No Sanity Required
No Sanity Required is a weekly podcast hosted by Brody Holloway and Snowbird Outfitters. Each week, we engage culture and personal stories with a Gospel-driven perspective. Our mission is to equip the Church to pierce the darkness with the light of Christ by sharing the vision, ideas, and passions God has used to carry us through 26 years of student ministry. Find more content at swoutfitters.com.
No Sanity Required
Beyond the Flannelgraph | God's Grace is Greater Than Your Failures
Have you ever lived in shame and guilt over a mistake you made?
Scripture tells us that those who are in Christ are no longer condemned but set free from our sins. In this episode, Brody walks through 8 truths we can learn from Isaac and Rebecca’s mistake-filled lives. God chose to preserve and protect this family regardless of Isaac’s mistakes.
You are going to make mistakes throughout your life. But the trajectory of our lives should be one of faithfulness and obedience to the Lord. God is greater than our ability to mess things up. Isaac became a testimony and witness to the Lord’s grace.
Let’s learn from the life of Isaac and rest in the grace and freedom of the Lord.
- Romans 8:1
- Genesis 26-27
- 1 Peter 2:12
- Be Strong Men's Conference
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Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Anybody ever made a really horrible mistake and I'm not talking about you know you made a mistake driving and put a dent in your car or you made a mistake, saw in a 2x4, and it came up short and you had to cut a new one.
Speaker 1:I'm talking about. We've all made mistakes in our lives that create a lot of regret, a lot of guilt, maybe shame. You feel unworthy, you feel a lot of self-condemnation, maybe you feel condemnation from other people. And the Bible gives us a wonderful promise in Romans, chapter 8, verse 1, and it's this there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. In this episode I want to take a snapshot, I want to go beyond the flannel graph.
Speaker 1:This is going to be one of those episodes where we take an inside, deep dive into a biblical narrative, a story in Scripture that most of us are probably somewhat familiar with, and we're going to see how wonderful the grace of the Lord is in one man and one woman's lives, a husband and wife who receive the grace of God in such a way that it redirects, exchanges their life, gives them new purpose, new value and a new confidence in the promises of God. I hope that this episode will encourage you that the promises of God are for you, they're to you if you're in Christ, and if you're not in Christ, those promises await through His covenant love. And what Jesus has done at the cross is to not only provide salvation for us, but to provide healing and freedom and new purpose and new joy. So come along and give a listen to this. I'm excited to share it with you. We're going to look at a story from the lives of Isaac and Rebecca in Genesis, chapter 26 and 27. So thanks for tuning in. Welcome to no Sanity Required.
Speaker 2:Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters. A podcast about the Bible, culture and stories from around the globe.
Speaker 1:This past weekend at Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters, we had our spring men's conference. We refer to those conferences, those men's conferences, as the Be Strong conferences here at SWO Wonderful events, one of my favorites, I think. I feel like I say that all the time like oh, the Iron on Iron Conference, it's one of my favorite. The Winter Retreat is one of my favorite. I guess they're all favorites. You know, it's kind of like your kids you don't have a favorite. You shouldn't have a favorite, but there are different things that you love and appreciate about each kid that might be different than the other kid or unique to that child or that grandchild. And I want to. I just want to say that I'm always encouraged at the Be Strong events. I'm always exhausted when it's over. Heavy preaching preaching this weekend was on the Patriarchs, and that's where today's episode is coming from Actually recording this before the weekend and sort of speaking here from a Monday, tuesday, wednesday, wherever you're listening to this perspective as if we're looking back at the weekend. But full disclosure, I'm recording this before the Be Strong event. Actually, men are starting to roll in. I just saw a few men and was able to say hey to some guys that I know that are so faithful to not only support and come to SWO but to listen to NSR. Shout out there to Sergeant Kevin Morris and my friend and brother Stan Cruz and the men that they brought up from the eastern part of North Carolina out in the flat country. Love those guys. But anyway, we got guys coming in for the weekend and what we're going to be talking about and when you're listening to this we will have already talked about it and those episodes will be getting ready to go up on the the Snubbard Willerness Outfitters podcast, the teaching podcast, teaching platform. But I'm excited about the weekend because we're doing a study on the Patriarchs and or we've just done a study on the Patriarchs and something came to my mind as I was preparing messages on on Abraham and Isaac. The flow of the weekend was Friday night.
Speaker 1:I was tasked with a message on like an introduction to Abraham and introduction to the Patriarchs. If you don't know what the Patriarchs are, the Patriarchs, or the patriarchal period, refers to the founding of the nation of Israel. The founding father of that nation was Abraham and different from our founding fathers as a country, men like George Washington, benjamin Franklin, thomas Jefferson, who each had different responsibility in the birth of a new nation, john Adams, the man who signed the Declaration of Independence. Abraham was the legitimate biological father of a nation. He was also the father, in terms of a new faith, of people. God was raising up to establish a religious practice whereby, through which God would speak to humanity, and that being the nation of Israel, and he would give him the law, and he would give him prophets and priests and kings, and all of that would point to Jesus. And so the introduction to Abraham is, in many ways, the introduction to the Gospel. The Gospel has already been promised before Abraham comes on the scene in Genesis, chapter 11 and 12. But it's when we start to see a plan on the part of God and cohesion and a flow through history that would point people to the Messiah who would come to save people from their sin. So the introduction to Abraham is an introduction to the Gospel narrative as it becomes specific to humanity.
