Trusting God Amidst Prosperity

Genesis 26 is where we are this morning, as we continue our study in this remarkable chapter. In the Book of Beginnings, Genesis chapter 26 is about learning to trust God, and last week we talked about learning to trust God amidst adversity, today we're going to talk about learning to trust God amidst prosperity, and I know some of you are thinking, well, that's not going to apply to me because I'm definitely not prosperous, but let me help you understand something, just because you might not be prosperous by the world's standards does not mean that you, in the depths of your heart, don't want to be prosperous like the world, and therefore you must understand what it means to trust God in every situation, and I have found that it is more difficult to trust God amidst prosperity than it is amidst adversity, and we'll find that out as we study the life of Isaac, once again, that one chapter in the Bible, devoted solely to Isaac, teaches us about learning to trust God in two areas of our life that are extremely important, one is amidst adversity, and the other, of course, amidst prosperity, let me read it for you, Genesis 26, verse number 12, Now Isaac sowed in the land, and reaped in the same year a hundredfold, and the Lord blessed him.

And the man became rich, and continued to grow richer, until he became very wealthy, for he had possessions of flocks and herds and a great household, so that the Philistines envied him. Now all the wells which his father's servant had dug, in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines stopped up by filling them with earth. Then Abimelech said to Isaac, Go away from us, for you are too powerful for us. And Isaac departed from there, and camped in the valley of Gerar, and settled there. Then Isaac dug again the wells of water which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, but the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham.

He gave them the same names which his father had given them. But when Isaac's servants dug in the valley, and found there a well of flowing water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with the herdsmen of Isaac, saying, The water is ours. So he named the well Essek, because they contended with him. Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over it too, so he named it Sitna. And he moved away from there, and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it, so he named it Rehoboth. For he said, At last the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.

Then he went up from there to Beersheba. And the Lord appeared to him the same night, and said, I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham. So he built an altar there, and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac's servants dug a well. Then Abimelech came to him from Gerar with his advisor Ahuzeth, and Pechol the commander of his army. And Isaac said to them, Why have you come to me, since you hate me, and have sent me away from you?

And they said, We see plainly, the Lord has been with you. So we said, Let there now be an oath between us, even between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you. And you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you, and I have not done to you nothing but good, and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord. Then he made them a feast, and they ate and drank, and in the morning they arose early and exchanged oaths. Then Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace.

Now it came about on the same day that Isaac's servants came in and told him about the well, which they had dug, and said to him, We have found water. So he called it Sheba. Therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day. And when Esau was forty years old, he married Judith, the daughter of Bere, the Hittite, and Basemath, the daughter of Elan, the Hittite. And they brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah. Trusting God amidst prosperity, not an easy thing to do, as we will see in the life of Isaac.

As we recall last week, we talked about what it meant to trust God amidst adversity, but Isaac, did he learn his lesson? Did he learn how to trust God amidst adversity? I would like to say yes, but I'm not so sure he did. And my prayer for you and me is that in the midst of adverse circumstances, we would learn to trust our God more so than ever before, but so many times we falter like Isaac did. So God does something very unique. You would think that God would at least spank him a little bit, you know what I'm saying?

At least perform some discipline on a man's life for his unwillingness to trust his God. But what does God do? God blesses the man. I mean the man becomes filthy rich. I mean he has wealth coming out of his ears. He has livestock. He has cattle. He has more. Look what the Bible says.

It says the man became rich. He continued to grow richer, and he became very wealthy. And I got to scratch my head and say, wait a minute, Lord. This just doesn't seem right. How can you bless this guy when he's just to see the leader of the land, when he's been a bad testimony for you, when he hasn't stood strong, when he didn't do what he was supposed to do, to shine as a beacon in the community? How can you bless the man and give him all this money and all these riches? And you know what? You know why God does stuff like that?

To let you know that you'll never figure him out. You see, we think we got God all figured out, don't we? We think, well, you know, if I do this and I go up over here, God's going to bless my life and everything's going to be good. If I go over here, God's not going to bless my life and everything's going to be bad. And so we kind of think we got God figured out. I want you to know something, you never have God figured out. You'll never figure him out. His ways are higher than your ways. His thoughts are so different than your thoughts.

