Those who labor among us in the Lord are worthy of double honor.
In some of those translations, it goes on to just talk about those who sow
into the kingdom, those who pour. And we have
someone this morning that I would love for us to take
just a moment and extend that
Angie Beshearse, would you come up, please?
Come on up.
And we have a few more people who want
to— July 19th marked 24 years
for this woman of God to pour into
this house. Come
on, guys.
And she has touched Every single one of these lives.
I'm gonna get out of the camera shot. You guys, come on over here and
love on Miss Angie.
Her fingerprints are all over this house. Her
fingerprints are all over my life
as a mother and grandmother. And
her fingerprints are all over your lives. If you
have been touched and ministered to
by her ministry, would you stand and just let us know that for a
minute?
You guys, you
wanna take that over to Miss Angie?
If you brought something for Miss Angie, would you take it over to her? You,
you just go right ahead and you go hug her.
Michaela, I want to do something.
You do?
Angie, we are so grateful. We should have done this a week ago.
We've been a little bit preoccupied, but we missed something extremely
important, and we wanted it to be on a day where it was just about
you and what you have poured. And we are so extremely
grateful. If you decide to come back for 24 more, we will receive
you with joy. But thank you so much. Can you all say
thank you, Miss Angie? Yeah.
Will you come and escort your mom? We're grateful.
Thank you. Thank you, guys. No,
actually, did you wanna say anything, Angie? I'll stand close and you can use my
mic. Oh my gosh. I mean, this is my heart, my
children. It's not been an easy decision to
step away, but I just felt like that it was time.
It's time for somebody else to step up and start getting their blessings.
You know, yeah, our house is full,
so it's— It's time for someone else to move on in.
Amen. I'm thinking Liam. Hasn't he been like really close to you for
a while? Yes, yes. I've had Liam serve here with me for 5 years and
he still faithfully serves. Go Liam, woo-hoo! He's back
there today. Thank you so much. Love you, honey. Love you.
All right, guys, go to class.
Wow! It's Move Up Sunday. You moved
up. Go and enjoy your classes. Speaking
of enjoying classes—
Y'all are the best.
Speaking of classes, this Wednesday—
hi, honey. I love you.
Bye, ladies. Hi, how are you? Talk amongst yourselves.
Hi, Levi. Hi, guys! Thank you,
Sandra.
Whoo! How amazing to sow
for 24 years in one house, and now she has
like about that many grandchildren.
You're welcome.
You're welcome. Oh,
God is faithful, amen? I am so
excited about the Word that the Lord has today. I'm also excited about the Word
that the Lord has Yes. This coming Wednesday night when
we begin our midweek gatherings again. Pastor Jonathan has
taken point on Wednesday nights. We will be meeting over in the
fellowship hall at 6 o'clock. Kate and the cafe team
will still be providing dinner, uh, come starting at
5. So come and have dinner with us, then come in and, uh, get into
the word with us. We'll be doing a series called Foundations, and, uh,
it's Pastor Jonathan some of our other pastors and
leaders in the house. It's gonna be a strong word.
But then again, isn't God's Word always strong? So
we are gonna jump into this. We had a
couple of— well, actually, we had 6 weeks of worship
anyway. Just because we're moving forward a little
bit in this progression, that's still gonna be where we stand.
That's still gonna be where we're living for a while, that we are
going to worship him. Why?
Amen. And he is good and he is faithful. And I
intend— what I wanna do with you today is exactly what I did the first
week I came down here and talked to you about worship anyway.
The other thing that the Lord has shared with me in this season is
something actually that my
grandmother and grandfather and all of them poured into my life, and we're gonna
get into that in a minute. But first, we'll just read a couple of scriptures.
We're gonna be in Genesis 26. And today, we're gonna talk
about digging another well. And for the sake of today,
and for the sake of today's teaching, I want you to know that
you are Isaac. Can you
repeat that to me? I am— well, you're gonna say, you are
Isaac, aren't you? We are
Isaac today. We are Isaac. So when we
get into the Word today in Genesis 26, When we're talking about
Isaac, I'm talking about you. I'm talking about this house
because why? Because Isaac was a child of promise.
We are children of promise. We are children of his promise.
And so as we get into the scriptures, and I'll tell you that because sometimes
you can detach yourself from the Word and you're like, oh, that's this and this,
this is— but let's bring it home today, okay? And
when— so when I'm talking about Isaac and the stuff that Isaac's getting into, you,
I want you to know that I'm talking to us because I believe this is
where the Lord has taken us. And we're gonna start in Genesis
26, and we're gonna skip— I'm just gonna read you a couple of verses and
then we'll get in more. Isaac reopened the wells
that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the
Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died.
