Genesis 24:28-67 – The Last Mission Part 2: Fetch Isaac a Wife!
Greetings
Good morning everyone, it’s very good to be opening God’s word with you all this morning.
My name is Peter, one of the ministers here at this church, in case I haven’t met you yet.
And as we open God’s word this morning, let me pray and ask God to help us.
Heavenly Father,
As we open your Word this morning, please remove any distractions from our minds. Please prepare our hearts and open our ears so that we may be encouraged by your word and put what we’ve learnt into practice.
Amen.
Introduction
Last week, we began looking at the final mission that Abraham has given to his servant in Genesis 24, that is, to find Isaac a wife among Abraham’s clan and family.
Well, guess what, that was only the first part of the mission.
Because finding the wife is only half the challenge, the other half is to bring that wife back to Isaac, who is in the promised land.
That’s why this morning, our sermon title is The Last Mission, Part 2, Fetch Isaac a Wife. Last week, we focused on finding; this week, we’ll focus on fetching.
And as we begin, I want to ask you, who are you?
Now I’m not asking for your name, but who are you in this world?
And as we study the latter half of this chapter, I think we are convinced by the servant to see that we are living in God’s world, and it matters a lot who we are living for, and how we live our lives.
So we’ll first look at the servant’s own testimony as he realises that he is a servant of God. Then we’ll see how the servant trusts in God's faithful love. Finally, we’ll see how, as Christians, we ought to learn from the servant and live our lives with a calm urgency.
And they will be our three headings for this morning.
1) Convincing Testimony – A servant of God
2) Constant Love – God’s faithfulness never fails
3) Calm Urgency – The Need to Hurry
Convincing Testimony – A servant of God
Let’s begin with our first point and come with me to verse 28.
The girl ran and told her mother’s household about these things.
This verse serves as a transition between part 1 and part 2 of this story.
After Abraham’s servant told Rebekah about his mission and learned that she herself is the bride God has provided for Isaac, Rebekah hurried off to her family so that she could share this good news with them, hoping that her family would bless her and let her go.
And immediately in the next verse, we are told that Rebekah has a brother named Laban.
Which is interesting, because as a reader, we should be expecting Rachel’s mother.
But instead, Laban invites himself into the unfolding drama.
Verse 31, Laban says, come, you who are blessed by the Lord. Why are you standing out here? I have prepared the house and a place for the camels.
Laban might have spotted the servant and his party from afar, so he prepared the house. Right after, he hurries to the servant and invites him into his home.
Now, camels are not cheap; they are expensive to acquire and to maintain.
So Laban knows that if only the servant could casually bring ten camels with him, then his master would be incredibly blessed by the Lord.
And so Laban hurries to show the servant hospitality in the following verses, similar to what Abraham does, when the angels visited Abraham earlier in Genesis 18.
However, unlike the angels, who spoke as they ate, the servant insists that he must speak before he eats. Even though he must have been exhausted and hungry from his long journey,
Verse 33, the servant says, I will not eat until I have said what I have to say.
And from there, he retells his story to Laban just as he did to Rebekah.
And he is retelling his story with a clear aim: to convince Laban that Rebekah is indeed the bride God has chosen and provided for his master’s son, Isaac.
The reason for that is simple: this is the last mission that his master has given him. Indeed, the word ‘master’ is repeated eight times in the servant’s short speech.
But as we read through these verses, we notice that the servant is serving not only his earthly master, Abraham, but also his heavenly master, God.
And in fact, we can almost say that his speech to Laban was his own testimony.
Now, the servant served under Abraham for a long time and was in charge of looking after his household.
If we consider verse 35 in today’s terms, it would mean that this servant looked after Abraham’s assets, finances, taxes, employees, and cool rides.
The servant knows that Abraham followed God, but that was his master’s God, not his own God. Nonetheless, the servant enjoyed his role in the household, and that’s it.
Until one day, the master asks the servant to embark on a journey to find and fetch his son Isaac, a wife.
This request was grounded on the promise that God had made to Abraham.
Because God has never revealed himself to Abraham’s servant personally, the servant was not sure this was a feasible or wise idea.
And so, Abraham affirms him in v.7, that his God, the God of heaven and earth, will send his angel before the servant and grant him success.
And that is what happened, and the servant witnessed God’s power and faithfulness first-hand.
In verse 40, the servant made sure to tell Laban about God sending his angel.
Except now he knows that it was indeed because of the angel of God that he found Rebekah, a close relative within Abraham’s family, a perfect candidate to be Isaac’s wife.
Then in verse 45, the servant tells Laban that even before he has finished praying, Rebekah comes with her water jug.
At the very least, the servant is trying to tell Laban that this is the real God, the God of heaven and earth, and that he knew what was in the servant’s heart even before he asked.
