Genesis 24:10-14 NKJV Then the servant took ten of his master’s camels and departed, for all his master’s goods were in his hand. And he arose and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor. (11) And he made his camels kneel down outside the city by a well of water at evening time, the time when women go out to draw water. (12) Then he said, “O LORD God of my master Abraham, please give me success this day, and show kindness to my master Abraham. (13) Behold, here I stand by the well of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. (14) Now let it be that the young woman to whom I say, ‘Please let down your pitcher that I may drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I will also give your camels a drink’—let her be the one You have appointed for Your servant Isaac. And by this I will know that You have shown kindness to my master.”
This is the Word of the Lord, Amen?
- Over the past month or so we have been going over a task that Abraham had given to his servant.
- This task was for the servant to go and find a wife for Isaac, Abrahams son.
- Abraham made the servant promise not to take a wife from the Canaanites, but to go back to his own people and find a wife for his son there.
- Abraham even said “God will send his angel before you to make a way for you to take a wife for my son”.
- The servant agreed to everything Abraham asked of him, and the servant promised to do it…
- That was verses 1-9 of this chapter, the plan and the promise… Now we get to the execution of the plan… and we begin the story of the servant going out and finding a wife for Isaac.
- The planning and the promising has happened, now it’s time for action!
- So the servant takes 10 camels, a bunch of Abrahams treasures, and a few men to help… and he sets off to find a wife for Isaac.
- Now the story of Isaac finding Rebekah span 57 verses!
- We are given EVERY SINGLE DETAIL of how things went down… and then we are told it again… every single detail, outlined TWICE in Genesis 24.
- How peculiar it is that we are given just 3 verses outlining Abrahams interaction with Melchizedek, a man I reckon was Jesus Himself…
- We are given just 3 verses about this incredibly important, holy, and possibly divine encounter… this moment with Melchizedek…
- We are given almost no detail at all… it’s barely more than a mention…
- Yet with Isaac’s search for Rebekah we are given every single detail… TWICE.
- Melchizedek get’s three verses in Genesis…
- The servant searching for Rebekah gets 57 Verses! 67 verses if you count the planning and the promise.
- Why is it that one of these stories get’s three verses and the other gets 67?
- I believe it is because one of these stories is designed for us to imitate.
- One is designed to spark awe and wonder.
- The other is designed to show us how to live.
- One is a beautiful mystery.
- The other leaves nothing to mystery at all!
- You know I believe there in Genesis 14, Jesus might have met Abraham in the valley of Shaveh…
- But that is a guess, an assumption… I think Melchizedek was Jesus meeting Abraham.
- But church… I don’t need to guess where Jesus is now. He is at the right hand of the Father interceding for His church.
- And one day I am going to know EXACTLY where Jesus is, because I will be standing in front of Him… and I very much hope to hear Him say “Well done my good and faithful SERVANT”.
- I don’t need to know more about Melchizedek… I need to know more about how to be a good and faithful servant.
- And in this chapter I really believe that God goes through great lengths showing us exactly how to be a good and faithful servant.
- Thus, this sermon series is called “How to be a Good and Faithful Servant”.
- We so often talk about wanting to hear “Well done my good and faithful servant”… but we rarely talk about, specifically and in detail, HOW to be a good and faithful servant.
- So for the next 5 weeks we are going to take our time looking at how Abraham’s servant served his master, and applying that to our lives and how we serve our Master.
- Now before I get into it, I have to share this tidbit… because guys, the book of Genesis is so so very rich.
- And seeing on how it is the Sunday after Easter… this is just so applicable…
- Check this out… some theologians suggest that these events that take place shadow events in the New Testament…
- They say that if Isaac is a type of Christ, or a symbol of Christ… which we know he is, the New Testament says as much and we went over this in our series “Tests, Triumphs, Types, and Truth”…
- These theologians say that if Isaac is a Symbol of Christ… then this story about the servant going to find a bride for himself is a Type or Symbol of the Holy Spirit building up the Church, which is called the Bride of Christ.
