Feast and Follow with Knollwood

God Provides for Righteousness

The first week, we looked at how God grows faith which is through trial. Last week, we saw what faith acts like, in that it isn't just a mental affirmation but it is a deep seated trust in Christ that cannot help but be obedient to what God says. Today, we are going to look at what obedient faith brings to the faithful: blessing. 

Now, I'm going to start up front by defining what I am **not** saying here. I am not saying that obedience always brings *immediate* blessing. God isn't a vending machine where if you pray and read your Bible a certain number of times God will give you a blessing that day. I've seen the reverse of this in folks responding to minor setbacks like traffic or a crashed computer with, "Well, I didn't pray today! That's why all these things are happening to me!" I mean, maybe, but there is no way to actually know that, nor is a prayed for day always going to be a trouble free day. God isn't a formula where you plug in this to get that in a predictable way. 

I am also not saying that obedience always brings blessings *as we would define the term* like riches or health. You will often find the most godly people in the world enduring the greatest suffering, so we can't make one to one comparisons here. My mom got cancer, and it turned out to be a painful but deep blessing. My mom has been able to walk many others through the same valley, a blessing she wouldn't have without having gone through it herself. This was certainly not the path we all desired her to go, but the Lord is able to make blessings out of things we wouldn't wish for. 

So what am I saying? I am saying that true blessing comes through obedience. Exactly what that looks like or when it is going to come is up to the Lord, but we see the consistent witness of Scripture is that righteousness brings reward. 

Faith's Only Window

What is true faith? What does true faith do? Those are two separate questions. If I were to ask you what a flashlight *is* you might describe it as a metal tube with a bulb inside. If I were to ask you what a flashlight *does*, then you would tell me that it shines light. 

The same is true of faith. The question "What *is* faith?" is different from "What does it do?" To hear from our own catechism what faith is: "Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation as he is offered to us in the gospel." That is what faith *is.* Faith alone is what saves you. Faith isn't works. It is a grace to trust Christ, to count on Him alone for your salvation. Even the book of James is very careful to make a distinction between faith and works as we will see in a moment. 

Now, the question that our particular passage prompts us to ask is, "What does faith do?" It will focus our attention on externals. Works is the arena where true faith is displayed. And this is what we are going to see from our passage today. Our two points are: True faith works and true works only come from faith. 

When God Seems to be Your Worst Enemey

How do you think God should treat you? What does that practically look like? If you don't have an answer for that, consider what the last thing that you complained about was. The last thing that happened to you that you complained about was likely something that you think you deserved from God. "I shouldn't have to do all this work myself." "Why is all this traffic here?" "Do these kids just DELIGHT in messing up the house?" "My family member shouldn't have to suffer like this." Our complaints give insight into what we think we deserve from God, and will likely inform the sorts of questions we bring to these first few verses of Genesis 22. 

We have come to the climax of Abraham's story. We might have thought that the climax was last chapter with the birth of Isaac (Bible Talk Podcast). After all that has been the thing that we have been waiting for, the thing that has been put in danger multiple times, the thing that God kept promising to Abraham in 12, 15, 17, 18, and finally in 21 has happened! But now God is asking Abraham to do the unthinkable: sacrifice him. And it isn't just stabbing with a knife. What God is calling for is a whole burnt offering. If Abraham decides to follow through, there is absolutely no turning back. This would be the total destruction of Isaac's body. There would be nothing to bury but ash. 

Why on earth would God do this? The way that we answer this question gives us some insight into who we think God is and what we think we deserve. 

God in the Microscope

What are you known for? It can be something positive or negative. What do you think people think about when they think of you? What would you like them to think? 

Here is this passage, we get a glimpse of what is thought about Abraham. And what we find is that there are positive and negative aspects! As one scholar points out, "It is ironic that the two things Abimelech knew about Abraham were that God was with him and that he was not altogether trustworthy (recall chap. 20)." (387) If you remember what we talked about a couple weeks ago, the last time Abraham and Abimelech met, Abraham was pulling the ole' "she's my sister, so don't kill me" routine. Abraham admitted to Abimelech that this was something of a habit of his. 

From Abimelech's perspective, he needed to make a covenant with Abraham, but the opening reason actually has nothing to do with Abraham, per se. We are going to explore what that is by looking at our two points today: Our relationship with God is the most valuable thing we have and Bringing others into that relationship is the kindest thing we can do. 

