Detours & Delays | Kyle Idleman

Well, good morning, Pando family. We're grateful that you are here worshiping with us this morning. My name is Skylar Davis. I get to serve as the campus pastor here at our South Louisville location off of Southern Parkway. We're grateful that you're here. We would love to hear from you. We would love to hear your story and how God is working in your life. The way you can do that is you can write in to the address that's in the description of this video. We would love to hear from you. We'd love to hear how God's moving in your life. We'd love to hear your story. So write in, we would love to receive those letters. We'd also love for you to subscribe to this channel so that you can stay connected and get alerts when different videos are being uploaded and to stay deeper and more connected here in the life of our church through the Pando app. This morning, our senior pastor, Kyle Eidelman, is continuing in our Journey of Faith sermon series. We're diving into Genesis 15, 16, and 17, looking at the story of Abraham and Sarah and Hagar, and just looking at the faithfulness of God and how when we don't fully understand the fullness of our stories and we feel like we are on a detour or a delay, that God knows the fullness of the story.

He is faithful and He is good and that we can trust Him. It is a fantastic sermon. I'm super excited that you get to hear it this morning. We're gonna jump in to worship. We're gonna send you all to our Blenkebecker Campus Sanctuary. Let's worship our good God together. Let's worship our good God together. Let's worship our good God together. ♪ Praise when I'm doubting ♪ ♪ Praise when I'm numbered ♪ ♪ Praise when surrounded ♪ ♪ Cursed places and waters ♪ ♪ My enemies frowning ♪ ♪ As long as I'm breathing I've got a reason to praise the Lord oh my soul ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord oh my soul ♪ ♪ I'll praise when I feel it and I'll praise when I don't ♪ ♪ I'll praise cause I know you're still in control ♪ ♪ My praise is a weapon it's more than a sound ♪ ♪ My praise is the shout that brings Jericho down ♪ ♪ As long as I'm breathing I've got a reason to praise the Lord oh my soul ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord oh my soul ♪ ♪ Oh my soul no I won't be quiet my God is alive so how could I keep it inside ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord oh my soul ♪ ♪ Oh praise the Lord oh my soul. ♪ ♪ Praise cause you're softened. Praise cause you reign. Praise cause you rose and defeated the grave. ♪ I'll praise cause you're faithful Praise cause you're true. Praise you there's nobody greater than you ♪ ♪ I'll praise you cause you're softened. Praise you cause you reign. Praise cause you rose and defeated the grave. ♪ I'll praise you cause you're faithful Praise cause you true. ♪ Praise cause there's nobody greater than you.

♪ Praise the Lord oh my soul. Praise the Lord oh my soul. ♪ Praise the Lord oh my soul. Praise the Lord oh my soul. ♪ No I won't be quiet my God is alive. So how could I keep it inside? I won't be quiet. My God is alive. So how could I keep it inside? No, I won't be quiet. My God is alive. So how could I keep it inside? Praise the Lord. Oh my soul. I won't be quiet. My God is alive. I won't be quiet. My God is alive. Who came to worship God today? Amen. Let's sing this together. This is our hope. This is our firm foundation. Christ is my firm foundation. Oh, the rock on which I stand. When everything around me is shaking. Oh, I've never been more glad that I put my faith in Jesus. Oh, He's never let me down. His faith pulled through generations. So why would He fail now? He won't. No, He won't. I've still got joy and chaos. I've got peace that makes no sense. So I won't be going under. I'm not held by my own strength. Cause I built my life on Jesus. Oh, He's never let me down. His faith pulled through every season. So why would He fail now? He won't. No, He won't. He won't fail. He won't fail.

Christ is my firm foundation. The rock on which I stand. When everything around me is shaking. Oh, I've never been more glad that I put my faith in Jesus. He's never let me down. His faith pulled through generations. So why would He fail now? He won't. He won't. He won't fail. He won't fail. He won't fail. I put my trust in Him. Cause He never left my side. He never left my side. Are you singing faith? I mean, yeah. This time. What's true? Come on, if you need them this morning, you sing. Never mind. It was built on You. ♪ I'm gonna make it, I'm gonna make it, I'm gonna make it through, yeah ♪ ♪ Cause I'm standing strong on you, oh, I'm gonna make it through, yeah ♪ ♪ Cause my house was built on you, Christ is my first foundation ♪ ♪ Oh, the rock on which I stand, with everything around me shaking ♪ ♪ I've never been more glad that I put my faith, oh, He never let me down ♪ ♪ He's faithful through generations, so I would never give up ♪ ♪ He won't Oh, no He won't He won't fail He won't fail, He won't fail He won't fail ♪ Come on, if you see him ask you in your life. Would you just celebrate him this morning. And then you guys can grab a seat.