Isaac's servants dug in the valley and discovered a well of fresh
water there, but the herdsmen quarreled and said, The
water is ours. Then they
dug another well, but they quarreled over that one also.
He moved on from there and dug another well,
and no one quarreled over it. He named it Rehoboth,
saying, now the Lord has given us room, and we
will flourish in the land. Father God, I
thank you so much for your Word, and I thank you, Lord, how relevant your
Word is, Father. It is so alive, and it really
It reaches across thousands of years and speaks to
us like a living thing. And so,
Father, I pray that we hear you today, Father. I pray for a
prophetic spirit in this house today, one that discerns,
one that understands, one that grabs hold and
listens to what the Holy Spirit has to say. Father, I
pray that my stuff fall and yours stand. Teach us today,
Lord. Amen. We want to learn from you. In Jesus' name,
amen. Amen.
In the same season that the Lord began to share with me to worship
anyway, there was another word that he spoke to me, and I figured that he
would release that in his timing. And that word was this:
tend the wells. Tend the
wells. Now, I'm a country girl. I grew up on a
farm that had a well house, and we lived on well
water, and it supplied us. And so I
understand, I have a little bit of an understanding about a well 'cause we had
one. And it didn't just take care of us, it took care of a lot
of families around us as well. It did mean that when you
got water in your drinking glass, sometimes it looked a little funny, I will say,
but we knew how to tend the wells. And when my granny would send me
out to the well house to get something, she would tell me 2 things. The
first thing that would always come out And if you've ever had a well, you
might know this one, watch for snakes.
And I'm like, if there are snakes out there, I think you should be the
one going. I've got my whole
life in front of me.
Watch for snakes. Guys, wherever your water supply is, you
gotta watch for snakes because it's an
environment that the enemy loves. He
loves to come for your water supply. And so you've
gotta be very mindful when the enemy is trying to
attack your water source. The other thing that she would say, she'd say, now
watch for snakes. And you're like, all right, fine, give me the
gun. Anyway, and then she would say, protect
the water. Remember, your dirt becomes our dirt. Yeah.
Remember, your dirt becomes our dirt. Now, let me tell you what
she meant by that. If I was careless and I just
decided to fling that bucket out there however I wanted to,
and it hit the dirt walls of that well house, every bit of
that rock and dirt and mess and whatever might be crawling on the
side of that, let's just put that out there, fell into the water.
And it didn't just affect me. It affected everybody
who drew from that well. And so we
have to protect the water and remember
that our dirt, my dirt, becomes your dirt
because the well that we draw from is a consistent well.
So watch for snakes and protect the well. Because here's—
let's see, the enemy's strategy isn't always confrontation, sometimes it's
suffocation. Yes.
And we begin to see that in the life of Isaac.
Sometimes his goal is not— see, you
can't stop the water in a well, but you
can sure cover it up. That's right. You can sure contaminate the water
until it's not usable. You can be careless
in your life around the well to the point that My dirt
becomes your dirt. We have to be careful
with the water. The enemy's strategy— it says that they—
that the Philistines did not want to go and fight,
so what they did is they went and filled in the wells
because they knew what the result of filling in the well would be. Now, what
do I mean by filling in the well? I don't know. It might be offense.
It might be anger. It might be a lot of
distraction, busyness, a lot of things that cause
us— Yeah. To stop accessing the supply.
The supply doesn't change. The living water does
not change. What we can change about it is the
atmosphere that we create around that water. The enemy knew
if he could keep them from accessing the wells, he could stop the
life. He could stop the life, and that's why the battle is
often waged at the wells. Yes.
supply. Your supply. Are you drawing?
Are you drinking deeply from that
living water? The washing of the water of the
Word of God. That is where our life is. That is what
sustains us. That is what keeps us going. And if we get
so distracted with the walls, and the wells, and the—
and allow the water to become polluted, we stop drawing from it.
Genesis asks the sobering question, so what happens when the wells get buried?
And I put this out there because it becomes a checkpoint in our life, in
my life, in the lives of this body, this church, these
people. When the wells start— and you can look at it and go,
okay, then maybe the well
has been a little bit— I've not been accessing the
water of the Word like I should. I haven't been accessing the living water. I've
been a little bit careless with the well. And I think that's what Well, here's
what happens. Families are left to wander in
Genesis. Flocks begin to weaken.
Fruitfulness, fields begin to wither, and communities
fade. And that is the goal, and was
the goal, of the Philistines when they went and they began to fill in
the wells of Abraham because they did not want that family
to prosper. They did not want them to have the supply
that they needed. And so the enemy began to
cover up the wells and remove that supply.