Speaker 1:So, friday night, looking at Abraham, god's promises, his covenant promises to Abraham. Saturday morning, looking at the story of Abraham and Isaac as God instructs Abraham to take his son up on the mountain and to sacrifice him, and Rob's point on Saturday morning driving home that Abraham so believed the Lord. He so trusted God that he assumed God would raise Isaac from the dead because he knew Isaac was the son of promise. It's a wonderful message and story and encourage you to listen to that. And then Saturday night, I want to go beyond what we talked about on Saturday night and give some thoughts in this episode, because we look to the story of Isaac and I feel like Isaac in a lot of ways is sort of he's the, he's the diminished or unsung patriarch.
Speaker 1:There's so much about Abraham I think there's 14 chapters maybe Let me see, I've got this written down in my notes given to Abraham. It's like there's more given to Abraham than there is anybody like like anything else or anyone else. In the whole story or narrative of Genesis, the whole book of Genesis, which covers several thousand years, abraham gets 14 chapters. So, in comparison, the entire primeval period of history got 11 chapters. So from Adam, creation, adam, the flood, the table of nations, the tower of Babel, all of that got 11 chapters. We're talking about thousands of years. They got 11 chapters. 19 generations of history are covered in those 11 chapters.
Speaker 1:Abraham gets 14 chapters is one dude. So there's a lot that we can learn about this man, about God, through this man and his and his story. But anyway, the point being, there's a lot about Abraham. Jacob's story really picks up. Jacob's story picks up when he's, when we see him at his birth. But then the story really picks up with the Jacob and he saw narrative and deception of their father in his father, isaac, and that's in Genesis 27. But but then and then Jacob is in the picture all the way to the end of the book. So in one sense, as much as we see from Abraham is so much, you know, we learn so much about Abraham and those 14 chapters are such a high volume. Genesis 27 starts talking about Jacob and it goes all the way through 35. So you've got seven or eight chapters there, but then all the way to chapter 50, when you get into the story of Joseph and Pharaoh, jacob comes back into the picture. And we heard from from Spencer Davis on Sunday morning about Jacob.
Speaker 1:So the point I'm making Abraham and Jacob get a ton of press, a ton of of content written about them, and Isaac doesn't. It's pretty limited. Now when he does show up. It's huge. You got the story of Isaac being willing to lay down his life and die under his father's knife, carries his own, you know, the, the wood for his own sacrifice up the mountain, and so it's a picture of great faith. I believe it's not a picture of Jesus laying his life down, the, you know, the Christological figure some commentators argue in the story is the Ram, who's caught in the bush and who, you know, who ultimately is sacrificed. But that's that's not the point of this episode. The point is we don't see a lot about Isaac. We see that story. Then we see him get deceived by Jacob, you know, and, and and Rebecca. But Isaac, he's an interesting guy because there's a huge narrative in chapter 26, a story that where we learn a lot, not about Isaac only but about God.
Speaker 1:Isaac story teaches us so much about grace and forgiveness and the kindness of the Lord that's meant to bring us to repentance. The goodness of God in that he, you know that he shows mercy, mercy I love the definition of mercy, that mercy is the goodness of God to those in misery and distress. We see that. We see the grace of the Lord. We see the Lord wipe Isaac's slate clean when he makes horrible mistakes, and we see Isaac fall into a pattern that many of us have fallen into in our lives, which is he practices the sins of his father. So what I want to do is walk through a story about Isaac. It's a section of Isaac's life and I want to look at the mistakes he made.
Speaker 1:And here's the goal of today. It's not just to give you some Bible history or Bible lesson. I want to give you strength for your journey. I want to give you help for the day and for the week. I'm praying that the truth that we drill into from Scripture today would give you healing for your soul and your mind. I want to see in Isaac and in Rebecca. I want to see mistakes that are made that could have been catastrophic Literally could have been catastrophic, could have been life altering history, altering deadly Could have been. There's nothing I can imagine more horrible than for someone to do harm to my wife or my daughters or my sons. We're on the verge of that happening. In this story, isaac makes horrible judgment calls and we see God's grace man I don't know if you're listening to this.
