Following God Isn't Always Easy

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♪ No matter where I go, no matter where I go ♪ ♪ I will see Your goodness, Lord, in the land of Israel ♪ ♪ Sing it to the daughters, sing it to the son ♪ ♪ To every generation, we will say ♪ ♪ Look at what the Lord has done ♪ ♪ I'll sing it to the darkness, that the night has come, yeah ♪ ♪ I'll sing it to the nations, oh look at what the Lord has done ♪ ♪ I'll sing it to the daughters, sing it to the son ♪ ♪ To every generation, look at what the Lord has done ♪ ♪ Look at what the Lord has done ♪ ♪ I'll sing it to the darkness, that the night has come, yeah ♪ ♪ I'll sing it to the nations, oh look at what the Lord has done ♪ ♪ As I bow before You, Lord, in the rising confidence of my heart ♪ ♪ I will see Your goodness, Lord, in the land I'm living in ♪ ♪ No matter where I go, no matter where I'm at ♪ ♪ I will see Your goodness, Lord, in the land I'm living in ♪ ♪ As I bow before You, Lord, in the rising confidence of my heart ♪ ♪ I will see Your goodness, Lord, in the land I'm living in ♪ ♪ No matter where I go, no matter where I'm at ♪ ♪ I will see Your goodness, Lord, in the land I'm living in ♪ ♪ I will see Your goodness, Lord, in the land I'm living in ♪ ♪ And I will see Your goodness, Lord, in the land I'm living in ♪ Come on, can you give Him praise today? Hallelujah, it is great to be gathered here with you all this morning. My name is Micah, and as we continue together, we're gonna do so by reading God's Word. So can I invite you to read Psalm 121 with me? I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?

My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth to forevermore. This is the Word of the Lord. And we say, let's continue. ♪ Hold me now in the hands that created the heavens ♪ ♪ And find me now where the grace runs as deep as your scars ♪ ♪ You pulled me from the clay and you set me on a rock ♪ ♪ And you called me by your name and made my heart whole again ♪ ♪ And made my heart whole again ♪ ♪ Lift it up in my knees now it's all for your glory ♪ ♪ Put on my skin with no reasons to sing than fear ♪ ♪ You pulled me from the clay and you set me on a rock ♪ ♪ And you called me by your name and made my heart whole again ♪ Every voice this morning we sing it out. ♪ So here I stand high in surrender I need you now ♪ ♪ Hold my heart now and forever my song will rise up ♪ ♪ Cause once I was broken and now I'm whole again ♪ ♪ Oh, yeah, you love my whole heart, babe ♪ ♪ Sin has no warning ♪ ♪ Cause your grace holds me now, hallelujah ♪ ♪ And my grace holds the ground where the grave did end ♪

♪ Where the grave did end ♪ ♪ All my shame is left undead in your way ♪ ♪ You crossed those angel gates ♪ ♪ You left no stone unturned ♪ ♪ You stepped out of my grave ♪ ♪ You showed me all the way, oh, thank you, Jesus ♪ ♪ So here I stand, I am surrendered, I need you now, I need you now ♪ ♪ Hold my heart now and forever, my soul, my soul ♪ ♪ Cause once I was broken, oh, but you love my whole heart, babe ♪ ♪ I love you, but sin has no hold on me ♪ ♪ Cause your grace holds me now, healed and forgiven ♪ ♪ Look where my chains are now, death has no hold on me ♪ ♪ Cause your grace holds the ground, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Your grace holds me now, your grace holds me now ♪ ♪ Your grace holds me now, your grace holds me now ♪ ♪ I'm standing in your grace, I'm standing in your light ♪ ♪ I'm standing in your light, oh, there is no one like you, God ♪ ♪ There is no other side, oh, there is no other side ♪ Can I invite you to lift your voice this morning? Here I stand today. ♪ Here I stand, I am surrendered, I need you now, I need you now ♪ In the name of the Lord ♪ Oh my, yes, church, lift your voice, church ♪ ♪ Here I stand, here I stand, here I stand ♪ ♪ I am surrendered, I need you now ♪ We're done living life on our own. We invite you in, God. ♪ Oh my heart, now you're there, I'm surrendered, now I stand ♪ ♪ Here I stand, here I stand, here I stand, here I stand ♪ ♪ I am surrendered, I need you now, I need you now ♪

♪ Oh my heart, now and forever, my soul, I need you now ♪ ♪ Here I stand, I am surrendered, I need you now, I need you now ♪ ♪ Oh my heart, now and forever, my soul, I need you now ♪ ♪ Once I was broken, but you loved my whole heart through ♪ ♪ So you cast a hold on me, but your grace holds me now ♪ ♪ Holds me now, can't live forgiven ♪ ♪ Look where my chains are now, tell there's no hope for me ♪ ♪ Cause your grace holds me now, and your grace holds me now ♪ ♪ Your grace holds me now, and your grace holds me now ♪ ♪ Your grace holds me now, and your grace holds me now ♪ ♪ I'm healed and forgiven, look where my chains are now ♪ ♪ Look where my chains are now, death has no hold on me ♪ ♪ Cause your grace holds the ground, and your grace holds me now ♪ ♪ Your grace holds me now, yes it does ♪ Your grace holds me now Oh, Your grace holds me now Sometimes I fall to my knees and pray Come, Jesus, come, let today be the day Sometimes I feel like I'm gonna break But I'm holding on to a hope that won't fade Come, Jesus, come, we've been waiting so long For the day You return to heal every hurt and right every wrong We need You right now, come and turn this around Cause deep down I know this world isn't home Come, Jesus, come, there'll be no more And there'll be no shame When Jesus comes Come on, sing it out Let today be the day He'll come for the weak And the strong just the same And all will believe in the power of His name Come, Jesus, come, we've been waiting so long For the day You return to heal every hurt and right every wrong We need You right now, come and turn this around Cause deep down I know this world isn't home Come, Jesus, come, come, Jesus, come One day He'll come We'll all stand face to face Won't you come and lay it all down Cause listen, you know it might be today Your time is right now There's no need to wait Your past will be washed Our rivers and lakes