- Now at the end of the chapter, spoiler alert, Isaac comes out to meet Rebekah his bride…
- Now here is the exciting part, watch how the Old Testament shadows the New Testament… The last time we saw Isaac was him rising from the sacrificial altar that was meant to kill him, now we see him coming out to gather his bride.
- The last time you see Jesus is Scripture is Him coming out of the Tomb that was meant to hold his body down, the next time you see Jesus after the ascension is when He is coming out of the clouds to gather His Bride…
- Ahhh! I just think it is so good, maybe it is just me… but man, Genesis is so rich and prophetic!
- OK, back to being a good and faithful servant, this is a 5 week series and each week we are going to go over the attributes of a good and faithful servant, as demonstrated by Abrahams servant obeying him and going to get a wife for Isaac. And we are going to start of with a bang… you ready for this?
- A Good and Faithful Servant is… Faithful!
- I know, shocker right? A Good and faithful servant is faithful… who would have thunk?
- Yet time and time again faithfulness is an issue in God’s church and amongst God’s people.
- It is supposed to be a fruit of the Spirit, but many of our branches are bare… and some of us even have rotten fruit…
- Let’s fix that this morning and talk about faithfulness.
- Hey, by the way, do you want to see all 10 attributes of a good a faithful servant… before we get into point one, let’s take a brief look at what we will be talking about in this series:
- Alright, with that, here is point one:
Point One – A Good Servant is Faithful
- How many of y’all where Christians in the Late 90’s early 2000’s? Y’all remember this banger:
- “Faithfulness, Faithfulness, is what I long for… Faithfulness is what I NEEEED!”
- Y’all remember that action? “Faithfulness is what you want from me”
- I used to BELT that song at Faith and Victory, the church I got saved in…
- But I never stopped to ask “What is faithfulness”…
- Well, Abrahams servant understood what faithfulness was.
Genesis 24:9-10 NKJV So the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and swore to him concerning this matter. (10) Then the servant took ten of his master’s camels and departed, for all his master’s goods were in his hand. And he arose and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor.
- Abrahams servant promises to do something… THEN RIGHT AWAY HE GOES AND DOES THAT THING.
- No delay, no excuses, no being sidetracked.
- He does what He says he is going to do! Abrahams servant was faithful…
- The word faithful in very simple terms means:
- Faithful:
- You do what you say you are going to do.
- Others can put their full faith in you.
- You see a lot of people think the word faithful means “Full of Faith” but that is not correct at all.
- We should be full of faith, of course, but that is not what the word Faithful means…
- Faithful means people can put their full faith in you…
- Think about it in the inverse… think about what it means to be unfaithful.
- “Hey man, can we talk? My wife has been unfaithful”
- “What‽ I am so sorry!”
- “Yeah, she has just been doubting God’s goodness you know”…
- “Wait… do you mean she is struggling in her faith?”
- “Yeah, that’s what I said, she has been unfaithful”
- “Bro, I don’t think that word means what you think it means”.
- We all know that an unfaithful spouse is a husband or wife who CHEATS. They have broken their marriage promises.
- A faithful spouse is one who keeps the promises they made on their wedding day.
- So it is in other areas of life, a faithful person is someone who keeps their promises, someone who does what they say they are going to do, someone you can count on, someone you can put your full trust in.
- God Himself is the perfect example of faithfulness.
1 Corinthians 1:9 NKJV God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Lamentations 3:22-23 ESV The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; (23) they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Psalms 36:5 ESV Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.
- And if God is Faithful, then we as His servants should be faithful.
- In fact, a couple of years ago Pastor Jared preached a sermon called “You probably don’t value faithfulness enough” from James 5:12
James 5:12 NKJV But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath. But let your “Yes” be “Yes,” and your “No,” “No,” lest you fall into judgment.