I love Isaac. You are Isaac. We
are Isaac. I love what he does. It says that he was determined to
go and reopen the wells of his father, right? And so the very
first one he comes to is Essek. And Essek is
a well, it says, that we read about. It says oppressive strife, injury,
distress, or contention. The first well he comes to
is a well of strife. Contention,
somebody having a differing opinion, and there's Esau. And
so he has this opportunity right there. He's looking at this and he's going,
there's oppression, there's strife, there's injury. Because see,
Isaac was hurt. Isaac.
Isaac was hurt. Isaac had been wounded.
And he could have easily
Just stopped there and camped by that well. He could have
decided, I— this was my father's well. I
am going to camp right here. And he could have dug in
his heels, and he could have gotten his people into a fight, and
they could have fought the Philistines. And this
oppression, strife, injury,
distress, and contention, they could have camped right there. But
Isaac didn't want that for his family. Isaac did not want
that for his family. So Isaac makes the decision. He's like, we're not
gonna camp here. We're not gonna live in this. And he moves
forward. He makes a decision. And don't you know that your
decision will cost you an action? He
moves on and he goes to Sitnah. The next well that he goes to dig
that was his father's is Sitnah, and it means hostility, enmity, and
accusation. It has a
root with the name Satan. Notice that,
because it's filled with accusation. And accusation—
who's the accuser of the brethren? That is
literally what Satan means, the accuser of the brethren.
So we see hostility, enmity, strife,
and accusation. This well, another well.
That he could have stayed right there if he had chosen
to. But Isaac refused to stay trapped in perpetual conflict,
bitterness, or accusation. He moved forward and
simply dug another well.
Simply dug another well. I love that he has
the heart and the fortitude to just go dig another
well, because you will never reach the end— the next well if you are
still fighting over the last one. That's right. You'll never reach the
next if you stay camped somewhere that does not
feed that water in you, that doesn't bring water to you.
And so if Isaac had stayed there, he could have been stuck in
that forever. He could have been stuck in that forever. Oh,
but God. Oh,
but God. In his faithfulness,
Isaac chose not to stay there. He didn't want his family in
that mess. He did not want the anger, and the frustration, and the
accusation, and the strife. He did not want to send his
family into battle. What he wanted was to
find them a place of rest and peace.
So he got up, he did the work, he gathered his family, and the next
well that he went to was Rehoboth.
A well of wide water. Wide open spaces
and room to run. Room to run.
Katie, you wanna sing Dixie Chicks right now, don't you? No,
no. I know you. Wide open
spaces, Rehoboth. The Lord has given
us room to run,
room to spread out. But he could not have reached that
place if he had not moved on from
the first 2 wells. And it would have been easy. Sometimes it's
easy to just camp somewhere. But what if God
has other plans? What if God has— I want
that! Wide open spaces. The Lord has given
us room, and we will flourish in the
land. Isaac could have camped by any of those wells.
He could have. It says he pitched his tent. He could have pitched his
tent. Especially having come out of strife,
having come out of that place of wounding and hurt, and
anger, and frustration, don't you know that
Rehoboth would have been so peaceful?
It says, Rehoboth became a place of relief.
Sometimes you just need relief, right? You've walked in high
heels all day. I hear that people do that.
You get home from work, you take off your work clothes, you put on something
comfortable, you grab your sweatpants, you pile up on the
sofa, or for me, go sit on the porch swing, and there's just like this—
Ah!
Yeah. And I believe that Isaac probably felt that because when he
was living in the land of the Philistines, he had been very successful. He had
been very full. He had been very blessed. And— but then
he set on this journey that he did not anticipate, did not
know that he was going to go on, and things just went from
difficult to difficult-er, and—
or more difficult. Difficult. And he could have stopped, but he didn't
because God had a plan, and it became a place of relief for him. But
here, guys, when your plans come to an end, God's purposes keep
you moving forward. When your
plan, what you thought was gonna happen,
ends, it is God and his
will and his purposes that keep us
moving forward when we wanna camp by an old well. Amen? Amen.
Amen. When we want to just stop, it is his purposes. And it was
Isaac's heart to follow the leading of the Lord
and keep going. And if he hadn't done that, guys, if he
had not done that, if he had just stopped in
the wide open spaces, it would have been a completely different
ballgame. But Isaac knew the Lord, and he
knew the Lord's voice. And so he goes from
Esau, To Sitnah, to Rehoboth,
and then it says, from there he went up to Beersheba. From
there he went up to Beersheba. He moved beyond what was comfortable.
He moved beyond what he thought, well, this is it. He moved
forward because that was what God told him to do.
So he built an altar there, and he called on the name of the
Lord. Isaac's first move in
Beersheba was not to build a house or reinforce his fences,
but to build an altar. And see,
when God is moving us forward, when God is calling us forward— and guys,
this is so perfect in where the Lord has us in this
season, because the very first thing that we have done is we
have built an altar of worship. We have built a
place to call on the name of the Lord. And that is
priority one. It's so important for us to call on the name of the
Lord, to know his blessing in the house, to know that
it is him that calls us forward because
he is, and he does, and he will continue.
