Transcription downloaded from https://yetanothersermon.host/_/church-messiah/sermons/15015/leaving-the-moon-god-for-the-true-god/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] Father, thank you that it wasn't as if just it goes up to the book of Acts and then nobody's a Christian until us. We thank you, Father, that you have maintained your church in every generation from the death and resurrection of Jesus and his ascension in the day of Pentecostal today.

[0:22] You have maintained your church. And in every generation there have been people who have loved you and praised you. Father, pour out your Holy Spirit upon us that we might be faithful in our generation.

[0:35] Father, send out laborers into the harvest. This harvest, you have a harvest in Ottawa. And Father, send laborers into the harvest. Use us. But now we ask, Father, that your Holy Spirit would calm and settle our souls so that as we read your word written and hear your word, that you will come and minister deep within.

[0:55] This we ask in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen. Amen. This is the year 5,777 if you are an Orthodox Jew.

[1:07] 5,777. And Orthodox Jews have calculated this date. It's the number of years that everything has existed.

[1:18] They go back through what we call the Old Testament. They call the Tanakh and have calculated that the world is 5,777 years old.

[1:28] And we're just finishing up a series. Today is the last Sunday of my series of going through the first 11 chapters of Genesis. Genesis. And so one of the things is, you know, do Christians have to believe that the world is 5,777 years old?

[1:46] Or is there a little bit of variation that is in that? How do we read the Bible? One of the things that people have asked me is, George, do you read the Bible literally? And so this last of Sundays on Genesis 11, I've sort of said a little bit about it before, but it's actually an appropriate time, especially given what happens in Abram and especially given the spiritual needs that we have, to actually take a time just for a second and consider this question.

[2:14] Do Christians have to believe that the world is 5,777 years old? So if you have your Bibles, Genesis chapter 10, and we're going to, Genesis 11, sorry.

[2:26] And we're going to just look at verse 10, which gives us another one of those genealogies. And it's a genealogy with ages. And we'll just start reading. And when I move, we'll just start reading.

[2:38] And then I just want to make a few comments about it. And here it goes. First chapter 11, verse 10. And these are the generations of Shem. When Shem was 100 years old, he fathered Arpashad two years after the flood.

[2:54] And Shem lived after he fathered Arpashad 500 years and had other sons and daughters. When Arpashad had lived 35 years, he fathered Shelah.

[3:07] And Arpashad lived after he fathered Shelah 403 years and had other sons and daughters. When Shelah had lived 30 years, he fathered Eber. And I'm not going to keep reading.

[3:19] You get the idea. So here's the thing. First of all, if you want to really know some of how I've been trying to understand the age of the earth, etc., etc., which I'm not going to reiterate.

[3:32] I just encourage you to go back and listen to some of my sermons. The first one on Genesis 1-1 and how I talked about historical Adam and how I talked about knowing the flood. I'm not going to reiterate those things.

[3:43] I just want to look at a very particular way of actually listening to what the Bible says and what the Bible doesn't say. And what it actually says here in Hebrews, in Hebrew means that we actually can't really calculate the age of the earth from this.

[4:02] Because the genealogy doesn't work like a combination, the numbers in a combination lock where everything is just one number after another. And it's like a mechanical type of order.

[4:14] The word fathered just can also mean ancestor of. And instantly I can feel certain people feeling a little bit antsy.

[4:29] But here, could you put up the first point, Andrew? This is going to be my big, this is really a far more important point than maybe most of us realize. Let God be God and let his word written be his word to us.

[4:46] Let God be God and let his word written be his word to us. When scholars study the Bible, not just this one bit, but when they study the whole Bible from cover to cover, one of the things they notice when they study the Bible from cover to cover is that the biblical writers don't treat genealogies in a, like the way you treat instructions to fix something in your computer or instructions on a bank machine or combinations in a combination lock.

[5:25] So for instance, if you read the same genealogy in the book of Luke, you'll discover that in fact, I have to make sure I get the names right here.

[5:39] If you study the same genealogy in Luke, you'll discover that Shelah, if you look down here, you know how it says verse 12, when Arpashad had lived 35 years, he fathered Shelah.