Speaker 1:I don't know what your story might be. You had an abortion, you cheated on your husband, you looked at porn this morning or last night or yesterday and all that's associated with that the feelings, the urges, the release of those urges and you know what I'm talking about the things that leave you with shame and guilt, feeling empty. Maybe it's as simple as you went back to an alcoholic. You know struggle or problem that you've had victory over, or you know you can't handle something and you gave into it, whatever it is. Maybe it was an attitude. Maybe it's as simple as you had a bad attitude and you feel guilty because you spoke ugly to your wife or your husband or your children or your mom or your dad or whatever. But I know a lot of people live with overwhelming guilt and grief over the sins of your youth.
Speaker 1:Again, that abortion, that sexual promiscuity, that season of deviance, that same sex experimentation. Maybe it's. Maybe. Maybe you deal with the shame and guilt associated with things done to you. You were sexually abused, someone violated you and touched you in places that, as a small, innocent child, you should not have had to endure. Maybe someone raped you, maybe someone abandoned you. So maybe it's not about what you've done. Maybe it's about what's been done to you. Maybe it's, maybe it's a combination. You were sexually assaulted or you were abandoned, or you were hurt and, as a recourse or as a self-medicating course of action, you turned to sexual promiscuity or same sex relationships, or pills or drugs or alcohol.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're a mom or a let's go a different direction. Maybe you're a dad who ruined a marriage and destroyed your you know your family's cohesion. Maybe you're older now and you look back and you think of the ruin that you caused. Or you live with regret. I certainly do, man. I live with regret over my, the sins of my youth. I live with regret over failures as a parent, as a dad to my oldest couple of kids that are out of the house and gone. Man, I have I have a few days where I look back and go yep, got it right, did it right. I, I'll be honest. I'm speaking this. You know this spring. Here's a actually, here's a plug. Love to see you.
Speaker 1:I'm speaking at Vertical Church in Greensboro. It's not called Vertical Church anymore, but we'll be promoting that soon. Give you some more information. But it's a parenting conference, a Friday and Saturday parenting. I'm going to go in and speak on parenting. You want to get your family attacked by the enemy. Go do that. You know, and, and all you know, when I'm preparing to do that, I think I failed in so many ways. Who am I to tell people how to raise their kids? You know.
Speaker 1:But, man, we live in this place of tension between you know, theologians refer to the already not yet components of of the Christian faith. There's already so much we've been given Grace, forgiveness, the blood of Jesus that cleanses us from unrighteousness, but there's so much that's not yet. This morning, my precious, wonderful 11 year old little boy who I know is not a little boy, he's growing into a young man Me and Moses talked this morning about the grace of God in in in judging sinners. We're sitting there, we're having a conversation, it's early morning, red devotion to a 14 year old daughter who's sitting at the table eating breakfast and she eats by herself. She gets up and cooks a big breakfast every morning and I'll be on the couch reading and nobody's really stirring yet and that's kind of our time. I read a devotion to her and we kind of share and pray and this morning my 11 year old was in there.
Speaker 1:He's the youngest of our six kids and he was in there and he was listening eagerly and I read from Psalm two that says why do the nations rage? Why do kings plot in vain? Ultimately, the Lord Jesus is going to rule and reign and judge. And we start talking about the judgment of Jesus and I got to teach that beautiful, wonderful truth that there's no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus. He's removed, that the condemnation has been removed, the law of sin and death and the guilt associated with has been removed and laid on Christ and he's given us freedom from our own sin.
Speaker 1:Forgiveness. Dear, dear listener, brother or sister, if you're listening to this today and you wrestle with the guilt and the shame associated with your past sin or failure, know this the grace of God is extended to you, the flood of mercy and grace of God has been poured out on you and you just receive that and embrace that, accept that and know that there's forgiveness and that God can work. Beyond that there may be. You know, one of the hard principles as a Christian to learn and remember is there may be consequences that linger. I just read through the life of David in my daily Bible reading. I'm I'm into the book of first Kings. Now I'm into Solomon's reign, read through, so just come last week, through the life of David. Read first and second Samuel last week.
Speaker 1:And David made so many mistakes and the result was so consequential for the rest of his life. He spent several decades dealing with the tension between the grace of God and accepting that grace and forgiveness, but then also dealing with the consequences of his sin. God forgave him, but that didn't mean the consequences were removed. You know, it didn't mean that he was just free and clear in the sense that he didn't deal with shame or guilt or the stress or the strain or the tension of wayward children, his family's dysfunctional One child rapes, another one, son murders and several others. I mean, like it's crazy, it's a crazy story. It's a crazy story, crazy.
Speaker 1:And so I don't want to paint a picture of prosperity, gospel kind of thing that says, well, if you're a Christian, then everything's just going to be fine and dandy and there ain't going to be no. If you're a believer, a Christ follower, the flood of God's grace, the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus flowing from Calvary's cross, cleanses you from unrighteousness, washes you clean, and then God puts His Spirit in you to give you the strength and the grace and the stamina to endure what might be the consequences of your sin, even though you're forgiven. An example. The simplest example might be and let me say before I give this example, the word consequence is we think of that in a negative term and it's not. It's a factual word.
