Jesus in Genesis, Season 2
Sarah's Death and Burial
June 27, 2021 • Andy Hoot • Genesis 23
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Well, good morning. My name is Andy. I'm one of the pastors here at Mosaic, and pastor Jan is getting some vacation time to celebrate his anniversary with Tanya. And so, we're thrilled for him to get that time, thrilled for both of them to get that time after this long season of the past year and a half. Today if you are new, it looks like there's a lot of new faces. We still can't really tell who is new all the time, and praise God, we have that problem. Welcome to Mosaic. If you do want to connect with us, again, we plug our connection cards. And sorry, if you're a regular and we repeat this over and over, it's because over half of the congregation shows up 10 minutes, 15 minutes into the service. So we're just trying to get those stragglers the news, and we want to connect with you. If you have questions, if you want to build community here, fill out the connection card. You can bring it to the Welcome Center, and we'll have some helpers and a gift for you. Today, we are finishing our Jesus in Genesis series. We've been here for, I think the past 12 weeks. This is the 12th week. We started at Genesis 12. We're closing with Genesis 23, and we've been trying to pull out all the ways that this first book of the Bible talking about the patriarch and matriarch of the faith, Abraham and Sarah, how Jesus, the name of Jesus is whispered, and sometimes outright just yelling out of the passages of this ancient book. And it points us to Jesus' coming, going to the cross, being our Lord and Savior for us. We hope this is a good time. I think of my life in forms of periods of Mosaic sermon series. Every sermon series has a tone. Every series hits me in a certain way, and I remember that. I can go back, it was almost 10 years ago this month, that I arrived at Mosaic. And I've been through basically all of them, some from afar as I moved away at some point, but this is a good time in addition to meditating upon today's sermon this week, it's a good time to think about, "Lord, what have you shown me in this season? What have you taught me?" How do I see Jesus Christ being spread, being mentioned, being acknowledged and whispered or typified in this Old Testament book? And so, today we have a funeral. This is a pivotal moment in the text. Why are we stopping here at Genesis 23? This is literally a pivotal moment in the text. Genesis 22, the last few verses mention the line that formed Rebecca from which Rebecca came, the wife of Isaac, Abraham's son, soon to be wife of Isaac in Genesis 24. And this is the last day that Abraham and Sarah are together. And so, it's fitting that we end the series here. We should be reflecting upon just the work that the Lord has done in them and through them. And I'll do that more as we approach our text. So with all that said, I'm going to read Genesis 23 and then I'll pray. Sarah lived 127 years; these were the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died at Kiriath-arba (that is Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. And Abraham rose up from before his dead and said to the Hittites, “I am a sojourner and foreigner among you; give me property among you for a burying place, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” The Hittites answered Abraham, “Hear us, my lord; you are a prince of God among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will withhold from you his tomb to hinder you from burying your dead.” Abraham rose and bowed to the Hittites, the people of the land. And he said to them, “If you are willing that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me and entreat for me Ephron the son of Zohar, that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he owns; it is at the end of his field. For the full price let him give it to me in your presence as property for a burying place.” Now Ephron was sitting among the Hittites, and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites, of all who went in at the gate of his city, “No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. In the sight of the sons of my people I give it to you. Bury your dead.” Then Abraham bowed down before the people of the land. And he said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, “But if you will, hear me: I give the price of the field. Accept it from me, that I may bury my dead there.” Ephron answered Abraham, “My lord, listen to me: a piece of land worth 400 shekels of silver, what is that between you and me? Bury your dead.” Abraham listened to Ephron, and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites, 400 shekels of silver, according to the weights current among the merchants. So the field of Ephron in Machpelah, which was to the east of Mamre, the field with the cave that was in it and all the trees that were in the field, throughout its whole area, was made over to Abraham as a possession in the presence of the Hittites, before all who went in at the gate of his city. After this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah east of Mamre (that is Hebron) in the land of Canaan. The field and the cave that is in it were made over to Abraham as property for a burying place by the Hittites." This is the word of our Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you for your Holy Word. We praise you that all of it is for our edification, for our sanctification, for our growth in the faith. And we praise you for this word about a patriarch and matriarch of our faith. We thank you for the season that you've appointed for us to learn from them to learn from about the grace that you showed to them, about the faithfulness that you showed to them and their faithfulness, about the ways that they prefigured the coming of Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray that you imprint the lessons that we need to hear today, and those that we heard already throughout this season upon our hearts as we go forward as sojourners in this land that is not our home. As we go forth, still facing this death, still facing the thorns and thistles of life that you appointed as the curse for our sin. Holy Spirit, we pray, give us lessons for how we can more faithfully face these challenges as we await to receive our full inheritance that we have through our faith in Jesus Christ. I pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. Well, a month ago, I didn't know I was preaching on this text. I thought I was entering into a calm period. With vacation coming up, my anniversary coming up, my son's five-year-old birthday, my daughter's one-year-old birthday, but the Lord had different things in plan. I had to do Mosaic's officiate Mosaic's first funeral. I ended up purchasing an apartment with my wife, which was labeled by our attorney as the worst closing since 2003. And what was the issue? It was over the appraisal of the property. And you're welcome. You're welcome that I went through that. The Lord put me through that to prepare me for this topic. But if you haven't been with us, and it's okay to laugh a little bit, Sarah, there is a theme in her life of laughter. We can chuckle, and praise God for that, that he is a God of laughter. And he will get the last laugh. But if you haven't been with us, today we're talking about Abraham and Sarah. The book of Isaiah 51:1-2 talk about both Abraham as the patriarch and even Sarah as the matriarch of those in the faith, those upon whom the Church of Jesus Christ is built. From Genesis 12, where we began to where we are today, their life has spanned 62 years. They waited 25 years for their son to be born, and now he's 37 years of age. So we've gotten the highlights when they've been faithful to God. We've gotten the lowlights when they've been unfaithful. In their best moments, as I've said, they've prefigured Christ and the role that he will do for us, and going to the cross and bearing our sins on the cross, and paving the way of faith, walking it perfectly. And we've seen in their low lights, just that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone. And the last time today, we're talking about Sarah's death, the last time we heard about her, Isaac was born. Upon her death now she is 127 years old. We don't know anything about her from these last 37 years. And then so, what we have to be asking what then is the point of Genesis 23? What does this passage teach? The scripture zooms in and out of various points of history of redemptive history for specific lessons, and we have to figure that out today. So today I'm going to break this passage down in three sections. I'm going to talk about Abraham's sorrow, Abraham's sojourn, and Abraham's slice, slice of land. And so first, talking about Abraham sorrow. And notice point three about Abraham's slice that covers verses three through 20, three though the end of this chapter. There's a lot of emphasis on this just engagement between Abraham and the Hittites, and it's a cultural dance as Abraham acquires the land, but we have to ask why is so much emphasis placed on the purchase of this land? So point one, Abraham's sorrow, we have to talk about his sorrow. In verses one and two we read, "Sarah lived 127 years. These were the years of the life of Sarah, and Sarah died at Kiriath Arba that is Hebron in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went into mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. I just want to make a couple observations about this sorrowful moment. Notice, first, Abraham and Sarah, as important as they were to the fulfillment of God's redemptive purposes, we're not exempt from the curse of death that has come upon all mankind as a result of Adam and Eve's fall. And this is important because this is a message for all of us who have faith in Jesus Christ. We are not excused from the curses that were applied to Adam and Eve. We inherit them. And what are those curses? We see them in the life of Abraham and Sarah. To the woman, God says, "I'm going to give you pain in childbearing." Your desire shall be for your husband. You're going to try to challenge his headship over you. The husband, you're going to have trouble producing fruit. You're going to have trouble in your labor no matter how much you love your work, no matter how much you love your family, there's going to be toil that is a part of that process. And Abraham and Sarah, compared to Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve, they represent the fall. They bring us into sin and misery. Abraham and Sarah bring us into blessing and promise, but life of faith that they exhibit is still tinged by death, the penalty for sin, it's still tinged by the thorns and thistles of life, and we still face them today. And particularly as we reflect upon Sarah's death, we have to pause and think that death comes to all of us. And I really have to just force you to think about this today, because we are a young crowd. Some of you here are greying a little bit, but even you are not that old. A good measure of how, whether a membership of the congregation is prepared to understand death, to face it, is to compare the amount of funerals with the amount of weddings and childbirth. And we did have one. We lost our brother Jim, who we grieved and celebrated his life in the past month, but we are about 30:1, I think when it comes to marriage and child rearing compared to death, and that is not normal. I looked across the internet for urban churches that preached on this topic, you see them preach through Genesis 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25. We don't talk about death a lot, and we don't see it. We don't engage with people who are older than us. We're oftentimes just younger than us and... I remember I moved here out of college in 2010, and I was here for two and a half years. And in that period of life, that whole time I was in Boston, I don't remember engaging one senior citizen or one child, and that's pathetic. But for a lot of you that is realistic. A lot of you had your first baby, and that's the first baby you've ever touched. And we don't come near... Where we are, we avoid a lot of phases of life. We have to see our church. We have a bias towards youth. And as pastors, we are relatively young, too. And so, we need to be realistic that our perspective is limited, and we need to think about death. And it's reality. It is coming whether we think about it or not, whether we are prepared for it or not, it is coming. Our brother Jim was 30 years old, and he went relatively suddenly last month. And we have to be prepared for it. And I prepared my sermon, I avoided this section. I didn't want to talk about it, but we really need to be thinking about death. And at Mosaic, we want to be known for good teaching. We want to be known for great life-giving community, care and accountability, membership that builds one another up and loves one another as Christ taught us. But we want to be able to grieve with each other and mourn with each other well. We want to show that to the world. And so, are you prepared to do that if you're honest with yourself? When you think about, Am I ready to meet my maker? Am I ready to face death? If other people in my life died? Am I prepared for their loss? If somebody close to me had someone close to them die, would I know how to support them? Would I be able to minister to them in the name of Jesus Christ in such a period. And we need to be building ourselves up. We need to be studying this. We need to be asking the Lord for wisdom and preparing our hearts for these moments, these situations. He providentially prepared me for this sermon, and we need to be doing that. And I am an intense dude. I grew up in a family with a mom who was sick. Before I was born, my dad survived at cancer that one in 30 people survive. Then he had a heart attack the year I was born. I was the fourth child. My siblings blame me. After that, since then, my mom had four bouts with cancer between age zero and 20 for me. I grew up just with this newness, just a lot of sickness, and praise God, they're both still alive and really thriving by God's grace. A lot of you can't say that about your parents who've had similar struggles. But there's a closeness to death that I actually know. And I actually like to embrace it, and sometimes I can get on the edge of morbidity. Like when you're close to death, you see life as it really is. You see that life is fleeting. That your health is going to come and go, that you can't count on tomorrow. And there's a freedom in that, and it's the emotions that you experience are pure. The grief, the sadness, the fear of it. And to a degree, we need to embrace that, because this is like a valley of vision for us. When we focus upon the inevitability of death, we see who we are as sinners before a mighty holy God. And there's benefit to staying there, to embracing it. And we need to do that. And when we as those who claim to have hope in Jesus Christ, when we have people who we know loved ones have losses in their family, but they don't have the hope of Jesus Christ. Imagine going through that valley, being in that valley without that hope. And that's where we can step in. The best times in my life of the past 10 or 15 years have been engagement with my family. That's best periods of communication with my family have been around death. The conversations are not shallow, they're real. And that's a time for us to give gospel hope. And so, we need to be thinking about this. We need to be able to grieve ourselves and to support. As Christians, we should be able to face this grief a little better. And so, I just want to pause and look. Abraham in verse two, it says "He went in to mourn for Sarah and weep for her." This is a beautiful scene. Here we see Abraham's love for Sarah, and his grief for her loss put on display, and this is after a lot. Remember Egypt, Abraham gave her to Pharaoh. He gave her away to Abimelech. The struggles with Hagar, the struggles getting pregnant, living intense the last six decades. We don't know at this point what happened between them the last 37 years since Isaac's birth. But what we see here is a beautiful picture of them together on their last day, and they made it, and we see Abraham grieving. We live in a society that places so much emphasis on the first day, but very little on the last day. A key theme of Scripture is that in Christianity, it doesn't matter where you come from, or where you started, but where you're headed in relationship with Jesus Christ. The same is certainly true for marriage. How many of you are working and preparing for the last day together with your spouse? How many of you are working on yourselves as individuals within a marriage in order to help your marriage mature and grow and be prepared for these stages of life? And singles, you're not excluded. You need to see that the habits, the devotional life, the person you're praying to become in the power of the Lord, all of that work you're doing now could impact a relationship for eternity. And so, it's clear Abraham truly loves his wife. He mourns the loss of his wife. And men, we need to take note here. Who is this guy? He's a guy who charged into battle, a man who has after age 75, a man who is the head of a huge household, a guy who got stuff done. He exhibits that he's both tough and tender. He's okay with crying. He's okay going through the proper grieving process. Just personal story with one of my earliest encounters with grief was when one of my dogs died. And I remember my dad picked me up from baseball, and we unexpectedly, we're driving a teammate home. And my dad's like, just breaking down, his voice is quivering. I can see him shaking. And I'm embarrassed, my dad hold it together. And he's just crying because our dog died, the family dog died. I was embarrassed at the time, but I'm thankful that as a young man, I had a dad who cried at appropriate times. As Christian men, we can't be breeding a form of stoicism and women, some women fall into this. But we can't be breeding a form of stoicism. Go to the Psalms, see the balance in the emotions of King David's life. Look at Abraham here. And just with grief, the best approach is, get it out. In the appointed season when you have time, get it out. And if we don't get it out, our grief tends to come out and project itself in different ways. Anger, anxiety, bitterness, fatigue, depression, addiction. So we need to get it out. I know before I get away from talking about the last day, I need to emphasize that we can't be surprised by death financially. As part of the grieving process, there are a lot of costs and practical elements to funerals, and we just don't process this stuff here at Mosaic that often. Paying for a burial plot, a tombstone, preparation and embalming of the body. If you get cremated, that's a substantial cost. Clothing, transportation of the body, limo services, funeral home fees and services, fees for a service venue, memorial service venue, bulletins, picture pronounce. What's your theology of life insurance? What's your plan for inheritance distribution? I am saying here, I am not ready with all of this stuff, but we need to be preparing ourselves for that, and that is a part. The more prepared we are, the more we can actually grieve in the moment at the appointed season. And before we leave the section, I have to bring out one really important point. Scripture doesn't forbid us from mourning. That's what I'm hammering home. But the scriptures warn us against grieving as those who have no hope. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 says, "But we do not want you to be uninformed brothers about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do, who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep." We need to grieve, but we can't overindulge ourselves in it. The best way to just protect against that is grieve within the context of community. Invite loving. Don't be beyond the loving nudges and gentle correction in your period of grief. A lot of people assume a position of self-pity. I don't need to listen to anyone. We need to trust our loving brothers and sisters in Christ as they help support us and coach us in the season, and you can coach them too. So just Abraham's sorrow, we must process sorrow. He gives us a good example of it here. We want to do so as one who has hope set firmly and our Lord. Next, I'm going to talk about Abraham sojourn. We've considered the sorrow, but verses three and four go into, "And Abraham rose up from before his dead and said to the Hittites, "I'm a sojourner and foreigner among you. Give me property among you for burying place that I may bury my dead out of my sight." So the Hittites, they were the inhabitants of the land of Canaan, the land that God had promised to Abraham. And notice that when Sarah died, Abraham had to ask them for a place to bury his dead. He was a 137-year-old foreigner who didn't have a single piece of land in Canaan. Some of us panic. We think about, we're married, we have families here in Brooklyn. We won't have a property for another 10 years. And then what are the prices going to be? God didn't give Abraham a piece of land until later in this passage at 137. Just what faith, what patience in the Lord. This is significant that Abraham doesn't have land. When we consider the promises that God made to him concerning land. God promised that he would have many descendants. He provided Isaac. God promised his descendants would possess Canaan. But as of yet, he's a sojourn. So the thing to point about Abraham, is that God's promises were enough. Last chapter, the sacrifice scene of Isaac, he didn't get sacrificed, but Abraham was willing to go forward with the sacrifice of his son according to God's command, because he trusted that God could raise him from the dead. That's what Scripture tells us. Abraham showed he had a firm faith in God's power to raise the dead. And now, just Abraham was a sojourner, an alien. And God didn't give him a piece of land, but he believed his promises didn't end with his wife. Do you believe that? So many of you wait for something from God for a day. I prayed about it. He didn't ask. I'm going to step in and make my plan. I do that. Abraham still waiting, and he believed God was going to do far more for him in the future and eternity. As the author of Hebrews says, "Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Jacob, these patriarchs, matriarchs of the church were waiting, they were desiring a better country that is a heavenly one. That's in Hebrews 11:16. Abraham, he was looking for the city which has foundations whose architect and builder is God. Abraham's faith, he looked beyond the grave to the promises of God to send the Savior and through him to bless the nations. And what's important to point out is that Abraham makes this decision to pursue a plot of land in the land of Canaan while his relatives in his homeland were thriving. Remember last week, the end of chapter 22, there's this seemingly confusing section. Now after these things, it was told to Abraham, behold Milcah, that's his sister-in-law also is born children to your brother, Nahor. Huz his firstborn, Buz his brother, Kemuel the father of Aram." Ultimately, these verses say that Rebecca was born. But in this piece Scripture, it also reveals Abraham could have gone back to his family, but at this moment, though God's promises haven't come fully true, he doubles down and pursues this grave site in God's promised land in the land that God has provided for him. Sometimes a lot of us, he's renouncing those ties. This is a final step in saying, God, I am fully on board with you. And some of us we like to leave escape routes in our life. And to go forward in faith we need to just get ourselves implanted. And that we see that every year this time of year at Mosaic with the transience of the city changing of the school year. You're driven by the academic calendar, but if you've been here, the Lord is raising you up. He's maturing you. He's converted you here growing you in the faith, giving you a church community where you're being sharpened and challenged and serving. I challenge you, get rid of those escape routes, trust him. I can't say that's the will of God. But a lot of us need that challenge. As Abraham was a sojourner, as our father, all of us in Christ are sojourners. I think a lot of us here in Boston get this, but we need to be careful, just being among the minority, the extreme minority of people who believe the Bible that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior. We get this, but we spend a lot of time sitting around and licking our wounds, talking about how hard it is, talking about how there aren't any singles to choose from, talking about how raising kids in the faith here is so difficult. I'm guilty of that in the past week. Listen to Peter's words. 1 Peter two, "Beloved, I urge you sojourners and exile to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation." We don't just seek to accept the position of sojourner begrudgingly. We need to own it. This doesn't mean we're forbidden from acquiring property or building wealth. But it does mean that we're to live in a way on this earth, always aware that this is not our home, where to store up our treasures, not on Earth, but on heaven. If we get too close and comfortable with the world, we should check ourselves. James 4:47 says, "Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?" Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the scripture says he yearns jealously over the Spirit that He has made to dwell in us. But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore, to God. We need to ask God to give us that Dally Grace to abound in every good work for his name for His glory to live in this tension between heaven and earth. And when we accept that there's freedom in that, the expectations, the lofty expectations of keeping up with the world and their expectations for the nuclear family go away. Accruing wealth is not the solution to all of our problems, but an abiding, steadfast faith in the Lord is what satisfies, and just trusting him day-to-day. He cares for the lilies of the field, the birds of the air, how much more will he care for his children? Lastly, I want to talk about Abraham's Slice. And again, I said earlier, the acquisition of this slice of land in Caanan is described in verses three through 20. I'm not going to read all this out loud again. It's really redundant, which is just characteristic of the language. But the thing that Moses the author of this book wants to highlight, these are only precursors to the story here in this chapter. Notice the respect Abraham show to the Hittites. We have great lessons here to learn how to sojourn from our Father in the faith. There's a nuance to the way in which We sojourn, to the way in which we pursue holiness in God and live in the world. We can be in the world but not of it. Abraham models this for us. Romans 12:14 says "Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord." That's what we're to pursue. That's what Abraham pursues here. 1 Peter 3:13-17 says, "Now, who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good. But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed." Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy. Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do with gentleness and respect having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good if that should be God's will, than for doing evil. Christian sojourners are to give a reason for the hope that is in them yet do it with respect and gentleness. Or even have a good conscience in our treatment of the non-Christians around us, and even those who persecute us. Abraham in this verse six, he shows us this, notice the honor that he shows to them, the respect he shows from them, and the honor that they showed to him. Verse six, "Here as my Lord, you're a prince of God among us. Bury your dead in the choices of our tombs." They view him as a prince of God. They know his reputation that precedes him in the land, and they offer him this generous offer. No one will withhold from you his tomb to hinder you from burying your dead. And again, in verse 11 Ephron says, "No, my Lord. Hear me, I give you the field and I give you the cave that isn't it. In the sight of the sons of my people, I give it to you. Bury your dead." And this is a bit of a cultural dance. This is haggling at the gate with the elders and theologians do argue over whether these were sincere offers for him to take the field freely. Really, the honorable way for him to respond was not to accept the field for free. But all the commentaries agree that this treatment that they are giving him, the way that they are engaging him, according to their cultural norms was an acknowledgement of who he was. They were paying respect to the reputation that preceded him. They see him as a blessed man, a prince of God. They saw that he treated him with respect and they therefore treated him as they did. And we need to learn from that, especially in this season where our society is polarized in a lot of different ways and has been for a couple of years now. There's a narrow path that we as Christians can walk between those poles that we see in the world. We stand on the truth. Notice Abraham spoke with sincerity. What did he say he wanted? He just said he wanted a plot to bury his wife, his dead. We as the church, what do we say we want? We say we want to be able to worship our Lord freely, partake in the elements freely, engage in church disciplines for more holy body freely, and we stand on that. And then we pray that the Lord uses our witness. We pray that the Lord sees our love for one another, and that we are soft and light where we are. And Abraham is a model for that in his faith. There is this nuanced way of walking. And here's how it resulted. In verse 11 we read, "He bowed down before the people in land, he said, he found in the hearing of the people and but if you'll hear me, I give you the price of the field. Accept it from me that I may bury my dead there." Ephron mentioned named a price 400 shekels of silver. It's hard to know that if this was a good price or not, but very likely that this was an exorbitant price. But we see here Abraham, regardless of the price respectfully pays to be at peace with Ephron and all of the people of his city. He valued this opportunity to bury his wife properly, and in the midst of his grief, he was by pursuing the tomb this aggressively, he was making a statement I believe in a God who is going to resurrect me and my wife one day. I want to buy this outright to procure it so that you don't trick me later and take it from me. But this is an act of faith for him before the Hittites. This is his witness to them showing his face to the Lord. And he's able to do this peacefully at relatively little cost to him as a rich wealthy man. So think about the ways, how are you engaging with the world? are you engaging in this polarized state? Or are you finding ways to be at peace but still be holy before the world? And it's hard. And this is, we need wisdom. There's anxiety that just arises when we process what does that look like, especially today, especially in this season, after the past year and a half. But the Lord promises to meet us Dally, and that we need to trust Him. We need to abide in Him. We need to saturate our lives with his word and just keep walking. We can do over activity just trying to enforce our mark in the world. We can be paralyzed under activity, or we can just walk forward with abiding faith, trusting that the Lord will care for us, provide for us, meet our needs, follow through on all of his promises and use us for His glory as we stand on his word. And so, I think about how does this impact how you engage with the world? And so, Abraham, he does in the end, get this field and this is a very specific description of it. It just emphasizing God gives him a slice. So the field of Ephron in Machpelah, which was to the East of Mamre, the field with the cave that was in it, and all the trees that were in the field throughout this whole area was made over to Abraham as a possession in the presence of the Hittites, before all who went at in at the gate of a city. After this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah, East of Mamre the same as Hebron in the land of Canaan. The field in the cave that is in it was made to Abraham, deeded to Abraham as a property for a burying place by the Hittite." And so, Abraham at this point, God promised him that his descendants would be like the stars in the heavens, the sand on the seashore, the dust on Earth, nations would come from him. But what did he see? He only saw his son Isaac. He was promised that the land of Canaan would be his. But what did he get possession of? Only one sliver of land to be used as a burial ground. We could emphasize how little of the fulfillment of God's promises that Abraham saw. But we must also emphasize the fact that the Lord did give him something. He blessed him. He gave him at least a taste of his fulfillment. And you got to think Moses wrote this text before the Israelites were going into the promised land engaging the natives, the locals to conquer this land that was promised to them. God has given Abraham an assurance of, "I am going to follow through and give you your eternal inheritance. I'm going to give you this piece. Your family will get this land." He's communicated to the Israelites, "You will see I gave Abraham this land. I will give you a piece of. I will follow through my promises." And to us, he's saying to us through your faith in Jesus Christ, you will get there. And this is how God, he chooses to accomplish His plan of redemption and little additions over time, little snippets of history. It's like a farmer sowing seed. God gave the promise to Abraham. It's like a farmer scattering seed on the field and on the earth. And when Abraham sees Isaac, he's blessed to see this fruit come about. Just imagine how exciting, how just any of you who garden, just how invigorating it is to see these little elements of the Lord's promises come true, and how invigorating in the faith to continue to strive forward through the sorrow, through the thorns and thistles of death, of life through the sojourning. And it gave Abraham hope to continue on and gave the Israelites hope to continue on, gives us hope to continue on. And this is how the Lord has treated us. God gave Abraham a slice. He saw a slice of land, a tiny fulfillment, tiny taste, but the Lord has done the same for us. This is true and that Christ has come. We haven't received our final inheritance or final fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham to us, but he's given the down payment, a deposit Ephesians 1:13-14 says, "In him, you also when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory." And we need to have seen the first fruits of new creation, when Christ rose from the... And furthermore, we have given for all those who know that the Holy Spirit has awakened our heart and hearts to see our sincere need for Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We know that as a deposit of the promises to be fulfilled. Furthermore, we've seen the first fruits of the new creation, the resurrection when Jesus rose from the grave. The application for us is just like father Abraham. We get to see the new heaven and earth on the last day, and just as he did for Abraham, the Lord has graciously provided us with a foretaste at down payment. When we have our sorrowful days, when sojourning gets difficult, when the reality of death gives us fear and anxiety, we need to believe that the Lord will fulfill those promises. We need to look up from our sorrow and gaze upon the gospel that tells us that Jesus Christ did come and die for us and he did rise from our dead and delivered death its final blow. While we may face challenges in this life, our eternity in the presence of God is secured. What do we have as a reward for our faith? And what do we have access to right now in a spiritual sense to close. Hebrews 12:18 "For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken, you've come to the presence of God as depicted on Mount Zion. But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels and festal gathering and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous, made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel." Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that like our father, Abraham, that your promises would be enough. We pray that we would be encouraged by your generous, just sprinklings of reminders of what our inheritance will look like. We thank you for the courage that you gave Abraham and Sarah to walk faithfully until the end. Lord, we pray, give us courage. Give us faith. Give us a biding faith, trust in you, to guide us day-to-day that we may persevere until the end to your glory. We pray all these things in Jesus name. Amen.
Faith Under Pressure
June 20, 2021 • Genesis 22
Audio Transcript: This media has been available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning. Welcome to Mosaic. My name is Jan, one of the pastors here at Mosaic. If you're new, if your visiting, we'd love to connect with you. We do that through the connection card either virtually in the app or in the website. If you fill it out, we'll be sure to get in touch with you over the course of the week. We also have an app that you can just grab in the back. If you fill it out, just toss it on the white box or leave it at the Welcome Center. Happy Father's Day to all the fathers in the house. Any fathers in the house? Raise your hand. Happy Father's Day. Three. That's many Mosaic for you, many Mosaic. I love Father's Day. I've got four daughters. Praise God. I love Father's Day very much because I don't have to do anything except get one person a gift, and that's different from all the other holidays. One question word before we get into the sermon. So, when we prepare our sermon calendar, we do it about six months in advance. What's important to us is just going through the text. The text is what sets up our preaching calendar. We just go chapter by chapter, verse by verse. That's what we do. We are not a church that plans their sermon calendar around fake hallmark holidays. No offense, none taken, but we get to Father's Day and we're at Genesis 22, and it's the story of Abraham being told by God to sacrifice his son Isaac. What does that have to do with Father's Day? You're about to see everything. I just mentioned that because I see God's divine orchestration and little details like this like when we were at Genesis 19 the week right before Pride Month starts. It's just God showing, "I'm with you, guys. I'm with this church. The Holy Spirit is working in and through you." So, for me, that's really encouraging. I just wanted to share that with you. Would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's holy word? Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a good Father and we love you for that. We thank you that your goodness is poured out on us and your grace and your mercy, but not only. You pour out your grace and mercy on us often in a way that doesn't feel like grace and mercy, doesn't feel like a blessing because, often, you train us. You test us in order to train us to make us stronger, stronger in life, stronger in spiritual warfare, stronger when the next battle comes. We are even more prepared. Therefore, we can have greater victories, therefore, bringing you greater glory. We thank you Lord that you love us so much that you gave your son Jesus Christ for us, that you yourself, you didn't just allow this to happen. You weren't just a passive bystander as your son was being crucified. No, no. You personally evolved, that you put your son to death because that was the only way that we rebels could be forgiven, could be reconciled with you, could be adopted in to your family. It's the only way that the orphans could be named. We thank you Jesus that you were willing to do that, that you submitted perfectly to the will of God. You are the only one who perfectly did that. We thank you Holy Spirit that you take that gospel, that you take that truth and you make us so alive today that our hearts are on fire. I pray Holy Spirit, set more hearts on fire today. Draw people to yourself. Continue to build your church here in this desolate place. We pray that your kingdom flourishes. Bless our time in the holy scriptures. Pray all of this in the beautiful of Jesus Christ. Amen. Title of sermon is Faith Under Pressure. A reality of life, a truth of the universe, and a truth of holy scripture that's at the center of everything is that God is. God is. Whether you like it or not, God is. Whether you like it or not, God does what God wills. Whether you like it or not, God is God over you, and God has demands over you. He demands things of you. What he demands of you is faith in him, a true faith that works itself out in true love. He demands faith. He demands love. He demands obedience. Whether you like it or not, God requires our faith be demonstrated to him in particular when it's the hardest, in particular when we are under pressure. This is the kind of faith that overcomes the world. Faith and obedience are two sides of the same coin. If you believe in God, you have to love God because true faith always leads to true love in God, and you can't say, "I believe in God and I love God," if you don't obey God in particular when it's the hardest. You don't need to exercise faith when things are easy. Thou shalt eat chocolate. You don't need to exercise faith. Thou shalt live any way you want. Thou shalt be the ruler of giving guideline and moral laws for yourself. Thou shalt decide for yourself what is the right thing for you. Thou shalt do what feels good to yourself. Thou shalt live however you want and you will still inherit heaven however you define it. That's not true, and that doesn't need true faith. Now, true faith is exercised when the God of universe demands that we sacrifice that which we love most, and he demands that we sacrifice ourselves, self-denial, our own passions, our own dreams for ourselves, denial of personal desires, and that's what we have with Abraham. Abraham begins to understand that God is God, that God is God. I'll give you an SAT word, maybe a GRE, I don't know. God is peremptory, peremptory. God does not allow room for refusing or denying his will. No. If you do refuse or deny his will, he is going to bring consequences upon you. That's where we are beginning, and that's really the only way of understanding what's about to happen. What's about to happen, it seems cruel. What's about to happen, it seems incredulous. How could you God take a man Abraham, promise him a son, make him wait 25 years and then give him that son, and watch him love that son for over a dozen years as the most precious thing, the apple of his eye, and then go to him and say, "Abraham, I want you to take your son and I want you to offer him up as an offering to me." To really understand this text, you need to understand that Abraham loves God. That's really where we are. Now, what does this have to do with Father's Day? Absolutely everything. I'll tell you just from my personal experience of having a dad and being a dad, four daughters, the absolute most important thing that I can do, the absolute greatest gift that I can give to my daughters is to love God more than them, is to love God more than their mom, more than my wife, is to love God more than anything, and obey him because when I love God and I obey him, they see me making sacrifices because I love God and because I want to obey him and they're like, "You know what, Dad? Your words actually mean something, and I'm going to listen. You have an authority and a respect that you have earned with me, your child, because you are a great child of God the Father." Absolutely, every fathers, the moms or the dads, that's how you become a great parent by submitting to God the Father, walking with God the Father, and then doing what God the Father does to you with your kids. With that said, we're going to read Genesis 22. I'm going to read the whole text because this is one of the greatest text in all of human literature. As you read it, it feels like we're standing on a holy ground. Would you look at the text with me? Genesis 22:1. "After these things God tested Abraham, and said to him, 'Abraham!' and he said, 'Here am I.' He said, 'Take your son, your only son, whom you love, and go to the land Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.' So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; and he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to the young men, 'Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.' And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, 'My father!' And he said, 'Here am I, my son.' He said, 'Behold, the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?' Abraham said, 'God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.' So they went both of them together. When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand, and took the knife to slaughter his son, but the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, 'Abraham, Abraham!' And he said, 'Here am I.' 'Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.' And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked up, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place The Lord will provide; as it is said to this day, 'On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.' The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, 'By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth bless because you have obeyed my voice.' So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beer-sheba; and Abraham lived in Beer-sheba. Now after these things it was told to Abraham, 'Behold, Milcah also has borne children to your brother Nahor: Uz his first-born, Buz his brother, Kemu′el the father of Aram, Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethu′el.' Bethu′el, father of Rebekah. These eight Milcah bore to Nahor, Abraham's brother. Moreover, his concubine, whose name was Reumah, bore Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Ma′acah." This is the reading of God's holy, inherent and fallible authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame up our time: the test, the test passed, and the test rewarded. In verse one, we're told that God has come to test Abraham, "After these things God tested Abraham, and said to him, 'Abraham!' and he said, 'Here I am.' After these things, after what things? After Abraham has walked with God for two and a half decades waiting for the promised son. Finally, the son is born, Isaac. Here, Abraham and Sarah are laughing. Isaac's name means laughter. They're having a good time. They plant a tree, meaning that they're settling down. They're rooted in their community. It feels like Abraham has retired. It feels like Abraham has finally arrived, has finally passed all the tests that God has for him. No. That was just a setup. That was just a preparation for the ultimate test. "After these things God tested Abraham, and said to him, 'Abraham!' and he said, 'Here I am." Information about this is communicated to us by the narrator. It's not communicated to Abraham. Abraham doesn't know it's a test. It's not communicated to him that God never really intended for Abraham to actually kill his son, to actually burn his son's body on the altar. We're told that God does test. Why does God test? God tests us. He tests us to grow our faith. There's a difference between testing and temptation. God tests us to grow our faith. Satan tempts us to destroy our faith. Often, it's the same event. Whatever the event is in our life, God is using, trying to use that event to test us in order to train us, you pass the test, you just got trained, you're stronger now, and Satan is trying to destroy our faith with a temptation. What temptation? To not take the test and say, "God, I don't want the test. It's too hard. I don't want to endure this pain. I want to take the easy way out." Verse two he said, "Take your son." This is the test. "Take your son, your only son, whom you love." God the Father knows that Abraham is a good father who love this son, been waiting for this son, "whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah." By the way, this just came to me. More teenagers in the United States have cellphones than have fathers. It's a fact. That's a fact, that have fathers that love them. To be a father that loves your children it starts with fidelity to the Lord and fidelity to your wife. That's where it starts. "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." None of this really makes sense. This text doesn't really make sense unless you understand the hidden secret in the wording, in the Hebrew wording to show you that this isn't just an account in Abraham's life, that this is the culmination of everything that God has been teaching Abraham. How do we know that? Because twice God comes and tells Abraham the same phrase, "Go there forth. Go forth." Twice that's used in the Hebrew bible, once when God calls Abraham for the first time in Genesis 12:1 and the second time here in Genesis 22, "Go forth to the land I'll show you." This is Genesis 12:1. Now, the Lord said to Abraham, "Go from your country, and your kindred, and your father's house to the land that I will show you." In Genesis 22, it's the same exact language. These are the bookends of the biography of the faith of Abraham. This underscores the deliberate use of parallelism here, that God is calling Abraham to do the same thing that he did that time just on a greater scale. Abraham was called in chapter 12 to go from his father's house and not told precisely where. Here, God says, "Go. I'm going to you. Just keep going." The drama is heightened by a series of terms. In chapter 12, Abraham was told to, "Leave your country." He's told to, "Leave your family and leave your father." God said, "I want to see, Abraham, if you love me more than your family, if you love me more than your country, if you love me more than your father, go. I'll be a father to you." Here, Abraham in chapter 22 was told, "Leave. Take your son, your only son, the son you love. Abraham, do you love me more than your father? Abraham, do you love me more than your son?" That's the test here. In both cases, we see Abraham responds in faith and was rewarded with the promise of glorious posterity. In both cases, we have the record of Abraham building an altar at the end. The word son is used 10 times in the chapter and together with only son and the son whom you love. It just emphasizes the severity of the test. This is a real test. Abraham understands, understands that he needs to act. One of the reasons why a lot of people don't understand Christianity is because a lot of people try to take Christianity like they take a class in college that they audit. There's different class levels. So, in my college, there's a class that you take and you're graded. You can also take classes for pass/fail if it's for a grade. Obviously, you're working harder in any class. You're trying to absorb every single piece of information in the class, in the reading because you don't know what the test will try to expose from your knowledge base. You're paying attention to absolutely everything because you know you will have to use this information. Pass/fail, it would be foolish for you to do slightly more than just enough to pass. Then audit the class, you just go for the entertainment. You just go for the little piece where the professor just goes off the cuff and just tells war stories and jokes and you do that. Then when your mind actually has to focus and you have to do the hard work of learning material, your mind is gone. A lot of people, the problem you don't get what you're supposed to from Christianity, from the faith, and from following God is because you're trying to audit. You show up to church just for a good time or perhaps you'll meet somebody, and then perhaps you'll get the group of friends, you're trying to audit. Then when God's like, "Hey, auditors, you got to take a test," all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, I wasn't ready for that one," and then your faith, it crashes and burns. So, that's my little rant. You're welcome. Abraham was ready for the test. He was ready because he's been walking with God for 25 years. The Lord isn't asking him here. He's telling him, "Take your son." How old was Isaac at this time? The word for boy is the same word that's used of Ishmael in the previous chapter in verse five and 12. He's probably older. He's probably 15-17. The Lord says, "Take this son of your old age " life form, the son whose birth was a miracle, the son for whom you're willing to do everything and anything. He's the apple of your eye, the son upon whom you put all of your hopes and dreams for the future, 'You are all my hopes and dreams. You are the fulfillment of everything.'" God shows up and says, "Take the son. I want you to sacrifice him," to a man who's already lost a son. God's already told him, "Send Ishmael away." So, because of God, he's already lost one son and it looks like he's going to lose a second son. How does Abraham feel? The text doesn't say. It doesn't tell us one detail of how he feels. Obviously, his heart break. Obviously, his heart is torn asunder. Obviously, there's shock and there's numbness. "What on earth, Lord, are you feeling? How can you call me to do this?" Are you calling me to child sacrifice like the Canaanite gods, like the American gods, sacrificing millions of babies in abortion? Is that what you're calling me to, God?" No, no. Abraham knows deep inside no. No. The first word that God game me, and there's a second word that God gave me, and there's the middle that I just don't understand. The first word that God gave me is it's through Isaac that your offspring is going to be blessed. He is the child of the promised. He gets that. Then he gets to another word and says, "You need to sacrifice the son." Abraham looks here and says, "I don't understand the connection between the two, but you, God, have always been faithful and fulfilling, all of your promises. I'll do what you tell me to do. You've given me marching orders, and I'm going to start marching." What a sleepless, troubled, tortured night he must have had. God probably came to him in a dream. How did he know it was God? He's heard God's voice. He's walked with God for 25 years. He knows what GOd's voice sounds like. Here, we see Abraham at night, get a glimpse of the awful struggle of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he's under so much duress, so much pressure, so much anxiety of what's about to happen, praying to God, "Let this cup pass from me." So much pressure that the capillaries on his face are bursting, and he's sweating blood. Jesus Christ, he knows what's coming. He said, "God, don't ask me to do this. There's got to be another way. Not my will but yours be done." In Genesis 22:3, "Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey." Rising early shows promptness, a resolution despite the gut-wrenching, heartbreaking difficult of the assignment, he said, "God told me to do it. I'm going to do it." "Saddles his donkey. Took two of his men and his son Isaac and cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him." We can see in the order of what's happening how distraught he is. We see a glimpse of his mind. First, he saddles the donkey, then he calls the servants, the young men, and then he cuts the wood. It should be the other way around. It should be you call the to help you chop the wood and then you saddle the donkey. What we see is perhaps he's so distraught he can't think straight or perhaps he's postponing the most painful part of the preparation, but what we don't see here is him pushing back at God. What we don't see here is the Abraham that's debating God, negotiating with God. When God told him, "I'm going to punish and condemn Sodom and Gomorrah," we don't see any negotiation. This right here, I'm going to give you a working definition of God because everybody worships. Everybody worships. Everybody has a god or a lot of gods. Working definition of god is what's your non-negotiable. What's your non-negotiable? What's that one thing you can't touch this. If God tells you, "Hey, I want you to sacrifice that thing from your life. I want you to cut that thing out of your life. I want you to mortify that thing in your life," and you say, "God, no." Well, that's your real god. It could be sex. It could be power. It could be a relationship. It could be your career. It could be money. Whatever it is, that's your real god. What we see with Abraham here is God has finally become his non-negotiable. When God speaks, I'm not even going to negotiate. Do I understand? I do not understand, but I do understand that his ways are above my ways, greater than my ways, and often counterintuitive to my ways. God's mind isn't just higher than ours. God loves to do the counterintuitive. God's wisdom is the opposite of human wisdom. So, he does it, and he gets the marching orders and he kept going. Verse four, "On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar." Just think about this. Just go there. Three days. Three days with your son. You know what you have decided to do. You're walking with your beloved son for three days just having conversations with him about life, about God, "Dad, isn't God so great? Dad, isn't God just so incredible on how much he's blessed us?" Sitting around the campfire at night before they go to sleep while looking at the stars. Abraham's thinking, "God, you promised me, I'm going to have more descendants than the stars in the heavens, and the one descendant that you've given me, you're telling me to kill." Having that conversation, savoring the last moments together, protracted, sustain obedience, step after step after step after step. Finally, he gets to this place. We're not told how he knows this. Perhaps divine intuition that God gives him or a sign. Verse five, "Then Abraham said to his young men, 'Stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship and come back to you.'" You read this and you don't notice much going on here if you just read it from the perspective of the Old Testament, but the New Testament commenting on this verse points out the fact that Abraham had said to his servants, "I and the boy. We together are going to go up to the mountain. We together are going to worship and we together are going to come back." It's not even just faith. It's faith that's morphed in the knowledge, "I know this is fact that we're coming back together, and unless we're together, we're not coming back." Hebrews 11:17-19, the commentary, "By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son of whom it was said through Isaac shall your offspring be named." He considered that God was able to raise him from the dead, from which figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. Abraham, he knew. He didn't know all the details, but he knew God was going to work it out. He knew that even if he actually killed his son Isaac, which he had decided to do in his heart, he knew that God could bring him back. He believed in the resurrection. This is before he had the witness of the New Testament that God brought his son back from the dead, that God brought Lazarus back from the dead, that God brought people back from the dead. Abraham had no witness, he just had the fact the omnipotent God of the universe can do whatever he wants. He has the power. Also, he's faithful to his word. Abraham had been told by God more than once, "It's Isaac. It's Isaac. He is the fulfillment of the promise, and Abraham's faith was like those of who believe that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead as Hebrews tells us. Did Abraham understand what God had ordered him to do? No. He didn't understand at all. He couldn't know what was about to pass, but he knew that God is good and God is great. It's one thing to sacrifice your son, to pierce his heart with your knife because you know that is the most painless way to go. To torch the wood and to see your son going up in flames and with him all of your hopes and dreams. That's one thing. It's another thing of doing, of making the greatest sacrifice that God calls you to make knowing that the resurrection is true, and because the resurrection is true, every single sacrifice that we make for God is absolutely worth. This is the Christian life, trusting God to be true to his word no matter the circumstance, no matter your bafflement at God, "How can this be the plan?" No matter your bafflement at God of how you're managing the things in the world, no matter your ability to explain. You know who he is. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your understanding. God often does things that are difficult for us to train us, to strengthen us, to make us better servants of him, and he does that because he's good father. He believes in us. A good father who believes in his kids will make his kids do hard things. It's the father who has no faith in their children and says, "Do whatever you want. I don't care. You want to eat whatever? You eat whatever you want. You don't want to do your homework? Don't do your homework because I don't believe in you." That's not love, that's hate. It's the loving the father. I was with my daughter. We got four daughters. So, I've been putting this stuff into practice for a while, for a decade, actually, so I've got two PhDs on being a dad. I was with my daughter doing Math and because of online school, her teacher basically stopped teaching. That's what happened. Then they went back from remote and in-person and her teacher said, "You know what? I still don't feel comfortable going back in-person." So, they started piping her teacher into the class and no one learned anything. So, I'm doing Math with my daughter. We were doing two numbers times two numbers like 22 times 22, whatever. I'm showing her how to do that, and then she said, "Let's do three number times three numbers." I said, "Oh, great." As soon as we wrote down the number, she starts crying. I said, "Baby," I took a napkin. I said, "Baby, I love you. Look me in the eyes. I love you. Wipe off your tears. This isn't time for emotion. Emotion has nothing to do with Math. Turn off your emotion and turn on your brain." You know what? It worked. It worked. I always thought because I got raised by a Russian dad. My dad's name is Vladimir Viktorovich Vezikov. I thought his parenting style was just Russian, where he made me do hard things. Five years old, I'm like, "Pops, can I have some money for ice cream?" "No, but you can come paint with me in my painting company," at five years old. "Here's a paintbrush. Here's a little roller. Here's a little scraper." He got me the smallest versions of each. "I'm going to make you do hard things." I look back now and it's not because it wasn't a loving thing. It was a Christian thing. He knew God the Father. God the Father sometimes, it feels like he's cruel with us, calls us to do things that are punishingly difficult, and then you do them, and you look back and you say, "Thank you. Thank you, Dad." I think that's what's missing with American parenting, by the way. We cuddle our kids, and then we wonder why when the kids graduate college they have absolutely zero life skills. They're just grown man child, especially with the men. So, free parenting lesson from here. Make your kids do hard things. Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans for welfare and not for evil to give you a future and a hope." A lot of modern American church loves this verse. This is on so many mugs and bumper stickers. We love this church. God has great plan for us, a plan to prosper for us. It's for our welfare, et cetera. Hey, by the way, is God blessing Abraham here in the story? It doesn't feel like a blessing, but he is. It doesn't feel like a blessing. Often, God's greatest blessings don't feel like blessings at the moment. One of the reasons why the American church is where it is is because we've got to the point where feelings overrule faith, that if it doesn't feel good, I don't have to believe it. If I don't like it, then I can cut it out of my bible, and now it's feelings that are really God instead of God telling us to believe and that faith is what controls our feelings. Faith says, "I don't get it." Faith can even say, "I don't like it, but God told me to do it. I'm going to do it because he is God. I'm going to put another one foot in front of the other in obedience nevertheless." Verse six, "Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife so they went both of them together." Here, you can't but think about Jesus Christ with the cross, wooden cross on his back and Isaac here is walking with the wood on his back like a condemned man carrying his cross and Abraham walking along side of him carrying the instruments of death, the fire and the knife. You see the father and the son together as they approach the time and place of sacrifice. Verse seven, "Isaac said to his father Abraham, 'My father,' and he said, 'Here I am, my son,' and he said, 'Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?'" Isaac is thinking. He breaks the oppressive silence and the narrator emphasizes the sacred precious relationship between father and son, where Isaac says, "My father," and these words must have cut and pierced to the heart of Abraham sharper and more painful than Abraham's knife into the heart of Isaac, "My father." Abraham said to him, "God will provide for himself the lamb for burnt offering, my son." So they went both of them together. When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar and there laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. We don't know if there was a conversation here, but Isaac is probably a smart guy and he understands exactly what's happening, "Oh, we're building the altar. There's no lamb. Oh, the wood is there. Oh, it's in order. The fire is ready. Oh, there's ropes. Oh, those ropes are for me." It's fascinating here that Isaac could have run away. We know he's strong enough to run away, old enough to run away because he carried the wood off the mountain. So, if he carried the wood off the mountain, then he's stronger than 100-year-old guy, probably 115-year-old guy. He doesn't do any of that. I used to wrestle with my dad. My dad loves wrestling. He loves combat sports. He's savage, Soviet savage. That's my dad. We used to wrestle all the time. We used to wrestle all through elementary school, just wrestle every day. Then I started high school wrestling. Then 10th grade, my dad just stopped wrestling me, just done. "Pops, you want to wrestle?" "Nope, nope," because what? Because he understood it's changed. The power has changed. Isaac doesn't run away and Isaac doesn't fight his dad. Isaac submits to his father because he sees Abraham submitting to his father. That's what's happening here. So, this isn't just for Abraham. This is for God to show Isaac, "Hey, look how much your dad loves me. Your dad loves me more than he loves you." Now, if you are going to understand what it means to walk with God, you Isaac need to have your own faith where you love me above all else. You see Isaac surrendering himself to death in submission to his father, and in submission to God, and this is nothing short of heroic. Verse 10, "Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son." Takes the knife, most likely the same knife that he used to circumcise his son eight days after he was born. Takes that knife and he's about to plunge it into the heart of his son. Both of them weeping, Abraham willing to sacrifice what he love most, whom he love most, for whom he love most, and then the culmination of the text, the culmination of this whole episode, the story of Abraham, the greatest moment of Abraham's life, but the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham," and he said, "Here I am." The angel of the Lord definite article, other times in the narrative where we've seen this we know it's a theophany. It could be argued. It's a Christophany. It could be argued. This is Jesus Christ himself stopping Abraham as he's about to offer up his son. Abraham's passed the test. Verse 12, "He said, 'Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him for now I know that you fear God seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.'" Abraham lifted up his eyes and he looked, and behold, behind him was a ram caught in the thicket by his horns, and Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. "For now I know that you fear God." It doesn't say, "Now I know that you love God more than anything." It says fear God because, ultimately, the way that you love God is to fear God. You can't love God without fearing him with this awe and a reverence because you understand who he is. The more you love him, the more you know who he is. The more you know who he is, the more you fear him. Do you love him? Do you fear him? Do you obey him? That's the connection. Then the key phrase of this text is instead of his son, he takes the ram and he offers it, instead of his son. The ram dies, the son goes free, and this is the very first explicit explanation of substitutionary atonement in all of scripture. Scripture says substitutionary atonement is one life dying for the sake of another, sacrifice of one life for the sake of another or others. The scriptures are about God's work in the life of people. That's true. The scriptures are about obedience to God's commandments. That's true. The scriptures are about how we ought to live by faith to God and obedience. Even if you're not familiar with Christianity, even if you have never read the bible, even if you think that the first books of the bible are Genesis, exorcism, Leviathan, and do the right thing, and if you didn't laugh, then you really don't know the bible. This just proves it. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy. You know that Christianity is about morality, doing the right things, right? You know that. Everybody knows that because that's from the sheer volume of teaching of scripture. That's the thing that's repeated more than anything else, but that's looking at a house and saying, "The most important thing about this house is the house." False. None of that matters without the foundation. The foundation of God's divine intervention in the world to save people. God intervenes and there's various ways to talk about God's intervention, salvation of the world, divine election, regeneration of sinful human hearts by the Holy Spirit, consummation of all things at the second coming of Christ, but central to divine intervention is the work of God on behalf of sinful, unworthy human beings through substitutionary atonement. It's embedded in the religious practices of the law of Moses, of the people of Israel. It was a regular, highly organized essential feature of the Israel's religious life. Sacrifices explicitly for the purpose of atonement to remove sin, achieved through the death of an animal. You literally, you bring an animal to the high priest at the temple and you put your hands on that animal, and you just feel in that moment that this animal is about to be slaughtered because of my sin. You put your hands there. Transfer of guilt goes on that animal that did nothing wrong, did nothing wrong. The animal is slaughtered because of your guilt, because your guilt, your sin, my sin, it deserves death. That's what we deserve. The penalty for sin is death. Then the blood was taken, sprinkled, splashed on the people. So, just graphically emblazoning on their minds that this is what we deserve. As time passes, revelation of reality of substitutionary atonement is advanced. As it's advanced, it reaches its Old Testament culmination, Isaiah 53, but the suffering servant and it reads as if it had been written beneath the cross of Calvary. Isaiah 53:6, "All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him singular the inequity of us." So, a historical person who would bear the weight of the penalty for sin of every single person who would trust in him, who in all of human history could do that? Who's that one person who could do that for absolutely everyone? That's our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. The only one who's truly perfect, the son of God and the son of man who came to reconcile us with God. Verse 14, "So Abraham called the name of that place The Lord will provide; as it is said to this day, 'On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.'" This right here is the first incident of substitutionary atonement that is developed later in Isaiah 53, but, ultimately, we see this culminating in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ comes, starts as ministry. John the Baptizer, his cousin, points to Jesus Christ and said, "That's the Lamb of God who will take on the sins of the world." Jesus lives a sinless life, perfect life, perfect submission to God, perfect fear and reverence to God and love toward people. Then he goes and he's crucified because he claimed to be God. He kept claiming to be God. Finally, he's crucified for that claim, and on the cross, Jesus Christ is bearing the wrath of God that we deserve. He is our substitutionary atonement. He is the Lamb of God that dies instead of us. Jesus in my place, that's the heart of Christianity. So, Christianity isn't what you do for God. That's not where it starts. Christianity is what God did for you. That's always been like that. God goes to Israel and said, "I'm the one that led you out of captivity. Therefore, here's the 10 commandments. I saved you, now this is how to live." What's fascinating here is Abraham is at the absolute righteousness pinnacle of his life. His faith has never been stronger. His obedience has never been more resolute, and even at his greatest moment, he needs substitutionary atonement, which shows us that every single one, no matter how good you are, you can't save yourself from God's wrath for the sin you deserve by atoning for your own sins. Even if you say, "From now on I'm going to live a perfect life and I'm going to do everything I possibly can to atone for all my past sins," that's not Christianity. It's not atonement. It's substitutionary atonement. We need someone else to die for us, and the only one who did it perfectly was Jesus Christ. Then we see point three, the test rewarded. Verse 15, "But the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, 'By myself I have sworn.'" That's fascinating. So, the angel says from the Lord, "The Lord is swearing by himself." Why is the Lord swearing by himself? Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you you?" That's going on. "I swear to me." That's what God is doing. Why is God doing that? Because there is no higher authority than God. God is the highest authority that there is, "By myself I have sworn," declares the Lord. "Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, as the sand that is on the seashore, and your offspring has possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice, because you have obeyed my voice." That's where the stress is laid here. This is how the text ends. The narrative ends with this, "Because you've obeyed my voice." Promise of God's covenant had to be claimed by an obedient faith, which is fascinating because you look at this promise. Word for word, it's the same thing as in Genesis 12. Genesis 12, God came before Abraham had done everything and God made him a promise, "I'm going to promise to bless you. I promise to bless your family. I promise to give you a promised child. I promise to bless the nations. I promise." At the end he says, "Oh, yeah. I'm going to do all of that because you have obeyed my voice." I thought we were saved by grace, through faith, not by works. It's together, friends. If you're saved by grace through faith, then you truly will have works. We're saved grace through faith, but work out your salvation with fear and trembling. The gift is given and it's guaranteed, but you still have to obey and live with obedient faith. My first job out of college was working for a consulting firm in Washington, D. C. My consulting firm, long story, they hired me, but they hired me when one company bought another company and then they hired. So, CGI bought AMS, and then they fired all the people in the internals of AMS and then they realized, "Well, we can't merge. We need these people back." So, I got hired at a time where my boss is like, "Hey, I got fired and then rehired, and I know I'm going to get fired as soon as the transition happens. They hired more people to help with the transition, but, yeah, I don't have any work for you because we're going to just work for a few months." So, long story short. So, I had a lot of time on my hands. So, I started, and I got out of school. I started a painting business on the side. I would clock in to work, come in, shake some hands, drink some coffee, and then I would change my clothes, get in to my paint truck and then go paint some houses. So, I had this tremendous little gig going. It's like people getting multiple jobs during COVID because everyone is working from home. So, I'll just tell you this one story. One guy is like, "Hey, I like you and I trust you. I'm going away. Here's a check for the total amount of what it's going to take to paint my house. It's $4,500. Here's the check right away. I'm leaving. I'll be back in a few weeks." I'm like, "Okay." I just met the guy two days ago. I didn't have a website because I didn't really register my business with anybody. I was like, "I could literally take this check right now and just put it in my account and do nothing." Then I realized, "No. I'm a Christian. I'm not going to do that." I think that's what a lot of people do with Christianity. You're saved by grace through faith. Great. I got the check. My turn to be secure. All my sins are forgiven past, present, and future. You still got to paint the house. That's the point. The point is payment is guaranteed. We got to do the work. It's not just because God demands it, but he does, but it's also because the more that we do, the more that we train our own lives, the more people we can bless, and that's what happened with Abraham. That's what happened with Isaac and later on. The other thing I want to point is where's Jesus in this text. Obviously, Jesus is everywhere in this text. The whole story is a depiction of the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Actually, the story doesn't make sense apart from the New Testament and apart from the gospel. Apart from the New Testament, God here telling Abraham to literally sacrifice his child, which sounds capricious. This is all to point to Jesus Christ. Where do I see that? I see it in multiple places, but just talking about geography. God says, "Go to the mountain of Moriah." Why is that significant? Where do we see the mountain of Moriah in other places of the scripture. Mountain of Moriah is the place King David buys a threshing floor in Araunah for the temple, the site of the temple. He has a dream to build the temple of God himself. He buys the land. He has all the materials ready and God said, "No, you're not doing it. Your son Solomon will do it." 2 Chronicles 3:1, "Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to David his father at the place that David had appointed on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite." Mount Moriah is the place that King David wanted to build a temple. Finally, Solomon builds the temple, and this is the place where hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of animals are sacrificed, where there were rivers of animal blood sacrifice. Blood was coming from the river. This is the same place where Calvary was, except Calvary was just outside of the gate of the temple. So, as you see, Isaac going with his father, son and father going up the mountain, you can see Jesus Christ on the Via Dolorosa and he's not just carrying the cross by himself. He's carrying the cross with his father. His father is right there with him. Why did God have to do this cruel thing to Abraham? Why did God have to do this? He does this to show us the glimpse of God's great love for us, and that he was willing to endure the cruelty of the cross, and not just that, but endure the tension and the relationships, the severing of the relationship in the Holy Trinity. God the Father, God the Son on the cross. God the Father isn't just a passive bystander. He's the one with the knife over his son, piercing his son's heart. How does God the Father pierce the heart of God the Son? God the Son cries out and says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" God the Father silent. With the silence, he pierces the son's heart and the son dies, and that's the penalty. That's God bearing the penalty that we deserve. We deserve God the Father to never speak to us again and leave us to ourselves in a place called hell. Jesus Christ experienced that for us. Why? Because that's what it took and he was willing to take it because he loves us. Romans 8:31-32, what then shall we say to these things. If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Jesus Christ goes to the place of sacrifice as a son of God, and there is no substitute for him. There is no ram caught in the thicket because Jesus Christ was the substitute. I wonder what happened with Abraham and Isaac when they got home. I wonder if Abraham told Sarah any of this. I definitely wouldn't. "Honey, how was your camping trip?" "Oh, it was wonderful. It was wonderful." Both of them aged 80 years. "It was wonderful. It was great." You know and I know when all of this was said and done that Abraham looked back and he would have never traded that experience for anything. He wouldn't have traded the experience of him walking up the mountain of Moriah, the preparing of the altar, the preparing of the knife, hearing Christ himself stop him because Christ himself would take the knife himself. He would never have traded those experiences for a few more uneventful days at home. Difficult as they were, these were the greatest days of his life. What are our favorite stories? My favorite stories are war stories, and not made up war stories. War stories from people who have gone to war, those are my favorite war stories. My dad, all the time, he served in the Soviet Army because you had to, and that's what made my dad my dad. All the time just war stories, not real war, but it's like, "Yeah. You know who still holds the Soviet record for pullups with boots on and a coat? Yeah, I do. Yeah." I think he does. I don't know. He could have made that up. We never fact checked him, Vlad. I don't know about that. I don't know. You know what it takes to get war stories? It takes going to war. It takes going through events like this. Then you come out and you're stronger. You're just a different person. Pascal said in his Ponce, he said, "There's some pleasure in being onboard a ship battered by storms when one is certain of not perishing." I think Abraham became a much better dad after this because he realized, "You know what? Isaac's not my son. Isaac is a gift. I need to steward this gift well, and then God will do whatever he wants with the gift." What's most important here and this is the last text, verse 20 to verse 24, what we see here is a transition from the story of Abraham to the story of Isaac, a transition from one generation to the next, a transition not just of life, but of faith. I won't read the whole text, but I'll just point out verse 23, "Bethu′el father of Rebekah." This is important because Rebekah then becomes the wife of Isaac, but all this is showing us that now there's a transition. Now, the camera is fading from Abraham to Isaac. "Abraham, you've done your job. You've fathered well. You've been a son to God the Father and you've done a great job, and you've fathered your son well. Time for your son to take over." In conclusion, given the great sacrifice of God for us, what are you just unwilling to sacrifice right now? What is there in your life that you are just clinging on to and you know that God is calling you to sacrifice this? What is it? It might be a sin. It might be a good thing. It might be a dream that God has given you and this dream is from God, but you've begun to love this dream more than God himself. Perhaps you got to sacrifice that dream or that desire or that wish. What is God's calling you to lay on the altar in obedience to his will, to his plan? He knows best, and the resurrection makes every sacrifice worth it. Few verses from the gospels, and then we'll close with prayer. Matthew 10:37, "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Matthew 19:27-30, "Then Peter said in reply, 'See, we've left everything and followed you. What then will we have?' Jesus said to him, 'Truly I say to you, in the new world, when the son of man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. Everyone who has left houses,'" with parking lot, with parking space, "'or brother or sisters or mother or father or mother or children or lands, backyards, for my name's sake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life, but many who are firsts will be last, and lasts first." If you're not a Christian, if you're not a believer, today we call you. Repent of your sin. Repent of your rebellion, and look to the cross of Jesus Christ where God the Father was willing to do in giving up God the Son, bore the penalty for your sin. Repent of your sin and turn to him in faith. If you are a Christian, ask now for the Lord in prayer and worship to search in you and give you discernment if there's any area of life that you haven't really offered up to the Lord, that you haven't consecrated to the Lord. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this holy scripture. It seems like we're standing on holy ground seeing Abraham, the pinnacle of his faith, the culmination of his faith, that he was willing to sacrifice what or whom he loved most for you because you're worthy of this love. You're deserving of this love. You're deserving of the greatest amount of love that we can muster. You're deserving of it. By the power of the Holy Spirit, expend our hearts to love you more and to love neighbor as self. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Plant a Tree in the Desert
June 13, 2021 • Tyler Burns • Genesis 21
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning church, and welcome to Mosaic Boston Brookline. My name is Tyler. As Pastor Andy said in the beginning, I am the teen's director here. And it is an honor and privilege to be preaching God's Word to all of us today. And if you will with me, we're going to go on a quick journey back to get a glimpse into high school Tyler's life. It's a dark and scary place. Only be real quick, we're going to get out real fast, but we're going to go there for a second. And when I was in high school, I had a good friend, his name was Rich. And Rich loved working out. And he wanted me to start working out with him. I was, at that time, 150 pounds soaking wet, scrawny kid. And he was like, "You like theology, though. So in Revelation, it says that we're going to fight a war with Jesus. And so you need to get buffed for that war." First off, it's bad theology. That's not how bodies work in heaven and that's not how the war works. It says that a flaming sword comes out of Jesus' mouth and all his enemies are gone. So, that's bad theology, but it convinced me. I started working out. And again, I was super light, just wanted to get working out, wanted to have a good time, get stronger. And I was doing that... Sorry, my mic's falling off, I could tell. And then a friend of ours, Greg, started also coming in and working out with us. And we were having a good time. And he was also about my weight. We were the same size. And so we started competing with one another. And we set up a benching competition, because we are high school boys, all you care about is benching, you don't care about anything else. And so we were like, "Let's have a competition who can bench the most weight, just straight up most weight. If you do the same weight, then we'll go to reps, like whoever does more reps, then they win." So we give ourselves a week to train. We start preparing. We start working out. He's taking pre-workout. He's taking creatine. He's doing all that stuff. I'm not, I don't care. And he's a trash talker. I don't know if you know trash talkers. I'm not a trash talker. If you ever want to shut down a trash talker, all you do, you smile, you nod, and you say, "Okay." Trash talkers feed off of trash-talking. If you give it to them, they give it back and they grow and they get amped and they get excited. So my friend Greg, I just said, "Okay, let's see." He's talking trash saying, "I'm going to beat you. I'm stronger than you. I'm better than you," all this. "Okay." He goes first. I said, "Honor, honor first, you go first." He starts benching. Okay, we're both around 150 pounds. "I know Tyler can do his own weight, so I'm going to do 175, 175, that's what I'm doing." He goes, he pushes one and he pushes two. And he's jacked. He's like, "Yeah, I did two over my own body weight. Let's see you beat that." Now this is going to date myself a little bit. But if you remember the old Tootsie Roll Pop commercials, yeah, I channeled that owl in my reps. I went one, a two, a three. And that's right, I crushed it, I had three reps at 175. I destroyed him by a whole rep. And my friend Rich who was the one who brought us together was like, "All right guys, come on. Now let's actually work out." And he goes to bench. And I spot him because I'm a good friend. And he starts throwing up to 225 10 reps, three sets of 10 reps. It was deflating. I just spent everything I could doing, the moment there was a week of build up to this moment that I was so excited for. It was a joyous victory. It was a victory, nonetheless. But I was completely overshadowed by someone who wasn't even trying to overshadow us. And I realized in that moment, yes, I had a victory, but what he was doing was better than what I was doing. And that's really the story of this text that we see. We see a great highlight, a great moment that we are celebrated, but it gets completely overshadowed by someone else. And we will be spending our time in Genesis chapter 21. And it's the story of the birth of Isaac. We have been waiting since Genesis chapter 12 to have this birth happen. We have been waiting for this moment. And it's an exciting one. But we're going to see that the story is not about Isaac. It's not about Abraham. It's not about Sarah. Someone else overshadows them. Will you pray with me over the preaching of God's Word? Heavenly Father, Lord, we come to you now knowing that all is for you, all is for your glory. You are the one, true, everlasting God. In this time, help us to learn and study from your word, your inerrant, infallible, authoritative word. Help us to love it, to cherish it, to see who you are through this text and turn that knowledge and understanding about you and to praise because, Lord, you alone are worthy of our praise. Lord, bless this time and speak through me and to all of us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Again in Genesis chapter 21, it's a long one. So we're going to read it in sections as we go along, but we're going to be spending that time in three points. The first point is God is precise, God is protector, and God is praiseworthy. Again, you will notice there are no points about Abraham, Sarah, or Isaac, because the story is not about them. The story is about God. So will you read with me either on the screens or in your Bibles? Genesis chapter 21 verses 1 through 7, it says, the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, "God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh over me." And she said, "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age." Again, we've been waiting for this moment since chapter 12. Abraham has been holding on to this promise that God has given him waiting for this moment. And we get seven verses. Now I want to be clear, I guarantee you there was celebration in Abraham and Sarah's life and in their family and their household. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying the text isn't emphasizing that. The text is emphasizing the Lord in Hebrew, word order is important, but it's important because the sooner it comes up, the more important it is. If it comes first in a sentence, it's saying this is the important thing, let's pay attention to it. And to us, the sentence "The Lord visited Sarah," seems, okay, that's just good English grammar. But in Hebrew, it could go any way you want it to go, but the first word is Yahweh, starting the text saying, "Pay attention to the Lord." And five times in seven verses, we get the name of God, we get the Lord. Only three times do we get Isaac. It's saying, "Pay attention to God here, pay attention to God here." And in the Hebrew, the end of verse 2, we say at the time God had appointed, it ends with the word God. It ends with God. It's making this loop. God was there in the beginning, God is there at the end, he is also there in the middle in case you don't get it. This is all about God. And so the thing we have to be thinking is what can we learn from this text about who God is? What is God revealing to us about his nature? And the first thing we learn is that God is precise. He is precise in his words and in his actions. It says the Lord visited Sarah, as he had said in the exact way in which he had told her that she would be the one to bear a son. God did that, he visited her. And the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. Again, he had promised this multiple times to them, to remind them, "You need to remember, this is me who's doing this." And he does it. As he said, word and in deed, and specifically, it says at the time in which God had appointed. So this was in Genesis chapter 18 verse 10, God said, "This time next year she will conceive and bear Son." God did everything exactly as he said it. And it's intentional. God didn't say, "Oh, you have a kid. I said it would be a son but it's really a daughter. I said, it would be through Sarah, but Ishmael is good, you should take Hagar. And Ishmael, that'll be your son." No, Abraham pleads that to God and God says, "No, it's Isaac." He is precise in his promises. And what we see is Abraham's response to God's precision is to be precise back. In verse 3, it says, "Abraham called on the name of his son who was born to him who Sarah bore him, Isaac." Why is this? God told him to name his son Isaac. Abraham didn't say, "Oh yeah, but I like Abraham Jr. better. So I'm going to go with Abraham Jr." No, he followed God's saying. Abraham didn't say, "Well, I'm not actually Jewish," Jewish people, like he's the founder of it. So they weren't thinking of it. I'm from Chaldeans. I'm going to go to Ugaritic which is my native language and I'm going to call Isaac laughter in Ugaritic, whatever that word may be," because it means the same thing. No, he is precise. He does exactly what God says. And in verse 4, "And Abraham circumcised his son when he was eight days old, as God commanded." God said eight days. Abraham didn't say, "Oh, eight days is close enough to a week. Seven days, I'll do seven days." No, eight. He didn't say, "Oh, God, I just woke up. It's the ninth day. I'm sorry. I just had a newborn child. I lost track of all time and I don't know what day it is. I thought it was the eighth day. It's the ninth today. Lord, will you forgive me? I'm going to circumcise him." No. No, he was precise in his actions and in his words. And this is something that our culture of Christianity has oftentimes lost and it's really sad, because God is precise and we need to be precise back. And there's this old story from the 16th century of a pastor named Richard Rogers. I like to think of him as Mr. Rogers. I picture him with a sweater. And he was riding around on a horse, as all pastors do. I'm not a pastor because I'm not up here on a horse. If I was up here on a horse, you would know I was a pastor. That's not true, sorry. He's riding around on a horse with the lord of the land. Oh boy, what time to be alive. He's riding around with the lord of the land, and the lord of the land goes to him, Mr. Rogers riding on a horse, and says, "Why are you so precise?" He recognized in his language and what he was saying he's being precise about life, precise about theology, precise about God, and Richard Rogers' response is. "Oh, Sir, I serve a precise God. And when we serve a precise God, he calls us to be precise back." And J. I. Packer has a book called the Puritan Papers. And in this he commentates on a lot of the Puritan movement, but he also commentates on that exact story. And on that exact story, J. I. Packer says, "A precise God, a God, that is, who has made precise disclosure of his mind and will in Scripture, and who expects from his servants a corresponding preciseness of belief and behavior, it was this view of God that created and controlled the historic Puritan outlook." I'm not here to say Puritans are perfect. They all had their issues. Every human being has their issues. But one thing we can learn from the puritanical movement, he said, they cared about the precision of God's word about exactly as how God disclosed himself to be. And that we should desire to be just as precise in our beliefs and behaviors or in our words and our deeds. Now, what does that look like? That could be easy to say, but what does that look like? Precise in behavior, I think, is the easier one to start with. A lot of times you ask people about their life, how are they. Oh, I tried to be a good person. Our behavior is we try to be good people. That's very general, it's not precise. As Christians, we can be precise. It's not that we're trying to be good people. We're trying to do the will of the Lord. It's very precise. It's very specific. And we can be precise. And when we want to get even more precise, we don't say, well, when certain situations come up, I try and understand like what do I feel is best to do. Now, we can be precise. God has given us his word, where he is precise with what we are to do and what we are not to do. And so we can be precise, where do I need to grow in my life, where do I need to change my behavior? Well, what does Scripture say? The Scripture says, "Thou shalt not murder." So good, done, I'm good to go. But it gets more precise. "Thou shall not hate your brother in your heart." How many of us are perfect at that? None of us. We got to work on that. And so when we want to know how to be precise in our behavior, we go to Scripture, to see what we are to do. Now, how do we be precise in our words? I want to be clear first off wit, this is not. This is not arguing about semantics. In 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 14 and 15, it says, "Remind them of these things and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who needs not to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth." So it's not quarreling over words. It's not semantics. It's not about that. But what it is about is rightly handling the word of truth. Are we handling truth? Are we speaking truth when we are talking about God? When we are talking about spirituality, are we truthful? Are we accurate in our truth? And again, none of us are perfect. But is this even a desire? Is this even something that we are striving for? This is something we have lost and I want us to all grow back. And I need to grow back on this. None of us are perfect but we need to desire to be precise and speaking truth about God. And when I was thinking about an exact example of this, the first thing came to mind is an example that we hear all the time. And you will see in storefront windows and in signs in front of people's houses, there's usually a sign with a lot of things. It says, "We believe." And it has a lot of things listed. But the largest letters is always love is love. Is that a true or false statement? It's true. It's true. The law of identity says that something is the same thing as itself. Love is love. I am Tyler. That is a correct statement. But the issue we should have as Christians is it's not precise. It's not precise. And Scripture is precise about what love is. This comes from the Book of 1 John. If you ask anyone, "Describe an attribute of God," or, "How can you describe love?" the first thing most Christians say is God is love. That is true. That comes from 1 John chapter 4 verse 16. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love. And whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. Great. God is love. That's true. It's also not that precise. But John is precise. He gives surrounding texts to be precise. He says that abiding in love is the same as abiding in God. Those are the same things. Abiding in love, what does that mean? I think that one's pretty obvious and John explains it in the surrounding text. It's to be loving and to understand what love is. He says, by this we know love. So to talk about abiding love is love. This is his definition of love, to abide in God. What does it mean to abide in God? Again, John is precise. He tells us in the verse before... I hid it until now, so little surprise. But in John chapter 4 verse 15, right before this, he says, "Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God." This is called a parallelism. It's the same exact phrase. It's whoever confesses Jesus is God, the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. Then it's the same thing. Abiding in love is God abiding in him and he in God. It's the same thing. It's not saying it's good to do both. It's saying abiding in love starts and is foremost confessing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Why? John says that by this we know love that God sent his son into the world to die for our sins. The only way we know what love is, is through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of love, and he showed that love is sacrificial. And so when we speak of love, we have to understand we are directly speaking about Jesus. We are directly speaking about an attribute of God. So we need to be precise. We need to be precise. This isn't semantics. It's upholding truth. We need to be precise, lest we be found guilty of speaking falsely against God when we speak about his character of love. And I know that this is a specific example and I want you to understand this was just truly faithfully praying about the text, this is what came to mind. I have no agenda with this. But we need to be precise in our words and in our actions, because God is precise. But we also see that God is protector. God is precise and he is protector. And in verses 8 through 21, we see two big stories of God's protection, two separate ones. So we'll start in verses 8 through 14 where we see the first example. It says, "And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian woman, and she had borne to Abraham, laughing." "So she said to Abraham, cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac. And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named. And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring. So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba." First thing, if you are a father who has an infant who is nursing, just finished nursing, or if going to have a child that is nursing, throw your wife a party. It's biblical. She did a lot of work. It was hard. Throw her a party, celebrate that. But what we see first and foremost here is that God is protecting Abraham's family. But the question if you are like me, first and foremost is, "God, how can you do this to Hagar and Ishmael? You sent them away? Doesn't a child need to grow up with their father?" And the answer is yes. And what we need to understand is that in Genesis, we are told that when Ishmael is born, Abraham is 86 years old. And when Isaac is born, he is 100 years old. And then Isaac was weaned and it was after this that Ishmael was sent away with Hagar. And so, Ishmael, depending on the time of the weaning and the nursing, culturally different back then, it could be anywhere from a year to three years. And so, Ishmael is somewhere between 14 and 17 years old. This is an adult in that culture. He's a young adult. He is a child, but God is not abandoning a child without a father. God's perfect sovereign timing works so that way Ishmael can still grow up with a father and then be ready to go. So that's first and foremost, it isn't a harmful banishment, unjust by God. He is faithful even in this. But he is, first and foremost, protecting Abraham's family and specifically protecting Isaac. In the Book of Galatians, Paul gives a commentary on this. In Galatians chapter 4, it says, "For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by the free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born according through promise." So, Ishmael is born of the flesh, is symbolic of the flesh. Isaac is symbolic of the spirit, of the promise. And he continues, "Now, you brothers, Christians, like Isaac are children of promise. But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now." Paul calls Ishmael's laughter persecution. Whether it's just that one laughter, likely there was some sort of mentality that was throughout everyday life where Ishmael was persecuting, mocking, making fun of Isaac. But Paul says that was persecution. And God was protecting Isaac from that. But also this is a message showing forth as Paul's point is that this applies to us today, as Christians, as God's people, God promises to protect us, not just from persecution but in persecution. It says the as it is happening now, those who are born of the flesh, the world, those who are not of God are persecuting Christians around the world still today. And God promises to protect us even through persecution, not just that God is also protecting Abraham and Sarah's marriage. If you remember, this thing has happened kind of before Hagar ran away the last time because Sarah was mad and was treating Hagar poorly. Sarah said to Abraham, when Ishmael was born, in Genesis 16 verses 5 through 6, "May the wrong done to me be on you. I gave my servant to your embrace and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with content. May the Lord judge between you and me." But Abraham said to Sarah, "Behold, your servant is in your power. Do to her as you please." And Sarah dealt harshly with her and she fled from her. This is what happened last time, and it caused division between Abraham and Sarah. She says, "You have done this wrong to me. You have sinned against me, and may the Lord judge between you." She's saying, "We're on opposite sides. I'm the prosecution, you're the defense. There is a division between us." And God wanted to protect their marriage. God did not want division in their marriage. Why, because marriage is a symbol of God's love for his church. God desires for unity in marriage and God wanted to protect it, but how does God protect this marriage? It's not primarily by sending Hagar and Ishmael away. But what you'll notice is in Genesis 21, God comes to Abraham and tells him what to do. You see, the first time Abraham was passive, when we talked about the failure of him as a father in leading, because he was passive and he's like, "Sarah, she's your servant. You do whatever you want to do." And it led to this division. Whereas now he is displeased, it says he loves Ishmael. Ishmael is 14 to 17 years old. He loves him. He cares for him. He doesn't want to send him away. But God comes to him and tells him, "It's okay. I'm going to protect them as well. I'm going to protect you. It's okay to send them away." And Abraham, even though it's contrary to his own desires, does what God says. He becomes a leader. We see the change happening in Abraham that he is no longer a passive leader. He is an active leader. He's doing what God has told him to do. And God loves to protect families through men who lead. And this is what God is doing here. God protects Abraham and Sarah. But it's not just that. God does care for Hagar and Ishmael as well. God is protecting Hagar and Ishmael. This is in verses 15 through 21, where it says, "When the water in the skin was gone, she, being Hagar, put the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off about the distance of a bowshot for she said, let me not look on the death of the child. And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept." "And God heard the voice of the boy and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, what troubles you, Hagar? Fear not for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is up. Lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation. And then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. And God was with the boy. And he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran. And his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt." So again, this is parallel to the passage in chapter 16 where Hagar ran away. And in chapter 16, we are told that she was between Kadesh and Shur and she ran into the wilderness. Well, if you go into the back of a physical Bible or you look online for a map of the time, you will see that directly between Kadesh and Shur and Egypt where she is headed is the wilderness of Beersheba where in verse 14, we are told she is currently. And what likely is happening, she is in the same exact wilderness she was before. And she knew, "God, you came to me last time." And it says she lifts up her voice as she sees Ishmael dying. As she believes Ishmael is going to die, there's no hope, she lifts up her voice, she cries out to God saying, "God, you came to me before when I was here. Lord, will you come to me now?" And what happens? God answers. And God doesn't just answer and say, "Yeah, I'm here." He answers by showing her, opening her eyes to a well of water that will give her life. Friends, this is the gospel. This is the gospel. Well, in the book of John in chapter 4 verses 13 through 14, Jesus is meeting a woman at the well and he tells her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." This is the gospel. We recognize that we are sinners and we are dying in the barren wasteland of our sin. We are dying. And we need to cry out to God and say, "God, I need you to save me now. I can't do it on my own. There is no hope. We're both ready to die." And what God does is he opens our eyes to see the well that was already there. It was always there, but we needed God to show it to us. And just in that same way, Jesus is always there. He tells us that he is ever present. He is there with us. Anyone who is in time of trouble, they call on him, he will answer. If you cry out to Jesus asking him to save you, he is there and he wants to save you. He wants to give you this well of eternal life, not just save you temporarily from thirst and dehydration, but to save you eternally from the penalty of our sins. Where's Jesus in Genesis in this text? Right here, right here. This is the gospel. We all need to cry out to God. He's the only one who can save us. We can do nothing of our own. And God protects Hagar and Ishmael. Ishmael grows up and he lives in the wilderness of Beersheba. He lives in the wilderness of Paran. Paran, by the way, is where Mount Sinai is. It's just interesting. They stay in a place where God had revealed himself to them. And God continues to reveal himself throughout history. This is where they built their life around. And this is also the after part of the gospel. We don't say okay, "God, I'm saved, I'm good," and do whatever we want. We plant our lives around where he is and where he is spoken to us. We do according to what he has said. We build our lives around Jesus around who he is. So we see that God is precise. We see that he is protector. And now we're going to see that God is praiseworthy. He is worthy of our praise. And this is verses 22 through the end, where it says, "At that time Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, said to Abraham, God is with you in all that you do, now therefore, swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity, but I have dealt kindly with you so you will deal with me, and with the land where you have sojourned. And Abraham said, I will swear." "When Abraham reproved of Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech servants had seized, Abimelech said, I do not know who has done this thing. You did not tell me and I have not heard of it until today. So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech and the two men made a covenant. Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock apart. And Abimelech said to Abraham, what is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart? He said, these seven ewe lambs you will take from my hand and that this may be witnessed for me that I dug this well." "Therefore that place was called Beersheba, because there both of them sworn an oath. So they made a covenant at Beersheba. Then Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, rose up and returned to the land of the Philistines. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines." So, what's going on? Recap from last week. Abimelech is the king that Abraham was like, "Yeah, Sarah is my sister. You could take her as your wife." So he takes her as his wife and in his sleep, God says, "I'm going to kill you unless you give Sarah back." So Abimelech is like, "Abraham, it's clear God is with you, even when you are clearly in the wrong. So let's make a covenant that you will no longer deal falsely with me so your God does not try to kill me in my sleep again." That is what Abimelech is thinking. And Abraham is like, "Yeah, sure. I'll do that. I'll swear that. It makes sense. I'll go for it." And it says that we won't deal falsely with each other for our descendants or also the land that we are in. And so Abraham is thinking, he's like, "Oh, we're not dealing falsely about land. Speaking of not dealing falsely about land, Abimelech, your servants captured my well. And I'm not allowed to use it anymore because of them. Can we not deal falsely with each other in this?" Abimelech is like, "I have no idea. What are you talking about? Yeah, sure. We'll fix this. We'll fix this. I don't want your God to kill me. So yeah, we'll fix it." But the word that I think is really important is in verse 25 it says that Abraham reproved Abimelech. And this word reprove is one that we often think of like rebuking, we think of like telling him he is wrong. But actually, it's kind of the converse of that it means to be found in the right. So it's saying Abraham was found to be right to Abimelech about this well. So yes, Abimelech didn't know but it came out to be true that Abraham was dealing truthfully with him. And we see, again, that Abraham has started to change. Abraham is being active and leading his family, but now he is also dealing truthfully with others. He is not dealing falsely with them. God has already been working on his heart. And so they're like, "Okay, we settle this. You get your well back. Why are you giving me sheep?" And he's like, "Well, remember all that silver you gave Sarah to prove that she's innocent? I'm giving you these lambs back to be like this is my well, but I'm not holding it against you that you took it. You're fine. We're good now as long as you don't take it." And Abimelech leaves. Why does Abimelech leave? Because he was there for a transaction. He was there to say, "I don't want your God to kill me. So let's do this thing so your God doesn't kill me." It happens. He's done and he's good to go. Is that how we view God sometimes, as a transaction? As I come to God, I don't want you to hurt me. I don't want you to judge me for my sin. I don't want you to do this or that or whatever. So I'm going to come to you. Can we be good? Can we set the record straight? We're good. And now I'm going to go on. I'm going to leave and do whatever I want. Or are we like Abraham who sticks around and plants a tree? What's going on with planting a tree, guys? It's not Earth Day. That was back before all this climate change stuff. So he didn't need to plant a tree. Why is he planting a tree? It says he plants a tree in the name of the Everlasting God. And this verse 33, I believe, is the crux. It's the whole thing that this whole text wraps around. There's three distinct stories that in and of themselves you're like, "What is going on here? Birth of Isaac, Hagar, Abimelech, what's happening?" Verse 33 sums it all up. Verse 33, "Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God." Throughout the Scripture, when people name God, they do so based off of God first revealing something to them about his nature and then responding by calling him the thing that he revealed. Think back to Hagar, again, in chapter 16, in Genesis 16 verse 13, it says, "So she, Hagar, called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, you are a God of seeing, for she said, truly here I have seen him who looks after me." God revealed to her that he was a God who cared for her, looked after her even when she was running away. And her response is to give God a name, which means you are a God of seeing. So what did God reveal about his nature to Abraham that made Abraham say, "You are an Everlasting God?" Just killed some animals, made a covenant, and then went their way. What is about an Everlasting God? It really goes back to that first statement of Abimelech, where he said, "God is with you in all that you do." And God loves to use people that maybe we don't even think fear him. Remember, last week, Abraham was like, "You don't fear the Lord, so I deceived you." God loves to use people that we don't expect to speak truth into our lives. And I remember my freshman year of college. I had freshmen roommates because I changed roommates because I'm scared of the first one. But that first one, he told me, he was like, "You need to find the girl you are going to marry by your junior year, otherwise you will never get married." I was like, "Man, I'm a freshman. I've never had a girlfriend. It's taken me this long I haven't found anyone. I really need to get started now, because I'm going to have no hope of getting married if I don't find her by then." I don't know why I believed him, though, silly. It's not sound biblical. But anyway, so I was worried about my future marriage. And also, I was at that time studying chemistry and my goal was to do forensics to work for the FBI. That's what I wanted. And I got my first ever D on a test. And I was like, "Oh Lord, I'm never going to make it into the FBI. What am I going to do? I have no hope in my future." And I was complaining about all of this to my friend Jeremy. Jarebear, if you're watching, love you, man. Jarebear. Anyway, but Jeremy is not a Christian. He's not a Christian. He loves to talk about God. We have great conversations, but he's not a Christian. And I was telling him these things. And he said, "Dude, you believe God is going to take care of it, so stop complaining." And then he moved on and started talking about sports and video games. And that was it for him. And clearly, that moment had an impact on me that I remember it today and I bring it up today. And every time I'm stressed and worried about my future, I look back to that moment, because God used someone I didn't expect to speak truth to me, to reveal something about who God is. God is in control. That is who God is. I don't need to worry. I don't need to be stressed out. I can trust in him. That's what Abimelech does to Abraham. He says God is with you in all that you do. Abraham is like, "Oh yeah, he is. He is." We see the birth of Isaac is important, and it is great and it is huge. But immediately after, we see the hints of Abraham's past failures coming up, and God is saying, "Hey, remember this whole situation with Hagar and Ishmael? Remember when you sinned in that? But also remember the strife it caused in your family? Remember all that? I was still with you then. I was still with you then. Remember that time you pimped your wife off to Abimelech? Oh, and don't forget about to Pharaoh as well. I was with you then. I was with you in all that you did, even when you were wrong and I'm with you. Now, can you believe that I'm with you now? I've given you the son that I've promised you. I've precisely fulfilled my promise. I've been protecting you. Do you believe I'm with you now?" And Abraham says, "Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I see it." And Abraham is not just looking at the past and in his present, he looks forward to the future and sees, I can see how God is fulfilling his promise to make me a great nation. I can see how God is going to be faithful in the future as well because of how he has been faithful in the past and how he's been faithful right now. So Abraham understands truly God is an Everlasting God. God has always been there. He is there now and he will always be there. And his response to that is praise. And this is why the points are all about God here is because as we grow in an understanding of who God is, we can grow in praise of him. He is the object of our praise. And so the greater understanding we have of God, the greater praise we can have for him. And Abraham praises God by planting a tamarisk tree. If you don't know a tamarisk tree is, it's an evergreen, it's an evergreen tree that grows in deserts with high salt content in the soil. In other words, where trees aren't supposed to grow, this can grow. Abraham plants this tree in the desert, it's an evergreen, saying, "Lord, you are an everlasting God. Like this tree's needles that never fade, that never die, that never wash out, you are an Everlasting God, you will never fade, you will always be here. But he also is remembering Sarah, the barrenness of her womb, their barrenness as a couple, they were not able to have child and say, "God, even out of the barrenness of this desert land, you can bring life to this tree. And out of the barrenness of our lives, you can bring life." God is in control of all things. He is everlasting. He has always been there with Abraham. He will always be there. He's in control of all. And the response is praise. And so, our response, as we grow knowledge of God, is to praise. Have you ever thought about why we sing songs at church? Have you thought about why? It's because just like Abraham's form of praise was relevant to who God is, God, you're an everlasting God, so I'm going to worship you in a form that shows who you are. So, worship through song is a form of praises that is glorifying to God. In the Book of Revelation, we are told that angels will sing for all eternity to the Lord, but that also we will join them in singing. We will have jobs. We will do work and we will sing songs to praise to God in heaven. So oftentimes, when I talk about praise through song, the pushback I get is, well, I praise God with my life. Good. Hallelujah, praise God, do that. We need to praise God with our life. We will be doing that in heaven. All of heaven will spend working to the glory of God. We need to do that. But we also need to praise in song, because we will also be doing that in heaven for all of eternity. And if you say, "Ah, I don't Christian music and singing is just not for me," get practice now. We're going to be doing it for all eternity. So let's build it up now. It's not about talent. I am a terrible singer. I am the worst singer in this church. People hear me sing and they're like, "Even Pastor Jan sings better than him." No offense and none taken. But it's not about that. It's about worshiping the Lord. He is worthy of our praise because of who he is. And so we respond in praise in the way that he desires to be praised. And I want to end with this, verse 34 says, "And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines." Every time we have seen Abraham or Lot in this text sojourning, it was followed by sin. It was a story about how they were not trusting God and they were sojourning and they sent... Abraham sojourned in Egypt, he gave his wife to Pharaoh. Lot sojourned, he ended up in Sodom. Abraham sojourned in Gerar, that's what happened with Abimelech. Every time they sojourn they sinned. The issue wasn't the sojourning. The issue was the not trusting God. And now we see Abraham is trusting God. And now we see he's still sojourning. So the question that we need to be thinking about as we go into next week's sermon is, is Abraham still going to trust God, or is he going to fall back into his old ways of sojourning? And the question all of us need to think about is, as we're here today, we just heard the revelation of God that he is praiseworthy in this text. Are we just going to praise him now or when we leave and we are sojourning through Boston? That's the only way to describe living in Boston, sojourning. As we sojourn through Boston, are we still going to remain faithful and trust that God is an everlasting God, he is in control of all? Will you pray with me? Heavenly Father, Lord, we come to you encouraged that you have always been you are now and you will always be. Lord, help us to grow in our love and understanding of who you are so we can praise you as you rightfully deserve. In this time, strengthen us, encourage us, stir your spirit in us to lift up our voices praising you because you are worthy. Lord, we love you and we thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.
Déjà vu All Over Again
June 6, 2021 • Genesis 20
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston in our neighborhood churches or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning. Welcome to Mosaic Church. My name is Jan. We're the pastors here at Mosaic along with Pastor Shane and Pastor Andy. And if you're new or visiting we'd love to connect with you. We do that through the connection card in the worship guide. The physical one or you can also get the digital version in our app or on our website. And if you fill it out we'll be sure to get in touch with you over the course of the week. Happy summer. And happy bring an iced beverage to church day. If you see my last station back there I've got 18 water bottles back there. Stay hydrated my friends. Stay hydrated. Oh, that said would you please pray with me with the preaching of God's Holy Word. Heavenly Father we thank you that you are good God and you are a great God. Although our sins, our rebellion, our transgressions deserve punishment. Instead, you poured out that punishment upon your Son Jesus Christ. The Lamb of God, the Son of God. Jesus on the cross, you got what we deserved so that you could offer to us what you earned. We thank you for the gift of salvation. We thank you for the gift of grace that just doesn't make any sense. Why would you do that? You did that because you are God who is love. We thank you for the Holy Scriptures. We thank you for the story and the example of Abraham that often he was not a hero, he was actually an anti hero. And yet you came in and you worked with him and he poured out your love upon him and you kept sculpting him, kept molding him, kept shaping and sanctifying him and I pray that you do the same with us. If there are habitual sins in our lives. If there is recidivism in our lives where we fall back into patterns of sin I pray today pull us out by your grace and give us a vision for our lives to be people who are a blessing to many. Bless our time the holy word. Holy Spirit we welcome you into the space. We love you and we love your presence. We pray that you today convict us and encourage us where we need to be encouraged. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. We are in a sermon series. Going through parts of the book of Genesis. We're calling it Jesus in Genesis. And we're in particular looking at the story of Abraham and how our story relates to his story and more importantly how his story and our story points to the story of Jesus Christ and our need for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The title of the sermon today is Déjà vu All Over Again. And we see Abraham committing his greatest sin that he's ever committed. And he does it again. In chapter 19 we saw the story of God's punishment coming down on Sodom and Gomorrah. God pulls through the angels Lot out and ends the story in a very hopeless situation. So now we're done with Lot and we'll hear nothing more of him. And after the promise that God made in chapter 18, where Jesus Christ as a Kristoff and he shows up. He's flanked with angels. And he comes to Abraham and Sarah and promises that in a year you will have the promised son. You've been waiting for over two decades. Probably 25 years but next year he's coming. And what we're expecting after chapter 19, is that in chapter 20 Isaac is born. Why do we expect that? We expect that because Abraham has been winning. He's been growing in his faith. God called him in chapter 12. He said I'm going to bless you, I'm going to make your name great, I'm going to bless those who bless you. And I'm going to bless the nation's through you Abraham. He follows God and we see him early on his walk with the Lord was serpentine. It was wandering. Kind of like Storrow Drive. Just wavering back and forth. And what we see with Abraham is now he's beginning to string wins together. We see that beginning with Lot and goes to his nephew Lot and he gives him a pic of the land generously. And then after Lot is taken into captivity by a coalition of kings, Abraham the great warrior gets his 318 trained men and they together go to war to save Lot and he comes out victorious. He's recognized by Melchizedek as a man of God. He resists temptation. When the king of Sodom offers him financial profit, the Lord appeared to him twice to reaffirm and elaborate the covenant. And God said here's a sign of the covenant. You need to circumcise yourself. And Abraham in his '90s probably his greatest act of faith promptly obeys, circumcised himself with a flint knife and does the same to 318 trained men. You see just his faith guides everything that he does. Win after win after win after win and apparently he got tired of all that winning. So after Abraham wins, now Abraham sins. And in chapter 20, Abraham takes his 90-year old wife. He's 100. He takes his 90-year old wife and passes her off to King Abimelech. And she's taken into his harem. He pimps off his 90-year old wife. Apparent grandma was really good looking. I don't know what it was. A different oxygen, different food levels, no GMO, Pilates. I have no idea. But apparently at 90 she was still smoking hot and King Abimelech takes her into his hands. So we'll get into that. The worst part is. The worst part that as I sat down and I'm like chapter 20. I'm writing this sermon. I'm crestfallen. I'm like, "Oh, no. Not again." The worst part of this whole situation is he's done this before. He pimped off his wife who was a little younger to the king of Egypt back in chapter 12. And God intervened and God saved him. And now he does the same thing again. Big lesson for us is dear Christian sin clings so closely. And time with the Lord does not make you impervious to sin. It doesn't make you impervious to falling back into old patterns of sin. Into tragic recidivism where you relapse. The point of the whole text is Abraham's a sinner saved by grace. Still remains a sinner. He's a saint, he was a sinner and a sinner who's a saint. So never lose sight dear Christian. That we have to be aware of sin and that we are to fight the good fight of faith. We'll do the same thing we've done in the past weeks. We're going to walk through the text verse by verse. But three big sections. Three points to frame up our time. Point one is Abimelech restrained. Second is Abraham rebuked and third is Abimelech restored. First Abimelech restrained. Genesis 20:1. And from there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh and Shur. And he sojourned into Gerar. So Abraham was called by God to go to the land of Canaan. That's the promised land. The first time he sinned against his wife and against God, he went from the promised land to Egypt. Now he goes from the promised land to Kadesh and Shur into Gerar. He's traveling from the extremely southern point of Palestine. Shur was on the border of Egypt. And he visits the royal city of Gerar which is just above the Gulf of Suez on the way to Egypt. Suez we've heard recently in the news. The Suez Canal. That's where the container ship got stuck in the Suez Canal. This is the general vicinity where Abraham goes. It's hostile territory. We're not told why he goes. Perhaps he went because there was famine in the land or perhaps he went because he was afraid of God who judged Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham watched him judge Sodom and Gomorrah. Perhaps he was afraid of retaliation from the neighbors of Sodom and Gomorrah, that they will retaliate against Abraham in order to retaliate against God or perhaps he was bitter. Later on the text he says God made me go from my hometown to land of Canaan. There's a bitterness. Perhaps it's because he expected that when he interceded for Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah that God would answer him. And he didn't get what he wanted from God. Perhaps he's... But we're not sure. So now we see him going into hostile territory with his flocks, with his herds, with the people he has with him. He's a chieftain. There's over 300 people with him. So it's a huge caravan. And he's going into hostile territory as a believer. These are different people, they worship different gods. It's kind of moving to Boston from somewhere where it's acceptable to be a Christian. You move up to Boston and you keep your bumper stickers on your car. You keep the little fish on your car. Why do you keep the fish on your car? Because you're a Christian. That's why. Why'd you put the fish in your car in the first place? Because back in Mississippi when Christian police officers pull you over, they're going to let you go. You're a Christian. Up here no one cares. I remember when Pastor Shane moved up here, he had a little Toyota Camry. And he had a little Jesus fish on the back of his car. And after an evening service, we show up this car and the back windshield was just mis shattered. Someone threw a brick through the back of his car. Why? I don't know. Jesus fish maybe. So if you've got Jesus fish on your car, man congratulations. You are a very bold Christian. And now you have to drive like a hostile territory. He goes there. He knows that he is not like these people. That he believes unlike these people. These are enemies of Israel. We'll learn later on. The Philistines come from this general land. So what happens? Well, Genesis 20:2. Abraham said of Sarah his wife. So now people are asking, "Hey Abraham. Who's that woman next to you? She's apparently very good looking." And the tradition of that land was the king could take any unmarried woman into his harem or the king could kill any husband of the married woman to take her into his harem. So that's why Abraham said of his wife Sarah. She is my sister. And Abimelech King of Gerar sent and took Sarah. He takes Sarah the wife of Abraham. First thing Abraham does is exactly the same thing he did 30 years ago. Why? What's he motivated by? Motivated by fear. Fear for his life. And he gives up his dear wife Sarah. Decades they've been married. Gives her up to a King Abimelech into his harem. Now I've been married by God's grace and my wife Tanya. It's going to be 15 years this week. Someone came up to me. Praise... Yea, clap for her. Good job. Thanks, Edgar. And I've made some faux pas. Some mea culpa. Some my bads in my life in my marriage. I have some bad ones. The first one I think is first year married. I forgot it was her birthday. I just forgot her birthday. Show up at home, she's dressed up, makeup on. It's dinner on the table. Beautiful. And I'm like, "What's the occasion? Of course I know. Well, I forgot your present in the car." So I run down. And I go to the nearest store that was next our apartment building. It was TJ Maxx or Marshalls. And I went to the first thing I could find. And it was a little wooden bucket with soap stuff. And some country CDs. So that's what I grabbed for. I was like, "You're from Ukraine. You like country music." No, she did not. That was a... So still to this day I'm recovering. I've made some bad mistakes in my marriage. But I've never pimped off my wife. Praise God. And the lesson here gentlemen is don't pimp off your wife. That's number one. Number two, is Abraham the great father of the faith does this. And he does it twice. And what's the lesson here? The lesson here is under pressure, under stress, under anxiety. When motivated by fear, it's so easy to relapse the former sins. It's so easy to go back to old patterns of life. So the question for us today is what sins from your past are you prone to return to? Especially when under stress. And when are you prone to return to them? And you need to know that. You need to reverse engineer your walk with the Lord and you need to know yourself and when you're tempted so that you do not make provision for the flesh. Don't put yourself in positions where your flesh takes over. And instead of walking by the spear you walk by flesh. Speaking of harems. The custom of the land. You have power, you have money, you can make yourself a harem. A harem is just a group of women that you sleep with. Your concubines. Perhaps you don't have the money and the power and the opportunity to build yourself a harem. But we live in a day and age when people are building not physical harems but definitely digital ones. And Jesus spoke right into that. And he said whoever looks upon a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Abimelech committed the sin of adultery when he just looked at another man's wife. And so we see Abraham sinned and we see Abimelech sins and there's a lesson for us that we are to fight our sin and protect in particular sexual sin. So the question is what's going to happen? Who will protect Sarah from being defiled? Because God promised that Sarah is going to have a child with Abraham. God promised a unilateral covenant that he's not going to break his word. That's exactly what we see God coming to the rescue. This is verse three. But God. I love that phrase because that's the same phrase that's used in Ephesians when it says that you are dead in your sins and your trespasses. All of us are on our way to hell but God intervenes but God sent his Son. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you've taken for she is a man's wife. Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said Lord, will you kill an innocent people? Did he not himself say to me she is my sister and she herself said he is my brother. In the integrity of my heart. And the innocence of my hands I have done this. God speaks, God intervenes. Speaks to him in a dream. Does God still speak in dreams? Yeah, he does. And sometimes to you, sometimes to your loved ones. This week I was sitting at home in my basement. It was 11:00 PM and I smell something burning. And I run around. I ran upstairs and make sure it's nothing upstairs. And then I ran back downstairs and one of my outlets was on fire. I had to pull out a plug and sparks were flying. I was like, "Whoa, that was weird." The next day my daughter Elizabeth wakes up and says to my wife, "Hey, Mom. I had a dream that our basement set on fire." Sounds trippy. She had no idea. And I was like, "Did we make it on alive?" She said yeah. I was like, "All right. Praise God." It's just once a month. So sometimes God speaks in prophetic dreams. Sometimes it's just to reaffirm yes, I'm with you. Yes, I'm here to protect you. Sometimes it encourage, sometimes is to sanctify. So God speaks to an unbeliever through a dream. Can God speak to unbelievers? Yeah. God can do whatever he want with whomever he wants. He sovereign speaks to this guy in a dream and says you're a dead man. The same God who set Sodom and Gomorrah on fire, judgment, fire, brimstone comes to King Abimelech who's definitely heard about what went on Sodom and Gomorrah. And he says you are a dead man. I'm going to kill you. Does God have the authority to take our life? Yeah. The God of the universe who gives us life can take it at any single moment. And God says that you're dead. Maybe you've taken another man's wife. Why? Because God cares about marriage. He cares about marriage a lot. Abimelech says I haven't approached her yet. And Abimelech says Lord, that's a great start. Lord, he knows that this is God and he speaks of innocence. He's like, "God, I'm innocent." Actually a relative term. He's sinful in other ways. But from this perspective, he's innocent. He did what he did without knowing the full story. And Abimelech makes the same argument to God that Abraham made to God as He was interceding for Sodom and Gomorrah. He says will not the just God of the universe do what is right. And he's got a case. What he's really saying is, God I didn't deserve this. If anyone does deserve it, who is it? If anyone does deserve to get whacked for the situation that they're in, who deserves to get whacked? Abraham. God why aren't you coming after Abraham? Why are you coming after Sarah? Who also isn't a total victim. Apparently they played this con whenever they've when because that's what Abraham says later on the text. I asked my wife. I was still talking about this text. And she's like, "You know what? I bet Sarah wanted to leave." I was like, "Why did you say that?" She's like, "Just imagine you have the option of being a princess. You were living in a tent. Now you get to live in a mansion. She's not completely innocent either. You get a black American Express Card. You get your hair's done and your nails done, your hair done and all that done like everyone's pampering. Who knows. But she went along with this plan." And what's fascinating about this text is Abimelech the pagan king is more righteous. Presented as more righteous in this text than the man of God. In chapter 18, God said about Abraham. I've called him. He's mine. I've chosen him to be righteous, teach righteousness to his children. And we see the unbeliever behaving more moral than the believer. And that's often the case. Unbelievers are sometimes some of the most moral people just really, really good people. Generous people, caring people, loving people. And then on the flip side, it's the believers that are sometimes the most mischievous and the most sinful. You ever do business with a Christian? With an unbeliever, you got to sign one contract. With believers, two. At least two. Because of the Christian, when they became a Christian, they understand how wicked they are. That's what makes them a Christian. What makes you a Christian is I have sinned against God, I need to repent. It's really bad. Every Christian that you see is a really bad person. But the difference is they know they're a bad person. Sometimes the moral people are very moral people to get away from God. Abimelech is the moral person in this text. At the end of the text, he's very generous but he never becomes a Christian. He never loves God. You can do a lot of good things. And you can be a very moral person and not be a believer not go to heaven because you are doing all the great things not for God but for self. Back to Abraham. What was motivating him? What motivated him to sin again? It might have been bitterness against God. It might have been just time has elapsed. It's been 30 years since chapter 12 and chapter 20. It might have been that he knows just how lavish God's grace is. Did Abraham deserve to be called by God? No. Did Abraham deserve to get a word from God? No. Did Abraham deserve for God to speak to him and show him the covenant? No, no, no, no. Did Abraham deserve for God to tell him I'm making a unilateral covenant with you even if you break your end of the bargain, I'm still going to hold up mine? He didn't deserve that. Abraham also knew that God saved him once. I sinned you save me again. You also promised me that within a year I'm going to have a son. So clearly, you are going to work out your plan. And you might not need me in the process. This whole idea of I can sin because God will come to the rescue. This idea is called cheap grace. Where you say Jesus died on the cross for all my sins past, present and future. So why not continue to sin? God will forgive me. It's his job. I think part of that is going on in this idea of cheap grace. And yet God will forgive. Dear Christian, if you are in your sins. If you sin, God will forgive you if you repent of that sin. But it doesn't mean you won't bear the consequences of that sin. And it definitely doesn't mean that God won't discipline you like a loving father. Does God discipline Abraham in this text for this sin? Oh, yeah. He publicly shames Abraham through Abimelech. And he publicly shames Abraham for 1,000s of years by including this text in the Bible. So we look at this guy like, "You're a loser. You're a loser twice." God does discipline. Look at Hebrews 12:5-11. Have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline. If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits and live. For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them. But he disciplines us for our good. That we may share his holiness. For he disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. But later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Shows us that we're saved not by a morality. This is what the text shows us. But just by sheer grace. We're saved by sheer grace not because we're better. We're not Christians because we're better. We're Christians because we're saved, forgiven. And we're not saved because we're good. We're not forgiven because we're good. We're saved because God is good. That's really what this chapter is highlighting. That despite Abraham's sin, how great God's grace is to intervene and help him. God intervenes just like in chapter 12 showing you that God is the only hero of the story and of the book of Genesis of the whole Bible. And God intervenes his work in the marriage of Abraham and Sarah, right? And that's what God is doing. He's exposing sin in their marriage. He's exposing deception in their marriage. A lack of faith prior to the child coming. And this is important lesson that before you have a child, you need to know that whatever sin there is, you got to work through and repent of it and do the hard work because when children come, everything just gets magnified. It's just exponentially harder. Not only does your wife see your sin but the kids see your sin and oh, your sin then impacts your kids. And imagine Isaac wakes up and he says, "Abraham. Dad. Daddy, where's mommy?" And then Abraham's like, "Oh, long story. Hear I pimped her out to King Abimelech. You want cereal for breakfast." That would scar the kid for life. So God is working on their marriage exposing the sin. So there's repentance prior to when the child comes. Verse six. God speaking to Abimelech. Then God said to him in the dream. Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart. And it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore, I did not let you touch her. Now then return the man's wife for he is a prophet so that he will pray for you. And you shall live but if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die. You and all who are hers. So I didn't touch her. You wanted to obviously. That's why you married her. I don't let you consummate the marriage. So God here is sovereign even over sin. He's the one that keeps Abimelech from sinning and the part of the Lord's Prayer is Lord, lead us not into temptation. God I beg you please keep me from sin. Prevent me from sin. And God does that with Abimelech. And then God gives Abimelech a choice. You can either return her and live or if you don't, you'll die. And that's the same choice that God gives every single human being. Either repent and that's turning from sin and you will live. Repent and believe in Jesus Christ. You will live if not, you shall surely die. The decision is yours. If Sarah had stayed even one night with Abimelech, there would have always been a question of is Abraham Isaac's dad? And the other thing I want to point out is this is the first use of the word prophet in scripture. And which is very ironical though. We're prophets messenger for God. And the first time the word prophet is used is in the context of the Prophet's sin. Showing that every single human prophet is fallible and sinful and it points to our need for a greater profit who's never sinned. And Abraham will pray for you. And at this point, Abimelech is got to be thinking what in the world? The guy sinned against me, lied to me. And now it turns out he's a prophet. And it turns out he needs to pray for me so that I can get saved. It doesn't make any sense. Just from a human perspective from a societal justice perspective. It doesn't make any sense. We'll leave that hanging until point three. Point two. Abraham rebuked. We see this in verse eight. So Abimelech rose early in the morning which is contrast to Lot when God warned him through the angels. Hey, get out of Sodom and Gomorrah because fire and brimstone coming. Lot slept on it woke up had breakfast. Finally, the angels had to drag him out. Here Abimelech wakes up first thing in the morning. This what he does. Called all his servants and told them all these things. And the men were very much afraid. Abimelech fears God. His servants fear God. And yet they don't become believers at the end. They fear God like children fear a stranger. Please I don't know what you're going to do with me. I'm afraid of you. Abraham fears God as a child. There's a difference. There's a loving relationship. Here Abimelech never becomes a Christian. His father's never become Christian. They're just afraid of punishment. Whereas a real child of God fears disappointing God which obviously Abraham did in this situation. So he too needs to grow in fear of God. Verse nine. Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, "What have you done to us? How have I sinned against you?" That's interesting. Because the very first time that the word sin is used in this chapter is from God talking to Abimelech. I kept you from sinning. So now Abimelech has an understanding of sin. That sin is transgressing God's law. How have I sinned against you that you brought on me and my kingdom of great sin? You have done to me things that ought not to be done. And here what's fascinating is Abimelech preaches a sermon to Abraham. Abimelech gets everyone to get the whole court together. Puts Abraham in front. It just lights them up with the words that God gave them. So this is God speaking through Abimelech that you Abraham are a hypocrite. Your witness is terrible. Your witness to God. If God didn't intervene, all of us would have perished. You would have brought great sin on me and the kingdom. You did what ought not to have been done. And that's a fascinating term. Abimelech how did you know what ought to be done? How do you know? God told him. Abraham, did you know what ought to be done? Yeah. So you sinned against me. And this is a fascinating idea. And every single person you ask that's alive and a christian or non Christian. You ask them is the world as it ought to be? And every single person says no, the world is not as ought to be. There's a lot of crime and there's a lot of evil and there's a lot of terrible things in the world. Corruption in the world. The world is not as it ought to be. Are you as you ought to be? No, I'm not. Well, how do you know? Because there's a moral law written on your heart. A moral compass. Is it calibrated perfectly? No, it takes God's word brought in to recalibrate Abimelech's moral compass here. Abimelech's concern isn't just for himself but for his kingdom. Which shows that he's a good ruler and again shows that he's a good person despite the norms of the day. Verse 10, Abimelech said to Abraham. What did you see that you did this thing? Abraham said I did it because I thought there is no fear of God at all in this place and they will kill me because of my wife. So Abimelech is like, "Why do you do this?" And Abraham says I did this because you guys don't fear God. And here Abraham is the hypocrite of Matthew seven where Jesus says before you pull out the speck in your brother's eye, make sure there's not a log in your own eye. So Abraham to Abimelech. He's like, "I did this because you don't love God. You don't fear God. I did this because you have a toothpick in your eye." As Abraham has a two by four in one eye and a telephone pole in the other. He's just the biggest hypocrite of this whole text. You guys don't fear God. I just knew all of you guys are perverts and sickos and weirdos. You kill me to take my wife. So I decided to pimp her out before you did that. Just the logic is so warped. I knew you were so sinful. So I'm going to sin to prevent you sinning against me. And this just shows a lack of faith. He didn't go into the place on mission to share the gospel. He went to the place selfishly to preserve his wealth, kind of like Lot did when he went to Sodom. And apparently there was more fear of God in Abimelech than there was in Abraham. That's the contrast. Verse 12. Besides. So now Abraham is... He knows he's caught. But he lawyers up and he just... Oh, what a text. Besides, he pathetically tries to make excuses. He's caught in sin and he's like, "Besides." He's like, "I knew you don't fear God. And besides she is indeed my sister. Cue the country music. She is indeed my sister." Like a pro. Why are you even...? Don't even bring that up. Why did you marry your sister? Oh, because it was easier. We didn't have to change last names. You're a pervert. Don't do that. This is pathetic. It's like you get caught in a sin and then you try to excuse it and the excuse is even worse than the sin. You get pulled over by a cop and the cop is like, "Why are you speeding? Why are you speeding?" And you say, "I swear to drunk. I'm not God. I'm not God." The first service nobody got it. Here, a couple... The excuses are worse than the sin itself. Kids do this all the time. Where you get caught in a sin and then you just try to excuse it. That's what Abraham is doing. He knows he's caught. He's caught by daddy, he's caught by Abimelech. And then he starts saying this is my sister that I married her. My father though not the daughter of my mother and she became that way. And when God caused me to wander from my father's place that's it. That's the verse. God caused me to wander. When God forced me to wander. Remember last week I was talking about Lot. He got saved but he wasn't happy about it. It's like a high schooler getting saved before they start freshman year in college. And like, "Don't save me yet I want frat parties." That was Lot. That's Abraham. He wants to sin right now. And he's just caught in the sin. And then who does he blame for this whole situation? Oh, God caused it. Same thing Adam did. Adam sins, eats of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God comes looking for him. Adam where are you? And what does Adam say? The wife whom you gave me. She forced me. You see the past 70. You see he's trying to shirk his responsibility. Pass it off. There's bitterness toward God. And I said to her this is the kindness you must do to me at every place to which we come. Say of me he is my brother. And he's saying this is the kindness you got to do me. This is how you need to love me. That's what we're doing. Instead of saying how can I love my wife and sacrifice myself to protect her, he goes to his wife and says this is how you must love me and sacrifice yourself to protect me. He's just got everything back. And remember last week I was talking about Abraham was a great patriarch and Lot was a soytriarch. Where here Abraham, he's back to soytriarch land. He loses his spine. His faith spine and he goes to his wife and he says I want you to sacrifice yourself for me anti gospel. What is the gospel? The gospel is Jesus Christ sacrificing himself for his bride. And then Jesus says to husbands. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Abraham is doing the opposite here and technically was Sarah his sister. Yes, technically yes. But it's not the full truth. She was also his wife. His sister wife. A half truth masquerading as the full truth is a full lie. And we need to know this. If you are going to grow in discernment and understanding of reality, you need to understand that this is the thing. People lie with facts. Just like Abraham lies with facts. People lie with statistics all the time. Your head could be in the oven and your feet in the freezer and on average, very comfortable temperature. You're not comfortable. Statistic lie all the time. If you want to understand politics and you understand the news. You need to understand that people all the time spin one fact and present one fact which is half truth as the full truth. And they do it for click bait and they do it for eyeballs and they do it to persuade us with a narrative et cetera. So we as believers need to grow in discernment knowing that people lie all the time with facts. And this is what Abraham was doing. Abraham's behavior is pathetic, it's an excusable, it's deeply disappointing. He's here no different than Lot was in last chapter. Last chapter Lot takes the angels into his house, shows them hospitality and then an order protect himself and the angels, he passes off his daughters to the gang rapers. And he says, "Hey, take my virgin daughters instead of the angels." He's sacrificing his beloved ones for himself. Abraham's doing the same exact thing here. The worst part he's in the middle of his Christian life. It should be expected that he would do better but he suffers from what something that all of us suffer from is thing called spiritual amnesia. And once again he falls on his face, fails in his faith. We see cowardice, selfishness, indifference. He stumbles badly. So will his son Isaac. Who will do the same thing. And then his great, great grandsons will sin as well Judah in particular. Abraham stumbled, so have I. And so have you. And this just shows the fallibility of the saints. And when you become a Christian, you're still a sinner. You're a sinner saint and a saint sinner. And the privileged position doesn't preclude him from failure. It doesn't preclude him from floundering. Genesis 20:14. Then Abimelech took sheep and oxen and male servants and female servants and gave them to Abraham and returned Sarah his wife to him. And Abimelech said, behold my land is before you, dwell where it pleases you. To Sarah he said, behold I've given your brother... Tremendous Abimelech. Tremendous little jab. Behold I've given your brother 1,000 pieces of silver. It's a sign of your innocence in the eyes of all who are with you before everyone you were vindicated. What in the world just happened? Abraham sins against Abimelech. Abimelech is the one giving gifts to Abraham. This makes no sense. It should have been Abraham saying here Abimelech. I'm sorry. My bad man. Here's some animals. Here's some silver. Instead, Abimelech is the guy. He's like, "Take the animals, take any real estate you want. Here's 1,000 pieces of silver. Half a piece of silver was a monthly wage of an average worker. Half. So that means 1,000 pieces is working 167 years. That's like if our average salary is 40 grand. He's given him $7 million. Just incredible wealth. On top of that, this is what Abimelech is doing. This why I think he's a funny guy. When you get married, the price of a bride was 50 shekels and he's like Abraham I'm not just going to give you 50 shekels. I'm going to give you the price of 20 brides. 