Sing come, Jesus, come, we've been waiting so long For the day You return to heal every hurt and right every wrong We need You right now, come and turn this around Cause deep down I know this world isn't home Sing come, Jesus, come, come, Jesus, come Come, Jesus, come, hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you. Thanks. All the saints and angels, they bow before your throne. All the elders cursed, their crowns before the Lamb of God. And sing, we sing, you are worthy of it all. Yes, yes. You are worthy of it all. All the praise and honor, Lord. For from you are all things. And to you are all things. Yes, you deserve the glory. Oh, yes, you do. Everybody sing. Come on. All the saints and the angels, they bow before your throne. All the elders cast their crowns before the Lamb of our God. And they sing, come on. He is worthy of it all. He is worthy, worthy, worthy. You are worthy of it all. All the praise and honor, Lord. For from you are all things. And to you are all things.

Yes, you deserve the glory. All the glory to our King is. You are worthy of it all. You are worthy of it all. For from you are all things. And to you are all things. Yes, you deserve the glory. All our glory, honor. All our praise to the King. All our praise to the King, King Jesus. Let everything that has breath praise our Lord. Praise our Lord. Come on, every voice in this room, let our praise rise. Come on. Day and night, night and day, let incense rise. Yes. Day and night, night and day, let incense rise. Oh, day and night, night and day, let incense rise. Day and night, night. All over this room, we let our praise rise. And day and night, night and day, let incense rise. Day and night, night and day, let incense rise. Day and night, night and day, let incense rise. Day and night, night and day. You are worthy of it all. You are worthy of it all. You are worthy of it all. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ May 1st, and most of the time fills up by the first or second week of June. So I wanna encourage you to get signed up for that

immediately, make plans to be a part of that. We take people on a nine-month journey through the story of Scripture, and Pastor Blake and that team would love to be able to have you for year one. And if you've been through year one, year two registration also opens that week. So May 1st, circle that date if you would like to go through COTMU. If you have any other questions, stop and ask our team about it. We'd love to get you connected to that ministry. And then secondly, May 13th, a Wednesday night, we are hosting special guest Matt Chandler for a night of prayer, worship, and teaching, as he has a new book out called Becoming Like Jesus. He's a friend of Pastor Witt and wants to kick off his book tour with us. This is a completely free event. We just encourage you to come that night. All three of our worship teams from all three churches will be a part of that. And it's gonna be a great night of worship and prayer, and then amazing teaching. So we just wanna encourage you to be a part of that. Circle that date. And also that night, if you have students in the room, sixth through 12th grade, we are launching Uncommon Night Zero, which is when Uncommon Registration,

which is our summer camp for students, will be kicking off. So we'd love to get you guys here that evening. Just make plans to be a part of us. Yeah, it's great to have Matt Chandler back. If you didn't hear him the last time, he was here on a Wednesday night. Phenomenal teacher. If you missed that, be sure to be at this one, because it's really good. We believe that disciples of Jesus are not only generous with what they have, but they honor God with their resources. Our finances are a big part of our life, and we wanna honor God with it. So we take time in all of our services to give. If you've never given with us before, you can just give by sending the word give to 23101 to get instructions there on how to give electronically. There's also a card in the seat back in front of you. It says generosity on it. And it talks a little bit about why we give, and a couple of other ways of how we give. And so if you're curious about that, please have a look at that card. And if you can't prepare to give in the room, cash or check, there's an envelope in the seat back in front of you. Drop boxes at all of our exits. You're more than welcome to give in that way.

Well, we are in week two of a brand new teaching series looking at the life of Abraham. I'm ready for that. So let's do this. Bow your heads with me. Let's prepare our minds and our hearts to receive from the word of God. Father, what a joy to come into this place just to be together, to spur one another on and be encouraged by one another. But now we open up your living word, and we ask that you would speak to us through it, that we might kinda learn from this model of Abraham, how we can walk by faith. That's what we wanna do. And so, Father, we ask that you speak to us now. We wanna put it into practice. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. You know, one of the things that's cool about being a part of this church is the different gifts and teaching gifts that are represented around here. And this week, you get to hear from our West Senior Pastor at our West Church, Seth Swindoll. And man, he and his wife, Kim, have just done an incredible job with our church out in West Tulsa. And they took a church that was Glenpool, a church that was Solace,

