Walking Through Fire
Notes
Transcript
Today, Choke Canyon reservoir sits at about 8.8% full, the lowest it has been since about 1986, when it was new and on its way up. This has us and surrounding communities worried, and rightfully so. It has been the primary water source for this town for decades, and now it is running dry. We have been in a drought for several years and the powers that be are looking for additional water sources. In the midst of it, there are decisions that must be made to ensure water conservation and access to water that will keep our town running.
There are seasons in our lives where resources are plentiful or scarce. When resources are plentiful, we are lured into a sense of security that transfers our dependence on God to dependence on the things God provides. The recent freeze led to the buying up of meats, produce, eggs, bread, and other staples out of fear of unavailability. The threat of an interruption in supply chain leads to panic buying, which creates the scarcity everyone was trying to avoid.
When we face the threat of scarcity, our minds have a way of being fixated on the problem. I call it walking through the fire. It is painful. It is challenging. This is what Isaac is doing throughout this chapter. Genesis 26 starts by saying there was a famine in the land.
Now there was a famine in the land, besides the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham. So Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech king of the Philistines.
The Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; stay in the land of which I shall tell you.
“Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham.
“I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these lands; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed;
because Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes and My laws.”
So a famine occurs like the one Abraham endured in chapter 12. God instructs Isaac not to go to Egypt. He says, “Look, I got you. I’m going to take care of you. All those promises I made to your dad are yours now. So Isaac goes to Gerar, which Abraham also did in chapter 20. Abimelech is still around. Just like his father, Isaac lies about his relationship with Rebekah, claiming she is his sister, just like his father did. He gets in trouble just like his father did. There is bad blood between Isaac and the Philistines all in the interest of self preservation.
In times of scarcity, we shift into self preservation mode and the temptation to do things we might otherwise not do increases. We justify our actions because we have to. We have no other choice. Except that we do.
Isaac committed a sin in deceiving Abimelech. We don’t have to sin when times get tough. We can still trust God when we are walking through the fire. God wanted Isaac to trust him. Just as Abraham had to learn to trust God through experiences, so Isaac will have to learn to trust God through experiences. Our Christlikeness is developed by walking through fire, not avoiding it.
The problem gets worse before it gets better.
Now Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. And the Lord blessed him,
and the man became rich, and continued to grow richer until he became very wealthy;
for he had possessions of flocks and herds and a great household, so that the Philistines envied him.
Now all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines stopped up by filling them with earth.
Then Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are too powerful for us.”
And Isaac departed from there and camped in the valley of Gerar, and settled there.
Every time Isaac dug a well, the Philistines would claim it. It reminds me of the scene from Forrest Gump where Forrest gets on the school bus and as he passed down the aisle the kids would move over and say, “Seat’s taken.” That is, until Jenny offers him a seat next to her. Digging wells took a while back then. Isaac keeps getting forced out. Water is hard to come by. Until eventually they find a place to dig a well where the Philistines don’t follow.
Finally God provides a place for them where they can get their needs met, but not without walking through the fire. Now, in some cases, the fire comes due to unforeseen circumstances. Isaac didn’t cause the famine. Other times, we might be the cause of the fire. Isaac might not have caused the famine, but he did cause his conflict with the Philistines by lying to them.
What do we do while we are in the fire? The temptation is to fixate on the problem but sometimes it is not within our power to fix it. For example, I cannot fix the nation’s economy, but I still have to operate in it. So when we find ourselves walking through fire, we may not be able to put the fire out. We have to look to the one who can.
The solution to walking through fire is to remember God’s presence in it rather than seek it outside of it. God is with us all of the time. He is not absent in our troubles. He is carrying us through them. Remember three things:
God promises to meet needs.
God promises to meet needs.
When we suffer hardship, we often think there is no value in it. But I would remind you that God is in the redemption business. Though we all suffer, we do not suffer needlessly. Paul says in Romans 8:28
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
God will redeem the hardships we face. Jump down to verse 31.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
Everything belongs to God, so he can give us everything we need, and has promised to do so.
Philippians chapter four describes the many reasons we have to rejoice in Christ, whether we are in a good season of life or a tough one. In verse 19 Paul writes,
And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
He will supply all our needs.
God promises constant presence.
God promises constant presence.
We are not walking alone. Christianity is an invitation to walk with Christ through the presence of the Holy Spirit so that you are not walking through this life alone. Every believer has the power and presence of God through the Holy Spirit. You have not been alone since the day you came to faith in Jesus.
