The Vision of the Promise gives you Hope so that you can Endure the Pain in the Process.
It helps us to keep going. Even though where we are is not where we want to be. I wrote it down this way. The vision of the promise gives you hope so that you can endure the pain in the process. There’s going to be pain in the process, but the promise of God gives us hope. Mt. Carmel Illinois Church The vision of the promise of God gives us hope.
This even happened for Jesus himself. If Jesus had to do this, how much more will we have to do it? Hebrews chapter 12 says this, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross. Was the cross fun? No. Did Jesus want to go to the cross? No. He said to the father in the garden, he said, if there’s any other way, please let’s come up with a plan B. Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.
So he went through the pain of the process because he saw the promise of you and me on the other side. So, sometimes we have to have the promise in front of us. So now, the first two is the promise. Verse one is the process. Mt. Carmel Illinois Church This is what I want to focus on today. He says here in verse one, “Now the Lord had said to Abraham, Abraham, get out of your country from your family and from your father’s house.”
Here’s the process, three steps or three steps to the promise. Now there’s three conditions to the process. He says, yeah, I’m going to make you a great nation and we’ll bless you and make your name great with amazing.
When God Calls us out of something, It’s an Invitation into something Greater
But number one, it needs you to get out of your country. Now remember, Abraham was not a Jew at this time. He didn’t know God at all. He was not a Christian. He was not part of a church. The Bible actually teaches us in Joshua that Abram’s father and his whole family were idol worshipers. Mt. Carmel Illinois Church They served other gods. They didn’t even serve Jehovah. They didn’t even know the God of Israel because there was no Israel yet. This was before all of that, and all of a sudden God speaks to Abraham and says, all right, Abraham, get out of your country.
That’s the condition. Get out of your family and from your father’s house. I’m like, wow, this sounds like a huge price to pay to leave all three of these. He’d be leaving all the security, identity and future that he had, but notice the intimacy level that changes get out of your country. Okay? That’s kind of generic. Get from your family.
That literally meant your homeland or your birthplace, and then the third one, from your father’s house. Notice that the intimacy level ratchets up each time. Okay, hometown area, okay, father’s house. Every time the Lord said, I want to increase the level of intimacy.
I’m increasing the price, but here’s what we have to know about God. When God says get out of something, it’s an invitation to come into something greater. Whatever God calls us out of, he’s always calling us into something greater and the greater the intimacy that he’s calling us out of, church.
In other words, the greater the price we pay, the greater the intimacy he’s calling us into. He’s calling me out of relationships here to call me into a greater relationship. God never just says, get out of sin. He calls you into something greater than sin. Mt. Carmel Illinois Church The problem with religion is religion just says, stop sinning, get out of sin, and then you will be right. You will not be right when you just stopped sinning.
We’re only right by the righteousness of Jesus. My stopping sinning without saving me, Jesus dying on the cross saves me, me putting my faith in him. So now it’s your understanding that God’s never going to go “Well if you just quit, uh, you know, smoking and drinking and cussing and sleeping around and stop all that sin, then you’ll be right.” No, no, no. God calls you into a life that’s greater than sin that uses us, church.
So, you look at sin like, wow, why would I go back to that when I can have this? That’s the difference in religion and Jesus. Jesus calls us into something not just out of something, so that’s what you have to understand. If you’re watching, like God is not just saying, stop this, stop that, stop that. He’s saying, start this, or start that. It’s an invitation. He’s like, come and taste and see that the Lord is good.
Once you taste of living for Jesus and really taste of living for Jesus and not just attending church, but once you taste living for Jesus, now going back to the other leaves a bad taste in your mouth. That’s what God wants for you. Mt. Carmel Illinois Church Once you have experienced the presence of God, you never want to go back. So this is what he’s telling us, Mt. Carmel Illinois Church.
He said, I’m going to call you out of something. God’s never ever just freeing us from something, but he’s freeing us to something. This is so important, man. So where? Where’s he freeing us to? Where’s he freeing us to? He says in verse 1, “They said, from your father’s house to a land that I will show you, I will show you.” So we’ve got to trust the guide, church.
We have got to trust God that we’re not always going to know. Here’s the question. Mt. Carmel Illinois Church Can we believe behind what we know to move towards what we don’t know? If God’s calling you out of something that you’re familiar with, a lifestyle that you’re familiar with, friends that you’re familiar with, can you leave them behind and walk into something that you’re unfamiliar with? Can you trust the guy? That he will take you to a land that he will show you?
Thanks so much for watching with us. We love our online Mt. Carmel Illinois Church and Norris City Illinois Church family and we invite you to connect with us. We have a few different ways you can do that. Our website is theroads.church. We are on social media as well.
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