As the servant witnessed God’s faithfulness first-hand, he, too, is convinced that he is not just a servant of Abraham but God.
And so when the servant knelt and worships the ‘Lord, God of my master Abraham’, it isn’t the servant drawing distance between him and God, but rather it’s the servant claiming that Abraham’s God is his own God.
And that’s like all of us here today, none of us are born a Christian.
We are Christians because another Christian has blessed us with the good news of Jesus and shown us God's faithful love.
And as we place our trust in Jesus, we claim him to be our personal God, and at the same time, we claim ourselves to be his servant, bearing witness to the mighty acts of God and his enduring love throughout the generations.
However, the life of a Christian is not always quiet and peaceful.
When trouble arises, we might doubt God’s faithfulness and we might ask, will God remain faithful now and forever?
Constant Love – God’s faithfulness never fails
And this brings us to our second point, Constant Love, God’s faithfulness never fails.
Here, the word constant describes both the enduring nature and quality of God’s love—it is unchanging and unceasing.
Thus, God’s faithfulness never fails.
This important truth about God is reason why the servant asks Laban in verse 49,
now, if you are going to show kindness and faithfulness to my master, tell me, if not, tell me, and I will go elsewhere.
This last sentence in the servant’s speech has an abruptness that echoes his first sentence.
By this time, the food starts getting cold, but the servant is focused on his mission.
Laban must now give a reply.
Now before we move on, let’s dwell on this verse and notice two things.
First, is the choice of the servant’s words.
Kindness and faithfulness are words used to describe God’s love towards his covenant people.
In our context, that is Abraham and you see the same word again in verse 27, when the servant worships the Lord he says, Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not withheld his kindness and faithfulness from my master.
So, after showing Laban Abraham’s wealth and God’s kind and faithful love through his own testimony, the servant expectantly hopes that God will stay true to his promises and his character.
The servant expects that Laban will recognise God’s hand in all these events and, therefore, agree to send Rebekah away.
Second, despite everything that has happened with the well and his prayers, he is willing to find somebody else if Laban says no.
Despite the coincidences and the telltale signs that Rebekah ought to be the one, the servant is willing to submit himself under God’s faithfulness.
Therefore, we see how the servant’s trust is firmly placed in God, because he knows that if Laban says no, then it only means that Rebekah is not the chosen bride, and it doesn’t mean that God does not provide or that God is not faithful.
He knows that he is a servant under God’s loving rule.
Yet, this is often the mistake we make, especially if it is something good that we want or something good that we want to happen.
Yet we fail to recognise that what we think is good might differ from what God thinks is best; moreover, we might want something now, but God might want us to wait.
And as we look back on Abraham’s life, we see examples of this.
However, God dealt with Abraham gently and reminded him lovingly that God himself can be trusted, and he will bring about his promises.
Now, I do not know how much of Abraham’s life the servant knew of, but I would assume that, being the elder servant, he would have been quite close to Abraham and would have been indirectly discipled.
And so in stressful and uncertain times like these, the servant is not distracted or blinded by the challenge in front of him.
Even though Laban is all that is standing between him and Rebekah, the servant knows that the God of Abraham stands above all things, and he is faithful.
And so here is another reminder for us that the way we trust Jesus matters.
By that, I mean the way we conduct our lives matters.
When we give God a priority in the daily decisions that we make, when we turn to word and prayer in times of difficulty, and when we strive to live a godly life that bears witness to God.
We are, in effect, discipling those around us, whether at church or outside of church, whether that is in our homes or our workplaces, whether we are grocery shopping or on the sidewalk.
Now, it is true that one becomes a disciple only after they confess Jesus as Lord, but the process of making disciples begins before they confess Jesus as Lord.
To be sure, sharing God’s words is important, and reading the Bible with someone is important.
But if our lives are in step with the Spirit, then our words will be filled with power and life.
That’s why our church motto is not just to hear the gospel, but we want people to see the gospel as well.
And the good news is that I can see the gospel being lived out in our community almost every week.
And I praise God that as a minister, I am pleasantly surprised every Sunday to hear how God has been at work in your lives, or in the lives of those with whom you are sharing Jesus.
And so, as we return to our story, it is no wonder that, as Abraham’s elder servant, he stands firm and trusts in God at times of difficulty and uncertainty.
He has seen God's faithful love through Abraham, just as we’ve seen God's faithful love through Christ.
He knows that God's love is unceasing and unchanging. His faithfulness will never fail. The God who led him to Rebekah will grant him success as he seeks to bring Rebekah home.
And as we look at verse 50, both Laban and Bethuel, Rebekah's father, replied the servant: This is from the Lord; we have no choice in the matter. Rebekah is here in front of you. Take her and go, and let her be a wife for your master’s son, just as the Lord has spoken.
