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That's connectwithskip.com. Now let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Back to our friendship idea. A good friendship can withstand spontaneity.
You know what I mean by that? You have friends, it doesn't matter when they call. They can call anytime. You tell them, call me anytime, and we're friends. There's others that you call them your friend, but you really don't want them calling you in the middle of the night. But we all have friends, and we don't mind if they call us in the middle of the night.
But you've got to be good friends with somebody to withstand that kind of spontaneity. Now I had a friend some years ago in California who would show up unannounced, like all the time. He'd come anytime he wanted to, and he'd knock on the door.
And if we weren't at home or he didn't get an answer, he'd walk around the house and look in the windows and knock on the windows and make sure that we were there. But because of the friendship, it was okay. You better be friends to have somebody around your house like that, right? Even Jesus said, suppose one of you has a friend who goes to him at midnight and says, friend, lend me three loaves of bread. Remember that little story? Well, you better be a friend with somebody to come at midnight and say, I forgot to go shopping. Can I have a loaf of bread? So if you want to be God's friend, just know that whatever agenda you set in your life, have enough flexibility that the Lord can alter your direction, change your plans, visit you with a blessing or a trial or a testing anytime he wants to.
But because you're his friend and he's your friend, that's okay. Here's the second mark of being a friend with God, humility. It says in verse two, so he lifted up his eyes and looked and behold three men were standing by him and when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and he bowed himself to the ground. The word bowed, very important word. You're going to find it a hundred times in the Old Testament. The Hebrew word shacha, shacha, to bow down, to do homage, to give reverence to. And it is the most frequently used word in the Old Testament for the translation in our English, worship. To bow down, shacha, to worship. In the Orient, in the Middle East, especially back then, it was very typical to greet somebody who is more esteemed than you are like royalty if you were in the presence of a king or a queen.
You would get on your knees and you would gently and slowly incline your head till your forehead would touch the ground and that was a sign of respect. I acknowledge that you are greater, higher and to be revered. Okay, Abraham is 99 years old. Abraham has 318 paid, trained servants. He has lots of flocks, lots of hurt.
He has made an impact already in his culture. He would be called in the Middle East today if he were alive a sheikh, a sheikh, somebody who has and exerts great influence on large numbers of people. But Abraham in God's presence bows down and that is a proper response to a divine friendship. If you're going to be God's friend, it's not like being each other's friend where we go, dude, hey buddy, buddy. I get a little bit miffed when I hear God, people talk about God, hey, my buddy in the sky, the old man upstairs. And I think, how dare you refer to God that way?
He's God and if you're going to have a friendship as a human with God, it better include worship and humility. I've told you the story about that old minister who survived the Jonestown flood back in Pennsylvania years ago and he always liked to tell the story of how he survived the Jonestown flood. Everybody he would meet, he would say, have you heard how I survived the Jonestown flood?
And if they heard it, they'd roll their eyes and he'd tell it anyway. Well, the old minister died and went to heaven. One day Peter said, hey, we're going to have a big gathering together tonight and we're going to be telling our stories and giving our testimonies.
It's testimony night in heaven. And so the old minister got really excited and wide-eyed and ran up to Peter and said, hey, Peter, have you heard how I survived the Jonestown flood? He began to tell him the story and he said, I'd love to share that tonight with everybody else in heaven.
Peter hesitated. He said, okay, you can tell it, but just remember, Noah will be in the audience tonight. And I love this story because it illustrates this truth. If you're going to tell about a flood and Noah is listening, it better be good because it changes the whole complexion of really good flood stories when Noah's in the audience.
He can top anybody. Well, here's Abraham, 99 years old, very influential, a sheikh by modern and ancient terms, and he bows down before the Lord realizing God is in the audience tonight. And when God is in the audience, I may be somebody important, but in God's presence, I'm not.
