Abraham& Isaac: Land, Love, & Legacy PT 2

Alliteration is not my thing… I am more of a practical say it as it is kind of guy. However it just came out better today as we look closer at part two of Land Love & Legacy. We took an overarching approach last week to these three chapters of the epilogue of Abraham’s life and I would like us to look just a little closer at several things before we continue through the narrative of the book of Genesis. Today we are going to look at:

Love Lessons

Living Life

Leaving Legacy

Understanding the overarching way these all tie together we will spend some time making practical application in these chapters.

Love Lessons

Lisa and I will be married twenty years this January. She happened to be one of my best friends, we dated for several months, I asked her to marry me on December 24th 2000 and were wed January 19, 2002. Our marriage has not been perfect. But on that day we made a commitment, a choice to love each other until death do us part. One of the many things I have learned over the years is that LOVE is about choices… not feelings. Consider 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 and look at the choices, intentionality that is there...

Abraham has tasked his servant with finding a wife for Isaac. Consider the choices in the verses here today. Genesis 24:10-33;49-52 unfold a unique wedding story. From this story I believe we learn four Lessons on Love…

Genesis 24:10–33 NASB95

Then the servant took ten camels from the camels of his master, and set out with a variety of good things of his master’s in his hand; and he arose and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor. He made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at evening time, the time when women go out to draw water. He said, “O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today, and show lovingkindness to my master Abraham. “Behold, I am standing by the spring, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water; now may it be that the girl to whom I say, ‘Please let down your jar so that I may drink,’ and who answers, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels also’—may she be the one whom You have appointed for Your servant Isaac; and by this I will know that You have shown lovingkindness to my master.” Before he had finished speaking, behold, Rebekah who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor, came out with her jar on her shoulder. The girl was very beautiful, a virgin, and no man had had relations with her; and she went down to the spring and filled her jar and came up. Then the servant ran to meet her, and said, “Please let me drink a little water from your jar.” She said, “Drink, my lord”; and she quickly lowered her jar to her hand, and gave him a drink. Now when she had finished giving him a drink, she said, “I will draw also for your camels until they have finished drinking.” So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough, and ran back to the well to draw, and she drew for all his camels. Meanwhile, the man was gazing at her in silence, to know whether the Lord had made his journey successful or not. When the camels had finished drinking, the man took a gold ring weighing a half-shekel and two bracelets for her wrists weighing ten shekels in gold, and said, “Whose daughter are you? Please tell me, is there room for us to lodge in your father’s house?” She said to him, “I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor.” Again she said to him, “We have plenty of both straw and feed, and room to lodge in.” Then the man bowed low and worshiped the Lord. He said, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His lovingkindness and His truth toward my master; as for me, the Lord has guided me in the way to the house of my master’s brothers.” Then the girl ran and told her mother’s household about these things. Now Rebekah had a brother whose name was Laban; and Laban ran outside to the man at the spring. When he saw the ring and the bracelets on his sister’s wrists, and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying, “This is what the man said to me,” he went to the man; and behold, he was standing by the camels at the spring. And he said, “Come in, blessed of the Lord! Why do you stand outside since I have prepared the house, and a place for the camels?” So the man entered the house. Then Laban unloaded the camels, and he gave straw and feed to the camels, and water to wash his feet and the feet of the men who were with him. But when food was set before him to eat, he said, “I will not eat until I have told my business.” And he said, “Speak on.”

Genesis 24:49–52 NASB95

“So now if you are going to deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me; and if not, let me know, that I may turn to the right hand or the left.” Then Laban and Bethuel replied, “The matter comes from the Lord; so we cannot speak to you bad or good. “Here is Rebekah before you, take her and go, and let her be the wife of your master’s son, as the Lord has spoken.” When Abraham’s servant heard their words, he bowed himself to the ground before the Lord.

Lesson 1- Heed Godly Counsel (Godly Mentors and parents) those who know you

Western culture has almost done away with the parents role (marriage success is not that good)

Many eastern cultures still have either parent arranged marriage or strong parent involvement (much better marriage statistics)

Listen to those who know you

Lesson 2- Prayer, Prayer, Prayer

Verse 12, verse 26, verse 52 each reference this servant going to the Lord

Verse 63 finds Isaac praying, meditating before the Lord

Abraham no doubt… the one who taught his son and servant to go to the Lord was praying also!

Lesson 3- Look for Qualities of Character

Uncommon hospitality, hard work, going the distance

Abraham: One Nomad's Amazing Journey of Faith Chapter 18: On Finding Your Lifelong Companion

Most anyone would offer a sip to a thirsty stranger. Watering ten camels, on the other hand, took a lot of extra effort—especially considering that each camel could drink as much as fifty gallons in three minutes. And he had ten thirsty animals! A five-gallon jar weighed almost fifty pounds. For a woman to volunteer to water someone’s camels would mean offering to haul five hundred gallons, five gallons at a time. (Don’t worry, I’ll do the math.) That’s one hundred trips back and forth from the spring. (Bear with me a little further.) If each trip took only a minute, she just added two hours of backbreaking work to her already busy day.

That would be one extraordinary woman!

Opening up her home and welcoming strangers

Her faith to trust the Lord’s leading verse 58

Lesson 4- Observe the family

The family themselves held the Lord in high regard

Willing to serve others

You also marry into that family and most often bring good and bad from them too

Living Life

Some find it difficult that Abraham takes another wife after Sarah. Genesis 25:1-4

He loved her (only her) aside from the incident with Hagar

Married for over 100 years

Abraham did not just curl up and die, he did not sit in the tent door and watch life go by… he continued to live!

Keturah gave him 6 sons!!!

Mentoring

Training how to hunt, fight, herd sheep, and most of all how to worship the One true God

He learned here from Ishmael… sent his sons off with a gift better prepared

To the older generation… never stop living!

Invest in life each day you are given

let me encourage you to live life to the fullest, and live life so that your life will outlast you… Eternal focus!

Leaving Legacy

There is an old woodsman’s proverbs that says, “A tree is best measured when it is down”.

Our lives while we live are still bearing fruit, building legacy, growing in our walk with the Lord.

Imagine… coming to the end of your time on this earth and hearing “well done good and faithful servant”

So many fall so many fail

So many run the race and disqualify, or simply stop short of the finish line, give up

We have looked at Abraham’s life:

An extraordinary man, yet a man none the less

We saw his faith to leave

We saw his weaknesses, failings, regrets

We saw his faith, his discernment, his God

There is a great deal we have seen and spoken of about Abraham…

In verse 8 we see a beautiful summary… but consider how God measure this man throughout the pages of scripture...

Romans 4:19-21

Romans 4:19–21 NASB95

Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb; yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.

Hebrews 11:9

Hebrews 11:9 NASB95

By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise;

Hebrews 11:17

Hebrews 11:17 NASB95

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son;

James 2:23

James 2:23 NASB95

and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God.

Isaiah 41:8

Isaiah 41:8 NASB95

“But you, Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, Descendant of Abraham My friend,

ABRAHAM THE FATHER OF THE FAITHFUL

A life that would point a foreign people to the One true God

A life you and I can relate with

A life that showed the importance of trusting God

A legacy left for Isaac, Jacob, the children of Israel… for YOU and ME!

What will your life point to? Live it fully for his glory, a lasting legacy...

In the words of Jim Elliot i will close, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”