As a lot of you may know, as part of our move journey as a church, our discipleship journey. One of our goals is to send 4000 people on short term mission trips in the next three years. And as a church, we really believe in the ministry of missions and short term mission trips, not only so that we can go serve. But I found even in my own life that it's so helpful to go to a different context where you may not be the most comfortable. People don't speak your language. They don't eat the food you're used to. You're not even always used to the sleeping conditions. All these things just to shake you enough out of your box to see God is still at work and God is still moving. It's not just in this room here. It's not just in our nation. He is moving across the globe. And over the last 11 days, I had the honor of going to Poland with nine other people from our worship team. We got to lead worship in prisons and in churches. We got to meet with people and encourage people. And it was an incredible, incredible 10 days to see what God is doing across an ocean. And then none of it is bound by language or cultural difference or anything like that. In fact, we brought a little bit of Poland to you. This is our friend Karolina here. Can we just honor and celebrate her today? She's a part, she's a worship leader in Poland and she's a part of our ministry partner team Pro-M. They have a ministry there in Poland that is just doing incredible work in Poland and in the nations. But she's here with us today. We're super excited about that. But we wanted you to hear a little bit more about this and hope that the Lord stirs something in you today. So if you would, would you turn your attention to the screens and check out this video? In Matthew 28, Jesus calls us to go and make disciples of all nations. At the core, short term mission trips are about obedience. This trips are a tangible way to be unleashed, to move forward and proclaim the gospel to the ends of the earth. God doesn't need us and yet he chooses to invite us in. We get to be part of his story. And as much as this trips impact others, they deeply transform us. Short term missions pull us out of our comfort zones. They challenge our assumptions, stretch our faith and teach us to rely on God in new ways. What starts as a trip often becomes a shift where faith becomes more real, more personal and more lived. And we don't do it alone. Mission trips bring people together in a powerful way. Different backgrounds, different stories, but one shared purpose. It's a reminder that our faith is bigger than any one place or one community.

Our goal is to unleash 4,000 people by 2030 on a short term trip that will have long term impact locally and globally. As of today, over 600 people. have been unleashed so far to share the hope of Christ all over the world. This year alone, we've sent teams to Appalachia, East Tennessee, Romania, Greece, El Salvador, the Middle East, India, Uganda, Poland, and Kenya. Ultimately, this trip helped us live as witnesses of Christ. Not just where we go, but when we return. Because a short-term mission trip isn't a finish line, it's the beginning. It awakens us to who God is. It challenges us to live differently, more intentionally, more boldly, more fully. And over time, something else begins to grow in you. A heart for the nations. You start to see the world the way God does. Not divided by borders or cultures, but united in His love for every people, every place, and every time. You begin to care deeply about what He cares about. To pray for people you've never met. To stay connected to places you've seen God move. And to carry that global kingdom perspective into your everyday life. That's why short-term mission trips matter. Not because of what we do, but because of what God does in us and through us. Shaping our hearts for His people all over the world. Let's pray together. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Holy Spirit, I'm Your way We bring an offering You bring the flame Holy Spirit, I'm Your way

Come have Your way Open our eyes to the troubled Help us see those who suffer Holy Spirit, fill us We want to take the Gospel To the ends of the earth Holy Spirit, heal us Holy Spirit, work on us Holy Spirit, work on us Receive the victims Stop on them swim W duchu święty działaj w nas W duchu święty działaj w nas W duchu święty działaj w nas Przyjmij ochranę Stop on them swim W duchu święty działaj w nas Just have your way, have your way Puścimy działaj Just have your way Niech wiary moc rozjaśni mrok Nasz Boże przyjdź, chcemy widzieć Cię Jak ognia blask, potężny wiatr Nadchodzi Pan, duchu dotknij nas Niech wiary moc rozjaśni mrok Nasz Boże przyjdź, chcemy widzieć Cię Jak ognia blask, potężny wiatr Nadchodzi Pan, duchu dotknij nas Let faith arise In darkness we

A move of God Like we've never seen Consuming fire A rushing wind A move of God Pour it out again Pour it out again Come pour it out again Pour it out again Pour it out again And again and again Holy Spirit, have your way We bring an offering And You bring a flame Holy Spirit, have your way We bring an offering And You bring a flame Holy Spirit, have your way God, that is our prayer together as a church That Your Spirit would have Your way in us Individually, as Your followers But also globally as Your church That our story would be a part of a bigger story That You're writing that would give You glory That would point people to You That God, when we pray, that Your Spirit would have Its way within us We know that also in that prayer is this confession And this surrender of our own way And so, Lord, we lay that down

We say to You, not our will, but Your will Be done And God, in these next few minutes, as we study Your Word together Would You deepen our faith Where there's doubt, God Would You give us deep belief Would You give us a defiant spirit of worship That says no matter the circumstances or the situation We're putting our hope in You It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen You can be seated We are going through Genesis And right now we're in this study Through the life of Abraham in Genesis And one of the things we're seeing in Abraham Is this defiant spirit of faith That God gives him instructions And Abraham says yes without getting all the details God says, here's what I want you to do And Abraham agrees to it Before getting the specifics And I just wonder if maybe that's an invitation In your own life that you need to respond to this weekend Where you're waiting on God to give you all the details To give you the breakdown, the five-year plan To lay it all out clearly And God wants you to just take a next step of faith One way that you might think about doing that Is by showing some interest in one of the short-term trips Doesn't mean you're committing to it

