And amen. Amen. We're back in Genesis chapter 26. My sermon title this morning is A Blessed and Difficult Life. Two things you don't think of usually going together is blessing and difficulty but in God's view there's no conflict whatsoever. We're going to look at Isaac. We've been focused so long on Abraham and then recently the birth of of Jacob and Esau. But now we get a little bit of a picture of Isaac's life. God reiterates the promises that he had made to Abraham. Again, he reiterates them to Isaac. Same promises. And God promises that he's going to bless him. And what follows in this chapter are a great deal of difficulties and trials. And it illustrates something to us that as God's people a blessed life doesn't mean a life free of difficulty. A lot of Christians at times will or people that name the name of Christ will abandon Christ when life comes with difficulties. Loss of a loved one, When we think God owes us a long life or difficulties in relationships, difficulties in finances, difficulties in health, the Christian life comes with all the difficulties or many of the difficulties that the unbeliever's life takes place or has to deal with. But for the Christian, the meaning of life is not to enjoy the ride down here. For the Christian, the purpose of our life is to be a conduit for Christ, to glorify God, to glorify Christ in our life. And at times that comes with difficulty. So the point of this morning's sermon is a blessed life can come with famines, trials, testings, and sorrows. But what matters most is Christ in you, the hope of glory. That's what matters most, is that Christ is glorified in your life. I don't want you to be caught unexpectedly in the midst of a trial and think, wow, this isn't what I signed up for. When you follow Christ, know this, that life comes with difficulties, but the blessed life is often a difficult life, but to live for Christ is the greatest glory that we can have. All right, if you'd stand with me now for the reading of God's word, we're in Genesis chapter 26, starting in verse one. Now there was a famine in the land beside the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech king of the Philistines. And the Lord appeared to him and said, Do not go down to Egypt. Dwell in the land which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands. And I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven will give to your offspring all these lands and in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws." So Isaac settled in Gerar. When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, she is my sister. For he feared to say, My wife, thinking, lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah, because she was attractive in appearance. When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of the window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife. So Abimelech called Isaac and said, Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say she is my sister? Isaac said to him, Because I thought, lest I die because of her. Abimelech said, What is this that you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us. So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death. And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him, and the man became rich and gained more and more until he became very wealthy. He had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants, so that the Philistines envied him. Now the Philistines had stopped and filled with earth all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father. And Abimelech said to Isaac, Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we. So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the valley of Gerar and settled there. And Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of Abraham his father, which the Philistines had stopped after the death of Abraham. And he gave them the names that his father had given them. But when Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a wellspring of water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled against Isaac's herdsmen, saying, The water is ours. So he called the name of the well Essek. because they contended with him. Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that also. So he called its name Sitna. And he moved from there. and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Rehoboth, saying, For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land. From there he went up to Beersheba, and the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you, and I will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham's sake. So he built there an altar, and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac's servants dug a well. When Abimelech went to him from Gerar with Ahuza, his advisor, and Phicol, the commander of his army, Isaac said to them, Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you? They said, we see plainly that the Lord has been with you. So we said, let there be a sworn pact between us, between you and us. Let us make a covenant with you that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have not done to you anything but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord. So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank, and in the morning they rose early and exchanged their oaths. And Isaac sent them on their way, and they departed from him in peace. That same day Isaac's servants came and told him about the well that they had dug, and said to him, We have found water. He called it Sheba. Therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day. When Esau was 40 years old, he took Judith, the daughter of Beri, the Hittite, to be his wife, and Basimath, the daughter of Elon, the Hittite, and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah. O Lord God, we thank you, Father, that you have promised that you would never leave us nor forsake us. God, we rejoice in your sovereignty that you watch over us, that your eye is continually upon us to do us good. We thank you, Father, that even in trials and tribulations, we know that we have purpose and meaning because you work all things together for good to those that love you, to those who are the called according to your purpose. God, I pray that you would put in your people a heart of courage, A heart of faith that there wouldn't be timidity in us, but we would be a bold people for the Lord. That we would live a life that honors you, to make you known, and to promote the gospel of the kingdom. