FEB 16 2025 | Genesis: Behind the Curtain S4E4 | Isaac and Rebekah

Sea Change Church · Genesis: Behind the Curtain · "Isaac and Rebekah" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · February 16, 2025
Genesis 24
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

and offerings to your glory. In Jesus mighty name, amen. The book of Genesis chapter 24 verses one through four and 10 through 14. Now, Abraham was old, well advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household who had charge of all that he had put your hand under my thigh, that I may make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell, but will go to my country and to my kindred and take a wife for my son Isaac.

Then the servant took 10 of his master's camels and departed taking all sorts of choice gifts from his master. And he arose and went to Mesopotamia to the city of Naor. And he made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at the time of evening, the time when women go out to draw water. And he said, oh Lord, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham.

Behold, I'm standing by the spring of water and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Let the young woman to whom I shall say, please let down your jar that I may drink and who shall say drink and I will water your camels. Let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant, Isaac. By this, I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master. This is the word of the Lord.

Well, good morning today and welcome to La Jolla Christian Fellowship. For the last time, uh, we will be, uh, in, well, no, one more time. Uh, then we're gonna be sea change church. And hello to all of you that are in Claremont right now. We got about 50 to 75, I heard that are out in Claremont, uh, at our little pop-up campus. Just so we're just checking out Claremont, just trying to expand the kingdom. Just love that area. We're just there once and then we'll see what happens.

We're gonna hear back from everybody that's there. So thank you all for going out there. I hope the donuts are good, the coffee's hot and uh, hello Joshua and the whole team. I saw them getting ready for worship and everything. So super exciting to see the kingdom of God expanding and to get to a place as a church where you, um, have the margin and the staff to be able to take something outside of your walls. Uh, it's awesome and God does that as well in our lives.

We're seeing that with, with Abraham today as we are, uh, in chapter 24. If you have your Bibles open up to 24, we're in verses one through four and then 10 through 14, I broke it up just to make it a little more clear. There's a lot of text there. You can go back later this week and look at it. And God is expanding. Uh, there's a Greek word called Rastas and it means an expansion of God's kingdom. It's a spiritual power that means expansion.

Most of us want expansion in our life. We want to see our finances grow. We wanna see our relationships grow, want to see our whatever our emotional abilities grow. We want to, we want to see growth. Growth means health. There is times of fallow and there's times where trees need to rest and deciduous trees do their thing. But we want to grow. And I wanna give a key component of growth today. I wanna challenge you in faithfulness.

And the main point today is this. God blesses faithfulness. He blesses faithfulness and whatever God blesses, whatever God touches, expands because God is eternal and it'll continue to expand if you want to have a life that is a life orchestrated towards growth, not that we're constantly chasing the next shiny thing, shiny thing, but a life that is orchestrated towards growth and expansion. It'll be a life of faith because God blesses it.

Go to verse one now. Abraham was old, well advanced in years, he'd been through a lot, gone through a lot, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in a few things. That's not what it says. It says. And the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. This is interesting in all things Abraham. As we saw a couple weeks ago when I spoke, I gave a list of all of his failures, the ups and downs of faith. We'll look at that in a second.

But for some reason he had continued on a journey. Lemme tell you, faith is not a destination. Faith is a journey. You will perhaps fall down, you might step back. But it is the process of moving forward in hearts that are willing to move forward, that God blesses and despite all of the Plan Bs and all of the side routes that Abraham had taken, he had continued to press on. And now he's well advanced in years, he's at a new stage.

He's at Abraham 2.0 so to speak, and he no longer does the things that he used to do. How do we know that? God bless his faithfulness. Well, we see it here. Well, that's just Abraham, obviously. You say that's, that's one of the patriarchs he gets all that. I'm just little me doesn't work like that for me. But John three 16 will say, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that who shall ever believe in him shall have what eternal life you will have through faith.

