In the sermon based on Genesis 24:1-10, Paul Carrington explores the narrative of Abraham's servant tasked with finding a bride for Isaac, drawing parallels to the Christian mission of acquiring a bride for Christ. The speaker emphasizes the qualities of faithful service, exemplified by the servant who is committed to his master's will. This story is used to illustrate the broader biblical theme of God's mission to unite a bride with His Son, mirroring the relationship between Christ and the Church. The sermon underscores the importance of aligning one's will with God's, highlighting prayer, worship, and urgency in carrying out one's divine commission. Carrington warns against the dangers of delaying God's work, encouraging listeners to prioritize their master's business above personal desires. The narrative serves as a call for Christians to live with the urgency and devotion of a true servant, focusing on God's purpose and finding joy in His will.

It's an honor to be able to speak to you here this afternoon. If you have your Bibles, please open to the 24th chapter of the book of Genesis. I'm going to read the first 10 verses. We're going to go through or attempt to go through the whole chapter but we'll see how we do here just for the perspective of time. So Genesis chapter 24 verse 1.

Now Abraham was old, well advanced in age, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. So Abraham said to the oldest servant of his house, who ruled over all that he had, please put your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that you will not take a wife from my son, from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell. But you shall go to my country and to my family and take a wife for my son Isaac. And the servant said to him, perhaps the woman will not be willing to follow me to this land. Must I take your son back to the land from which you came?

But Abraham said to him, Beware that you do not take my son back there. The Lord God of heaven who took me from my father's house and from the land of my family and who spoke to me and swore to me saying to your descendants I give this land He will send his angel before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from there. And if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be released from this oath. Only do not take my son back there." So the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master and swore to him concerning this matter. Then the servant took ten of his master's camels and departed for all his master's goods were in his hand.

And he arose and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor." Let's just pray before the Lord. Father, we come now before you and ask you to bless this time. Lord, that you would make so clear your word to us as we have this short period together. Lord, may you strengthen us and help us, edify us according to your great mercy and loving kindness. Amen.

Amen. Well, the title of this afternoon's session is My Master's Business, and we're going to be, as I said, hopefully going through this whole chapter here, Genesis 24. And really and truly, the reason why I wanted to go through this chapter is that years ago before I left to the mission field, I think it might have been 2011 or 2012, somewhere thereabouts, I was going through the book of Genesis and I came upon this chapter. And previously I had just read it as Abraham looking for a wife for his son Isaac. But the more you dive into this chapter, it almost explodes in terms of what's captured in these few verses right here.

It's some very familiar language when you hear about the phrase, my master's business. The one to utter that phrase was our Lord and Savior when he was about 12 years old and he was in the temple and his parents were looking for him and he came back and they they he asked him that question did you not know that I would be about my father's business in Acts chapter 4 they also as they were praying refer to the Lord Jesus as your holy servant, Jesus, as they were praying to the Lord God. And so what I what I hope we come away with is is how this struck me years ago. I'm going to be following really in the same stream that we heard this morning, just really kind of giving us, hopefully fleshing it out just a little bit more, but my hope, my desire, as I read this the first time and it dawned on me, that as I read it to us and expound on a little bit here this time that that if we could just get a little bit of a measure or an Increased measure of what we're going to be seeing before us in this servant That we would be captured and taken up it would do us good.

It would be such a blessing to our soul. And so as we consider what we heard this morning, you know, if someone were to ask you, well, how would you distill the whole spectrum, the whole panorama of scripture down into a single phrase or into a single sentence. What would come to your mind? There's so many different things that might come to your mind, but one of the most beautiful illustrations that we see all the way through scripture is God's acquisition of a bride for his son. That's pretty accurate, pretty concise, that God is on mission to acquire a wife for his son, the son of his love.