- Now hold up, WE AREN’T ALOUD TO MAKE PROMISES ANYMORE? That’s a bit EXTREAME isn’t it?
- Well yes, that is how extreme our faithfulness should be.
- Abrahams servant put his hand under Abrahams thigh to make sure Abraham knew he would be faithful.
- But as Christians, Christ died on a Cross, in part, so that we can be faithful.
- How can I say that? Because Faithfulness is a fruit of the Spirit, and we receive the spirit when we are saved!
- We wouldn’t be saved without the cross, thus we would not have the fruit of the Spirit without the cross.
Galatians 5:22-23 NKJV But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, (23) gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
- As Christians we should be so radically faithful that a promise sounds silly.
- Think about how annoying it is when kids ask “do you promise?”
- Alright kids, we are going to get frozen yogurt after school today.
- Do you promise dad?
- Yeah, I mean we will get it.
- Do you PINKY SWEAR dad?
- What… I said we would get it?
- Do you double dog promise no take-backs dad?
- WHAT? You don’t believe me, am I so unfaithful in what I say that I need to add all these promises?
- Now my kids don’t do that… because my kids know that my word is my word, if I said it, then I will do it.
- And that is how it should be as Christians.
- If we say we are going to do something, we should do it… and do it without delay and without complaining… just like Abrahams servant… only we don’t need to grab anyone under the thigh to make that promise!
- Our yes should be yes and our no should be no.
- We should go to church faithfully.
- We should read our Bible faithfully.
- We should serve God faithfully.
- If you sign up to serve, SERVE!
- Unless you are puking your guts out or you are dead, you should be on time… no, you should be early! Ready to serve.
- Showered, shaved, prayed up, ready to go!
- Serve faithfully.
- The word “Flake” should NEVER describe a Christian. You wouldn’t treat God like that… well some people do… but hopefully you wouldn’t treat God like that, so don’t treat others like that.
- Be men and women of your words, be faithful, serve God and others faithfully… and one day you will here those words “Well done my good and faithful servant”.
1 Corinthians 4:1-2 NKJV Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. (2) Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful.
- So a good and faithful servant is faithful… obviously… but part of faithfulness is positioning yourself for success… and this part is not so obvious.
Point Two – A Good Servant Positions Himself for Success
Genesis 24:10-14 NKJV Then the servant took ten of his master’s camels and departed, for all his master’s goods were in his hand. And he arose and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor. (11) And he made his camels kneel down outside the city by a well of water at evening time, the time when women go out to draw water. (12) Then he said, “O LORD God of my master Abraham, please give me success this day, and show kindness to my master Abraham. (13) Behold, here I stand by the well of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. (14) Now let it be that the young woman to whom I say, ‘Please let down your pitcher that I may drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I will also give your camels a drink’—let her be the one You have appointed for Your servant Isaac. And by this I will know that You have shown kindness to my master.”
- Right after promising to find a wife from Abrahams family for Isaac, right after that promise the servant departs… but where does he go and what does he bring with him?
- Well scripture tells us, he goes to the land of Abrahams family and posts up at a well.
- He then prays to God “let a woman of Abrahams family come out and offer a drink to me and my camels… let that woman be the one who is called to be Isaacs wife”.
- Now we are going to talk about that prayer more in depth next week… but I want you to see this.
- The servant, before he even prayed, positioned himself for success.
- He brought with him gifts of gold from his masters house… ready to give them to whoever appeared.
- He was in the right place, with the right equipment, ready to be faithful to the promise that he had made.
- He didn’t just climb some random mountain in the middle of nowhere and cry out to God —(switch to old British accent)“LORD! Provideth for me thine wife for Isaac! Perchance her hair be caught in a thicket, and I shalt find her… No? Well… peradventure, send her from heaven on chariots of fire! Like… Like a reverse rapture, LORD!”
- No, that would be FOOLISHNESS. He went to the region of Abrahams family, and then went to a well of water, where he knew women were likely to come to get water for the livestock… then he prayed about the well that he was at. He positioned himself for success.