Speaker 1:The consequence of something is the resulting effect of something else. So you know, the consequence of a poor diet is that you might have a you know, a high dental bill because your teeth get rotten or poor health. So we have that negative connotation. The consequence of bad behavior might be that you get punished, but also, consequently, we can apply it in a more sterile way. You know what I mean. So the consequence of your action is the resulting effect of something you do.
Speaker 1:So with that definition, a woman gets pregnant out of wedlock. There's consequential child rearing that's a result of that wedlock. So there's a tension to raise in that child as a single mom Give it that way. So it's not a consequence in that it's punishment. That child is not punishment, that child is a gift and a blessing and a grace of the Lord. But the difficulty of raising a child as a single mom in those circumstances can be very difficult. So sometimes there's tension between the grace of God and consequence.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm saying. We see it in David's life, you see it in your life. But the grace of God is real and condemnation is removed. We can live with any consequential thing. We can live with any lingering, residual effect of our sin, knowing that we are forgiven and the grace of God has been extended to us. So the story of Isaac gives us these principles and I'm going to it's. I want to look at this in Genesis, chapter 26,. It's 34 chapters and I'm going to just buzz through this and give you some principles. I'm going to read a good bit. Today's episode, by the way, is going to be a little bit longer, not a lot, just a few minutes longer than than what we normally shoot for.
Speaker 1:A severe famine now struck the land, as it happened before Abraham's time. So Isaac moved to Gerar where Abimelech, king of the Philistines, lived. The Lord appeared to Isaac and said Do not go down to Egypt, but do, as I tell you, live here as a foreigner in this land, and I will be with you and bless you. I hereby confirm that I will give all these lands to you and your descendants, just as I solemnly promised Abraham and your Abraham, your father, I will cause your descendants to become as numerous as the stars of the sky and I will give them all these lands. And through your descendants, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. I will do this because Abraham listened to me and obeyed all my requirements, commands, decrees and instructions. So Isaac stayed in Gerar.
Speaker 1:When the man who lived there asked Isaac about his wife, rebecca, he said she's my sister. He was afraid to say she's my wife. He thought they'll kill me to get her because she's so beautiful. But sometime later, abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out his window and saw Isaac caressing Rebecca. Immediately, abimelech called for Isaac and exclaimed she's obviously your wife. Why did you say she's my sister? Because I was afraid someone would kill me to get her from me. Isaac replied how could you do this to us? Abimelech exclaimed One of my people might easily have taken your wife and slept with her, and you would have made us guilty of great sin. Then Abimelech issued a public proclamation Anyone who touches this man or his wife will be put to death. When Isaac, let's stop right there. That's the point I was making about. What are you doing? You know like what is this guy? Imagine the tension in their marriage. I mean, I don't know if there's such a cultural difference that she was just like yeah, whatever. I just don't believe that we have some thoughts on these.
Speaker 1:These first, the first section, the first third of the chapter. First 11 verses, points and observations there's a famine in the land Isaac and Rebecca are living in. This land it's not yet the promise land of God to Abraham. There's still sort of a transient, transitional period in the patriarch's lives, isaac being the now living patriarch. His father has died. In the previous chapter, abraham's dead and gone and so there's famine. So it's a lot. There's a water crisis for the herdsmen. This is this is way more drastic than toilet paper shortages. During COVID, everyone bought up all the ramen noodles. This is not like that. This is literally. There is no water, there's no food. It's a, it's a it's. There's a struggle for survival and I think in verse two it is.
Speaker 1:There's a cool principle the Lord appeared to Isaac and gave him instruction. So when, like when we encounter difficulty, you know you face stress in your life. Just if the most important thing we can do is seek the Lord, the Lord will answer and give us instruction and but it's not always black and white there may be tension and I think the word sojourn is helpful because the word, the word that that God gives to Isaac in verse chapter 3 in the ESV, says Sojourn there, sojourn here, in this place. So there's this famine and the Lord says, okay, don't go to Egypt, live here, but don't find your security here.
Speaker 1:I read this passage to y'all from the NLT, the New Living Translation, which words it this way in verse 3, live here as a foreigner in this land, and I'll be with you and bless you. You'll see his principle a lot in scripture. It's like Jeremiah says, hey, you're gonna be exiles and foreigners, daniel and the boys exiles and foreigners here. Isaac, exile and foreigner. And Peter says, hey, we're like exiles and foreigners. In other words, sojourn here. God's telling Isaac dwell here, but recognize this is not the home or the land of your security. It's a big biblical principle. There's something greater that awaits, but I'll be with you and abide with you here.
Speaker 1:And then, in verses 3 through 5 that we just read, the Lord. He reaffirms he's given, he had given this promise to Abraham. And now he reaffirms it with Isaac he's given him a reaffirmation of the promise he'd made to his daddy. I'm sure this is very encouraging, but I guarantee you this was stretching Isaac. It was a difficult situation and I know there's. You know people get very uncomfortable with change, the winds of change, the winds of tribulation. They create doubt, instability. So we have to rest in the promises of God, like.