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. You may be seated. Well, there's quite a bit in this chapter. Multiple times God appears. Twice he appears to Isaac and tells him that he's going to bless him. And yet the chapter is filled with a set of difficulties. First of all, there's a famine in the land. Difficulty number one. Difficulty number two, he has fear that someone's going to murder him over his wife. Difficulty three, he is envied by his neighbors. Difficulty number four, he's a victim of vandalism. Difficulty five, he has continual strife over water rights. Difficulty number six, there's frustration of purpose and success is followed by loss. And then seven, we see that it ends with bitter family relations. The chapter ends with heartache over Esau marrying Hittites. And he marries some of the people of the land that are unbelievers. And it brings great bitterness to their hearts. So Isaac's life has a lot of difficulty in it, a lot of hardship, and yet he's called a blessed man. Why? Because he's the one through whom Christ will come. His life serves a purpose greater than pleasure, a purpose greater than enjoying life here on earth. He is the conduit for the promise, the promise to Abraham that in his seed, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. The greatest privilege of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob's life was that they would be the conduit for the blessing in which all nations would be blessed. So even though their life is filled with heartache and sorrow, there's ones before this, for 20 years they have no child. For 20 years they were barren. That was a hardship. They have many hardships in their life. And yet their life is blessed because they get to participate in God's overarching purpose. And I want to submit to you today that the same is true for us. The blessed life is not the life that's filled with enormous amounts of wealth and perfect health and everything going well for us. You can expect tribulation as a Christian. You can expect difficulties and battles, spiritual warfare. You can expect hostile people to be around you, hostile to the gospel, hostile to you because you bear his name. It comes with the territory of following Christ. God does not promise you an easy life. but it's a blessed life, it's a purposeful life, it's a life that has meaning and significance. You can be the richest person on earth and have every pleasure that man wants, but if you don't know Christ and if your life doesn't do anything for eternity, friends, that is a cursed existence. Up to this point, Bill Gates has a cursed life. He doesn't know Christ. His billions can't buy him peace with God. He's not ready to meet the Lord. What does it worth? Jesus asked the question, what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? The great privilege is to know Christ, to have peace with God, and furthermore, to have the opportunity to work for the advancement of His kingdom. And I say this because I don't want you to be disappointed, as many are, when things don't go the way that you want. God doesn't owe you anything. He doesn't owe me anything. He doesn't owe me salvation. He doesn't owe me grace. He doesn't owe me mercy. He didn't owe me his only begotten son to die for me. I deserved death as we talked about last week. Our sins, the wages of sin is death. When God graciously loved us and gave himself for us, he gave us more than we deserve. Any blessing we have in this life is just the cherry on top. And to serve Him and deliver Him should be our driving purpose. Now God may bless you as I feel so blessed with many wonderful relationships. I remember times in my life where I was very lonely. A lot of years in my youth I felt very alone as a Christian. And I kind of got to expect it. That's just what it means to be a Christian is a lonely life. And now I am so blessed by you, a community of people that I love and I love to be with. And I feel so encouraged by. I feel so blessed, but I had seasons of loneliness. And now I have, I'm in a season where I'm well provided for. I'm well taken care of. The church takes care of me. Thank you. I appreciate it very much. I had years where I was working several different jobs and we looked at our budget and we're like, we don't even know how we're making it. The money that's coming in and the money that's going out and yet somehow the bills are made. God blessed us with cheap cars, no medical bills. I don't recall any of my kids ever breaking a bone. Thank God for that. Because if simultaneously I had the financial difficulty and all the medical bills, it would have been very hard. God knew how to take care of us. You know, there's going to be times in life where you're tested to the extremity, but God says he'll always make a way of escape. He won't test you with more than you can bear, but that's for him to determine, not for us to determine. I've been very blessed. I've been married now recently. October 6th was, let's see, 23 years, 23 years of marriage. There's a lot of people, they go through, they have an unfaithful spouse. That's a difficulty that some Christians deal with. Have to deal with divorce and hardship. Kind of like Isaac and Rebecca, they have to deal with the bad life choices of Esau. They have family strife. That's a burden a lot of people have to deal with. I've never I've never lost a child. I've never been through that, not yet. Pray I never do. I wanna go before them, but you know there's Christians that do. And so we need to understand as Christians, we're not promised an easy life down here. This prosperity gospel that's name it and claim it, blab it and grab it, just confess good things over you, like the secret, it's a lie from the pit of hell. Look at the apostles, how they suffered, how they were tortured. Not