Genesis 26 - Is God Faithful Even When I'm Not?

What do people do when the economy around them dries up?  Many of them move in order to look for work much like the people in our passage today.  We’re in Genesis 26, probably not one of the stories you remember reading but a good reminder of how God works in all kinds of situations to accomplish His purposes.  There’s a new famine that hits the land so Isaac & Rebekah go to the King of the Philistines, Abimelek, and settle there. We get the “she’s not my wife, she’s my sister” routine from Isaac, something he learned from his dad? But their ruse is discovered. God blesses him regardless.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:21

What do people do when the economy around them dries up? Well, a lot of them move and go looking for a place that will give them work. A lot like the people in our passage today. We're in Genesis 26. It's one of the stories you probably don't remember, but it's still a great example of how God can work in any situation to accomplish his purposes. There's a new famine in the land, and so Isaac and Rebecca head off and settle near Abimelech, who is king of the Philistines. We get the she's not my wife, she's my sister routine from Isaac, probably something he learned from his dad. Hmm, maybe. But God blesses him and them nonetheless. Welcome to Meet Me in the Word. I am genuinely glad that you've joined me today. Go ahead and open up your copy of the Word to Genesis chapter 26. We're going to read a couple of significant chunks of it, but not all of it. So if you'd like to read it in advance, you can do that, or you can just follow along with me as we work our way through it. Before we do anything else, let's pray. Jesus, thank you for this good day. God thank you that we get to to learn uh more about who you are. But but more than that, we get to to know you and and to not just know about you. God, we're here to meet with you. Would you meet with us? Amen. All right. So I kind of gave you a super quick, you know, synopsis of the first about 11 verses of Genesis 26. Uh yeah, there's just kind of some similarities going on here between all these people. Apparently, uh both both Abraham and Isaac married beautiful women, and uh and they perceived that to be a problem. Um yeah, I'm sure that there are some cultural things going on there that don't fully make sense to us. Let's pick it up in verse 12, and then we'll read a portion, and then we'll read a second portion after that. Isaac planted crops in that land, and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the Lord blessed him. The man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy. He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him. So all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth. Then Abimelech said to Isaac, Move away from us, you have become too powerful for us. And he did. He moves away, and then we have stories basically of like fighting over water rights. We'll pick it up in verse twenty four. He's arrived in Beersheba. It says, That night the Lord appeared to him and said, I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you, and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham. Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord. There he pitched his tent, and there his servants dug a well. Meanwhile, Abimelech had come to him from Garar, with Ahusath, his personal advisor, and Fikal, the commander of his forces. Isaac asked them, Why have you come to me since you were hostile to me and sent me away? They answered, We saw clearly that the Lord was with you, so we said, There ought to be a sworn agreement between us, between us and you. Let us make a treaty with you, that you will do us no harm, just as we did no harm, or we did not harm you, but always treated you well, and sent you away peacefully, and now you are blessed by the Lord. The story goes on from there, and they do. They make a treaty, and uh and things seem to go pretty well. Let's go ahead and pause for a moment and just listen to whatever the Lord might be speaking into our hearts. Once again, if you prefer to just give yourself more space, go ahead and pause the podcast, but then we'll jump back in together. All right. So things are going well at this point for Isaac and Rebecca, um, aside from this little tidbit at the very end of the chapter, uh, where it just it takes a it's just like a it's not quite a side note because it's actually important in the rest of the story, but as it pertains to what we just read, it's a little bit like, oh, this is interesting. Um it just talks about Esau. And uh Esau uh took for himself two Hittite wives, and uh and it just has this line in there that says, They were a source of grief for Isaac and Rebekah. So, you know, family is family, people be people, and uh things things never seem to be very smooth in the world of the patriarchs. Who are the patriarchs? Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are the people that uh that the Jew, well the Jews consider them patriarchs, and we would acknowledge them in that kind of a way as well as Jesus followers. They're patriarchs of the Jewish faith, and um yeah, and so we look to them uh and and find out stuff about who God is and a lot of times what we're not supposed to do. That seems to be a pretty common experience. That's not to say they got nothing wrong, uh, because they certainly got certain things right for sure, but yeah, pretty interesting lives as we go through. So let's take a few moments here to to just kind of acknowledge the story that just uh happened and uh was taking some time to soak that in a little bit. So uh the first thing that that I wanted to bring to our attention is that God blesses Isaac on account of Abraham. And why did God bless Abraham again? Oh, that's right, because God called him, number one, and just told him, This is what's gonna happen to you. But then on Abraham's side of things, he did believe God. Um, and and the Lord recognized that, and as a result, things continue to develop. Abraham experienced uh God's blessing upon his life. He did very well. Uh his his family and his clan grew, and uh, and then of course Isaac was the uh was the son of the blessing, and and he's a this is all taking place. So Isaac is blessed on account