of saying, God, I'm willing to say yes, I'll let you figure out the details. I would love to just challenge you to take a step of faith in your life where you don't have everything shored up, but you're making yourself available to what God might want to do. We're in Genesis 15, 16, and 17 this weekend, and one of the things we're gonna see here in Abraham's life in the next few minutes is that even though he has God's promise over him, he doesn't necessarily understand God's plan unfolding around him. And so what do you do in your life when what you're experiencing is different than what you're expecting? Like what you feel like God has said to you or what he's revealed to you doesn't seem to match up with what's happening to you. After Easter services on Sunday last month, I finished baptizing, it was an awesome weekend, and when it was over, I walked out to the church parking lot and I got in a U-Haul moving truck, box truck, and I drove to St. Petersburg, Florida. My youngest daughter and her husband live there. They're in the process of moving into their first home there, but they still have stuff in storage here. Their dog is still here. My daughter's about six months pregnant.

She's finishing nursing school. My son-in-law is busy with work and getting the house ready, so I thought, you know what, I'll be the hero. I'll finish Easter services, load up your stuff, get your dog, and drive it all down to you. My daughter's dog is a Samoyed named Alaska. If you don't know what a Samoyed is, imagine a 55-pound marshmallow with strong opinions, and that is Alaska, big, white, fluffy, fully convinced that she's a human being because that's how she's been treated. And so this is Alaska riding shotgun in the moving truck with me on her way down to St. Pete, Florida. I get in the truck on Sunday afternoon, and I enter my destination to the GPS. It tells me 13 hours and 18 minutes. Now, there are some people who see that as an estimate, like, hey, here's about how long it should take you if you don't stop for these long stops along the way. There are other people who see it as a personal challenge. I am in that category of people. So when I see 13 hours and 18 minutes, I'm like, okay, that's it, like, that's the plan, and that plan is sacred, and there's nothing that's gonna stop me from getting to my daughter's house by doing the math 4.18 in the morning. That plan lasted about five minutes because I got into the U-Haul truck, and it had a governor on the engine.

If you don't know what a governor is, it limits your speed. You can't go faster than 70 miles an hour, and it doesn't matter how hard you press on that gas. I was pressing hard the entire time, and so I'm on this 65 South having a conversation with Siri about how to disable the governor on a U-Haul rental truck, and I get to Nashville. There's traffic, sign says 17-minute delay. I get a little further towards Atlanta. GPS recalculates me. They're gonna take me on an alternate route. It's gonna add 11 minutes to my trip. I hadn't planned on taking those roads, but those were the roads I found myself on. 11 minutes on top of 17 minutes on top of the governor, and it's about this time I see a sign advertising Buc-ee's. And like the Buc-ee's beaver knows when you're vulnerable. I'll just say that. Like it knows when you're feeling discouraged, and it beckoned me with promises of peanut butter fudge and bathrooms that respect me as a person, and so I went into Buc-ee's. You can't get out of there in 20 minutes. Anyway, by the time I cross into Florida, I still got three hours left in this drive, but I am like I am done. Four days of Easter services, hundreds of baptisms, loading the moving truck, 10-hour drive with this travel princess who thinks like I'm her emotional support human,

like she thinks that's our relationship. And so I did something that I'm a little embarrassed to admit to you that I did is I stopped somewhere to sleep. I stopped at a Motel 6. I had heard somewhere that Motel 6s let you bring in dogs. I think their policy is they just let you bring in anything. I think that's how they work. They have a don't ask, don't tell policy. If you show up with a Samoyed at 1 a.m., they're not asking questions. Like they've seen some things. And so Alaska and I walk in, and I ask for one room with two beds, one for me, one for Alaska. We check into the room, and I put her on the bed, on her bed, and I get in the other. We both lay there for a couple of minutes. Couple minutes passes, and then she stands up on her bed, and she starts barking. And I go, please don't do this. Please just go to sleep. Please go to sleep. And she refuses. And a few minutes of this, I realize, okay, she wants to get in my bed. And so I'm exhausted. exhausted at this point. I'm like, fine, Alaska, get in my bed. And I pack the bed. And I swear to you, she looks at me and she shakes her head no. And then she barks and it hits me. She doesn't want to get into my bed. She wants me to get into her bed. And in one of the more humbling moments of my life as a man, I get out of my bed and I climb into Alaska's