[5:54] If you read the same genealogy in Luke, you'll discover that Shelah is Arpashad's grandson. So does this mean the Bible's...

[6:05] No, what... They didn't write genealogies to try to communicate this type of historical knowledge. You can skip generations.

[6:15] That's not me saying this because I'm some liberal. It's actually because if you read all of the Bible and just see how it is that the Bible is trying to communicate, you realize that they don't...

[6:31] They use... One of the things they do with genealogies, I think is in the Indiana Jones movies or some of those other older movies, he has to go on a trip from wherever he is in California or whatever, and he has to go to some other place in the world, and all of a sudden you see a map, and maybe you see like a picture of a plane moving across the ocean and landing places, and then maybe like a picture of a camel or a balloon or something as it goes from place to place to place.

[6:54] Part of the way that the Bible uses genealogies is to just show a connection between one group and another. Part of what it's talking about is it's trying to communicate who's significant.

[7:06] And part of what it's trying to communicate is if you actually count up the ages, and this is another reason for you to understand that just the way they use it, it's like the significant person that is the ancestor of this person, is if you add up the ages, then Shem, right, who's one of the sons of Noah, who was in the ark, if you add up the ages, Shem outlives Abraham by 35 years.

[7:39] And yet there's no record wherever in the Bible that when Abraham's going around that Shem is around or some of these other people on the list. If you add up the ages, Shem and Abraham's grandson Jacob would have been able to hang out together.

[7:59] And Jacob would have been able to talk to Shem for 35 years after his grandfather had died. See, here's the real big significance to this.

[8:14] Let God be God and let his word written be his word to us. Like a lot of us, when we hear things like this, we say, well, that's not fair. Why doesn't the Bible just say what it means? But what we're doing when we say that is we're not actually saying, why doesn't the Bible just say what it means?

[8:31] What we're actually saying is, God, we think our ways of writing are the way that you should have written. How dare you not write the way we write?

[8:43] Like, how dare you not write the way we write newspapers or we write academic papers? Like, if you want to speak to us, speak in the type of ways that we understand things.

[8:54] God, like, how dare you just... Hold on a moment. Like, for a committed Christian, like, what's going on there? See, here's one of the other things about this. Like, when I was growing up, and I still see it so many times when I listen to different speakers and I go to different conferences and I get involved in different debates, that a lot of people, what they think of is somebody who takes the Bible literally, who finds one simple text and uses it to shout down every other text and every other type of idea of nuance and just uses it like a battering ram.

[9:30] I'm not going to get into a discussion about baptism, but I was just listening to something and a guy went on and on and on and on and on about how he believed the Bible and the Bible's view on baptism.

[9:46] And he just went on and on and on and he kept quoting this one verse. And what you'd never know if you listen to him is that there's 88 different passages in the New Testament that talk about baptism.

[9:56] 88 different passages. I'll say it again, 88 different verses. And this guy, who for a lot of us, we think of, that's a strong Bible man.

[10:12] He's a Bible teacher. He doesn't just sort of give, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. He teaches the Bible. He gives you the Bible. It's simple. It's clear. But he actually isn't giving you the Bible.

[10:23] He made no attempt to talk about 87 other verses. He made no attempt whatsoever to try to say, well, you know, if you look at all of these verses together and listen to all that God says, this is what God says.

[10:42] And one of the very hard things for Bible-believing churches and for Bible-believing Christians is a lot of times we don't actually believe the Bible and we don't actually listen to the Bible.

[10:55] So what we want to do is we want to find one simple verse that we can use like a club or a battering ram to knock everybody else out of the way or we want to use it like a megaphone to shout everybody down and we pick a verse which is sort of the way that we think.

[11:13] But the whole point of listening to the Bible and listening to God is to try to figure out how he thinks because he's smarter than us. He's wiser than us.

[11:24] He's God. And so scholars who study the Bible very, very carefully and don't just read this one little bit but read it from cover to cover have understood that the way the Bible uses genealogies, the way that God chose to reveal his word actually preserves mystery about calculating certain things.

[11:50] And if we say that God can't do that we say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what do you mean God can't do that? Really? He can't? Well, suck it up. He did.