1,000 shekels. It's boss right here. And part of what he's doing is, he's vindicating the honor of Sarah. He cares more about her reputation than Abraham did himself. So Abraham was a complete anti hero here. Abimelech takes God's warning seriously. Abraham doesn't. Story continues. These are point three. Abimelech restore. Genesis 20:17. Then Abraham prayed to God and God healed Abimelech and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children. Apparently part of what happened with Abimelech was there was a curse put on all the people for Abraham's sin. And the wombs of the people were closed. And what's ironic is... Oh, and this is verse 18. For the Lord had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's wife. The irony is that in order to open Sarah's womb for the promised son, God closed the wombs of many other women. Here the Lord is Lord of Abraham's sin. He's the Lord of Abimelech's non sin and he's the lord of childbirth. And he's the Lord over everything. A question here that I want to wrestle with at the end in closing is why is this text here? Why is this here? It teaches the lesson that we all stumble, that we all fall. We have a proclivity to relapse into sin. But is that all it's teaching us? I think it is teaching us more. Because by the end of the chapter, despite Abraham's sin. Abraham is a better man for it. He's learned from this sin. In a sense he's been sanctified by his sin and he's been blessed through the process of the sin. So there's a deeper lesson going on here. And I think there's a doctrine here. A doctrine that's taught by theologians in their books not often taught out loud. Because of the danger of this doctrine being twisted to justify sin. The doctrine's called O felix culpa in the Latin. O happy fault. And the phrase goes back to Gregory the Great in the end of the sixth century. And he got it from Augustine. And who got it from St. Paul in Romans seven. That yes, we wrestle with sin undeniably. But at the end, it brings glory to God because our sin... It turns our attention to Christ like nothing else does. Sin is undeniably ugly is disreputable, inexcusable, it's harmful. It's an abomination before God. But sin is also an occasion often to learn the absolute deepest lessons of our lives. Life changing discoveries. Now sometimes you know what true. You know a truth. I'm a sinner saved by grace. You know a truth. And then you sin. You commit a sin that scares you. Why I did that. And you walk out of that sin by God's grace pulls you out. And you have such a deep awareness of sin like you never have a deeper fear of God. A deeper love for God and more zeal to fight the good fight of faith without the fall, without the sin of Adam and Eve, we would have never had the incarnation. We would have never had the death of Christ on the cross. The resurrection. We wouldn't have had some of the most incredible victories in the spiritual warfare. One theologian says there would certainly have been no display of some of the divine attributes of God had sin not been. They would have been conserved forever and the depth of the Godhead. So in a sense, we get to know more of God, the depth of God, the greatness of God because sin entered the world. And obviously, we can't use that as an excuse to excuse our sin, to justify our sin. God hates sin. Sin is wickedness. But there is this undeniable reality. As John Owen says the greatest evil in the world is sin. And the greatest sin was the first. And yet Gregory feared not to cry O happy fault which found such a redeemer. And I think we can't deny that. Some of the greatest lesson we've ever learned in our lives about God, about the truth, the reality of good and of evil, of God and of Satan, we've done through the sin. Romans 7:14-25. This is the text that Augustine points to. For we know that the law is spiritual but I am of the flesh sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies closer and for I delight in the law of God in my inner being. But I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from the body of death. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. The logic is irresistible. I'm wrestling with sin. St. Paul says he struggled with sin. If he was always finding himself flat on his face even near the end of his life mourning his great moral weakness then there's hope for me and there's hope for you. His sin pointed him to the glory of the Savior Christ. And Christ gets glory from saving us from sin. And then God uses our sin in the process of sanctification because we realize what it took for Jesus to turn my sin into sanctification. What did it take? It took the cross of Jesus Christ. There on the cross of Jesus Christ, Jesus got what we deserved. Punishment for our sin to extend to us where he earned. Kind of like Abraham and Abimelech. Abraham sins, God goes to Abimelech and says you're a dead man. Abraham gets what he didn't deserve. And then Abimelech gives to Abraham... So Abimelech gets what he didn't deserve. Abimelech gives to Abraham what Abraham didn't deserve. It's a double imputation. This is what happens when we believe in Jesus Christ. That our sins get counted to him. His righteousness gets counted to us. He who knew no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God. Obviously the danger here is that we can sin as a way to get more grace and Romans six deals with that. And obviously that's false. In Romans two, St. Paul sternly condemns that idea that doing evil may bring about good. Does God want us to be complacent with sin? Does God want us to sin? Of course not. But this chapter's showing that God is greater than our sin. Whatever the things in your path, God is greater than our sins and God can use those sins as a sculptor. We're all block of marble and Jesus is sitting here with a hammer and chisel and just chiseling away the sinful parts of who we are so that we can be more faithful to him. And the final analysis Abraham is a better man. He's prepared for the rest of his life to live a life of faithfulness. 2 Timothy 2:13. If we are faithless he remains faithful for he cannot deny himself. Did Abraham betray the covenant? Yes, he did. But God did not. Abraham gave God reason to withdraw the promise but God would not. Abraham dishonored the Lord's name, dishonored his word but the Lord not only forgave him not only rescued him but blessed him abundantly with land, with animals, restored his marriage and gave him $7 million. God used Abraham's misbehavior then to create peace and harmony with the people in the land. Now back to the question. Is this fair? Was this text fair? Was it fair that Abimelech almost gets whacked for doing something that he didn't know he was doing? Oh, it's not fair. Is it fair that Abraham who commits the sin is called a prophet and has to intercede for the guy that didn't do anything wrong? Is that fair? No. Is it fair that Abimelech then gives the sinner Abraham $7 million, land and vehicles? Is that fair? No, it's not fair. Is it fair that Jesus Christ dies on the cross for my sin? That's not fair. It's not fair. God is greater than fair. That's not fair. But that's grace. And that's why grace makes us so... Makes God so great. Look, you might be a great person. Good person. You might be much better person than I am. You might recycle much better than I do. Sometimes a plastic bottle goes in the garbage in my house. It's terrible. You might drive an electric vehicle. You're much better than I am. You might waive the right flags and you might go the right parades and be an activist for the right things. You might be a great moral person. Being a good person doesn't get you into heaven. It doesn't. That's the point with Abimelech. It's not about being a good person. It's about being a perfect person. And there's only one perfect person and that's Jesus Christ. And the only way we can be reconciled with God and have our sins forgiven is to believe in Jesus Christ and ask for his righteousness to be counted on to us. And that's the beauty of the gospel. That through faith in Jesus Christ, God sees Christ's righteousness in you. It's as if Jesus Christ is interceding for us. Abimelech needed Abraham to intercede for him but Abraham died. So who can intercede for us? There's one who can intercede for us who is not dead. He's sitting at the right hand of God interceding for us. Isaiah 53:12. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many and he shall divide the spoil with a strong because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors yet he bore the sin of many. It makes intercession for whom transgressors. This one means to be a Christian you say God I am a transgressor. I have sinned. God I need you to intercede for me. Jesus intercede for me. And Hebrews 7:25. Consequently, he is able to save the uttermost those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them. If you are not a Christian we welcome you to become a Christian today by repenting of sin and believing in Jesus Christ. If you do that you are welcome and partake in communion. Today for homeless communion it's for repentant Christians. How do you become a Christian? You repent of sin and turn to Jesus Christ is for repenting Christian. So if you're Christian, if you have repented of sin but are currently living in habitual sin, you know that our sins in your life that you have not repented of them you have not turned from then right now is the opportunity to repent of those sins and partake in Holy Communion. If you don't repent today, if you don't become a Christian today, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service per 1 Corinthians 11. Right now we're going to pray for Holy Communion. If you haven't received a cup and you'd like to partake in communion, raise your hand and the ushers will pass them out as I'm praying. Let's pray. Heavenly Father we thank you for the gift of grace. What a gift it is. We thank you that you are more than fair. That you are also a loving God, a gracious God, a merciful God, a God that's long suffering. A God that longs to bless us not just in our lives but to the third, the fourth, the 10th, the 10,000s generation that comes from us. Lord we thank you for the story of Abraham. We thank you that you didn't give up on him when he was faithless but you remained faithful. In our own lives Lord, we repent of sin and we ask you to forgive us for all those times we've been faithless. And fill us with the spirit to fight the good fight of faith. Continue to sanctify us Lord and make us people who not only wage war against sin but our daily victories over. Lord Jesus we thank you for pouring out your blood and we thank you for your broken body. And I pray that you cleanse us through your blood and that you heal us through the brokenness of your body. I pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Take off the first piece of plastic, take the bread and then peel off the second piece of plastic which opens up the cup. And the night Jesus Christ was betrayed he took the bread and after breaking he said this is my body broken for you. Take eat and do this remembrance of me. Then proceeded to take the cup. And he said this cup is the cup of new covenant of my blood was poured out for the sins of many. Take drink and do this in remembrance of me. Lord Jesus we thank you for your intercession on our behalf as you sit the right hand of the throne of God the Father. We thank you not just for forgiveness of sin but that you use even our past sins to shape us and sanctify us and to sculpt us into the people that you have created us to be. I pray Lord Jesus that you send us the Holy Spirit and fill us and empower us. Give us the wisdom and the power and the strength to live in a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ and use us here in the city to share the gospel with many so that many are saved. Draw the elect into your kingdom. And please use us in the process. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
Don’t Grow Comfortable With Sin
May 30, 2021 • Genesis 19
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston in our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning, and welcome to Mosaic. My name is Jan. I'm one of the pastors here at mosaic. And if you knew, if you're visiting, we're so glad you're here. We'd love to connect with you. We do that through the connection card, either the one that you can get virtually online or in the app, or the physical one, you can get in the back. If you fill it out and then submit it, we'll be sure to get in touch with you over the course of the week. Happy Memorial Day weekend. It's not just a three-day weekend. It is an opportunity for us to pause and to remember those who have fallen in fighting for our freedom. So, here in the beginning, we're going to pray for our law enforcement officers, we're going to pray for the military and those who are in authority over them, as we're told to do in scripture, let us pray. Heavenly father, we thank you that you are a God who has created us and you have created the world with a design, and you've woven into the design the idea of authority, that you are Lord over everything, that you have in innate authority, and then you delegate authority to others. Scripture tells us that you delegate authority even to the government, the governing authorities, and as Romans 13 says, in order for them to further the good and curb the evil. So, we thank you for those who are in law enforcement, for those who do a great job, for those in the military, and for those who are in authority over them. I pray that you give them wisdom, protect them from the evil one. Protect their lives and guide them as they do their job. We remember, Lord, today, those who have fallen, and the families of the fallen, we pray that you minister to them. Lord, and as they represent giving a life for those who are closest to us, giving life for friends, that is the epitome of love, that's what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. Lord, we thank you for this nation. We thank you for the blessing that it is to gather as believers and a free assembly to read the holy scriptures, to read them and to meditate upon them, and to apply them to our lives. Lord, Jesus, we thank you that you submitted to the authority of the father, that you humbled yourself, became a servant and went to the cross, and you did that to forgive us, to provide for a way for us to be forgiven for our rebellion against your authority, our rebellion against your moral authority, where you tell us how we are to live, how are to love, and how we are to serve. Lord, bless our time in the holy scriptures. Show us the anti-example of Lot. Make us a people who are less like Lot and more like Abraham, people who believe and actually act on that belief instead of believing secretly in our hearts by allowing our lives to have nothing to do with the faith. Lord, bless our time in the holy scriptures. We pray for the Holy Spirit. We want more of it. Welcome Holy Spirit. We welcome you to this place. Teach us. We pray all this in the beautiful name of Jesus Christ, amen. We're going through a sermon series through the book of Genesis that we are calling Jesus in Genesis. The title of the sermon today is don't grow comfortable with sin. Last week, we saw this incredible example of Abraham, father Abraham, who believes in God. And he knows that God is going to judge the wicked City of Sodom and Gomorrah. And he pleads with God. He intercedes on behalf of Sodom before God. A bright picture that points to Jesus Christ, and in chapter 19, we see just how wicked the City of Sodom was. And chapter 19, we get a vivid, raw, gritty account of the sinfulness of sin. It shows us how deep sin can get ingrained in a culture. We see a scene that's obscene, perverted. We see moral filth, pervasive debauchery. The big idea of the text is that we live in a sinful world, but we as Christians, as followers of God, we are to be in the world, not of the world. We are to be in the city of Boston would not allow the City of Boston into us, not allow the City of Boston to shape our worldview, to shape our values, to shape our idea of God, of gender, of sexuality, of what matters in life. Instead, we are to be transformed by the renewal of our minds with the word of God. This is Romans 12:1-2, "I appeal to you therefore brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God," which is a spiritual worship. "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing, you made discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Don't be conformed to this world, in particular, what it says we can do with our bodies, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, with the word of God. Let the word of God shape what you do with your bodies, because your body is a sacrifice. Today, we're going to walk through the text, the narrative. It's a long text, but I will draw out five lessons or five signs of conformity to the world. As we read the text and look at these signs, we need to be asking ourselves, where am I conforming to the world? The first sign of conformity to the world is you have the same goals as the world. The second is there's a tolerance of sin. The third is you have no spiritual authority. Fourth is a hesitation to sacrifice, and the fifth is the desire to keep a little sin, just a little sin. Would you look at the text with me in Genesis 19:1-3. "The two angels," these are the two angels that came with Yahweh, with Jesus in bodily form in chapter 18. These two angels came to Sodom in the evening. "And lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth and said, "My Lords, please turn aside to your servants house and spend the night and wash your feet, then you may rise up early and go on your way." They said, "No, we will spend the night in the town square." "But he pressed them strongly so they turned aside to him and entered his house, and he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate." First thing we see is Lot is sitting at the gate of Sodom. By this time, he is one of the leading citizens of the city. The first sign of conformity to the world is you have the same goals as the world. Who is Lot? Lot is the nephew of Abraham. They were living in the Ur of the Chaldeans, a pagan nation, a pagan city, and God calls Abraham, speaks to Abraham, and said, "Abraham, you are mine. I love you. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to bless those who are with you. I'm going to give you a great name and a great nation will come of you. And from your son, there will be salvation to all the world." Lot hears this call and says, you know what? I want to be blessed as well. Goes with Abraham to Canaan, the land of Canaan. He paused in Haran, goes to the land of Canaan, and he lives with father Abraham. He is blessed with Abraham, so much so, they had flocks and they had herds and he needed more land, more real estate to feed them. So, he chooses the green pastures, the fertile valley right next to Sodom and Gomorrah. The story of Lot is the typical story of an immigrant boy, who grows up in poverty and then makes it big in the city. It's a story of rags to riches, poverty to power. At this point in the story, he's a chief magistrate in the city, sitting at the gate. They're making decisions influencing the politics of the city. However, he went to Sodom with one goal. He went to Sodom for the same reason other people went to Sodom. He went to Sodom for the same reason most people come to Boston. He came to make a career for himself. He came to make money. He came to enrich himself, not reach the city for God. He had a monetary mindset, not a missionary mindset. He didn't think about reaching people for God. He didn't think about making an altar to God. He didn't think about the word of God, influencing his neighbors to believe in God. No, he just wanted to make money. Chapter 13, he was drawn towards Sodom. He pitches his tent outside of the city. Chapter 14, we see that he is now in the city owns real estate within the city. By chapter 19, he's one of the most influential people in the city, but when it comes time to stand up for righteousness and stand against evil, because he has been thoroughly compromised, nobody listens to him, and his witness is ineffective. Like uncle Abraham, in the text, we see that Lot, too, was a hospitable man. Meets these angels, wants to bring them into his house. Same words are used. The fact that he bowed before them, the fact that he wanted to wash their feet, the fact that he created a great feast for them. Later on, we see in the text, he's doing this, not just because he's hospitable, he's doing this because he knows how corrupt the men of Sodom are. He's trying to protect these angels, these men from the men of Sodom. It would be as if you see angels descend upon Methadone Mile, and they plan on camping out Methadone Mile, and you say, "No, no, no, no, no. We know what happens here at night. No, you are coming with me." That's what's going on. That's why he pleads with them. He was hoping that they would spend the night and then slip out quietly in the morning. Why? Because of verse four. "Before they laid down," so they have this feast, then, "before they laid down the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man surrounded the house." The text tells us that they were entirely corrupt. All of the men from young to old. So, you have nasty old men and you have prepubescent boys, who most likely were doing what the old men had taught them. The old men most likely molested through acts of pedophilia with the boys to allow them to live like this, to teach them to live like this. Sodom here shows us what the world looks like without God a city, where you're not safe to walk around at night, or else you might get raped. Genesis 19:5, "And they called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them." Not that we may get to know them. It's a euphemism for, we want to have sex with them. "Bring them out so that we can, all of us from young to old, "rape these men, this fresh meat. We're going to rape them. We're going to gang rape them, Lot. Bring them out." We see the first sign of conformity to the world. Your goals are the same as everybody else and they begin to think that you are just like them and therefore your witness isn't powerful. Then sign two of conformity in the world is a tolerance of sin. A tolerance of sin. First of all, you need to know Lot, just by his connection to Abraham, does become a believer. He becomes a Christian. How do we know this? We know this from 2 Peter 2:4-8, where Peter, the apostle Peter calls him a righteous man twice, "Where if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment. If he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, the herald of righteousness with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes. He condemned them to extinction making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly." He rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the central conduct of the wicked. For as that righteous man lived among them day after day. He was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard. His soul was tormented because of the sensuality in the evil of the city. His witness meant nothing. Jesus Christ told his disciples, "Hey, go into a town, go into a village and preach the gospel there. If people get saved, tremendous. If they don't get saved, if no one responds to the preaching of the gospel, you walk out of that city, you dust off your sandals of that city and you keep going." Instead, Lot, first of all, he didn't preach the gospel. He didn't preach God's word. And second of all, he was fine living there. His soul was vexed, but not enough to leave the prosperity, to leave the status, to leave the influence, to leave the money. Here we see that he tries to fight back a little bit. Verse six, Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him and said, "I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. He calls them his brothers. You're my brothers, you're my friends. He's known them for over a decade and he knows what goes on in the city. And he says, do not act so wickedly. What is this wicked, what they were about to do? Were the intentions of the heart? Yes. On what grounds? On what grounds is this wicked? Just because Lot said so? That's why they pushed back. They were like, who are you? You've lived there for over a decade. You're the mayor of the town and you've never said anything prior to this moment, who are you? But what he does next is just unbelievably, and it shows us how far he's gone in tolerating sin, and he has. He's tolerated the sin. Most likely, he had the mindset of honestly, who am I to tell them that this is wrong? Love is love. They're adults, consenting adults. They can do whatever they want. I have my own faith, that's my private faith. I'm not going to tell them that what they believe is actually evil. So, he comes up with a plan, verse eight, "Behold, I have two daughters," This is just disgusting. "I have two daughters who have not known any man. They're virgins. Let me bring them out to you and do to them as you please, only do nothing to these men for they have come under the shelter of my roof." You want to rape angels, let's not do that. Instead, here's my virgin daughters, raped them instead. That's what's happening. In his mind, hospitality was more sacred than the chastity of his daughters who, by the way, are also under his roof, who, by the way, also deserve his protection for him. This is where a tolerance of sin warps your worldview so much, where you get to the point where your moral compass is just so way off that you have no idea what is good and what is evil. Yeah, he had a sacred obligation to hospitality, but he had a sacred obligation to protecting his daughters. Why didn't he say, hey guys, let's not rape anybody. Let's not do that. Let's not rape angels, let's not rape my daughters. He doesn't do that. And we see the incredible contrast between Abraham, the patriarch and Lot here, who does not have the backbone, the spine to say, I am responsible for my ... I'm responsible for my own walk with God to submit to his authority. I'm responsible for my wife. I'm responsible for the faith of my daughters. By God's grace, I have four daughters. And my job as a father is to pastor them in the faith, to raise them up in the Lord, to teach them to fear the Lord and love the Lord, to pastor them, to protect them, to protect them. I will protect them. I will protect them to the death, and I will teach them to protect their selves. I will teach them to fight and I will teach them to shoot pepper spray and a gun. Why? Because I know there are people in the world that wants to destroy them. That's my job. As a father, I am to protect. We see Abraham who has a son, Isaac, and he cares so much for Isaac's faith and Isaac's family, that he doesn't let Isaac get married to a woman of Canaan. He said, "I don't want you to marry this woman." That's why he waits until age 40 to allow Isaac to get married. He would say, no, no, no. You're going to marry a godly woman. He sends a servant to go find a godly woman and Rebecca, and they finally they get married. Lot could not be bothered to do that. Not only did he not protect his daughters, but he allowed them to marry, to be engaged to Sodom men, men of Sodom who wanted nothing to do with God. We see, in Lot, a very pathetic man. Verse nine, "But they said, "Stand back." And they said, "This fellow came to sojourn and he has become the judge. Now we will deal worse with you than with them." Then he pressed hard against the man, Lot, and drew near to break the door down." What's fascinating is, even the most viciously, evil of people are highly sensitive to judgment. They feel like he's judging them for ... They called this thing that they were about to do wicked. Don't do this wicked thing. They called it fun. He calls it wicked. What they're saying is, who are you to judge us? Honestly, who was he to judge them? He's lived a decade in the city, has never raised a word about the wickedness of the city. Who are you to judge us? Only God can judge us, and God will. All Lot is proposing is they not rape his guests, but they take offense at the implication that he's morally superior. That's how far gone the society is. Verse 10, "But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door, and they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great so that they wore themselves out by groping for the door." Now we see that the angels, that these people aren't just regular people. They are angels. They have supernatural powers. They blind these people to show how blind they were spiritually, now they're blind physically, and even blinded physically, what are they doing? They're still driven by their lust, groping for the door. It just show that it's like a zombie apocalypse where these people are so far gone in following the lusts of their hearts, the lust of their flesh, that even being blinded doesn't stop them from trying to do what they had in mind. Verse 12, "Then the men said to Lot, "Have you," the men, the angels, "have you anyone else here, sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city? Bring them out of the place for we are about to destroy this place because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord and the Lord has sent us to destroy it." In the previous chapter, God, knowing the weakness of the city still extends mercy to them by sending the angels down. The angels are messengers. They're messengers that unless you turn from sin, you will be punished. And instead of listening to the messengers, they try to rape the messengers, and now it's beyond doubt Sodom has to be destroyed. So, sign number two of conformity to the world's a tolerance to sin. We see that Lot just lived there and he tolerated sin, tolerated his own sin, tolerate the sin of his wife, of his daughters, of these people. Sign number three of conformity to the world is you have no spiritual authority, especially with those who know you best. When you speak on matters of spiritual things, matters about morality, matters from the word of God, do people listen to you or do they mock? Do they joke? Genesis 19:14, "So, lot went out and said to his sons-in-law who were to marry his daughters, "Up. Get out of this place for the Lord is about to destroy the city." But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting. They thought he was joking. Because this is the first this time they'd ever heard him speak seriously, soberly on matters of spiritual things. They think he's joking. The Lord is going to destroy this place and they think he is joking, impending judgment. Lot, sleep it off. We'll talk about it in the morning. He has zero spiritual influence over the men that he was going to allow to marry his daughter. Zero spiritual influence. Compare that with Abraham, compare Lot's spiritual influence and Abraham's spiritual influence. God goes to Abraham and says, "Abraham, I'm going to make a covenant with you. The sign of the covenant is going to be circumcision. So, you need to circumcise yourself at age 90 plus, and you need it to circumcise the other 318 men in your household." So, he gets that word from the Lord, circumcises himself, and goes to the men in his household and says, "Gentlemen, I have a word from God." "Oh yeah, what's that word, Abraham?" "God said that he loves us and that we are to love him back, and the way that we're going to do that is circumcising ourselves." "Oh, Abraham, what does circumcision entail? And he shows, and the 318 men do it. They do it. The spiritual authority of this man who led by example, how do you get spiritual authority? How do you grow in spiritual authority? By submitting to the authority of God. The more you submit your life, the more you submit the pattern of your life to the authority of God, the more authority you have to speak to others, that this is the way of God, this is the will of God. Lot has no spiritual authority because he didn't obey God, he didn't submit himself to God. This is why the other men are like, who are you to judge us? You're just like us, bro. You're the mayor of the town. You've allowed this to happen. He has no spiritual authority over these sons. By the way, the sons-in-law, why should they listen to him? He had just offered these guys' fiances to a gang of rapist. Of course, they're not going to listen to him. He's accommodated his lifestyle to life of Sodom. Sign number four of conformity to the world is a hesitation of sacrifice. To follow the Lord, you are the sacrifice. Jesus Christ tells us, if you are to follow me, you need to take up your cross daily and follow me. So, we are to say yes to Jesus. By saying yes to Jesus, there are things that we have to turn our back on. Genesis 19:15, "As morning dawned," first of all, he waited all night. The angels told them, judgment is coming, flee now. He waits all night. Oh, we need to get rest. We need to wake up, have a nice breakfast, little protein to be ready to run from the judgment. And he waits. It shows that he has no desire to leave his flocks and his herds and his real estate and his influence. He lingers. "As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, "Up, take your wife and your daughters who are here, lest you be swept away the punishment of the city," but he lingered. But he lingered. I wonder if there's areas of life where you know exactly what God's will is, and you're lingering in sin because you know it's a sacrifice to leave sin. Lot is saved. He's saved. He's barely saved. He's one of those people who's saved, but he's not happy about it. It's like the guy who gets saved freshman year in college, like the summer before freshman year in college. He's like, ah, why'd you save me now? God save me when I'm 26 and I want to get married and start a family, save me then. That's when I'm going to go and find a nice Christian girl in church. But until then, I don't want to be saved. Lot's that guy. He's not happy about it. And he's lingering, lingering and sin, because to say no to sin, to say no to the comfort of a sinful lifestyle, man, that's painful. He lingered. So, the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, and the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. Lingered, he was so attached to Sodom. Wouldn't leave. With destruction looming, it just comes down to the angels pulling him out, physically pulling him out. Why? Because he didn't want to make the sacrifice of losing everything he had been working for. Why did he hesitate? In the words of Jesus, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Sign number five of conformity to the world is desire to keep a little sin, just a little sin. "As they brought them out, one said, "Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley, escape to the hills lest you be swept away." And Lot said to them, "Oh no, my Lords. Behold, your servant has found favor in your sight and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life, but I can not escape to the hills lest the disaster overtake me and I die. Behold, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there, is it not a little one? And my life will be saved." He said to them, "Behold, I grant you this favor also that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Escape there quickly for, I can do nothing until you arrive. Therefore, the name of that city was Zoar." This is just absurd. They're physically pulling him out and they say, "Go into the hills, go live in the woods, away from this perverse people and perverse cities and towns." And he says, "Oh no, oh no, no, thank you." And he says, "I can't live out in the woods in the hills. I'm a city boy. I need access to a Starbucks. I need a walkability rating of at least 9.1." I need museums, I'm a man of culture. No, I cannot go. I want to go to a city, a little city." "Yeah, the city was supposed to get over thrown just what the others, but have mercy on this little ... It's a little city." God's like, get out of Vegas. And he's like, can I go to Reno instead? They don't have big strip, but they have little strip clubs. Can I go there? That's what's going on here. You see just the absurdity of a man, disaster is looming, judgment is coming, and he's bickering and bartering with the angels who've come to save him. At the most dangerous moment of his life, he's still thinking about worldly comfort. It's like a Christian saying, God, okay, you've saved me, all right I'll go to church. I'll go to church once in a while or I'll go to church on a Sunday, but the rest of the week is mine. I'll tithe, I'll give you 10%, but I get to do whatever I want with the other 90. You can't call me generosity. Okay, I'll read my Bible once in a while, but I just need to keep a little ... The things you call us to, sexual purity, to not even be named among you, to not look at a person lustfully with your eyes. God, you're being extreme. I need a little sin, just a little sin. That's what's going on. Verse 23, "The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar, then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground." The instrument of the structure in here is probably an earthquake that then releases the heat, and the gas is especially a sulfur that were in the ground. But the narrative combines the ultimate cause was the Lord, but the instrumental cause that was burning sulfur by heat from below, or maybe lightning from above and the word for Lord here is Yahweh. It's the same word that's used for when there was three men that came to Abraham, two angels and Yahweh in human form, Jesus. This is Jesus judging Sodom and Gomorrah. I wonder if that changes your view of Jesus. A lot of people think of Jesus like Mr. Rogers, really nice. He's here to help you in life. He'll give you a good word of advice. He'll bless you when you ask for it, he will heal you when you ask for it, but he never tells you no, and he certainly won't judge. Oh, that's starkly different from the Jesus of scripture who does judge and will judge. He does judge here with the sword and he will judge with a flaming sword when he comes back. In the middle, while we're alive, we still have hope. Hope to turn from sin and to turn to him. That's what was going on with the angel saying, don't look back, don't look back. You need to turn from that city, turn from everything you love that was sinful in that city and that's what repentance is. When we talk about repentance, it's not just saying, Jesus, I'm sorry. Repentance is actually leaving your sin. Stop sinning. I trust in Jesus. I repent of sin. I leave the sin. Lot did that. His wife didn't. In verse 26, "But Lot's wife behind him look back and she became a pillar of salt." We don't know much this woman. We know that Lot married her. We're not sure the timeline when. Scripture says when he left Ur of the Chaldeans, it's clear that Abraham had a wife, Sarah. Lot's wife isn't mentioned, most likely, it's because he wasn't yet married. She's not named here just like her daughters aren't named, because she most likely doesn't deserve to be named, to be remembered. Most likely she's not a believer and she was just a woman of Sodom. Most likely he married her only because she was good looking. He didn't care about her character. He didn't care if she was a believer, he didn't care if she submitted her life, God, and she looks back. They weren't supposed to simply flee for their lives, they were supposed to leave the city behind, drop their pasts with any desire to touch it. Again, and she's looking back, not just out of curiosity, but out of longing, and she gets judged, not for looking, but for longing, for wistfully wishing for what must be left behind. She loved the city. She loved the people of the city. Most likely her relatives, most likely her dad and her granddad and her uncles and her brothers were in this insatiable crowd of rapists. But it was just fun. It's okay. It was our lifestyle. That's fine. She longed to be back there. She felt more comfortable in that town without God than with God outside the town. Her identification with Sodom, her unwillingness to leave the place explains the behavior of her daughters in the next episode. Young men, single men, Proverbs 31:30 is for you, "Charm is deceitful, beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." When trying to decide whom to marry, the number one priority isn't physical beauty. The number one priority is she love God, that she fear God, will she submit to God in his word? Husbands, this is our job, is to ourselves, grow in the fear of the Lord and teach our wives. Lead our wives in fearing God and loving him. Single ladies, that's what you need to be focusing on, cultivating fear of the Lord. That's to be praised. I remember when I was figuring out whom to marry back in the day, coming up on year 15 of our university in this next week. I just knew. I knew this is just basic wisdom. I knew that daughters are influenced by mothers. I wanted to marry a woman, and if God gave us daughters, I wanted my daughters to be like her. By God's grace, we have four daughters. Praise God. They love God, most of them, three of them, definitely. The fourth, I'm not sure she's a little degenerate. She takes more after me than after her mom, but we're working on her. We're working on her. But that's how you need to be thinking about marriage in terms of generations and faith and legacy, etc. Genesis 19:27-28, "And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord and he looked down towards Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the valley. He looked, and behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace." Chapter proceeding this one, Abraham beg God, prayed to God, interceding on behalf of Sodom, please, God, save it. And God chose not to. God chose to save Lot and his two daughters. He didn't the city, poured out judgment upon the city. And we, as children of God, need to be like Abraham. And when we see judgment poured out on people who deserve it, we have to say, God is good, and because God is good, he is just. A lot of people push back and say, I can't believe in a God that would punish and a God who meets out justice like this. Really? Really? God doesn't punish evil, then God is not good, and if he's not good, he's not worthy of being worshiped. The reason hell exists and the reason judging exists is because God is good and because God is loving. Here, we need to take a little excursus. I'm done with my five signs, by the way. So, if you're like, oh, are we still on sign number five? I'm done with those. Little excursus here. Question, why did God punish Sodom and Gomorrah? Why did he do it? Why did he do it? Well, the three major prophets, they comment on Sodom and Gomorrah. Ezekiel 16:49-50, "Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom. She and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor in needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me, so I removed them when I saw it." A lot of liberal theologians will look at this text and they look at Sodom and Gomorrah and say, Sodom and Gomorrah got punished because of their inhospitality. I push back, like in hospitality, they want to rape the angels. They want to rape the guests. That's isn't hospitality, so that's just wrong. Then they go to this text and they're like, hey, it's because they weren't generous to the poor. That's the main reason. No, that's a secondary reason. They were generous to the poor because they lived for themselves. They lived for themselves, why? Because they were selfish? Why were they selfish? Because they were full of pride. And those are the bookends in this text. Yeah, they had food. They were prosperous, etc. They didn't care for the poor, But it was because of pride. A pride that says, I am my own. I get to do whatever I want with my life. I am God of my own life. There is no God over me. That's the pride. The pride that says, if I accumulate enough power, enough money, I can do whatever I want against those who are weaker or not as rich. It's a pride that's proud of itself. It's a pride that has hashtags and parades and flags by sin. The hypersexuality sexual sin, it's an outworking of the pride, the pride that says, I am God. I don't need anyone to tell me what to do and how to live. Isaiah 3:8-9 says, "For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen because their speech and their deeds are against the Lord, defying his glorious presence, for the look on their faces bears witness against them." They proclaim their sin, like Sodom, they do not hide it. Woe to them for they have brought evil on themselves. Proud of the sin. That's the issue. When society, openly practices sinful sexual behavior and actually promotes it and actually says, this is good, promotes any kind of sexuality that you can think of. That shows a society that's away from God. Scripture teaches clearly that the only sexual activity that God allows is between one man and one woman in heterosexual marriage making a covenant for life. Fornication is a sin, adultery is a sin, pedophilia is a sin, homosexuality is a sin. And when a society openly practices and accepts specifically homosexuality, it's a sign that God has given that society over to degrading passions, and it's the final stages of corruption with judgment looming. Look at Romans 1:26 and 27. "For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions for their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves due penalty of their error." Christian, does this text, does this teaching make you feel uncomfortable? If so, perhaps you've grown too comfortable with the sin around you, and perhaps you are conformed to it. If you're not a Christian, let's just reason together real quick. Is it okay to gang rape angels? I think we can all agree, it's not okay. Is it okay to gang rape humans? I think we can all agree, it's not okay. Is it okay to gang rape an individual? No. Is it okay to rape an individual? No, it's not okay. Is it okay to allow your daughter's be gang raped by a hoard of men. Is that okay? No, no, no, no. Why? Because we are not animals. We're not animals. We're created in the image of God, and that God, the creator of the universe tells us what is okay and what isn't okay. For the same reason, you can't just say, oh, what matters is consent? As long as there's consent, then that's okay. No, there's no consent from God. And if there isn't a consent from God, then it is sin. We as Christians, we need to know that God of the universe has authority over our life.. the other thing I will mention about this text is, it shows us like the end, the most egregious end of the spectrum of sexual sin. But Where does it start? Where does it start? It starts in the heart. And Jesus said, whoever looks upon another human being with lustful intent in their heart has already committed sexual sin. Yeah, this has to do with every single one of us. Dear Christian, do you entertain sinful sexual thoughts in your heart? Do you look at porn? Sex ed in public schools, they teach you, this is healthy. Enjoy yourself. No, it's wrong, and it's sinful, and it grows, and it continues to grow. A ship in the water is perfectly right. Water in the ship is not. What this is saying is a Christian is in the world, but we can not be of the world. We can't let the world in. We can't let Sodom in. Jeremiah 23 also comments on this text, "But in the prophets of Jerusalem, I've seen a horrible thing." He's talking to prophets. He's talking to the teachers of the people of God. "I've seen a horrible thing. They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evil doors so that no one turns from his evil. All of them have become like Sodom to me and its inhabitants like Gomorrah. He's talking to believers who have pastors, who themselves, and not just entertain, they commit sexual sin and they strengthen the hands of those who do it. This is most of the churches in our city, in our very Sodom esque city, where priests and pastors get up, and instead of a cross, they got a rainbow flag outside, and they said, love is love however you define it, as long as it's consensual for now, and as long as with an adult for now. We'll see where that goes. God calls it out. And then he calls it out because these people haven't submitted their lives to the authority of God's word. Genesis 19:29. "So, it was, when God destroyed the cities and the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived." A lot of people say, if God is like this, if God is a judge like this, I can't believe in a God like that. And what a warped logic that is. No, you should be saying, if God is like this, God is judge and I deserve his judgment. I need to run to him. I need to believe in him. I need to ask for mercy and for forgiveness to be saved. We're given the impression here that Lot was saved only thanks to Abraham's intercession. What's most fascinating about this account is that Lot is a Christian, and how absolutely unimpressive of a Christian he is. He's the worst I can ... I think I can say this. He's the worst Christian who's ever lived. The absolute worst. He's the guy, like he is the guy in heaven who's as close to hell as possible. He's that guy. He's there and he's like, I have no idea why I'm here. He's probably doesn't even want to be there, and he's only there because God chose to save him because of Abraham's pleading. Yes, he was a man of faith, kind of, yes, he saw how wicked the City of Sodom was. His soul was vexed, but not vexed enough to leave. He sought to protect his guests from the evil, but he wanted to do it in a very evil way, a more evil way. And we see that Lot, the problem with law is just how half-hearted he was. Knew the truth, but never lived it out. Tried to straddle the fence between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the evil one, and that's the most uncomfortable seat in the house. We see no determination. Abraham was a patriarch. He took responsibility for himself. When he sinned, he repented. Yes, he committed sin. He had a child out of wedlock. He committed a sin, but he took responsibility for this, and he repented, he turned to God. He took responsibility for his wife, for teaching his children how to follow God. He was a patriarch. And that's what a patriarch does, sacrifices himself for the benefit of his beloved. Beloved wife, beloved children, beloved city, beloved church. That's what a patriarch does. Lot is not a patriarch. Lot is a soytriarch. He does not have the spine, the backbone to say, "God, this is your word. Whatever the sacrifice is, I'm going to follow it." Doesn't take responsibility for himself, for his wife, for his daughters. If Abraham is the father of the faithful, Lot is the father of all who are barely saved. Scarcely saved. So, friend, are you saved, first of all, do you trust in Jesus Christ? Did you repent of sin? And are you surely saved or scarcely saved? Lot was saved by the skin of his teeth hesitating as he's being dragged out of Sodom by force as death reigns on the city. And what a sad sight. You see Lot dickering with the angels just moments before the death of his neighborhood of his neighbors, in the judgment of his wife. Yeah. He was saved. His wife wasn't. His daughters weren't, his neighbors weren't, his friends weren't. He called these men brothers. They all end up in hell because he had no influence. And he had no influence because he himself didn't really believe, not enough to actually obey. Would things have ended differently if he moved quickly, if he had done precisely as he was told, if he had showed the proper deference to the angels, if he exhibited proper fear of the judgment that is to come, if he had set an example for his wife and his daughters, of strong faith, of prompt obedience? Perhaps his wife wouldn't have looked back. Perhaps his daughters wouldn't have raped him as we read in the text after. 