And he bows down. And so that's why I love worship and that's why during times of worship, we should all be engaged because we're realizing God is in the audience tonight and this is for him. And when we truly worship God, there's going to be humility. Humility in worship comes from two things. Number one, recognizing who God is and number two, recognizing who we are in the presence of God.
Once you get those two things straight, the inevitable result will be humility, guaranteed. Remember Isaiah chapter six, the year the king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up. The train of his robe filled the temple and he heard the angel singing and Isaiah said what? Yeah, he didn't say, wow is me. I'm Isaiah the prophet. Wow is me. He said, whoa is me. I am undone.
I am a man of unclean lips. Whatever great gift he thought he possessed, if he did up to that point, it was lost because in recognizing that he was in God's presence and recognizing who God was, Isaiah recognized who he was and it brought that sense of humility. So that second, if you're going to be a friend of God, it's going to take a level of humility where you realize God is in my audience.
He's watching everything I do and we would bow down before him. And so when he saw these three men, he bowed down himself to the ground and notice he said, verse three, my Lord, Adonai is the Hebrew word. Now Abraham will refer to him in this passage as your servant and call God my Lord, Adonai.
Adonai, the mighty one, the almighty, the strong one, the Lord. I think it was Max Lucado who wrote something quite clever. He said, you don't boast about your paper airplane when you're dealing with NASA. You don't brag about your crayon sketches in the presence of Picasso. You don't claim equality with Albert Einstein because you can write H2O. And you don't talk about your own goodness in the presence of the perfect one.
That's sort of the idea here. He recognizes who he's with and he bows down and he calls him the Lord. Let's go on, verse three, and he said, my Lord, if I now have found favor in your sight, do not pass on by your servant. Please let a little water be brought and wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree. And I will bring a morsel of bread that you may refresh your hearts. After that, you may pass by in as much as you have come to your servant. And they said, do as you have said. So Abraham hurried.
Okay, he's how old? Can you picture a guy 99 hurrying? I don't know what that looked like, but it's in the text. He hurried, I don't know if it was like, hey, hold on, into the tent and said to Sarah, quickly, make ready three measures of fine meal, knead it and make cakes. And Abraham ran to the herd, took a tender and good calf, gave it to a young man and he hastened to prepare it. And so he took butter and milk and the calf which he had prepared and set it before them and he stood by them under the tree as they ate. And they said to him, where is Sarah, your wife?
And so he said, here in the tent. Here's the third part of being God's friend. If the first one is spontaneity and the second one is humility, the third one is ministry, serving, serving. If you're going to be God's friend, there's going to be a requirement to serve the Lord, to get involved in kingdom work. Now, typically, if you're a Christian, you don't have to twist your arm, you want to do it. It's a response, I love God, I love being his friend, I want to serve the Lord.
I get excited doing that. Abraham serves the Lord here. And he does it three ways. He does it personally. Now, he's 99 years old.
It's a hot day. He had 318 servants. He could have just gone like this to any one of them and watched them get really busy around him. But he personally is serving. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, in his book, Is God Real?, Lee Strobel, author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Case for Christ, provides a rational exploration of the proof of God's existence and the basis of our eternal hope. Writing to skeptics and believers alike, Strobel turns his critical mind and expert interviewing skills to perennial questions like, how do we know which God is real? And if God is real, why does he seem so hidden? Is God real? Along with two messages preached by Lee Strobel at Calvary Church, our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your resources when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip. Now, if you're going to serve the Lord, and by the way, if you're a Christian, I would say a Christian without a ministry is a contradiction. If he is your Lord, it means he's the master.
The word Lord connotes that you are a servant, that you're doing some form of service, some form of ministry, some volunteer, some way to get involved. And even if you're serving people, keep this in mind, you're first serving the Lord. See, this is where people get burned out. In their service to the Lord, they forget they're serving the Lord. They serve people.
You know what? It's not easy serving people because sometimes sheep bite back. And so the only way to make it through victoriously is to remember, though I'm serving God's people, I first and foremost am serving the Lord.