Speaker 1:The scripture is clear. The Lord is for us In this text. The Lord is for Isaac because it fits into God's promise, his covenant, and Abraham had been faithful. In verse five he's like hey, your dad was faithful, you've been faithful. And verse six Isaac is obedient and Abraham in all of his failure, isaac in all of his failure.
Speaker 1:They had a trajectory in their lives of obedience. And there's two thoughts I wanna give you here. One you're gonna make mistakes, but if you imagine the trajectory of a 70, 80, 90 year life, or my friend and brother, Duncan Edge, who's a pastor, who's not able to be with us this past weekend at Be Strong because he's burying a man in his church who was diagnosed and dead in three weeks of pancreatic cancer at age 58, which for some of our listeners, 58, seems ancient, but for me it's not ancient Like no, I want more. I wanna see my grandkids grow to adulthood, you know. But for some of us we're done at 58, or done Cameron Ogilvy at 22. Whatever your trajectory, when your life ends, you want that trajectory to have been one, in the highs and lows, in the strengths and weaknesses, in the successes and failures, the overarching trajectory to have been one of faith and obedience. And when we do that, what we're getting?
Speaker 1:In verses five and six, abraham and Isaac both experienced what theologians call the Deuteronomic principle. It's this principle from Deuteronomy that shows that when we're faithful, when we obey the Lord, that God brings blessing, he gives blessing. So so, first, early observations in the text Isaac's on the right trajectory. He's the Lord speaking to him, he's seeking the Lord. It's difficult times, it's stressful times. Anybody feel the stress in our times right now, man, we live in crazy times. It's scary to raise a kid right now. It's scary to think about retirement right now. What are you gonna do with your financial situation? Economy shake you this, and that you can't find a house. And if you do find one, interest rates are insane. And here's the thing Recognize this place is not your home. Dwell here with a mindset of being a lot, being a blessing having the presence of the Lord in your life, but knowing this is not your ultimate home.
Speaker 1:But then get those five verses where Isaac does this thing, where this is the failure that I wanna point out. He succumbs to the pressure of the world around him and makes a horribly compromising decision, puts his wife in the worst possible circumstance where she could have been raped, she could have been grafted into this pagan king's harem he exposed her to. I mean, imagine I don't wanna get graphic, too graphic, but I do wanna get graphic enough for us to think about this Imagine had his wife been taken in to the sexual expression of some Philistine general, or even that king of Bemalek, and the stench and the foul odor of these barbaric people, these pagan demonic worshipers taking your wife sexually Like what. I wanna feel the weight of what he's exposing her to here. This is a major failure as a husband and a father. He let her down In a moment where he lost faith in the Lord and his provision. It made a terrible mistake. But I wanna move quickly to verses 12 and 13, because here's where we see so much about the kindness and grace of the Lord, because the king ends up saying God doesn't let it happen. That's the reason why he's so much more than God doesn't let it happen. The king realizes what's going on. He sees Isaac and Rebecca and he's like clearly you two are not brother and sister, and so he sends them on their way.
Speaker 1:When Isaac planted his crops that year, he basically puts a protective order over them. Nobody touches this man's wife. So the king, this pagan king, ends up being the source of God's protection. That's another principle. You never know what God's gonna use in your life. But here Isaac and his failure. The Lord uses a pagan demonic worshipper of a king to protect Isaac's wife and marriage. So Isaac fails. God uses this king. Verse 12,.
Speaker 1:When Isaac planted his crops that year, he harvested 100 times more than he planted, for the Lord blessed him. He became a very rich man and his wealth continued to grow. He acquired so many flocks of sheep and goats, herds of cattle, servants, that the Philistines became jealous of him. So the Philistines filled up all Isaac's wells with dirt. These were the wells that had been dug by the servants of his father, abraham. Finally, a bimalek ordered Isaac to have the country. I'm sorry to leave the country. Go somewhere else. He said You've become too powerful for us.
Speaker 1:So Isaac moved away to the Gerar Valley where he set up their tents and settled down. He reopened the wells, as his father dug, which the Philistines had filled in after Abraham's death. Isaac also restored the names Abraham had given them. Isaac's servants also dug in the Gerar Valley and discovered a well of fresh water. But then the shepherds from Gerar came and claimed the spring. This is our water, they said, and they argued over it with Isaac's herdsmen. So Isaac named the well Ezek, which means argument. Isaac's men then dug another well, but again there was a dispute over it. So Isaac named it Sitna, which means hostility, abandoning that. When Isaac moved on and dug another well, this time there was no dispute over it. So Isaac named the place Rehoboth, which means open space, for he said at last the Lord has created enough space for us to prosper in this land.
Speaker 1:A point here that I think is important. You got three times here now that Isaac has tried to get wells going and they covered his water source with dirt. Remember, there's a famine in the land. So God's blessing him amidst the famine and he's facing conflict and he doesn't give up. There's three little principles here. If the Lord is with you. It doesn't matter who's against you. But know this there will be those against you and they will be relentless and they will not give up.