Our call should always be to worship first and then work.
And then work. Let
me read you something.
Here's why Isaac needed to move out of his wide open
spaces and follow the Lord. Chapter 26 of Genesis, verse
26. Now, Abimelech was the king of the Philistines.
He was one of the ones that were instrumental in making
Isaac's life rough. And so Isaac
had been hurt by their encounter and everything else that had
happened. And it says, Isaac built an
altar. There he called on the name of the Lord. I find this progression so
important. He built an altar, he
called on the name of the Lord, he blessed the Lord. And it says, meanwhile,
Abimelech had come to him from Gerar. And it says—
and Isaac says, why have you come to me since you were hostile
toward me? And he says, down here
on verse 28, 29, it says,
Abimelech said, let us make a treaty with you that you will do us
no harm, just as we did not you, but always treated
you well. And now you are blessed by
the Lord. Isaac then made a feast for them.
For who? For his enemies. Isaac then made a
feast for them, and they ate and drank.
Early the next morning, the men swore an oath to
each other. Then Isaac— then
Isaac sent them on their way, and they
left in peace. Why does that matter?
Because verse 32 says, that
day Isaac's servants came and
told him, we've found water.
The moment Isaac released the conflict, God released the provision.
The moment Isaac released the conflict, God
released the provision. The provision.
That day Isaac's servants came and told him about the well they had
dug. They said, we've found water! And he called it
Sheba. See, he moved out of the wide open
spaces. He moved out of the comfortable place. He even moved out of his place
of relief because God had more for him.
And the more that he had for him was this: Sheba
is the well of the oath. It's the place where God
reminded him of all of the promises that had been spoken. It's the
place where his father had brought 7 lambs that brought peace.
It's the place where he was reminded that the wells that he was
attempting to re-dig were not the wells that the Lord wanted
him to stay at. He wanted to take Isaac to the place of the promise.
And see, you are children of promise. We are children of
promise, and God is calling us into
a different place. The progression of the wells is this, and you can check
your heart. I've had to check my heart over and over.
Distress and opposition, hostility
and accusation, or forgiveness and
relief. We can stop at any of
them, or we can move toward the promise. Amen.
that God has. Move toward the promise that God
has. You know, in the beginning I shared with you the
things that, that happen when the wells get stopped up, when the
wells get covered up, and, and, and we are not careful
to tend the water. Things die and family
scatters and there's not provision, all of those things.
But Ezekiel 47, Ask the opposite and greater
question. What happens when you open the wells?
Worship team? What happens when
you open the wells? It says that the land
begins to flourish. Provision
multiplies. Fruit begins to
grow. Healing arises.
And dead things come alive. That's what I want.
That's what I want, and that's what I
believe that God has for us, Isaac.
That's what I believe the Lord has for us, that there is
a land that flourishes, provision that multiplies,
fruit that grows, healing that arises, and
dead things coming to life. Amen. That's what I
believe. That's what I believe. See, sometimes
faith wears work boots. It picks up a shovel and it keeps
moving forward knowing that water
awaits. Sometimes faith has to strap
its boots on when it does not want to. It has to begin to
grab a shovel and be willing to do the work that is
necessary to move to the well of promise
that God has. I don't want to camp by any of
the other ones. I want his promises,
and I want you to experience the promises
that God has spoken over this house for as long as I
have been here, since the 1900s.
What do you want, Isaac? What do you want?
Are you willing to put your boots on,
tramp through some things that you might not have wanted to,
forgive some people you might wanna be mad at,
pick up the shovel, and begin to move
forward to that place of
promise? It is time
to dig another well. It is
time to dig another well. Now, that is
not neglecting what he's told us before. I still
believe part of this process is to worship
anyway, to worship anyway. So here's what I believe we're going to do.
Well, actually, here's what I know we're going to do. I'm going to
join you again right here. And if
you have camped by any other well,
Except the one the Lord has called you to, we're going to come in and
we're going to worship anyway. If you have been wounded, if you have
been hurt, if you are carrying anger, if you are carrying frustration,
understand that your dirt becomes our dirt.
We want it gone for your sake. We want God
to heal these places so that we can get
to the wells That's what I believe.
That's what I believe for all of us. So
we removed 2 rows this morning for you.
I'm gonna join you down here and we are gonna worship. And when
we say dead things come alive, if this is your well,
if this is your place, when we begin to get into these places—
kids, young people— The young shall lead us. We need
you to help us worship through this. Amen? Amen. So bring what you got,
and we are going to worship anyway and watch God move us
to the next well. Come on down, guys. Let's do this.