accepting deliverance. All they had to do was deny Christ and they could be delivered, but they didn't. Many early Christians were burned and fed to the animals. They suffered in horrible ways. To this day, there's Christians in North Korea, in China, in prison, separated from their families, suffering in horrible ways. And yet they're more blessed than Bill Gates because they have Christ. which is the greatest privilege that we can have is to know Christ. We're not promised an easy life. In fact, we're promised a war, a battle. We're called to spiritual warfare. As Christians, we're gonna suffer attacks from the enemy that Satan is real. The enemy is real. He's called us to be a light. Well, some people don't like the light. People who live in darkness hate the light. At times it's going to bring contention. But friends, there's nothing better than to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no better crown of glory than the one that he will give that we will again throw at his feet. All right, let's look again here at our text. In verse 1, now there was a famine in the land because the former famine that was in the days of Abraham and Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech, king of the Philistines. And the Lord appeared to him and said, Do not go down to Egypt. Dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and to your offspring I will give all these lambs, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father." So there's a famine in the land. Repeatedly in the book of Genesis, there are famines. There's a famine in the days of Abraham, there's a famine in the days of Isaac, and there's a famine in the days of Jacob. And both Abraham and Jacob will end up going to Egypt. But on this occasion, God says, Isaac, I don't want you to go to Egypt. I want you to stay in this land. I promised it to you, and I will bless you there. Now, why is this a great difficulty? Unlike Egypt where the Nile River floods every year and they have irrigation systems, later on it will speak of how Egypt is watered with a person's foot. They literally had foot pedals that could open up waterways and water their crops. They learned how to irrigate. They had the consistency of the Nile River. But the land of Canaan was unlike the land of Egypt in that it's watered with the rains of heaven. So when there's rains, it's a very blessed land that doesn't take all the work and the problems that come with yearly flooding in the land of Egypt. But if there's no rain, it's a very difficult place to live. And so throughout this chapter, you see a lot of well digging. In fact, already in the book, we've seen how Abraham digs wells and he names them after the Lord and God reveals himself to Hagar by a well. A lot happens near wells. The wells were the way that they were getting their water if there was no rain. But this will take faith. And so in this chapter, there's going to be a lot of strife over water. There's going to be a lot of fighting. over the water rights. But God says, I'm going to leave you in this difficult situation and I'm going to bless you. But that blessing, as we shall see, is going to come with difficulties. He tells him in verse 3, sojourn in this land. The word sojourn implies that he is a foreigner. He doesn't have citizenship in the land. God has promised it to him, and he believes that promise, but it's a promise that's going to be fulfilled hundreds of years later after his death. This is why Hebrews points to them that they sojourned in the land of promise as pilgrims and strangers in the land. They're strangers in the land, and so because they're strangers in the land, they don't have a permanent resting place, and the people abuse them. You know, many people today, we have sojourners in our land, Some of them are here illegally, some of them are here legally. For decades, a lot of people in power like illegal immigration because it's cheap labor. If someone's here illegally, you can take advantage of them. That's why they pass laws, they make them illegal, but then they turn a blind eye and they let corporations hire people and all sorts of things, because you can take advantage of an illegal person. You can pay them less than you pay someone who's a permanent resident. You can oppress them, right? And so for decades, neither party really has wanted to deal very seriously with illegal immigration problems, neither by legalizing them nor by doing something to stop them because you can take advantage of someone who's a sojourner in the land. He's going to be a sojourner, and we're a sojourner as well. It says in John 17, 14 to 15, Jesus said, I have given them your word. And the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one." Jesus is saying, they're sojourners here. I'm not asking you take them out of the difficulty, take them out of the land of famine. I'm asking that you keep them from the evil one. In Greek it says, or it says, it says evil, simply evil. Could be evil, could be evil one. Jesus doesn't promise to deliver us from all difficulty. He promises to preserve us in the world, to take care of us, to be with us. He tells them how he's gonna bless them in verse four. He says, I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands and in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. This is a reiteration of promises to Abraham in Genesis 12 and Genesis 15 and Genesis 17. He tells him like in Genesis 15 and in 17, he says, Abraham, I'm going to multiply you like the stars of the heavens. And he tells him that in you and your seed and your offspring, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. That promise has been repeated to Abraham multiple times and now it's repeated to Isaac. And we've already looked in past weeks that in Galatians 3, the word seed is singular and Paul makes the point that the seed is an individual, it's Jesus Christ. That in Christ, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. So Isaac is going to be the one through whom all the nations are gonna be blessed through his descendant, Jesus. All the nations of the earth will be blessed. You realize we have this same blessing If Christ is in