Restoration 2018:  Our Picture of God

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Restoration Ministry

Dee Casper

Is God Enough

Father in heaven, thank you that I can come into your presence in prayer, and I'm asking that you would bless us today, that you would minister to each of our hearts, and that you would challenge us this evening.

We've been seeing throughout the course of the last handful of days that you are altogether lovely, you are altogether fair, and that you place a high value on each of us individually.

And I pray that in response to that love that we would recognize that surrendering to you is the logical response.

It's not a legalistic response, it's logical, because we love you because you first loved us.

May that be clear this evening, I pray, and I ask this now in Jesus' name, Amen.

I believe with all of my heart that Jesus is coming soon to claim his bride.

And Scripture tells us that before this happens a time of great distress is going to come upon this earth.

We can't sugarcoat it, we can't avoid it, We cannot like it, but it doesn't change the reality of the fact that there is a crisis that will come across this earth, and what we're covering today and tomorrow evening and Sabbath, I believe, is going to have the potential to help us to prepare for that time of distress.

And so I hope that we'll be attentive this evening, that we'll be open to the Spirit's leading and prompting.

I'm coming to find in a lot of the counseling I do around the country and sharing around the country that many of us are wrestling with trust issues, that many of us are convinced that God is going to ask things of us that we really aren't ready for, at least not yet.

Maybe you've been in 1 of those situations where you kind of have a prayer of, God, I'll go wherever you lead me, just tell me what to do." But then in our hearts we kind of had that reservation of, but oh not yet.

Let me experience this just to see what it's like, and then I'll go all in.

Some of us are afraid to trust God because we don't fully understand where He's coming from.

But I was reading a devotional a couple years ago and read this beautiful line in it, it's a book called The Upward Look, that says that our first lesson is to learn the will of God even though we pass through trying circumstances.

And such obedience will how often be rewarded?

If our determination is to know what will honor God and what God's will is, that that's what's most important to us over anything.

If we do this, such obedience, we're told, will always be rewarded.

So it's not the will of God that we need to be worried about then this evening.

There's something else we need to be worried about.

This is from a book called Faith and Works.

When God lets man have his own way, it's the darkest hour of his life.

And what I believe we're going to see this evening is the contrast of these 2 lessons of seeking to unflinchingly do the will of God and pursuing our own path.

We're going to look at the lives of Abraham and Lot this evening.

Good, because I was going there anyway, just so you know.

There wasn't like a you-choose-your-ending-book situation here.

It was actually just choose my ending, But I'm glad that I have your permission.

Genesis chapter 12, we're going to kind of give an overview of Genesis chapters 12 through 19, but we're not going to read all of it, I promise.

It takes 30 minutes in case you're wondering.

But I'm not going to do that because I have other stuff to cover in the time I'm allotted.

Genesis 12 beginning of verse 1, this is the call of a man named Abram.

Now the Lord had said to Abram, get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you." He doesn't even know where it is.

I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him, and Abram was how old?

75 years old when he departed from Haran.

Now, this call cost him something immediately, because he says, go, leave your country and what?

Now, some of you may rejoice over this call, some of you may weep over this call.

I don't know your story, but in Eastern cultures families are very tight-knit, but God calls him to do something.

It's gonna cost Yeah, he's got skin in the game here.

He's leaving his country He's leaving all he's ever known to a land that God will show him And yet Abram chooses to trust God and to go, not even knowing where he's going to end up.

But as my friend Neville says, faith is messy.

And what ends up happening in Genesis 12 is that when Abram gets to the place where God is leading him, there's famine in the land.

You ever been in a situation like this, that the call of God comes to your life and you obey unquestioningly, and everyone around you thinks you're out of your mind, you're nuts for doing this.

And then you start to wonder, did I even make the right choice?

And he could be tempted to doubt, have I done as I ought?

He sends him down to Egypt, and when Abram gets down to Egypt, he kind of has a bit of a like problem, not problem.

So it's not a problem, but it is a problem because he's afraid for his life in this situation.

He has a lot with him and then he starts to tell a partial truth which I would view as a full untruth and I'll tell you why.

He says that Sarah is my sister, but she's actually his wife, and you may be thinking, well, yeah, but she is his sister.

Genetically, this may be true, but I have a very simple question for you this evening.

Was he treating her like she was his sister?

So, in doing so, he puts his wife's life in peril.

She could have been killed, he could have been killed, lots of things could have happened.

And when he has this misstep, Lot is there to witness this, unfortunately.

But eventually, they end up leaving Egypt.

They go back to the Promised Land, and when they get there, Their flocks are so bounteous.

It sounds like it could be a word though, are you sure?

I just wanna use it now, just to be a rebel.

Anyway, so their flocks are so bountiful, plentiful, that the land isn't big enough for both of them, right?

It's kinda like those old Western movies.

This town ain't big enough for the both of us.

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Is God Enough

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