 00:45:29,520 --> 00:45:33,640 What I'm saying is do you think it makes a difference when we love people first and then 896 00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:35,820 talk to them about Christ? 897 00:45:35,820 --> 00:45:40,080 Because I hear a lot of people and I know these people, like they are people who come 898 00:45:40,080 --> 00:45:43,720 and talk to me and they're like, well, I love you. 899 00:45:43,720 --> 00:45:48,720 And I was like, man, if you love me, I'd hate to be your spouse. 900 00:45:48,720 --> 00:45:52,560 Because if this is what love looks like for you, I'm not sure that you understand how 901 00:45:52,560 --> 00:45:55,800 much Christ loves you. 902 00:45:55,800 --> 00:46:00,780 And I'm saying if we lead with love, if we lead with compassion, we lead with given, 903 00:46:00,780 --> 00:46:09,580 we lead with self sacrifice, we lead with laying ourselves down, now suddenly the ground 904 00:46:09,580 --> 00:46:16,320 is fertile and the ears are ready to hear and the eyes are ready to see. 905 00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:22,280 And I also think there's something about that type of life that God is attracted to. 906 00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:25,440 Because he's like, I can use that person. 907 00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:34,720 I can pour tons of blessing through that person so that this world knows how much I care. 908 00:46:34,720 --> 00:46:38,960 Well John has some, first John has something to say about that. 909 00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:43,480 Where say if you love God, but you hate a fellow believer, what are you? 910 00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:46,080 Not even just a fellow believer. 911 00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:47,080 Yeah. 912 00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:48,760 Just anybody. 913 00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:53,840 Like, and please understand, I am not saying you're not going to struggle like in some 914 00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:56,040 people that are real difficult. 915 00:46:56,040 --> 00:46:57,040 We all do. 916 00:46:57,040 --> 00:46:58,040 Right? 917 00:46:58,040 --> 00:46:59,040 We all do. 918 00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:02,280 But like even these people that we, like when I talk about like these hard situations, these 919 00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:07,320 hard conversations, these difficult situations I run into, I actually, the reason I'm so 920 00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:10,360 upset is because I see so much potential in these people. 921 00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:11,360 Yes. 922 00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:12,360 Exactly. 923 00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:15,800 Like we're talking like, God is just going to shift to 5%. 924 00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:16,960 Uh huh. 925 00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:20,680 And like their whole life, like they are a battering ram for the kingdom of God. 926 00:47:20,680 --> 00:47:22,240 It's going to be great. 927 00:47:22,240 --> 00:47:23,240 Yeah. 928 00:47:23,240 --> 00:47:24,240 Right? 929 00:47:24,240 --> 00:47:27,640 They are, they are going to do wonderful things and I trust that the Holy Spirit is going 930 00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:29,200 to move through them. 931 00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:30,200 Yeah. 932 00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:36,160 But I'm also not going to pretend like what we do in America as a church is okay. 933 00:47:36,160 --> 00:47:37,160 It's not. 934 00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:38,160 It's not. 935 00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:40,800 Like, here's the thing. 936 00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:47,680 So at our church is like, if we got known as the church who is overly involved in loving 937 00:47:47,680 --> 00:47:53,480 the community and light on the gospel, we'll figure it out. 938 00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:57,320 Actually just had a conversation with someone today who's thinking of coming over to our 939 00:47:57,320 --> 00:48:00,960 church because they see that in us. 940 00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:02,120 And that was their exact words. 941 00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:06,560 It was like, I see that you actually genuinely love people and care for them. 942 00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:07,560 Yeah. 943 00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:16,600 And what I see in the life of Abraham is God is making his people fully aware of who he 944 00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:20,120 is and then he's calling them to something deeper. 945 00:48:20,120 --> 00:48:22,520 And that invitation is for us too. 946 00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:24,200 Absolutely. 947 00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:30,000 And I think sometimes we're so convinced that God of the Old Testament is fire and brimstone 948 00:48:30,000 --> 00:48:36,000 and ready to burn us up at the wrong thing that we can do that we then move that in our 949 00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:38,520 faith in the way that we deal with other people. 950 00:48:38,520 --> 00:48:43,000 Whereas what I see most of the time through the Old Testament is God has extreme compassion 951 00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:45,440 and patience with the people around him. 952 00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:48,880 And he only acts when nothing else is available. 953 00:48:48,880 --> 00:48:49,880 Let me rephrase that. 954 00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:53,640 He only acts to correct his children when nothing else is available. 955 00:48:53,640 --> 00:48:57,600 He's acting all the time, trying to bring them back, speaking to them, sending them 956 00:48:57,600 --> 00:49:00,900 prophets very frequently that they're not listening. 