And as part of that, it involves working with people, as imperfect as we all are. I love the fact that the priests of Israel, though they served God's people, they ministered to God's people, they took animals and killed them and sacrificed on behalf of the people, it said they ministered to the Lord. That's the phrase the Old Testament uses. The priests ministered to the Lord, and that involved serving people. So Abraham serves personally. Number two, Abraham served immediately. We noticed that language. He hurried, he said to his wife quickly, he ran to the flock and said, hasten or quick prepare supper. There was an immediacy to his service. Why is that noteworthy? Here's why. If you are waiting for the right feeling before you get involved, you might never get involved.
If Abraham was waiting for the right feeling when those visitors suddenly appeared at the tent, think of the excuses he could have had. It's hot. I don't work during the heat of the day.
Nobody does. Number two, I'm old. Old people don't work well in the heat of the day. Number three, I have a staff for this. He probably, if he waited for the right feeling, would never have gotten involved. Here's the third thing about his service. He gave generously.
I want you to notice a few things in that text. He says in verse six, quickly make ready three measures of fine meal, the best needed and make cakes. Verse seven, Abraham ran to the herd and took a tender and good calf and gave it to the young man and he hastened to prepare. He gave generously. He gave the best. I think that we should give the Lord the very best of who we are, the best of our talents, the best of our time, the best of our energy, because too many people give God leftovers.
I'm not using this anymore. This old, broken, beat-up, crummy piano that has lost half of its strings and is out of tune doesn't work and it doesn't serve me very well, all donated to the church. Hear God, and basically they just want, you know, a free pickup to haul their trash out. When David was looking for a place to build the temple and he came to the threshing floor of Ornan, also called Arana, in the Old Testament, it became the place where the temple was built. And if you come with us to Jerusalem, you'll see and walk on the threshing floor of Arana that David bought for the temple to be built. When he saw the threshing floor, he offered to pay a price for it. And the guy who owned it, Ornan, said, well, listen, you're David and you're doing this for God. It's yours gratis for free. You don't have to pay me anything. David said, nope, I insist. Ornan said, nope, I insist. Can you imagine arguing about that?
Usually people argue in the opposite direction. David finally put his foot down and said, I will never sacrifice to the Lord from that which costs me nothing. Now there's a principle that David had and lived by that if I'm going to give something to the Lord, I've got to feel it.
It's got to cost me. I'm going to give him the best. So I'm going to pay for it and I'm going to build a temple on this spot. Abraham, I think, had that same concept. I'm going to give God generously because God has been so generous to me and his promises.
And to reciprocate that, that's part of the friendship. Verse nine. And they said to him, where is Sarah, your wife?
So he said, here in the tent. Now me, I don't know, but three strangers. You identify one eventually as the Lord. Probably at first he didn't quite get it. But when three men knock on your door and say, where's your wife? I wonder what was going through his mind. It's a good thing he knew it was the Lord and was spontaneously, fervently, personally serving him.
And by this time he said, it's okay. But she was in the tent. Now in the past, it was Sarah. Do you remember? Who came up with the idea that you use Hagar instead of me because it can't happen through me.
I'm too old. You're probably still with it, Abraham, enough to birth a child through a younger woman, but certainly not me. So now God's going to zero in on her specifically. So he said, here in the tent, and he said, that is he, the Lord said, I will certainly return to you according to the time of life and behold, Sarah, your wife will have a son. Sarah was listening. It says in parenthesis, Sarah was listening in the tent door, which was behind him. So there are one part of the tent.
There's a flap. She's on the other side making preparations. Now just in case the reader would forget the condition of this couple. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age, and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. The author wants you to know that it was impossible in human terms for Sarah to have a baby.
Therefore, because she's old, well advanced in age, can't have a child. Therefore, Sarah laughed within herself saying, after I have grown old, shall I have pleasure my Lord, that is Abraham. Isn't that a great thing to call your husband? Hello my Lord. You laugh, but the New Testament makes that a point. Now I see, now I'm flustered.