and maybe just a few hundred people, and now, on Easter Sunday this year, biggest Easter ever, they crossed 2,000, regularly have over 1,200 in attendance. And Seth has brought so much stability, care, and pastoring, just amazing leadership to that church. And so, we are honored to be able to have him this weekend. So, would you please help me welcome Pastor Seth to the stage? Oh, what a privilege. Chris didn't tell you all the disruptive stories of things I brought as well, but glad to be here, honored to be a part of the family of churches, and experiencing that incredible goodness and favor of God in this season. It's just a fun season of doing church. I sense, where I get to pastor, I sense here, and hearing from the other pastors that we get the privilege to do this with, the hunger of God's people, that we're not satisfied with just surface, kind of shallow Christianity, but there's a depth, there's a hunger that you bring. And so, man, it's fun to be a part of ministry, and fun to be a part of the church, and what God is doing. And so, it's a privilege to be with you. Before we jump in, I wanna say welcome to a couple of our churches that we have in prisons

at Dick Conner and Edward Warriors. Can we celebrate them, and thank God for all that they're doing in your life? So good to have you with us this morning. If you got your Bibles, I want you to turn to Genesis chapter 12. I'm gonna read verse one, and then we're gonna skip a few verses, and go to verse 10, and we'll look at verses 10 through 20. Now, the Lord said to Abram, go, leave. The first thing that you need to understand is that we serve a God that speaks. He speaks to you. He is involved in your life, and he wants to say something to you each and every day. Go, leave. Leave your country. Leave your relatives. Leave your father's household. Abandon everything that has formed you, and shaped you, taught you about the world, and how to respond to situations and circumstances. And I want you to go to a particular land, to a promised land, that I will show you. Of course, we know Abram responds with yes, he goes, God leads him, takes him into the place of promise, reveals this is the land that I will give your descendants and of course, we see Abram worshiping God, following God, faithful to God and then we find ourselves a little disoriented

as we come to verse 10. And there was a famine in the land. So Abram went, he makes a decisive decision to go down to Egypt. He stays there for a while because the famine was extremely severe. As he approached Egypt, he says to his wife Sarai, look, I know that you are a beautiful woman. When the Egyptians see you, here's what they're gonna say, this is his wife, that they will strategize and make plans and they will kill me, but they will keep you alive. So I need you to lie, I need you to be a little deceptive. Let's have a plan going into this dangerous situation of how it is that we might survive and I want you to tell them that you're my sister so that it may well go well for me because of you and my life will be spared on account of you. When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians immediately saw that the woman he was with was extremely beautiful. When Pharaoh's officials saw her, they ran to Pharaoh, praised her, exalted her, described her beauty in great detail and so Abram's wife was taken. He was taken into the household of Pharaoh. And Pharaoh did treat Abram well on account of her. In this trade, in this exchange, Abram gives his wife, but he receives cattle and sheep, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys and camels. But the Lord struck Pharaoh in his household

with severe diseases because of Sarai, Abram's wife. So Pharaoh summons Abram and says, what is this that you've done to me? Why didn't you tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say she is my sister so that I took her to be my wife? Now here is your wife. Here I am returning what is yours. I am returning what God has given you and I'm telling you to take her and go. It's an echo of what God had originally spoken to him. Go, go to the place of promise. Go to a place that I will show you. And here Pharaoh reminds him inadvertently of the promise and the command of God. And so Pharaoh gave his men the strict orders about Abram and so they expelled him along with his wife and all of his possessions. This is the word of the Lord and we all said. My wife shared with me a story a few weeks ago that really moved me. I've got five girls, got a big dad heart and this story just kind of had a deep, profound effect on me. It's something that she had found on one of her social media platforms and a gentleman named Matthew West, some of you may be familiar with him, pretty popular Christian singer, had this experience with one of his children

and he had taken them to a spiritual retreat. Part of the object lesson of this retreat was to teach us principles about how to follow God. So in the middle of this retreat, they took all the parents and all the children and they took them to the wilderness to do this exercise. And the object was for the parents to lead the children from out into the wilderness back to the place of safety and the place that felt at home. They gave the parents, they brought the parents in and they gave them instructions on how this is gonna work and what we're gonna do and they said, we want you to teach your children going into this moment three simple things. They just gotta remember three simple things. Just tell them, hey, I will never leave you. You can ask me anything at any time in the journey and just listen to my voice. Don't listen to anyone else, just listen. And so the father absorbs all of this information and on the way there, he is drilling this into his daughter. I'll never leave you, you can ask me anything, just listen to my voice over and over and over and over. You got it? I got it, dad, it's pretty simple. Eat three things, repeat them back to me. You'll never leave me, I can ask you anything, just listen to your voice. Got it, good, okay. They get out there into the wilderness

and they blindfolded all the children so that they couldn't see where they were going and they said, okay, we're gonna begin the journey. Parents, begin to lead your children where we wanna go and of course, in the beginning, it was pretty easy. The parents each kinda had a hand on the shoulder and was talking their children and saying, okay, we're gonna take five steps forward, we're on the path, you've got some trees around you, there's some rocks to your right, there's a creek running off to your left, we're gonna stay away from that and so let's move in this direction. Hey, I want you to stop, there's a creek here that we're gonna have to cross and I'm gonna lead you along the rocks and so they're doing it and a few minutes into the journey, the counselors come up and give the parents. It's a silent signal that now they have to remove their hand off their children, and they can no longer lead them by touch. And so obviously the pace begins to slow a little bit, but the journey is still going pretty good. The parents are still giving pretty distinct instructions. Few moments later, there's another signal given by the counselors, and now the parents can no longer speak to their children until their children speak to them. So now, as the leader, as the guide, there's somewhat of a helplessness

