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Sermon
Genesis

Like Father, Like Son

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April 21, 2024
Genesis 26:1-35
Steven Lee
Pastor for Preaching & Vision

Faith

Parenting & Children

Grace

Transcript

0:19Would You join me as we pray now, father in heaven, we want to hear you speak. So would you take the loaves and fishes that I bring and multiply it to feed thousands this morning? And then may we eat and receive what you have for us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. The apostle John writes in third John verse four, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. And we can testify to that verse firsthand, can't we? We often see it with baptisms when when parents are up here, they're off to the side, they're holding the white towel, and their child comes out of that water.

1:17What do we see on the face of those parents? Just their faces are beaming. They're, they're so happy and excited that their children have just made a profession of faith. But the other side of that statement is as painfully true as well, isn't it? There is no greater heartache than to hear that one's children are not walking in the truth. I imagine that there are few things more heavy, more heartbreaking, more burdensome for a parent than to see a child who was raised in a particular way walk away from the Lord and to say, I want nothing to do with your faith. I want nothing to do with your Jesus.

2:08I've prayed with many of those parents. The, the tears flow freely the, the cries of anguish. You, you can just sense as they share about their children when such a situation arises. Uh, we, we ask questions, don't we? Is God going to be faithful to my children to this next generation? Will his favor continue? Will his grace still abound? Will he still be true to his promises?

2:42In, in every leadership transition, uh, nation asks those same questions. Israel is asking those same questions here in Genesis. If we imagine that Genesis 6 26 was being read in the days of Moses and Joshua, perhaps as Moses dies, the people say, what happens next? Will, will God's promises continue through Joshua? Is he still going to be for us? Or as we saw last week as Abraham dies, the the question becomes, is God still going to be faithful to Isaac? Do his promises, his purposes continue with this next generation? And that's what Genesis 26 seeks to answer for us this morning. Last week, you, you saw in Genesis 25, verse 11 that God blessed Isaac, his son.

3:39And Genesis 26 is the proof of that blessing. Isaac, or excuse me, Genesis 26 is the only chapter that focuses exclusively on Isaac, and it serves a little bit as a summary of his life and it traces out some of these high points. You just heard it read. We saw a famine who's running with a bialek, the digging and the re digging of wells. And, and initially, a as we read it, we, we think all, all these stories seem unrelated, almost random, like what's going on here? But I think it, it, it's very clear what is happening here in Genesis 26. Isaac is Abraham 2.0. Isaac is just like his father, Abraham, both good and bad, vice and virtue.

4:29So we see in verses one through five, Isaac is blessed by God, just like Abraham. Isaac lies about his wife, just like Abraham. God blesses Isaac with great riches, just like Abraham Aek establishes a covenant with Isaac, just like Abraham. What we're supposed to see is like father, like son, like father like son. Isaac's life is portrayed as walking in the footsteps of his father. And the question for us is why? Well, what, what the writer of Genesis is trying to show us is that God is with Isaac like he was with Abraham. And the main point of Genesis 26 is that God's faithfulness is going to continue from one generation to the next.

5:21God's faithfulness doesn't end with the death of a patriarch, but God's faithfulness is going to go from one generation to the next. And this is gonna instill in the hearts of God's people confidence and hope that even when one generation dies, God is still working. God is working throughout every generation to reveal his faithfulness. So our plan is to look at the several scenes that present itself here in this passage. So we're gonna begin with scene one, where God blesses Isaac like he does Abraham verses one through five and verse one begins Now, there was a famine in the land, and if you've been with us throughout this entire Genesis series, this has echoes of Genesis 12.

6:08And we'll be in Genesis 12 a lot. What we'll refer to it a bunch, but Genesis 12 verse 10, that there was a earlier famine where Abraham went all the way down into Egypt where there was food. And Isaac, he's thinking the exact same thing. He's heading south and God tells him, stop. Don't go all the way down into Egypt, but stay in the land of guar. And he does. So he obeys God's command. And then we see that God gives Abraham blessings in verses three to five. And as you heard that read, hopefully your spidey senses were going off and you were sensing that this is the exact thing that God was saying to Abraham in Genesis 12 and Genesis 15 and Genesis 17.

6:56And we see seven promises. Here, I will be with you and will bless you for to you and to your offspring. I will give all these lands. I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham, your father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven. And I will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. 17, blessing, or excuse me, 17, that would've been a lot. Seven blessings of land and covenant and offspring. And it repeats everything that was promised to Abraham. Now verse five says, this is because Abraham obeyed my voice.