- God provides miracles, yes, like Rams caught in the thicket… but that is on HIM… we should not test him by expecting that kind of miracle… we should be faithful and do what we can do to be faithful to what He has asked us to do… not presuming on miracles… but doing hard work as good and faithful servants, and trusting that God will take care of the rest.
- Let me make this as plan and simple and as clear and practical as possible.
- Do you believe that God want’s you to attend church faithfully?
- Then position yourself for success. Get enough sleep on Saturday night. Go to bed early. Don’t stay out.
- I almost NEVER go out on Saturday nights. I don’t go to movies, I don’t go to dinner parties that are late in the evening… because faithfulness is too important to me.
- Do you believe God wants you to serve in the church?
- Then position yourself for success. Prepare for serving. During the week pray over your ministry. Make sure you are prepared to serve on Sunday or Wednesday. Come dressed and energized and prayed up.
- Let’s talk outside of church. Do you believe God wants you to witness to your coworkers?
- Then show up prayed up and with a good attitude. Don’t sabotage your witness by being grumpy, gossiping, cussing, or cracking crude jokes. Position yourself for success.
- What about your neighbors? Do you believe God wants you to witness to your neighbors?
- Then position yourself for success. Invite them over for dinner sometime. When you get home and see them outside do you get out of your car and walk over to them to say hi, or do you immediately go into your garage and shut the garage door? POSITION YOURSELF FOR SUCCESS.
- What about your calling?
- Are you called to be a pastor? Start reading some books about pastoring, I would love to suggest some.
- Are you called to be a missionary? Start reading some biographies about missionaries… start learning the language… get involved with missions at church… do something!
- Whatever you are called to, don’t expect it to just happen! Position yourself for success, so when it does happen you will be successful.
Proverbs 21:5 NKJV The plans of the diligent lead surely to plenty, But those of everyone who is hasty, surely to poverty.
- The PLANS of the DILIGENT lead surely to plenty… in other words… POSITION YOURSELF FOR SUCCESS AND BE DILEGENT TO DO WHAT YOU SAID and it will lead to plenty… but be lazy or hasty and it will lead to poverty…
- all right, with that, let’s conclude this message this morning.
Conclusion
- The goal of every Christian in this life should be to hear the words “Well done my good and faithful servant” at the start of the next life.
- But how do we live as a good and faithful servant?
- Well, it starts with being faithful! We need to do what we say we are going to do…
- And do what is asked of us from the Lord faithfully.
- All of it, every time… Faithfully.
- And a big part of that is positioning ourselves for success… because honestly I have seen this a lot as a pastor. People who want to be faithful, who have good character, but bad positioning often end up looking unfaithful.
- “Yeah I know I said I would host a Passover meal, but my whole family is sick”.
- Well yeah, you took your kids to the children’s museum on Tuesday, what did you think was going to happen?
- “I know I said I would serve at first service this morning but I slept in and missed my alarm”
- Really, I checked on facebook and I can see you were posting at 2AM this morning. You positioned yourself for failure bro!
- “I know I am supposed to share the love of Christ with my neighbors but they never talk to me”
- Well have you tried talking to them when they are taking out the trash or mowing the lawn? Have you brought them easter cookies, or a home baked pie? Do you even know their names, maybe start by asking them that!
- So many times a failure of faithfulness in the church is not a character issue, it is a positioning issue.
- If it is a character issue, and you are just a liar and lazy… ok, REPENT and be faithful!
- But if it is not a character issue, you want to be faithful, you REALLY strive to be faithful, then it is probably a positioning issue. Position yourself for success.
- Gospel Call
Join us this Sunday at either 8:30AM or 10:30AM for worship followed by this message from the Word of God.
Christian Life Church of Cedar Rapids
2808 Schaeffer DR SW,
Cedar Rapids, IA 52404
www.CedarRapidsChurch.com
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