bed and we both lie down and go to sleep. I eventually make it to my daughter's house, but instead of 13 hours and 18 minutes, it's like 20 hours and 26 minutes, seven hours over the plan in this truck that wouldn't go fast on roads I didn't choose with the few stops I didn't expect and a traveling companion that didn't have my best interest in mind. And I share this story with you because it is a metaphor. It is a parable. It is an illustration of what life looks like. Even more specifically, what a journey of faith looks like, where we have some idea of what God wants or we think what God wants and we enter that into the destination and we have ideas about how that's going to go, like how His calling is going to be unfolded in our lives, how He's going to work, things that are going to happen and when they're going to happen. We get a plan and a timeline, but then the governor kicks in pretty quick in life and we realize something. Oh, I'm not in control of how fast I go. And sometimes it comes too fast and sometimes it's just too slow, but we don't get to determine. And then the traffic hits and we're fine. We want to go fast, but the person in front of us has other ideas and now we're kind of at the mercy of those around us. And then there's constructions and there's reroutes and you're on roads that you never planned on being and you find yourself in a Bucky's questioning your life choices. It is the journey of life. And this is where we find Abraham in Genesis 15 through 17. He has said yes to God, he's following after God, and while he believes in God's promise, he's starting to question God's plan. I want you to think through that with me in your own life. Where, yes, I believe in what God has said, I trust His promise, I'm just not sure He's thought through the details very well. I just, I believe in His promise. I'm just having a hard time getting on board with His plan. My life is not unfolding the way I thought it might. Genesis 15 starts then with the conversation between Abraham and God. And it's going to make some of you feel deeply seen because Abraham here is complaining. He's complaining because what he's experiencing is different than what he thought that he and God had agreed to. And so he's going to let God know about that. Genesis 15 starts off verse 1 with God saying to Abraham, hey, don't be afraid. Don't be anxious. Stop overthinking some of these things. I am your shield and I am your reward. Verses 2 and 3. But Abraham said, sovereign Lord, God who is in control, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliza of Damascus? What are you going to do?

You told me I'd have a son. You told me that I'd be a father of a great nation, and I'm not getting any younger. We're not even able to have kids physically anymore. What are you doing? Abraham said, you've given me no children, so a servant in my household, I guess, will be my heir. I guess that's the way it's going to be. So God says, don't be afraid. I'm your reward. And Abraham says, yeah, that's great, God. But what about my kid? What about the son that you promised me? And so what I want you to see here is what you don't have is Abraham wandering off and abandoning his faith. What you don't have is Abraham saying, I'm out. I'm not going to follow you anymore. What you do have is a man who is tired of waiting. He's sitting in traffic on the interstate of faith, and he's saying, come on, God. How long are we going to do this? Like, when is this going to happen? Give me a time. Give me something, because I thought by now things would look different. I thought by now I'd be engaged. I thought by now the marriage would have softened. I thought by now our finances would have turned around. I thought by now there'd be some break through in this habit that I've been trying to get control over in my life. I thought by now my health would improve. I thought by now I'd have a job offer. I thought by now things would be different. And so he's frustrated because he doesn't understand God's timing, and the calendar keeps turning. Have you ever read a novel where you get to a certain chapter in the story and you thought by that chapter things would have turned and it hasn't, like you're, so you're reading the novel or for some of you you're watching the series, okay, and you thought by that chapter or by that episode some things would turn around for the main character, like you expected some conflict, you expected some twists and turns along the way, but it hasn't happened, like it's still just spiraling, and you get frustrated, you're like, okay, how much longer is it going to be this way, like when's it going to turn, when's it going to turn, and you feel like certain chapters being done, I'm done, I'm not going to keep reading this, you feel like throwing it across the room, you feel like starting another series all together, unless, unless you've read the author before, and if you've read the author before then you know that I'm going to trust the author even in the chapters that don't make sense, like I've seen this storyline before, I recognize how it goes, so even though this chapter right now seems really confusing and discouraging, I'm going to trust the author,

even though the circumstances, even though the situation is difficult, I'm going to trust the one who's writing it, and this is the decision that Abraham is having to make, like okay, I, I, I'm going to trust the author here, even though it doesn't quite make sense to me, and so God does something remarkable here, he doesn't rebuke Abraham for his complaining, he doesn't lecture him, instead he's really tender with him, verse 5, God took him outside and said, Abraham, look up at the sky, count the stars, if you can, and then God said to him, so shall your offspring be. Okay, but how? Like still, I, I don't, I don't understand, God says, I, I'm going to double down on this promise, I'm giving you this promise again, and verse 6 is one of the most important verses in the entire Bible, certainly the Old Testament, Abraham believed the Lord, and God credited to him his righteousness. Abraham looks up into the night sky, and he says, okay, I believe you, and that word credit is, is an accounting word, it was credited to his account as righteousness, believing was credited as righteousness, we tend to think of righteousness as kind of this list of things that we do or perhaps don't do, and that's what makes for a righteous lifestyle, but really, it's all rooted in belief. Paul picks up on this in Romans 4, this very story, and helps us understand that the way we get to God is not by earning our way to God, but by, by believing or trusting our way to God, and when you believe God, when you really trust him, that his way's the best way, then that's going to show itself in living a righteous life, but it's rooted in belief, it's rooted in this defiant faith that says, okay, I don't see how, but I'm going to trust you, I'm going to put my faith and my confidence in you against, against all odds. Brings us to chapter 16. Abraham believes God, but he's losing patience, and so is his wife, Sarah. They believe God's promise, but they're just not sure about God's plan, and here's what happens. Sarah, Abraham's wife, decides, you know, I've been waiting for this baby for a long time, and I'm, I'm kind of done, kind of done waiting. I think she's exhausted. We don't think of waiting as being exhausting, but some of you know this. Some of you know the most exhausting thing you can sometimes do is wait, because you want to do something, and waiting means, oftentimes, you can't do anything. You're just waiting, and she's tired of waiting. She's tired of an empty nursery, and she's tired of unanswered prayers, and she's tired of this covenant that feels more and more like a cruel joke every time she looks in the mirror and is a year older, and so she