Faith, I said at the beginning, faithfulness brings expansion. Just the main principle of our faith leading us to the eternal inheritance that we have shows that faith is a key ingredient that leads to expansion in your life. Do you want expansion? And then the question is, we'll get to in just a second. Why do you want it? Do you want it for you? Do you want it for your shiny thing? Do you want it for all the, the, the, you know, the glorious pictures you have of your future?

Or do you want it for his purposes and his glory? It says seek first what the kingdom of God. And then all these things will be added unto you. Uh, there's one verse I wanna say, I'm gonna go back. I'm gonna read verse one again. Now, Abraham was old, right? Well past his, his prime. He was well advanced in years. He'd gone through a lot, maybe you've gone through a lot and the Lord had blessed him in all things. And you see that blessing was God was continuing to build upon the blessing.

And I would say, and the Proverbs will say this as well, if you continue on faithfully doing the same thing with faithful finance or faithful relationships or faithful forgiveness or whatever those things are, it's not a microwave for your life. Most people look at the legacy of their life when they're later on in life, when they see it, when they're looking back at their, their children, at their posterity. Abraham is thinking about his posterity.

When he ask his servant to put his hand under your his thigh. You're thinking, what does that mean? That's kinda weird. And he, that means it has to do with posterity with his future. Make a a a vow upon my family going forward, which was important for him because the entire blessing had to rest in his son becoming a nation. What does God have blessed for you? I wanna say this a verse. I wanna contextualize this in the New Testament because I always, when we're in, we're in the Old Testament for probably 12 weeks to begin the year.

And I wanna make sure that we're not missing the gospel and we're not missing the New Testament because sometimes I feel if I'm in the Old Testament a lot, I get, I kind of just get a little lost if I'm not connected to the new. Lemme just give you a verse. Matthew 25, 21, I believe it's in your notes. If not, you can write it down. His master said to him, this is Jesus speaking. Well done. Good. It's two things, good and faithful.

Circle the word servant. You have been faithful over a little. Now I will put you over much enter into the joy of your master. That's a, a, a, um, a path that we see there. There's a trajectory there. But what I want to focus on is when we are faithful over a little, God promises more. He just promises. He says that in his scripture more and more. And so the question I have to you is besides just having faith in Jesus, which we are saved by, are you a faithful person there?

There's a lot of people that have salvific faith, but they're not faithful people. And if you want to have kingdom territory expanded in all the areas of your life, it has to do with faith faithfulness. We see that. One of the things in regard to faithfulness, we're gonna see in this little passage over the next couple weeks, we're gonna be looking at Isaac meeting Rebecca, his wife, right? And this is awesome. Abraham sends his faithful servant to go get a wife.

We'll look at that in just a second for his, um, for his son. And he sends in there, and we're gonna be looking at these three, at these three people at, we're gonna look at a, basically a spiritual trifecta of faithful people. And there are three people that really illustrate a servant's mentality. One of the things that is most important about being a faithful person is faithful people tend to have a servant's nature.

You don't see arrogant people oftentimes being faithful. Why should I be? I know better than you do. Why should I go do that task that you have given me? Why should you're, you're constantly questioning servants don't do a lot of questioning. They might give some wise counsel, they might ask a question, you know, to to to the direction of how they should go or what they should do. And we see the servant doing that here, but they're not arrogant, faithful people are servants.

We're gonna see that in the trifecta. Abraham Abraham's servant and Rebecca, those are the three characters. We're not gonna get to Rebecca this week. Pastor Harry will be preaching next week and be getting into the story of, of, of Rebecca and looking at her and what an amazing character she is. But we'll briefly mention her and we'll look at that. Faithful people tend to have a servant's heart faithfulness. Expand your kingdom, God's kingdom in your life, expand your territory.

Are you faithful or are the only things you're faithful to the things that matter to you? You're gonna see a servant here that cares more about his master's business than he cares about his own business. We have that faithful trifecta, Abraham Abraham's servant and Rebecca. We're gonna see right now that Abraham as your first point is this is Abraham as this faithful person. Faithful people don't keep plan B. Abraham was a man of plan B, right?

