This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to Daily Drive Time Devotion. This is week five of our
look together through the book of Genesis. We're going to chapter a day, so
we'll go through chapters 26 through 30 this week.

And as we go through those chapters, we get to focus in chapter 26 of the book
of Genesis, we get to focus on a man by the name of Isaac. Isaac, he's an
interesting man in the kingdom of God and how God worked in his life. As we were
walking through Genesis, we've looked at Abraham these last few weeks together,
a man who believed.

Next few weeks, we're going to be looking at Jacob, a man who struggled. We're
going to look at Joseph, a man who dreamed. Between them all stands Isaac.

And Isaac, Genesis 26 is the only chapter that's all about Isaac. And in Genesis
26, you find out that Isaac isn't a man who believed or struggled or dreamed. In
Genesis 26, Isaac is, he's a man who dug wells.

That's what he does all chapter long. It gives a kind of a picture of the kind
of life that Isaac lived. In fact, all of Genesis 26 sort of goes through how
Isaac's life reflected his father's life.

Four particular ways, first in verses 1 to 11, he repeated his father's life and
he repeated his father's sins. Let me read those verses for you, Genesis 26, 1
to 11. "Now there was a famine in the land, besides the earlier famine of
Abraham's time, and Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines in Gerar.

The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, 'Do not go down to Egypt. Live in the land
where I tell you to live. Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you.

I will bless you. For to you and your descendants, I will give all these lands
and will confirm the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. I will make your
descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give them all these
lands.

And through your offspring, all nations on earth will be blessed, because
Abraham obeyed me and kept my requirements, my commands, my decrees, and my
laws. " So Isaac stayed in Gerar. When the men of the place asked him about his
wife, he said, "She is my sister.

" He was afraid to say, "She is my wife. " He thought, "The men of this place
might kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is so beautiful. " Now as I
read this about Isaac saying his wife Rebekah was his sister, if you've been
with us all the way through the study of Genesis, you're probably thinking,
"That sounds familiar.

Didn't Abraham do that same thing with Sarah? Not once, but twice? " Absolutely
yes.

I've heard some people say that this must not be a story really about Isaac
here, that somehow the Bible's making a mistake here, that this is about Abraham
reflected again. And I scratch my head when I hear people say that because I
think, like, a son can't make the same mistake that his father does. It happens
again and again and again.

Sons tend to repeat the mistakes of their dads. And as a dad, I hate to say
that, but it's the truth. And Isaac had seen a fear reflected in his father's
life and a way to respond to that fear reflected in his father's life, and he
does the exact same thing here.

Not even his own creative way of sinning, he just repeats his father's sins. Now
God by His grace, God by His grace, protects Rebekah even as He protected Sarah.
But Abraham and Isaac were both men who faced fears in their lives and needed
God's grace shown in their lives.

Isaac repeated his father's sins in verses 1 to 11. In verses 12 to 17, he built
upon his father's wealth. All the things that his father has done, he's building
on.

In verses 18 to 22, he re-dug his father's wells. Not only was Isaac a man who
dug wells, he was a man who re-dug wells. He re-dug his father's wells.

Verses 17 and 18, let me read those verses. So Isaac moved away from there and
encamped in the valley of Gerar and settled there. Isaac re-opened the wells
that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had
stopped up after Abraham died.

And he gave them the same names his father had given them. Now just to sum this
all up, in verses 23 to 25, we are told in this chapter that all that happened
in Isaac's life happened for the sake of Abraham. In fact, if you want to see
how strongly everything is repeated, remember back in verse 5 we read it just a
few minutes ago where God said to Isaac, "It is because Abraham obeyed me and
kept my requirements that I'm going to bring all these blessings into your life.

" Isaac received the promise not because he believed or struggled or dreamed,
but because Abraham obeyed. There's no getting around it. Isaac has a
second-place position in the working out of the plan of God.

It's all reflecting the life of Abraham. The highlight of this man's life,
without a shadow of a doubt, as far as the promise of God goes, the highlight of
this man's life was his birth. That was the big moment that he was born, this
promised son, waiting for 25 years.

After that, he simply follows in the footsteps of his father and he passes on
the promise to his sons. And yet, we are told that Isaac, Isaac was a great man
of faith. All throughout the Old Testament, God has called the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob.