proposes something that sounds a little crazy to our ears, a little Jerry Springer-ish, but it was culturally not unusual, verses 1 and 2 of chapter 16. Now, Sarah, Abraham's wife, had borne him no children, but she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar, and so she said to Abraham, the Lord has kept me from having children. Go sleep with my slave. Perhaps I can build a family through her. The Lord's kept me. She seems to recognize God's hand in some of this, but maybe what's happening is God just needs some help. Maybe God just needs me to take control of the situation. And so she comes up with this plan, and this is the place where you would expect Abraham to speak some courage and faith over his wife. Sarah, Sarah, God can be trusted. I know this is hard, and I know you're tired, and I'm tired too, but here's what God has promised, and I don't understand the plan, and the timing doesn't make sense to me, but we're in this together. Let's follow him. Let's stay the course. Let's be faithful. But when she said, go sleep with my servant, here's what we read, Abraham agreed to what Sarah said. He's like, okay, that's his response. And I think perhaps because we're studying the book of Genesis as one narrative here, this scene took me back to Genesis three, where Eve says to Adam, what about the fruit? And Adam's like, okay, and so you have Adam and Abraham both responding pretty passively at a time when their spiritual leadership was needed, at a time when they needed to speak some faith

and courage into their wives. They're pretty passive about it. And it created a mess in Genesis three, and it creates a mess here in Genesis 16, a mess that the world still deals with now, thousands of years later. So before we judged Sarah too harshly, I wanna come back to this again. The surrogate arrangement that she has in mind here wasn't unusual. Now, that doesn't make it right, but just understand it wasn't unusual, and Sarah had been waiting for years and years and years, and she looks around, and she sees a solution that made sense to her. And this is what we often do with some detours. Like we come up with the solution that makes sense to us. Like I'm not rebelling against God. I'm still on board with what he wants, but I'm just gonna do what he wants. I'm just gonna do it my way. And it looks like a solution, but it's a way of saying, God, I want your destination without your directions. And a detour shows up, and it looks like it's the answer to a prayer that you've been praying. You think, oh, it's gonna make the route faster. It's the responsible, proactive thing to do. But then you just think about how it plays out in your life

when you've done this. Like God says to wait on the right relationship, and then someone comes along who's almost, almost right. Not quite, but maybe close enough, and you're just tired of waiting. God says, trust me with your finances, and then be patient. But you've been trying it his way. Nobody else is doing it his way, by the way. And it doesn't seem to be working. God says, hey, be patient with your kid. I want you to trust me with your son. I want you to trust me with your daughter. But you're scared because of the path they're on, frankly. And you're tired of waiting for them to figure it out, and so you decide, I'm gonna try to control the outcome. I'm gonna try to manipulate the situation so this goes the way I think it should go and the timing I think it needs to go. And I don't think Sarah thought she was rebelling against God. I think she thought, I'm just helping him out. I'm just doing it my way. But that is rebellion. And Abraham goes along with Sarah's suggestion. Hagar conceives, and everything falls apart. Verse four, he slept with Hagar, and she conceived, and when she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. And Sarah, the one who came up with the plan, turns to Abraham in verse five and says,

you're responsible for this wrong I'm suffering. And this is what a detour looks like, right? We come up with a plan, we execute the plan. We don't really consult God on it. It blows up, and then we blame somebody else for the whole thing. And this is where I want to pause in our story. And I want to ask a question. What about Hagar in this story? What about her? Because she's in the middle of this mess, and it's easy just to miss her. She didn't ask for any of this. She was a servant, she didn't have a choice. She was, to be clear, to be clear. She was used as a means to an end, and then she was mistreated when it all backfired. And in verse six, the text says that Sarah treated her so harshly that she ran away. And so we find her in the desert alone and desperate and pregnant and used and discarded by the very people who are supposed to be walking with God. What about her in this story? Well, do you know who pursues her and finds her in the desert? God does. And we see this remarkable scene unfold in verse 13, where she does something that nobody else in the entire Bible does. She gives God a name.

I think it's perhaps because she was a foreign woman who didn't really know God, didn't know about Abraham and Sarah's God. So when he shows up, when he finds her in the desert, she needs to give him a name and she names him. She gives him the name Elroy, which means you are the God who sees me. That's your name, the God who sees me. And God doesn't correct her. God doesn't say, oh, actually, that's not my name. He receives it. It's the only time you see this. Abraham didn't give God a name. Moses didn't, David didn't, but Hagar, this foreign slave woman with no standing and no power and no voice, gives God the name and says, I'm gonna name you the God who sees me. I'm not sure what changes for Hagar after this encounter. Like she goes back, she's sent back, God sends her back. She goes back to a hard situation. So there's not a dramatic rescue that we know of, no apology from Sarah that we know of. She just goes back. But here's what I think happened. She goes back seen by God. And there is a version, listen, there is a version of strength that does not come from your situation getting fixed. It comes from knowing that the God