And we saw this account as we went through the book of Ruth, that little picture in that four-chapter book of what God's intention and design was right there. And really the whole idea, we heard about it today, this mystery of God, this mystery of the gospel that has been hidden in the from ages past has now been revealed to us Christ in us the hope of glory But remember where we started from after the fall We had this terrible devastation that was due to sin and everything that came along with that But in the finality there's gonna be a throng of worshippers gathered around the throne. It says in Revelation that there'll be a throng so vast and so numerous that no one could even number. And so from devastation to this massive crowd, this cloud of people that have been redeemed, all of it can be compressed down really into this longest chapter in Genesis. It's actually the longest one that we have here.

And in this chapter, God wonderfully paints this portrait of what he's doing, not just for Isaac, not just for Abraham, or even for Rebecca, but this entire story and spectrum of scriptures captured here. And so just by way of context, Abraham, as we read in the first verse, he's nearing the end of his life and of course we know Isaac to be the son of promise. He's now about 40 years of age. And if you remember the last time we see or saw Isaac in the book of Genesis. It was two chapters earlier and he was referred to as the lad.

That was how he was referred to and the context was that he was carrying the wood up Mount Moriah to be sacrificed. And you remember the famous question he asked, where is the lamb to his father Abraham? And the famous response back was, my son, God will provide for himself a lamb. Well, it's almost impossible not to see the glaring parallel between Abraham and Isaac and God the Father and God the Son. Many centuries later we know that the Lord would be mounting not Mount Moriah per se but Mount Calvary carrying and bearing the wood.

Well that was two chapters ago in Genesis chapter 22. Now I think there's an equally glaring example of what we're going to see here where we see Abraham giving a specific commander, you could call it a commission, to his faithful servant, his oldest servant. And I want to see if you can see the parallels here as we go through this. Really again, as I said, you have the entire panorama of God's design captured in this single chapter, a father desiring a bride for his son. And remember what happened to Isaac.

There was a lamb, remember, a ram was caught in the thicket and there he was as it were received back from the dead. That's another Shadow here and of course we see a nameless servant. We're not going to really get his name in this entire Chapter at all and then we see a wife not of Canaan or of Canaanite Descent but but of his own kindred in the New Testament when we consider this It's the phrase is born from above or born again. In other words, instead of just being someone from the land, If you're going to be a partaker of the new covenant, you first must be born from above. God has to give you birth, not just be a simple Canaanite by descent.

And so this woman was entrusted into the care of this faithful servant until she's gonna meet her bridegroom. So there's a lot of parallels all the way through and I just want to take take us through these first nine verses where this servant, this nameless servant receives this commission. It says here in verse 2 that he ruled over all that he had. Abraham, he was a wealthy man, but this young, or this older servant now, had ownership really of all that he had, I guess as a steward would be the appropriate way to look at it. And he was made to give an oath before God not to take a wife for my son from among the Canaanites on the one side but you shall go to my country and my family and take a wife for my son Isaac.

It seemed like a very risky proposition in a sense, right? And the servant, knowing kind of the stakes here, he says, well, what if the woman is not willing to follow me to this land? And the one command Abraham has is don't take him back. Keep him here. Don't take him back.

Keep him here. Don't take a wife from among the Canaanites." And so it's a conundrum. I want Isaac to be married but on some very very specific terms. And of course He was likely concerned for the terrible abominations that were taking place in Canaan, or maybe a Canaanite leader who gave his daughter to Isaac would then make a claim on the land that God had promised him. Whatever it was, he didn't want his son to marry this Canaanite.

And so this faithful nameless servant, he launches out and this is where we're going to be spending our time. He goes from the the land of promise up to a place called Nahor which is about 500 miles from where Abraham is base and he loads up ten camels and they begin this journey. And just consider the weight of this stewardship. It's a very solemn time and oath is actually taken. It's very remarkable.

Abraham can't go himself. He's not going to send Isaac. And so he entrusts this steward, this faithful servant, with the charge to go and accomplish this mission. Now as we look at this, consider the Great Commission. That God the Father has sent his Son.