You'll never comprehend God. And this story in Genesis 26 helps us understand more about God than Isaac. Because Isaac's like you and me. We don't trust God much either, whether it be adversity, let alone prosperity. And yet, the Bible is about the revelation of God and who he is and how God operates. And our God is a God of grace and a God of mercy. You see, God blesses not because of us, but in spite of us. You need to learn that lesson. I mean, if you don't get it in the book of beginnings, you'll never get it.

I mean, just read the book of Genesis. These guys, whether it be Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I mean, these guys, I mean, you'd think that these guys were at times unbelievers the way they acted. But God would orchestrate his divine purposes through these men's lives to show you it's not about these men. It's about me, your God. And so what does God do? God is teaching Isaac a lesson, and God is teaching you a lesson, and me a lesson. We need to learn to trust our God. Because most of us don't. Oh, we trust him for our salvation.

But when it comes to everyday operations, we don't really trust him very well, do we? And that's what happened to Isaac. So I want you to see a couple of things. Number one, I want you to see material blessings, I guess is what your outline says.

Material blessings. And then we're going to move to relational battles. And then we're going to move to spiritual benefits. And then we're going to move to familial burdens. But first of all, I want you to see material blessings.

And two things I want you to see. Number one, the source of the blessing, and number two, the scope of the blessing.

You need to understand the source of the blessing. Because the Bible says, now Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year.

What is the same year? The same year, back to verse number one, that there was a famine in the land. Isn't that good? There's a famine in the land, and God designs to bless one of his own. He chooses Isaac, and he blesses him. And it says, and the Lord blessed him, verse 12, and the man became rich. He grew richer, very wealthy, for he had possessions of flocks and herds and a great household. I mean, the guy had everything. I mean, what more could you want? He had a beautiful wife, Rebekah. You know, he had the promised seed.

Now he's got a beautiful home, he's got beautiful chariots, he's got money in the bank, he's got money in the stock market, the stock market's going up, everything's going great. I mean, what more could the man want? He is prosperous, and all the while, there is a famine in the land. So think about this, he's the only guy getting rich. He's the only guy prosperous. Who does it? God does. God does. You need to learn that. Why? Because if you're like me, you like to watch those little TV preachers every once in a while, and they talk to you about how you can get prosperous, and rich, and wealthy.

You ever notice that the only way you can get rich is if you give money to them? You ever think about that? If you gave money to me, they wouldn't get rich, I'd get rich. But if you give money to them, God will bless you because you gave money to their ministry and to them. That's always a significant sign of a false prophet. Give money to me, send it in here, and God will bless your life. That's not what the Bible says.

God blesses not because of what you do, but in spite of who you are. Because God's blessing is about God, and not about you. And so we must understand the source, 1 Corinthians 4, 7 says, what did you have that you did not receive from the Lord? James 1, 17 tells us that every good and perfect gift cometh down from the Father of lights. But I want to let you know something, God kept His promise. God promised Him earlier in verse number 3 of Genesis 26 that He would bless Isaac. God made a promise to Isaac.

He didn't say, Isaac, I'm going to bless you, but if you do this, I'm not going to bless you now. Uh-uh. God made a promise to Isaac. God kept His promise. He blessed him. Exactly like He said, in spite of the fact that he was a sinner, in spite of the fact that he deceived the leader of the land. You see, our God is so great. He is so good. He is above anything you do. He's even greater than your sin. Doesn't mean you can go off and just do whatever you want, and God's going to bless you anyway.

No, because there are consequences for your sin. But the moral of the story is that God rules over all, and He is the source of material blessing. And the scope, wow, the scope was huge. I mean, he grew richer, he became wealthier, he had more than anybody else had because there was a famine in the land. I mean, when God doesn't work, God doesn't work. Now, why did God do all this? Because He wanted Isaac to realize what God was doing, and for Isaac to trust Him. Because it's all about learning to trust God.

The question is, did Isaac learn his lesson? Slowly, but not surely, he learned his lesson. We go from material blessings to point number two, relational battles.

You know, whenever you get rich, people that aren't rich, they're not very happy with you. You know that? Now, the people that are rich are not happy with you either because they are greedy for gain anyway, and they're envious of you getting richer than they are. So when you're rich, you really don't have any friends because nobody really likes you. They like you for maybe what you can give them, but they don't like you for who you are, see? And so what happens is that these people, these Philistines, get very envious of him, extremely envious of him, and they run him out of the land.

And all of a sudden, Isaac faces a conflict he hadn't faced before. He was a resented man, rich, but those around him resented him. Two things I want you to see, the conflict and its continuance. The Bible says that there was a conflict that arose.