us, like Christ was in him and his genetics, but in us, he is in us spiritually, this is a blessing that we get to be the conduit of blessing to all nations. This is the great blessing. It's not an easy life. It's being the one in whom Christ dwells, through whom the nations will be blessed. Now he says in verse 5, that Abraham, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. When the Israelite is reading this who came out of the land of Egypt, they're like, oh, that's what God has told us to do, to keep my charge. Which is to keep my, when you give somebody charge of something, you delegate them the responsibility of looking after something. That's what it means to have a charge. And if someone neglects to keep what has been put in charge, they're not a faithful steward. But Abraham was a faithful steward. He says, he kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. Too much of the church emphasis today is on us being blessed and not enough on our duties and being obedient. God emphasizes that Abraham was obedient. He kept the charge. He kept vigilance over what had been committed to him. And as God's people, we need to keep his charge. We need to be vigilant to live a godly life for the glory of God. Alright, so we start seeing difficulties in Isaac's life. Verse 6, So Isaac settled in Gerar. When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, She is my sister. For he feared to say, My wife, thinking, lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah, because she was attractive in appearance. Now this has happened before in the book, right? Genesis 13, I dealt with this. Abraham has the same thing happen in Egypt and the same thing happened with the same group of Philistines. Abraham though, his wife Sarah is his actual half-sister. And so Abraham told Sarah, he says, hey, when we come into a strange place, you're a beautiful woman. Tell everybody that you're my sister so that they don't kill me and take you. And it got him in trouble a couple of times, both with Pharaoh and with Abimelech. And by the way, Pharaoh is the title of the king of Egypt and Abimelech is thought to be the title of the king of the Philistines. And that's why many decades later, it sounds like we're dealing with the same individuals, but Abimelech and Phicol are titles that are given to Philistine generals and kings. So anyway, Isaac now is again lying, just like Abraham did. And he's saying, Rebecca's my sister when she's not. She's his wife. It's even a worse lie than his father told. And that illustrates something to us is that whatever we allow, the sin that we allow in our children, we sow into our children and oftentimes they will sin bigger than we have sinned in that area. It's something that could cause us concern to be very careful on how we live and how we talk and how we model our lives before our children. Because a lot of times what we do, we think we do in moderation, our children will do in excess. Abraham lied when it got tough, and Isaac does the exact same thing, but even worse than his father. But we also see the grace of God in this. This is not permission to be a liar. It's just telling us what happened, that Isaac is a flawed man. He's not a perfect man. I'm not a perfect man. None of us are perfect people, but his sin does lead to consequences and problems. And yet God is patient with him just like he's patient with us. So he tells the Philistines, he says, she's my sister. So that also tells us something that he is in a fearful situation. The people he's living amongst are evidently a violent people. The type of people that when Isaac looked at him, he said, if they want my wife, they might kill me and take her. That's the kind of people he's living amongst. That's a difficult people to live amongst. He's not living in a modern suburb somewhere with security and fences. He's living in an area of danger. It's a life of faith. You know, sometimes God calls people to the mission field or calls them to live. I was talking to my daughter the other day. It's like, you know, people will go to, people go be missionaries in Africa and they're ready to take the risk, but we're terrified to live in a U.S. city or to go to the U.S. city. You know, go down to St. Louis. Well, they might kill me down there, right? Well, when God calls you to do something, you have to trust him. If God calls you to do it, then do it. And trust that he's going to take care of you. But that doesn't mean bad things won't happen. Bad things do happen in the land of Philistia. So anyway, he tells him, this is my sister. When he'd been there a long time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, by the way, Abimelech Av is the word for father. Melech is the word for king. So it could mean my king is father or my father is king. And it kind of makes sense to be a title like Pharaoh because it's like I'm the king because my father is king. Abimelech. King of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife. You remember Isaac's name means laughter. And that's the word laugh used here. Isaac is being Isaac. Boys will be boys. And Isaac is flirting with his wife, apparently. Verse nine, so Abimelech called Isaac and said, behold, she is your wife. However he was laughing with her, it didn't look like a brother-sister laugh. She is your wife. How then could you say she is my sister? Isaac said to him, because I thought, lest I die because of her. Abimelech said, what is this that you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife and you would have brought guilt upon us. So Abimelech warned all the people saying, whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death. Well, that tells you, Abimelech basically confesses, yeah, one of our people might have gone and slept with your wife without asking. So they are a raping, pillaging, murderous group of people. It's dangerous living amongst the Philistines. But God is patient with Isaac, even though he's lied, and he's living in fear. It's not an irrational fear. The guy admits to being a rapist culture. It's not an irrational fear, but God is patient with him. He knows our weaknesses. As David said, you know my frame