[12:04] That's what he did. Like get over yourself. Like let God be God and let his word written be his word to us.

[12:16] And don't just harp on one verse but have a deep commitment to read the Bible from cover to cover and to just really listen deeply to all that God wants to say to us.

[12:29] And then as he speaks to us throughout all of scripture and we are humbled before it we can say, isn't that very interesting? Is it God uses genealogies?

[12:39] He chose a time when genealogies were used and it was fine for people to skip one generation, two, five, who knows how many generations to just show the significant thing.

[12:50] And you know, here's the thing which is really interesting is that we get so caught up, those of us in a more evangelical type of tradition, we get so caught up with these types of very, very like an attempt to, I don't know, defend the Bible but we actually miss what the other thing which is really going on in the Bible because here's the thing which is also so significant about this text is that just before this text, just before this genealogy, we have the story of the Tower of Babel which I talked about last week.

[13:21] That God comes down and as part of God's grace to us, when he judges, he judges in mercy and part of his mercy is he scatters people throughout the entire face of the earth.

[13:33] They want to do a great evil. They want to remove all barriers. They want to remove all limits. They want to pretend to themselves that they've become gods. They want to do whatever a god can do because in the ancient world, just as we on one level implicitly think, the ancient world gods can do whatever they dang well feel like doing and that's what human beings want to become.

[13:52] They want to become like gods, do whatever they dang well feel they can do and God in his mercy scatters them throughout the whole face of the earth so then immediately after that what he does is he shows these significant people going along and what he's saying to us is on the ground it looks like God is out of control.

[14:13] I mean the world is out of control that God has not remembered his promise to send a person who would destroy the serpent and open the way back to the garden of Eden in fellowship with God and what this genealogy does amongst other things is say, look at that, throughout all of the changes and chances of this fleeting world God has not forgotten his promise and time after time there's a significant person and every time you see this significant person you are being reminded that God has not forgotten his promise.

[14:51] There is going to come one who will slay the serpent and be used by God to make us right with God again.

[15:04] That's what God is doing. It's really important for us who live as Christendom increasingly lies in ruins around us and we live amidst the ruins and the fragments of Christendom to remember that God is still sovereign and in control and remembers and is committed to his promises.

[15:27] We have to let God be God and let his word be his word to us because we follow God with our ears.

[15:39] We follow Jesus with our ears by listening to him. We come to faith by our ears.

[15:52] Not by our ability to see the future. Not by our ability to control the future. But we follow Jesus with our ears. Now, some of you might say, okay, George, that's a very interesting thing to get out of a genealogy.

[16:14] And I have to confess, I sort of don't really, you know, those of us who maybe aren't from evangelical backgrounds, we might say, yeah, George, you get those Bible-believing guys, you know, take them down a peg or two.

[16:28] And for those of us who are from Bible-believing that type of backgrounds, we might say, well, it's a bit of a surprise to maybe think that some of those people that we like to listen to who are really harangue on one verse that they might actually not be listening to the Bible and it's a very humbling thing for us to try to get our mind around some of these types of things.

[16:48] But, okay, so God is keeping his eye on the ball. He's going to send a promise and it all comes down to Abram.

[16:59] I think that's what John said if I just read and I guess it comes down to this hero, doesn't it? This hero of faith, this father of three of the great religions on the planet, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, all trace back the significance of Abraham.

[17:15] And so I guess you're right. This genealogy comes and it ends with Abraham, this really, really, really, really great man. And as soon as we start to think, yeah, I guess it does come down to this really, really great man, and I guess I am listening to the Bible, George, that's where we have to say, time out.

[17:34] It doesn't come down to a great man. It doesn't come down to a great man. It comes to a guy with no hope who worships the moon.

[17:49] Can you put up the next point? God does not build elites. He calls and blesses the hopeless. You see, here's this other thing in terms of our own thinking and the way we sort of just assume that the Bible is going to match with our thinking rather than listening to the Bible.

[18:13] And in our thinking, I don't know, you get education so you can become like more, you know, you can get a better job, you can have, you can get promotions. I remember a few years ago I asked somebody what was the difference between somebody who got a computer engineering degree and a computer science degree and they said $20,000 a year in salary.

