MAR 17 2024 | God’s Plan

Sea Change Church · MAR 17 2024 | God’s Plan
Genesis 25:1-11
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Abraham married another wife, whose name was Keturah. She gave birth to Zimran, Jokshan, Midan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shua. Jokshan was the father of Sheba and Dedan. Dedan's descendants were the Asherites, Latushites, and Leumites. Midian's sons were Ephah, Ephur, Hanak, Abedah, and Eldah. These were all descendants of Abraham through Keturah. Abraham gave everything he owned to his son Isaac.

But before he died, he gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them off to a land in the east away from Isaac. Abraham lived for 175 years. And he died at a ripe old age, having lived a long and satisfying life. He breathed his last and joined his ancestors in death. His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, near Mamre, in the field of Ephron, son of Zohar the Hittite.

This was the field Abraham had purchased from the Hittites and where he had buried his wife Sarah. After Abraham's death, God blessed his son Isaac, who settled near Bir Lahairoi in the Negev. And this is the word of the Lord. I have a man, the one. I have a man, the one. I have a man, the one. I have a man, the one. I have a man, the one. I have a man, the one.

�� �� , a man, the one. Thank you. Thank you. It's good. It's good. But I am excited because what God told me when I was preparing this message was God's plan. And it's not a Drake episode or anything like that, but God's plan for your life. Okay. What does God have in store for you? And as I started to really think about it and think about my own personal life, because I know there's certain times in my life where I actually allow to have full control.

But then there's other things where I'm like, don't touch that guy. That's all for me right there. So God was really just testing me in this whole particular idea of following God's plan. Because as we get into the scriptures, we kind of see the back end of what it looks like when someone actually follows God's plan, where you're able to bless.

And the word of God tells us that Abraham lived a satisfying life. So I want to kind of give a breakdown of this scripture and then go back to the start of it in Genesis 12. But in Genesis 25, verses 1 through 11, we see that Sarah has died in chapter 23. And Abraham has married Keturah, who is his concubine. And we see in verses 6, it says, But before he died, he gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them off to a land in the east away from Isaac.

Now, when I was looking at this, I actually looked in the Bible to see, could you see anything going on with those other sons? But you don't see anything at all whatsoever. And I was like, well, that's very interesting. But because of Isaac was a part of the promise, we kind of see the story continue to go on, even after Abraham's death. And then once you go down a little further, you see that Isaac and Ishmael has buried their father.

And then in verse 11, it says that after Abraham's death, God blessed his son Isaac, who settled near Berlaharo. And I love this part of scripture because the translation of that is so good to see where Isaac actually settled at. But my question to each and every person here is, where are you at in God's plan? Have you decided to actually follow the plan that God has for your life?

See, I can't answer that for you at all whatsoever. So it takes time for you to actually look into it and say, OK, God, I know what your plans are for me. But am I actually operating in that? So we see in this scripture the end result of God's promise to Abraham. And now it kind of transitions when you go back and Genesis 12. And we see so many things kind of lead up to this point.

But it's so good that throughout the whole entire Bible, God actually has always had a plan. We see it with Abraham. Right. But we also see it in Adam, where God had a plan for them not to touch a specific fruit, but they go and do it. Right. We sit in Noah to build an ark. We sit in Moses to go let my people go. We sit in Joshua to be strong, courageous.

We see it also in Jonah to go to Nineveh and tell about what is going to happen if they don't turn from their ways. And then we also see it in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, where God has a plan, but we have to be obedient to that plan. And it's up to us to make those necessary decisions. So just by a wave of hands, have you ever had a plan that didn't work out in your favor?

Anyone? Raise your hands. Yeah. Right. Like, so we all have been there where we had a certain plan that did not actually work in our favor. And I can remember this time as a kid. Right. Funny story. I'm going to kind of embarrass myself right now, but it's definitely a funny story. But as a kid, even still to this day, actually, I have a strong sweet tooth.

If you know me, I love chocolate and sweets. It just is what it is. Right. So around about I say I was probably like 10, 11 years old, me and a couple of friends decide that we all had, you know, an urge for something sweet. And me in particular, I was like, I want the nuggets, cookies and cream. Like, I still love cookies and cream to this day. Right.

And we decide to go to the store called Piggly Wiggly. If you're not from the South, it sounds kind of. But if you're from the South, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And no pun intended because my last name is, you know, so. But we decide to go to the store, this grocery store, and I see the bag. And now when I get there, I kind of realize, like, I don't have any money at all whatsoever.