that we are but dust. You know, when we sin, or when someone else sins, when a brother in the body of Christ sins, when a sister in the body of Christ sins, we shouldn't be overwhelmingly shocked about it. Because we go to church with sinners. When someone says something that's not nice to you, or is unappreciative, or said something bad about you behind your back, well of course that's wrong and we're gonna reprove it and deal with it, but don't be shocked by it. Paul warns the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20, he said that from among your own selves, from among your own elders, there's grievous wolves who are going to draw people after themselves. And what he's saying is even some of your pastors and elders are not believers, they're wolves. So when a famous pastor or a famous personage denies Christ and leaves the faith, don't be shocked by it. The Bible said it would happen. Don't be overly shocked by it and don't be surprised by sin in the body of Christ. We have to work through it, we have to deal with it, but we're weak people. And the beauty of it is God knows all about us. When you fail, God knew you were going to fail when He loved you and gave Himself for you and redeemed you to be His own. He knew all the ugly things about you. You might be surprised by the sin that creeps up in your life, but God's never surprised. God knows. Isaac has his weaknesses. He's not a perfect man. Neither was his father. But God protects him in it. And God allows the sin to be discovered. And Abimelech feels ashamed. And he basically says, whoever touches man or his wife shall surely be put to death. Now in Abraham's case, God gave Abimelech a dream and warned him in a dream, you're trying to take another man's wife and I'm about ready to kill you. And Abimelech, the king, repented. But in this case, Isaac providentially was discovered. His sin wasn't confessed, it was discovered. His lie was discovered and God worked in it. All right, verse 12. And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him and the man became rich and gained more and more until he became very wealthy. He had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants so that the Philistines envied him. And someone's like, oh, okay, now that's what I'm talking about, financially wealth. He's getting wealthy now, he's getting more flocks, he's getting more herds. Yeah, but this too is tainted by envy. And envy isn't just jealousy. They hate him. Pilate knew that it was for envy that the leaders of Israel delivered Jesus over to be crucified. It was for envy. Envy is murderous. Envy doesn't see success and say, I wanna learn what they did so I can go do likewise. Envy looks at success and says, man, he's wonderful and I hate him for it. Wow, she's beautiful, and I hate her for it. Wow, that person is talented, gifted, skilled, and I hate him for it. That's the voice of envy. Well, the Philistines, they see his success, and they envy him. He's blessed, but he's envied. This is another difficulty in his life. It's a difficulty. You know, you work hard, you exercise self-restraint, you prosper, people will hate you for it. Envy is such an ugly sin. Envy will take a prosperous people who have every luxury known to man and reduce them to socialism and communism and murder and bloodshed. Envy is what drives communism. Envy drives socialism. Envy is what makes people say, oh, we gotta be against the 1%ers. It's envy oftentimes. People will talk about the wealth gap, right? The gap between the 1% and the rest of us. And I'm always like, well, Just because this guy over here is wealthy doesn't mean it's taking from me. Now there are evil wealthy people who get wealthy through theft and backroom deals that are dishonest and that of course needs to be dealt with. But I'm saying this where we're at is beware of envy. Beware of envying people because they're successful, they're beautiful, they're intelligent, especially in areas where you take personal pride in. You're particularly skilled in something or you're known for something. And then you get with somebody who's also known for that same thing, but they're better than you. Wow, that's when envy really shines through. The Philistines envied Isaac. He's financially blessed but he's envied and now he's going to have to deal with it. Verse 15, now the Philistines had stopped and filled with earth all the wells that the father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father. Abraham would dig wells and he would name them. He had encounters with God at wells. We've read about it many times and he'd name it after the Lord. Well, Isaac has been sojourning in other parts and he comes to places he had encamped. And what does he find? He finds that his wells have been filled in with dirt and stones. Why would someone do that? Why fill in a perfectly good well? What is it that makes someone see something that is good and makes them want to destroy it? Well, we see it all the time with vandalism. You go into a place and people just have to destroy things, throwing rocks through windows, spray paint. You really see it when there's degeneration in a culture. There's a lot of vandalism. It's envy that drives it. There's no good reason to fill up Abraham's wells, but it's a fact of life. Sometimes people are mean just to be mean. They're not, to steal because you're hungry is one thing. To destroy just to destroy, wow, that's frustrating. If you've ever had it happen to you. I've had it happen to my things before. What makes a person key someone else's car? What makes someone throw a rock through a window or spray paint their name on the side of the building or etch dirty words in the bathroom stalls? What makes a person do that? It's not hunger, it's not need. Why vandalize? It's a problem and Isaac isn't shielded from it. Isaac has to deal with it. He has to go and re-dig his father's wells and he renames them. It's frustrating. It's a frustration. It's a difficulty he has to deal with. It's a difficulty you may have to deal with. God doesn't promise you that you're never going to have to deal with vandals. Another problem, verse 16, And Abimelech said to