Sing Talk—Matt Richerzhagen
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So let's ask the Lord for His help. Our God and our Father, we thank Thee for this amazing location, the wonders of Thy creation as our brother just shared, how it declares Thy glory and Thy power. We pray for help as we would open Thy word that we might speak rightly of Thee. Lord Jesus, that we might walk ever so close to Thee. We thank Thee and pray for help in Jesus mighty name, Amen.
So I wanted to talk today.
About worship and we're going to look at a four instances in Genesis. If you have your Bibles, turn to Genesis 13. If not, just listen. And this is about the life of Abraham.
That is.
That is good, but that's not where I was.
Genesis chapter 12 Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him.
And I wanted to talk about worship because there's a part in every single one of our bodies, and I'm part of our soul, I should say, our spirit that longs for something that nothing in this world satisfies.
There's nothing in this world that satisfies the whole that God hath made in our spirit that only he fits. And you see people in this world, I work for tons and tons of people that are very wealthy and they buy cars. There's nothing wrong with the car. They buy houses, they buy boats, they buy all this stuff to try and fill that hole. And there's nothing wrong with those things. If you have the Lord Jesus and you have that, it's, it's very nice, but it's never going to satisfy.
And so I wanted to talk tonight about worship, and our dear brother just had a beautiful.
Meeting on new birth and a lot of people think that somehow they're going to live out the Christian path. It's a pathway and they think they're going to they're going to live in some strength of their own. In all reality, what the walk of the Christian pathway is letting the Lord live through our bodies, letting his light shine through us. And so the Lord here, he calls to Abram. He chose him, as our brother mentioned, he chose him.
Abraham didn't go find the Lord, the Lord went and found him and he said get out of where you are, from your kindred, from your father's house, into a land that I will show thee. And just imagine what it would be like if the Lord told you you need to go somewhere else and you don't even know where you're going.
How many of you, when you started out to get to camp, knew that you were coming to camp, right?
I don't know that I've ever started on a trip. I might have because I'm a little bit crazy, but most people don't start out on a trip and then figure out where they're going on the way. They start out with a destination and the Lord said you need to move, start walking, and I'll show you where to go. And he started. And so Abraham goes, and we find him later on.
In verse 6, Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem into the plan of Mora.
The Canaanite was then in the land, and the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed, will I give this land? And there he built it an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. It was the altar of obedience. There's four altars. And Uncle Jack says this. He says, if we've experienced the Lord's presence even for 5 minutes will never be the same.
The Christian path is not a bunch of rules. It's not a bunch of dues. It's not a bunch of don'ts. It's knowing about the create, not knowing about knowing the Creator of the universe and walking intimately with him and talking with him and listening to him.
And here the Lord talks to Abram. He appeared unto him, and he said, unto thy seed, will I give this land? And in Hebrews Chapter 11, verse six, it says this. It says, without faith it is impossible to please him.
For he that cometh to God must believe that He is, that He exists, and that He's a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Every single one of us in our lives are going to face trials and challenges. One of the biggest characters of faith is to believe that God is for us to have that confidence in Him.
So he built an altar there unto the Lord, who appeared unto him an altar of obedience. And then in chapter 13.
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Verse three, it says he went on his journey. This is Abraham again, from South, from the South even to Bethel and to the place where his tent had been at the beginning between Bethel and Hai, under the place of the altar which he had made there at the 1St. And there Abraham called on the name of the Lord. That's his altar as a Pilgrim and dear brothers and sisters were passing through.
And these things that we have, they're not. They're nice, but they're not what make our life. The older I get, the more I realize that if we build our life on anything else except for Christ, we're just building sand castles and the sand gets washed away by the water. And I know people, their lives have been washed away by divorce. They've lost their business, they've lost their money, they've lost all this stuff.
And if that's what's really important to you, then you've lost. If you have the Lord Jesus Christ and you lose your things, you still have the most important thing. You still have Him.
And he's our provision. He's going to make a way.
Under the place of the altar, and he called upon the name of the Lord. We were talking about this the other day. What does it mean to call upon the name of the Lord?
Somebody. This is an honest question. This is a question. What does it mean to call upon the name of the Lord?
Does anybody have an idea? There's no wrong answers.
What does it mean to call upon the name of the Lord? Go ahead.
Pray to him, Go ahead. Have confidence in him. Yeah, Have confidence in him in Psalm 50. To have confidence in him, to pray to him absolutely in Psalm 50.
Verse 15 it says, call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee.
And thou shalt glorify me. The Lord knows we're going to have troubles. He knows we're going to have trials. And there's a difference between what we create. We create most all of our own discipline. But the Lord allows challenges. Our brother mentioned that this morning in the reading about the difficulties. The Lord allows when we do a work for him. That's OK. It's OK to have those trials. It keeps us humble and it keeps us dependent.
And if we don't have that, we can't be used of him. We were reading in the reading about being an empty vessel if we show up with what we are.
That doesn't help other people.
What we need to do to really be a help to them is give them Christ. You meet somebody and they're suffering and they have trials and you say, well, you know, whatever. But if you give them hope in Christ, that'll help them. That'll be a blessing. That'll be a help. So we had the first altar, the altar of obedience, and we have the altar as a Pilgrim. And then if we jump down.
To verse 151315 it says, For the land which thou seest to thee, will I give it into thy seed forever.
And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it, in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee. And then Abram removed his hand, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mammary, which is in Hebron, and built an altar.