Jesus promises us his presence at the end of the Great Commission in Matthew 28. He promises to send the Holy Spirit in John 14-16. He is our constant companion and experiencing his presence in the fire is predicated on having nurtured a relationship with him outside the fire.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were friends of the prophet Daniel from the book of Daniel. When they refused to worship a golden statue the king set up, they were thrown into the fiery furnace. When they went to go check on them, the king’s men reported four men, not three were seen in the fire. The fourth was described as looking like a son of the gods. Many believe this is an Old Testament appearance of Jesus himself. God was with them in the fire. No matter where you find yourself, God’s presence is with you.
You must learn to trust God.
You must learn to trust God.
Isaac had to learn to trust God. Abraham couldn’t do it for him. Isaac may have been the inheritor of the promises, but he had to learn to trust God for himself. In some manner you could say I have inherited the faith of my parents and grandparents. But a heritage of Christian faith doesn’t make you one. You have to learn to walk with God for yourself. And to do that, you are going to need opportunities for your faith to be tested. Testing comes in the form of walking through fire.
Peter writes about persecution for the faith in the letter we know as 1 Peter where in he describes it as gold being tested by fire. This is the purification process by which impurities are removed to result in a more pure precious metal. Diamonds are formed through intense pressure and heat deep under the earth’s surface. The result is one of the most coveted jewels on earth. We go through times of testing to produce in us the righteousness of God.
If you will trust God, and you will walk through the fire, what you become on the other side of it is unbelievable. But you must learn to trust God in the fire.
You might be thinking, that’s great, but how? Let me offer a few action steps.
Realize you are not in control.
Realize you are not in control.
We are not in control. God is. He knows exactly how it is going to play out. He knows when the rain will fall. He knows if Choke Canyon is destined to rebound or dry up. He keeps the universe running by the power of his word. He holds the stars in the sky. He keeps the earth spinning. He keeps the sun burning. He owns it all and he is in control of it all. We need to recognize that we are not in ultimate control over our own lives. It belongs to him.
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
My life is not my own. It belongs to him, and it is his to control. When we realize we are not in control, we will seek to follow who is in control.
Lack of control is not lack of responsibility.
Lack of control is not lack of responsibility.
Just because you are not in control does not mean you have been absolved of all responsibility. You are still responsible for responding to the call of God on your life. He does not live his life through us by turning us into passive puppets. He invites us into a partnership with him, where we work with him, not just for him.
The Bible is filled with commands we are to follow. There is a daily submission to his will rather than our own. This doesn’t happen automatically. It happens as we seek to cultivate an intimate relationship with Christ. The deeper this relationship grows, the more consistent we tend to be in exercising responsibility for the things we are being called to do. We will steward well the responsibilities he has entrusted to us. But we will also do this through his empowerment, not all by ourselves. You may not be in control, but you are not absolved of responsibility. Exercise responsibility for the life God has given you.
Seek collaboration over competition.
Seek collaboration over competition.
At the end of Genesis 26, Abimelech comes to Isaac, and Isaac has his guard up.
Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, since 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 now be an oath between us, even 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.’ ”
Isaac and Abimelech enter into a covenant. Their relationship is reconciled. They discovered a way to move forward together. Their relationship moved from competition to collaboration. They were in competition as the wells were dug and the Philistines kept claiming them for themselves. This covenant moves them into collaboration.
A wise business man once told me competition happens at the bottom. Collaboration happens at the top. There’s a measure of both. Did you know that Apple is very dependent on Samsung for the production of the iPhone? Your iPhone screen was made in a Samsung manufacturing plant. The RAM chips in your iPhone came from Samsung. Yet, they directly compete for customers in the marketplace. Though they both want their tech in the hands of consumers, they work together to advance the market, and both win in the process.
When we recognize our neighbors are not our competition, we can see them as our collaborators. Churches don’t have to compete for people. There’s plenty of lost people to go around. That leaves room for collaboration. When we seek collaboration over competition, everybody wins.
How can you seek collaboration over competition?
CLOSING
You might be in the fire today. You are trying to figure out how to get through it. Remember that God is in the fire. If you don’t know Christ, today is your invitation to get to know him. For you, the solution is rescue from the fire. The Bible teaches us we are all sinners, rebellious toward God. Our fate is fire, eternal separation from God. He provides rescue through his Son.