Like faithful people fulfill the responsibility that they're given. If God gives them a task, God tells them to do something, they step in and they do that thing right? But Abraham wasn't that person because faith is a journey. And maybe you're on that journey, maybe you're discouraged in the moment because you've had that step back, right? You've stepped it back a little bit and you think, oh, is God with me anymore?

But faith is a journey. And God blesses people who continue on, who are willing to not lie down in the valley of the shadow of death, but to walk straight through it to those pastors that it talks about in Psalm 23. Faithful people are determined, faithful people get back up and faithful people don't have a plan B for God. Abraham now is at Abraham 2.0. He's graduated to a point and faith has taken him to a level of maturity that he never had before.

Remember when God said leave, but he knew his wife was barren. I'm gonna give you a, a nation out of, of your wife and from your wife. And he said, well, just in the back of his mind, I might take lot my, my nephew along with me just in case because then I, it can come through him. And then when lot eventually gets separated, you know, he says, you know, there's this servant named Eliezer and maybe he can, I can get my posterity through Zer because I can't have children.

And then Sarah gets a little messed up with it as well in her mind. And she's getting older and she can't have children. And she takes her maids servant Hagar, and gives them to her husband and says, marry her and have, maybe we'll have this blessing. My blessing will come through her. Plan B, plan B, plan B. It's not that faithful people aren't prepared for changes in the road. It doesn't mean that they, they can't, you know, um, correct along the journey, but it means they don't walk into it having a plan B that says, well, if that one doesn't work, I'll just take this one.

I think you know the difference of what we're talking about. He had lied about his wife being his sister two times he had done all these things, but now in his new life, he's no longer willing to do that. You're gonna see that here. Go to verse three. When he is speaking to his servant, excuse me, I got that cold back in December. And then you continue to cough like it's mid-February. Anybody have that thing? What the heck? Goodness gracious.

Right on verse three, swear by the Lord. This is what he says to his, to his servant. Swear to the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth that you will not take a wife. For my son, from the daughters of the Canaanites among who I dwell, God had moved him. Abraham was now living in his promised land, okay? He had moved to a place of the promise. It hadn't fully been captured. The Canaanites owned the land. He was living in an occupied territory, but it was still his promised land.

You don't have to take the entire promise, although God is moving us towards those things in order to live in the land of your promise. Sometimes there's obstacles so that, that's a lot of faith. But it would've been easy for him to say, Hey, there's all these Canaanite women here. This is a lot easier if I send my servant back. It might not work out, you know, this whole thing. But God had said, you shall not take a wife for your son from among the Canaanites and the people that you live.

This is the land of Canaan, the promised land. He is now living there. And so there is no plan B anymore. And he says, what might be convenience? In the past, what might've been my plan B in the pla past, I have drawn a line, I have drawn a boundary line between the land of my promise and the land that was forsaken. And I will no longer cross that line anymore. So my servant, because I can't go back 'cause the Lord told me not to go back.

'cause I'd go myself, right? You want Abraham, you wanna get the job done. You wanna see who's getting picked for your daughter, right? You're going on your own right? God said, no, you're not going back there. So he sends his servant to go back and he sends his servant to go back and he says, he says, swear that you will not take them from the land of their land. So that's the first way He's no longer compromising. How's your compromise? How's your compromise going?

How, how, how Plan B focused are you? A lot of times plan B becomes kind of my plan A, I go into plan A knowing plan B is really the plan, right? Maybe you've done that as well. Here's another thing. Just go a couple three verses further. Go to verse six. Verse six. Um, actually it's not in your notes, but it will be in your scripture if you have your scripture, Abraham says to the servant, see to it that you do not take my son back there.

Now, you would've thought if you want to like show off the goods, right? Isaac, you know, he's a good looking guy. He's strong, he's got all these camels with him. You, if you got, if you have 10 camels, like there's a thing in the Middle East that you know, like a, you've heard that before, that you know, there's like that you will offer as a dowry, 10 camels, or you would offer it to the, the, the hus, the father of the bride 10 camels.