Not just Abraham, or not just Abraham and Jacob and Joseph, Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. Isaac is listed in Hebrews 11 as a great example of faith. Romans chapter
9 verse 10 talks about our father, Isaac, honoring a great man of faith.

This man who, Doug Wells, he's an unlikely teacher, and yet he teaches you and I
some very important things about God's kingdom. Because all of us must, at
times, take a second-place position in God's kingdom. Others may seem more
successful, they may seem more important or more noticed.

Is there any room for that in the kingdom of God? What should be my reaction to
that in the kingdom of God? Isaac, this man who, Doug Wells, digs up some truth
about second place for us.

Let me just walk through some of these truths that you see reflected in the life
of Isaac and that God responds to him and honors him as a great man of faith. It
reminds me of the truth that God asked for our best, not that we be first. We in
America, we have an obsession with first place.

If we're not in first place, we look at ourselves as losers, as failures. And
that might be okay in a sports game, but not in life. We can't carry that over
into our personal lives.

That means disaster. Because the problem is, only one person can be first. If we
strive together for first place, jealousy, anytime we're in a group, jealousy
between individuals, between churches, that's going to be the inevitable result.

However, if we individually strive together to be best, we can love one another
in that goal. We can help one another in that goal. And that is a goal that
takes into account our individual differences.

Not everyone has to be first in order for God's best to happen. I don't have to
be first in order for God's best to happen. God asked for our best, not that we
be first.

Isaac also reminds me of the truth that God's place is never really second
place. God's place is never really second place. There's no such thing as second
place in God's kingdom.

How could you be not as saved as someone else or not as loved by God as another
person? No such thing. There's no such thing as second place in Christ's body.

Not one part of the body is more important or less important. In fact, Paul
tells us in 1 Corinthians 12 that the parts that seem least important are
actually the most important. And there is no such thing as second place with
God's love.

God asked for our best, not that we be first. God's place is never really second
place. In God, God asks us to be servants, not superstars.

That's the third truth that I see in the life of Isaac. In America, not only do
you have to be first, you have to be a celebrity while being first. You have to
be noticed.

We have this superstar mentality. The successful people are the popular people,
are the well-known people. God does not ask us, he does not ask you to be
well-known worldwide.

He instead places demands upon your character. He asks you to love him and to
love others. That's what he asks of us.

If as you strive to be a saint, to live out all that God has made you to be in
Christ, God places you in a place of prominence, praise him. And allow him to
use that place to serve others, to serve him. If he places you in a place of
little recognition, praise him also, recognizing that that place, he's going to
use you there.

And there may be little recognition on this earth, but it's a place of great
influence for the kingdom of God. You look at Isaac, you wouldn't really call
Isaac a flashy individual. In fact, he was rather shy and backward.

He didn't marry until he was 40. He dug wells seemingly as his profession. He
spent his entire life in one small area.

He wasn't a flashy individual, yet he was used to God in a great way, in a
mighty way, in the carrying forth of the promises of God. That tells us a lot
about the kind of people that God uses, all kinds of people. He was a man who
dug wells, and he was a man used of God.

Whether you're a hydraulic engineer or a digger of wells, God can use you. Don't
limit God by saying, "He can't use me. I'm in second place, I'm not noticed.

" What if Isaac had done that? God asks for our best. God asks for our
obedience.

God asks you to expect to be used. God asks you, whatever place he's put you in
his kingdom, to recognize that he is using you for his glory. Jesus Christ, as
we spend a moment talking to you, we thank you, we praise you, that you are
first.

You are the one that we look to. So we don't have to live in jealousy and
competition, and yet it enters our hearts at times, because we compare. Forgive
us, Lord.

Because we want to be first. Because we think recognition is going to get us
something that we don't have, some sense of significance, some sense of love,
when the truth is, the significance that we have in you, the love that we
receive from you, there is nothing, there's nothing that we could gain in this
life that could meet that need. So thank you for loving us.

Thank you for calling us. And I pray, wherever you put us in your kingdom, that
today we would see that when we give our best to you, when we give our heart and
our all to you, God, we are bringing glory to you. Help us to see that today,
Jesus, we pray in your name, amen.

And we'll see you back tomorrow for chapter 27. We're going to enter full on
into the story of Jacob.