Well, I kind of knew that before then, but we're not going to talk about that. But I see the bag of cookies and creams. It's about 50 of them in this little bag. But see, I was I thought about it. I just opened the bag up and I was like, I just want three. I just need three of them. I don't need the whole bag. I don't want to take the whole entire bag.

I just need three cookies and creams to satisfy my appetite. So I was like, OK, I'm not going to leave with these. I'm actually going to go to the restroom, go inside of a stall, and eat these cookies and creams in peace. See, I had a plan. I thought this out as I'm there, OK? So I go inside the stall. No one can see me. My friends are out in the other area.

And as I'm opening this piece of candy, this wrapper, the manager buses in the bathroom. And I'm like, oh, my goodness. I'm so scared. He's like, I saw y'all stealing. Give me the candy right now. Now, he cannot see me. He can't see me at all whatsoever. But I'm in there. So I was like, you know what? Let's take these three pieces of candy and let's flush them down the toilet.

So I dropped them in the toilet. I flush it. I turn around. And then he's like right there. And I thought it was going to flush down. And I turn around. He was like, I was like, I don't have anything. He was like, yes, you do. I see it right there. I was like, come on, man. Like, the candy was supposed to go down the drain. And I was supposed to be in the clear and not be in trouble at all.

So my plan failed once again. But what the cool thing about this is that, right, that he calls my auntie. Because I was visiting my other side of the family at the time. And she then, the police comes, take me to my auntie's home. And, yeah, I started riding the car. It was crazy. But she calls. They take me to my auntie. And then my auntie has a bright idea to call my grandma.

Now, for you guys, in the South, grandma has a special anointing on them. And it's called problem solving, a.k.a. butt whooping, okay? So she told me up. But, you know, I never stole anything ever again from a store, from that one incident of her correcting me, right? But from this whole entire store, which is funny, but I had a plan. And it didn't work out in my favor at all whatsoever.

So we all have agreed that we all have a plan that sometimes it just does not work out in our favor, right? But if we truly understand our Savior, God also has a plan for our life. But so many times we decide to go a whole different route, a whole different way than what God is designing for us to go. But we have to get to a place where we actually trust in him.

So you have to ask yourself the question, can God actually lead me? Can God actually lead me in my life currently right now? And when I started to really think about it, I was like, there's areas in my life I'm like, yeah, God, you got it. I'm going to do that. Got you. I'm a pastor. All of that good stuff, right? But there's other areas I'm like, don't touch that, God.

That is all mine, okay? But once you get to a place where God can lead you, it just changes everything. And we see from this story in Genesis 25, we see the end of someone letting God actually lead them. We see, if you go back to Genesis 12, verses 1 through 5, this is the first time where God actually tells Abraham that, hey, look, Abraham, I want you to leave everything you are familiar with.

I want you to leave everything you know to go to a land that I'm going to show you. I want you to leave because what I want to do in you and through you, I want to bless you. I want to make you a great nation, so great that other families are going to be blessed by you actually leaving. Now, if I was to put myself in Abraham's shoes right then and there, I just don't know if I'm actually willing to leave just everything.

And thank God I probably don't have to. God has not told me to leave everything. But there are certain things in your life that you have attached yourself to that God is saying, I need you to leave that alone. I need you to leave that alone because it's not part of my plan. And once you are obedient to that, God just moves in such a miraculous way.

Before I came to San Diego, I had this just beautiful BMW Z3 1996. I love that. I had it all decked out. I actually got it from Japan, shipped it over here, had all the TVs. It was just nice. I just love the car so much. And when I was about to leave Virginia, God said, I need you to give that away. And I was like, what was that? Pourquoi? What are you saying to me?

That's French for what? I was like, there's no way God is telling me to get rid of this car because, man, I still love it to this day. He actually still drives it to this day, which is cool. But God said, get rid of that. And I tried to hold on to it for so long until I actually had to let it go because I couldn't actually ship it to California because it was so expensive and I was so broke.

But there are certain things in our life that we have attached ourselves to that God is trying to take away from us, but we will not let it go. So God has a plan. And sometimes it involves you letting something go. It just is what it is. And we see that God told Abraham that I'm going to send you to a land. Like, God, if God is telling us to leave something alone, trust that he's going to provide whatever else you need.

He's not taking it away from you because it's good for you. He's actually taking it away from you because it's not good for you. That's why I love what the scripture says in Jeremiah 29 verses 11. It says, For I know the plans that I have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. You see, God has a plan for every single person here, whether you believe in God, whether you got one foot in the church, one foot out the church.