7:40Abraham obeyed God. Now, Abraham was far from perfect. He did not do everything he was asked to do as we know. He, he lied about his wife several times. And yet what Abraham did do is that he kept his covenant with God. He obeyed God, he believed in God's promises to him. And, and actually the wording, the language here is very much so reminiscent of Deuteronomy 11, one, which says this, just listen, as I read it, it calls Israel to love the Lord your God, and to keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always, uh, very same words. And what I think is trying to be conveyed here is that Abraham is portrayed as this righteous covenant keeper.

8:31That he listened when God called him to leave his family and to go to a foreign land in Genesis 12, or when God called him in Genesis 22 to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice, Abraham listened to the voice of his God and believed, and he walked by faith. And so we see that there's this spiritual heritage that is being passed down from Abraham to Isaac. Isaac is a beneficiary of Abraham's spiritual legacy that's exhibited in his obedience and in his faith. And I think there's a, a lesson here for fathers here this morning. What you do as a dad in your family will impact and affect your children. This is true in how we handle our finances, what we say with our words, our presence or lack thereof with our families.

9:26Do you walk by faith? Do you repent when you sin? Do you model a life though imperfect that follows Jesus? God's blessing passed from Abraham to Isaac. Now we're gonna look at the second scene in six through 11 where we see God's protection of Isaac despite his deception. So, so he's settles down in Garra and he lies about Rebecca being his sister out of fear and out of her attractiveness. Now, this failure mirrors Abraham's failure in Genesis 12 and Genesis 20 where Abraham lies about Sarah. But Abraham at least had an excuse because Sarah was his half-sister Isaac just straight up lies, he fails to trust God.

10:19And AB Bilich discovers the lie and confronts Isaac. It says in the text that this charade was going on a long time. And yet he sees Isaac laughing with Rebecca and it this kind of has connotations or undertones of caressing or even flirting. It's kind of like the couple in college, you know, they say, we're just friends and everyone knows you guys are dating, right? It's clear that they're intimately acquainted and this charade went on. Now let me point out two things that help us make sense of this story. The first is that this aek, which means my father is king, is probably a title like Pharaoh.

10:57So this is probably not the same person from Genesis 20 because this is about 50 years later. The same is probably true of Fico, which refers to a generic army general. So this is probably different people because a, a bim you know, third time getting the wool pulled over his eyes doesn't kinda seem all that likely. It's probably a different person. The the second thing is this account is not chronological. If you remember last week in Genesis 25, there was the birth of Jacob and Issa. And if there were two little, you know, kids running around, it would be pretty clear that they're married. And so we're probably rewinding to the point between their marriage and the birth, which was about 20 years.

11:45So Isaac's lie has a couple of results here. First, AB Bialek shows himself to be more moral, more ethical than Isaac here an unbeliever, rebukes a believer about his conduct and his failure to tell the truth. This is a warning for us, isn't it? That it's a reminder that we ought to keep our conduct honorable among the Gentiles, among unbelievers so that they might see our good deeds and glorify God in heaven. One Peter two 12. The second result is that ab Bialek warns the people against harming or even touching Isaac or Rebecca. And so despite Isaac's deception, God protects them. It's entirely undeserved. He should get judgment.

12:37And what happens, just like Abraham, when he went down to Egypt, he left with all these riches and with Aek, Abraham left with protection as well. God uses an unbelieving king to protect his offspring of promise. This is amazing. God's people don't deserve favor, and God is still true to his word. God gives grace despite sin to display his love and mercy. And, and I think there's a little comforting takeaway here for parents here this morning. None of us does this parenting thing perfectly. None of us parents stumble and fall and like Isaac and Abraham, perhaps our children have the same sin patterns as us.

13:28They, they catch the good and the bad and the ugly. You know, sometimes your kids will say something and you're like, where'd you learn that? And you're like, oh, from me. And yet we can pray to our gracious heavenly Father with this truth in view. God gives his grace despite our sin, in order to magnify his glorious faithfulness. Isn't that good news for imperfect parents? The salvation of our children is not primarily dependent upon you being a perfect parent. The salvation of our children is not because you'll never miss family devotions or pray every night for them or figure out all the best educational choices.