of Abraham, but I would say also just that the Lord is continuing his plan in his way through Isaac, and and so we just want to remember that this is this is a story that has a bunch of people in it, but it's ultimately about God, if that makes sense. Uh the second part here is still talking about the blessing. Uh God's blessing on Isaac's life overwhelms the Philistines, which is a pretty amazing comment. Uh, he he gets blessed to the point that uh that Abimelech actually says, you know what, like you guys need you're too much. You've grown too strong, you've grown too big, you've grown too powerful. Move move away from us. And there is that little seed that's planted in there in verse 15 that you know he had so many flocks and herds, that's actually verse 14, that the Philistines envied him, right? So that's going on. And and then they went ahead and they they plugged all the wells, right? They they put a bunch of dirt in there to uh to stop access to access to water, uh, which kind of leads us into that third bit here. A bunch of this chapter is really about water rights. You know, we have civil disputes all the time uh in where where we live. We're not involved in any, by the way, uh personally, but that happens. It's just it's something that happens. People talk about, you know, like property lines, people talk about access to water. Uh, where we live, a lot of people have their own wells. And sometimes there's a shell, a shared well situation that can get pretty interesting. So just all kinds of things can be in play uh over things like this. And yeah, as God blessed Isaac, that became an issue. How do we share the land well? Uh how does all of this stuff work? So there's dips there are disputes over water access, they find some, uh, the other people say, no, this is ours, you can't have it. I mean, it's a lot of back and forth that's going uh over there. But then I wanted to also recognize that that kind of it's I guess it's sort of still in the midst of that, but there's a there's a point where Isaac kind of recognizes the goodness of God, and and he takes a moment to worship him and I think to seek his face. And we find that there uh in in verses 24 and 25. You know, the Lord comes and he says, I'm I'm I'm blessing you, don't be afraid, it's gonna be okay. I'll I'll continue to I'll continue to increase the number of your descendants, all that's there. And then it says in verse 25, Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord. He pitched his tent, and there his servants dug a well. Yeah, another well. Uh that was that was an issue for them. But just this moment, uh, and probably a significant moment, like it wasn't super short, like he takes time to build that altar and uh and to worship God. And you know, sometimes we we want the big moments, and that's understandable, right? We want the big moments, the the miracles, or at least the things where we're like, man, that was absolutely incredible, uh, how this all happened, and and then we're drawn into worship. And that's not to say that what had happened in Isaac and Rebecca's life wasn't significant, but it wasn't necessarily this finger snap thing that took place. It was over the course of time, and it's in the context of a fair bit of like civil strife, so to speak. But he recognizes that God's hand is upon him, and so he uh has this moment here where he pauses uh to worship. And then finally we see that the the treaty is struck. There's a recognition here from the Philistines uh to what God is doing through uh through Isaac and in Isaac's context, and they're like, hey, we recognize that that there is strength here, and we want to treat you well. By the way, part of the story that I didn't talk about was was when uh Isaac and Rebecca's ruse about the whole, well, she's not my wife, she's my sister bit, like they're at the beginning, we didn't read that all through together. Um they they respond, Abimelech responds in the same way that uh the Egyptians had responded, you know, way back when, which was to say, no, no, no, no, like why would you deceive us like this? We didn't want to bring condemnation on ourselves. So they really went out of their way to make sure that they were safe from that point on. So there was kindness that they had extended to them uh as a result. And it's kind of part of of how that story, how that story goes. So I wanted to leave us all with something to just kind of take with us. This is one of those narratives, one of those um accounts where I don't know that there are like a whole bunch of like I don't know that there are five things like, hey, if you do these five things and then you know your spiritual life will be phenomenal. Like it's I don't think it's that kind of a moment. But but I really appreciate the way that um that God continues to to do what he's doing, and and in this case, he's he's blessing Isaac. Now, our stories are not Isaac's story, like we all understand that and get that but we have been blessed, all of us, to different degrees, absolutely, in different ways, totally, but we all have experienced the goodness of God in our lives in some way. And so here's the thing I'd like you to do. Take time to remember God's blessings. You know, sometimes people say, you know, count your blessings, and and then that'll you know, it's a way of maybe viewing your world in a more positive light. But but this isn't just about positivity. This is just about acknowledging God's goodness. So take a moment. Grab a you know, a little notebook or a piece of paper or something, or or your phone. You you've got a phone, you're probably listening to this on your phone. Make a little list, just even of the things that God has blessed you with, maybe over the course of this, you know, the the year up till now, or you you can take it deeper if you'd like. So take time to remember them and then give thanks. Just give thanks to the Lord. He is good and he is worthy of our thanksgiving. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for today. Thank you for your kindness to us. Thank you, God, that you really do use all kinds of situations to accomplish your purposes. God thanks. Thanks for the good stuff you send our way. Those uh those little notes that remind us that you really do care, that you really do love us. Amen.