[18:33] The engineer getting more money than the computer scientist. And I don't know if that's true, it's just what they said. And we're just used to the fact that, you know, that we try to become more and more powerful.

[18:46] We try to become better and better and better and surely then the way God is going to work is if he's going to be keeping his eye on the ball and if you're going to have a great man of faith that it's all about God just building up this thing to getting to this point where Abraham has it all together, like where he's, he just has this great faith and God recognizes his great faith and he has all this potential and that's what God recognizes, but that's not what the genealogy says at all.

[19:14] Like, look what it actually says. Verse 27. Now, these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram. Later on, his name becomes Abraham.

[19:25] Nahor and Haran. And Haran fathered Lot. Okay, so there's this guy, Terah. He has three sons. Haran died in the presence of his father, Terah, in the land of his kindred in Ur of the Chaldeans.

[19:41] Now, there's only Terah and two boys. And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Iscah.

[20:01] Now, just pause. We know from archaeological evidence that in Ur of the Chaldeans that they worshiped the moon god. and people who know Hebrew say that both Sarah and Milcah are named after aspects of the gods and goddesses under the panoply of the moon god.

[20:30] God is calling people who worship the moon. The whole genealogy has come down to one guy, Terah, who has three sons. One son dies.

[20:41] The two remaining sons' wives who become important are both named after goddesses in the moon god's pantheon. We know actually from other places in the Bible where it tells us that in fact Abraham before God's call worshipped other gods, not the true and living God.

[21:02] And then a verse which is going to be unbelievably important in a couple. Look at verse 30. Now Sarai, that's the wife of Abraham, was barren.

[21:15] She had no child. So as God formed an elite, it's come down to Terah, has three sons, one dies, two left, and one of the sons, his wife has no children.

[21:32] These aren't the powerful elite, at least not the way Christians and Jewish people would understand it. You see, one of the things we have, one of the problems we have with thinking that God calls and forms elites is that it does several things within us.

[21:49] it either means that we become very, very, very proud because obviously he's coming and dealing with us. So obviously, like I'm going to have faith like Abraham, obviously I'm part of the elite.

[22:04] Or it lets us off the hook from having to follow God because we say, well, you know, I'm not like, I'm not like Abraham. You know, I'm not very well educated.

[22:15] I don't have that many abilities. I'm not a great at praying, you know, whatever it is. So I'm sort of off the hook. But the whole point of this text is it's all setting us up to the hopelessness of the line and how God speaks into hopelessness, how God speaks into this mixture of strength and frailty and weakness, and how in the midst of something which looks completely and utterly unworthy and utterly helpless, God's commitment and promise, God being God and God speaking creates things when people listen and say yes.

[23:04] You see, if God actually works through both the hopeless and people who have excellency and stuff like that, in fact, it's all about God and not about us, then there's nothing to ever be proud about if you're a Christian.

[23:28] Nor is there ever any reason why we should think that it can't be us, that God is calling. Look down to chapter 12, verses 1 to 3.

[23:43] And actually, just a pause here. Could you put up the next point, Andrew? Here's the thing which is going to be really, really amazing is that one of the things that characters is if you study ancient paganism and even modern paganism, the gods are fickle.

[23:58] One day they wake up, they don't like you. Don't like you, don't like you, don't like you. But they like you, you, and you. Next day, sucks to be the first group. I like a different group.

[24:09] The gods are fickle. You have to sort of figure out maybe what you've done. And a lot of times it hasn't been that you've done anything, it's just that the gods are fighting with each other, that the gods, many wives or lovers have gotten jealous with each other and they've just zapped a few of you or blessed a few of you and it's the gods fighting and we're just their little pawns.

[24:30] And that's the world that Abram grows up in. In a world of fickle gods, the true God commits promises and keeps his word.

[24:42] Look at what happens in chapter 12 verses 1 to 4. Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you and I will make you a great nation.

[24:54] I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

[25:07] So Abram went as the Lord had told him and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran and if you go back and if you go and read more of the story of Abraham you'll discover that his wife was 10 years younger than him.

