Isaac was the ‘son of promise’, the son through whom God told him all the nations on earth would be blessed (see Gen 22:18). Nonetheless, as Gen 26 makes clear, he had to learn to hear God for himself. He may have been enormously blessed to be Abraham’s son, but he needed to walk with God himself too. There are great blessings from being brought up in a Christian family and knowing God’s truths from being a child, but we have to understand that faith isn’t hereditary. It’s not in the genes in the same way that our hair colouring, eye colour and other genetic factors are. Faith comes from hearing the message of salvation, from hearing and understanding God’s word (Rom 10:17) and one of the key responsibilities we have as Christians is to pass that message on to everyone, especially our families. Parents have a duty and responsibility to bring their children up in the instruction and training of the Lord. (Eph 6:4) Proverbs tells us, ‘Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old, they will not turn from it.’ (Prov 22:6) In this chapter, we see Isaac growing in his relationship with God; we see God speaking to Isaac afresh (Gen 26:2-5, 24) and Isaac learning to obey Him (Gen 26:25).

There are no family passes to heaven! Each one of us has to make the personal choice to receive Jesus as our Saviour; we have to come to God individually by being born again into His family. Isaac was greatly blessed, a miracle child given by God, but he too had to learn to walk by faith as his father had done and appropriate God’s promises for his life. Let’s pray for our families and for the children in our church to find faith for themselves and to walk in the fear of the Lord all the days of their lives.

Sometimes, when we read the Bible, there’s a distinct sense of déjà vu, that feeling of ‘Here we go again!’ The cycle of faith, falling away, crying out to God and repentance which we see in Judges is so repetitive that we feel frustrated at people’s inability to learn from history, but this continues to this day.

In Genesis 26:1-11, we have that same feeling of frustration and repetition, as Isaac falls into the same trap that his father Abraham did when he lies to Abimelek about his relationship to Rebekah, claiming she is his sister because he was afraid. This chapter reminds us that we need to learn from the past, from our own mistakes and from the mistakes of others. Kemi Sungole said, ‘The only way we grow is by learning from the past. Always be willing to learn and grow daily.’ So often, we keep making the same mistakes (and Eccl 1:9 reminds us there’s nothing new under the sun!), but we have to be willing to change and to explore new paths.

Perhaps Isaac would not have made this mistake if Abraham had been more open about his own weaknesses. We tend not to want to show our weaknesses to others, fearing their reactions and wanting to appear strong and capable at all times. Nonetheless, Paul reminds us that he learned to depend on Christ’s strength through his thorn in the flesh (see 2 Cor 12:1-10) and was not afraid to be open and vulnerable to people (see also 1 Cor 2:1-5). James tells us there is great value in confessing our sins to each other so we can pray and know wholeness and healing (James 5:16). When we are open and honest about our weaknesses as well as our strengths, sin loses its grip on us and we can help others to avoid making the same mistakes and falling into the same traps. (Rom 6:11-14).

This morning’s sermon at Cherry Tree Court looked at the subject of trusting, but used the analogy of floating in water. Most of us don’t float instinctively because we have to overcome our fear of the water before we trust it to keep us afloat! Similarly, most of us don’t find it easy to trust God, even though He is reliable and trustworthy. We prefer to be in control of our own lives and don’t like to feel we don’t know what’s happening.

Heb 11:6 tells us it’s impossible to please God without faith, and when we read that famous chapter of faith, we see that ordinary people simply did what God told them to do. What they did may well seem odd to us (Abel offering a sacrifice, Noah building a boat, Abraham going on a journey without knowing his destination), but what was important was their obedience in response to what God said. Trusting God means we don’t have to have all the answers or know everything, but that we choose to obey what He says.

Prov 3:5-6 tells us to trust in the Lord with all our heart and not lean on our own understanding. When we submit to Him in everything – effectively allowing Him to have the driving seat of our lives – we can trust Him to direct our paths and make them straight. When we learn to float, it’s surprisingly relaxing and soothing – and a life of trust can be fulfilling and relaxing too!

Reeba has sent us some photographs from the recent tailoring graduation in Bangalore. Our thanks to all who support this vital ministry to local Indian women, all of whom receive a sewing machine when they graduate to help them.

Although we don’t meet midweek in August because of holidays, we still need to be a people who pray. On Friday 16th August we will have a morning prayer meeting at 10 a.m. to which all are welcome. Come along to pray specifically for other church members and for the work of our church. Bring your prayer requests (or let us know them beforehand) as we seek God’s face for our needs and the needs of our community. If you can’t actually be in the church building to pray, please commit to pray where you are!

Let’s pray for health, strength, wisdom and spiritual gifts to be seen in our midst and for all God’s people to be filled with His Spirit.

Let’s pray for our everyday witness: for our contact with family, friends, neighbours and colleagues to be fruitful and for people to come to know the Lord as we engage with them.

Let’s pray for church ministries to flourish (especially to the Mums & Toddlers and the young people) and for new ministries to be birthed as God speaks to us and shows us how to reach out to people.

Let’s pray for ‘Churches Together’ and the work and witness of all local churches. Pray for our summer outreaches, the visit of The Message Bus on 30th October and the visit of 4FrontTheatre again on 25th December.

Let’s pray for revival.

‘When You move, hearts awaken
Broken lives will be redeemed
Here and now, as in Heaven
Let revival be released.

Hear our cry
Heal our land
Oh God, we pray for revival
What You’ve done before
You can do again
Oh God, we pray for revival.

God of grace, God of salvation
We are desperate on our knees
You can save this generation
Let revival be released.

At our Team Building Day this afternoon, we explored ‘the perfect couple’ – not a Mr & Mrs quiz (though Garry and Julie did have to answer a range of questions, with others predicting their answers!)

The perfect couple we were really interested in was how our church life builds us up to fulfil Jesus’ Great Commission to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. how our Sunday worship affects our Monday-Saturday living. We looked at how the Bible describes the church as a body (and thought about the diversity of the human body as well):

We looked at how each of us is vital to the work of the church and the diversity of ways we can serve God in the church, but we also explored our individual mission fields, looking at how we spend our time and how God wants to work in those ordinary areas of work, recreation and home to help us reach our communities.

We also prayed for people and situations in our mission fields, asking God to help us be witnesses in those areas.

Our thanks to Sarah Davey for her prayerful help in leading the session and her willingness to help us look at things in a different way and to all who came and participated so enthusiastically.