14:15All of those things are good, and parents should indeed strive for faithfulness and obedience and repent when we fall short and model our need for Jesus. And yet God saves despite flawed and imperfect parents because of his commitment to his word and to his purposes. And that's good news. So we see that God blesses Isaac, just like he blessed Abraham. He protects Isaac despite his deception just like Abraham. And in this third scene, God prospers Isaac amid opposition. And we're gonna just take 12 to 33 as one big scene, even though you could probably break it down additionally. And the main takeaway that I want you to see is that God prospers Isaac amid all of this opposition.

15:03So what we see in 12 through 16, more evidence of God's blessing, it was announced at the beginning, and now he reaps in the same year a hundred fold, this bumper crop a hundred times the seed that is invested. That that's very unusual unless you're planting dandelions, right? And so this passage tells us the Lord blessed him and it tells us with what riches and flocks and herds and servants. And he became increasingly wealthy. He became the envy of the Philistines who had filled in some of the wells that Abraham had dug. And verse 16, we see that he's sent away Isaac, you're you're just too powerful, too strong.

15:44You're flocks are too great. We want you to get out of town. And, and so there's blessing even in the midst of conflict and opposition. Now, verse 17 tells us that he settles in the valley of Garra, so maybe a little bit more remote countryside or kind of the wadi where the water would collect. And Isaac walks in his father's footsteps, he re diggs the wells that Abraham had dug, and he names the first essic, meaning disputed or contend. The second well, SITA meaning opposition, and the Philistines quarreled with him. So we dug another reha, both meaning wide and broad. And what's taking place in this is in each of these episodes, Isaac's faith is being tested because he's told, don't go all the way down to Egypt, stay here.

16:34I got you. I'm gonna protect you. I'm gonna provide for you even though this is not your land, this will be your land. Stay here. I'm gonna give you all that you need. And the main thing you need is water in this arid dry desert land. And God continues to provide, and he trusts God to fulfill his promises as he digs these wells, and he names them. This is a way of asserting his ownership. Like our family owns this. Well now, verse 24, God appears to Isaac the same night that they get to Beersheba, and he gives him a message, fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham's sake.

17:25Again, what God does is he reiterates his promise to Isaac, I'm with you, I got you, I am with you. His presence goes before. And with Isaac, his promises and his purposes are still in effect. Now, there's another word here for parents this morning. Don't lose hope. God is at work even when we can't see it. He could have gave up after the, the first, well after he, the, the ab bialek men quarrel with him and say, okay, let's just go down to Egypt. Let, let's stop fighting them. Let, let's stop pushing this rock uphill all, all this resistance. But instead he continues to trust the Lord. I'm staying in this region. The Lord has told me to be here.

18:24God is at work in this. And God preserves a remnant calls a people to himself. And in the same way you might see resistance in adult children who've wandered away from the Lord or in younger children who, who are resistant to the work of God. And yet we know that God can remove hearts of stone and put in hearts of flesh because of his mercy. Now, God doesn't promise to save all of our children, but we know that his promises go from one generation to the next and he's good and he's at work, and he will make sure to show his steadfast love and faithfulness so we can parent and pray for the salvation of our children with confidence and not fear.

19:17Now what we see is that Isaac responds to God's revelation, just like Abraham. You see that He, he builds an altar, he calls upon the name of the Lord, he pitched a tent and he dug another well. And, and if you remember, this is exactly how Abraham responded. In Genesis chapter 12, verses seven and eight, it said, after the Lord appeared to Abraham, to your offspring, I will give you this land. What did Abraham do? He built there an altar to the Lord. He pitched his tent, he built an altar to the Lord again and then called upon the name of the Lord. Isaac has the same response of worship as Abraham.

19:57And what we begin to see is that Isaac doesn't just get the blessing that Abraham had, but now he begins to adopt the faith of his father Abraham, his trusting in God. He, he responds with faith and obedience and worship just like his father. And then in verses 26 to 33, we come to this peace treaty between ab Bialek and Isaac. And again, this is hearkening back to Genesis 21, where Abraham and AB Bialek created this treaty. And, and in in that case, Genesis 21, verse 22, AB Bialek said to Abraham, God is with you in all that you do it. It's just so apparent and obvious to this pagan king that God is the one who's blessing this man.