Together, they gave their permission for Rebekah to be Isaac’s wife and affirmed the servant’s words as coming from the Lord.
The servant then worshipped God and gave them gifts as bride money for Rebekah.
And it is not until now, in verse 54, that the servant will drink and eat with the hosts.
However, the next morning, we see that the servant is in a hurry to leave!
Calm Urgency – The need to hurry
And so we turn to our third and final point, as we consider the servant’s urgency, and ponder why there is a need to hurry for the servant, for Rebekah and for us.
In the same verse, in verse 54, right after the servant has spent the night, he greets the family with: Send me to my master.
Essentially, he is saying, it’s time for me to bring Rebekah back to her new home.
To be fair, Rebekah’s family only learnt of this news for less than a day, and they don’t know if they will ever see Rebekah again.
To give the bride’s family barely one day to farewell Rebekah is quite harsh.
As a father to a beautiful daughter myself, I know I will need all the time in the world to console my grieving heart the day my daughter is married away.
And so when Evangel was only a few weeks old, the words to the first lullaby that I sang to her were basically, Evangel, you will not date and will not marry.
Now, just a disclaimer, the words are just a joke, but the emotions are real.
And so I can resonate with Rebekah’s family here, they wanted a few more days to grieve and to farewell Rebekah. It is absolutely understandable.
However, the servant couldn’t care less, in verse 56 he says, Do not delay me, since the Lord has made my journey a success. Send me away so that I may go to my master.
If we compare this verse with verse 49, the servant is much bolder this time, he is directly invoking the name of the Lord as the reason that they should send him away.
Some of us might remember that Laban will later deceive Isaac’s son Jacob and trick him into marrying Laban’s older daughter and working for him for free.
Now, in our passage today, the servant may have detected unfaithfulness from Rebekah’s family and especially from Laban, but we can’t say for sure.
What is clear is that the servant is in a hurry, and Laban and the family certainly are not.
The servant says, "Do not delay me," and in response, they say, "What’s the hurry?"
Friends, of all the lies the devil can throw at us, “what’s the hurry?” perhaps sits at the top.
It sits at the top not only because there’s a good ring to it, but also because there is some truth behind it.
If God is forever faithful, his love is unchanging and unceasing, then what’s the hurry?
Honestly, what is the difference between Rebekah leaving now, versus ten days later?
You might have thought to yourself, surely God will bless the servant for another ten days, what’s the rush! Maybe this is what Laban thought!
Or maybe you thought it was just ten days. How can God be so unloving as not to even allow the family ten days to sort out the emotional and familial matters?
Friends, may I suggest that even the thought of coming up with a reply is a dangerous thing to do.
Because by doing so, we’ve already entertained the idea that, perhaps, there is no hurry.
On the surface, these arguments make sense, hence why they are so dangerous.
But what’s happened is we have played the role of God, we have taken it upon ourselves to decide what is good and what isn’t, which is what Adam and Eve did in the garden.
Thankfully, the servant did not fall for this trap, and he maintains his calm urgency.
And so in verse 57, Laban pulls his trump card, and have Rebekah to decide for herself. Laban thought that the years of relationship and kinship would have moved Rebekah to stay.
Yet surprisingly, Rebekah notes the urgency, and replies in verse 58, I will go.
Why the urgency? Well, the author helps us see that it is precisely because of God’s faithful promises that both the servant and Rebekah demonstrate great urgency, and it is hinted at in the blessing that Rebekah receives.
In verse 60 it says, May your offspring possess the city gates of their enemies.
These are the exact words in the blessing that Abraham received from the angel of the Lord in Genesis 22:17.
So, this episode concludes on the note that God fulfils his promises through his people.
And we are his people, that is who we are. We have no excuse for being slow in our obedience; rather, we delight in urgently bringing about God’s plan in this world.
God’s faithful love towards us fills our hearts with a calming peace, but it should not remove the urgency from our minds.
As we read about the blessings Rebekah and Abraham received, Jesus's words came to mind.
In Matthew 16:18, after Peter has confessed that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of the living God, Jesus says to Peter that his church will be built upon the confession of the believers and that even the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
Indeed, we are the offspring of Abraham, of Isaac and Rebekah in Christ, and we will one day completely possess the city gates of hell and defeat sin and death completely.
However, as long as it is ‘today’, as the author of Hebrews reminds us, we shall live with a calm urgency, to encourage each other daily so that none of us is hardened by sin’s deception.
And as for the gospel mission, as long as the end of the age has not yet come, we ought to make disciples of all nations, likewise with a calm urgency. Knowing that Jesus will return at any time to judge the living and the dead.
May God grant us the heart of the servant, so that we will always yearn for our Lord’s desires. And please help us be more like Rebekah, so that we will cease every moment to heed God’s call. And may God help us to do both of these things with a calm urgency. Amen.