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 talks about these different levels. Yeah, everyone's saved by grace through faith, but what do we do with that salvation? There's different levels of the faith. Verse 11 of 1 Corinthians 3, "For no one can lay foundation other than that, which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Building a metaphor, Jesus is the foundation. Now, if anyone builds on the foundation of gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, this right here is the materials of a building, and he's saying, Jesus is the foundation, what materials are you using to build the house of your faith? Do you give God the absolute best that you have, the gold silver, precious stones, or the leftovers? That's the wood, hay, and the straw. "Each one's work will become manifest for the day, the day of judgment will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone is built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire." Question, dear Christian is, what materials are you building with? The best of what you got or the leftovers of what you have, and I wonder if St. Paul had lot in mind with verse 14, "Save, but only as through fire." It's possibly pulled out of the rubbish heap just in the Nick of time, but you'll end up singed, stripped of everything, traumatized by the severe discipline of the law of the Lord. It's tragic, and what's more tragic is that he lost his family. The same idea's in Amos, Amos 4:11. I overthrew some of you as, when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you are, as a brand plucked out of the burning yet you did not return to me declares the Lord. Brand plucked out, it's a stick that's so near to the fire. It's charred, but not reduced to ashes just yet because you got pulled out. Lot lived a comfortable life for a long time. Green grass, fat cattle, position of influence. Even when Kings came from the north and took him captive and uncle Abraham saved him, and he goes back to Saddam. After a while, he becomes like the men of Sodom. Lot is the father of all the people whose righteous souls are vexed, but they do nothing about the vexation, and lots of luscious green pastures are laid to waste. And the entire valley five cities turned into one of the most arid lifeless deserts in all of the earth. That's where a life of compromise ends, but that's not really the ending, the ending is even more hopeless. Genesis 19:30, "Now, Lot went out of Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zoar, so he lived in a cave with his two daughters. He asked the angels, can I go to Zoar, goes to Zoar, and now he's afraid to live here. They don't know why. Most likely it's because people of Zoar knew that because of lot and the God of LOt destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. We don't know why he leaves, he goes to live in a cave. The question is, why didn't he go back to his uncle? Why didn't go back to uncle Abraham? The only answer that comes to mind is pride. He didn't want to go back to his uncle with nothing. Uncle, I need your help again. So, he goes and he lives in a cave with his daughters. Then we see one of the most sorted tales of deceit and incest in the scriptures. Verse 31, "And the firstborn said to the younger, "Our father's old and there's not a man on earth to come into us after the manner of all the earth. Come let us make our father drink wine and we will lie with him that we may preserve offspring from our father." "So, they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father. He did not know when she laid down or when she arose. The next day, the firstborn said to the younger "Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine tonight also, then you go in and lie with him that we may preserve offspring from our father." So, they made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger arose and lay with him," and he did not know when she laid down or when she arose, thus, both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father." The first born bore a son and called his name, Moab. He's the father of Moabites to this day. The younger also bore a son and called him Ben-ammi, he's the father of Ammonites to this day." The daughters aren't named most likely, because this is an act of censure on the narrative's part. They don't deserve to be remembered. You can take a family out of Sodom, but we see here that you can't take Sodom out of a family, out of Lot, out of his daughters. They had absorbed the ethics of Sodom. He did not shield his daughters from a godless worldview, where they were sexualized at a young age. He didn't shield them from that, and then with their perversed mind, they concoct this plan, to his credit, he would not have said yes to this plan unless he was intoxicated. That's why they got him drunk. To his discredit, bro, why are you getting blackout drunk with your daughters? Why are you getting blackout drunk to begin with? I remember in high school, everybody knew, probably every public high school they have this family, where it's like, the family is like, my kids are going to party, they should do under my supervision. I'm going to open up my house and buy the keg. I had people in my high school like that. My parents would never do that. I had a curfew at 9:30. Praise God. Apparently this was a thing. Apparently this was normal, they're like, let's do it tonight. They do it. Then the next night they're like, let's do it again. And he's like, okay. Apparently, this was part of the whole culture of that city. The substance abuse, where you get so intoxicated that you lose complete control of yourself, get blackout drunk and do the things that your flesh completely wants to do. There's a connection between this. There's a connection between intoxication and debauchery, sexual debauchery. There's a connection, where people drink so much, they want to do these simple things, but they know their conscience is not allowing them to do it so they drink enough to mute the conscience, and that's what's going on here. Totally passive in this affair, just like usual, pathetic, pathetic waste of life. Man, the guy who had offered his daughters to a gang of rapists now, unbeknownst to him impregnates them himself. He was not good to his daughters. You think they forgot that moment where he offered them up. They did not. He was not good to his daughters because he didn't want the best for his daughters. Fathers, you got to be good to your daughters. By being good to your daughters means wanting the best for them, which is to love the Lord, walk in the ways of the Lord, to care for them to care about the chastity of their sexuality, to care about their virginity. That's that's our job, gentlemen. And daughters, be grateful when your dad tells you put on more clothes. Be grateful when your dad buys you pepper spray, and be grateful when your dad teaches you to shoot and fight, a little jujitsu, a little boxing, be grateful. Say thank you, dad. Thank you. The other thing that you just got to see from this text is that sin grows. It does. It's restless. It's ever reaching for more. It's never satisfied with mere in your life. It wants to damage the lives of everyone around you. We see a Lot, he chose to go down to the valley. He kept going down and down and down and down until we see him at last with two pregnant daughters living in a cave and his wife as a widower, having watched his wife die of divine judgment, finds himself in poverty with two sons, whom he had sired by his own daughters and his sons don't know whether to call him grandpa or daddy. Pathetic, pathetic ending to the story. It starts out with a flock so large, needed more real estate, ends up as a Lord of a hole in the rock on a dirt floor, destitute, disgraced, pathetic shadow of a man he had once been. Scripture says, God will not be mocked, whatever you sow, that you shall reap. Are you sowing to the flesh or are you sowing to the spirit? Satan's too clever to show you everything that happens when you sin. A thought is sowed, a deed is reaped, and you sow further deeds and you reap habits, and you sow habits and you reap a character, reap a pattern of life and attitude. Augustan said that sin becomes the punishment of sin. When you want sin, when you pursue sin, God gives you up to that sin and you reap even more sin. The warning of the text is be afraid of sin. The greatest thing to fear in sinning, isn't just what happens immediately after you sin. The greatest fear is that you get put on a trajectory that pulls you away from God. So, we ought to run from sin and we ought to mortify sin. We are to make war against a sin. From Abraham, who walked with God and obedience, would come most of what is lastingly good and lovely in this world. From lot would come to pagan deprave nations who would appear and then a few centuries later disappear. Some of the wives of Solomon lead him astray. They were Ammonite women. Their religion was so debauched that Deuteronomy 23:3 says, "No Ammonite or mole by may enter the assembly of the Lord even to the 10th generation." None of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever. So, where's Jesus in this text, in this hopeless texts, the story of a hopeless man, an antihero, where is Jesus Christ? Well, it's fascinating that one of his daughters, the nation led to the Moabites, can't even enter the house of God, the house of worship. The Moabites, that's how wicked they were. God said, you can't even go to church. Until we hear a story of another Moabite, a Moabitess, in the book of Ruth, Ruth was a Moabite, and Ruth meets Yahweh, meets Jesus Christ. When Ruth's husband dies, she goes with her mother-in-law back to Jerusalem. She serves here, she cares for her, and she meets Boaz, a godly man, and they get married, and God blesses their wedding, and they have children. God blesses their child so much so that Ruth becomes the great, great, great grandmother of Jesus Christ, that God takes this bloodline, this wicked ancestor's bloodline that comes from a wicked pathetic man, barely saved, and God brings Jesus Christ out of that. Then Jesus Christ lives the perfect life, goes to the cross and bears the fire and brimstone, the wrath of God, the judgment of God on the cross in order to be able to offer us forgiveness. He bought himself the justice of God so that when we repent of sin, we can be forgiven, even a pathetic sinful man like Lot, he could be forgiven because of the justification by grace through faith because of the work of Christ in the cross. So, if there's hope for that guy, there's hope for every single one of us. Turn from sin and turn to Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior, and then by grace through faith, by the power of the Spirit, let us follow Jesus so we don't end up like this man. And close of this, Luke 17:28-33, the words of Jesus Christ, "Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom and fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all, so will it be on the day when the son of man is revealed." "On that day, let the one who is on the house top with his goods in the house not come down to take them away, and likewise, let the one who is in the field not turn back. Remember Lot's wife, whoever seeks to preserve his life, will lose it. And whoever loses his life, will keep it." Let us pray. Lord, Jesus, we thank you for your grace and we thank you for this text, the sordid story of sin to teach us to never grow comfortable with sin. We thank you, Jesus, that because of your sacrifice in the cross, whatever we've done, no matter how perverse, no matter how wicked, you're willing to forgive and extend mercy if we just turn from sin and turn to you. By the part of the spirit, make us a people go who can to war against our sin on a daily basis against our pride. We humble ourselves before you, and we ask for grace, and we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
Caught Off-guard
May 23, 2021 • Genesis 18
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning. Welcome to Mosaic Church. My name is Jan, one of the pastors here at Mosaic, along with Pastor Shane and Pastor Andy. If you're new or visiting, we're so glad you're here. We'd love to connect with you. We do that through the connection card in the worship guide or the one you can get virtually online on our website or in our app. If you submit that, we'll get in touch with you over the course of the week. Would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's holy word? Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a good father, that you take people who are rebels, reprobate, and you regenerate us and make us children. You adopt us into your family by grace through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you lived a perfect life. You offered that perfect life as a sacrifice on our behalf. You absorbed the wrath of God, judgment that we deserve for our sin. You did that to intercede for us, to be an advocate for us, to reconcile us with God the Father. We pray, Holy Spirit, for those of us who are regenerated, that you today show us areas in our life where our faith needs to grow, where it needs to be strengthened. Continue to expose self-deception where perhaps we say we believe, and we do not. I pray for those who are not yet Christians. I pray today, make the seriousness of the judgment, the looming judgment... Make it a reality today. The gravity... Make it a reality today, and draw them to yourself. Give them the gift of repentance. Bless our time in the holy scriptures. Lord, we love you. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. We're going through a sermon series that we are calling Jesus in Genesis, where we're looking at Genesis through the lens of the gospel because that's the way you're supposed to interpret all of scripture. You interpret all of scripture with the revelation of Jesus Christ. The title of the sermon today is Caught Off Guard. You are who you are. The true you is when you are caught off guard, when something happens that you are not expecting, when you are cut off on the highway on Route 90, or you're cut off. You're coming from 93 on Storrow. You're in the left lane. Because you are a good human being, you're going to merge into Storrow, and you're going to wait your place in line. You're going to wait. At the very last moment, someone, just out of nowhere, comes in, cuts you off. You got to hit the brakes. Then they're driving slowly in front of you the whole time. They got New York plates. That's the worst. How do you react? How do you react when someone steps on your foot? How do you react when you step on your kid's Lego? How do you react when you need your iPad to preach your sermon, and you wake up, and your iPad that you plugged in at night, it's unplugged because your kid unplugged it? You're at 12%, and you got to preach two services. What are you going to do then? You're caught off guard. What's going to happen? The iPad turns off, and Pastor Jan has to go off the notes. Oh, that's dangerous. What's going to happen then? When people are caught on a hot mike or on a hidden camera, that's who they really are. That's what they really think. I had a professor in college. I took a business course my first semester. The day of our final exam, we finished the final exam. We passed it in. He got up, and he says, "That was not your final exam. Your final exam, you will take when you have graduated, and you have to make decisions of consequence. That's the real exam." Someone once said, "Your reputation is what you do when everyone is looking, and your character is what you do when no one sees." That's what we see in chapter 18 of Genesis. What we see is the God who has called Abram to Himself has then since changed his name. He's converted this pagan, this Gentile, and He made him one of His own, made him a child, gave him the gift of faith, and promised him, "I'm going to give you a son." Abraham believes. He believes. Decades go by. He believes. There were times when he wavered in his faith, but God continues to strengthen his faith. God continues to come, and God continues to bless him. In our text today, we see that God catches Abraham off guard. In the text last week, He gave him the sign of the covenant, which was circumcision, but that was just an outward sign to show that God demands an inward reality of the circumcision of our heart. God today comes in order to test Abraham. Is your heart circumcised? Do you truly love God? Do you truly love people? That love is really exposed when you least expect it. In our text today, God comes and catches Abraham off guard, catches Sarah off guard. Then we see Abraham is involved in the intercession between judgment and mercy with Sodom and Gomorrah. I'm going to do what we did last week. We're going to just walk through the text. It's a lengthy text. I do have three points. Point number one is God tests Abraham's love. Point two is God tests Sarah's faith. Point three is God tests Abraham's love again. The first test of love is a test of sacrifice toward people. The second test of love is a test of love for the souls of the people around him. Do you love people physically? Do you love people spiritually? Point number one is God tests Abraham's love. Verse 1, chapter 18, "And the LORD," all caps. That's Yahweh. "The Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day." We know it's the Lord. We know Abraham is by the oaks of Mamre. This is the place near Hebron where, ultimately, Sarah and Abraham are eventually buried. We see that in the heat of the day, he's sitting at the door of his tent. This is a siesta. If you're from another culture, you understand what a siesta is. A siesta is when you work, and then it's really hot out. Then you have lunch with some winesky. Then you take a nap. You take a napsky. Winesky, napsky in the middle of daysky. I think we should appropriate that in the United States. I think that would be wonderful. That's what's going on. They would wake up at sunrise, work until it gets really hot, stop working. Then he's just resting by the tent. He's enjoying his nap, noonday nap. Genesis 18:2, "He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him." People, physical. Just said that the Lord appeared to him, and now it says three people. Keep that in mind. We're not sure he recognizes that these men are supernatural in any way. He just sees them as men, as regular people. Most likely, assumed that they were poor because there's no word of a caravan. There's no word of camels. He sees these three people coming out of the desert in a place where the heat of the day could be 120, 125 just in the shade. He sees three travelers. They're weary. They're thirsty. They're hungry coming off the desert. They're coming in at the most inopportune time when he's taking a nap. The whole week, over the whole week, when is the best time to take a nap? When is the best nap? Sunday afternoon. That's my vote. Sunday afternoon, Sunday afternoon. There's just something about it, especially if golf is on. You turn on the golf game after lunch, Sunday afternoon. You're taking a nap. Then the doorbell rings. There's three strangers that you have never seen. What is your reaction? That's what's going on. What we see is that this is clearly a test, whether Abraham has grown in his faith to not just think about himself, to not just think about his own needs. Every single parent, what you want to do is you want to train up your child to get to the point where the child realizes that they are not the point of the universe, that the parents don't exist for the child, and that the child needs to think about other people, et cetera, et cetera. That's what's happening here. God has blessed Abraham, has blessed him spiritually, has blessed him monetarily. Now He sends him a pop quiz. Are you going to sacrifice for others even at the most inopportune time? Who are these three men? We learn in chapter 19, verse 1, that two of them were angels. Genesis 19:1, "The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom." You've got these men who are actually angels. They look like regular people. Scripture teaches us, sometimes you meet a person, and it's a real human being, and sometimes it's an angel. Two of them, we know, are angels. One of them, we know, we've been told is the Lord. If two of them are angels, then one of them has to be the Lord because it says the Lord appeared to them in 18:1. The Lord here is Yahweh. It's the Lord that comes in physical form. This is yet another theophany. It's the appearance of God in the text. It could be argued that it's a Christophany. It could be argued that this is Christ in anticipation of the incarnation. It's Jesus that appears before Abraham, flanked with two angels. They're standing there. They're just standing, and they're waiting. In that Near Eastern culture, to stand before someone's tent means that you're knocking on the door. You want to see if the people are going to welcome you in and show you hospitality. Look at 18:2 thorough 6. "When he saw them, he ran from the tent door." By the way, he's 99. He's running. Later on in the text, he's kneeling. He's cooking. 99 years old, I think he's on a Tom Brady pliability diet. Avocado ice cream, that's what's going on. What's going on in the text? He has responded to the test. He's running to them. In that culture, men don't run. You only run when there's a lion chasing you. That's what the Proverb says. You don't go off for a jog. He's running. He's kneeling. To meet them, he bows down to the earth and said, "O Lord." Calls him Lord, Adon. It's not Yahweh. Yahweh is in caps. This is just Adon. It's a term of respect and honor. "'If I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that, you may pass on, since you have come to your servant.' They said, 'Do as you have said.' Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, 'Quick! Three seahs of fine flour! Knead it and make cakes.'" We see what Abraham... He welcomes them, arms wide open. "Quick. Come in. Please rest, refresh. I'm going to give you a morsel of bread." By morsel of bread, he goes to his wife, Sarah. He promised them a meal, and he can't really bake, so he goes to Sarah. He says, "Please help. Please help." Six seahs of flour... You're talking about, two gallons of flour is one seah. You got six gallons. That's a lot of bread. Here, Abraham is presented as the consummate host. He is willing to be inconvenienced. The morsel of bread turns into a sumptuous banquet. Verse 7, "Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man, who prepared it quickly. Then he took curds, and milk, and the calf that he had prepared and set it before them. He stood by them under the tree while they ate." The phrase, hurried, is used three times in verses 6 and 7. He just wants the absolute best for them. This is a lavish meal. Have you ever had fresh meat? I'm not talking about Whole Foods or Star Market. Definitely not talking about Stop & Shop, definitely not. One time in my life, I had fresh, fresh. It's completely different. It's completely different. I had a conversation recently with someone. This is an ice-breaker. He said, "What's the best meal you have ever had in your life?" Do you have that one meal in your mind? What's the absolute best meal that you have ever had? My answer immediately was my wedding, my wedding. My wife's from Ukraine. She grew up Ukrainian Baptist. My family is from Estonia and was Russian speaking. I grew up Russian Baptist at a Russian Baptist church. There are two things at Russian Baptist weddings that you do not do. You do not drink, and you do not dance. Why are Russian Baptists against sex? Because it might lead to dancing. No, no. At my wedding, there's no dancing, and there's no alcohol. What's the only thing left? It's food. That's the only vice that's allowed, sin of gluttony. At my wedding, it was in a Russian restaurant in Philadelphia. It was a seven-course meal. Bring the first course, like salads, and salmon, and mushroom with cheese over caviar on pancakes. Oh my. Second course, third course... By the third course, my American friends were tapping out. My Russian friends knew. They knew. They had fasted days before. They dieted before this just to make sure there's extra room. The fifth, the sixth, the seven course... It's all meat. It's all incredible. That's my favorite. This is what Abraham does. He brings out the best. No expense spared, full stop. He just gives them everything he has, lavish meal. These three people, strangers... Treats them as if they were God Himself. That's really the lesson here for us. Abraham, will you treat these people like the image-bearers of God? Will you show them hospitality as if they were me? Will you do this? This is a tremendous lesson for each one of us, that we are to grow in hospitality. That's part of growing the Christian life, is to grow in hospitality. This text is applied later in Hebrews 13, where it says, "Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." He's alluding to the text in Genesis 18. Abraham had no idea. Unawares, he wasn't aware that he was entertaining angels as he was caring for people, feeding people, giving people refreshment. We are to not neglect hospitality to whom? To our friends? To fellow believers? No. Hospitality is to strangers. Fellowship is with believers. When you invite Christians over to your house, that's fellowship. When you invite non-Christians over, strangers over to your house, that is hospitality. We are to show hospitality, not neglect it. We see this example of godly hospitality and the reward that comes with it, which is a divine word from God. This is an important lesson for each one of us. Where we live in a city, especially transient city, where this is just... A lot of people are strangers. Especially after this past year and a half, now there's a temptation to look at people not just as strangers but as threats to your health. Here, for Abraham, God is saying, "You treated people as if they were God Himself." That's what God is calling us to. God loves to reward the hospitable. He will come Himself into the home with a blessing. Revelation 3:20 talks about Jesus standing outside of a church. He says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me." Is this even a category in your mind? I should be thinking about inviting strangers over to my home and give them delicious food, really, really good food. It takes sacrifice. It takes financial sacrifice. It takes time sacrifice. It takes emotional energy sacrifice. This is one of the things that we are called to do. This is part of how we fulfill the mission of God here in the city. We invite people into our homes, open up our lives, and bless them. This also is one of the ways, the demarcators of a Christian, when it comes to the judgment. Matthew 25:35, Jesus says, "I was hungry. You gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you welcomed me." That's what he says to the Christian. The Christian says, "When did we ever do that?" He said, "You did that to the stranger. You did that to the hungry. You did that to those in need. It was as if you did that for me." 1 Peter 4:9, "Show hospitality to one another without grumbling." Oh, that's interesting. Why does he use the word, grumbling, in the context of hospitality? Because it takes work, especially when people show up unannounced. I don't know. It doesn't really happen in the United States, but in other countries, people do that all the time. They show up to your house, ringing the doorbell. What do you got to eat? I'm not saying, do that. I'm saying if someone does that, welcome them in, just not in my house. Just kidding. Just kidding. This should be part and parcel of our walk with the Lord. The second application of this text where then the Lord reveals that it's Yahweh, it's Jesus, with two angels, and He gives Abraham a promise, it shows that God did come this time around to strengthen Abraham's faith and also, Sarah's. This is a text I'll read before point two. Romans 4:18 through 22. "In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, 'So shall your offspring be.' He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness.” Part of why God keeps coming to Abraham and keeps coming to Sarah, to strengthen his faith. Part of why God delayed and kept delaying is to strengthen his faith. God wants his children to grow in both maturity and health. He does that through tests. Point two is God tests Sarah's faith. Here, we see that God is concerned not just with Abraham's faith but also, with Sarah's. Before Isaac comes, the promised child, He wants to make sure that both Sarah and Abraham believe and God does everything that's needed to expose disbelief, to expose self-deception. He does that in this text where God brings in Sarah. Verse 9, "They said to him, 'Where is Sarah, your wife?'" This is fascinating because first of all, this was against protocol of Near Eastern cultures because a visitor would not ask for the host's wife unless the host first brought her up. He says, "Where is Sarah?" What's interesting here about this text is, how did these strangers know her name and not just her birth name, Sarai, but her new birth name, her name that was given to her by God, Sarah? That's what happened last chapter. This is really fascinating. Here, what's happening is Jesus is tipping his hand. He's showing, revealing to both Abraham and Sarah who these people are, that this isn't just a stranger. Where is Sarah, your wife? He, Abraham, said, "She is in the tent." The Lord said, again, Yahweh, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” Now there's absolutely no doubt about who this is and whose presence they are that they realized, "This is the word of God." This is God Himself speaking truth to them. There were disciples on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection. They're walking. They're walking. They're really sad. Jesus comes in, and He hasn't revealed Himself to them. The resurrection of Christ is with them. He's like, "What are you guys so sad about?" Then for two hours, they have a Bible study, which He tells them from the holy scriptures that he was to die, he was to be buried, as prophesied, and he was to be raised to new life. It wasn't until he goes into the house. It says that He took bread, and He broke it. It wasn't until that moment where they finally realized who this was. Here, because he did something that was familiar to them, and that awakened and opened up their eyes. Here, the same thing is happening. This is exactly what Jesus is doing in the text to Abraham and Sarah. He's revealing to them that this is the same God that's revealed Himself over, and over, and over to Abraham, that next time this year, there's a due date. In a year, Sarah, you're going to have a baby. Abraham, at this time, is 99. We see that Sarah is in her '80s. "Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him." She's eavesdropping. "Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, 'After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?' The Lord said to Abraham, 'Why did Sarah laugh and say, "Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?" Is something too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time, I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.' But Sarah denied it, saying, 'I did not laugh,' for she was afraid. He said, 'But you did laugh.'" That's how the text ends. Whenever a text ends like that, that abruptly, God has the last word, you guys say, "What is going on? There's something that's going on." What's going on is that Abraham, number one, did not lead his wife in growing faith, or he tried to and she would not be led. One of those is going on. She laughs at the promise of God. Basically, she's laughing at the word of God. She doesn't do it publicly like Abraham did in the previous chapter. Previous chapter, Abraham is just... He's overwhelmed with the absurdity of all. You're going to give me a kid at 99, and you're asking a 99-year-old to circumcise himself, and 318 other grown men, and my son. He's just laughing. This is absurd. He does it out loud because what he's saying is Abraham laughing is, "God, I don't get it. I don't get what you're doing. I don't get your plan. Help me understand." God does. God deals with him gently. Abraham stands under the word of God. God, help me understand the word of God. Here, Sarah does not because she laughs cynically to herself. She presents herself as a believer in the word of God. Deep inside, she has doubts. God goes to Abraham, and He says, "Abraham, why did your wife, Sarah... Why did Sarah laugh and say, 'Shall I indeed bear a child now that I'm old?'" God holds Abraham responsible for Sarah's laughter and not believing. What's going on here? Either Abraham tried to lead his wife, and she wouldn't be led in believing the word of God, or he didn't even try, and God holds him responsible here. Then God still does work with Sarah. God says, "Why did she laugh?" reiterates His promise. She says, "I did not laugh," but He responds to her, "Oh, you did. You did laugh." What God here is doing is He's exposing not just her cynical questioning of the word of God, but He's also exposing her self-deception. This is the difference between Sarah and Abraham. Abraham stood under the word of God. Sarah is standing over the word of God. "Oh, Jesus, that's what you're saying? Yes, I don't believe you because 80-something-year-old women do not have children." She doesn't believe in the promise. She questions. She laughs at the word of God and stands over. I have my own opinion, God. Thanks so much. Now this is really relevant for each one of us. Where there are places in the holy scriptures where you are not standing under the word of God, you're standing over it in judgment, or you're saying, "I know that's in the Bible, but that's Paul. That's not Jesus. I know that's in the Bible, but I just don't believe that section. I believe all that stuff about grace, and forgiveness, and God is love." "I don't believe any of the judgment stuff, or the moral teaching, or that God expects me to live a life of righteousness, or order in the family, or no sex before marriage, or that marriage is between one man, and one woman, and one covenant, one lifetime, or that in marriage, that there are roles that the husband is the head servant, that he is to lead his wife, and love her as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, and wives is to submit in everything to their husbands as to the Lord." You look at those texts. Deep inside, you're like, "Yes, I know that's what God said. I got my own opinions. I got my own theories. I don't think that's what God meant, et cetera, et cetera." That's what's going on here. The cynical laughter... It's the same thing that Eve struggled with in the garden, where Satan comes to her and said, "Did God really say?" All of a sudden, Eve is standing over the word of God instead of standing under the word of God and being transformed by it. Still, even this interaction where God comes and He exposes sin in Sarah's heart of cynicism, she's been mocking God and His word in deception. What He's doing is grace. I want to deepen your faith, and I'm going to do that by removing sin from your heart. We see that it worked. Hebrews 11:11 through 12, "By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive." God needed her to believe. He comes, and he deals with her, deals with her doubts, removes her sin, gives her the gift of faith. "By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore, from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of the heaven, as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore." We see here, again, a God who is strengthening the faith of his children: Abraham, Sarah. He strengthens their faith by putting them in difficult situations. You got to ask. It's been over two decades since the initial promise of God to Abraham, "I'm going to give you and Sarah a child." Why did God wait this long? Why does He wait until they're in their almost 100 and in their 90s? Why does He do that? Number one, to get all the glory because if it wasn't for God, then none of this would have happened. God gets all the glory. He loves doing that. Number two is to make them stronger. To make their faith stronger, He puts them in difficult situations. I'm a dad of four daughters. Bless my heart, as they say in the South. I'm a dad of four daughters. My job is not to keep my girls happy 100% of the time. I could easily do that. We'll just eat sugar all day, sugar, ice cream, Twinkies. I would buy an ice cream truck. That would be our vehicle. We'll just drive around with clown music. It would be tremendous. That's what we would do. That would be extremely disservice to their whole life. Just jack up their health and make them people who all they want is sugar and good times, et cetera, et cetera. My job as a dad is to make their life as hard as possible. That's my job. I'm a Russian dad. That's what we do. I got my girls deadlifting and squatting already, aged 12 and 9. We're going to do long division for fun, just for fun. We're going to do math. Come home from school. We're going to make it fun. We're going to make it fun. That's my job. You are going to know two languages. Why? Because pliability of the mind. You go back and forth. You understand different people, different cultures, et cetera. You're going to play instruments. You're going to do hard things. You're going to play sports. You're going to study theology. We're going to do hard things. Why? Because I want to make you stronger. You need to be strong to succeed in this world. I want them to be great ministers of the kingdom of God. That's why. This is what's happening here. God is a good father. He puts Abraham and Sarah in these situations where they get stronger. He tests Sarah's faith. Sarah, by God's grace... Her faith is strengthened. Abraham's love has been tested, his service to physical needs to people. Then God tests Abraham's love to the spiritual needs of people. Abraham cared for people's physical needs, the first section. Now does he care for their souls? Cared for their bodies. Now does he care for their souls? God has a conversation here with Abraham. This is a fourth conversation God has, extended conversation with Abraham. On the three previous occasions, it had to do with Abraham individually. You, your family, your child, your promise, the blessing, et cetera. Here, this is a different conversation. It's a conversation about total strangers to Abraham. In this lengthy conversation, Abraham reveals himself as the true, righteous man of God that he was. Verse 16, "Then the men set out from there, and they looked down toward Sodom. Abraham went with them to set them on their way. The Lord said, Yahweh, 'Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?'" Clearly, He's not hiding it because He's saying it out loud in the presence of Abraham. "Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him." God says, "I've chosen him. I've chosen to pour my love out on him. I've chosen him as a friend. I've chosen him, by God's grace, to walk in a way of righteousness, keep the way of Lord." That's the Hebrew word, derekh. It's a path worn by constant walking. I've chosen him by grace. He is to walk a path of righteousness to do righteousness that's conformity to God's will and to do justice that's conformity to God's character. You just see this incredible grace, that God invites Abraham into this conversation. God says, "I'm about to make a decision. Am I going to pour out my judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah right now? What do you think, Abraham?" Welcomes him as a friend into the conversation. Abraham was a friend of God. 2 Chronicles 20, verse 5 through 7 is the prayer of Jehoshaphat who, "stood in the assembly of Judah and in Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court, and said, 'O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you. Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend?'" James 2:23. "And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, 'Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness,' and he was called a friend of God." Isaiah 41:8, "But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend." God chooses this guy, saves him, and makes him a friend, and has a conversation with him about the destiny of Sodom and Gomorrah. In Genesis 18:20 through 21, "Then the Lord said, 'Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.'” He's saying, "I've heard the outcry," cry of distress because of the sin of the wickedness of the city. Their sin is very grave. All sin, any and every sin, separates us from God and deserves spiritual and physical death, any and every sin, but not any and every sin has the same degree. Not every sin is the same in terms of gravity. God waits, and he waits, and he waits for a people, for people and for cities, for groups of people. He waits for them to repent. There comes a time because of the gravity of sin just grow and grows, and it gets worse, and more heinous, and more wicked, that it just gets to the point where these people are not going to repent. God's judgment comes. We see this idea in Genesis 15:16, where God says the people of Israel... They're going to be held in captivity for 400 years in Egypt. Then I'm going to bring them out, and I'm going to give them a land of the Canaanites and the Amorites, but not yet, because Genesis 15:16, "They shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” God is patient, and He's forbearing. He wants to forgive. He's loving. He's gracious, and He gives time. He gives time, and he gives time. There comes point of no return, a point of punishment, as has come with Sodom here. God hears the outcry from a land, from a people against the sin. When we see the sin and evil, even in our nation, what kind of cry must be going up from the United States today is a result of flood of immorality, a flood of greed, unbridled lust, passion for obscenity, lurid, salacious attitudes that permeate public, private lives. God hears it all. He's still waiting. He's waiting. He's waiting. He's waiting for people to repent, but judgment is looming. God here has a conversation with Abraham. What are we going to do? Verse 22, "The men turned from there and went toward Sodom." They're going to scope out what's going on, but Abraham still stood before the Lord. What happens with these angels? That's chapter 19. We'll read that next week. What happens is they go down to Lot's house. Lot sees them, welcomes them into his house. Then all the men of that town surrounded Lot's house. He said, "Bring the angels out so that we can know them." He's going to rape these angels. That's how grave their sin has become. That's how perverse this culture has become. The angels are going down. Still, Abraham stood before the Lord. Here, what we see is God standing. Abraham is standing before him in the same way that Jesus stood before Abraham before he went into his fellowship. It's as if they were knocking here. Abraham is... As if he's knocking, he said, "God, let's have a conversation about what's happening." God here initiates this. He gives him an opportunity to intercede for this city. Abraham does. He knows God to be a gracious, loving, merciful God, a God that doesn't take pleasure in the death of a wicked person. Yet He's a God of perfect holiness and perfect justice. What is to happen to the city? Verse 23, "Then Abraham drew near to the Lord and said, 'Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are 50 righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the 50 righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be it from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” He says, "God, you're just. I know you are. I'm appealing to you as a God of justice. I know that some people deserve wickedness, but if there are 50 people who are righteous, would you not spare the city?" What's fascinating here is two things. He cares about the city. He cares about the unrighteous. The theology is mostly correct here. The theology is God will not punish the righteous for the sins of the wicked. That's his theology. In the long term, that's true. In the long term, God will not punish the righteous for the sins of the unrighteous. In the supreme case of Jesus Christ, the only righteous person who has ever lived, he got the punishment that the unrighteous, that the wicked, deserved. God then corrects that later. What's fascinating is Abraham knows who's in Sodom. Who is he here interceding for? It's not Sodom and Gomorrah. It's Sodom. Who lives in Sodom? His nephew, Lot. Lot, with his wife and their two daughters. What's fascinating here is Abraham doesn't say, "God, take the righteous people out of the city." He's interceding for the unrighteous as well. God, give us some more time. God, perhaps these people will repent. This is the beauty of what's going on, that Abraham understood the grace that he received. He understood that he himself was chosen by grace, by the grace of God. He himself was from a family of idolaters and pagans. He himself was disobedient to God when God said, "Go from Ur of the Chaldeans to Canaan." He went halfway to Haran. He himself sinned against God, against his wife, in order to save his own skin, prostitutes her out to Pharaoh, therefore, jeopardizing his marriage. He himself sinned when he committed adultery with Hagar in order to have a child. He knows he's a sinner. He knows he's wicked. Still, the God of the universe is welcoming him into a relationship with himself. What Abraham is saying, "God, you gave me grace. Would you not give them grace?" You see him continuing to have this conversation with the Lord. You see his audacity, his chutzpah even, as he's continuing to intercede. In verse 26, he continues. God says, "If I find 50, I won't destroy the city." Verse 26, "The Lord said, 'If I find at Sodom 50 righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.'" Then Abraham starts doing math. He's like, "50. Why did I start off with 50?" There's Abraham. There's his wife. There's two daughters. Now he's continuing the conversation. "Abraham answered and said, 'Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose 5 of the 50 righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for the lack of five?' And he said, 'I will not destroy it if I find 45 there.' Again, he spoke to him and said, 'Suppose 40 are found there.' He answered, 'For the sake of 40, I will not do it.' Then he said, 'Oh, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose 30 are found there.' He answered, 'I will not do it, if I find 30.'" He started with 50. He was going down by five's. Then he's like, "This is going to take too long." Now he starts going down by 10s. It's like reverse haggling. If you ever been to market in a different country... I remember in Ukraine, I went to this market where whatever the price is, the sticker price, if it's 100 gryvna, whatever it is, you got to come up... Then your first bid is five. It's five gryvna. I'm going to give you five. The goal is to meet halfway. This is like reverse haggling with God as he's interceding. He's 30, gets it down to 30. "He said, 'Oh, let the Lord not get be angry. I will speak. Suppose 30 are found there.' He answered, 'I will not do it, if I find 30.' 'Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose 20 are found there.' He answered, 'For the sake of 20, I will not destroy it.' Then he said, 'Oh, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose 10 are found there.' He answered, 'For the sake of 10, I will not destroy it.' And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place." God starts the conversation, and He ends the conversation. God had already decided what he's going to do. Abraham intercedes. He tries to intercede. Why do we stop at 10? As one theologian said, Abraham has reached the limit of the ability of righteous individual to outweigh the cumulative evil of the community. 10 persons constitute the minimum effective social entity. Abraham's righteousness here is seen in that he, unlike Jonah, doesn't want the judgment of the city. Remember, Jonah preaches the gospel to Nineveh. He sits back and waits for God to pour out His wrath on the city. Here Abraham intercedes for the city. He has care for them. He wants mercy for them in the same way that he has received. Did Sodom get mercy? They did not. They did not. Perhaps part of the reason that angels went down to the city is to give them one more chance, one more chance to repent. They did not. There came a point where there was no more opportunity for repentance. The application here goes two ways. Number one, if you are not yet a Christian, judgment is looming over you. Either you pay the penalty for your sin in a place called hell for all of eternity, or you trust in Jesus. Repent of your sin. Repent of your pride, self-reliance, self-deception. Put your trust in Him. Then the penalty for your sin is poured out on Christ. The other lesson here for us as a church, as believers, is for whom are you interceding? Do you intercede for the city? Do you pray specifically for the Spirit of God to be poured out upon the city, upon this region in general, but then also, specifically, are there specific people for whom you are praying on a daily basis? God, save my neighbor. God, save my colleagues. God, save my roommate. God, save this city. Draw many to yourself. Give me opportunities to share the gospel, to share the good news of Jesus Christ. I wonder if that's not more pressing on our heart. I wonder if the reason why that isn't more pressing on our heart is because we don't really believe in the reality of the judgment that it to come. I wonder if that's the reason. It's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to pray effectively for lost souls if you're not convinced that lostness, apart from Jesus, will ultimately result in literal eternal punishment. A few years ago, John Maclean, the journalist in Scotland, wrote an article on the subject of hell. It was published in the Glasgow Harold of all places. He ends the article in these words. He says, "I've never doubted in the reality of such a place, the hell of deep and lasting darkness, but I've never thought of it in popular terms, as a nasty boiler room run by little men in red tights." "Hell is ultimately a negative, place of nothing but anguish. This is a place without God and without anything of God, without light, without warmth, without friendship, and without peace. No racks, no pintures, no claws, only the fires of an awakened conscience, the burning thirst of a frustrated ego. The wicked ones of history, they will be there. The killers and the exploiters... They will be there. Libertines and gossips, rapists, and drunkards... They will be there. Those whose gods were sex, or money, or ambition, or power... They will be there." "Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians... If only their faith was religiosity who had nothing for eternity but denominational adherence, they will be there. In the darkest, thickest corner are all the nice ministers. The benevolent bishops who told people that it was heaven for all and that love was all that mattered, but there is only one way of escape. By flight to Christ in faith in His finished work, living in His service but never looking to such toils for my salvation, but there is the final paradox." "To believe in this latter end of all things, and to live, and walk in a world that must one day melt in fervent heat, to walk among the living dead with my bright smile and polite talk, and never to challenge, never to warn when we have seen our God and His righteousness, when we have seen the wickedness of humanity. We know that the end must come, but the one who knows the heart of God has the heart of God. It's not the heart of God that the wicked should perish, that they would turn, and repent, and find salvation." What Abraham does here is foreshadowing of the great intercessor, the great advocate, and that of Jesus Christ. When Yahweh comes incarnate again, and he comes in, takes on flesh, and lives a perfect life, which he then offers as a sacrifice for us, he bears the wrath of God on our behalf. He experiences hell upon our behalf so that we wouldn't have to. On the cross of Jesus Christ, the holiness of God and His love... They coincide. We see the wrath of God being poured out for our lawbreaking. We see a God who's willing to absorb that same wrath on our behalf. This is the beauty of the gospel, that God remains just and the justifier at the same time. He's just because the law that was broken was punished. The punishment was met. There's forgiveness because He bore that in Himself. Jesus is the great advocate. He's the great interceder. He's the one that does it for us. If you're not in Christ, repent of sin and turn to him. Judgment is looming. Either your sins will be punished in you or in Christ. Just repent and believe. I'll send with these verses. Jesus is our great advocate. 1 John 2:1, "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." 1 Timothy 2:5, "For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." John 8:34, "Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died, more than that, who was raised, who is at right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us." Hebrews 8:25, "Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them." Let's pray. Lord Jesus, what a wonderful text. We thank you for meeting Abraham. We thank you for calling him to yourself, but thank you for strengthening his faith. I pray you do that with each one of us. Give us the gift of faith, and give us robustness of faith where you continue to strengthen us. Make us a people who understand that you are holy, and that you are loving, and that there is evil in our hearts as there is evil in the world. The only remedy for that is the cross of Jesus Christ. Make us a people who walk daily, basking in your glory, thankful for your grace. Then also, make us a people who care for those who are not yet believers, to care for their physical needs, yes, but more importantly, their spiritual needs, care for their souls. I pray, Lord, pour out your spirit upon us to make us a force, to share the gospel with many, proclaim the gospel, warn that judgment is coming. There is a way of escape, and that's only found in Jesus Christ. Jesus, we love you. We pray this in your name. Amen.