Unto the Lord, an altar of renunciation, that he was there devoted. He was here devoted to the Lord. And Abraham had great things. The Lord had blessed him. There's nothing wrong with owning possessions. We just have to have him in the right priority order.
And the orders given to us in Matthew 633 says, Seek ye first his Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. I don't know if any of you guys use horses and buggies or horses and wagons. Has anybody ever hooked up horses Do a cart? We have. I don't know if anybody else has. How would it work if you put the cart before the horse?
Do you think that'd work good?
It doesn't work. You got to put the horse before the cart.
And that's why we got it. We have to put the Lord 1St and then everything comes out right in the wash. I remember once Uncle Steve had a Sunday school in Walla Walla and he had a jar and he had all these vegetables and he wanted to know if we thought that he could get all those vegetables in the jar.
And it was like handfuls of vegetables in this jar. There is no way. And what he did is he put the big vegetables in first and then he just squished and squished and squished and squished and all the vegetables. I think he got lucky.
But everything fit in there because he put the big things in first.
The most important things first.
If you try and put the other things in there first, it will never work. And that same thing happens in our lives and these things come up to us all the time. This isn't just like theory.
We wake up in the morning, we say, Lord, I don't have time to pray today. I have too many problems. Has anybody ever said that?
Lord, it's your fault. Well, you gave me so many problems. I don't have time for fellowship. That didn't work very good. It didn't work for me. The next day I got up and I said, Lord, I don't have time to not have time. I need your help. And you know what? He helps. He's right there. He wants us. He wants to be in communion with us. And Uncle Matt, where did he go? He said earlier that we needed to give thanks.
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One of the things about worship, as we're talking about these altars.
And alters a place where we lift things up before the Lord. There's a sacrifice made. One of the things about worship is it sets us completely free from this world. And what worship is in its root, you know, boil down to its deepest form, is saying things that are true and right about God. God, you are holy, you are true, you are powerful, you are righteous, you are trustworthy. That's what worship is. And it totally, completely transforms our hearts.
It changes us and it sets us free from the challenges of our life.
The altar renunciation and then we're going to go the 4th altar is in Genesis 22.
And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham. And dear beloved brothers and sisters, if you have a challenge in your life, it is not for you to fail. That is not the point. The reason God gives us challenges is for us to succeed and for us to grow. He does not intend for us to fail. That is not His point at all. OK.
God did tempt. He tried Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham, and he said.
Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thy only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning. Why did he act right away? Somebody know?
Is one of the characters of faith, obedience, and dependence. Why did he act right away?
Why is it important to act right away?
Does anybody have a guess?
That's right, the urge to obey is the strongest right when it happens.
Right when it happens, right when you hear that call, just do it. You say yes, Lord, because you think about it, you start to reason, you start well. Well, and pretty soon you talk yourself out of it. And then the Lord has to talk again. And guess what? He talks louder.
And louder and louder and louder. And then we can't help but hear him.
So Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his ***. We know the story. He took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son. Now Isaac was the son of the promise. He had waited for years and years and years and years to have this son. The Lord said a son that comes out of your loins from you is going to be your heir.
And the Lord finally gives him his son, and then the Lord tells him you need to go and sacrifice him.
But he believed God, the Lord said this son is going to be your heir. There is no way that he was going to die. And if he did die, he was going to come back to life because God had promised. And I'm going to tell you, dear ones, today, tonight, if God has made you a promise, it will happen, not to something you thought of. You know, whatever, if the Lord promised you something, it's going to happen.
If he has to bring somebody back to life.
If he has to, whatever, it doesn't matter. God can do anything. And here was the Son, and the Abraham takes him.
And it says, I, Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son. And he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and they went, both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham's father, and said, My father. And he said, Here am I my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood. But where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb.
For a burnt offering.
So they went, both of them together, and they came to the place which God had told him of. And Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac's son, and laid him on the altar of the wood.
And God calls every single one of us.
To lay our lives down. In Romans 12 it says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present yourselves a living sacrifice.
And it's hard. The trouble with living sacrifices is they tend to squirm off the altar.
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Because we don't like the pain, we don't like what we're going through. But let the Lord work.
Though Abraham told his son, God is going to provide himself a lamb.
And he picks up that knife to kill his son. And he believed the whole time. It tells us in Hebrews 11. He believed that if he killed his son, the Lord would bring him back to life. He believed God.
We all need to believe God and to trust Him.
And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah Jireh.
The Lord said Abraham, Abraham, stop, because I see that you trust me. Stop. Put down the knife and turn around. And he saw a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. And that's a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he called that place Jehovah Jireh, the Lord, my provision. And dear beloved brothers and sisters, as we go through this scene, the Lord will be your provision.
He will not fail you.
He promised and it may seem we have in our ideas. If this happens, then the Lord provided for me. I'm not saying it's going to show up just like you thought it would, but He will provide for you and He will provide for you at His own expense.
He that spared not his own son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?
Blessed be his name. So as we walk through this scene, may we be.
Worshippers, may we let His life fill us that we might carry His light to the world. Let's just pray. Our God and our Father, you are so good. We think of how.
Thou would send thy son.
The Lord Jesus Christ to that very mountain where that ram was, where Abraham was, provided a sacrifice. Lord Jesus, on that very mountain you gave your life for us.
We thank thee.
That thou art more than enough to carry us through. And we pray that we would be worshippers, that we would lift your name on high and follow you with all our hearts and lay our lives down as living sacrifices.
For thou alone artworthy. Amen.