who spoke the universe into existence sees you. And he sees you in the hospital waiting room. And he sees you in the funeral home. And he sees you when you're reading the divorce papers. And he sees you when you're getting the diagnosis. Like he sees you. God didn't just see Abraham and Sarah, he saw the person their mess hurt the most. She was hurt because of someone else's impatience, because of someone else's bad decision, because of someone else's sin and someone else's selfishness. And if that's you, if you've been used and overlooked and discarded and caught in the middle of someone else's mess, I wanna introduce you to Elroy. The God who sees you. Listen, you are not invisible. You are not forgotten. You are not collateral damage to God. He sees you, he loves you. For the next 13 years, God goes silent. So between end of chapter 16, the beginning of chapter 17, 13 years pass and God says nothing. So Abraham is 86 years old at the end of chapter 16, where he thinks he's too old to have a child. And he's 99 by the time you get to chapter 17. So it's a 13 year delay. It's quite the, like 13 years in a motel six, it's a long time in the motel six.

And some of you know what this feels like? Because you're living in the aftermath of a decision you made, or maybe somebody else made, but it was five or 10 or 15 years ago. And every day you kind of wonder, did I ruin it? Is God done with me? Did I take such a wrong turn that I can't get back on course? And the story isn't over. Chapter 17. When Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, let me tell you who I am. I am God Almighty. El Shaddai. I am the God who is enough. I am, in case you're wondering, 13 years later, I'm the God who doesn't need your help. I'm the God who doesn't need your plan B or your backup strategy. I'm the God who's got this. And then he does this really sweet thing as he restates rather his promise to Abraham. Verses four through six, as for me, God says, this is my covenant with you. You will be the father of many nations and no longer will you be called Abraham. Your name will be Abraham, for I've made you the father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful.

I will make nations of you and kings will come from you. And so the detour doesn't cancel the destination. After 13 years, God comes on the scene and he says, my promise still stands. I haven't changed my mind. I haven't moved on. I haven't forgotten. And so after 13 years, he doesn't come back. Listen to what he doesn't do. He doesn't come on the scene and says, well, you really made a mess of things, didn't you? He doesn't remind Abraham what he did. He reminds Abraham of who God is and then he gives Abraham a new identity based on who he says, who God says he is. Verse 17, Abraham fell face down and he laughed and said to himself, will a son be born to a man 100 years old? Will Sarah bear a child at age 90? And he laughs and he laughs out loud. That's the word here. It's interesting because in the next chapter, we'll see this next week on Mother's Day weekend. We see Sarah laugh, but her laugh is different than Abraham's laugh. Abraham's laugh is this out loud laugh. Sarah's laugh is kind of the cynical laughing to herself. And so God doesn't rebuke Abraham for laughter. In fact, he says like your son's name.

is gonna be laughter. His name's gonna be Isaac, in Hebrew, means laughter. And so there's two different kinds of laughter here. I have to tell you this story that happened on Easter Sunday. During my Easter sermon, I talked, as an illustration, about the artist, you remember, this named Bob Ross, remember the guy with big hair, painted in the 80s and 90s, the landscapes on PBS. And in my Easter sermon, I talked about how he would often make what he called these happy little accidents, these mistakes, but then he would take the mistake and he makes it part of the beauty of the painting. And in the Easter message, my application was, hey, God can do this in your life, but you need to let him have the canvas. And one of the things we talked about on that Easter Sunday is that baptism is a way of surrendering your life. It's a way of handing God the canvas of your life. After services on Sunday, I got a text from a guy named Hayden, who's a part of our Prospect campus. Hayden has been coming to church with his family for a while and has apparently been thinking about getting baptized. It also turns out that Hayden is a huge Bob Ross fan. He has memories of his mom having that show on when he was a kid. He's such a big Bob Ross fan that he actually has several Bob Ross original paintings in his home.

And so Easter Sunday, Hayden is at home, getting ready for church, and he's trying to decide what to wear, and he grabs a Bob Ross T-shirt out of the closet and puts it on. Now, he had no idea what I was gonna preach about, and I certainly had no idea what he was gonna wear. And so I get this text, and it's a picture of Hayden standing in the baptistry wearing a Bob Ross T-shirt. On Easter Sunday, I preached about handing your canvas to God using a Bob Ross illustration, and a man who's been wrestling with the decision to be baptized shows up wearing Bob Ross on his chest. Like, what are the odds of that? Like, you tell me who arranged that. I've never used the name Bob Ross in a sermon in 30 years, and I happened to do it for the first time while this guy shows up wearing a Bob Ross T-shirt. Who knew there even was such a thing? Like, who coordinated that? Who coordinated the shirt and the moment and the man? Like, I didn't, and Hayden didn't. And so I get this text, me in Alaska, driving down the road Sunday afternoon, I get this text with this picture. Do you know what I did when I saw that picture? I laughed. I laughed.