957 00:49:00,900 --> 00:49:05,040 Even in the life of Abraham here, he's going through and frequently he's like, no, we're 958 00:49:05,040 --> 00:49:06,040 doing this. 959 00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:07,040 Yeah. 960 00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:08,040 No, this, no, this. 961 00:49:08,040 --> 00:49:09,640 Hey, you know how those guys do this? 962 00:49:09,640 --> 00:49:10,640 Well, I'm not doing that. 963 00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:15,280 I'm doing this and inviting Abraham into this kind of relationship where he is a partner 964 00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:18,280 with God. 965 00:49:18,280 --> 00:49:20,280 I don't know why God likes to partner with us. 966 00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:24,240 Like it seems like it'd be way easier for him to just do it himself. 967 00:49:24,240 --> 00:49:30,520 Except that we think God is building a fence and he's trying to raise sons and daughters. 968 00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:31,600 Yeah. 969 00:49:31,600 --> 00:49:36,960 We are looking at the same thing and missing the point. 970 00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:41,800 There's two big things that I see in this passage that I think relate to us today. 971 00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:47,480 One is God's not mad at Abraham or Sarah. 972 00:49:47,480 --> 00:49:49,360 And they messed up a lot in their story. 973 00:49:49,360 --> 00:49:50,680 He's not mad at them. 974 00:49:50,680 --> 00:49:52,120 He loves them. 975 00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:53,120 Okay. 976 00:49:53,120 --> 00:50:02,640 The second thing is, is because of God's love for them, he is so patient and kind and gentle 977 00:50:02,640 --> 00:50:03,640 towards them. 978 00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:09,320 Like, and there's some correction that's in there too, but he's extremely patient with 979 00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:10,320 them. 980 00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:11,320 Right? 981 00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:16,440 Now relating that to us today, like God is not mad at you. 982 00:50:16,440 --> 00:50:18,760 You've heard us say this on the podcast before. 983 00:50:18,760 --> 00:50:20,820 He's not mad at you. 984 00:50:20,820 --> 00:50:22,200 He loves you. 985 00:50:22,200 --> 00:50:25,120 He's going to be extremely patient with you. 986 00:50:25,120 --> 00:50:27,040 Right? 987 00:50:27,040 --> 00:50:31,360 Those two things are huge to understand. 988 00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:36,880 I've always, growing up, I understood sin in the context of it angers God. 989 00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:40,480 And then they've always translated that to, because it angers God, it means God's angry 990 00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:42,480 at you. 991 00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:46,640 Yes, sin angers God, but God's not angry with you. 992 00:50:46,640 --> 00:50:49,600 He wants to bring you back. 993 00:50:49,600 --> 00:50:54,560 And I think we need to separate those out a little bit and understand that. 994 00:50:54,560 --> 00:50:56,960 That's a good word. 995 00:50:56,960 --> 00:50:58,520 That's a good word. 996 00:50:58,520 --> 00:51:00,920 Guys, there's a lot of things to learn from Abraham. 997 00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:04,800 And please, we are skimming a stone across the surface here. 998 00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:07,020 There is a ton of resources. 999 00:51:07,020 --> 00:51:11,040 The Bible Project has a ton of stuff going on in this area of Genesis in the life of 1000 00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:17,640 Abraham and a ton of things on like the Mount Moriah, the Baymaw Podcast, Marty Solomon, 1001 00:51:17,640 --> 00:51:21,360 Brett Billings, they do a great job of talking about these things and different things when 1002 00:51:21,360 --> 00:51:23,760 we're talking about. 1003 00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:29,000 What we really want to do in this survey of Torah is we want to talk about what are some 1004 00:51:29,000 --> 00:51:33,720 things that God is doing in his setup of people, of his nation. 1005 00:51:33,720 --> 00:51:39,320 What is God doing in the setup of his nation that we can really hold onto into the teachings 1006 00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:41,760 of Jesus and how we live today? 1007 00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:44,080 So hopefully that's what you get from it today. 1008 00:51:44,080 --> 00:51:46,160 Hopefully that's what we're talking about. 1009 00:51:46,160 --> 00:51:53,360 We want to be a church that actually looks like Jesus, that functions in the identity 1010 00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:57,080 set forth in Abraham and moving forward all the way to Jesus. 1011 00:51:57,080 --> 00:52:01,320 And to look like Jesus, we have to know the nature of God and we need to understand that 1012 00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:02,520 correctly. 1013 00:52:02,520 --> 00:52:03,960 Yeah. 1014 00:52:03,960 --> 00:52:09,280 So in the next episode, we are going to be skimming even a quicker stone as we're going 1015 00:52:09,280 --> 00:52:12,480 to talk about the rest of Isaac, we're going to talk about Jacob, and we're going to talk 1016 00:52:12,480 --> 00:52:13,480 about Joseph. 1017 00:52:13,480 --> 00:52:17,640 We're going to wrap up Genesis, the whole back end of Genesis in one episode. 1018 00:52:17,640 --> 00:52:18,640 Yeah. 1019 00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:24,120 If you have questions, email us at loveincontext.gmail.com. 1020 00:52:24,120 --> 00:52:28,240 Follow us on Instagram at loveincontext. 1021 00:52:28,240 --> 00:52:31,080 We would love to see that. 1022 00:52:31,080 --> 00:52:35,640 Feel free to share our stuff and refer friends to us as well. 1023 00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:36,640 Yeah. 1024 00:52:36,640 --> 00:52:41,280 Thank you guys for listening. 1025 00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:43,120 Thank you so much for listening today. 1026 00:52:43,120 --> 00:52:49,160 We hope you enjoyed this podcast and we hope that you got something out of it. 1027 00:52:49,160 --> 00:52:55,600 If you have any questions, please contact us at loveincontext.gmail.com. 1028 00:52:55,600 --> 00:52:59,480 You can also follow us on Instagram and message us through there. 1029 00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:02,400 Instagram is love and context. 1030 00:53:02,400 --> 00:53:08,280 Again, loveincontext.gmail.com or Instagram are the two ways to get ahold of us if you 1031 00:53:08,280 --> 00:53:09,280 would like. 1032 00:53:09,280 --> 00:53:10,600 Thank you once again. 1033 00:53:10,600 --> 00:53:12,720 We really appreciate you being here. 1034 00:53:12,720 --> 00:53:13,400 God bless.