that you feel and you sense. You want to lead your children. Of course, now, kids are going all over the place in all kinds of directions, because they don't listen to their parents in the first place. And so now, it's kind of a free-for-all. And this gentleman's young daughter starts to go in the wrong direction. Of course, he's wanting to grab her and pull her back, but he is, because of the rules of the game, helpless. And the little girl gets off and finds herself confused and disoriented and not sure what to do and starts to panic just a little bit. And the counselor comes up to her and says, hey, sis, is everything okay? And she says, no, no, no, I don't know where I am and I don't know what to do. And she said, well, it looks, this counselor is playing the voice of deception. She said, it looks as if you've been separated from your dad and from the others. Would you like me to take you to where you need to go? Of course, the dad is there and his insides are exploding. He's like, please, don't listen, don't be deceived, don't follow. And the little girl says, yeah, that sounds great. Take me, lead me. And so the counselor grabs her hand and begins to walk her. Of course, she doesn't walk her in the right direction.

She takes her in the wrong direction and takes her around in circles, gets her completely confused and disoriented and lost, leaves her in a ditch facing this massive tree with limbs slapping her in the face and leaves her there. The girl is overwhelmed and confused, begins to panic. Emotions begin to be stirred. And so now, the father is sitting there helpless and as he's watching his daughter get emotional, you get emotional. And finally, after what seems like an hour, probably just a few minutes, another counselor approaches her and says, hey, sis, do you remember the instructions that your dad gave you? And this little whimpering voice said, I think so. Dad, are you there? Of course, his dad's overwhelmed with emotions. Yes, I'm right here. I've never left you. Dad, can you help me? Yes, I'm right here, I'll lead you. And now, there begins to be a journey back in the right direction. I think it's a beautiful picture of what it is to follow God, the simplicity of following God. But I think many of us forget how simple it is to follow God and just that God, are you there? God, you said you would never leave me.

God, where are you? I don't sense you. Would you help me? I wanna listen for your voice. And I think what we're watching here in Genesis chapter 12 is a man that's forgotten how simple it is to follow God. And we learn some things from following his life. But I think before we dive into the life of Abraham and we learn some disciplines and some practical principles about following God, I think one of the most important lessons that we can learn from this passage as we dive in here in Genesis chapter 12 is not so much what it means to follow God or how to follow God, but I think the greatest lesson we're learning if we're paying attention is the character of who we are following. That we're learning who God is and what God is about. We're learning about the faithfulness of God even in the midst of human tragedy and human mistakes. In chapter 12, God comes to Abraham and he speaks to him. And he says, I want you to leave and I want you to abandon and I want you to go. And there's incredible promises right after this that are given. I'm gonna make you a great nation. I'm gonna give you a great people. I'm gonna take you to an incredible place.

But all of those promises are only possible because of the most significant promise that God gives him first. I want you to go to a place that I will show you. I'm not just sending you on a journey. I'm not just sending you out, but I'm taking you out. And this is a promise of presence. It's reminiscent of what we see in Joshua chapter one where Joshua comes to God and he's like praying and he's seeking God. He's nervous about what's ahead of him. And God says, I want you to be strong. I want you to be courageous. I want you to be bold. You're gonna do incredible things, but that is only possible because like I was with Moses, I'm with you. Every step of the way, no matter what you face, no matter what you're in the middle of, no matter what you go through, I will be right there with you. And we see the faithfulness of God through this journey as he gets to this place. He moves into this place of promise and he's hearing the voice of God and he's responding and he's leading and it's this incredible journey. All of a sudden, we come to verse 10, and now there's a famine. And there's this disorientation moment.

Wait a minute, God, you said you would be with me. God, you said you were for me. You said you would do great things in me and bring great things out of me. How can I be in a difficult place? How can I be in a place that threatens my life and threatens my marriage and threatens my future and threatens the promise of what you wanna do in me? God, I don't sense that you're here. I don't sense that you're there. I remember early in my life having such a tenderness towards the presence of God. And many of us, we love those moments, whether it's in our personal time in a church service or in a worship service where we are experiencing and feeling and sensing this powerful presence of God, and it's so moving and it's so impacting. And your assumption is the more mature I become, that feeling probably just deepens. Like mature believers just probably float around on a cloud. They don't even have to take an Uber. They just, God carries them and angels carry them wherever they go because surely mature believers, if I'm this immature and this young and this new in this journey, surely mature believers just feel God's presence all the time in such a deeper way. And what I found is that the older I got, the more mature I became, there were seasons where I felt God less.

And what I've learned is that maturity is not always feeling God, but always believing that he's there. Immaturity starts to question, God, where'd you go? This is difficult. This is painful. This is uncomfortable. Where are you? And I think what we're seeing is an immature follower of God who gets into a difficult place and starts to question the presence of God. I don't sense that you're here. I don't feel, I don't hear your voice like I used to. And now, Abraham, in that what appears to be the absence of God starts to make decisions for himself. He starts to take control because when you and I get panicked, when you and I don't feel God, don't sense God, don't really believe and trust that God is there like he promised he would be, I'm not gonna wait on God to return. I'm gonna take control. I'm gonna make decisions. And so Abraham makes a decisive decision to go. This is hard. This is difficult. This is life-threatening. This is putting my family in God, even rationalizing in his mind. Listen, how am I gonna fulfill the promise of God if I'm dead, if I die of famine?