And they called it 10 Camel Bride. I know that makes no sense in our culture and it totally seems weird and whatever. I actually was in Israel, we were on the Sea of Galilee, and I was, you've heard this story. I was with Rebecca from our team. A good friend of our family goes to our church and we were sitting there having dinner with her. She's like 24 at the time. And a guy came up to her and he said, and he looks at me and he goes, you are her father.

And I said, no, I'm not her father. He goes, I will give you 10 camels for her. And I was like, really? Just, we're just gonna negotiate that here as we're getting some some falafel. He pulled out a bunch of money too. He pulled out all this money. It's true story, true story. But he says to him, this is the another thing, he says, don't even take my son back there. He's just gonna send a servant. I've got a question for you.

If you're in Abraham's position, do you have anyone in your life that you would send for that task? Are you the person that people would send on that task? That's a tough question, right? Like, if you had some people who in your life do you know that you could say, I could send that per, this is the most important task that Abraham has ever sent anyone on in his entire life. This is it. This is not the penultimate, this is the ultimate task that he's ever sent anyone to.

And he says to him, you go, my question is, who would you send? And the other question is, are you the person that people would send Proverbs says, don't send a message by a fool. You're a fool if you send a message by a fool. But he sends someone who is trusted, there's no plan B bs, this is why. Why is there no plan B? 'cause Abraham is firmly rooted in the land of his promise. He's firmly rooted. The Canaanites are there.

He's firmly rooted in the land of his promise. Abraham refused to return to the land that he had left behind because it had become a forsaken land. This was the most powerful point for me as I was preparing the sermon. Do I know the boundary line between my promised land and my forsaken land? The land that I used to be in the land that I'm comfortable in, the one that I know so well back in my hood, whatever it is. Do I know the boundary line?

And how often am I just willing kind of cruise on back? Have you ever gone to that place you grew up with? It's just not the same anymore. Maybe it's that, that beautiful place. Maybe you grew up there a special place to you. And I've done that before. I've gone places where you go back and the people you knew don't live there anymore. The restaurant, the pizza restaurant that you used to go to, it doesn't exist there anymore, but you know where it was.

And there's this feeling when you're there of nostalgia, right? Even though it doesn't exist anymore, it's forsaken to you. It's new, new people, new stuff happening. It just doesn't exist. But when you get there, there's a comfortability about it, but there's also a longing and there's a nostalgia and you kind of just wanna be there even though it has nothing left to offer you anymore. Have you ever had that experience?

I've had that experience in multiple places in my life as the world has changed, and I go back to different places, it doesn't mean that they're bad, but in our own lives as a metaphor, do we often walk back to certain things, relationships do, we walk back to habits, emotional things that we have accepted as our truth. We've called it my own. People will say, well, you know, I, I have my depression. It's not your depression, it's not yours.

It, it is a depression that'll come upon you that you're dealing with. Don't accept that as your identity. I'm just talking about these things that we slip back into these places that are forsaken lands. A lot of times that has to do with sin, right? And so Abraham is no longer willing to go to that place anymore. And he's firmly rooted. Do you know the boundary line between your forsaken land and your promised land?

Next thing you see is go to verse two and three, it says, in Abraham said to his servant, we're gonna look at the next faithful servant in this. His servant, the oldest of his household who had in charge of all that he had, he was in charge of all that he had put your hand under my thigh, that I'll make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth. That you will not take a wife from the sons of the Canaanites among who I dwell, but go to my country verse four, and to my kindred and take a wife for my son.

It is believed through, um, biblical scholars that the servant who is being sent is Zer of Damascus. Now, if you know who Zer is, you would have to go back to chapter 15. Chapter 15. I mentioned it a little bit. I get a little precursor to that is the servant who, if Isaac wouldn't have come along, Abraham wanted to give his entire kingdom to imagine if you are that servant, that you were this close to having it all right until that Isaac kid showed up and took it all away.