All-In
May 16, 2021 • Genesis 17
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning. Welcome to Mosaic Church. My name is Jan. I'm one of the pastors here at Mosaic, along with Pastor Shane and Pastor Andy. If you're new or if you're visiting, we'd love to connect with you. We do that through the connection card, either virtually in the app or on the website, or the physical one you can pick up in the back. With that said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's Holy Word? Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a God who loves with a covenantal love, that when you choose to pour out your love on a people, on a person, you love with an unending, unyielding, unconditional love. And we thank you for the sacrifice of your son, Jesus Christ, on the cross, who loved us to the very end as the scriptures say. To the last drop of his blood, he loved us, in order to redeem us from all the times we were unfaithful, in word, in thought, in deed, sins of commission, sins of omission. Lord, we thank you for the gift of repentance, and we thank you Holy Spirit, when you give us that gift, you also call us to a life that is worthy of being forgiven, of being reconciled with God, of being a child of God. Lord, show us today from the holy scriptures that there is no place in our life, no sphere in our life, no crevice in our lives that is off limits to you, that you are God, you are Lord of every single square inch of our existence. I pray you make us a people who'd love that, who love that you get to be God, that you get to be Lord, knowing that you are a loving God, that you aren't a God who keeps us from having fun and enjoying ourselves, but you are a God that keeps us from heartache, heartbreak, and the consequences of sin both in our bodies and those around us. Bless us as we spend time in the Holy scriptures, and show us in our lives where there are places that need to be circumcised, so to speak. Circumcision of the heart, places of hardness, places where we've been desensitized to you, places where we have idolatrous desires, taking good things and making them God things, and then they're bad things. Bless our time in the Holy Word now. We pray all this in Christ's holy name. Amen. Can we talk about Starbucks straws for just a little bit? My go to at Starbucks is a Trenta iced coffee. Sometimes I switch it up with a cold brew, no syrup, light ice. They put way too much ice. I want to get more bang for my buck. I like the plastic straw. It's consistent. From the first draw to the second sip, to the third, it's consistent. You know what you're getting. The pull is the same. Then Starbucks recently, they switched things up, they got the paper straw. The paper straw is fine. It's fine for the first minute, two minutes, and then it starts getting soggy, and then it just ruins the whole experience. Well, that right there, the plastic straw, that's like our faith. That's like the faith of Abraham. What we see with the story of Abraham, we're in a series that we're calling Jesus in Genesis, and we're looking at how Jesus Christ comes to redeem a people for himself, and he starts with a man named Abraham, an idolater. Abraham, who doesn't have Christian parents, he lives in Ur of the Chaldeans, happy to be an idolater, happy to be worshiping idols and following the desires of his flesh. He's happy to be doing that. God calls him, God saves him, and we see in Abraham, we see a desire to honor God. He answers the call of God. God says, "Follow me. Walk before me. Be blameless before me." But he only goes halfway in the very beginning. Chapter 11 says he went halfway, from Ur of the Chaldeans, God calls him to Canaan, he stops in Haran. God comes to him a second time and calls him again. In chapter 12, we see Abraham's faith on fire. He comes, he moves his family, he leaves all his relatives, and he sets up a shop, sets his tents up in Canaan, the Promised Land. Famine comes, and we see his faith waiver. Again, he goes to Egypt, commits sin against his wife there. You can read up on it. Chapter 13, now things start getting better. In chapter 14, he's a warrior. We see unflinching faith of this man, courage, bravery. Chapter 15, God makes a covenant with him. Chapter 16, 11 years have lapsed since God called him at age 75. He's 86 years old, he still doesn't have a son, a son of the promise as God said, and he decides to take matters into his own hands. He couldn't have a child with Sarah, so he gets a girlfriend named Hagar, which was a second wife at that time, because their culture accepted to have multiple wives, but it was against God's will. We see that the text, it comes in with a commentary of strife in the family, and strife with Hagar, etc, and the sin, and there's consequences. Then chapter 17, that's where we find ourselves. We see a God who comes in and says, "Abraham, I'm going to continue working on your faith, I'm going to continue to restoring you, I'm going to continue sculpting you into the image of Christ, deepening your faith, deepening your desires and affection for God." What God is saying is, Abraham, I love you with a love that is all in. I'm all in on this relationship with you, and I expect a response commensurate to my love, a love that is commensurate to mine. Abraham now is 99 years old. It's been 24 years since the first promise. Abraham is called father, as was named, is called father, which is bitterly ironical in that people would ask him all the time, hey, does your name mean Abraham? Does it mean father? How many children do you have? For 11 years, he couldn't say anything. I have zero. I've zero children. Finally, he has Ishmael, he has one child. We finished chapter 16 last week. it's been 13 years between chapter 16 and chapter 17. For 13 years, we suspect years that were filled with unhappiness, unrest. The presence of Ishmael in the home ... The son of Abraham by Hagar, we expect endless contempt, bitterness, envy, weariness. For 13 years, what God is doing is sculpting Abraham, deepening his faith, getting him to a point of desperation to cry out to God. Today, we find ourselves in Genesis 17. What I usually do if you're new, what I usually do, it's kind of cliche already by this point. But what I usually do is I just read the text and I say, this is the inerrant, infallible, authoritative word of God, may he write these eternal truths on our hearts, and I say, here's the three points of the sermon to frame up our time together. We're going to switch things up today. Sounds good? All right. Okay. Of course, it's okay. I say it's okay so it's okay. This is what we're gonna do, one point, we're doing one point today. The point is that God loves us with a love when he goes all in and he expects a response that is commensurate. This chapter is God working on Abraham's heart, working on polishing it off. Look at a text within Genesis 17:1-2. "When Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abraham." He appears to him. There's a theophany." "He said to him, "I am God almighty." He comes in with a Hebrew name, "I am El Shaddai, I'm the God who can do the impossible." Why does he say that? He confirms to Abraham, your faith has been wavering. You look at the circumstances, all you see is the impossibility that your wife is in menopause. She was probably 90 at this point. He's 99. When God shows up, he says, I am God, El Shaddai, God of all sufficiency. Jim Boice, theologian, he talks about the Chinese evangelist, Leland Wang, who had a letter, had every time he sent out a letter for ministry letter, he had a letterhead that said the following three verses, Joshua 10:13, "The sun stood still." 2 Kings 6:6, "The iron did swim." Then Psalm 48:14, "This God is our God." Abraham needed the reminder that God is all powerful. If God is all powerful, and if he is true, then he can do the impossible in fulfilling his promises. God says, I love you. I am the God of the impossible. Now, two things, be blameless and walk before me. Be blameless and walk before me. Walk before me and be loyal. Live every day as if you understand that God is here, he's present, that God sees. Orient your entire life to God's presence under his eye, his presence, his promises, his commandments. Live that every single step of your life is conscious to reference of God. He says, "Be blameless." It doesn't mean be sinless. No one is, but it means that we fight our sin, that we do everything we possibly can to mortify sin and vivify affections for God or refers to integrity with God, a wholehearted commitment to God. A recognition that there is no place in our lives that is off limits to God. The Latin phrase, Coram Deo is used by theologians, to live before the face of God, under the eyes of God. He's saying Abraham, don't be double-minded as you have been. Don't be half-hearted as you have been. Don't be hypocritical as you have been. This is a chapter about circumcision. That's what we're going to talk about today. I know you woke up this morning and you're like, oh, I can't wait to hear about circumcision. I haven't heard a sermon on that in a while. That's what we're going to talk about. But before we get to that physical sign, which is a sign of a spiritual reality, before we get there, God says, Abraham, is your heart fully mine? Are there places in your life that you are holding back, holding me back from? That's what God is saying. Are there areas in your life where you are holding God, stiff-arming God, holding him at a distance. That's where God starts. Verse 3, "Then Abraham fell on his face." It's a bodily response that he knows he's in the presence of God, in theophany, is before him. He worships God with his whole body. "God said to him, "Behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I've made you the father of a multitude of nations." God shows up, says, I'm going to rename you because you have a brand new identity, a new character, a new purpose, a new destiny. All Abraham could do is fall on his face, worshiping God. It's a physical response. If we haven't met, I come from a Russian background. My parents immigrated in 1989 and I grew up in a Russian church. If you know anything about Russians, they're not very outwardly emotional. There was a Russian church in New England. If you know anything about New Englanders, they're not outwardly emotional. So, you've got Russians living in New England, so our church was the frozen chosen. You come in, you're told to love the Lord, your God with all your heart, soul strength, and mind, but you can't show it. You just got to be stoic the whole time. You have to look like you're not having fun the whole time. That's the way they do church. I've had to grow in expressing my desire of my love for God, and particular just in worship, in worship at church. I remember for the longest time, it seemed so foreign to me to raise my hand. I used to tell people, I don't raise my hands because they're really heavy, like 30 seconds of raised hands, these are really heavy hands. But I think with COVID, something happened where I missed church so much, I missed worshiping God with God's people so much. Now, I can't but express my love for God emotionally. I get into work. That's why I stand in the back because it's a little distracting. So, it's to say, it's okay to express our love to God physically. We do that at Red Sox games, we sing at Red Sox games. We get into it. We do that when we go see a Pats game, everyone's on their feet, everyone's cheering everyone. It's all to say, heart, soul strength and mind, it's a holistic love for God, and we see that with Abraham. God calls him to a holistic love. He falls on his face in humility, worshiping God, renaming process. The name Abraham meant exalted father. Abraham means father of multitudes. This became true biologically in that the Israelites came from him. The Ishmaelites, the Edomites, the Midianites, and they became true spiritually, in that, everyone that believes in Jesus Christ is a child of Abraham spiritually speaking. Then also, the Muslims look back to Abraham as their father. So, you look at half the human race alive today, in some way, points back to a relationship with this single man. Verse 6, "I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make you into nations and Kings shall come from you." Kings did come from him. The great Kings of Israel, king David and Solomon, and ultimately the greatest king of all Kings, the Lord of Lords, the king of Kings, Jesus Christ. Verse 7, "I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you." I'm going to be God to you, I'm going to be your God. This is how God explained salvation and eternal life. The greatest thing about heaven is that we get God and we get God's presence. The greatest blessing we can experience is his blessing. I'm going to be God to you, but not just to you. I'm going to be God to you and to your offspring. Six times in this text, we get that phrase. Whenever a phrase is repeated multiple times in one text, you got to ask, why? Because it's that important. I'm going to be God to you and to your offspring. We live in a society that's paper individualistic. A lot of us we think that my spirituality is mine, my faith is mine, so who am I to tell other people what to believe? Scripture talks about the fact that we are to share our faith and to teach our faith to other people. This is called evangelism. Other people, including our neighbors and our colleagues, et cetera, but then also, our closest neighbors who are our children, if you have children. God is saying, parents have a responsibility to share our faith with our children, to train up our children in the faith. God wants you parents to believe in God and to honor God, love God, follow God, and also to train up your children to believe him and love him. We have that responsibility, parents. This is a very important word to parents, because we live in a culture that pushes back against this. No, you've got to let your child choose what they're going to believe. You got to let your child choose their gender. You got to let your child choose their sexuality. This is absurd. We don't let our kids eat whatever they want, but we'll let our kids choose their gender or sexuality. These are demonic lies, and Satan wants to do everything he can to rip children from the arms of God, the father, to not have parents shaped children spiritually, but leave that to public education, or leave that to mainstream media, or Hollywood. No, we have this responsibility. We have a generation of parents who are more concerned with their children getting into Harvard than getting to heaven. We have this job. We have a responsibility, parents. This is why, at Mosaic, we love children. We invest heavily into our kids' ministry, Mini-Mosaic. Many of you are volunteers in our ministry, and God bless you in that ministry. Thank you for your service. But parents, you need to know that you can't just outsource the spiritual formation of your children to the church. We do everything we possibly can, but we only get kids for a couple hours on a Sunday, a couple of hours a week. At home, we are to be reading scripture to children, praying with children, singing with children. I can't tell you how many VeggieTales songs I've memorized. I have four daughters. This is what we do. We sing VeggieTales songs, worship songs by Bob the tomato in my car. This is what we do. We talk about God all the time, and consciousness is a natural rhythm of life. This is our job. This theme is repeated in scripture, that fathers and mothers, you were to think about your faith in terms of generations, to leave a legacy of faith. I'm a fourth generation believer and I've seen the blessing, what it means to have a father and a mother who loved the Lord and raise us in the faith. I won't do the same. I've got four daughters and we're raising them up in the faith. Scriptures are all the time talking about this theme, versus like, from everlasting to everlasting, the Lord's love is with those who fear him and his righteousness with their children's children. "As for me, this is my covenant with them," says the Lord, "my spirit, who is on you, and my words that I've put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth or from the mouths of your children or from the mouths of their descendants, from this time on and forever." "Let the little children come to me," said, Jesus, "do not hinder them for the kingdom of God, belongs to such as these." The promise is to you and to your children. Believe on the Lord, Jesus Christ, and you will be saved you your household. In the context of God saying, I am making this covenant with you and your offspring, in that context, God's going to bring in circumcision as a sign of that. It's all interconnected, that our devotion to God starts from the heart, we believe in the heart, we love him from the heart, and then that changes everything that we do in life, including our sexuality in our worship, including what we do with our marriage and our children, etc. That's the context. Verse eight, "And I will give you, and to your offspring after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, from an everlasting possession, and I will be their God." He repeats the same, as in chapter 15:9, and God said to Abraham, "As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout your generation." Abraham, I chose you. I poured out my love upon you. I initiated this relationship. Now, you have an obligation to keep the covenant, to be faithful to the covenant. In one respect, we can't prevent God from fulfilling his promise and his word. On the other hand, we have to prove faithful to God's covenant to enjoy his blessings fully. Then we get the covenant of the circumcision, the sign of the covenant. This is verse 10. "This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me, and you, and your offspring after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised, and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your four skins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised, so shall my covenant in your flesh be an everlasting covenant." My wife, when I met her, she was working in a dental office as a dental assistant. She would evangelize the people that were her colleagues. She invited her, the dentist that she worked with, she invited him to church. "Hey, you should come to church. There's a community, great timing to hear the gospel, etc." He's like, "No, I'm never going to church." She's like, "Why not?" He's like, "Because they're going to try to circumcise me." No, no, not of the flesh, not of the flesh, not of the flesh. Circumcision was given as a sign, an outward sign of an inner reality. For us, we have the New Testament. I thank God the sign of the covenant change. When you become a Christian, you become a Christian on the inside. By grace, through faith, you recognize that you have sinned against God, you recognize that Jesus Christ paid the price for your sin, that repentance is the way that we can be reconciled with God. God forgives us on the inside. We are now circumcised from selfishness, from sin, from a lifestyle that was against God, and that heart transformation, the spiritual heart transplant, so to speak. On other texts, it talks about heart of stone taken out and replaced with a heart of flesh, a heart that beats toward God and lives for God. Now, the sign of that covenant is baptism. Baptism is a sign that we have died to our former life, have been raised with Christ. It's just a sign. We see signs of the covenant all the time when Noah comes out from the Ark and then God gives them a sign of the covenant. What was the sign of that covenant? The rainbow. The rainbow. Noah got a rainbow, and Abraham, at this point, he was like, hey, God, could we have another rainbow instead of circumcision? Unfortunately, no. Why? Why the sign of circumcision? Why is this the thing? In order to interpret that, you need to keep two things in mind. Number one, the context. Chapter 16, Abraham commits adultery against his wife, Sarah, even though it was her recommendation, but he committed adultery. From the perspective of God, he sinned. Now he's bearing the consequences. That happened, and then chapter 16, God comes at him with circumcision as a sign. Then you bring in Acts 15. Acts 15, this is the New Testament church first century believers, a lot of whom were Jewish. A lot of the Jewish believers, they understood that Jesus was the Messiah, but they clung on to some of the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament, including circumcision. What they were saying is, in the early church, if you follow Jesus Christ, you're saved by grace through faith, but the outward sign of that is circumcision. These people were called the circumcision party, which is the worst party ever. No one wants to go to that party. That's what's happening. Then Saint Paul comes in, and after preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, and he said, "No, if a person was a Gentile and they come into the faith with not having been circumcised, they don't need to get circumcised." Because that was an outward sign. The new outward sign is baptism, but he says, but two things, make sure, two things, that you, the Gentile believers who aren't circumcised, but two things make sure they don't commit idolatry and make sure they keep from sexual morality. For Saint Paul, the circumcision, the outward sign was connected with idolatry and sexual morality. That's partially why this was what God chose. He chooses a man who used to be an idolater, who came from a culture where people worshiped sex, came from a culture where people worshiped with the reproductive organ, because that's the thing they lived for, because that's what worship is. God, when he redeems this man, he redeems a man, and then he says, "I own all of you and I'm going to demarcate in you a mark that you are mine, assign the seal that you are mine, and that all of you belongs to me." Every single square inch of your body belongs to God. That's what God is saying with this sign of the circumcision. He points to an inner reality that says, we belong wholly, holistically to God, and he goes to this place for the sign, because this is a place, that the male reproductive organ, this has the power for tremendous good and a power for tremendous evil. Tremendous good in that, when a man commits to a woman and is faithful to her, marries her, commits to her for a lifetime, doesn't fornicate, doesn't commit adultery, that tremendous power for good, both for the marriage, and then children, tremendous power for good. Now you have generational faithfulness and blessing. On the flip side, it has potential. It has the potential for tremendous evil, fornication, broken relationships, broken families, broken children. Children being raised without fathers or without mothers. There's incredible power for both good and evil, and that's why God chooses this sign in particular, to show that either you belong to the Lord or you don't at all that. When we come to God, he gets to be God over everything, and you can't hold them at a distance. This is the God that demands ultimate intimacy. Every day, Abraham would be reminded, to whom do I belong? Oh, I belong to God. I've got to follow his commandments in every single aspect of life. This was also a foreshadowing of Jesus' coming. There was a bloody sacrament. The blood speaks itself of the pollution of sin. Then Saint Paul talks about the theology of this. Do you need to be circumcised to go to heaven? No, of course not. We have verses like 1 Corinthians 7:18, "Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision." Or in Galatians 5:5-6, "For through the spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness, for in Christ, Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love." There isn't any outward thing that you can do to make yourself righteous before God. It's only repentance of sin by God's grace. Galatians 6:15-16, "For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation, and as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God." Philippians 3:2-3, Saint Paul says, "Look out for the dogs," that's the people who demanded circumcision for Gentiles, "Look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh, for we are the circumcision who worship by the spirit of God in glory, in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh." What he's saying is the sign doesn't mean anything apart from the faith. The sign doesn't mean anything apart from a relationship, and that's what he was saying to a lot of the people who grew up in the Old Testament faith, they start going through the motions. Perhaps you grew up Catholic or Russian Orthodox, or Episcopalian, where you know that there's this routine that you go through. You have to go through these particular motions, and you go through the signs, but signs without faith is just routine. We believe in signs that are rituals, so to speak, well, like Lord's supper, baptism. These are signs that start with faith. Starts with faith, and then that faith is evidenced by the sign. What Saint Paul is getting at in all these texts is, getting circumcised on the flesh without loving God in the heart, circumcision in the heart, is like wearing a wedding ring without being faithful in a relationship, in a marriage. That's what he's getting at. Deuteronomy 10:12-6, this idea of circumcision of the heart, it's not just from the New Testament, it was all over the Old Testament. "Now, Israel, what does the Lord, your God require of you, but the fear of the Lord, your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of statues of Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good. Behold, to the Lord, your God belong heaven, and the heaven of heavens, and the earth with all that is in it, yet the Lord set his heart and love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them. You above all peoples, as you are this day, circumcise therefore the four skin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn." That's what he's getting at, is the stubbornness. This will that isn't yielded to God. God, I know your will, I know what you want me to do, but I won't because I love something more than you. That's the idolatry. Circumcision of the heart, the way that you do that is on a daily basis, you recognize where in my life am I stubborn? Where I know what God's will is, and yet, I stubbornly definitely rebel against it. God, forgive me. God, please forgive me. God, take the scalpel of your Holy Spirit and circumcise this part of my life. Help me cut off this part of my life. Scripture talks about in very graphic terms that we are to mortify the sins in our life, places where we are rebellious against God. We do that by God's grace, by his Spirit. Deuteronomy 36, "And the Lord, your God, will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul so that you may live." Jeremiah 4:4, "Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskin of your hearts. All men of Judah and habitants of Jerusalem, lest my wrath go forth like a fire and burn with none to quench it because of the evil of your deeds." This is something that every single one of us needs to wrestle with on a daily basis. Where are those areas of my life that I need God's surgery, that I need to respond to God's call and seek transformation on a daily basis? Genesis 17:14, "Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant." We see the seriousness of this obligation that it's underlined by the threatened punishment. Anyone who doesn't keep the covenant, breaks the covenant in disobedience will be cut off from the covenant. Now, the question here is, is God sovereign over saving Abraham, or is Abraham responsible for his salvation? Is God's sovereign in our salvation or are we responsible for our salvation? Scripture emphatically says, yes. God is sovereign over our salvation, and we are responsible to respond faith that is obedient to God. Fascinating, Saint Paul, in Romans, and Jesus' younger brother, James, his half-brother, in the book of James, they point to Abraham as the example for both sides. You see Saint Paul in Romans, he says, Abraham believed, and it was counted to him as righteousness. So, Abraham was saved by grace through faith. Then James writes and he says, look at Abraham, look at his works. His faith wasn't empty, faith without works is dead. He responds to God's covenant and he does what God calls him to do. The answer is yes, if God calls you, justifies you, saves you, we do have a responsibility to then work out our salvation with fear and trembling, to not use his gifts in vain. You see with the story of Abraham, God says, "I will confirm my covenant with you. I will make you exceeding fruitful. I will establish my covenant with you and with your offspring." Then Abraham does respond with faith and with obedience. Genesis 17:15, "And God said to Abraham, "As for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah will be her name." God changes the identity of Abraham. He changed the identity of Sarah. Gives them new identity, new name, and this a fascinating scripture because Sarah is the only in the Bible whose name is changed by God. Meaning that she too has grown in her faith with the Lord, devotion to the Lord. Verse 16, "I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her and she will become nations. Kings of peoples shall come from her. Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, "Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is 90-years-old, bear a child?" And Abraham said to God, "O, that Ishmael might live before you." The first time Abraham falls on his face in humility and reverence before God. Now, he falls on his face because the ridiculousness of this whole situation had caught up with him. I'm a hundred, my wife's 90. We're not going to have a kid. We've been waiting 24 years, and he just starts laughing at the absurdity, because all he can see is his circumstances. God comes, God appears, God speaks, and all he sees is circumstances, and tries to steer God to a more reasonable path, and that's the path of Ishmael, and God says, "No, no, no, no." God deals gently with Abraham. In verse 19, "God said, "No, but Sarah, your wife, shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name, Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him." God says call your son, Isaac. He will come. There's a due date. Call him, his name, Isaac, his name in the Hebrew means he laughs. God says, I'm going to give you a perpetual reminder of the fact that you laughed that one time, and then Sarah laughed, and every time you call your son, it's he laughs, just a reminder that God who does the impossible always gets the last laugh. Verse 20. "As for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I've blessed him and I will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father 12 princes, and I'll make him into a great nation, but I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year." That's the due day. It's fascinating as Abraham says, "God, take Ishmael. Take Ishmael and make a covenant with him." And God says, "No. I'm going to make my covenant with Isaac." Showing that God is the one who has ultimate say with whom he makes the covenant. The practical application here is a lot of people would just put off repenting of sins, repenting of rebellion against God, put off a relationship with God, put off a commitment to God. They keep putting it off thinking, I'm just going to have a little more fun. I'm going to enjoy myself in, and then later on in life, then I'll come to God and I'll ask forgiveness, etc. Well, scripture does teach us pattern, that if God woos you and God calls you, today's the day of repentance, and at any moment, God can stop seeking you. He has the ultimate say. So, you don't get saved when you decide to get saved. You get saved when God says I'm making a covenant with you, your mind. Our responsibility is, if God is calling you to himself today, calling you to repent of sin today, do not put it off. Today's the day of repentance. God was generous with Ishmael, but he didn't make a covenant with him. Genesis 17:22-27, "When he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham, and Abraham took Ishmael, his son, and all those born in his house or bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's house, and he circumcised the flesh of their four skins that very day as God had said to him. Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his four skins, and Ishmael, his son, was 13 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin." That very day, Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised. Then all the men of his house, those born in the house and those bought with money from a foreigner were circumcised with him that very day. The emphasis is put on that, God you're calling me to do what? Falls on his face, wrestles with this, wrestles with God, and God says you're doing it. Abraham, this is probably his greatest act of faith ever. At 99 years old, he takes a flint knife and he circumcised himself. Then he has 318 trained men in his household. I don't know, I wish Abraham wrote a book on leadership. How in the world do you go to train soldiers like, hey man, I got a word from God. All right, what's the word? Circumcision. He just led by example. He's like, God said this, I believe, and so he does it, and this is what is really emphasized, is the fact that he obeys God despite his doubts. The point of this whole text, and this isn't the point of Abraham, the point of all of this is salvation is impossible. That, apart from God's miraculous work, salvation is impossible. The chasm between us and God is so wide salvation is impossible. Forgiveness of sin is impossible. When we human beings sin against the holy God, there's a holy chasm between us. The only way to bridge that, if that God of impossibility, if he acts on our behalf. That's what happens in the story of Abraham. God chooses Abraham and says, "I'm going to bless you and I'm going to give you a great name, and through you, I'm going to bless all the nations, through your offspring." He's not talking about Isaac. He's talking about Isaac's ... He's talking about Jesus Christ, who will come through the line of Abraham. God gave Abraham a son, Isaac, and Abraham raised him up in the faith, and Isaac raised up Jacob in the faith, and it just kept going, and finally, Jesus Christ was born. The God of impossibility sends his son, the son of God, son of man, fully God, fully man, he's the only one who could bridge the chasm between a holy God and sinful people. Jesus Christ comes, he lives a perfect life, the life we were supposed to live, but didn't, willfully did not, and Jesus Christ goes to the cross to bear the penalty for the sin that we committed. He bears the wrath of God in himself, impossible. In the same way that the birth of Isaac was impossible from the dead, the deadness of the womb of Sarah, and the same way it was impossible of Jesus Christ to come back from the deadness of the tomb. That what's highlighted in all of this, that it took a miracle of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ, through this whole lineage of Abraham to get to Jesus, it took that to save us, and then on top of that, we need the holy spirit to regenerate our hearts. That's how impossible our sin is. A lot of us, we have a hard time understanding the gravity of the good news because we don't understand the gravity of the bad news of how sinful we are. C. S. Lewis, I really appreciate his quote that he writes in the Letters to Malcolm. He says, "I've been reading Alexander White. He was a Presbyterian divine in the last century whom I'd never heard of, very well worth reading, and strangely, broad-minded Dante, Pascal, and even Newman, are among his heroes. But I mention him at the moment for a different reason, he brought me violently face to face with a characteristic of puritanism, which I had almost forgotten. For him, one essential symptoms of the regenerate life," that's the life of a Christian, "is a permanent and permanently horrified perception of one's natural, and it seems unalterable corruption. The true Christians nostril is to be continually attentive to the inner cesspool." What a line. Inner nostril, nostril inner cesspool. This is what he's getting at is, when you become a Christian, you realize just how sinful you are. Abraham, you need to realize how sinful you are. What's it going to take to save you, Abraham? It's going to take a blood sacrifice from a male, from the offspring that will come from you. That's what's going on here. We need to understand the ferocity, the tenacity, the abomination, the ugliness of sin, which leads us to this tenacious consecration of Jesus Christ as the only possible savior of sinners like ourselves. At Mosaic, Mosaic, Boston is one of the only places in the whole city that you can go to on a weekly basis, and someone will stand up here and just tell you how much of a freaking loser you are. You're a loser, spiritually speaking, morally speaking, you are bankrupt. You've broken every single one commandments multiple times over. That's my job. You are so wicked that you are on way to spend eternity apart from God. That's my job. And yet you're so loved that Jesus Christ was willing to take the penalty upon himself. If you turn to Christ, all of your sins are forgiven, your identity is changed. You get a new name. Now you're a Christian, you're a child of God, and your eternity is secure, but it all starts with recognizing, it's your fault. A lot of people are like, anywhere outside of this, you're told, you're a good person. If there's anything bad in you, it's not your fault. It's a public school, it's your neighborhood, it's your family. It's someone else. It's the other political party, it's not your fault. No, it is your fault. You're a mess and it's your fault. You're a sinner and it's your fault. You need to repent, every single one of us. Trump, sinner. Biden, sinner. Republicans, sinners. Democrats, sinners. Maskers, sinners. Anti-maskers, sinners. Double maskers, double sinners. Kidding, kidding. But if you drive in your car with double mask, yeah, you are. Vaxxers, sinners. Anti-vaxxers, sinners. Vax ambivalent, sinners. Americans, sinners. Canadians, definitely. Russians, the worst, can't believe I'm saved. Every single one of us, we're all sinners and we need Jesus. I'll close with this. If you've ever been to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, I went when I was five. I don't remember anything, but I've got pictures. I was there. I was there. As you enter the church, on the right side in a small chapel of St. Peter's Basilica, there is Michelangelo Pieta, which means the pity, and it's beautiful. It's the only work that Michelangelo signed with his name. That's how proud he was of it. It's a marble work that depicts Mary, the mother of Jesus, holding her dead son, draped over her after his crucifixion. Astonishing performance. It's a masterpiece, a performance of true genius. It's lifelike, and you see emotion in Mary's face. You see her right hand holding Jesus up. You see his wounds as a rib cage, his feet hanging midair. It's the marble that comes to life. That's what's going on. Marble has become cloth and flesh. If you go there now, you can see it, but you can't see clearly, why? Because in May 21st, 1972 on Pentecost, Sunday, a mentally disturbed geologists, Laszlo Toth walked into the chapel and attacked the sculpture with a geologists hammer, banging it 15 times, removing Mary's arm at the elbow, and knocking off a chunk of her nose and chipping off her eyelids. There was an American sculptor there, an artist from St. Louis, who was the first guy to grab this gentleman, and he said, "I leaped up, grabbed the guy by the beard, and we both fell into the crowd of screaming Italians. It was something of a scene." Onlookers grabbed the pieces of marble, and many of them didn't return it, because they knew it was valuable, including Mary's nose wasn't found, and so they had to reconstruct this beautiful sculpture with a block cut out of her back. After the attack, the work was painstakingly restored returned to its place where it's now protected with Bulletproof glass. From the outside, it looks like nothing happened, no obvious evidence of restoration, but you come closer and you see the cracks, that this beautiful work of incalculable beauty was cracked, then it was restored. This is a beautiful picture of what happens with the human life, that God made everything, and he made everything perfect. Then sin enters the world and sin takes this hammer and just sledges the beautiful image of God and every single one of us. When we continue down the path of sin, we continue to hammer ourselves and the image of God in us and do the same to other people. This is why we need Jesus Christ. This is why we need forgiveness, and we need his restoration, that Jesus Christ went to the cross and his hands and his feet were nailed at the hammer over and over and over, and he did that so that the image of God in us could be restored by his grace. When we looked at Jesus, who is the greater Michelangelo, he sits, he rebuilds, he was doing this with Abraham, rebuilding, restoring, and he starts with the heart, circumcision of the heart, a spiritual surgery of the heart, and he does that to each one of us. The question to each one of us is, God goes all in, in his love and relationship with us, will we respond with a commensurate love? Well, are we all in with Christ? Let us pray, Lord Jesus, we thank you for the holy scriptures. We thank you for this example of Abraham, and we thank you for calling him. We thank you for the honesty of the scriptures, in which we see the vacillation of his faith, ebbs and flows. We thank you that you kept pursuing him, that you kept pouring out your grace upon him, kept deepening his desire and affection and love for you. We thank you that you are a God who does the impossible. If there's areas in our life, where there is a sin, a sin that has taken root and has taken control, God, you're the God of the impossible. Please come in, perform spiritual surgery of circumcision and make us a people who love you with a whole heart, holistic love, of people who are blameless before you and walk before your face, and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
God’s Work our Way
May 9, 2021 • Genesis 16
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning. Welcome to Mosaic Church. My name is Jan, one of the pastors here at Mosaic, along with Pastor Shane, Pastor Andy. If you're new or visiting, we love to connect with you. If you'd like to connect with us, do that through a connection card, either the physical one that you can get in the back, and also, you can leave it there after you fill it out, or the virtual one in the app or on the website. For all the moms in the house, happy Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day. Round of applause. We love you. Thank you. Congratulations, one of the toughest jobs in the world. Happy Mother's Day to my mom, if she's tuning in. She lives in Rhode Island, but every once in a while, she tunes in and then calls me to correct my theology. Then happy Mother's Day to my wife, mother of four daughters. Great time. We're going to pray a special prayer of blessing upon our moms. We also know for some people, it's a difficult day in that they want to be a mom or some have lost their moms. We'll pray for the Lord to comfort us. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a Father. You're a good Father. We thank you that you are a Father who leads us in ways of blessing. Sometimes those ways of blessing don't feel like blessing. Make us a people who build our lives not on feelings but on the facts of reality of who you are, of what you said, of what you've promised. Make us a people who interpret our circumstances, how we feel about our circumstances through your promises, not vice versa, not interpret your promises through our circumstances, through our feelings. Lord, we thank you for the moms in the congregation. I pray that you bless them abundantly. What a job they have, the hardest job in the world. I pray that you bless them, that you fill them with the Holy Spirit. Would you fill them with supernatural, both physical and spiritual, strength? Protect them from the evil one, from sin, from folly. Bless them abundantly. Make us children who do honor our parents, our father and our mother. Lord, for those who long to be moms, I pray today, satisfy them deeply. Give them an assurance that you're with them. Like Sarah, perhaps they long to be moms. Perhaps it's not time, or perhaps you have something greater. Remind us that children are a blessing. Physical children are a blessing, but you also call us to make disciples of all nations, to have spiritual children whom we disciple in the same way that Jesus didn't have children and St. Paul didn't have children, but they have thousands, and millions, and billions of spiritual children. Bless them. For those who've lost their moms, I pray you do comfort them profoundly in this day and be close to them. Lord, bless our time in the holy scriptures. We thank you for this time you've given us in the book of Genesis. We thank you for the example of Abraham. Thank you for calling him. We thank you for his faith. We thank you for the honesty of scripture, that there are times where his faith was shaken. It vacillated. There are times where he didn't see clearly. He walked by sight, not by faith, and sinned. Sinned against you. Sinned against people. We thank you, Lord, that you didn't leave him in that sin, that you came as a redeemer. You met him. You met Sarah. You met Hagar in one of the lowest points in scripture. You pointed them to the redemption found at the cross. We pray that you bless our time in the holy scriptures. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. The title of my sermon is Don't Listen to Your Wife When She Suggests You Get a Girlfriend. No, that's the secondary title. The title is God's Work Our Way. God's Work Our Way. We're going through a sermon series that we're calling Jesus in Genesis, in which we see the gospel of Jesus Christ in the first book of the Bible where you see it over and over on every single page. We see the story of a gentleman named Abram, who then becomes Abraham of his wife, Sarai, who becomes Sarah. God calls Abram out of paganism, out of idolatry into a land of Canaan. He promises him, "Hey, Abraham, I'm going to give you myself, the greatest blessing that there is. I'm starting a relationship with you. I'm going to give you this land. I'm going to give you a great name. I'm going to give you a son. Through your son will come blessings for all people." As soon as Abraham moves to Canaan, he's expecting God to make good on His promise immediately. Years begin to go by. We find him in a text where he's 10 to 11 years since that initial promise. He's getting older and older. He was 75 when God called him initially. Now he's around 86 years old. God promised him a son. The assumption of the text is the son will come through Sarah. This is where Abraham shakes. He shakes in his faith. God, maybe it's not through Sarah. Maybe it's my servant, Eliezer. That's last week's text. God comes, and He says, "I'm going to give you a son. It's going to come through you. It will be your son." The assumption there is it's through you and your wife because from Genesis 2, we see that when marriage happens, a covenant happens, two become one. The promise made to the husband is a promise made to the wife as well. We see Abraham over and over through the text. Through the stories, we see him believing, and then we see him shaking in unbelief, believing, and shaking. Today is the third episode in the series of doubt. Abraham now begins to grow impatient. God, where's my son? Where's my son? Sarah begins to grow impatient. Where's my son? They attempt to circumvent God's timing. They attempt to do God's work in their own way. They attempt to force God's hand. There's where we find ourselves in Genesis, chapter 16. Would you look at the text with me? "Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. Sarai said to Abram, 'Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go into my servant. It may be that I shall obtain children by her.' Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. After Abram had lived 10 years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife." "He went into Hagar, and she conceived. When she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. Sarai said to Abram, 'May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace. When she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!' Abram said to Sarai, 'Behold, your servant is in your power. Do to her as you please.' Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her." "The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. He said, 'Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?' She said, 'I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.' The angel of the Lord said to her, 'Return to your mistress and submit to her.' The angel of the Lord also said to her, 'I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.'" "The angel of the Lord said to her, 'Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael because the Lord has listened to your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him. He shall dwell over all his kinsmen.' She called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, 'You are a God of seeing,' for she said, 'Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.'" "Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi. It lies between Kadesh and Bered. Hagar bore Abram a son. Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram." This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word. May He write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame our time: myopic vision leads to mess, vision of God entering mess, and redeemed mess and vision. First of all, myopic vision leads to mess. What a doozy of a text we have before us. One of the reasons this text is here is because this happened. If you were inventing the Bible, if you were inventing a religion, you would not say, "This is the Father of my faith. The Father of my faith did this." This is what's going on in the text. It's a commentary on a reality that happened. The scripture is true. Therefore, it's honest. In Genesis 16:1, "Sarai, Abraham's wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar." The backstory here... You got to understand this culture, an honor, shame culture. One of the most important things, roles of a woman, that time was to have children. We saw Sarah... Her eyes are locked on her womb. This is where the culture says a woman's worth came from children who were a sign that you were legitimate, certified you as a person. From a spiritual perspective, this is a sign that God approves of you. We see here, in particular with Abraham and Sarai, God promised them a child, promised them a son of the promise. He hasn't come. It's been 10 to 11 years since that promise, 120 months of anticipating, 120 months of ovulating. He's not coming. Where is the servant from? Hagar. Hagar was an Egyptian. How did she end up in Abraham's household? We're told in chapter 12 that Abraham does leave his own town. He does go to Canaan, the promised land. God told him to stay there. He sets up an altar, starts worshiping God, telling people about God. What we see is a famine in the land shakes Abraham's faith. He says, "We might die." He goes down to Egypt. In Egypt, he sins. He sins against his wife by giving her over to Pharaoh and basically prostituting her to Pharaoh, giving her up in order to save himself. God intervenes at the last moment and saves both of them. Then Pharaoh gives possessions and servants to Abram. At this point, Abram should have rejected the servants. He should have said, "No, thank you. These are people made in the image of God. No, thank you. I'm not going to take them on as my property," in the same way that he said to the king of Sodom, yet he doesn't. He receives them. This wealth then becomes a stumbling block to him. There's Abram. There's Sarai. They can't have a child. Then there's Hagar, the younger servant. Now Sarai said to him, "Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children." He's prevented me from bearing children. We see a tone of accusation. She knows that God is sovereign. She's just not happy with His sovereignty. God, you're not good at being God. You're not doing your job right. You promised to bless us. Our current situation, our predicament does not feel like blessing. God, you're preventing me. You're not giving me what I want. You're preventing me. It's not just a sadness. It's a bitterness against God. This is a very dangerous place to be when you're bitter against God because then, God's rules don't seem as important. God, you're not giving me what I want. Therefore, even if I have to break a commandment or break one of your decrees, I can because what's more important to me is my happiness, blessing as I understand it, than to fulfill your will. She's blaming God. She comes up with a plan, and the plan is a plan that culturally is acceptable, that a woman who could not bear a child... One recourse that she had was a kind of adoption where she allows her servant to become a wife of her husband as a lower level wife. Then children borne to that surrogate mother would be adopted by the head wife. Very messy, but socially acceptable. The Code of Hammurabi, which is a code followed by the pagan culture of that day... They endorsed it. Sarah looks around and says, "Everybody is doing this." Everybody who doesn't have a child, they allow for this... There's a second wife, second relationship. Scripture says Abram listened to his wife. This is an understatement. She says, "Go into my servant. It may be that I shall obtain children by her." Abraham listened to the voice of Sarai. It doesn't get into the emotional commentary of what's going on. The text... It's not there. I will tell you that Abram is not doing his job. How do I know that? Because the same language that's used to say, "Abram listened to his wife," is the same exact phrase that God uses when He comes to Adam, Adam who sinned against God, rebelled against God, ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, being led by his wife. God comes and uses the same exact language. This is Genesis 3:17. To Adam, He said, "Because you've listened to the voice of your wife and eaten of the tree of which I commanded you shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground because of you. In pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life." In the same way that Adam passively followed his wife, in the same way that Adam did not lead himself to follow God, to obey God, and because he didn't follow himself, he didn't lead his... Because he didn't lead himself, he didn't lead his wife to follow God in obedience. We see this passivity in Abraham where he's at a point in his life where Sarah comes to him with an idea. I submit to you that Sarah doesn't really want Abraham to do this. How do I know this? I know this because later on, she blames him for following her. I know this, also, because I grew up with three sisters. I have four daughters. I'm married. I know that women don't always mean what they say, and they don't always say what they mean. "Baby, you want the last piece of cake?" "Oh, no. No, I'm not hungry. You have it." Okay. Then she's mad the rest of the evening. "Honey, what do you want for your birthday?" "Oh, nothing. What can you give me? I have you. I don't need a birthday present." "Oh, that girl's so pretty. Do you think she's pretty?" Proper response is, "What girl? Didn't notice. Had no idea. Oh, that one. Oh, yes. She's a 1. You're an 11. All right, baby." Conversation's over. That's how you get out of that. Do you think Sarah really wanted Abraham to go get another wife, this younger, pretty Egyptian servant? No, she did not, not deep down inside. Perhaps maybe this will be the son, et cetera, et cetera. Later on, we see no, no, no, no, no, no, this is a terrible idea. She wanted Abraham at this moment to say, "No, honey. I am faithful to you. We worship a God who loves us with a covenantal love. He loves us faithfully, unconditionally, eternally, in the same way I'm going to love you. No, God is going to keep His promise. Let's keep trusting God. Your identity, your worth, your value are not in a child like the culture tells you. Your identity, your value, your worth is in God." He should have done that. He did not. We see here, Abraham, a shell of himself, spiritually speaking, passively allows Sarah to take the spiritual lead in the family. This is a word to every single husband in the room. Husbands, we have a word from God that we are the head of the household. Spiritually speaking, we are to lead our wives spiritually, to disciple them, to know God's word better than them, and to speak it over them, pray with them and over them, and lead them away from folly, away from sin as we lead ourselves. Fathers, our job is to train our children. We're the spiritual leaders. You are the pastors of the household. You're the spiritual leaders to teach God's word, to obey God's word yourself, repent when you sin, and lead children in the same way. Wives, you are to allow your husband to lead as Ephesians 5 says. Abraham should have guided Sarah. He did not. She listened to the wrong voice. She listened to the voice of the serpent just like Eve did. He listened to her voice just like Adam listened to Eve. We see this pattern over and over in scripture. Aaron listened to the voice of the people instead of the voice of God. Reuben listened to his brothers about Joseph. Israel listened to the spies. Israel didn't listen to their judges. Israel listened to the other nations. Solomon allows his wives to lead him into idolatry, et cetera, et cetera. Abraham should have said, "Honey, I see you have an idea. Let's take this idea to the Lord. Let's pray about this." The more important an idea, the more important a choice, the decision, you got to pray. The more important the prayer and fasting is, let's go to the Lord. They did not. If they had gone to the Lord, you know what God would have told him? He would have said, "No, Abraham. Polygamy is against my will. It's against the design of creation." In the Garden of Eden, God didn't create Adam, and Eve, and Hagar. You have one wife. Jesus Christ comes, and He dies not for multiple brides, for one bride. God is a God who loves with a covenantal love. It's two become one, and not three become one. That's what God would have said. This is sin. This is scripture commenting on what's going on. We see the Apostle Paul interpreting what's going on in this text. He interprets it in this text in Galatians, in chapter 4 and 5, where he talks about the dichotomy in the Christian life between the flesh and the spirit, that when you become a Christian, it doesn't mean you're perfect. You're justified by grace through faith. Now begins a process of sanctification, but there are times in your life when you are carnal. You are living in the flesh. He gives a whole list of fruits of the flesh, one of which is sexual immorality, and that's what's happening in this text, and then there's fruits of the Spirit. St. Paul looks at this text before chapter 5, in which he talks about that dichotomy. He looks at Galatians 4: 21 and 25. "Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman, one by a free woman, but the son of the slave was born according to the," what? According to the flesh. "While the son of the free woman was born through promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically. These women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery. She is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia. She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children." St. Paul says Ishmael is born as design of the flesh, as a result of the design of the flesh. Isaac was born as a design of the spirit. In terms of practically speaking, do you make your decisions out of the flesh or out of the spirit? How do you know which is which? Well, is it done with prayer? Is it done with seeking wise counsel? Is it done with looking at God's word and seeing, do I contradict any of God's laws, any of God's teaching? Genesis 16:3 through 4, "After Abram had lived 10 years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abraham's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram, her husband, as a wife. He went into Hagar, and she conceived. When she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress." Sarah comes up with a plan, sinful plan. Abraham goes along with the plan because he's tempted by his own flesh. Honey, you want me to do what? You want me to sleep with her? He's tempted, gives into that temptation. Then the rest of the text is a commentary on the consequences of him giving into that sin. It was a terrible idea. Surrogate motherhood was a common practice at that time, but right away, we're given hints that this is a terrible idea. Sarah took Hagar and gave her to Abraham. It's an ominous callback to Genesis, chapter 3, where Eve takes of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She eats and gives to her husband who is with her, passively. Doesn't protect her from the temptation of the evil one. Sarah, the same way, takes Hagar as if she's an object and gives her as an object of temptation to her husband. In the Garden of Eden, we had two trees: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. Those two trees... Here, we have two women. One, you can eat from. The other one, you can't. Abraham sins. He's deceived by his flesh and then what happens with Hagar. In a sense, she's sinned against. Did she choose to go along with this plan? We're not told because if a person is in a position of power, has power over the servant. We're not told how she's responded to any of this, but we are told that she herself isn't blameless either since Sarai has sinned. Then what we see is Hagar looks down with contempt on Sarai. The important word, she despises Sarai. She sees her boss, so to speak, who can't have a child, and she has a child. This child is growing inside now. The baby is showing perhaps, kicking. Now she's looking at Sarah with contempt. The word is despised her. It's the same word that she uses to curse in Genesis 12:3, where God says, "Abraham, whoever curses you will be cursed by me." She curses in a sense because she understands. From the perspective of culture, she has everything that Sarah wanted. She has the affection of Abraham. She has the embrace of Abraham. She has access to his wealth and finally has a child. As far as anyone knows, Hagar is carrying the promised child. What we see is now the family descends into misery. That sin leads to dysfunction that leads to misery. It says if two women with kids have one husband they both share, if a husband and wife divorced, and they're still living in the same house as the husband remarries, there's just bitterness, and spite, and heartache, and heartbreak. Sarah perceives Hagar as a threat against her place in the household. In verse 5, Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you!" She feels sinned against, although it was her idea. "I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!" What she's saying is, you should have known better. You know what? She's right. Abraham should have known better. Abraham is the guy that's talking to God, that's praying to God, that has access to God, that knows God's word. Sarah blames him. What we see here is this is how sin works. Sin makes these great promises that always over-promises and it under-delivers. Sin never comes to you with a whole list of consequences that will come after the sin. No, it comes with the promises. Sin is like a medication commercial. You know those medication commercials, those drug commercials on TV? where it's like, this is your issue, whatever your issue is. Now this is the solution. This drug will absolutely make everything better. There's always sunlight. There's always green grass. There's nice music. There's always a bathtub. I don't know. Just in the middle of the field, there's a bathtub of someone just really enjoying themselves. It's like, this will solve all of your problems, not all of your pain will go away. That's for two minutes, and then it'll last 10 seconds. A guy comes in with rapidfire 3x. He's like, "By the way, here's the side effects. You might have vertigo and nausea. You might get warts growing on your nose, little hairs. You might grow a tail. You might grow grass out of your ears, et cetera. You're going to die. You might die. You can't sue us. Sorry, but buy this thing." Sin is like that except it doesn't give you the last 10 seconds. It just over-promises, and it under-delivers every time, in particular when it comes to sexual sin. That's why this is at the heart of the story of a man of faith named Abraham. Verse 6, "Abram said to Sarai, 'Behold, your servant is in your power. Do to her as you please.' Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her." It was Abram's sin that led to this situation. His passivity allowed for it. He didn't take responsibility, not then, not here. He listened to Sarai's sinful advice. Now he allows Sarah to do whatever she wants. You just see a pathetic shell of himself, spiritual speaking, the callous response, "Do to her as you please." What does Sarah do? She deals harshly with Hagar. Hagar is pregnant. They're living in tents. We don't know what she did. Maybe verbal abuse, physical abuse, maybe demands on her that were just impossible, ultimately so cruel that Hagar just decides to leave, to flee, to go back to Egypt. Here, what the text is teaching is, it's always a terrible idea to try to accomplish God's plan our own way in our own timing. There's examples of this over and over in scripture. God allows for situations like this in the life of His most faithful in order to grow them in reliance and dependence on God. Case in point, Moses. Moses knew from a young age, he had a burning desire, the call on his life that he will be part of the liberation movement of the people of Israel from Egypt. He grew up as a Jewish person in Pharaoh's household, got the education, got the training, and then finally says, "Now it's time for me to be the great liberator." Sees an Egyptian master abusing a Jewish slave. He meddles and kills the Egyptian master with his own hands, buries the body in the sand. When that's found out, he flees. What's going on? He tried to rush God's plan. God's work has to happen God's way. God's plans come complete with His methods, with His timing. Hudson Taylor said, "God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply." Our tinkering only messes things up. Case in point, King Saul, the first king of Israel... Samuel the priest tells him, "Hey, before you go to paddle, you need to understand. We need to sacrifice an animal to get the Lord's blessing. We need to worship God. Don't do anything. Don't go into battle until I come, and I will lead that process as the priest of God." Saul waits one day, waits another day, waits a week. Samuel's not coming. Samuel's not coming. Saul takes an animal, and he takes upon himself the role of a priest, which he should not have. He sins. Samuel says, "Because you have sinned against God, trying to force God's plan, you will have the throne taken away from you." Now that's the mess that's created by losing of vision of God's plan, a myopic vision, shortsighted vision. Thanks be to God that God doesn't leave them on their own in this mess. This is point two of vision of God entering the mess. Now you see Hagar pregnant, no resources, cast out by Abraham, the father of her child and her husband, cast out by Sarah. She's by herself, fleeing 100 miles away from Abraham's camp in Hebron. In the next scene, we see that God doesn't leave her in this forsaken place. He comes to her when she is most broken, most desperate, most heartbroken. He doesn't just come to her. He doesn't just meet her. He calls her by name. This right here is one of the most shocking parts of the text. This is the only instance, not just in the Old Testament, but in all of Eastern literature, where a deity calls a woman by name. God doesn't even call Eve by name, doesn't call Sarah by name, doesn't call Deborah by name, but He engages Hagar in conversation. Calls her by name as He meets her in the wilderness. This is verse 7. "The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur." She's on her way to Egypt, stops at a spring of water on the way to Shur. Shur... You have to pass through to get to Egypt. The word, Shur, means wall that hardly anyone passes through. It was that forbidding. It was just unending road of yellow sand and gravel. She's at this place where she wants to get a little water before she treks on. She knows that her chances of getting through are minuscule. She knows that she needs supernatural help. The Lord meets her. The angel of the Lord found her. The angel of the Lord says in verse 8. He said, "'Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?' She said, 'I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.'" She answers the first question. Doesn't answer the second question. Where did you come from? I'm fleeing Sarai. Where are you going? I don't know. I want to go back to Egypt. That's the only other place I've known." Is she going to be accepted in Egypt? Probably not. She's single. She's not a virgin. She's having a child. Who's child is it? It's probably a biracial child. She's going to go there and probably be outcast, if not killed. God intervenes, stops her. He calls her by name, Hagar, servant of Sarah. Hagar is stunned. The gods of Egypt, where gods didn't care about slaves... They didn't care about slave girls. To be noticed by Egyptian gods, you got to be high up on the priest's ladder. You have to coax them, feed them, flatter them. Here we see the angel of the Lord showing up, speaking to Hagar gently by name. No one's spoken to her by name thus far. Sarai calls her, "My maid," in verse 2 and 5. Abraham calls her, "My maid," in verse 6. Abraham and Sarah... They think of her as a slave, as a foreigner, as a possession, something to be used, abused, as someone to be mistreated, neglected, expendable. The angel speaks to her and calls her by name. The angel of the Lord speaking to a woman who's not Jewish, at a well, speaking to her tenderly. This sounds like someone else. Then angel of the Lord... Who is that? Who is the angel of the Lord? The angel of the Lord, definite article. It's not an angel of the Lord. He comes, and He speaks in first person. He doesn't say, "Thus say the Lord. I have a message to you from God." No, he speaks in first person. He speaks on behalf of God as if He is God. Well, the word, angel, in Hebrew just means messenger. This is a messenger of the Lord. Who else is a messenger of the Lord? Jesus Christ is the word of God. Four times in this text: the angel of the Lord, angel of the Lord, angel of the Lord, angel of the Lord... Whenever that phrase is used with a definite article, this is the only angel, the primary angel of the Lord. This is a Christophany. This is Jesus Christ appearing. In verse 7, 9, 10, 11, it says, "The angel of the Lord." It's Jesus Christ speaking to her. She knows exactly who's before her. She's in the presence of deity. That's why in verse 13, she says, "I have seen the Lord. The Lord has seen me. I'm spoken to the Lord." Jesus Christ meets her, and the angel of the Lord, Jesus, says to her, "Return to your mistress and submit to her." Why is He doing that? He's doing that for two reasons. Number one, this is the only place she's going to have safety as a pregnant woman. Second of all, this son that you have, Ishmael, he's going to be a difficult son. He needs his dad. Every child needs their dad. You got to bring the child back to his daddy. Return and submit to Sarai. Promises her that much of the same blessing that was given to Abraham, that both offspring will be so great they can't be counted. Verse 11, "The angel of the Lord said to her, 'Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael because the Lord has listened to your affliction.'" Ishmael means God hears. God heard your pain, your affliction. Verse 12, "He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.” Just as Abraham's offspring is promised suffering in Genesis 15, God says to Abraham, "Your children will suffer for 400 years." In the same way, he's saying Hagar's offspring will suffer. The hands of many will be against him and his hand will be against everyone. He's going to go his own way. A wild donkey is a metaphor for a proud individualist. There will be perpetual conflict in his life. Herman Melville who wrote Moby Dick starts the novel, the narrative, saying, "Call me Ishmael," same name. Call me a man who is alone, who is alienated from others. This isn't as much of a blessing as much of a prophecy. This is what's going to happen. Perhaps this is because of the family situation, because of the two wives situation where perhaps Ishmael didn't feel as if he was truly loved in the household, et cetera, because he didn't feel like he was the son of the promise, et cetera. We know that he was going to live a very difficult life. We see descendants of Ishmael, not just physical descendants, but he has spiritual descendants just like Isaac has descendants, not just physical but spiritual. The Muslim people claim that God actually promised the land of Israel to Ishmael, and that the Jewish people stole it, and that the Bible is a big Jewish lie. That's why there's still struggle in the Middle East. It all stems from this. If we ever have a picture of the longevity of sin, we see it here. This is what the text teaches us, that we are to look at our decisions not just from our perspective or perspective even of our lifetime, but generationally speaking, will this decision lead to blessing to people and will leave a legacy of blessing, leave a legacy of pain? God continues to minister to Hagar. This is point three: redeemed mess and vision. God brings in redemption into a situation. Verse 13, "She called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, 'You are a God of seeing.'" She knows this is God who spoke to her, right? She calls on the name of the Lord who spoke to her through the angel of the Lord. That's how we know that this is Jesus. "'You are God of seeing,' for she said, 'Truly I have seen him who looks after me.'" What floors Hagar more than anything isn't just the blessing or the promise. It's the fact that God sees, that God has seen this whole situation. He's seen every blow that Sarah has inflicted. He's seen every single blind eye that Abraham turned. He's seen every injustice. She's blown away that God cares for those who are outside this people, hears their cry, sees their tears. She realizes that she was viewed as expendable. God views her as a daughter. He speaks over her, calls her by name. She's beloved by the Lord. She says, "You are God of seeing." What's fascinating is she is the only person, all of scripture, male or female, that gets the name God. She looks at him, and she said, "You are God El Roi. You are the God of seeing. You see me." Abraham lost sight of God. Sarai lost sight of God. Hagar lost sight of God as well, but God did not lose sight of them. Even when they are faithless, He is faithful. God comes to them. In Genesis 16:14, "Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi. It lies between Kadesh and Bered." That verse doesn't mean anything to us except we see the word, beer, there. Then we're like, beer, a well beer. Wow. That's amazing. It's not about beer, obviously. There's an incredible theological significance in what's going on here. This is the well of the seeing God and et cetera. It's between Kadesh and Bered, Kadesh and Bered. Kadesh means holiness or holy. Bered means judgment. Between the holiness of God and the judgment of God is a well of a God who sees, a well of the living one who sees. Hagar begins the journey to the wall, Shur. She ends up at the well. At the well is where she is met with her beloved. This isn't the biblical pattern that we see. The biblical pattern is every time a woman is at a well in scripture, in the stories, in the narratives, she encounters her beloved. We see this with Rebekah. She was proposed to at a well. Rachel meets Jacob by a well. Zipporah meets Moses by a well. There's another story, of course, of Jesus Christ meeting a woman at the well, the Samaritan woman. He goes, and He meets with her. He asks her for some water. They have a conversation. Then finally, He says, "You know what? I don't need your physical water. I have spiritual water, water that wells up to eternal life. I am offering you a water that truly satisfies." Then He explains to her who He is, that He is the Messiah. He explains to her that she's been living a life where she's been seeking waters of satisfaction in relationships with men, five husbands. She was living with a guy at the time that was not her husband. He explains to her, "You're seeking something that can never be satisfied physically. You're seeking a spiritual satisfaction. You're seeking to be fully known and fully loved, that only God can do that." We see Abraham, and Sarah, and Hagar... All of them were seeking this deep satisfaction. They couldn't find it. Finally, Hagar meets Jesus Christ at a well. She realizes, "You are God who sees everything. You still meet with me, and speak to me, and call me by name. You see everything," which sounds great when we do great things. How about when we don't? It sounds great when we are sinned against. God, you see everything, but it doesn't sound great when we sin against others. Hagar realizes, "You see everything. You saw when I was being sinned against. You saw how I responded with sin against Sarah. You see everything, and you still call me by name?" How can God do that? God can do that because He meets us at the intersection between two wells. He meets us at the well of grace between holiness and judgment. Where else do we see holiness and judgment coming together? We see at the cross of Jesus Christ. At the cross of Jesus Christ, we see the holiness of God poured out on his Son, in terms of wrath for taking our sin upon Himself. It's the holiness of God that leads to the judgment of our sin. We see Jesus Christ forsaken from the Father's House, and we see that Jesus Christ goes. Though He is forsaken by the Father on the cross, He says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Why was Jesus Christ forsaken on the cross? So that we would never have to be, so that we could be sought, seen, wooed, embraced by God, so that we could have a vision of God that satisfies us like nothing else. St. Thomas Aquinas is called one of the top three Christian minds to have ever lived. Called the Doctor of the Church for centuries, wrote over 80 books, all massive. It was beginner's theology. It was about 3,500 pages. When he was writing his masterpiece, his magnum opus, writing his masterpiece, he had a vision of God in prayer. In that vision, God says, "You've been faithful. You've been faithful to me. What do you want?" All he said was, "I just want some more of God." Then he died not long after that. After the vision, his stenographer with whom he wrote said, "Why did you stop writing?" He said, "After what I've seen, all that I have written is straw." He saw a vision from God. He understood who God is. He understood that God proves that He does care for us, that He does loves us, that He does want to bless us, and He proved it on the cross of Jesus Christ. Hagar returns. How couldn't she? She got a new vision from God. Because of this new vision, she continues to obey the Lord. Abram changes as well. We see him finally taking responsibility. In this text, he took his son, and he names him. Verse 15, "Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram." Abram repents of his sin. In 1 John 1:8 through 10, it says, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." Do you have sins? Do I have sins? We do. We need to confess our sins, ask for forgiveness, repent of our sins, and believe that at the cross of Jesus Christ, our sins are paid for when the judgment of God is poured out on Jesus Christ. When we repent, God does forgive. How do we know that Abraham repented? Because we see a pattern of changed life afterwards, that he continues to wait on God. He names his son, and he continues to raise his son. He loves his son. How do we know that Abraham loved Ishmael? Because later on, when God comes to him, he says, "Hey, I'm going to send you the son of the promise now, Isaac." Abraham says, "Could you make him the son of the promise? I really love Ishmael." We see a change of heart in this man who finally takes responsibility for his actions. What we see at the end of the chapter is, and beginning of the next chapter, we see a gap of another 13 years. Now in these 13 years, yes, there was strife, and disagreement, and bitterness, and jealousy, and heartache. More than any of this, what we see is that Abraham continued to grow in his reliance and dependence on God. That's where true faith is grown in this area where we understand we could do nothing apart from Jesus Christ. Every single one of us, we need to constantly reassert our dependence on God. God, I need you. God, I need a new vision, a fresh vision of who you are, a fresh vision of what you've called me to do. Give me the power of the Holy Spirit to do that, to live according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for this text. We thank you for the honesty of the text and showing us an episode in Abraham's life where he did sin. There was a sin of passivity and not leading himself spiritually, not leading his wife spiritually, Lord. For those of us men who are in this room, if we struggle with the sin of passivity, I pray today, give us the gift of repentance, that you make us a people who boldly lead in following you on a daily basis, lead ourselves, lead our wives, lead our children. Lord, continue to fill each one of us with the Holy Spirit so that we don't make decisions out of the flesh but make decisions out of the Holy Spirit and continue to bear the fruit of the Spirit. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
Activate Your Faith
May 2, 2021 • Genesis 15
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning, welcome to Mosaic Church. My name is Jan, one of the pastors here at Mosaic. And if you're new or if you're visiting, I'm so glad you're here and we'd love to connect with you. We'll do that through the connection card, either a physical one or the worship guide in the back or the one in the app. Quick announcement for all the members or those becoming members today, we have a members meeting, quarterly members meeting today at 3:00 PM. So you can go have some brunch or lunch, take a nap and come back. Tremendous planning in coming to the first service, very smart. With that said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's word? God, we thank you that you are a trustworthy God. Whatever you say, whatever you promise, you deliver upon. And we can build our lives upon this sheer foundation, upon this anchor for our souls. We thank you for the story of Abraham, we thank you for calling him. We thank you for making a covenant with him, showing us that you are a covenantal God, you are a God who promises to love and you make good on that promise no matter what. And even when we fall, even when we are faithless, you still come, you pursue seeking to save the lost and make us a people who build our lives truly, practically, build our lives on the sure foundation of the gospel, that we can lean the whole weight of our existence upon this foundation, that we can practically make daily decisions based upon this truth, that you love us, we're called to be yours and that everything will work together for our good. And remind us today that you are a God that doesn't just love us individually, you do, and you love us individually and personally, but you love us collectively, make us a people who are selfless, recognizing that God is patient and we are to endure evil and sin in this world because you were patient. You patiently wait, you are long suffering and waiting for all to repent. Lord, bless our time in this holy word. We pray, encourage us where we need to be encouraged, convict us where we need to be convicted and do strengthen and activate our faith. And we pray this in Christ's holy name, amen. So we're going through a sermon series that we're calling Jesus in Genesis. It's season two, season one was 2016, you can find that online. And what we're doing is we're looking at the first book, the book of beginnings and we are showing that Jesus Christ is on every single page, every single page, every single paragraph, every pericope, every single sentence is pointing to Jesus Christ. And the context of the story started with Genesis 12 where God calls a pagan, a Babylonian, Abraham from the Ur of the Chaldeans. And he calls him to himself, starts a relationship with him, gives him the gift of faith because that's what faith is, it's a gift. And what we see is God is taking that gift, that dormant gift of faith and he is placing Abram in a position, Abram who then becomes Abraham, puts them in the position where he has to exercise his faith, he has to activate his faith. Faith is kind of like a language, it's a way of articulating, communicating, understanding reality. If we haven't met, I'm originally from the Soviet Union. My family immigrated here in 1989. I was about six years old. So my first language, my native language is Russian. And I grew up speaking Russian at home. Well, if anyone that is an immigrant that comes here as a young age, what you know is your language is kitchen language. It's what mom and dad speak in the kitchen, that's it. That's the level, that's the extent of your language. And all my education was in English, but I did have a love for Russian. So I did a study abroad when I was in my junior year in college, Study Abroad in Moscow. Now I'm thrown into Russia, I'm thrown into a place where I have to use my... I can't but use my... And Russia is very different from Europe. In Europe, you go, you can get by on English, Russia wasn't like that back in 2004. Now on a daily basis, I'm in university level classes learning real Russian, using, forced to use my... And I remember coming home every single night and I remember being just brain dead, just absolutely exhausted because of just the using your brainpower all day. And by the end of the four months, I could truly hold my own where people didn't really understand that I didn't grow up in Russia. Faith is kind of like that. Especially if you grew up in the faith, for many of us it's dormant. And what God does with Abraham, and he does the same thing with every single one of us. He puts us in a position where we can't but use our faith. We can't but activate our faith in order to understand all of reality. So in chapter 12, Abraham does leave everything and goes to Canaan, there's a famine. He doesn't exercise his faith, doesn't stay there, instead goes to Egypt and then he's thrown into all kinds of temptation and goes into... He sins against his wife by basically prostituting her off in order to save his own skin. And then he repents, they come back and then chapter 13, we see his faith exercised where he looks at the land before them and he says to his nephew Lot, "Hey, there's too many of us. We're too rich. You go one way, I go the other." Lot goes to Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham trusts God and he remains in the land of Canaan. Chapter 14, this is pastor Andy preached on this last week, we see that Lot is captured in war by four kings that come to war against the five kings, the coalition of Sodom and Gomorrah. Now we see Abraham's faith being exercised. He sees his nephew, his brother, in Hebrew words, kinsman, sees his brother being taken into captivity. Does God tell him to act? God does not. But Abraham believed, God promised Abraham, "I'm going to give you a son, and through your son, I'm going to bless the nations." Abraham looked at himself, looked at his wife, doesn't have a son yet and he says, "Until I have a son, I am invincible. I am immortal. Saddle up your camels gentlemen," 318 trained men of war. And Abraham pulls a Liam Neeson where he makes a phone call. And he says, "I have a set of certain skills I have accumulated over a very long career and it makes me a nightmare for anyone that comes against me and my family. I'm going to look for you, I'm going to find you, I'm going to kill you." Abraham does that, he acts upon his faith. And a lot of people look at scripture and they're like, "Oh, patriarchy. We got to dismantle the patriarchy." We've got to dismantle the bad patriarchy, the sinful patriarchy, sinful masculinity, that which is toxic masculinity. There is a good masculinity, a godly masculinity that's consecrated to God that says, "I live for God and I live for legacy for generations." And that's what Abraham does. And God blesses him. He comes up with a strategy. He's going up against thousands of soldiers, waits until it's night and he divides his forces. They come from two different sides at night, which is very disorienting to a military force and he wins. But the story doesn't end with Abraham being praised for his military IQ or for his courage, the story ends with Abraham professing faith in God, Melchizedek, a priest, a high priest, blessing God as well. And why is that important? It's because it wasn't Abraham. The power, the victory didn't come from Abraham, it came from God, but Abraham believed. So we have this interplay from the beginning of scripture, that God is sovereign, God gives faith, but we have to work, we have to activate our faith. And it is a gamble. You're betting your life on the premise that God is, that his word is true and whatever he said will come true. And that's what Abraham does. And that's why he's called the father of the faithful and he exercise victorious faith in a hostile world. Today, we're looking at Genesis chapter 15, and Genesis 15 is about this faith, but we see Abraham doubting. We see him vacillating, which usually happens after incredible spiritual victory. We see this all throughout scripture, incredible victory and then Satan comes to tempt. We see this with the prophets, we see this with Elijah where he has incredible victory over the profits of Baal. And then he doubts, he says, "God kill me. Why am I even alive?" We see this with Jesus Christ. He gets baptized, the Holy Spirit descends upon him and then Jesus goes into the desert to be tempted by the evil. And so we see Satan coming to tempt Abraham away from God. This is one of the most important chapters in all of holy scripture. It's alluded to 14 times in the new testament. So would you look at the texts with me today? We are in Genesis chapter 15. After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision, "Fear not, Abraham. I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great." But Abraham said, "Oh Lord God, what will you give me? For I continue childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus." And Abraham said, "Behold, you've given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir?" And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, "This man shall not be your heir. Your very own son shall be your heir." And he brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." And he believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness. And he said to him, "I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess." But he said, "Oh Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?" And he said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle dove and a young pigeon." And he brought him all these, cut them in half and laid each half over against the other but he did not cut the birds in half. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abraham drove them away. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abraham and behold dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to Abraham, "Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there and they will be afflicted for 400 years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." And when the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed through these pieces. On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying, "To your offspring, I give this land, the river of Egypt to the great river to the river Euphrates the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaims, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites." This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word, may he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame of our time, a promise given, a promise believed and a promise guaranteed. First, a promise given. After Abraham comes back from war God meets him again in this place of exhaustion, a place of doubt, he's searching and God says, "Fear not for I am your shield, your reward shall be very great." That's verse one. The word of the Lord comes to God again. Was Abraham asking for the word, was he searching for the word? We're not told, but this shows us the pattern that God uses in order to speak to people, in order to initiate relationship, that God is the God who forges relationship with the people. He's the one that takes initiative. Adam and Eve sin, do they go seeking God? They do not. God goes and he says, "Adam, where are you?" Noah, did Noah know that a flood was coming? No, God comes and he says, "Noah, I'm going to use you as an agent to save, to save humanity." Did Abraham know that God existed? No, he's an idolater, he was happy to be so. And God meets him and God calls him to relationship with himself. It's no different. It was like that in the year 2000 BC. It's like that in the year 2021 AD in Boston, Massachusetts. It doesn't matter if God speaks through a vision, it doesn't matter if he speaks through a sermon out of the pages of scripture, out of conversations with friends, the effect is always the same, that God is the one who initiates the relationship and what's required is for us to trust and obey. God initiates, we need to respond. The first thing that God says, which is good. If you meet God, if you hear the word of God, God's in front of you, oh boy, it could go one of two ways. If God met you right now, I came up to a guy today and I was like, "Hey, I know what you did last night." Just for fun, just to see the fear in his eyes. How do you know? Oh I know. If God meets you and God knows you, all of your sin, everything you've done and God meets you, it could go one of two ways. And that's why God says, "Fear not, fear not. Fear not, I'm not here to judge, I'm here to bolster your faith." He says, "I am your shield. I am your very great reward. You will get a reward." Two beautiful images, the word shield is the same word that Melchizedek uses in chapter 14, verse 20, where he says that God gave them up, the enemies, into your hand as deliverance, a shield. That God is the one that shielded you, protected you in battle in the same way God is your shield. How does that apply to us today? Well, we're not physical war, we're a spiritual war. If you are to understand reality in 2021, you need to know we are in a spiritual war. There is God, there is Satan. There are angels, there are demons. There is good, there is evil. There is truth, there are lies. Scripture talks about the fact that we do not wage war against physical, but we do against Satan, the demons, the principalities. Satan doesn't want us to trust God, he doesn't want us to obey God, to honor and worship God. So we need a defender against an enemy that is greater than us, and that defender is our God. He's our protector, he's our shield. We need to be underneath it. Are you underneath the shield of God? Is God your shield? Or do you trust in yourself? Do you trust in your finances? Do you trust in your accomplishments so your career, your education? Is God your shield from enemies greater than you can handle? And God says, "I am your shield, Abraham, fear not." And God sees the Abraham was a faithful soldier of the Lord and God wants to reward his service. He says, "Your reward will be great." Why is this important? Because Abraham just gave up a massive plunder. He goes, he conquers four kings and takes the plunder that they stole from the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah. And at that point, Abraham has a decision to make, what do I make with this loop? What do I make with this money? What do I do with these people? He could have kept it all for himself to enrich himself, but he understands that this is unseemly gain, this is sinful money. This is blood money. And he understand that the politics involved with the king of Sodom and Gomorrah is not going to just allow him to keep everything he had. King of Sodom and Gomorrah comes and he says, "Hey, keep all the money. Give me the people." Well, what's the mindset? This is geopolitical strategy going on. And he says, "I need people. I need my soldiers back. You can keep the money. You give me my soldiers and then when you're asleep, I'm going to come at you with my soldiers." And Abraham says, "No, thank you." He has the wisdom of God to say, "No, thank you," to this unseemly gain. You keep everything. I never want you to say that, "I made Abraham rich." He trusts in God. He gives up this unseemly, sinful reward and God says, "You, because you've done this, because you've said no to temptation. You've said no to an attempt." That's part of growing in the faith, activating the faith, saying no to temptation, saying no to cutting corners. And I was meditating on it last night. This wasn't even part of the sermon. And it's always dangerous when I go here, but it's fun. So I was wondering how the forbidden fruit tasted, that's what I was meditating on. I wonder what it tasted like. And you know what? I think every single one of us knows what it tasted like. It was entrancing, it was euphoric. There was a rush of adrenaline, eyes opening. We've been a place like this. And Abraham, he does not do what Adam and Eve did, he does not give into the temptation. He shows that he's activating, exercising his faith. And God comes to him and says, "I will give you a great reward." But Abraham looks at his life and says, "Where's my reward? Where's my reward?" And God emphasizes to him by even coming to him again, "I am your reward. I'm the greatest reward that there is." He's offering a friendship. They're having a conversation. It's a friendship. Obviously it's not a conversation between equals, he's God and Abraham's human. There's a great gulf between the infinite God and the wisp of human beings but God's stoops down, they have a conversation. This is what makes Christianity utterly unique. Christianity doesn't just teach people about God or tenets about God or commandments from God. Christianity says it's not just about knowing about God, it's about knowing God, that you are not alone in the universe, that there is a God who created you and knows you better than you know yourself, and that's what God is offering. He's offering a relationship of love, of communication, of loyalty, of prosperity. This isn't offered in Islam, it's not offered in Buddhism or any other religion or philosophy. All the others say you need to serve, you need to do something for God in order for God to accept you. You need to ingratiate yourself into relationship with him. And God comes, initiates the relationship, has a conversation and talks to Abraham. And Abraham feels so loved that he feels comfortable enough to talk back. Now, whenever anybody talks back in scripture, that's usually a bad sign. When I tell my kids to do something, the very first thing out of their mouth is not the word, "Yes, daddy." I know I'm going to have to deal with some drama with their eyes. Okay, fine. No, it wasn't me, it was my sister. I didn't... she should clean. And so I'm like.... What's fascinating is that God engages and allows Abraham to have a conversation. In verse two, the verse begins with the word but, but... So God's like, "I'm your shield, I'm your reward." And Abraham's like, "But, God, but." But Abraham said, "Oh Lord God, what will you give me for I continue childless and the heir my house is Eliezer of Damascus." Abraham talks back, which is a sign that he is doubting. Now there's a difference between doubt and unbelief. There's a difference between doubt and unbelief. And the reason I say there's a difference is because how does he address God? Oh Lord God. He doesn't just say Lord, he doesn't just say God, he says, "Oh Lord God." What he's saying is, "Oh, sovereign Lord, oh Lord Yahweh, you are preeminent. You are exalted. I know you're God and I know I'm not but I don't understand. I've got a question. You promised to bless me. I look at my life now, it doesn't look like blessing as I define it." Here's a difference between doubt and unbelief. Doubt wants resolution, doubt draws near to God, doubt wrestles with God like Jacob wrestled with God. That's doubt. Got questions, I know you've got answers. I trust you, you're Lord God, I don't understand but I know that I will once you help me. Unbelief says this, "You haven't given me what I want, you haven't given me my son, I'm leaving. You haven't blessed me as I define blessing, as I define the blessed life, I am leaving." You turn your back and you walk away. Abraham here doesn't act out of unbelievable but out of doubt. He's doubting, "Oh Lord God, what will you give me? Thanks for being my shield, thanks for being my reward, thanks for the reminder. But can I trust you?" It's been years, perhaps decades since the initial promise in Genesis 12. So Abraham is facing the facts of reality. He's older, his wife is older, his wife is barren. God promised a son, he promised a child through Sarah. He sees the facts of reality, he interprets the facts of reality, but he also knows there's another fact, also fact of reality, it's not seen, it's the fact of God. Now through the fact of God, he interprets physical reality, interprets circumstances. Verse three, and Abraham said, "Behold, you've given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir." Scripture doesn't come to us with the emotion of the text. That's now the Holy Spirit needs to bring that up. But I want you to go in that moment. I want you to look at Abraham who's been following God for decades. God, you promised a son, you promised an heir. And this phrase, I don't know about you, but it hits me in a powerful way because I've been a moments in my life where I have not received what I thought God was promising. And he says, "You have given me no son." You take the word son out of there and you fill it in with something else. And that's the emotion that Abraham wrestling. God, I love you. I know you love me, but you have given me no, what is that? What's that for you? You have given me no spouse, you've given me no house. You have given me no wealth, perhaps it's health issues, you have given me no. I'll tell you that right there, that right there, this area of life, whenever you have questions like this, Satan comes in and he just presses into that pain. And you need to fight that. You need to fight that the same way Abraham did. That God, you are my shield and God, you are my great reward and I know that you are trustworthy and you haven't given me this yet, perhaps because you will give it to me later, perhaps because it's just not the time yet because I'm not in a place where I can handle that level of blessing. And I love how God is just patient with Abraham and allows Abraham to ask these questions. And the promise is given, what does Abraham do? And this appoint two, there's promise believed. And God comes to him and reiterates the promise. In verse four, behold, the word of the Lord came to him that this man shall not be your heir. He's not going to be your heir. Your very owned son shall be your heir. The word behold here looks and draws you into the narrative. The narrative's telling you this is really, really important. You will get your son, I promise you. Verse five, and he brought him outside. Abraham's probably in his tent, God brings him outside, "Let's go for a walk." He says, "Look toward heaven, look toward heaven. Number the stars if you were able to number them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Usually this is how God deals with our doubts, deals with our questions, deals with our pain, deals with our suffering. He wants to draw our attention away from ourselves. Navel gazing never helps. Yes, internal work, yes, it's important. But nowhere in scripture does it say, "Okay, you need to look in deep within yourself, that's where all the answers are." That's false. Whenever I start looking into myself, deep down inside I'm like, "Ah, I don't want to see any of that." God says, "Look away from yourself. Look away from your sin. Look away from your struggles. Look to the sky, look to the sky." And God brings it