Let's go to Egypt. And so he makes a decisive decision and he goes there. And of course now, he understands how things work. He understands the nature of humanity, the cruelty of the Egyptian culture, and he knows they take what they want. He knows what he has and the beauty of his wife. And he says, listen, this is a dangerous place. I think it's the only way we can survive. I think it's the only way we can be preserved. I think it's the only way we can preserve the promise of God. So Sarah, I need you to come along with me and I need you to protect me. They're gonna want you, they're gonna take you and they're gonna kill me if they have to, to get you. Let's lie, let's deceive, let's twist the truth and let's try to save and preserve ourselves. And of course, she does. And it's just this continual degrading downward spiral of craziness and I don't know. It works. Pharaoh is deceived, Egyptians are deceived. They believe that it's a sister, they take him. Abraham's kind of in this comfortable place. He's getting donkeys and camels and servants and comfort and riches and all of this stuff. And I just wonder if there's ever a moment where it hits him, what the heck have I done? I thought I was saving us.

I thought I was preserving us, yet I've put my wife in an incredibly dangerous and compromising place. I wonder if it ever hits him, what he's done. You see, I'm reminded of the verse where Jesus says, many were gonna try to save their life, try to take control of their life, make decisions to preserve themselves, but they're only gonna get themselves in deeper trouble. To try to save your life in your own strength, in your own wisdom, in your own control only puts your life and the future that God has for you in deep jeopardy. And I don't know if it ever hits Abraham. He's comfortable, he's thinking, man, it worked. We're gonna get out of here. This is amazing. But now, the very promise of God, because God didn't just promise Abraham, God promised them. He gave the promise to them. He required them in their marriage, in their relationship to be a marriage of covenant and a marriage that's gonna fulfill the promise together. And now that's in jeopardy because she's been taken from him. And it's just this downward spiral of someone taking control of their life and making a mess of their own situation. You and I are often guilty of that. We can probably look back at times

where we were the ones in control, making the decisions that we thought were the best. And don't you wish you could have fast-forwarded 20 years to see the outcome of that decision because if you could have seen the outcome, you'd have made a different decision. You wouldn't have gone there. You wouldn't have taken that job. You wouldn't have moved to that place. You wouldn't have done that thing that you did because you thought in the moment it was the right thing but yet. It was the wrong thing, the broken thing. Here, Abraham is in this position. But the encouragement that we have and the great news that we have is that even though Abram is taking control and making the most of his own life and getting himself into trouble and he doesn't feel God, God is still very present, very at work, intervening, and there's this but God moment. And no matter how bad we mess up our life, you and I can take solace in the fact that there is always a but God in our story. There is always a but God in our relationship. There is always a but God coming in our future. And we can take, he says, but God intervened. But God struck Pharaoh. It's very reminiscent of what we're gonna see

in the future where the Egyptians have taken God's people into slavery and into captivity and God brings plagues to free God's people. You wanna see God get angry? Watch people mess with his kids. It brings out a fatherly, jealous, angry side of God when people mess with his kids. And here, they're messing with his promise. They're messing with his people. But God intervenes, strikes Pharaoh, and brings them out. And I don't know if Abram ever realizes what God has done to protect him and to preserve him. I don't know if God, if Abram understands the significance of what God has done. If he's just thinking, man, don't know how that worked. Thank God that we got out of that. Man, we're lucky, Sarah. I don't know what happened and why they got the disease, but thank God they did. They preserved us and let us go and we're leaving better. Did he realize sometimes the greatest things that God does in our life go unnoticed because we don't even see it. We don't even notice what's happened. Those but God moments where we were stupid, we made mistakes, but God. All of us here today are here because of but God moments. Because in those moments where we don't feel God and we don't sense God, he's still present. He's still faithful.

He's faithful to his word. It says in the scriptures that God will watch over his word to perform it. And when God speaks to you and when God gives you a promise, he doesn't back off of it. Even in the midst of your stupidity, the Bible says that the gifts of God are without repentance. He doesn't take them back. He made a promise to you. He put a call on your life. He gave you a purpose and a destiny. And no matter how stupid you get, no matter how many mistakes you get, no matter how big you blow up your life, God is still faithful to the promise and he will watch over it to perform it and he will chase you and pursue you all the days of your life to keep true to his word, amen? Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. You can feel whatever in here. I was this. I did this. They said this. But God. I was stupid, but God. I was addicted, but God.