20:51And again, that ha happens here, verse 26 28. We see plainly that the Lord has been with you. They discern God's presence with Isaac. And that's what we're supposed to see throughout this entire chapter. God is with Isaac like he is with Abraham. So they have this sworn pact, this covenant, this peace treaty and ab bialek and his men remind him, nothing happened to you. And so make us this treaty. Now and again, this grants protection for Isaac as he lives as a sojourner here in this land. And so it's ratified by a feast, the exchanging of oaths, and then they depart. What does all of this scene show?

21:44Isaac's power continues to grow. Isaac's reputation continues to grow. The respect of those around him continues to grow. And he receives from the nations. And what we begin to discern is God's hand is on Isaac. He, he digs another well. And guess what? He gets water again. Now, I don't know how many of you have tried digging a well in the Middle East. My guess is none of us, but I imagine it being pretty difficult. A lot of hard work, kind of like striking oil in your backyard, like just to even get to anything you gotta dig for a long time. And yet God continues to lavish his blessing here on Isaac and they call it Sheba naming the city Beersheba, just like Abraham named the city be Sheba back in Genesis 21.

22:39So there's this deja vu from Genesis 12 and Genesis 20 and 21 and 22 throughout this entire chapter. And, and everything's repeating itself. And we're like, is is the the writer just kind of combining these stories and getting himself all mixed up? No, he's intentionally writing it so that we would see that God is faithful to this next generation. Like he was faithful to the one before. God is at work in Isaac, just like he was at work in Abraham. The promises of God, the purposes of God do not end with the death of a patriarch, but they continue on and on and on. And then we see this postscript in verses 33 and 34 that clue us in that life is not just full of blessings, but rather life began to grow bitter because Esau first had multiple wives as a polygamist unlike Isaac.

23:43And second, his wives are both hitite. So they're foreign peoples, unlike Isaac's wife, where they went to great lengths to make sure Isaac's wife would be from their extended family. And so what this reveals is not only does Esau despise his birthright, which we saw last week, but he despises his spiritual heritage as well. He does not care for what is being passed down from Abraham to Isaac and now to this next generation. And this will set the stage for the next two chapters of Genesis as well. So, uh, I wanna spend some extended time on some application and a conclusion for us. But what we're supposed to see here in this chapter now is not just a random assortment of stories about Isaac, but rather the summary of Isaac's life causes all of these stories to hang together so that we would see like Father Abraham, now, like the son Isaac walked in the faith of his father, he walked in the same footsteps, and more importantly, God's faithfulness is present and at work from one generation to the next.

25:04And, and just think with me for a moment, because Genesis 26 is unique. In the next chapter, we'll see that Jacob steals Esau's blessing from Isaac, and you guys know he puts on the goat skin and cooks the meal and all of that, right? And, and, and so we get this picture where Isaac is gonna place his hand on Jacob and bless him. And then later on in Genesis, we'll see Jacob placing his hand on each of his sons and blessing them with a different blessing. But we don't get that here. We don't get Abraham putting his hand on Isaac blessing him. Why? It's because chapter 26 is that picture. And what we're supposed to see is not Abraham's hand put on Isaac, but God's sovereign hand being placed on Isaac as he receives blessings.

25:58It's not up to man whether the next generation gets blessing, it's up to God. God is the one who passes on his faithfulness, his kindness that continues his purposes and his promises from one generation to the next. God's blessing and promises go from one generation to another because of Abraham's obedience of faith. And then Isaac follows in that obedience. But what's more amazing is because of one man's obedience, the Lord Jesus Christ. We now are recipients of God's promises. We are part of his purposes, and we see his faithfulness at work in our lives because of one man, all the nations of the earth would be blessed.

26:50And now because of the offspring that would be traced all the way from Abraham all the way to Isaac and Jacob and David and culminating in Jesus, all the nations of the earth will find blessing this morning. We don't worship ancestors, we don't worship a patriarch, but we come in worship of king Jesus who exhibited perfect faith, perfect obedience to the Father. And we are now part of his spiritual legacy as his beloved children. The gospel is glorious. Good news, brothers and sisters. God's faithfulness passes from one generation to the next and God is faithful to keep his promises. And through Jesus, God's faithfulness extends to our generation because of the ultimate promise that was fulfilled in his death and life and resurrection.

27:54So what lessons can we draw from this chapter of scripture? I wanna draw out three points of application for us this morning, and we've done some of that already, but I just wanna kind of double down here for a little bit. The first is that we are to be thankful for a legacy of faith. If you have one, be thankful for a legacy of faith if you have one. How many of you have believing parents? Raise your hand. That's a lot of us. My my folks were in town last week and some of you might might have met 'em and I come away from their visit just full of Thanksgiving. I received a legacy of faith from my parents.