God had blessed him because God wanted him to trust him. And now was an opportunity for Isaac to trust his God. So what happens? It says, the Philistines envied him, verse number 14. So all the wells that his father dug, they filled in with earth. And every well that he would begin to dig, they would battle over and say, no, that's our well, and run him off. In fact, the leader said, listen, Isaac, I want to tell you something. You are more powerful than we are. We don't want you around us anymore.

We want you to leave this land. Now, this land was the land that God had promised him. So what did Isaac do? It's not what he did, it's what he didn't do. Did he fall on his knees and trust his God? Or did he do what the pagan leader told him to do? He did what the pagan leader told him to do. He didn't fall on his knees and trust his God. Same thing that happened earlier. Instead of staying in the land when there was a famine, he fled the land instead of falling on his knees. When he faced Abimelech and realized that he might lose his life if he found out that he was married to Rebekah, instead of falling on his knees, he lied.

Now he has another opportunity to trust his God. Now he's wealthy. Now he's rich. But I want you to notice what he does.

What does he do? He builds or goes to another place and digs another well. And then once they come and crawl over that one, he moves on and then digs another well. That's very interesting to me. Why? Because you see, when you have lots of money, you can just pick up a move and dig another well. And just pick up a move and dig another well. It's like having lots of money, you know, your house burns down, you buy another one. Car accident, car's demolished, you buy another one. Your suit's burned, you buy another suit.

No big deal. You got the money. That's where Isaac was. Just move on. Dig another well. We're going to call the first well Essek, the well of contention, because there was contention here.

But you will notice that he didn't fall on his knees before God and trust his God and call upon the name of the Lord.

So he moved on and dug another well. He called that one Sitna, which is the root word in Hebrew for Satan, the adversary. See, there was a continuance of the conflict. It would just not cease. It would continue on. Why? Because God wanted Isaac to trust him. But he wasn't trusting his God. And that conflict would continue on until finally he dug a well.

And all of a sudden, there was no contention. It says down in verse number 22, and he moved away from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he named it Rehoboth. And he said, at last, the Lord has made room for us, and we should be fruitful in the land. No opposition, no opposition at all. The well of ample room. And Isaac begins to scratch his head and say, you know, I guess the Lord is behind all this. I'm going to have to lean upon him. And so we move to point number three, spiritual benefits.

And what does he do? He goes to Beersheba. Why Beersheba? That's where his dad had dug a well and made an oath with the Philistines, made an oath with them because they had seen something in Abraham's life. They had seen God in Abraham's life. And so he built or dug a well, the well of the oath, there in Beersheba. I want you to notice two things, the assurance and the agreement at the well of Beersheba.

Verse 23, then he went up from there to Beersheba, and the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, I am the God of your father Abraham, do not fear if I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham. So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there and there Isaac's servants dug a well. Isaac realized after a while, had to be a long while because you know, they didn't have bulldozers back then. So they couldn't just dig a well in a day and be done with it.

It took time to dig a well, took days. And so there was a time lapse between the digging of the wells and the moving from place to place to place to place. And finally, Isaac realized that the Lord is behind all this.

The Lord has given us ample room. And so what would he do now? He would realize that God wanted Isaac to trust him, so he made his way to Beersheba, the place where his father Abraham called upon the name of the Lord and called him there the everlasting God. And now finally we see Isaac coming around.

He goes to Beersheba and there the Lord gives him assurance. He speaks to him. The Lord knew Isaac's heart. The Lord knew that Isaac was going to go there to worship his God. And therefore he would come to him and speak to him once again about how he was his God, how he was going to bless him and multiply his ascendance. And the text says that there he called upon the name of the Lord. Listen, folks, God wants you to call upon his name. I don't care if you're in the midst of adversity or in the midst of prosperity.

God wants you to trust him and call upon his name. But you know what we do? We want to get a book on a subject. We want to find some author who wrote a book on it and then read the book. Or we want to go to a seminar on the topic. If we need to go to some seminar about my issue, then everything will be okay. Or we want to tell 20 people about it. And God says, call upon the name of the Lord.

Call upon me. Seek me. Trust me. Lean upon me. That's what God wants from us. And finally Isaac was getting the idea that he needed to trust his God.