I blew up my family, but God. I was fired unfairly, but God. The economy took a tank and blew up my finances, but God. Well, whatever you wanna put in that place, there's always a but God. My life, the reason I'm standing here today is because of but God moments. In 1978, this little 16-year-old girl blew up her life chasing love. Ended up pregnant and all of the voices in her life, this is a wreck, this is over, your life has no future. You've made the biggest mistake. What are we gonna do? How are we gonna solve this? Well, we can erase the mistake. We can go down the route of abortion. We can keep it and maybe try to make a go of it, but you're no kind of mother. You're not ready to be a mother. There's maybe we can just give our problem to someone else. And in this moment of crisis, there was a but God moment. Six hours away in another community in a little town in Seminole, West Texas, there was two individuals that had been married for 10 years, a little couple that loved God and had served God and were devoted to God and yet struggled to have a child. Didn't know what was gonna happen or how it was gonna happen, but was holding on to this God has given us a promise,

yet it seemed so bleak and it seemed so helpless and all the voices in their life, this isn't gonna work. They'd tried physically, they'd tried doctors, they had done all of the things trying to have a kid. They were incapable. Everyone was telling them it was never gonna work. They'd tried adoption and adoption after adoption had fallen through and they were about ready to give up, but God, and they get a call and said, hey, this little girl in Rio de Janeiro, New Mexico is pregnant and giving the child up for adoption. Would you like one more go? But God worked and but God moved in January 5th, 1979. Stephen Sally Swindoll walked out of the hospital with me, adopted, born into purpose, born into a call of God. I'm standing here because of but God moments. Hallelujah. And God is no respecter of person. It's not because I'm some special person. It's what God does for his people. It's what God does for you and thank God that wasn't the only. God moment in my life. Because when I was a teenager, I was stupid, but God. When I was getting into my 20s, I was angry and bitter and consumed with unforgiveness, but God. When I got married, I was selfish and self-centered because every adopted only child

is the center of the universe. It's our world and you just get to live it and my wife thanks God every day that there was a but God moment in my life. And he has shaped me and formed me and all of us. There's the greatest but God in scripture found in Ephesians chapter two, that you and I were dead in our sins, but God. He didn't leave us dead. He didn't leave us abandoned in our stupidity. He didn't leave us controlled by our sin. He sent his son to the cross to pay the price for us and so when he was raised, we were raised. Thank God for but God moments in our life, amen? That's the kind of God we serve. And you would think that following God would make life easy. But for you and I, when like Abraham, we say yes and we follow God on this journey, life doesn't always get easier. Saying yes doesn't make life easy. Sometimes saying yes to God actually makes life harder. You lose friendships because the people in your life are not as excited about the changes that God's making in you as you are. There's less opportunity in your workplace sometimes because you said yes to God and now I walk with a moral integrity to the best of my ability to reflect the goodness of God

and I'm not willing to compromise anymore. Sometimes life gets harder in all kinds of situations and circumstances and I'm sure that Abraham is a little bit disoriented. Wait, this isn't how this is supposed to go. I said yes. I left. I abandoned. I made this vow of not my will, but your will, God. That's supposed to make everything easy and right and comfortable. What do you mean that I'm in famine? What do you mean that there's not gonna be enough food? What do you mean I can't feed my family? What do you mean that this is hard and difficult and life-threatening? You see, this famine wasn't just a little bump in the road. Sometimes we can read through scripture and we can kind of minimize what the people are actually experiencing. But if we really think deep, I mean, we can relate with Abraham, we know what it is to be in crisis. We've watched the weather, we've seen the threat of two inches of snow. We run to the store panicked to rid the shelves of every loaf of bread and every package of toilet paper and every gallon of milk that we can get into our refrigerator and into our ice chest because dear God, we might run out of food over the next 48 hours.

See, this isn't that. This is life-threatening. There were three stages to famine in these days. There was this overwhelming sense of anxiety that started to take place because there was a rhythm to how this went. Canaan depended on rain, rain to water the lands and water the crops and water the seeds that were sown. And there was an early rain, there was a late rain, there was a particular time they sowed seed so that the rain would hit it. And if anything disrupted that rhythm, there was not going to be any kind of harvest and they knew instantly, wait a minute, we're in trouble. Things are out of rhythm, there's no rain. We didn't get the crops in in time. We're gonna struggle. There's nowhere to get food in our land. And anxiety and fear begins to overwhelm the people. There's an irritation and a frustration. And they begin to do things that are out of the norm. They move deeper into the season of famine and desperation and moral breakdown starts to consume society because no longer do I care about you, no longer do I care about biblical principles, no longer do I care about generosity or what's right. No, all I care is survival of the fittest. I want for me, I want for mine, I'm gonna protect what I have, I'm gonna take what you have,

I'm gonna do whatever it takes to survive in this famine moment. And then there is just the deepest part where everything's gone, starvation begins to set in and there's total collapse in society. This is life and death. This is severe, this is significant. We see in 1 Kings, the widow woman in the midst of famine, she's got a little bit of oil and a little bit of flour and she's cooking her last meal, preparing to die, preparing to starve to death. That's the moment, the kind of moment that Abraham finds himself in. And he's just wondering, God, I thought this would be easy. And when we hit the wall, oftentimes, we respond to life and to crisis instinctively and it's exactly what Abram does. He responds to this crisis pragmatically. I think he hits the easy button. He doesn't pray, he doesn't seek, he doesn't ask, he doesn't knock. He doesn't pursue God. It just seems as if he makes a decisive decision. Get your stuff and we're going to Egypt. Why Egypt? It was the common place to go in the midst of famine because unlike Canaan, Egypt did not rely on rain. They had incredible river systems that kept land fertile and nutrient and they were able to grow crops.