Not because it was necessarily funny, but because it was so perfectly, impossibly, absurdly God. What else do you do? My laughter in that moment was worship. It's my way of saying, okay, only God, only God could do that. I think that's the kind of laugh of Abraham here in Genesis 17. And so what do you do when you're in the middle of a detour dealing with some kind of delay? I just want to give you three things if this is where you find yourself traveling along. Number one, stop trying to help God. Stop it. Like, you can surrender, but you don't need to sit in his seat. And I know some of you have been hurt in ways that I can't imagine, and so you've got a death grip on the steering wheel of your life, and you won't let anybody get too close because you don't want to get hurt like that again. And it's time to let it go. It's time to let God be God. God didn't need Sarah's plan, and God didn't need Hagar's help. He didn't need Abraham to engineer the outcome and try to make everybody happy. He just needed them to wait.

And waiting can be hard, but waiting is sometimes the assignment. Waiting is sometimes the work. Abraham is 86, and then he's 99, or 87, then 99. And what God does in the waiting really mattered. Abraham's not the same person in chapter 17 as he was in chapter 16. Now, what happens is when we decide that we're gonna make things happen on our own, when we get busy arranging and orchestrating and manipulating, trying to control things that aren't ours to control, we're missing out on what God wants to do in the waiting. Stop trying to help God. Surrender to him, but don't sit in his seat. Secondly, release yourself from past detours. 13 years of silence, I can't imagine how many nights Abraham kind of replayed the decisions and looked around at the mess he'd made and listened to the way Sarah was mistreating Hagar and watched Ishmael growing up and knowing that wasn't what God's plan was. And he just thinks to himself, what did I do? And perhaps he wondered, is it too late for me? But when God shows up in 17, he meets Abraham right where and this is a message that some of you need to hear. You have convinced yourself that because of something you did or because of something that happened to you

five, 10, 15 years ago, you're off course and there's no getting back on course. This is not how God's plan works. God is so sovereign and so gracious. He can meet you right where you are at any time and his plan can start from there. It doesn't mean there won't be delays. It doesn't mean you didn't make things more complicated than they had to be. It doesn't mean there won't be some miles and years and heartache that got added to the trip, but the detour doesn't cancel the destination. Abraham is a 99-year-old man, speaks into your life and says, it's not too late. You can still trust him. Number three, keep reading even when you don't trust the chapter. When what you're experiencing is different than what you were expecting, trust the author. When the chapter that you're in is devastating, keep reading. Keep reading. The story is not over yet. Keep reading. Can I tell you about my favorite moment in this story? It's after Abraham complains early on. He expresses his frustration about God's timing and God's just very gentle with him, very tender.

He doesn't say, how dare you doubt me? You know who I am? No. Verse five, he took him outside and he said, Abraham, look up at the sky. And count the stars. If indeed you can, so shall your offspring be. Now, what I want you to catch here is the physicality of the moment. Abraham is inside his tent, he's surrounded by walls of worry and God says, come here. Come outside, I'm gonna show you something. He's been staring at his ceiling and God took him outside to show him the expanse of the universe. Researchers have found that when you step outside at night and look up into the stars, something measurable happens in your brain. When you do that, your nervous system begins to downregulate like the cortisol, the stress hormone that's kind of been running the show while you're laying awake in bed at 2 a.m. rehearsing your problems, that starts to drop. Your heart rate slows, your breathing deepens. Scientists call this the overview effect. It's a neurological response when the vastness of what you're looking at essentially shrinks the size

of what you've been worried about. It can literally reduce inflammation in your body, it lowers anxiety, it increases your sense of connection to a bigger story, remind you kind of the perspective of what's happening in your life. So what God doesn't say is he doesn't say to Abraham, hey, sit in your tent and think about what you've done. Sit in your tent, think harder about my promises. He says, Abraham, come here. I just want you to walk outside and I want you to look up because sometimes what your faith needs is a change of scenery. You've been staring at the ceiling of your circumstances so long that your problems feel like the whole sky. And so here's your homework assignment. Tonight, not next week, tonight. Before you go to bed, I want you to walk outside. Everyone here, everyone who's listened to this, this is your homework, walk outside. Step into your backyard or your driveway or your apartment balcony or the parking lot, whatever you've got, and I just want you to look up. Don't bring your phone, don't check the weather, just walk outside, stand there and look up. And when you look up, you will be looking at the same stars that Abraham looked at, the same sky God used to make his promise, and I want you to tell God as you look up at the sky, as honestly as you can, what you're waiting for. That thing that's keeping you up at night,

that delay that's maybe been eroding your faith, I want you to say it out loud when you look up at the stars. And I want you to stay there long enough to let the sky do for you what it did for Abraham. And let it remind you that the God who scattered those stars has not forgotten, he's not forgotten your name or your prayer or his promise. And then as you're staring at the stars, I want you to call him by his name, El Roy, the God who sees me, let's pray. God, I thank you that you meet us where we're at on this road of life. And some of us are way off course, and we've been on a detour for so long, we're not even sure how to get back. But Lord, you meet us right where we are because of Jesus, because of your grace through Christ, we can come to you just as we are. This is the way we are. We don't need to fix our destination first. We don't need to get right on the right path first. Like you can meet us right where we're at. So would you give us some faith? Would you give us some confidence and belief in who you are? God, if we've been staring up at the ceiling, I pray that you would help us look up at the stars and remember that you are God Almighty. You are El Shaddai, but you are also El Roy. You are all-powerful, but you are the God who sees us. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

