First Baptist Family of Asheboro, NC

Testing can be a good thing or a difficult thing.   For example, to test drive a car is fun.   Testing new flavors of ice cream is fun.   We’ve sent a team to Thailand the last couple of years and there they have a different type of fruit called durian.   They say it’s an acquired taste that most people never acquire.   Nelson Rowland will try anything!   Nelson tried it and said it was OK.   Some things are good in testing and others are not.   Abraham is going to be tested.   It’s a difficult test, the kind we do not look forward to.   I’ll be honest with you; I have no idea what some of this passage means.   Some of it I do not understand.   We can identify with being asked to do things we do not understand.   Health officials do not understand what we are going through right now in this pandemic.   Some say God has brought judgment.   Some things we cannot understand in this lifetime.   When God asks for Abraham’s son Isaac to be sacrificed; it’s incomprehensible.   Sometim

We are thankful for our dads; they’re strong and courageous, especially when we’ve needed strength to face things.   In Genesis 21 Abraham has strength and courage.   God kept His promises to Abraham.   God was faithful.   We’ve already seen God keep His promises in Genesis.   God makes a promise and fulfills it.   Some of these promises God is still fulfilling today.   A few days ago I saw a rainbow.   It had been raining every single day.   You start wondering if we are going to need to look around for an ark when it rains that much!      God keeps His promises. Remember God promised Abraham and Sarah they will have a child.   Here’s the birth of Isaac in verse 2:                          2 And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him.  One thing you’ll notice is there’s nothing dramatic or unusual about this.   It’s a simple birth description.   It brings to mind the unusual, what God does in this moment.  

We are thankful for those leading us in worship this morning.   Michael is in Tennessee celebrating the birth of his first born grandchild.   Thinking and education are very important to us.   We want to be known as thinking people.   Can thinking be a problem?   Can thinking too much be a problem?   Sometimes we can think too much and overthink things.   Abraham did this; this is helpful to us because we can do the same thing.   Our minds too can be our own worst enemy.   Abraham was convinced his plan was the best way forward.    He puts on a mask.   We’ve been talking about masks a lot lately!   We know what it’s like to put on a mask.   We do this as well.   Many people say there’s nobody who actually knows them.   In this passage today Abraham puts on a mask, a front, for people.   How do we get that mask off?   Abraham will have reasons for putting on a mask.   How do we get the mask off?   Who are we before God?   We can show ourselves before God without any fear and

“Oh the places you will go!”   Dr. Seuss had it right.   With all the adversity and challenges you’ve faced I know you have many opportunities ahead of you.   Today in Genesis 18 we will look at the opportunities of Abraham and Sarah, and an opportunity they weren’t expecting.   Life in the ancient near east; there was this concept of hospitality.   What do you do when God has you on a journey?   God speaks to us in many different ways in and through our lives.   This culture over 7,000 years ago was different than our culture.   When you went on a trip you wouldn’t see people for a while, like a whole month with no contact.   You depended on the hospitality of those along the way.   For example, a few months ago maybe you’d never heard of Zoom?   Today, if you don’t respond to a text message in 15 minutes people are ready to call the police!   Circumstances were different back then but people are the same as they were in the middle east. God speaks to us through people.

About ten years ago a family inquired about Multi-Housing Ministry (MHMA).   They stepped into our apartment at 1126 Coleridge Road with two daughters.   Some people ask us how much it costs for their child to attend our program and we always get a smile when we explain it’s free and we’re mostly volunteers.   Elizabeth and Alondra Rodriguez found us and became faithful in attending.   Their mother, Paz,  was always clear she wanted them to do well in school.  After a while the family moved down the road and lived in an apartment complex on Martin Luther King Jr. drive.   Every week mom and the girls arrived late because they’d walk a mile from their new home to come participate with us.   Years later their family moved to Piedmont Park Apartments where they reside now and we were all surprised to see them again!   When these young ladies weren’t at work they were working hard with us on their school work and learning the life lessons we teach from the Bible.   Elizabeth and Al