28:37No, they weren't perfect, but they love Jesus, they love his church and, and they laid a foundation for me to know and love Christ. I I can look back on my life and I avoided all sorts of sorrows and sins because of how I was raised. Uh, for that I am so thankful to my parents and, and I'm thankful to God for giving them to me as my parents. They, they, they tell me all the time, we continue to pray for you every single day. And they're probably watching this sermon right now. So, hi mom. I love you. Spiritual legacies are passed from one generation to the next. If you have God-fearing parents, praise God for that gift here this morning.

29:24If that's your story, praise God. I used to think that my testimony was so boring and unexciting because I came to faith at a young age and there hasn't really been a time where I, I, you know, made a shipwreck of my life in all of these major ways. And now I look back and I think, oh, praise God for that. I want that for my children. And we want that for our children. So thank God, if that's your story, we don't take that lightly around here. One of our major aims is that we would build into this next generation so that our children would be cedars of Lebanon and oaks of righteousness, that they would grow taller and stand taller than our generation was able to do despite all the challenges that are coming rampant, pornography and AI and wars, whatever else, God is going to be faithful to this next generation.

30:23And he's going to use faithful parents to pass that legacy on from one generation to the next. So parents seek to pass down a legacy of faith to your children and your children's children. And you might be saying, well, pastor, how do we do that? I could give you a long list of things, but very simply, walk by faith, walk closely with Jesus. Repent when you sin. Model a life of obedience to all that Christ commands us. Invest not only in the physical and educational wellbeing of your children, but invest in their spiritual wellbeing as well, right? We, we just innately we, we want our kids to make more money than we were able to make.

31:12We want 'em to do better. We want 'em to live in better neighborhoods and, and wouldn't we want them to know and love Jesus more than, than we were able to see in his word? And then pray, pray and pray, pray and then set an example of prioritizing God's word, God's people and Christ commands. Now if you don't have a godly spiritual heritage in your parents or grandparents by God's grace that can begin now. You can change your family history by God's grace and walk by faith and stay close to Jesus. And that is what this church is for. If you need help, if, if that's you, where you say, I don't have any godly parents, I don't have any grandparents who were praying for me.

32:04I don't have any believers in my extended family, it's just me. And I feel so lost and alone sometimes I, I I'm trying to break the patterns of sin, but I I've just seen it done so poorly in my past. If you need help, let me just encourage you, ask some of the gray-haired people here at the church to mentor you in being a mom or a dad who seeks to honor Christ in your parenting. That that is one of the privileges that we have here at the North Church. We are truly multi-generational. And so we have a wealth of godly men and women who would love, love, love to help, who would say, yeah, I'd be glad to get together and, and talk about those things.

32:47I'm not perfect, haven't figured it out, but I'd be glad to get together and pray for you and encourage you what a gift that we have here. So that's the first application. The second is beware of walking in the sins of our forefathers. Isaac lies about Rebecca just like Abraham, and we don't know why. Maybe he heard the stories and yet he succumbed to the same thing, or maybe he never heard the stories and Abraham failed to teach his son. But Isaac, by God's grace avoids other sins, doesn't he? He doesn't go down into Egypt, he avoided polygamy. He doesn't seek to have a child with a servant when Rebecca was barren for 20 years.

33:27So there's grace at work in Isaac's life as well. And we know that children will often make mistakes similar to us parents. A parent who doesn't self self who doesn't show self-control with food will pass that down to their kids. Or a mom who prioritizes her external beauty will build that into her children or a dad who, who idolized sports will perhaps do that to their children, pushing them to be the next tiger woods. And so parents often determine what's normal and acceptable and, and our children can fall into the same patterns that we succumb to greed and anger and lust and gluttony and idolatry.

34:08And yet by God's grace, generational sins do not need to hold sway. Isn't that good news? And the way that happens is when parents teach their children to fear God more than they fear their parents. Teach your children to fear God more than they fear their parents to obey God, not just to please you. Or one of the, the, the truths that was so helpful for me is that I'm not trying to raise, well-behaved legalists, but rather I'm trying to raise young people who do the right thing, not from the wrong heart, but because they fear and love God not to please me, but to please and honor Christ in all that they do.