[25:21] That means that when Abram goes out he's 75 years old he has a wife who's 65 years old and his wife has never had a baby.

[25:35] His wife has never had a baby. And yet look what he says to Abram. Go from your country and your kindred verse 1 again and your father's house to the land that I will show you verse 2 and I will make you a great nation.

[25:54] I will make you a great nation. He's 75 years old he's going out with a 65 year old wife who's never had a baby and God says to him I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and I will make your name great so that you will be a blessing.

[26:12] I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. If you could put up the next point Andrew that would be very helpful.

[26:30] God's commitment and promises engender faith. I know that's a bit of a complicated word that some of you have never heard before but no one's faith causes God to commit and promise.

[26:48] What you're seeing here in the Bible is the great divide between the true God and all idols. What you see here is the great divide to how the Bible describes the gospel and what God wants to do for people and all religion and all spirituality and all irreligion.

[27:09] If you go along the Trans-Canada Highway from Ottawa as if you're going up to North Bay and somewhere along the trip as you're going on the Trans-Canada to go west there's a sign on the side of the road and on the side of the road the sign says that from this point on all the rivers that you see flow north.

[27:29] They all flow north to the Arctic Ocean to Hudson's Bay. Before that the waters flowed in a different direction. After that they flow in a different direction.

[27:41] and basically every religion every spirituality and part of the reason that people say that they can't be religious or they can't be spiritual is at the heart of all of these systems of thought is the belief that I have faith or I do rituals or I learn yoga or I learn how to say the Lord's Prayer or I get confirmed or I pray to Allah five times a day or I make my pilgrimage to Mecca or I learn all of the right praise songs or memorize part of the Bible or I sacrifice to the right Hindu gods and goddesses or the right Buddhist gods and goddesses and I follow the right practices and if I follow the right practices then God will commit to me and make promises to me and that's how all religion and all spirituality works but look at how it works here

[28:48] God takes someone who worships the moon and he's not even very swift in listening to God some of you are using versions of the Bible that when I read chapter 12 verse 1 in my version it says now the Lord said to Abram and some of your versions of the Bible said the Lord had said to Abram and in Hebrew like they're both good translations had said is probably a little bit more accurate what it's saying is that while Abram was still in Ur of the Chaldeans God had called him and he continued to call him and Abram sort of started to obey what had to be done but he didn't really obey what had to be done he left Ur of the Chaldeans but he left with his dad and his brothers and he goes to another place and it's only after the person dies there in fact he goes to another place which is prosperous and another place which worships the moon and God has been calling him and calling him and calling him the moon god worshiper and he hasn't responded until finally the time comes after many calls that he responds and in God's look how it goes the Lord said to Abram go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you and I will make you a great nation

[30:07] I will bless you I will make your name great so that you will be a blessing I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse and in you all of the families of the earth shall be blessed it's all God will do it God will do it and he says to Abraham I am calling you from worshiping the moon I am calling you even though on a certain on a human level you are lacking and respecting you have no hope I am calling you I am committing to you I am promising these mighty things to you I will do these things to you if you go the promise the commitment the promise the commitment the promise the commitment and then in verse 4 so Abraham went as the Lord told him you see God commits to Abraham he promises to Abraham and it's God's commitment and promises which engender faith he doesn't look down and say to Abraham gosh you were so faithful gosh you're just like

[31:18] Andrew you have 10 kids great kids I'm going to do spectacular things through you get ready you know hang on you're going to go on an adventure because you're so faithful you're so smart you're good looking all of those types of things you're look whoa wow the theology you know whoa you know I can hardly look down at your halo so bright no you worship the moon your situation is hopeless I've been calling you for years and you haven't said yes God commits God promises that's what engenders faith that's what engenders faith you see that's one of the reasons why the mission statement of this church is making disciples gripped by the gospel learning to live for God's glory making disciples gripped by the gospel learning to live for God's glory because we live if you put up the next point that would be great