Isaac, Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we. So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the valley of Gerar and settled there. Rejection, the pain of rejection. Something many children deal with. I think back, family is a place a lot of times where the rejection takes place, but I think back to my youth in school. And I watched it, I saw it, I experienced it. Kids can be very, very cruel, say very mean things. They'll call people, they'll call them names and say mean things that hurt to the core, rejection. You're not one of us. You're not good enough. You're ugly. You're dumb. You're stupid. Don't do that, kids. Don't do that. Love your neighbor as yourself. If you see someone being bullied or targeted, being unduly mean to, speak up for them. Don't form cliques and reject people because they're different. It's cruel. See it in children. See it in adults. Well, Isaac experienced rejection. Go away from us. You're much mightier than we. They saw him as a threat. So he's driven away. He's driven away from where he was. He's got to start over in a new location. And Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of Abraham his father, which the Philistines had stopped after the death of Abraham. And he gave them the names that his father had given them." So those wells had been stopped up and he renames them. This speaks something to me also about covenant renewal. God made covenants with Abraham and Hagar and others at these wells. Things happened there at these wells in the past. And so Isaac redigs what his father had already done and he renames them. It's a way of remembering the victories of the past. We should be careful to stand on our parents' shoulders. By standing on our parents' shoulders, we're able to see further than they could. We shouldn't criticize them for it. We stand up there. We thank them. Thank you, Dad, for giving me the shoulders to stand on. And we take it further for the next generation. But sometimes you have to go back and reconstruct what your father's built. Don't forget the lessons of the past. Don't forget your history. There's the saying, those that haven't learned the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. This is true in the church as well. Sometimes the church needs renewal. Sometimes it needs reformation. Sometimes it needs reconstruction. Renewal, reformation, reconstruction. This is one of the reasons why Christians should study church history. Because if you're ignorant of church history, the same heresies the early church fought over the divinity of Christ, over the Trinity, with various heresies, subordinationism, using some big words there, those same heresies are with us today. And a lot of times the same struggles we're going through today in the church are struggles that have come again and again and again. So Christians need to be a wise group of people that studies history, that knows the past so we can rebuild and reform and not make the same mistakes of the past. All right, verse 26. But when Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a well of spring water, so this is a new well they're digging, not one that Abraham sees progress. They're digging a new well. The herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, the water is ours. So he called the name of the well Esek. because they contended with him. Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that also, so they called the name of it Sitna. All right, so Isek means contention, and Sitna means enmity. They're digging wells, and people are like, we think that's our property. Thanks for digging it. Get lost. That's some real hardship. That's very frustrating. Contention and enmity, theft, these are very frustrating things. You see what Isaac is going through here. This is the life of a blessed man. Difficulty, contention, enmity. And he moved from there and dug another well. And they did not quarrel over it, so he called its name Rehoboth, saying, For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land." So Rehoboth means like a wide place. Today, Rehovah, something like that, is the word for street. A wide place, a place you can drive through, in like modern Hebrew. But he says, the Lord's made room for us. There's room here to grow. God knows how much we can bear. He's been through a lot of frustration and yet now finally it's a reprieve. And I found that a lot of times in my life, there's been times where you're really going through some difficulty and you're like, Lord, I remember sometimes where I remember driving along one day, I was thinking, God, you know, not having much money, you've always provided for me. I sure would love to give a little bit of financial wealth, a little bit of a try. I'd like those difficulties. I remember saying, I remember driving along, I know where I was, it was West 4 Ridge Road where we used to live out in House Springs. I remember saying it and I tell you it was a few days later, I got a job where I was making more money than I ever made in my life. It was like, I think the prayer came from the Lord and the answer came from the Lord. And it's like everything just turned around. I hardly ever pray for money, by the way. I haven't been one to worry about it. But I was in a situation where I was like, God, we've done that budget and we saw how in the world are we making it. And I just like, God, I know you can provide for me in what other people call poverty. I've never felt poor. But I was feeling the squeeze at that time, and we had just done a Dave Ramsey course, and he was talking about making out a budget, and we're looking at it, and I'm thinking, oh, man, God. I know you provide for us, but it's like the math doesn't even seem to line up, and it's been years and years of this. And I just remember asking the Lord, and it was like a couple days later, everything changed. It was very interesting. Well, finally, The contentions over wells that have been filled up and contention over wells. And remember, a famine's been in the land. So these wells are essential to survival. They're struggling over water rights. All these blocks, all these herds, his business comes to a screeching