Egypt wasn't famine-proof but they were definitely famine-resistant. And so the common thing for the culture was they were to move in this direction to save themselves. And so he just responds. He does the common sense thing. He does what most of you and I would do. I mean, we're pretty hard on Abram and we're pretty critical of him but you and I do the same exact thing. We get into a hard situation instead of just stopping and saying, God, are you there? God, are you working? God, can you help me? God, I don't sense you. I'm confused by this. This is difficult. This is uncomfortable. Instead of stopping and pausing and asking, we just take control and we deserve, we do what's instinctive to us. Abraham's come out of a place of self-preservation and self-reliance and he's left it but it hadn't left him. And when crisis hits, when pressure hits, what's in you is gonna come out of you. When you're squeezed by life, what's in you, if it's good, good's gonna come out of you. If it's God, God's gonna come out of you. If it's broken and if it's immoral

and if it's anger and if it's pride, guess what's coming out of you? Not stuff that's good for you or the people that are around you and when Abraham is squeezed, what's in him comes out of him and he instinctively responds in the way that he would've in the old days. We see that he gets himself in trouble and I just wonder, what would've happened if Abraham would've just stopped and said, God, what should I do? I'm confused, I'm disoriented. I'm in a tough place, I'm in a tough season, I'm in a tough spot. What should I do? How should I respond? Everything in me is screaming, go to Egypt. Everything in me is screaming, go here. What should I do? And it might've been that God said, hey, go to Egypt, take Sarah, take your stuff, take your people and go to Egypt but you don't have to deceive, you don't have to lie. I'm gonna create a way for you. We're gonna walk with integrity through this. We're gonna do what's right for you. We're gonna preserve the promise. I'm with you, I'm in step with you. I'm gonna lead you, I'm gonna give you favor

with the people, you're gonna get food, you're gonna survive, you're gonna be sustained. Just walk with me. It might've been that that's what God would've said. It's also possible that God would've said, I know the easy button. I know the easy decision here is to go where you think you should go but I'm gonna ask you to do something difficult. I'm gonna ask you to stay. I'm gonna ask you to stay in the place of promise. I'm gonna ask you to stay in the difficult place. I'm gonna ask you to stay in the unfair place and watch me work, watch me provide. We see in 1 Kings where Elijah is in the midst of a famine similar to what Abraham is experiencing and he is positioned by God strategically by this little creek that gives him water and then he's got the coolest door dash people that bring him food every day. These ravens just show up out of nowhere always bringing him food, always bringing him meat and it's the work of God to sustain him in a difficult place. You see, saying yes to God doesn't always make life easy. It does provide and open the door for God's grace to be abundantly provided in your life. You're gonna be in situations and places where you don't think you can survive. I don't know if our marriage can make it through this.

I don't know if I can stand under this pressure or under this weight. I don't know if I can make the right decision but when we say yes to God and not just yes to God for then but yes to God right now and we wake up tomorrow and we say yes to God today, every day there is the grace of God to live in the moment that we are in the middle of. Easy, difficult, hard, it doesn't matter. God will give you the grace to survive in the hard. Whatever you think is impossible, God will give you a grace to endure it. He gives us that grace in the midst of great difficulty to stand and to be faithful. It's the book of Hebrews where those that are being written to are questioning life, questioning their faith. Faith is slipping through their fingers and the writer of Hebrews says, I know it's tough. I know there's doubt. I know deception is trying to sneak in and I know your hands are tired of holding on and you're tired of trying to endure but get a new grip. Hold on to your faith. Hold on to the truth. I know life is difficult but just hold on to Jesus. It's the whole book of Revelations. It's gonna get crazy. It's gonna be difficult. It's gonna be deceptive but yet obey and endure and stand true to your faith and hold on to Christ

in every way possible. There's a grace to endure. And I think maybe the most important thing for us that we don't think is impossible is that God gives us a grace to walk with. of godly integrity. He gives us a grace to do the right thing and to do it the right way. So that when we live, First Peter tells us, hey, life is hard and unfair, but do what's right. Live with integrity, live in a way that reflects the love of God, the character of God, the integrity of God. Don't compromise your convictions. Don't compromise what's right, because with God, the end never justifies the means. He cares as much about how you do something more than if you succeed at that thing. He cares about how you treat people. He cares about how you love others. He cares about your integrity and your character, and he is forming us into a person to look like him, to talk like him, and to act like him. And yet in this story that we see Abram, I would say we see a man that does not reflect the integrity of God. He takes control, he makes his own decisions. He puts his wife in an extremely compromising position. He's doing it out of self-interest and self-preservation.