35:00And our parents' sin is not determinative of our story. If your parents got divorced, it doesn't mean you must or will get divorced if your dad was an alcoholic. It doesn't mean you need to follow in his footsteps. If there's patterns of sexual sin in your extended family, you can change that in your marriage and children, we can learn from the lessons of those who have gone before us, both the good and the bad, but each generation can respond like Isaac responded as God blessed him. What did he do? He built an altar there, he worshiped and he called upon the name of the Lord. And in every generation you have an opportunity to set new trajectories, better trajectories in honoring and loving Christ.

35:47The third thing, respond with the obedience of faith. Respond with the obedience of faith. There's the other side of the spiritual heritage, which is we can over rely on that spiritual heritage, can't we? Uh, uh, growing up I thought I was a Christian because my parents went to church all the time. We were at church all the time. We lived 45 minutes away. So we stayed there like eight hours every Sunday. You guys think this is bad? No, I don't preach that long. Uh, but we were there a long time and, and, and I just thought, well, of course I'm a Christian, like I'm putting in a lot of time at church and we can wrongly rely on our spiritual heritage.

36:27The Israelites did the same thing when Jesus said, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. They said, what we're children of Abraham? We're Jews, Jesus. And he says, only the spiritual children of Abraham will be saved. And so there's an invitation here this morning to all to come to Jesus by faith. Perhaps you're a young person and perhaps you're adult who, who's just gone through the motions. You've just come to this church 'cause your parents do. And you think I'm a Christian. My parents go to church, I go to church. My family grew up here. My father or great-grandfather or somewhere up in my family tree was a pastor or a missionary or a deacon of some sort of church somewhere.

37:10Maybe you're a college student and and you're trying to figure out, is this faith mine or is it just that of my parents? We don't get into God's kingdom with a family pass. Each person needs to surrender to Jesus and respond to the call of Christ by faith. And you can do that here even now this morning. And if you have no spiritual heritage to speak of, you too can come. All are welcome to come to saving faith in Jesus. And Jesus tells us in Matthew 19 and Mark 10, that if you believe in Jesus and, and, and that means at great cost to yourself, maybe your family even disowns you, which is what most of the time happens when our missionaries in all of these places evangelize someone and they say, I wanna surrender to Jesus.

38:05It means I I I lose my entire family that they will disown me. Some of them may even try to kill me. And Jesus says, you will obtain fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and children and houses and even lands how much a hundred fold in Christ. And so if you have no spiritual parents or children or siblings, the church is that place for you. And you too can pass on a spiritual legacy to the next generation. Praise the Lord. Let me close with two brief observations. Genesis 26, 3. God says to Abraham, I will be with you and again in Genesis 26, 24, fear not for I am with you. God's presence is the assurance that Isaac needs to walk by faith and not by fear.

38:56He can stare down the bareness of his wife, the opposition from ab Bialek and all of those men, and being a sojourner in a foreign land because God is on his side. That's all he needs to know. To be able to walk by faith. God is with me. And that is true of us. This morning, Jesus says to us, I am with you always to the end of the age. I will never leave you nor will I forsake you. So you can stare down cancer, you can stare down your enemies, you can stare down opposition and unemployment and whatever else comes because God is with us and he will never leave us, nor will he forsake us. You don't need anything else.

39:39But to know that God is on your side, his strong right hand upholds you and he's with us. Last thing, by God's grace, we're invited through the work of Jesus into the fellowship of the triune God. Jesus says, I am the Father are one John 10 30. And so God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, they have this perfect loving relationship. And through our union with Jesus, we are becoming more and more like Jesus as we behold His glory from one degree to another. And we're gonna increasingly resemble Jesus. We'll increasingly look more and more like our savior, but we'll also increasingly know more and more of our heavenly Father.

40:35And so like Father, like Son will be true of us. We are being conformed in the image of our savior. Let's pray. Father, that is our heart's cry. We wanna be more like Jesus. We wanna look more like you. We wanna live with more and greater awareness of your grace at work. And we thank you that your faithfulness goes from one generation to the next. And oh, would you do that work here in this room? And all those watching that are children and our children's children, not because of our works, but because of your faithfulness and grace, would you save them all? Oh, the prodigals that have wandered far away.

41:19Oh, draw them back. We pray by your grace and then do a glorious work. Raise up a generation that will treasure Christ in all of life. Make them cedars of Lebanon and oaks of righteousness for your glory and for our joy. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

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Sermon Text

Genesis 26:1-35

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