And Jesus Christ has come, he's lived, he's died, he's resurrected, and he's seated at the right hand of God. And he's coming again. But there's a time that we live in right now, where as faithful stewards and as faithful servants we have a stewardship that needs to be accomplished in the pursuit of a bride for the Lamb. And of course we know Abraham well, we'll get to know Isaac well if you keep reading in Genesis, but we're gonna be spending the bulk of our time here with this servant. And really he's an example to all servants, especially servants of God.

And what's important, what I want you to come away from, the reason I entitled this my master's business is because the phrase my master in this single chapter appears no fewer than 22 times. My master, my master, my master Abraham never mentions his own name but he's speaking about his master. There's no better example of a steward in the Bible than this man here. And what I want us to see here is this, is that how indivisible the interests of his master are from his own. And think about that, from what we heard today, What is uppermost and chief in the mind of God?

Oh, that that would become more uppermost and chief in all of our minds. Well, you see that perfect example here. And so what can we learn about our Master, serving our Master, from taking a look here at this man? Because what's the chief battle that we all face? It could be probably boiled down to the fact that so often what we want and what God wants don't really match up and we almost spend an entire lifetime Warring with what we want versus what God wants and we see the perfect example of it Even with our Savior Jesus Christ right before he goes to the cross He says not my will but your will be done This really is the task the inward working of a Christian that the more we come to know the Lord, is that the more, hopefully, his will becomes our will.

Joyfully so, not something that's grudging. And we're going to see just such a beautiful example of this. And so a father seeking a bride for his son. And so here we are, I want to just jump a little bit forward here in terms of what we're going to be spending our time with here. In verse 12, look at this.

So he undertakes to go on this journey. He now reaches Mesopotamia in verse 10. And you can imagine after many weeks of a camel caravan kind of winding its way up to the northern parts, which is kind of modern day Turkey. He reaches Nahor and now what? What does he do now that he's reached this place?

Well, as a true son of Abraham, he prays and he calls upon the Lord. He pleads actually the covenant of Abraham right here. And in verse 12, he makes this declaration as he reaches the city. He says, oh Lord, God of my master Abraham, please give me success this day and show kindness to my master Abraham." Again, what is uppermost in this man's heart? It's that Abraham's petitions, Abraham's interests would be fulfilled.

Twice in the same verse he says, my master, my master, and what you're gonna see in this whole chapter is how much prayer becomes really so instrumental, so important in this entire chapter. In fact, Isaiah 65 tells us something so beautiful. It says this, it shall come to pass that before they call I will answer and while they are still speaking I will hear this this faithful urgent earnest prayer that should really describe and capture the Christian. This is what God is able to do when we make our requests known to Him. And just A few verses after this, he sets a super high bar.

He says that when this woman comes, here's what I would ask, O Lord, that you might signify who it is that I should take. That when I ask her for a drink, she not only gives to me a drink, but that she also offers to water all of my camels, 10 camels. Now a camel can drink somewhere between 20 to 25 gallons of water. That's a tall order. If this woman was to go about actually watering 10 camels times 20, that's 200 gallons of water, not with a pump, but with a jar, whatever she was going to do.

You know what we have that water dispensers at the back? Each one of those canisters or jugs is five gallons. Imagine having to carry 40 of those and bring them in water and that's what you would have to do to get all of these camels watered. And it's a tall order. Who in the world would actually do this for a stranger.

But it gives you a sense of the temperament and character that this servant was after in a wife for Abraham's son. Ruling work. It wouldn't have taken over an hour or so for her to actually do this kind of work. And then only after that do you find out in verse 16 that she was very beautiful to behold. That was secondary for what he was looking at.

But don't get confused. The Lord doesn't choose us because of our beauty or even because of our Labors on his behalf. That's not why we are saved We don't want to go too far and too extreme neither do our prayers always get answered before we actually actually finish speaking them Oftentimes it takes a long time for our prayers to get answered and the Lord has his reasons for that. But there's, stay with the story here. What we see in verse 17 is this.