None of those things align with the character of God. But this is actually encouraging for you and I, because often we put these kind of heroes of our faith on a pedestal, and we have a tendency to see everything they do as perfect and flawless. Yet Abram is an immature, new follower of God. He doesn't have this all figured out. He doesn't have this all neatly defined. He's not a mature, perfected, finished product. No, he's being developed. And what I love is in the midst of his failure, in the midst of his mistakes, God didn't abandon him and walk away from him. God just leans in and continues to shape, and says, Abraham, I'm gonna use every success, every failure, every relationship, I'm gonna use these things to shape you into a new kind of person. And the Abraham that we read about in Genesis 11 is different from the Abraham we read about in Genesis 12. The Abraham we read about in Genesis 12 is different than the one we read about in 15 and 16. And it's radically different. If you look at the whole scope of his journey, he is a radically different person in Genesis 22. Because you and I need to know this, that following God is more about process than it is perfection. We're not always gonna get it right,

but we need to embrace the process of God shaping us and forming me. Thank God I'm not the same individual I was at 15, or that I was at 25, or that I was at 35, or that I was yesterday. And in five years, in 10 years, I'm not gonna be the same person. Why, I'm still in process. You and I are still in process. In Mark chapter four, Jesus teaches the parable of the sower. Many of you are familiar with it. Seeds sown on four different types of ground. And of course, Jesus is relating the ground to our heart. There's the closed heart that is hard and resistant to the things of God. There's the shallow heart that receives the seed and the word, but it has no depth, it has no substance. The pressures of life and crisis quickly destroy any work of God in this shallow kind of heart, this rocky soil. There's the crowded heart with all of these voices and all of these worries and stresses, and it says the cares of the world, the thorns and the weeds choke out the life of God. And then there's the transformed heart, the thing that we're all shooting for. I've always seen this as Jesus talking about different kinds of people. And there's truth to that. There's different types of people that we could put you

in each of these. There's people who were the closed heart. There's people here with a shallow heart. There's people here with a crowded heart. There's a lot of people in this house with a transformed heart that are faithfully following God. But the good news is for you today is that you are not locked into wherever you find yourself. You're in process. You see, you take this and you overlay it over the life of Abraham. And you look at the beginning of his life, Joshua 24 verse two says that Abram's father, Terah, was a worshiper of multiple gods. It's not explicit to say that Abram was closed off to God, but it is possible to see that at a time young in his life, influenced by his father, that he could be resistant and hard to the things of God. Yet the goodness of God is that he never stopped sowing seed. And in Genesis 12, God's continuing to sow seed, and that seed finds a crack in the hard heart. And it finds a place of reception, and it begins to produce. And then through this passage, it's very clear that we see a shallow heart that is so glad to receive the word of God, and the truth of God, and the promise of God. Yet when Christ. ISIS hits, that seed is quickly choked out and Abram takes control of his life. And yet God didn't quit sowing seed.

He kept sowing seed. He kept cultivating the ground of his heart. In chapter 15 and 16, you're gonna see a crowded heart. There's pressure, there's anxiety, there's multiple voices, this isn't working. How are we gonna make God's promise come true? Let's do this. What if you did this and you see the birth of Ishmael, the weed, the thorn that tries to choke out the life of God in Abram's heart and future? And in Genesis 22, because God had never stopped processing and developing Abram, you see a transformed heart. God, I don't understand this, this makes no sense. You're asking me to sacrifice the most important thing to me, the very promised seed, the son, that you've given me, that makes no sense. But yes, I trust you. You're with me. Let's do this together. I don't know how you're gonna work. I don't know how you're gonna fulfill your word. It doesn't make sense, but I trust you. You see a transformed heart that has fully embraced not my will, not my wants, but your will. Wherever you sit today, be encouraged, you're in process. And God will never quit on you. God will never give up on you. God will never stop sowing seed into your life, giving you the opportunity to become fully formed,

the person you were created to be, fulfilling all the promises that God has given you, given your family, placed on the inside of you. You and I, maybe in hard times, we forget the simplicity of following God. Maybe today we just need to come to the place where it's like, God, are you there? God, can you help me? Would you speak to me and can I hear your voice? And as we seek him, the word of God gives us a promise. We will find him. Father, today we thank you for your incredible faithfulness. In the midst of our struggles, in the midst of our adversity, in the midst of our difficulty, in the midst of our doubt, in the midst of our sin, in the midst of our mistakes and our failures, you are faithful and you never quit on us. You never give up on us. And God, we stand here humbled and grateful for all the but God moments where you showed up in an incredible way and worked in a supernatural way. And I pray that the heart of every person here today is grateful and humbled, that you would love us, that you would know us and that you would walk with us

for every hard heart here today, God. Would you find a crack? Would you sow the seed deep into the heart and may it produce life in them? For the shallow hearts today that are anxious and worried and filled with doubt, would you cultivate our hearts so that the seed can go even deeper? Would you give us a confidence in your presence and in your willingness to do whatever to fulfill your promise? For those of us here today that are overwhelmed and our heart is crowded with anxiety and stress and worry and pressure and multiple voices and all of that stuff that's often the result of our own decisions, it's trying to choke the life of God, the peace of God, the joy of God out of our life, would you once again remove those weeds, those thorns, those things that get in the way of us fully trusting you? Thank you for the process of turning us into the right kind of people that can with intent, that can with integrity walk through the hard and survive the difficult. Thank you for your grace today. In Jesus' name we pray. Everybody said amen. Our prayer team's gonna be here, thank you.

Yeah, come on, let's honor God today. Our prayer team's gonna be here at the end of service. If you have questions about having Jesus and inviting Jesus to be the Lord and the Savior of your life, we would love to talk with you. We've got a resource for you, what it means to be saved, how it means, what it means to follow God in this journey. We'd love to talk to you. If you need prayer for anything else that's going on in your life, we would love to stand with you and believe with you and pray for you. Would you stand with me? Let me speak a blessing over you as we go today. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and may God give you peace. We love you guys, we'll see you next week. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪

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