God has a plan. You may not be decided yet on, am I truly going to follow this God right now? Am I going to follow Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior? But I could tell you this, that God, if you learn how to trust in him, he will reveal his plan to you and it will make you a better person all around. But you have to trust that God is able to accomplish it because he can.

And not only do we got to ask the question about, can God, can I let God lead? But will you let God follow? Will you actually follow God to wherever he's telling you to go? You see, it's so interesting within this story with Abraham and Isaac. Isaac receives the blessings from his father. But before that, we see in Genesis 22 where there's an interesting story taking place that it still blows my mind to this day, that God tells Abraham, look, Abraham, I want you to sacrifice your only son, your one and only son whom you love.

I want you to sacrifice him. And Abraham does not say anything at all. He actually, him, Isaac, and a couple of other guys go to the plan that God is telling him to go to. And it's so cool that once they are getting closer, Isaac starts to kind of notice something. He says this to his father. He says, look, God, look, look, look, dad, I see that you have the fire.

I see that you have the wood, but where is the sacrifice? Where is the sacrifice? Now, this kind of let me know as I'm reading this, like, okay, this is probably not the first time they have made some type of sacrifice because he knew exactly what was needed. But even in that, he still goes forward. Now, if I'm going, I'll put myself in this position right now.

I'm like, this kind of sketchy. I don't know if I want to go. Like, where's the sacrifice at? And I may just pull out. But Isaac continues to go. He goes so far into it that Abraham actually sets the altar up and he actually bounds his son to the altar and is about to do what God had commanded him to do. And Isaac does not say a word. He was willing to follow his father all the way to death.

Now, the Bible tells us that in Matthew 16, verse 24 through 26, it says this, that Jesus told his disciples, and this is right after they have a little conversation with Peter and Jesus is telling them that he's going to the cross. And Jesus has to rebuke Peter. And he goes and says this right here. He says, You have to get to a place in your own life where you're willing to deny your own personal goals, the things that you want, your attachments.

Friends, maybe even sometimes some friends that God said, hey, I need you to separate yourself from them because I have a plan. I have a purpose for what I want to do in your life. The verse goes on and says this in 24. It says, For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?

Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? You got to sometimes just sit and think about, okay, where am I at right now? And where am I trying to go to? You see, God wants to lead. He also wants us to follow. But there's so many things that's in the way that we cannot truly focus on what his plans and what his purpose are for our life. So we got to sit back and say, okay, God, I've been trying this thing my own way for so long.

For so long, I've been trying to do things my own way. What is your plans? What is your plans? You see, if Abraham decided not to follow God's way, we wouldn't have got to Genesis 25 where he's able to bless. It says that he had a satisfying life. He was able not to only bless Isaac, but even the other children he had, he was able to give them gifts.

You see, God, when God has a plan and a purpose, he also provides everything else. I remember someone told me one time, they asked him to go on a mission trip. And I was like, man, I can't take that much time off. You know, I just can't. He was like, well, if God is telling you to go, then it's God's responsibility to provide for you. I was like, oh, okay.

Yes, I agree with that, right? So if God is telling you to separate yourself from something, please know he's going to also provide. But we also, we sometimes just get into this place where we're kind of wrestling with what God wants us to do. We put up this fight not knowing that whatever he is telling me to do, it is the best thing for me. So once again, have you figured out where you are at in God's plan for your life?

This is a question you have to be able to answer at some point. Because if not, you're going to continue to run around these different circles and these different mountains because you have no guidance. And God is not the type of God where he's trying to hide from you or he's trying to hide his plans for you. The Bible says this. It says that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

There has to be a purpose behind your seeking God, right? Because I know one thing that once I got out of my own self and I stopped trying to have my own plans on how I thought things should go, God was like, look, Josh, once you step out of the way, I can actually provide the way. And that's the power of the God that we serve. He sees everything.

He's not so far away that he's not trying to intervene into your situation. It's that you have not come to him yet so that he can. And I know some of you guys know the story of me even actually being here. But 10 years ago, God told me that in 10 years you will start full-time ministry. Now, in those 10 years, I was trying all kinds of different things because I felt like it wasn't happening fast enough for me.

I was like, I'm going to try this. I'm going to do this business. I'm going to go over here and do that, you know. And we try all these different things to fill in the time that we are in a process of waiting for God to tell us to go. I love the sermon that Pastor Adam spoke about where he said, here I am. You have to get to a place where you say, here I am, God, and I'm also going to wait on you till you tell me to go.