In verse 17, this woman comes And the servant runs up to her, it says, and the servant ran to meet her and said, please, let me drink a little water from your pitcher. So he asked just for himself, and of course we know this story. But look at the servant, we know how this unwinds, this young lady, Rebecca, not only gives him, but also all of his camels the water that he had prayed for but I want to spend the time looking at snapshots of the character of the man of this nameless servant that we have before him. Here is a man about his master's business and if we could be men and women young men young women captured By a vision and the will of our master How much more joy how much more fruit would be born? Well we see here in verse 26 he finds out that indeed the Lord has made a way at least from first appearances that this is the woman that he was seeking.

And in verse 26, what is his response? It says, then the man bowed down his head and worshiped the Lord. Three times in verse 27 he says, my master. And this is the thing, you would think that he was the one looking for a wife for himself, that he was the one getting married so tightly are his interests intertwined with those of his master that he's the one that throws himself on the ground and praises the God of his master Abraham for what is actually happening here. And what I think we want to take away from this is worship, joyful worship is one of the great marks of a servant of the living God.

And if we could have this indivisible interest between our will and God's will, it flows into joyful worship that as we see God's will fulfilled in the earth, there's nothing better. You live for the glory of God think about those who live for the things of this world and how how it's like sand is sand in their mouth or or oftentimes when you're you're talking to people that may have attained and acquired a certain height in this world. What do they really have? They have really nothing. But that's because the things that they've been pursuing are diametrically opposed to God's will.

How can they have peace? How can they be filled? How can they be satisfied? But even for believers, so often we can look over and see those things look to be so worthwhile and we be deceived and we go after and oftentimes that's why our wills are there's such a space between us and God, but we can look at a man here and see that that space is closed tightly. It's amazing.

And we meet Laban, this man who's maybe a deceiver, a greedy man, Rebecca's brother, and he's gonna feature more in the story of Jacob, but in verse 33 we talked this morning about urgency, we spoke about fervency, we spoke about vigilance. Well look at this in verse 33, after traveling 500 miles, not resting for a week, but the very same night that he arrived, he now goes to Laban's house and They set all sorts of food. This is very hospitable culture And so they set before him food to eat and rest and relax and recover But look what he says after they set the food before him It says there in verse 33. I Will not eat until I have told my errand And I just want to impress on us here. There's there's no pomp.

There's no self Importance at all with this man. He just always ever says I'm Abraham's servant That's all you ever know about this man. Those are his credentials. Not even a name is given. Just, I am Abraham's servant.

There's no desire for independence. There's no desire for him to carve out his own little identity or anything like that. But all of his thoughts, all of his desires, they terminate on what it is that will make my master most happy. That's constantly going through his mind. Does that go through our minds as we live this life?

Or are we just so thankful for what God has done, but we fail to see that we've been redeemed and saved for a purpose, and that is to be servants of the Most High. How many times is the word servant used in the New Testament to describe those who who lean upon the Lord for salvation but then are enlisted to actually go and do the work that he's called them to do. And so he declines all comforts until he's told his errand. You can see this beating heart and desire and urgency that his master's will would be the thing that is uppermost and nothing else takes the place. His deeds are done on behalf of his master.

His prayers are for his master's interest. His words are in praise of his master. If you want to look for a parallel in the New Testament, you'll find that parallel when the Apostle Paul speaks about himself. Or if you flip over to the book of James, you know how they refer to themselves? I love how James introduces the book of James.

He says, James, a bond servant of Jesus Christ. What was his credential? Well, he could have said, well, I'm the brother of the Lord. I'm royalty. No.

I'm a bond servant of Jesus Christ. That's all he thought of himself as. And that's exactly what we're seeing here. See if we're more captured with a sense that all I am and my whole life has been redeemed to be a bond servant of Jesus Christ. Do you know where the uppermost, the height of joy is?