It is believed that this is Eliezer that who he is sending back and the attitude, this er, if you wanna have territory expanded, like I said, you want to be a servant. You have to look at this servant's attitude, everything that he thought he was gonna get he didn't get, but he was still more concerned about his master's business than his own business. You're gonna see as, as we, we go on to that, go to, um, I'm gonna read out to Genesis 15, two, just quickly so you remember that story after these things, alert of the Lord came to Abraham and a vision, fear, not Abraham.

I am your shield, your reward shall be great. But Abraham said, oh God, what will you give me before I continue childless? And the he of my house is Zer of Damascus. You see, that is who Zer was. But the thing is, is like a servant, oftentimes we are on a master's mission and this servant was more about his master's mission than his own shiny thing. I wanna say one of the kings guys, as we are so excited to see our kingdom expand right now, our church is seeing territory expand.

It's happening right now. People are sitting in Claremont right now. God is moving his kingdom from this corner. It's happening right now. And the question is, as a church, do we go, oh, we have multi campuses. Oh, you know, we get all enthralled and oh, we're doing this, we're putting out t-shirts, we're putting out records. Or are we about the master's business? Are we about evangelism? Are we about baptism? Are we about discipleship and sending the next people?

Are we about our master's business? Are we about our own business? And that is such a fine line to to to walk in our own lives, your lives, whether you're pastors or not. And in the life of the clergy as well. As we continue on, we see that this master has a concept. You go to verse 12, if you would. Verse 12, I wanna read, and this is a, the heart of the servant about his master's business, not about his own business.

And he said, oh Lord, he said, oh Lord God, my master of my master Abraham, he knew his place. Faithful people know their place. Please grant me success today. Grant me success. He had a mission. God had sent him on a mission. Abraham had sent him on a mission success today and show steadfast love. Circle the word steadfast love to my master Abraham. And then he goes on to, to give this understanding about what he was looking for and he prays.

It is one of the first prayers that we see in scripture. One of the first, not the only one, one of the first for success in mission. It's one of the first scriptures that we see here. The word steadfast is also found, um, in verse 14. So you're gonna see that steadfast word in verse 12. You're gonna see it in verse 14. This word is Ed. I might get the wrong word wrong. I got it wrong last week in the first service I said it was hanai and it was heine.

And so I got my Hebrew wrong. I don't speak fluent ancient Hebrew, okay, just FYI. But it is has said the term there is has said, and it means steadfast love. He prays in, in verse 12, the servant prays God, will you show steadfast love has said, has said is a covenantal term, meaning faithful love. It means mercy and kindness. One of the key attributes of God's relationship with his people. I love that this servant we believe is Azar who lost it all.

He had it all. Maybe some, some of you have been to the pinnacle of success and it didn't work out right, lost it all. But he still maintains a, has said spirit in his heart. He says, God, will you bless God of my master Abraham? Will you bless him twice? He uses steadfast love with a covenantal love, faithful people or a people of the hassad. They are people who are faithful, that want the best for other people more than they want the best for themselves.

They want the best for God. They want God's mission in their life more than they want their own thing. Jesus was asked in a trick, who, what are the greatest two commandments? What's the greatest commandment says? Well, there's basically, it goes in this order. Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. I don't see a lot of room for me in there. Now God wants to expand your kingdom. He wants to do it, but he wants to do it in that proper order as we see that coming in for a landing and just setting up Harry for next week as he preaches this prayer.

This has said prayer in um, chapter 14, excuse me, verse 14 of chapter 24 of Genesis. He says, by this, go to the very end of verse 14. Azar says, we believe it's Azar says, by this, I shall know that you have shown steadfast love, covenantal love to my master. What did he ask? He asked that God would bring us a woman with a servant's heart. Look at the kind of woman. See you say, well what? How do you know that? How do you see that?