[32:28] God's promises to Abraham are spectacularly kept in the incarnation birth life death and resurrection of Jesus Messiah I mean one of the amazing things about all of this remember I said that we follow God with our ears we follow Jesus with our ears not with our eyes the text goes ahead and says that God's going to show Abraham these things all Abraham has is God's voice and God's promise to go God makes this promise God makes this commitment Abraham's response is to respond in faith and do what he says God makes this promise God makes this promise he makes this commitment we begin not just to trust God but to trust in what he says because it's when we trust in what he says that we're really trusting him and so we hear with our ears we hear with our ears faith comes from hearing we hear with our ears and we step out in faith and as we step out in faith

[33:44] God will show us from day to day what we need to be seen but primarily we follow him with our ears and Abraham did not know that this him finally responding as he finally comes the Bible doesn't tell us why exactly it is that Abraham finally believed and trusted what God was saying to him and I think the reason the Bible doesn't tell us that is because that was something unique to him what we need to listen to is the rest of the Bible we need to see the trustworthiness of God's word the wisdom of his laws we need to see the wisdom of the story the beauty of the story we need to see Jesus we need to see Jesus dying upon the cross as the perfect revelation of God's love we need to understand how God has been keeping his promises from the time of Abraham on we need to see how God has been keeping his promises even to Adam and Eve that he would send one who would slay the serpent we need to see how the tomb is empty and after the tomb is empty and they cannot find the body and because

[34:47] Jesus is risen and the body is not there and thousands and thousands of people who can just walk down to the grave and see the body of Jesus believe that Jesus has risen from the dead that he's no longer there that God has vindicated Jesus as the one who can slay the serpent and make human beings right with God and we need to see all of these things and have a new certain ground of hope based on how God has kept his promises that for every single human being and planet on the earth that God has a call to them to come to be made right with him through putting their faith and trust in Jesus and we need to be gripped with this story we don't need praise songs to pump us up we don't need Bach to make us just think how beautiful and melodic things are we don't need great art I mean those things are wonderful when they come we don't need to have spectacular rhetoric we need to be gripped with God's promises and gripped by the gospel and as we are gripped by

[35:55] God's promises that's how faith grows within us and the wonderful thing about the gospel the wonderful thing that all of these promises when they culminate in the coming and the death and resurrection of Jesus is we understand in a far deeper way what God is going to do to slay the serpent in a far deeper way what God is going to do to make us right with him how Jesus God the son of God when he dies upon the cross that he's dying upon the cross and he is able to die and bear the punishment and the shame of every single thing that we have ever done wrong every accusation in our head every accusation by our loved ones every accusation by coaches or bosses by demons or by the world or by our own conscience every accusation all of those accusations against us fall on him and are dealt with by him and all of the things that we cannot do that Jesus we not only have

[36:58] Jesus taken away all of the bad things we've done all of the things that we are ashamed of all of our weakness not only have all of those things dealt with by Jesus but his actual ability to obey the father and to live a life of obedience where even though he is tempted in every way as we are without sin that he has not sinned his perfect life standing for me when I get in him by faith made right with God by faith if I preach the most spectacular sermon that has ever been preached in the history of the world next Sunday it does not add anything to what Jesus does for me and God does not love me one iota more if next Sunday I preach the worst sermon of my entire life God will not love me less it doesn't take away from what Christ has done my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness

[38:05] I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus' name that's what we sang earlier that's the promise of the gospel and as it grips as faith grows just wind up with a couple of things if you could put up the next point the mind matters but we must obey our way to clarity the mind matters don't kiss your brains goodbye but we obey our ways to clarity you know when we began my wife and I began the adventure of trying to actually give away 10% of our money to God's work or more I wish I could tell you that we had such unbelievable faith in God's word that we just went from what we were which was virtually nothing to giving 10% of our income but no what we did is we trusted God for 10 more dollars and you know what the sky didn't fall in we didn't go hungry

[39:11] God met our needs so we trusted him for 10 dollars more the sky didn't fall in we didn't go hungry we trusted him for 10 dollars more until we could trust him with it all because you know we tithe because we want to trust that God is our Jehovah Jireh because giving is the highest form of living you know with sexual faithfulness with working on your marriage with trusting God's word about miracles trusting God's word about miracles makes you smarter not dumber trusting God's word makes you wiser and so you don't fear what the world fears and you don't trust what the world trusts but you start to have a type of balance and wisdom that comes not from being ashamed of God's word but from trusting God's word that's how it is that our minds get renewed we got to obey our way to clarity it's when you bear witness to Jesus and people make fun of you and they beat you in arguments but you bear witness to Jesus and you call out to him and say Lord help me to know what to say