From Unbelief to Disbelief

Have you ever waited a long time for a blessing? Maybe it was marriage or children, maybe it was entrance into ministry, retirement, whatever you've been waiting for. What did you feel once you got it? In some ways, before you achieved it, it sort of seemed like life would just sorta stop once you got there. We wouldn't have put it that way while working towards it, but it does kinda feel that way, doesn't it? You achieved your goal! Now what? God still has more for you to do. It turns out that once you got married you didn't just ascend into heaven. Once you got your goal, you didn't find total security. You've gotten the blessing, but you still have to trust God. 

Well, this is the chapter that Abraham has been waiting for since chapter 12. Thousands of miles traveled, over two decades of waiting, two kidnappings of his wife, and two countries nearly destroyed because of it, here we are, the birth of Isaac! The promise is fulfilled! But life keeps going. The need to trust in God's working is more needed than ever. And if one thought that being asked to be patient was hard, oh just wait until we look at what is in store for Abraham in the next two chapters. 

Today, we are going to look at our two points: God provides His promises AND God protects His promises. 

Don't Steal What You Already Own

Organized people talk about the power of habits, the things that you do everyday without having to really think about them. Most of us don't have to have a check list that includes brushing your teeth at night because that is (hopefully) an established habit! Using the power of habit can be an amazing force for good if you have developed good habits. A habit of exercise, Bible reading, and prayer will make for an incredibly healthy life. 

But the power of habits can work in the opposite direction as well. What is your habit when you are scared? Do you jump into over planning mode? Do the opposite and run and hide? Distract yourself? Indulge in a sin? Do you steal what you already own in Christ? 

Hope for the ICU

We are going to talk about hope today. We are going to do that today because we are Christians, and it is the one thing that we truly have that the rest of the world does not. I am not talking about hope as some sort of wish or platitude that you put on a coffee mug. But I am talking about *real* hope. Hope that follows you into the ICU and beyond. This is the sort of hope that cannot be bought or earned. It is a hope that can only be given to you as a gift, because the promise of this sort of hope would be utterly outrageous to offer unless it comes from God Himself. Because, as it turns out, the hope we have isn't a silver lining or a place we will live in someday. Our hope is Christ Himself, and I hope that our time together will be one of worshipping Him and reveling in that hope together. 

I've chosen this passage today because it reflects where I think all of us to some degree where we are today. We lost a great man this week. My task here isn't to try to get us to stop grieving. That's not what this passage calls us to do. This passage calls us not to grieve, *"as those do who have no hope.*" We do have a hope, so our grief is different. It is with sobs and smiles. Tears of joy and pain.

Sin Doesn't Share, Part 2

Have you ever told someone how to do a particular task but they insist on doing it some other way? Even though no other way exists to do that task, they insist on relentlessly attempting to do that which isn't right. Kids do this all the time, don't they? We have sayings like, "If at first you don't succeed, do it the way mom told you to do it." How much easier our lives would be, eh? 

But we can't judge them too harshly because we often find ourselves in the same boat, don't we? God tells us explicitly how to live and even what to do when we don't do it right and still we resist Him. We can see this on full display here with Lot on his way out of Sodom. 

Last week, we took a deep, hard look at how Lot got into the situation that he got into. We found that even a man given the grace of God can still get terrifyingly used to evil such that he would use it himself. God is merciful, however, and is still committed to not sweep away Lot with the rest of the city. God begins the extraction process, but Lot seems to be doing his best to not cooperate with the process. This is extremely frustrating to watch, but there is a lot that we can learn here as we finish our sermon from last week. 

Sin Doesn't Share

in is a great trapper. Do you know what a trapper does? A trapper hunts in a seemingly passive way. It would seem that all they do is place traps down and hope animals walk into them, but there is a lot more to it than that. They observe animal tracks, place the trap in such as way that it is disguised. Food is carefully chosen to attract the animal. The prey is sized up to be sure to get the right cage, and of course the trapper places it when they know they won't be seen. It is a very active and effective process. Get the animal to go where it wouldn't go normally by offering it something it wants in a place that looks perfectly safe. 

Sin works the same way. Sin offers you something that looks good and useful. It seems safe, without consequence, and entirely reversible. It's like the mechanic who got addicted to drinking break fluid; he can stop whenever he wants. But this is the fundamental lie of sin. It can give you want you want, no, what you *need* without consequences. Sin doesn't share. It only takes. And that is what we are going to see today as we focus on the fate of Lot in this chapter. We will look at two points: Sin will imprison you, so don't accommodate it. and God's Grace will free you, so embrace it.  

LGBT and the Inspiration of Scripture

Sexual identity is a rising concern in our world that has left many Christians unsure of how to respond. What does it look like to faithfully love those who base their identity in homosexual practices? 

In this message, we will look at how the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture informs how we should think and speak about this issue to friends, family, and the wider world who participate in homosexuality in a hopeful way.