We wanna take just a couple minutes here and have communion together. And so what we've been doing in the Old Testament is we've been talking about God's covenant with Abraham, promises that he made to Abraham. What we do when we take communion is we're remembering the covenant God has made with us. And the same God who kept his promise with Abraham is the same God who keeps his promise with us. That's not based on our perfection or upon our faithfulness or on us getting everything right. It's based on us putting our belief in him, that we believe in him. And so when we take communion, we are saying, God, I believe in your promise that through Jesus, my sins are forgiven. And through Jesus, I've been given the gift of eternal life. And through Jesus, I have been given your presence and your power through the Holy Spirit, that we are remembering the covenant and we are declaring as we take communion, we're declaring that no matter what's going on in my life, no matter what my circumstances or situation, I believe it, I believe it. And so as you take communion in these next few minutes, declare your faith, your belief in the God who sees you. Let's take communion together. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪ Every minute, every hour, You are God and You're on the throne. ♪ I will never be forsaken, You are here and I'm not alone. ♪ I can't stand and not be shaken by Your kindness in the fire. ♪ You are God and You're always good. ♪ You are God. ♪ Oh, every minute, every hour, You are God and You're on Your throne. ♪ So I will never be forsaken, You are here and I'm not alone. ♪ I can't stand and not be shaken by Your kindness in the fire. ♪ You are God and You're always good. ♪ You are God and You're always good. ♪ You are God and You're always good. ♪ Yeah. ♪ I need You more than any other thing. ♪ I need You more than my joy and suffering. ♪ I need You more than my heart forever speaking.

♪ I need Jesus. I need You, Jesus. ♪ I need You more than any other thing. ♪ I need You more than my joy and suffering. ♪ I need You more than my heart forever speaking. ♪ I need Jesus. I need You, Jesus. ♪ See, every minute, every hour, You are God and You're on Your throne. ♪ I will never be forsaken, You are here and I'm not alone. ♪ I can't stand it, I'll be shaking for Your kindness in this time. ♪ You are God and You're always good. ♪ You are God and You're always good. ♪ You are God and You're always good. ♪ Yeah. ♪ Yeah. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪ He has good plans for me ♪ ♪ If I know my Father, I know my Father loves me ♪ ♪ He has good plans, He has good plans for me ♪ ♪ So I will take on and dance in synchronicity ♪ ♪ Oh, He has good plans, He has good plans for me ♪ ♪ He has good plans for me ♪ ♪ If I know my Father, I know my Father has good plans, whoa ♪ The Psalm 23 says that His goodness will follow us all the days of our life. If you need that promise this morning, would you declare this in faith together, church, that surely His goodness and mercy is enough and it will follow. Come on, you sing, declare. ♪ So fear will not find me ♪ ♪ I'll be dwelling right here in the house of God ♪ ♪ Surely His goodness and mercy will follow after me ♪ ♪ So fear will not find me ♪ ♪ Cause I'll be dwelling in the house of God, oh surely ♪

♪ His goodness and mercy will follow after me ♪ ♪ So fear will not find me ♪ ♪ Cause I'll be dwelling in the house of God, oh surely ♪ ♪ He has good plans for me ♪ ♪ So I will take heart and deserts and gardens ♪ ♪ Oh He has good plans, oh He has good plans for me ♪ ♪ Oh He has good plans for me ♪ ♪ Oh...He has good plans for me ♪ ♪ If I know my Father, I know my Father has good plans ♪ ♪ Good plans for me ♪ ♪ Oh...He has good plans for me ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ Well, I thank you for joining us today for worship through the Pando app. We're so grateful that you got to experience worship with us and experience the teaching from God's word. I'm so grateful for that message and reminder that we got this morning from Genesis 15 through 17, the word that Kyle brought. I loved the moment at the end and the challenge and the encouragement for us to look up at the stars, for us to remember that the same God that Abraham prayed to, who journeyed with him and was faithful to him in his life is the same God that we pray to today. So as you pray, as you lay your life, as you lay the detours and delays of your life at the feet of God, remember that it's the same God who walked with Abraham through all the trials and the highs and the lows of life.

Later this week on Thursday, there's gonna be a Pando exclusive podcast that is going to be dropping. So be on the lookout for that. We would love for you to use that as an encouragement to you in the middle of the week coming up this Thursday. But we're gonna wrap up our time together this morning by praying a prayer together. So I invite you to pray this prayer with me and I'll read it aloud for us. Dear Lord Jesus Christ, by your radiant and magnificent resurrection, you broke the bonds of death and rose from the grave as a conqueror. You reconciled heaven and earth. Our life had no hope of eternal happiness before you redeemed us. Your resurrection has washed away our sins, restored our innocence and brought us joy. How inestimable is the tenderness of your love. Amen, amen. We hope you have a great week. you