halt if he doesn't have water. Everything is destroyed. And just at the last, it's like, finally, we dug a well. God's given us a wide space. We have room to grow. On to the next type of trial. There are seasons in life. There are seasons of trials and there are seasons of blessing. God knows what you can handle and it doesn't mean what you're struggling with, you'll always struggle with. God may give you new difficulties and take away the old ones. Like I said, there's times in my life where I was very lonely. Now I have no loneliness whatsoever. Sometimes I just need to get alone and get a break. Verse 23, from there he went to Beersheba. We read about Beersheba earlier. Abraham dug the well at Beersheba at one point. And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, I am the God of Abraham your father, fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham's sake. So he built an altar there and called upon the name of Yahweh and pitched his tent there and there Isaac's servants dug a well. dug a well, his father had already dug a well there. I don't know if he dug a second one or re-dug this one, because it had been filled in, but Beersheba, it means like well of the oath. God had made an oath to his father there, and God reiterates the oath to him. He reiterates the promise, I'm gonna multiply you, I'm gonna bless you. I love to see children finding the faith of their fathers. It's my prayer for you young people. I don't want you to go astray. I don't want you to ever go astray. I want you to have a blessed life in the Lord. God re-consecrates Isaac. He comes to Isaac again. He reiterates the promise and Isaac renames the place what it was named before, the Well of the Oath. When Abimelech went to Gerar from Gerar, to him from Gerar with Ahuza, his advisor, and Phicol, the commander of the army. Isaac said to them, Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you? They said, We see plainly that the Lord has been with you. So we said, Let there be a sworn pact between us, between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord. Now there's a lot of irony here. For one, it's a bold-faced lie. We've done you nothing but good. No, you've been filling in my father's wells. You've chased me from home. You've been threatening towards me. You've assaulted me. How can you say you've never done anything to me? But Isaac doesn't do that. He's wise enough. His enemy is seeking peace. God's given him a reprieve of threat of harm. Now there's a flashback here because this exact same thing happened to his father back in Genesis 21, 22 to 26, the same thing had happened. This is probably 50, 60 years earlier, probably a different Abimelech and different Phicol, but they have the same names because it's titles. At that time, Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of the army said to Abraham, God is with you in all that you do. Now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity, but as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have sojourned." And Abraham said, I will swear. When Abraham reproved Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech's servants had seized, Abimelech said, I do not know who has done this thing. You did not tell me, and I have not heard of it until today. I won't read the rest of the chapter, but the point is, it's like, this is history repeating itself. It's the same group of people doing the same thing. And I think this is a warning to the descendants of Abraham that when you deal with Philistines, you're dealing with covenant breakers. They don't fear God. They make oaths very quickly and they don't keep them. So beware, when you make a covenant with them, you're bound to them. As a Christian, you're bound to keep your word, but you're dealing with people who don't fear God and they may not keep their word. And this is just a hardship that you have to deal with. We don't have the same set of rules. As a Christian, God commands you to keep the words of your mouth. If you say you're gonna do it, then you do it. You keep your contracts. If you swear to your own hurt, you do not change, Psalm 15. You keep your word. If marriage gets difficulty, you keep your vows and your oaths. If you promise a contract that you're gonna do something, you follow through with it and you do it. But know this, Philistines break their word. And they usually say, oh, you know, we've always been, you know, we're buddies. We've always been good friends. Let's just make an oath. And Abimelech says the same thing. He says, hey, I want you to promise me that you and your children won't do wrong to my people. Within a few years, they'll be filling up Abraham's wells just to vandalize him. But God doesn't call us to live like Philistines. He calls us to be distinct and separate. We're God's people. We're covenant keepers. That's what we do. We get married to one woman, we stay married for life. We keep our vows, we keep our oaths, we follow through. That's what God's identity, that's what he wants our identity to be. We keep our vows and oaths. And now the Philistines are again wanting peace with him because God's blessing is upon him. Verse 30. So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. And in the morning they rose early and exchanged oaths. And Isaac sent them on their way, and they departed from him in peace. That same day Isaac's servants came and told him about the well that they had dug, and said to them, We have found water. He called it Sheba. Therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day." It's called Oath. And so the place is known as the Well of the Oath. as it was in Abraham's day. When the original audience is reading this, they're saying, oh, we're going to be dealing with Philistines. What can we expect from Philistines? Violation of oaths, broken contracts. So be careful what you promise. So was he blessed? Yes, he was blessed. He had the privilege of being the father of the messianic line. He was a Christ-bearer. He had Christ in him. That's the greatest blessing. Look at how full of difficulty his life is. Full of difficulty and strife and contention and theft and vandalism and fear and family