It's in serving the Lord and seeing Him at work, not because of any wisdom or anything in us, but because of His great kindness and love to us. And so you see in verse 49 after he spends the rest of the interaction with Laban he recounts all that God had done. He had brought him all the way 500 miles. He had answered my prayer when I was there at the well he recounts that how he met Rebecca he put a nose ring on her he put bracelets on her on her arm he he saw how she fed or gave the camels the water to drink all of that and then he says in verse 49 Now if you will deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me. And if not, tell me that I may turn to the right hand or to the left." What an example of a servant.

And so he finds out, well, who in the world could deny that God was at work and so Laban says this this thing is from the Lord we can't say good or bad that God seems to have worked this out for for the good of Abraham and so He gets this happy consent that's given to this union. And where do we find the servant? If you look at verse 52. And it came to pass when Abraham's servant heard their words that he worshipped the Lord, bowing himself to the earth. Not that he was going to get married.

Not that he now has a wife. But that Abraham's son, Isaac, would now be married to this woman that God had provided. But beware, because dangers always lurk, don't they? You have to be careful for the Laban's. Such winsome, reasonable words are given in verse 54.

Why not just, hey, stay 10 days. Let's just relax. You've traveled 500 miles. Let's just take it easy. You've now secured a wife for your master son.

All of these things have been brought to pass. Let her just relax. And when the servant hears this request that they would stay back for ten days, he says, do not hinder me since the Lord has prospered my way. Send me away so that I may go to my master. And what I want to say to you today is, especially you young people, beware, beware the call, the reasonable call of Laban to linger.

You might say, hey, I'm in church. What's the harm of a little delay? I can go to the Bible studies, I can go to men's meeting, I can come on Sunday, I can fill in the blank. What's the delay? What's the problem after a 500 mile journey?

You're gonna hit the road Just like that after a single night Doesn't make much sense see see there's there's some here even in this underneath this roof right now. You've heard the happy call, but you linger. You linger. You know. You've heard.

But you linger. And I ask you, why do you linger? See, for how long will you linger and wait and delay? Rebecca is asked, will you go with this man? She's invited to the wedding supper, if you will.

Will you go with this man? And if you think about the parable of the wedding supper, one of the great tragedies of the parable is that It says those who were invited were not willing to come. See, they were invited, but they were just not willing. There was other things. He says, but they made light of it and went their way, one to his own farm and another to his business.

Here you have a faithful servant pleading and saying please come. Everything has been prepared. All the gold, all the silver has been brought on the camels, everything, the dowry has been paid, God has designed and worked everything, and yet you're going to delay and wait and linger? I plead with you today to follow Rebecca's example. She didn't delay.

And so you see this young lady, she sides with the Lord's servant that was making the request for her to follow. And what turned out to be so unlikely at the very beginning, how in the world am I going to find a wife 500 miles away for my master's son, has now come to fruition. Well, what was Abraham's plan? It's the same plan that God the Father has for his son. A bride, in Ephesians 5 we read about a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing holy and without blemish and you come down to the final few verses here in chapter 24 verse 62 the culmination is just so beautiful you see this picture here Now Isaac came from the way of Bir la Hayroi, the well of the living one who sees me, is what that well is named after.

And I love this. It says Isaac lifted up his eyes and in the next verse it says Rebecca lifted up her eyes. The son of promise for the first time sets his eyes on his bride. And where's the servant in all of this? He's just a silent observer.

And no doubt there's there's something of the spirit of John the Baptist in this man. I mean you remember John the Baptist when his disciples were questioning you know Why is the Lord Jesus ministry expanding and yours is diminishing? And he says, he who has the bride is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him, he rejoices greatly because of the Bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled." And of course it ends, the chapter ends, it says, she became his wife and he loved her.