Speaker 1:Satan hates you. The world is coming against you. The world wants to take your sons and daughters and de-gender them and emasculate your boys and emasculate your women, your daughters. They want to promote everything from the twisted contradiction of feminism to transgenderism. The world hates your sons and daughters, the government that would fight to keep you from so discouraging and disheartening. This past week I remembered that we don't trust in horses and chariots. The Supreme Court refused to take up a case, I believe in Indiana some of y'all know what I'm talking about where parents had their child taken from them because they refused to affirm their 13 year old child's choice of gender. The kid wanted to transition. Parents wouldn't affirm it, so the child was taken by the state. Y'all, we are living in Babylon and I'm telling you the Lord is gonna be with you.
Speaker 1:Isaac keeps fighting, he keeps working, moves on, digs another well, moves on, digs another well. The Lord is with him. God keeps blessing him. So the principle is if the Lord is for you, it doesn't matter who's against you. Second principle but there will be people against you. There will be forces against you. We wrestle, not against flesh and blood. The enemy's coming after you. And number three If the Lord is for you, it doesn't matter who's against you, but there will be opposition. Number three is don't give up, keep fighting, keep grinding, just keep working. Keep living the life that God's called you to live, knowing there's going to be hostility.
Speaker 1:From there, isaac moved to Beersheba, where the Lord Yahweh appeared to him on the night of his arrival. I'm the God of your Father, abram. So here's a theophany. God appears and speaks to Isaac Do not be afraid from with you, we'll bless you. I multiply your descendants and they will become a great nation. I'll do this because of my promise to Abraham, my servant. Then Isaac built an altar there and worshiped the Lord. He set up his camp at that place and his servants dug another. Well, so yeah, just keep working, keep grinding. Couple things.
Speaker 1:Grace and kindness of the Lord is greater than Isaac's ability to make mistakes and mess things up. Keep compromises his marriage, compromises his wife. God preserves, protects him, and then the Lord is faithful to his covenant and blesses Isaac. This is not a principle where we go see God's going to give us money and land and prosperity. No, this was the specific covenant God had made to Abraham that he's not necessarily made to you and I. One piece of this covenant was that he was going to bless his descendants, give him land and create a nation out of him. So that's what's going on here. What we've received under the new covenant the covenant of grace that's ratified in the blood of Jesus is we've been given a new promised land, a kingdom that we will one day inherit. So, anyway, it's such an important principle to see the Lord's faithfulness to Isaac, because it's easy.
Speaker 1:Isaac could have lived with shame, self-imposed guilt, lack of confidence, but the Lord is greater than our ability to mess things up. I think it's important to have a clear understanding of how God's grace works. And then, yeah, we've got all this conflict and the Lord just reiterates the covenant that he's made, and I love that last verse. Then Isaac built an altar there and worshipped the Lord. He set up his camp at that place and his servants dug another well, he stopped. He blessed the Lord, he worshipped, gave thanks and dug another well, just kept doing what God called him to do.
Speaker 1:If we live as Christians among our unbelieving neighbors and family and coworkers and friends and in time the Lord's going to give us opportunities for ministry and it might be just over the period of doing life alongside of people. They see how we live our lives in good times and in bad. Sometimes it takes a longer time where somebody knows maybe you've shared your faith, you've had some conversations, but it takes a long time where people get to see the rhythm and pattern of life, where finally they see a consistent pattern of joy and faithfulness in your life. And so at the end of that, abimelech recognizes the hand of the Lord and he actually he ends up blessing Isaac. He says in verse 26, one day King Abimelech came from Gerar with his advisor Huzah and also, if I call his army commander, why have you come here?
Speaker 1:Isaac asked you obviously hate me. You kicked me off your land. They replied we can see that the Lord is with you. We want to enter into a sworn treaty with you. Let's make a covenant, swear that you won't harm us, just as we have never troubled you, we've always treated you well. We sent you away from us in peace. So he's saying look, I know we sent you away, but it was for self-preservation. We didn't attack you or hurt you. So please make a covenant with us. We can see your life is different. There's something different guiding your life. This is so important, guys, listen, remember. This is the King who Isaac exposed his wife to. And this King sees the grace of God. You think in one sense you think this guy would have to say man, this guy, isaac's an idiot. He gave me his wife. But that's not what happens. In the long run, over a consistent pattern of obedience in response to God's grace, this King actually sees that it was the hand of God, yahweh the Lord, who preserved Isaac. And so what happens is Isaac's life, even in his mistakes and failures, becomes a testimony and a witness to the goodness of the Lord. Sometimes you've got to go through some junk and feel like you're alone or feel like you've failed miserably before the Lord really displays himself in a way that others see it.