It came slow, but it finally started to come. That's all the Lord wanted from Isaac. And you know what? That's what the Lord wants from you too. He wants you to trust him. He wants you to believe enough in him that you'll live every day leaning upon him and believe in his word. Sure enough, there came an agreement. Why? Because Abimelech would come to him. The commander of his army would come to him. And he would say, we see plainly that the Lord has been with you, Isaac. Interesting. He saw that Isaac's God was with him, but it took a while for Isaac to see his God was with him.

And they would make an agreement. They would make an oath. And they would have a feast. And they would be sent away in peace. When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him, the book of Proverbs tells us. And all of a sudden, the enemies of Isaac were at peace with him. Why? Because Isaac's ways finally began to please the Lord.

He finally did what God had asked him to do and wanted him to do all along as a promised seed from his father Abraham, as the one that would be the bearer of the continued seed that would lead to the Messiah.

God says, trust me, believe in me, lean on me. How about you? Do you trust your God? Do you believe in your God? Do you call upon your God? You know, I've come to realize that one of the things that prosperity does is make us very callous toward our citizenship. Did you ever notice that?

What prosperity does, what wealth does is get us really focused on the here and now, more so than anything else, that this is it, that this is life. And you'll find that a lot of people, not all of them, but a lot of them become very callous toward their citizenship in heaven. In fact, Paul would even say over in 1 Timothy chapter 6, these words are a very familiar verse, verse number 17, instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.

And you'll see that what Isaac did was build himself an altar. Why? Because he wanted to worship his God. He wanted to trust his God, believe in his God, lean upon his God, and in so doing be a testimony to the world that his citizenship was not there in Gerar, but in heaven. It was not there in Beersheba, but in heaven, where he trusted and waited upon his God. The fourth thing I want you to see are the familial burdens. See, God wasn't done with Isaac yet. God was just beginning with Isaac. He wasn't done.

And two things I want you to see is the wedding and the woe because of the wedding. Esau decides to get married. It says in verse number 34, and when Esau was 40 years old, he married Judith, the daughter of Bereid, the Hittite, and Basemath, the daughter of Elan, the Hittites. Whoa. What's Esau doing? He's rebelling against his father Isaac, against his mother Rebecca. Do you think that Esau knew about how his grandfather Abraham had sent his servant out to find a wife for his dad Isaac? Sure. And what the commands were that he wasn't to take a bride from the pagan world, from the Canaanite people?

But what did Esau do? He didn't marry just one, he married two, two women who were from an idolatrous pagan society. Outright rebellion against his parents. And you know what? Well, we later on that he'll take a third wife, a third wife, and this brought great grievance to mom and dad.

And why is this included in the story? Very simply because of this. Text says that great grief came upon Isaac and Rebecca. Oh, the woe that was there. Why? God wanted Isaac to trust him in his family as well. He had just maintained, he had just stabilized his testimony in the land. It took a while, but he did. A bit minute came around, he saw that God was with him. And all of a sudden now he had a testimony in the land. He had to learn to trust his God. He also has to learn to trust his God within the family unit as well.

Because Isaac knew, listen carefully, Isaac knew that Jacob was to have the birthright. Isaac knew that, but Isaac wanted to give the birthright to who? Esau. Because he's just like you and me. We know what God wants us to do, don't we? Sure we do. But you know what? So many times we do what we want to do. In this whole chapter is about learning to trust God, learning to depend upon God for everything, whether it's amidst material blessings, whether it's amidst adverse circumstances, or whether it's in the midst of your family.

In Genesis, the book of beginnings is about a family, and the line of that family, what God was going to do through that family. And God is speaking to you and me today. Let me ask you a question, are you trusting God?

That old familiar verse in Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. That's almost a verse that would overshadow Genesis 26. Isaac, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don't lean on your own understanding. Don't just get up and leave when adverse circumstances come. Don't just lie when you fear for your life. Don't just go and buy something else and build another well and move everybody from one location to another location just because you got lots of money.

Trust God, believe in God, do what God says. And then when you finally realize it, stick with it. Don't move on without him because Satan will be used in all kinds of ways to destroy your testimony. And if he can't hit your ministry, he'll always attack your family. He will. He wants to destroy the family unit because God designed marriage. God designed the family. And because God designed it, Satan wants to destroy it. How is Satan doing at destroying your marriage, your family? Better yet, how are you learning to trust God in the midst of your family?

No matter what the difficulties, believe in him and follow him. Let's pray.