And I love when you go into Genesis 25, you see that in verse number 11. We see it says that after Abraham's death, God blessed his son Isaac who settled near Belaharo. Now, once you translate this word, the word actually means the well of him that lives and sees me. The well of him that lives and sees me. So where have you decided to make your permanent residence?

Have you decided to settle in God's word and his truth? Or are there certain areas we kind of lean towards the world and say, okay, what does the world say I should do? What does the world speak about this? God's truth is always going to lead you in a direction where it actually frees you. But we always are trying to find our own plan, our own purpose, not trusting in a purpose that God has for our own personal life.

Hebrews 4 verse 13, it says this, that nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Nothing. Nothing in all creation is hidden. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. We must give an account. I don't know about every single person here, but once I leave this earth, I want to hear, well done, my good and faithful servant.

The way we hear that is by following God's plan for our life. And you have to get to a place where you're able to practice what is now called silence and solitude, where you get in the presence of God and say, God, like, I know what my plans are. I know what my agenda is. But have I done this without your guidance, without your provision? Because you can provide for yourself and God be nowhere around.

This is what it is. There are successful people who don't even believe in Jesus. So we could all be successful in whatever right we want to. But does that mean that God is involved in your particular situation? And I had to ask myself that same question because there's so many things that we try to cover up when God is saying, look, this is not the will that I have for you currently right now.

So can you allow God to leave? Just as he called Abram to leave his home and embark on a journey of faith, God may prompt us to release attachments and follow his guidance. Trusting his promises and willingness to follow his lead can lead to great blessing. At the end of Abraham's death, we see that he was able to give those gifts. And it said that he had a satisfying life.

Like, if God is calling you, like, he will provide everything else. We just got to trust that. And it's hard sometimes. It's really hard. I get it. I've been there. I'm, like, trying to do everything underneath the sun. But at some point, I had to come back and focus on what God had for my life. Are you willing to follow God's direction even when it seems difficult?

Sometimes we want this road to be easy, comfortable. And that's not at all what God has promised any of us is a comfortable and easy road. The cross was not comfortable, nor was it easy. So sometimes you got to deny yourself and die to yourself so that God could provide the provision and the direction that God wants you to go. Because once you actually operate in that, you actually help other people out.

Jesus' death on the cross freed all of us. So we also have to die to our own will so that we could free other people at the same time. Similar to Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac, our faith may be tested, but ultimately, obedience brings divine provision and blessing. So what I want to share with you guys today is God's plan is always best.

As we come in for a land, as Pastor Adam says, right? God's plan is the best. So during these next weeks, what I ask of you to do is to sit in a quiet place alone or as a couple, if you're married, anything like that, and ask God, God, what do you want from us? What do you want to do in our life? And if God does not answer, you know what you do?

You continue to keep waiting. Go back the next day and the next day and the next day until he speaks. He speaks. He's not trying to hide his plans. He's not trying to hide his purpose. But you've got to understand that, once again, he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Stand to your feet. No matter where you are at in your life, no matter if you believe, no matter if you've been saved all your life, you was raised in a Christian home, God has a plan and he has a purpose for you.

You just have to look to him, go to him to figure out exactly what that may be for you. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Father God, we thank you for your word on today, oh God. For I know there's so many times where we try to figure things out on our own. And we think that our way sometimes could be even better than yours, oh God. But I pray, Father, that during this time of Lent, Father God, as we think about your death, barrier, and resurrection, that we refocus ourselves, oh God, on your plans for our life.

And as you provided for Abraham throughout his whole entire life of 175 years of living, Lord God, that you too, Lord God, will provide for all of your children. Help us to trust you in every direction of our life and let us not lean onto our own understanding. But we thank you for your word and we thank you for your truth. For in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

If you have any questions, we have our next steps table in the back. Because I know with a message like this, there could be some questions, right, of what God wants from you. Go to our next steps table. We have some great people back there with Jeff and Lori. And they will answer any questions you have about anything. It could be something totally opposite from this message.

Anything. Go to that next steps table. And if you need prayer, we have our prayer team that's going to be coming forward to pray for you. If you want someone to pray for you, come alongside you, maybe going through a hard situation, a hard time, come forward. We want to pray for you. I hope this message blesses you. Let's go forward and have a good Sunday.

Go eat and enjoy the season. A luske. A luske. A luske. A luske. A luske. A luske. A luske. A luske. A luske.