strife. And yet he's a blessed man because his life is purposeful and meaningful. It has significance beyond hedonic pleasure. You know what I mean by hedonic pleasure? Hedonism? This idea that the purpose of life is pleasure. Or if you want to be more picurine about it, the purpose of life is the avoidance of pain. Either way, that's not the purpose of life for the Christian. You follow Christ, God may bless you in finances and He may allow you to suffer in your health. He may bless you in your relationships and He may allow you to struggle in other... Because difficulty humbles us. It chastens us. It makes us dependent upon God. We have to look to Him. If everything goes easy all the time, we never learn what tribulation has to teach us. But nevertheless, God is with us and He knows how to preserve us in the midst of it. Paul says, I want to go to the New Testament now. 1 Corinthians 10, he says, now these things happened to them, people in the Old Testament. These things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on whom the ends of the ages have come. So all the Old Testament is written for our instruction. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. You can endure, Christian. If Christ is in you, whatever you're going through, the suffering you may face, the tribulations you may face, God is with you, you can endure. And God will not allow you to be tempted above what you're able, He'll make a way of escape in due time. Look to Him, trust Him, He'll bring you through it. Furthermore, we need to view sufferings as having purpose, all right? Final passage is in Colossians 1, 24 to 26, and this is Paul speaking. Paul is an apostle. Paul's a very blessed man. He gets to be an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a great privilege. That's a great honor. Look at his life. Beatings, shipwreck, slandered, people backbiting against him, thrown in prison for years at a time on multiple occasions. stoned and left for dead on multiple occasions. Blessed man. He says in Colossians 1 24 to 26, he says, now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake. And in my flesh, I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is the church. That's interesting, he says, I'm making up from what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. Christ died to pay for your sins, but in order to get the gospel out, it required suffering. And Paul said, that's what I'm called to. Christ died for your sins, but I'm willing to live that you might hear, that you might know. That is the church, which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for all ages and generations, but now revealed in his saints." In other words, he's saying, you know what? I am willing to suffer for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am willing to be stoned and beaten and shipwrecked and thrown in prison that you might know Christ. That's what drives Paul. Speaking of the saints, which are everyday people that believe in Jesus. Saints aren't dead people. Saints are living people who know Christ, who still struggle with all sorts of sins. He says, to whom God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. That's what makes you a blessed man or blessed woman. Christ in you, the hope of glory. If you have Christ in you, if you know your sins are forgiven, if you find your meaning and significance in Christ and working for His kingdom, you are a blessed individual. Christ in you is the hope of glory. Him we proclaim. warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ for this I toil struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me." Listen to the language of suffering, toil, struggling. It's for a higher purpose than just pleasure. Now Paul said, I know how to abound, I know how to abase. He knew how to be rich at one point and very poor at another point. He enjoyed living with prosperity at some points of his ministry and there are other times he's in prison. But what drove him was to make Christ known. He found his purpose in making Christ known and he encourages us by saying that Christ in you is the hope of glory. That's what it means to be blessed. financial ease. That may come. It's not a sin to be wealthy. I pray, I hope God does make you all wealthy. I hope he does. As long as he makes you rich and has no sorrow with it. If it costs you your soul, it's not worth it. But I love to see God's people prosper and flourish and be a blessing to others, to fund the kingdom and to enjoy the good things He's given you. But we're not promised that. We're not promised that. We don't know what the future brings, but we know that what it is to be blessed, just like Isaac, what was it that made him a blessed man? Christ in him, the hope of glory. What is it that makes us blessed? Christ in us, the hope of glory. That's where our focus should be. That's what gives us purpose and meaning and significance. And we have a reason to look forward with the hope of glory. Let's pray. Father, we thank you, God, that knowing everything about us, just like Isaac, we are sinners. We fall short of your glory. Just like Isaac, we fail. But Lord, you have come to us and offered us the greatest blessing. And we thank you for Christ who loved us and gave himself for us, who secures us to himself. I thank you this morning, Lord, that as we turn to you, We repent and we confess you as Lord that we're given the gift of your righteousness, the gift of eternal life, the gift of peace with God, the gift of being part of your purpose and plan. Thank you, God. Lord, if there's anyone here today that doesn't know you, who's yet to trust in Christ or who is not living for you, Lord, I pray that you would turn their heart towards yourself. That you bring repentance and faith into their hearts. I pray for our children that, Lord, as they would come to know you at a young age, that they would walk in the faith of their fathers like Isaac did in the faith of his father, that they would know you and walk in your ways and delight to make you known. Thank you, God. You are so good. You are so gracious. We bless your holy name. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.