Speaker 1:Isaac prepared a covenant feast to celebrate the treaty. They ate and drank together. Early the next morning they each took a solemn oath not interfere with each other. Then Isaac sent them home again. They left him in peace. That very day, isaac's servants came and told him about a new well they had dug, they found water. They exclaimed. So Isaac named the well Shiba, which means oath, and to this day the town that grew up there is called Beer Shiba, which means well of the oath at the age of 40. Esau gets into Esau. That's a different story. So let's consider to wrap this up. We're 40 minutes into this thing. Let's wrap this up. I want to give you several of Isaac's actions and interactions that we can learn from.
Speaker 1:Number one we learn what consistency and obedience looks like. Isaac made mistakes, but the overall trajectory was one of faithfulness to the Lord. No, you're not going to get it perfect every day. You're not going to be. You're not going to get life right every day. Your marriage is going to have some bumps and you're going to have some arguments and you're going to say things you wish you hadn't said. Don't do that. But when you do that, repent, seek the Lord, ask forgiveness. You're going to make mistakes, but the overarching consistency in our lives needs to be one of obedience, not a consistent pattern of I screw up, I ask forgiveness.
Speaker 1:It's like the abusing. Abusing, you know abusers, men who are physically abusive to their wives and children. There's a pattern that's pretty consistent where they'll abuse and then they'll say they're sorry. Then they'll abuse, then they'll say they're sorry, then they'll abuse and they'll say they're sorry. I'm not talking about that. I'm not saying consistently apologize. I'm saying consistent trajectory of our obedience is what Paul describes to the Corinthians. He says we are being transformed by one degree of glory at a time, more and more into Christ likeness. So the point is become more like Jesus and grow so that your inconsistencies begin to diminish so that your consistent pattern of following Jesus might look different as a 40 year old than it looked as a 30 year old. You grow each season of life. Consistency and obedience we learn that from Isaac.
Speaker 1:Number two the consistent life and pattern of worshiping Yahweh. So the thing that anchors that consistency is worship the Lord. Have a pattern of worshiping the Lord. This means be faithful to your church week to week, be faithful in prayer, in the reading of God's Word day to day. Number three when we make a mistake, we need to respond by admitting our wrongs, taking responsibility, follow the Lord in confession and obedience, then get back to work. That's what repentance looks like. We receive God's grace and we embrace it, we accept it, we repent and then we get back to work. Number four the grace and kindness of the Lord is greater than Isaac's ability or your ability or my ability to make mistakes and mess things up. This is wonderful. Can you screw some stuff up in your life? Yes. Can you make some horrible mistakes with terrible repercussions? Yes. Can you do things that bring about consequences that you live with for life? Yes, but just like a child that you love and find so much blessing and raisin is a consequential child in terms of an unwed pregnancy. You choose life for that child. The grace and kindness of the Lord might be magnified through that child's life and the way that you learn what it is to be a father or a mother. The grace and kindness of the Lord is greater than our mistakes and mess ups.
Speaker 1:Number five when we experience blessing, we need to be careful, because that's when we tend to get comfortable, get sloppy. Isaac was doing real good, his first five or six verses. First six verses like yeah, there's a famine. Isaac seeks the Lord, god speaks to him and God starts blessing him. And all of a sudden, the thing where he pulls the sister wife moves. You know, it's like I don't know what happened there, but there is a principle in scripture that it's wonderful to receive and experience seasons of blessing and growth, but just a lot of times right on the heels of that is when we need to be most guarded. For you men and brothers that are listening, that were at be strong this past weekend, you might have had an incredible weekend of growth, you need to watch out. The enemy's going to come after you this week. Number six there's just three more of these.
Speaker 1:Number six with quiet determination, isaac went about his business of obtaining water for his flocks and his crops and God blesses him for it. The Lord will bless us for living lives of hard work and stewardship and obedience to our callings. Read that again. With quiet determination, isaac went about his business of obtaining water for his flocks and his crops and God blessed him for it. He blessed I mean a lot of people receive blessing Isaac, his whole household, his wife. The Lord will bless us for living lives of hard work and stewardship and obedience to our calling. So just live your life. God's giving you a career or an educational direction, if you're a college student or you're an athlete or student athlete. Just live your life with quiet determination. Isaac just kept digging wells. They filled one in. He's like, nope, you're not going to frustrate me. He moved on and dug another one. You know it's like. Just be consistent and live a life of determination and hard work.
Speaker 1:Number seven the way we live and work with the unbelieving world has the potential to point people to God. The way we live and work with the unbelieving world has the potential to point people to God. This guy, ben Melek, shows up with his the commander of his army. You know he's got his main leaders and they show up and he's like man, clearly God is with you. We want to, we want to be friends. They don't. I think it's like he doesn't know what to say. So he's like let's enter a covenant Maybe, maybe I'm misassessing him there, but it's like he doesn't come, he doesn't show up and say we want to, we want to convert to your faith. He's like what do we got to do to be friends?