[40:20] I want to trust your word I want to be able to bear witness that's how you learn that's how you grow that's how God's word becomes more precious and deep to you use our minds but you obey your way to clarity we just want to use our minds until we've had it all figured out but we obey our way to clarity and here's the really big thing in closing if you could put up the final point I follow my I follow Jesus with my ears open and my eyes closed you see in a sense that's what Abraham had to do isn't it okay Abraham you're 75 years old you have a 65 year old wife you've never had a child I'm going to make you into a great nation go I'm going to go to a high school graduation ceremony on Thursday I can tell you right now one of the main things we're going to say in the graduation ceremony what are they going to say we all probably know follow your dreams follow your dreams don't let any other people tell you what your dreams are follow your dreams one of the things that you know the wardens and I say when we every fall when we come down to make our budget one of the things we say is we say we want to try to live in the real world and in the real world how does the real world work in the fall of 2017 when we sit down we don't say follow our dreams we say you know what only God knows the future we have no idea how much money

[41:53] God will provide for us in the next year now that doesn't sound as sexy and as moving as follow your dream but which one's real every human being goes into the future with their eyes closed no human being not the smartest person in the world not the greatest musician not the greatest poet not the greatest mystic no human being by their own power knows what will happen in three minutes in two minutes in one minute every single one of us walks into the future with our eyes closed see the Bible brings us to the real world and the real state of our heart and in the real world and in the real state of our world the real state of our heart I am not a god I am not a goddess sorry the movie

[42:55] Arrival spoiler alert is completely and utterly wrong learning a new language will not allow you to know the future like you're a god it's a dumb idea like it's dumb but it appeals to our pride nobody knows the future the Bible is both unbelievably on one level depressingly realistic but it's not depressingly realistic it's realistic and God says I know the future follow me with your ears and George when you follow me with your ears what have I told you I have told you George that 4,000 years ago I spoke to a man Abraham about how I would bless every family on the earth through him and George I kept that promise 2,000 years later I never forgot it

[43:55] I kept that promise I sent my son he died upon the cross George follow me with your ears and George as you follow me with your ears listen to what I say that I tell you that my son died on the cross for you that when my son died upon the cross you are seeing the perfect picture of me and of my love and of my concern for you you see that I desire to bless you that I will bring you to the new heaven and the new earth and that when you merely reach up your hand not that you can reach to me but I can reach down to you that I will reach my son's hand will reach to you and his hand will never let you go and that I don't you do not know George whether you will be rich you do not know whether you will be successful you do not know any of these things but you can know that when you put your hand up to mine and Jesus reaches down and grabs it and he has died on the cross for you he is his righteousness covers you he will never let you go and you will be in the new heaven and the new earth and I love you and I care for you

[44:56] I love you and I care for you follow me with your ears let God be God listen to his word from cover to cover follow me with your ears I will never let you go please stand Father help us to listen to your word help us to be honest with ourselves Father when your word bugs us and it irritates us but Father help us to have our bugging and our irritation come to you help us to lay it at your feet humbly help us to let you be you to let you choose the words you want to choose and because it's your word and Father help us to follow you with our ears help us to follow you with our ears

[45:58] Father we so desperately want to know the future we so desperately want to be able to describe what we see we so desperately want to be able to do that Father but we cannot but you have said you will never leave us or forsake us that your word will lead us to yourself that your word and your son will bless us so Father help us to follow you with our ears follow you with our ears Father if there is one here who has not yet put their trust in you Father may this be the Sunday where they call out to you and say Jesus be my Savior and my Lord for what you have done for me on the cross be my Savior and my Lord Father make us disciples of Jesus who are gripped by the gospel learning to be to follow you with our ears as you free us up so we will live for your glory and all this we ask in the name of Jesus your Son and our Savior Amen the Son and Your Amen A

[47:10]  Man