I want you to hear these words from Charles Spurgeon and think about this right now as we heard we're going to a place where there's rest, but the time for rest isn't right now. See, sometimes we, I think, get so confused, we, our flesh, our chief desire is the comfort of this world but there's coming an eternity of comfort and rest and peace, eternity. And look what Charles Spurgeon says, he says we are always in the field of battle. We are so tempted within and so molested by foes without that we have little or no peace but in heaven we shall enjoy the victory when the banner shall be waved aloft in triumph and the sword shall be forever sheathed And we shall hear our captain say well done good and faithful servant Enter into the joy of your Lord I just want to say to you today live for that day wherever you are serving God abroad or here live for that day when you will see your master. Sometimes I picture this, seeing him and you see a smile on his face when you reach that day.

Not because of how great we are, but because of his faithfulness. We need to live for that day. And so I just want to ask you a few questions. What can we learn from this example here? Do we see the the worship?

Remember when he when he saw little inklings little little marks of God answering his prayer you see this worship mingled with prayer Is that going to be how you're going to live your life? Worship mingled with prayer. Do we see the the intensity of the ownership where I challenge you to find a gap between the servant's will and his master's will you're not gonna find it It's seamless because he just wanted what his master wanted and we could more so have that Working in our hearts. What a what a church what a joyful body of believers How much of our depression how much of our sorrows? How much of our sadness comes because my will isn't done.

And I say that my will because I'm very willful. I'm not saying it as though I'm this man, but because my will isn't done and so sometimes sorrow floods my heart. Do we see the priority of the master's interest? This man won't eat, he won't sleep, he won't rest until he knows whether or not his master's interests are going to be fulfilled. There's a, do you see the single mindedness and the urgency?

Please, please, please don't excuse yourself and say well this is just a certain class of believer. We heard that today. No. This isn't the reservation of just some kinds of believers that we can so easily say, well that's their faith or that's their... No.

All servants of the Lord should be faithful in this. And I get this this beautiful picture you see Isaac and Rebecca for the first time as they lift their eyes upon one another and look at each other and what happens to the servant he just fades to black no doubt with a smile on his face as he sees the happy union, never named, never to be heard from again. Something perhaps a little bit of the Moravian spirit might have been upon him. Preach the gospel, die and be forgotten. Something Maybe of William Carey on his deathbed The less said about me the better Seem to capture this man So with all of these questions just one final question.

Will you spend yourself? Will you be about your master's business? You young person, so easy to get distracted with things that don't matter. Will you purpose to be about your master's business? Spend yourself in this worthy cause in whatever capacity you can.

I just want to end with this last scripture here taken from 2nd Corinthians. It's from the words the mouth of the Apostle Paul. He says this, for the love of Christ compels us. Because we judge thus. See the love of Christ compels us.

Because we judge thus, we reckon. We've done the math. We've actually taken time to think through all that God has done for us in Jesus Christ Well, what if you come to the conclusion of Paul? That if one died for all then all died meaning if one came to die for everyone so that they might live what does that tell you about the state of everyone that they were dead And so he's doing this math that if this is the case if this is actually true And that he died for all now here's marching orders that Those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. This is the war of the ages.

This is the greatest fight in the world between your chest cavity, between your head, this desire for your own will or your master's will. And I just say to you today, look at this nameless servant and take instruction. As he embarked on this great commission to find a wife. For Isaac, at the instruction of Abraham, we have the exact same commission as the servants of God. God has sent his son and his son has come and his final words were to be about my business in a phrase.

Don't be about your own business and your own kingdom, be about mine and lo I'm with you always even to the end of the age well how does Paul conclude that argument what's the only conclusion you can arrive at after all of this he says now then as though how could it be otherwise when we do the math, now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. Amen. Oh Father, we come before you here and we pray and ask you, oh Lord, to do the work in our own hearts. Make us a fervent, urgent, desirous people. O Lord, I pray more and more that my own will would be subservient to yours, O Lord, and that we would be a church taken up with your interests in the earth.

Oh Lord, may we all say that we must be about our master's business. Oh Lord, bring it to pass. Conform us, conform our wills to your will, That we might serve you better and love you more in Jesus name Amen