He says in verse 14, let the young woman to whom I say shall say, please let down your jar that I may have a drink and who I will and who shall say drink. So just, he said, I just wanna have a drink of water for myself. But she says, drink and I will also water your camels. Let her be the one who is appointed by your servant Isaac. There's that servant word again. Why is that important? He says, I'm gonna ask her for a cup of water. God.

And I wanted, this is a fleece. I'm gonna throw it out there. I want you to have her ask me to water my camels. Ken Camels says that he brought 10 camels on average, can drink 25 gallons at a setting. It's 250 gallons of water. What woman in her right mind if someone says, can I have a glass of water? Sure. And lemme get you 250 gallons as well. It does, it doesn't happen. But that's the kind of rebe the woman Rebecca is.

With that, we're gonna look at that. Pastor Harry, I don't wanna over preach his saying. I'm gonna say goodbye to Claremont to you guys over there. Pastor Joshua's gonna come up and take over the, uh, practical takeaways right now. We love you guys. We'll see you back here next week. Practical takeaways are this, uh, from here, first of all, here's the first practical takeaway for you guys. Know the boundary lines between what is your forsaken land and what's your promised land?

I did this yesterday, took a sheet of paper, put a line down the middle because I realized there was a blurring of the territory. The borderline had been rubbed out a little bit. It was, it was there. I knew where it was. Just a little bit of wandering. Wonder what it's like. I wonder. It's like back here in La Mesa, where I'm from. You know what I mean? The Aquarius is gone, the roller arena was gone, but I just kinda like it there.

No shade on it on La Mesa. I love myself. So La Mesa, just an analogy, but I drew a line on a piece of paper and I put promised land stuff, forsaken land. And since then I've just been, you know, thought comes to your mind like that's a forsaken land for me. That's not a place I want to go. That's your first practical. If you wanna do that, make a boundary line. What is forsaken? You probably already know. You probably are not gonna sit there and go, well, I'm not sure that for you kind of know, right?

Draw that boundary. And the second one is, embrace the journey even when you can't see the destination. What I mean by that, faith is a journey. Some of you, God has called into things and you've kind of hesitated on that because you don't know the full answer yet. And unless God has told you, stop and wait, like you were specific, you know, God has said, no, you are waiting. Do not move in that direction, which happened to me in my dating life.

I talked about that last year. God gave me a two year period. I knew, so I knew. But there's other areas where you're just hesi, you're just hesitating. In basketball, they call it a hesi, right? You dribble, you stop, you throw the defense off, and then you keep going, right? Some of you're just, you're just in the hesi moment right now, right? I wanna encourage you step in the direction. I'm not saying jump outta the plane and say, where's my parachute?

I'm saying if God has asked you to work with orphans or, and you just, oh, he hasn't opened up the missions field for me yet. I can't be like Carmen and go to Africa or, or, or wherever, you know, wherever she is in the world. Um, as we go there, can you do something in, in the, in the midst of that, can you sponsor an orphan? Can you do something of that nature? Okay. So what I'm encourage you, one, draw your bty lines.

Number two, go to the place you don't know unless God has told you not to go. If there is something that is on your heart, begin to step into that thing. With that, I'm gonna call Chris up and we're gonna sing a chorus As we worship into that, let's stand if we would. All Jesus Can invite our prayer team to come forward right now. If you need prayer today for anything we've spoken about, uh, come forward. There is also at 1230 healing rooms here.

If you want to come and pray, be prayed over more intensively, we can do that. If you've never made a decision to follow Jesus Christ and you wanna have faith in Jesus Christ, come forward. People that'll be up here will lead you to Jesus. We'll see you baptized and set on a path into a promised land for eternal life with Jesus Christ. Please come forward for that. If you wanna extend your hands, I'd love to bless you today.

Lord God, we love your people. As you expand our kingdom, God, we want to have that said spirit in our, in our hearts, God, where we care more about what you care about. We care more about what others care about, Lord God. But God, at the same time, we wanna see our lives expanded.