I lost my spot. And the Lord, why did Sarah laugh? Okay, verse 14.
Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son. But Sarah denied it saying, I did not laugh, for she was afraid. And he said, no, but you did laugh. Sarah laughed. God busted her. She probably did it to herself. She didn't laugh out loud like, ha ha. She probably just went. The Lord said, why did Sarah laugh?
And then she then was busted so she yelled out across the flap, I didn't laugh. The Lord said, yeah, you did. I got that. I heard that. Now, it's interesting in the previous chapter, when God made the promise to Abraham, he laughed. God didn't say anything about it. And that is because Abraham believed. He believed. There was no disbelief in him. That's what the Bible says. Abraham believed God when God made those promises.
And it was accounted unto him for righteousness. But there are different ways to laugh, are there not? When a person laughs, it can be a laugh of lighthearted laughter, ha ha ha. Then there's a scornful laugh, ha ha. Then there's a laugh of arrogance, ha. Then there's a laugh of unbelief, like, ha ha ha.
I'm going to have a baby. You see, just because it says laughter, you have to then suppose what kind of laughter. When Abraham laughed, it was a laughter of joy, because the Bible says Abraham believed God. Her laughter was a laughter of unbelief. She realized, ain't gonna happen. I'm an old lady.
He's an old guy. And she laughed. And she even said, shall I have pleasure and my Lord also? So here's now the fourth and final mark of a friendship with God. Conformity to his will. Conformity to his will. Abraham believed God and was willing, even though he floundered and failed and went along with Sarah's scheme a couple chapters back, he believed God and he's willing to walk in obedience to that belief.
Sarah showed an unbelief and an unwillingness, except for the fact that she's going to end up pregnant, she's going to have to have that baby and go along with it. Part of being the friend of the Lord is conformity to his will, conformity to his promise and willingness to obey what he says. In John 15, Jesus said this, you are my friends if you do what I command you.
You want to be Jesus' friend? Do what he says. Obey him. Find areas in your life where the Bible speaks to that condition of your life and decide I'm going to put that into practice. And I'm going to put it in practice in all of my life. He's going to be the Lord of my church life, the Lord of my relational life, the Lord of my pleasure and leisure life, the Lord of all of it.
I'm willing for that to happen. That's conformity. And Abraham demonstrated that. Okay, so answer the question that God asks. Answer it in your own life. Is there anything too hard for the Lord? Well, what's the answer?
Of course not. Jeremiah will say later on, Lord, you made everything, the heaven, the earth, everything. There's nothing too hard for you. And again, we're in the book of Genesis. If you can believe the first verse of Genesis 1, first verse of the Bible, God created the heavens and the earth, it sort of makes the rest pretty easy, doesn't it? The Lord created the heavens and the earth, but I don't know if he's going to be able to take care of me.
Lord, it's $3,500, Lord. I know, I know, I know you created the heavens and the earth, but I don't know if you can take care of this debt. So it's always good when you pray to recognize who you're praying to. Acts chapter four, they were threatened for their faith. They come together and this is how they began their prayer.
Lord, you're God. You're the maker of the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them. Who by the mouth of the prophet said, and they quote Psalm 2, therefore look upon our affliction. So they, before they got to their need, they recognized to whom they were addressing. And once you recognize you're talking to God who has no limitations, it's very difficult recognizing that, bringing a limitation over onto you. Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been encouraged in your walk with Christ by today's program. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resources that will help you confidently respond to questions and challenges to God's existence.
It's Lee Strobel's book, Is God Real?, and two messages he preached on the topic at Calvary Church. Request your resources when you give $50 or more to support Connect with Skip Heitzig. Call 800-922-1888. That's 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. And did you know that you can get a weekly devotional and other resources from Pastor Skip sent right to your email inbox? Simply visit connectwithskip.com and sign up for emails from Skip. Come back next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