Speaker 1:I think this is where you know, for business owners and business dealers, biblical stewardship is going to be the is going to be what brings blessing to your business, but it also is what brings the light of the gospel to those you do business with. You know you could be a Christian businessman who is so cutthroat in your principles that you run over people. You might grow a business just on shrewd business principle. But if you, rather than be a shrewd businessman or woman, practice stewardship in business, then your business will grow, but so will your testimony and your opportunity for ministry. You live graciously, be willing sometimes to walk away from a fight that Jesus doesn't want you to engage in. And number eight, the last one we need to remember the covenant of God. Covenant of God to us this is what holds everything together. Remember what Jesus has done. Remember the gospel is going to literally carry you through life. It's going to the grace you need for sustaining day to day. Life comes by remembering the gospel. We need to remember the covenant love of God that's extended to us.
Speaker 1:Isaac made horrible mistakes but in the end it's the blessing of God on his life that identifies him. And it wasn't like he was just a dumb, dumb, dumb walking along, just receiving the blessing of God. He was fighting and working and we see him fail. We see him get up. We see him make mistakes. We see him repent when he went that moment in verses 25 and 26 where he worships the Lord. Within that, what you've got is repentance and worship, and what he's doing there is he's turning to the Lord and response to the Lord's goodness. Need you to do that today?
Speaker 1:Proverbs 16, 7 is the verse that I think of with Isaac's enemies Abimelech and Falkal. When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. It's a cool verse from today's Behind the Flannel Graph. And then another one 1 Peter, 2, 12,. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of his visitation. We can be a light in a dark world. We can be a Christian witness among unbelievers, and we can do it in a way where we don't have to just be obnoxious and offensive. We just be faithful to the Lord and trust him with the way that he might use that to minister to others. Hope. This is an encouragement to you. I know I always say that, but that's our hope and prayer here at NSR.
Speaker 1:In closing, I want to make an announcement. It's the time, and this is crazy, because last week's episode I bragged on Maddie, but Maddie, christmas, is going to be leaving NSR and we're excited for this new chapter for Maddie and her husband Colt. I don't know how much I can say yet, but the Lord has opened up a door of opportunity for them. This has been in the works for several, a couple months now and we've known it was coming. We've met with Colt and Maddie and had a good long sit down with Colt when he first shared with me the opportunity the Lord's given them. But they're moving on to a ministry opportunity where they're going to be able to grow and develop his leaders and it's going to be a pastoral role. So I'm excited for them. So be praying, as we're in a transition time here at NSR.
Speaker 1:Editing this content is not easy and I'm not an easy guy to work with because of the way my schedule runs. It's not like every week. You know a lot of people. I have a pastor friend named Austin and he's got three weeks of sermon I mean three years of sermons mapped out and he's got study questions already laid out for the sermons he's going to preach six months from now. That's the way most, I think that's the way most guys run and operate. You guys know that one of my life principles is to live and operate in a mild state of panic. I feel like I run and gun, I work hard and plan best I can, but a lot of times, man, these things are coming together in a minute or hour for the next week's episode. Sometimes I've got five or six weeks already laid out and recorded, but sometimes I feel like it's more effective if it's in real time, because there's a real time component to how we do these episodes and Matt is so great to just adjust and adapt and work with that. So I'm really thankful for that. So be praying for her and Colt and then be praying for NSR as we pray about who will step into that role, because it's pretty big role. We know the Lord has it, has it planned and mapped out and we're excited for that.
Speaker 1:I did want to make you aware of I mentioned this earlier and I'll talk more about it in the next few weeks but on April, the weekend of April the 26th that's the 26th, 27th and 28th the 26th and 27th I will be speaking at a parenting conference in the Greensboro area. That's all I got right now, but we will put out more detailed information, but for now just know, the weekend of April 26th and 27th, we'd love to see you at that conference. It's going to be awesome. I'll be staying over and preaching on Sunday morning, the 28th, at the church, the church that's hosting that conference. If you're in the Greensboro, winston Salem, kernersville, high Point, thomasville, maybe even as far out as Burlington, north Carolina area, we'd love to see you at that conference and I know that the conference hosts would love to have you come and be with us. We'll be talking about parenting and just marriage, family, emphasis on parenting. Looking forward to that, I just want to make you aware of that. We'll give you more details in the week's head. I hope this week is awesome for you.
Speaker 1:You keep your eyes on Jesus. You keep your hand on the plow. You wake up tomorrow morning and you open God's Word and expect God to speak to you from it. You pray for your sons and daughters. You pray for your husbands and wives and pray for your future spouse if you're not married yet. You pray for the church of Jesus Christ, pray for our leaders, pray that God will bring revival in the hearts and souls of His people and that we would impact the world around us. That would be a lot like Isaac was, and that we would experience the grace of God over our failures and mistakes and give it to the Lord this week and live in victory. We'll see you here next Monday, lord willing. Appreciate you.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at SWOutfitterscom to see all of our programming and resources, and we'll see you next week on no Sanity Required.