to look at the sky, first of all, to wow him. Wow, God created all of that. I can't believe that God who created all that is talking to me. And second of all, what God is saying is, "I want you to realize Abraham, that your life is not just about you. I'm going to send you a son and you will have so many offspring from this son, it's going to be more than the stars of heaven." Is that metaphorical? Most likely if your number stars of heaven. What he's saying is, "Abraham, it's not about you. It's not about your blessed life here. It's about through you I'm going to bless many people. And that's the greatest blessing that I can give you to be useful to me, to live for my glory." And that's not necessarily going to make it comfortable here in this life. But from the perspective of eternity, you're going to look back and say, "Praise God. God, thank you for that gift of suffering. Thank you for the gift of struggle. Thank you for that gift of the season of doubt." God speaks, he gives this gift of faith, he bolsters the gift of faith and he promises that Abraham will have offspring that number more than stars in the heaven. He's not just talking about Jewish people. He's not just talking about Jewish people. This is really important. And people like, "I thought Abraham was Jewish." Was he? Was Abraham Jewish? He was not. He was a pagan from Babylon. He becomes Jewish, we find out later through his greatest... I submit to you the greatest act of faith he ever committed, it was circumcising himself with a flint knife, greatest act ever. He becomes Jewish by faith. And this is how God actually from the beginning of Abraham, this is how God works in the world. By faith, we become children of God, not from our genealogy, not from our ethnicity, not from our parents' religion. We become children of God by believing in God, by trusting in God. This is why Galatians 3:29 says, if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. And that's why I think it's so important to understand that's probably why God's sovereignly brought us into the temple of Beth Sholom, praise God, just to remind us that's where it all started. It all started with Abraham, but you've got to keep going. You've got to read the sequel. I had a Jewish roommate who's like, "I believe in everything except not the sequel. I don't like the sequel." But I'm like, "The story continues, the sequel's so much better. It's so good." So it starts with Abraham, Abraham believes and God offers that entrance to the family through faith. God speaks, Abraham responds in verse six. And this is the most important verse, probably in the old testament because we see imputed righteousness, justification by grace, through faith in the old testament. Saint Paul, we see this in Romans, we see this in Galatians at the most critical junctures of his theology of justification by grace through faith, he points to this verse. And he believed, Abraham believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness. He didn't just believe the word of God, he believed the God of the word. God, you speak, I believe. I believe not just in what you said, but I believe you. I believe you, I know you. And it says he counted it to him as righteousness. He believes, he trusts him. He lives accordingly and he believes. A lot of people are trying to incorporate the philosophies of the world into our faith. For example, scientific rationalism says I don't believe until I see, I need to see then I'll believe. And this isn't how God works, God says you will see once you believe. First believe, first believe. This is the most important presupposition of our life. Is there a God and can I trust him? And Abraham says yes. And God promises to him that you will be made righteous. This is what the phrase, he counted it to him as righteousness, he counted to him as righteousness. This is language of justification by grace through faith. Abraham, you're not righteous. You have sinned, you will continue to sin. But you trust in God. You are building your life on the foundation that is God, you are justified by grace through faith. This is second Corinthians 5:22. It says he, Jesus Christ, who knew no sin became sin on the cross, when he took the penalty for our sin upon himself. He who knew no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God. God is saying, "Now you're mine, now you're covered by the righteousness of the one who is to come." The Lord made a promise to Abraham that you will have a son, not just a son, but a great host of descendants. Abraham believes this despite his old age, himself, his wife and the Lord considered him righteous because he believed, because he was willing to build his life on the foundation that is God. I wrote this in my newsletter, but one of the most mind blowing things I've ever seen is I was walking down the street, visiting my parents in Jamestown, Rhode Island, walking down the street, I'm looking at this massive house, I'm looking at this huge house. And I look and I can see through the first floor, there was no basement, there was no foundation. The house was just lifted up, it was hoisted up. And what they were doing, is they were replacing the old foundation that was crumbling and then they were rebuilding a brand new foundation, the hoist up the house, take out the old foundation and rebuild a new foundation. And that's what God is doing with Abraham. And Abraham and then from here begins to build his whole life on this new foundation. And we see this same language in Hebrews 11:8 through 16, by faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. He went out not knowing where he was going. By faith, he went to live in the land of the promise as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him, with the same promise for he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. He says, "In this world, I'd rather live intense in this world on a foundation that is sure, sure in this world and sure in the next that God is a builder, that God is the designer." Verse 11, by faith Sarah received power to conceive even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore, from one man and him as good as dead were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven, as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and having knowledge that they were strangers and exiles on the earth for people who speak thus, make it clear that they're seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God as he prepared for them a city. What he's saying here is that Abraham was saved and he's saying that we are today. Abraham believed and the old testament saints believed that God will send the Messiah who will die for their sins, atone for their sins as a physical bodily sacrifice, pouring out his blood to atone for the sins of everybody. Abraham looks forward, we look back. Abraham waited for the first coming of Christ, we wait for the second coming of Christ and we have a decision to make every day. Will we, we know the promises of God in the holy scriptures, will we believe in the same way that Abraham believed? If not, what do you believe? If not, what are you building your life on? What is the foundation for your life? Who do you trust to tell you the truth about life? Who do you lean the fullness of your existence upon? Is it God and his word or is it yourself? Or is it people? Those are the options. Is it God or is it myself or is it people? From people, authority, this person's in authority. This person must know more than I know. I need to take this person's word as truth, maybe. I believe in total pravity, I believe every single person that speaks whatever the words are is tainted with lies. I was talking to brother after church and he's like, "Great sermon." I'm like, "Well, all of God sermons great." And he's like, "Yeah, I pay more attention to the word of God in your sermon than I do your words, no offense." And I was like, "That's right, that's the way to listen." What's God's word say? What's Pastor Jan say in the stuff he's thought of, thought through from his notes? And then when he goes off, it's fun, but you never know what you're going to get, shouldn't expect. So other people, can I trust people? Kind of. Show me the evidence, show me the data. And the data is probably biased because who's paying your paycheck. So it's either God, either people or is it yourself? I'm going to trust in my reason, I'm going to trust in my faculties of reasoning. And this is why a lot of people don't believe in God's word as the inerrant word of God. Why do I believe that God's word is the inerrant word of God? Because God's word tells me it's the inerrant word of God. And people are like, "That's circular reasoning." I was like, "How do you know that's circular reasoning?" And they're like, "My reason tells me that's circular reasoning." That's circular reasoning. It's either you believes... Either it's just you in your mind, circular reasoning, or you need a word from the outside. And is that word from the outside coming from people or is that word coming from God? Abraham trusted God. And point three, a promise guarantee. And I love this part of the text, verse seven. And he said to him, "I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess." The Lord comes, he reminds him who I am and our relationship, what's he doing here? This is a typical language that begins in making ancient covenant. Let me remind you who you are, let me remind you of who I am. And this is the same brief prologue that proceeds when God makes a covenant with his people on Mount Sinai in Exodus 20. What's God doing here? He's making a covenant with Abraham. And we think of God making covenant with his people and when we think of that, we think of God, Moses, Mount Sinai, the 10 commandments making the covenant, but that covenant just came to serve the original covenant, and the original covenant is this one. Look at Exodus 2:23, 24. During those many days, the king of Egypt died and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God and God heard their groaning and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel and God knew. So the Mosaic covenant, the covenant gave through Moses is just given to serve the original covenant. Exodus 6: 2 through 4, it says the same thing. God spoke to Moses and said to him, "I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob as God almighty. But by my name, the Lord, I did not make myself known to them. I also establish my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, land in which they lived as sojourners again, bringing in Abraham." So the covenant Sinai isn't a different covenant, it's simply renewal. It's an elaboration, it's an amplification. God then amplifies the covenant again by giving David a covenant. Second Samuel 7, where he says, "I will send a king who will sit on this throne, the Davidic throne forever." And Psalm 72 written by Solomon said that this is going to be the Messiah, all the nations will be blessed through him. So that original covenant, then we have it reiterated over and over and over finally fulfilled in Jesus Christ. So when Christ is born, we see the same language used in Zechariah's song, the Benedictus in Luke 1:72, 73, to show the mercy promise to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father, Abraham, to grant us. Mary in the Magnificat says the same thing in verses 54, 55, Luke 1, he has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers to Abraham and to his offspring forever. And I bring all that to say this, that all of this is interconnected, that the whole history of scriptures, one meta-narrative, a meta-narrative is God created everything perfectly, we rebelled against him. God is a loving God who does not let us go, but provides for a way for his justice to be satisfied and for his love to be extended to us, and he does this through the gospel. And where do we see the gospel? In verse eight. And he said, "Oh Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it or this land? How shall I know that you will fulfill your promise?" What he's saying, again we see the doubt. He's wrestling with God, "God, are you going to keep your word? God, can I trust you? And what happens if I screw up?" Abraham's absolutely honest. He knows he's a sinner. He knows sometimes when temptation comes, he wins, sometimes he loses. God, if we do make a covenant, if you'd make this promise, what if I screw up? What if I sin? What if I transgressed? What if I break it? What happens then? So God continues, verse nine, and he said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove and a young pigeon." And he brought him all these, cut them in half and laid each half over against the other. And he did not cut the birds in half and when the birds of prey came down the carcasses, Abraham drove them away. What's going on here? Three animals that he slaughters, cuts them in half and the birds he didn't cut in half and most likely kills them as well. What's going on here? What we see is what happened from the very beginning. God said, "Adam and Eve, if you sin, on the day that you sin, you will die." Because that's the penalty for sinning against an eternal, infinite, glorious holy God, they sinned. Did they die? In a sense, they died spiritually. But did they die physically? No, because God was gracious. In order to forego the wrath that they deserved to be poured out upon them for death, what does God do? God clothes them with what? With animal skins. Where'd he get the animal skins? Gods slaughters animals because the penalty for death is sin. And there is no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood as Hebrews 9 says, that's Adam and Eve. And we see the same thing with Noah. Noah gets off the ark with the animals and what happens is God says time for sacrifice, time for a new covenant. And this is what Abraham does, is he prepares the animals properly, implying that he understood what's about to come. And then we see birds, what kind of birds? Predatory birds. We see vultures coming in and you say, "What's going on here?" And he's knocking them off, they want to eat the carcasses. What's going on here? This is a symbol. Scripture says the birds, some birds in scripture are a sign of demonic activity. Jesus does this in the parable of the sower. The sower goes and sows seeds and then one of the seeds is eaten by the bird. So you see the animal striving, fighting against the covenant, fighting against the covenant even being made. You see this is later on with the cross of Jesus Christ. We see the struggle. We see the enemy at work. We see the darkness in the world. A practical application here is whenever you make a covenant with God, there will always be temptation. There will always be a war. Tell us about anyone that gets baptized. This next week is going to be rough, I'm telling you. You just need to know this. Anyone that gets married I tell them, "Look, you made a covenant with God and with one another. God wants to bless you and protect you. The enemy wants to do everything that he possibly can to break the covenant." And that's what's going on here and we see Abraham fighting. In verse 12, the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abraham and behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Now Abraham's going to sleep, this is reminiscent of God's way of bringing in Adam. Adam, when God gives Adam a wife, he puts him to sleep in order to create Eve before the covenant of marriage. Verse 13, then the Lord said to Abraham, "Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, will be servants there and they will be afflicted for 400 years, but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. Abraham, you wanted to know the future? You wanted to know about your kids? Well, I'm going to tell you. You wanted to know, they're going to suffer, they're going to suffer for 400 years." Why did God tell him? Because he asked. And then God will lead them out, the promise is made, he will lead them out with gifts, great possessions, this is what the Egyptians loading them down with gifts just to get them out. Verse 15, "As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace, you shall be buried in a good old age and they shall come back here in the fourth generation for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. Not yet Abraham. You're not going to get the land yet. There's people in this land and I love them too. And the crest of their sin has not yet come, the sin hasn't crested yet. The pinnacle isn't there yet, but I'm going to be patient with them, giving them opportunities to repent, giving them opportunities to turn to God." And God's tolerating evil here, tolerating sin here. A lot of people ask if there's a good God in the world, why is there so much sin and evil? Because God is long suffering and he's patient. He wants people to repent and turn from sin. Because if they don't, what's the alternative? It's eternity apart from God in a place called hell. So God's waiting and he's waiting. He waited with the Amorites. Same thing with Noah. He goes to Noah says, "Flood is coming, build an ark." How long does it take Noah to build the ark? 120 years. For 120 years, Noah with his life is proclaiming, "Repent or shall perish." Waiting and waiting and waiting. And the Amorites, if you study what they did, they were wicked, wicked people with all kinds of sexual deviancy, and didn't have abortion back then. So what they did was they gave birth to the kids and then was sacrificed them to the red hot arms of Moloch. And God just waited, and he just waited, he just waited and until the time has come and he's waiting now, he's waiting now. A lot of people were like, "Where's God? I sinned and there's no punishment. I sin and there's no punishment." God's just waiting, he's waiting for you, repent, turn from sin to turn to him. Verse 17, when the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot, and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. So just in your mind's eye, go here. He cuts these three animals in half, they're dead. He makes a little pathway in between, there's blood in the middle of the path soaked with blood. The vultures are here, he's knocking them all off. Then he falls asleep and it says a smoking fire pot, flaming torch passed through. What's going on here? Back then, it wasn't a written culture so they didn't write contracts. So this is how they made contracts. So the contract, the memory of the contract is emblazoned on your mind because you were there, you saw it, it was gory and you smelled it and this is what's going on. You're making a colony, you're a making a contract with someone else. And you say, "May this, what happened to these animals, may this happen to me if I do not keep my end of the bargain." And you walk through and the other person will do the same, "May this, may I be quartered like this, may I be slaughtered like this if I do not keep my end of the bargain." They would walk through. And what you're doing is it's a self curse. It's a self maledictory. It's an oath of self destruction. If I won't make good on my promise, kill me. And I will do everything to make good on the promise, even if it kills me. And that's why in the Hebrew to make a covenant, the phrase is actually to cut a covenant. You're cutting through these animals. And that's a covenant with equals. Usually covenants were made when a conquering king would come into a people and he would not walk through animals. It was assumed that this king is going to keep his end of the bargain. He would make his people, the people that he had just conquered, walk through, walk through the blood, get blood on their sandals, smell everything just to remind them, "If you will be loyal to me, I'll be loyal to you. If you won't, I will slaughter you like we slaughtered these animals." So what's going on? And we see the fire, the pot and the flaming torch walk through, and that's a sign of God's presence. And we see that in Hebrews 6 and Joshua 24 brings in the same interpretation. God walks through then Abraham follows. No he doesn't. Does Abraham follow? No, he doesn't. What's Abraham doing? Abraham is sleeping. What's going on here? This is one of the clearest pictures of the gospel in the old testament right there from the beginning. God says, "I will be responsible for both sides of the covenant. If I commit a sin, if I'm not faithful to you, may this happen to me. May I die, may I be cursed. And if you don't keep your end of the bargain by believing and trusting in me, may I still be slaughtered. I'm taking the penalty that you deserve upon my self. I'll pay the penalty for your covenant breaking out, I'll pay the price that you were supposed to pay." The animals are three years old, Jesus was crucified after a three-year long ministry. The animals are split in two so was the veil inside the temple as Jesus took his final breath. Abraham was in a deep sleep as every single one of us is in a deep, dreadful sleep of sin. When Jesus died, a dreadful darkness came upon the land, as Abraham's asleep, the same thing is happening. Why did Jesus have to die? Did Jesus disobey the covenant? Did he not keep his end of the bargain? No, he was dying because we did not keep our end of the bargain. Every single one of us, every single one of us has sinned against God, rebelled against God. We're all idolaters, we're all law and commandment breakers. So Jesus Christ goes to the cross because God promised Abraham, "I made a covenant with you," and Jesus makes good on that covenant on the cross of Jesus Christ so that when anyone could... you just got to repent of your sin. God forgive me for my... please forgive me. God, forgive me. And God does because Jesus has paid for your sin. All you need to do is ask God, please forgive me. I forgot my rings today, I usually wear my rings and my wife was mad at me this morning for forgetting my rings. And I texted her, "Can you bring my rings?" She doesn't like when I preach without my rings. She was on her way. So I forgot my rings. So this is what I always do, whenever I'm home and take my rings off. I always do that because I type faster without my rings, I do everything around the house better. So I put my rings in the same spot every single week. My daughters play the violin and they got this little triangle thing, what's that called? The metronome, the metronome. We got the little metronome, it goes tick-tock, it's so annoying. That tick-tock, it's not as annoying as my kid's violin playing. No, I love it. It's a wonderful... It goes tick-tock, tick-tock. And I'm going to look for my rings the other day and I only find one. I said, "Where's my other ring?" Searching the whole house. Oh, by the way, backstory, I wear two rings. The United States, you wear in your right hand, in Russia you wear in your left hand. I'm doubly married to one wife. So I'm looking at my second ring, I can't find my second ring. And then I my youngest daughter, "Did you see my second ring?" And she says, "No." And I say, "Are you sure?" And my wife said, "I saw you..." Tremendous trick if you're a parent, "I saw you." And all of a sudden, she starts balling and she starts screaming out, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Please forgive me," in Russian, which is so much cuter. Please forgive me. Please forgive me. Friends, she took the ring and she put it in this little gap in the metronome and it fit right in perfectly. And I go to the metronome and it's in there. I don't know how long we're going to get it out, but it's in there and we finally did get it out. But what hit me was... and I laughed at the whole... what hit me was the consecration of heart, just the contrition of heart. Please forgive me, please. I'm like, "Of course, of course." God is a good father and he's provided for a way for our sins to be forgiven. We just need to ask." This is the beauty of the gospel, this is the beauty of God's word, this is the beauty of Christianity, you just need to ask. God has provided for everything. And it ends with Genesis 15:18 through 21. On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying, "To your offspring I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaims, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, the Jebusites." And what's going on here is the land, the borders of this land are far greater than Israel ever possessed even under David and Solomon. And what God is saying is, "I'm giving the promised land, offering the promised land to everybody. Anybody who would just believe in Jesus Christ." Jesus offers us not just a relationship, but a friendship. James 2:23 said, and the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God and was counted to him as righteousness, and he was called a friend of God. That's what God is offering us, stays offering us forgiveness, blessing friendship, a relationship. And today is the first Sunday of the month. And every single first Sunday of the month, what we do is celebrate Holy communion. And Holy communion is given to us as a gift to remind ourselves, to stir our memory of what God did. That God is a great God who created us, we fell, we sinned and he did everything that was necessary for us to be forgiven and he does that through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. And Jesus on the cross, what did he do? He made a new covenant. And it wasn't the blood of animals that was spilled, it was his own blood. And before we go into Holy communion, I'll just read this text, Matthew 26:26 through 29 and look at the last supper. Now, as they were eating, God took bread and after blessing it, he broke it and he gave it to the disciples and said, "Take, eat, this is my body." And he took a cup and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them saying, "Drink of it all of you for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom." Would you please pray with me over Holy communion? Heavenly father, we thank you that you are a loving God, a covenant keeping God, we thank you that you welcome us into this new covenant thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus. Jesus, we thank you that you were slaughtered on the cross, quartered on the cross so that we would not have to be. You did that for us in our place. We thank you that you never sinned, that you never rebelled against a Holy God and then you present your righteousness as a gift to us taking our sin upon yourself. I pray, Lord, if there's anyone who's not yet a Christian here today, call them to yourself, awaken them from the slumber in the same way that you awakened Abraham and welcome them into the fold. Bless our time in the Holy communion. We repent of sin, we repent of self-reliance and of idolatry and we repent of faithlessness, of disbelief and we come to you. We bring to you our full heart, consecrated and contrite, and we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. For whom is Holy communion? It's for anyone who is repenting of sin and turns to God. So if you're not a Christian, if you have not repented of sin, if you have not humbled yourself before God, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service, instead, meditate on what you've heard. If you are a Christian living in known sin, that you have not repented of, we also ask that you refrain from this part of this service. If you are repentant of sin and coming to God in humility, you're welcome to partake. The way that we do it is you open the top, grab the little piece of bread, then open the bottom tab and get the cup. And the night that Jesus Christ betrayed, he took the bread and after breaking it, he said, "This is my body broken for you. Take, eat, and do this in remembrance of me." And proceeded to take the cup and he said, "This is the cup of the new covenant of my blood poured out for the sins of many. Take, drink and do this in remembrance of me." Jesus, we thank you for loving us so much that you gave yourself. Heavenly father, we thank you that you love us so much that you gave us your son. And Holy Spirit, we thank you that you love us so much that you've sealed our hearts with your presence. Pray you continue to use us, empower us and thank you for building this church, continue to build it even more. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
Faith in Action - A Lot to Gain
April 25, 2021 • Andy Hoot • Genesis 14
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. So, let me pray over the preaching of the Word, and we'll get started. Heavenly Father, we praise you for who you are in your majesty and your holiness, and your spender. We praise you that you are not a God who is far off but you are a personal God. Lord, we are weak, we are humble, we are sinful beings, yet you want to be in a relationship with us. Lord, we praise you that we are, like Abraham, we are recipients of your Word and all its power. And Lord, I pray that it would just fill our minds with wonder, with joy about who you are. And we would be inspired to trust it as we hear preach today. Lord, but we know that only you can make it alive for us in our hearts, in our minds, and we pray the Holy Spirit do that now as we dig in to your Word. I pray, feed us well today. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. While many of you, some of you who are here regularly, you might notice this is the first time I'm wearing glasses up here. So, it's my public appearance, and I'm actually wearing them. They're not just a prop for my little illustration in a second. Actually, struggle to see the text when I read up here often, and it's good to actually see some faces. I just have a slight astigmatism that makes my vision weak. So, I'm wearing these glasses today and I'm the type of person that I have good vision. I can walk around, I can function without glasses. But when I wear them, and look at things, especially like the flowers on the trees that are blooming right now, the flowers in the gardens; just... I didn't know it was blurry, all of a sudden become super clear. And I can see details that I can't see. And I'm amazed. I'm brought to awe, I'm brought to wonder. And I want to know more, and often this is part of my daily worship, just thinking, "Wow, think of the God who made that." And this Jesus and Genesis series, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to make a lot of connections. We're in the first book of the Bible, and 2000 years before Christ's life on earth. And we're taking you through Genesis and pointing out chapter after chapter, all the shadows, the types, the symbols that direct us to Jesus Christ this early in God's special revelation to us. And we don't want... Sometimes you hear Pastor Jan, Pastor Shane preach, and I'm just in awe about the connections, the faithful connections that they make. I'm just more impressed with them than I am at the Word itself. And, we don't want you to just come here and being in awe. We don't want you coming just being, saying, "Wow, that's impressive." We want you to be in awe of the verses, of their relevance, of their purity, of their truthfulness. And just look at them with a different reverence. There's a famous church document, The West Minister Larger catechism, question four. It says, "How doth it appear that the scriptures are the Word of God?" And it says, "The scriptures manifest themselves to be the Word of God by their majesty and purity, by the consent of all the parts, and the scope of the whole, which is to give all glory to God by their light and power to convince and convert sinners, to comfort and build up believers unto salvation. But the Spirit of God bearing witness by and with the scriptures in the heart of man is alone able fully to persuade it that they are the very Word of God." So, just it's really powerful to read one piece of scripture, especially a New Testament piece of scripture to see how relevant it is to your life. But even more powerful to see how relevant all of scripture is, just points to the redemptive story that God created man in his image, to walk in perfect relationship with him as his son. And, as his sons and daughters, and man sins, and at the heart of this story, begin with Genesis 3. The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the seed of the serpent. God gives us the beginning of his rescue story. And here in the past couple weeks we started Genesis 12. The seed gets more clear. Who is God going to work through? Abram. And how does God tell Abram that he is going to work through him? He gives him his holy Word. So, we're trying to bring you to the point of wonder and awe of this holy God who has preserved this Bible, 66 books, written by 40 authors over approximately 1500 years. He's written this story for us to know a way back to him through faith in Jesus Christ. And it's when we see the unity, when we see the consent of all the parts, the majesty of it, the purity; we should we brought to wonder at the power of God to use man to write these scriptures and to preserve them more perfectly than any book in ancient history. And, we should be amazed that God is a personal and loving God. We should be brought to wonder in this series, and when you're brought to wonder you see that this, the Bible, is not just a book. It's God himself talking to us. A lot of people say, "If I were like Abram and God spoke to me audible, like he did in chapter 12 when he first told him to go. If God appeared to me like he did Abram, then I would be a Christian. Then, I would walk more faithfully." But no, we want to show you that no, the scriptures themselves, reveal themselves to be the very Word of God. We should approach them with reverence, with awe. And not fluctuate between criticism and skepticism and weighing it against the whims and thoughts of the world. And, we just want to inspire you to that, and when we talk about these things we're engaging with exactly what Abram himself had to deal with. Abram received a special word from God, and he had to decide, "Am I going to trust it?" In Genesis 12, God says to him, excuse me. Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred, and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I'll make you a great nation, and I'll bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I'll bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed." God targets Abram graciously. There's nothing special in him compared to any other man. And he gives him his word, and the story that we're following today is how is God going to save humanity, bring peace between himself and humanity through this man? And there's really exciting parts, he goes right away and he goes to the Promise Land, travels hundreds of miles for Chapter 12. Next, Chapter 13, and by the end of Chapter 12 he goes down to Egypt when he first faces hardship. But last chapter we see him, he repents of going to Egypt, not trusting God to bless him. He repents of selling his wife to the Pharaoh and profiting from it. And we see him now trusting God at his Word. So today, we're talking about Abram and his peak, in a moment of peak faith. He fluctuates, and the comfort in that is that all of us do that. That points us to God's grace towards us and our sins, but Abram fluctuates. We're at a peak moment, and we look at the story today from Genesis 14, and it gives us a pattern of what does active faith look like? When we have full confidence in who God is, and the truthfulness of his Word, how should we act? So, we have Abram him, and pulling of strength. And this is good for a lot of people. I speak, I do the baptism seminars. My God's grace, we have new Christians coming to Mosaic constantly and asking, "I'm a Christian, now what? What do I do? How do I engage the world? How do I engage my non-believing friends, my believing friends, my family? How do I apply the Word of God in my life? In a meaningful way, how can I be of service?" And if a lot of you, who are seasoned believers, you're constantly wrestling with this. In this new phase of life, how do I do it? Or I feel like God called me to this, but I'm just drained. I am dying. How do I know if I'm in God's will for my life right now? Where do I invest the scripture of guidance for how Christians should spend their time when they turn their faith to action? So, I'm going to talk about Abram. We're going to learn lessons when he was at a high point in his faith. We're going to learn faith leads to action, action leads to refreshment, and refreshment leads to faith. Now, I'm going to begin faith leads to action. The first 12 verses, they set the context for Abram's actions. So, I'm just going to do my best to get through these names, and talk you through the context. So, in the days of Amraphel, this is the Word of our Lord. In the days of Amraphel, King of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goyim, these kings made war with Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboyim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar). So, these are kings of city states essentially. Kings, might not be huge nations, and there's four kings aligned with Chedorlaomer. He's the big boy. He's basically the ruler of all of these kings. There's four kinds lined up against five. The five are from the area of Cannon, where Abram lives. So, when they had squabbles they'd make coalitions, they'd make alliances, and this is what's happening right now. And all these joined forces, the five kings in the Valley of Siddim (that is the Salt Sea). The five kings closest to Abram, they meet and they say, "In the 12th year, they had served Chedorlaomer. But in the 13th year they rebelled." So, they meet. They say, "We're going to band together and protest giving tribute to Chedorlaomer this year. And if he comes our way, we're going to fight together." So, this is what they planned. They're attempting Chedorlaomer to come, and he does. Verses five through seven illustrate the power of Chedorlaomer as he travels almost 1,000 miles from where Southwest Iran is today to this land, to these vassal states of his. In the 14th year Chedorlaomer, these verses reveal his power. In the 14th year, Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him came at the feet of the Rephaites and Ashteroth Karnaim, Zuzites in Ham, the Emites in Shaveh Kiriathaim and the Horites in their hill country of Seir, as far as El Paran in the boarder of the wilderness. They turn back and came to En Mishpat (that is, Kadesh), and defeated all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites who were dwelling in Hazezon Tamar. So, this king is sweeping west and sweeping south to the land of Khanim. And then, the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboyim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zora) went out and they joined battle in the Valley of Siddim. So, the five kings near Abram go out to battle with Chedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goyim, Amraphel king of Shinar and Arioch king of Ellasar. Four kings against five. Now, the Valley of Siddim was full of bitumen pits and as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled some fell into them, and the rest fled to the hill country. The kings, the five kings, on their home land, they go to war against these four kings. We don't really know how even the numbers were, but they fall into these bitumen pits. Some translations say slime pits, but they're really like tar pits. It's petroleum slime that oozes up from the ground, and it's sticky and it's flammable. So, it's kind of confusing. They're on their home ground. One translation says they went down into the slime pit, so maybe they didn't fight the enemy, they just let them pass. And in verse 11 the enemy... so the enemy took all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their provisions and went their way. They also took Lot, the son of Abram's brother, who was dwelling in Sodom and his possessions and went their way. So, regardless of what happens in these pits, Chedorlaomer wins. The point to note is they also took Lot. Lot, Abram's nephew, remember? Abram doesn't have a son, he has this nephew right now. He's a knuckle head, he's a thorn in his side. He's always making bad choices. Abram gave Lot the chance when their flocks got too big in their family to take them to his choice of land. Lot chooses land that looks more beautiful, more fertile, in the direction of Sodom. And Sodom, known for its sinfulness, and Lot just goes in that direction. Here we have Lot going further to Sodom. He gets caught up in this war. He gets pulled, gets captured as a prisoner of war. This is where Abram gets involved. I want to focus faith and action, what does Abram do? The one who had escaped came. Then, one who had escaped came and told Abram, the Hebrew, who was living by the oaks at Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshkol and Aner, these were allies of Abram. When Abram heard that his kinsmen had been taken captive he led forth his trained men born in his house, 318 of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan. And he divided his forces against them by night. He and his servants and defeated them and pursued them to Hobah, north of Damascus. Then, he brought back all the possessions and also brought back his kinsmen, Lot, with his possessions and the women and the people and just went reveal in Abram's face. So, in the past, he had God's Word, he faced the challenge in the famine, he went to Egypt. This time he has God's Word. What does God's Word say in Chapter 12? God's going to curse those who curse him, and he knows that. He's now in a phase where he's trusting God's Word. He trust that it'll come true in physical reality. And he takes 318 men. Apparently he himself had... There was a nomad essentially. He had a large household and 318 men of war, and immediately goes to war. God gives him an incredible victory. All the build up was to say, "Look at this opposition that is heading Abram's way. This is an insurmountable enemy, force." And Abram takes 318 men and beats him. Clearly, this is God's Word reigning true in Abraham's life, and Abram trusting him. So, he might have stumbled in Egypt but he's now taking God's Word as face value and just what faith he has. Remember, he's 75 years old. I don't know if you know any 75 year olds willing to mount a camel in the middle of the night to go and pursue of an army. But that's next level. My dad, he's mid 60s and he set up a scaffolding on top of a picnic table last week to fix his shed roof. And I thought that was hardcore. Abram's a next level man with faith. We should look at him in awe in this story. We see he has this special Word of God, and he acts, but really our situation is no different. We have seen the Old Testament prophecies pointing to Christ come true. We've seen, we have the revealed will of God in its entirety, so how should we act? And this is a big question. Where do we start? Not every Christian has to ride off and fight wars. So, where do we start? How does Abram decide to put his faith into action? Now, this is... It's when his family gets involved, verse 14. When Abram heard that his kinsmen had been taken captive, he led forth and his trained men. This kinsmen word could often translated brother. Lot's his nephew but there's this element that he calls Lot his brother a couple of time in Genesis, and he's also, scripture, the New Testament tells us, Lot is righteous. Though he's a knuckle head, by grace he seems to have been saved. Christ's righteousness was accounted to him it seems from scripture. But Abram, he sees this force gathering, the news of war was probably spreading in the land. And he's deliberate about when he gets involved, and that's Christians. How do we know in our position as God's people, how do we know how to engage with the world around us? And it's family. This text guides us to family. There's a lot of wisdom here, not getting involved in something not related to you, your family and those closest to you. And there's this element, this ambiguous element where it's spiritual family and biological with Lot. Proverbs 26:17 captures this. Whoever meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears. This is the ultimate Brookline, Massachusetts verse. Maybe the Hebrew word for dog is fur baby. Like everybody in Brookline knows you do not grab a dog passing by by its ears. You're just asking for trouble, and in Brookline that parent of that fur baby, you'll have to face their wrath. But, as Christians, do we know not to meddle in matters and affairs that do not impact us? Our family, our close loved ones. Can everyone here say they don't sprinkle on their social media posts just to stir the pot? I don't think so. A lot of Christians go looking for wars. They go looking for activity. They busy themselves with conferences, with studies on topics that are no where near close to them at the cost of addressing matters that are right next to them. So, Abram, this is a righteous cause. This is his family member. So, he's acting naturally going to save his family member. And, a lot of people, it's hard. Actually engaging family is really difficult. We'd prefer not to touch the sore spots, poke the bruises because it can open up a whole plethora of challenges. But that's the element. That's why we need to be discerning about what we involve ourselves in. Abram, he goes to rescue his kinsmen. He gets involved in a really long trek north, probably a couple hundred miles. He captures, he wins the battle. He gets the former prison, gets Lot, gets the former prisons. The booty of war, and now, he has the added responsibility of stewarding all of that well in a way that glorifies God. So, as Christians, when we just begin with family, scripture says to love God. Christ says love God, love your neighbor. There's this element where we focus on being right with God. We wake up every day and we acknowledge God, thank you for being gracious to me and my sin. And we fix that vertical relationship so that on a horizontal level we can bless, we can love, truly love the people closest to us. And there's this element that it's neighbor, it's close biologically. People close physically, relationally, and this is just counterintuitive to our society right now. There's expectation that we have to involve ourselves in issues. If something happens in the middle of Arkansas, we are expected to make a post. We're expected to give a statement. We're expected to care, show our simply, our empathy for those who face injustice. And of course, we hate injustice. God defines that for us. He gives us the absolute truth to actually provide a basis for calling something that. But we can't busy ourselves. We have to be discerning and allow margin for the way that we spend our time. This modern approach of being involved with every issue, making a statement, "here's what I have to think". It's overwhelming and we miss just the test that God places right before us, particularly with our family members. And so, who are family members? It's your church, it's your biological family, in Mosaic it's your community group. How often are you in the week spending time thinking about the great issues of society when you know a brother or sister in Christ said at prayer time that they're struggling this week. Well, just imagine a community, a church, imagine how we can truly be salt, be light, be a city on a hill, focused on the people around us. And just this kind of church, this kind of family mindset, a lot of people think in the Old Testament it was Israel. Come and see this righteous nation with God's law. And then, Jesus gives us the great commission, "Go and make disciples of all nations in the New Commandment." Yes, we want to make disciples, but they're always tethered to a local church under the care and accountability of a local church. They're not lone rangers going out evangelizing people, converting them and not making sure they're in a local church. In the New Testament church we care about our brothers and sisters. John 13 says, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another just as I have loved you. You are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another." And James 5 shows us the importance of pursuing brothers and sisters in Christ. This is the hardest part about going to church. You have a brother or sister who's in sin, who is not admitting it, and they don't want your care, they don't want your love and you are called to go and pursue them. How many of us easily just pivot away from those situations? James says, "My brothers, if anyone among you wonders from the truth, then someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins." So, how do you put your faith into action? Are you busying yourself with fights that are not your own? Are you engaging in fruitless dialogue on social media? Does that ever accomplish anything? Or are you spending time building up the brothers and sisters closest next to you? Are you engaging your believing and non-believing family members and neighbors that God has put you next to? You are the person, though you might feel unequipped, you know their situation best. You can relate to their situation best. God has equipped you to pursue them like Abram pursued Lot. So, we need to be faithful with the big and small tasks that God naturally, organically places in our lives. Just it honors God. It's a means to following Christ's basic commands and with my next point I want to make the claim, in turning our faith into action, stretching ourselves for his glory in these situations, we're positioning ourselves to be fed more by Christ. So, action leads to refreshment. There's some biblical, paradoxical about this. Acts 23:5 taps into it. "In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way, we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord, Jesus Christ, how he himself said it is more blessed to give than to receive." We don't have a tank where we serve and our tank gets empty. There's something different in that we can serve and still have a full tank. A lot of Christians don't believe this. The message that we're hearing a lot right now is self care. Care for yourself so that you can care for others. Christ says lose yourself for my sake, and that's the means to find yourself. And I see this in our text. We stretch ourselves, our faith is like a muscle. We stretch and extend ourselves, just like when we stretch and push a muscle. The more we do it, the more we enjoy it. We like that burn. We like the benefit that we gain and derive. We can, we're capable to do more activity. That's what faith is like. In verse 17 in our passage, after Abram's return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kinds who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King's Valley) and Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed him and said, "Blessed be Abram by God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be God Most High who has delivered your enemies into your hand." So, Melchizedek, we could spend weeks talking about Melchizedek. His name means king of righteousness. His name is king of Salem, probably king of what was then Jerusalem, king of peace. He serves bread and wine. He blesses Abram. He blesses God. He is this, but he comes out of nowhere and scripture leads us to believe that since Noah, all of man, when God wiped of man from the earth with the flood, we have this impression that there are not many true God worshipers. And yet, this Melchizedek arises. There's a lot of debate, as if Jesus Christ himself, a Christophany, is this a type of Christ? You can talk about Melchizedek forever. But what I want to focus on is that how he is a type of Christ in a way that Christ, as our high priest meets us and cares for us, and sends his spirit to us in times of need when we are stretching ourselves for him. So, what does Melchizedek do? He meets Abram after Abram's contending for the faith, he's contending for righteousness in pursuing his captured nephew from this evil king. Melchizedek provides refreshment. Why? One, because he knows that Abram is weary and is spent from going on this task. Scripture shows that when servants of the Lord contend for the faith, believers can expect the Lord to meet them there. Think of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego on the fiery furnace. Think about Daniel in the lion's den. Christ comforted them with his presence. I think those were a Christophany. This is a little different. Charles Spurgion once said about Christ meeting us, "As in the building of Jerusalem in trouble less times", he's referring to in Nehemiah, "they had the sword in one hand and a trowel in the other. So our Lord, Jesus Christ, while he teaches us to use the sword, takes care to edify and build us up in the faith at the same time. He understands that warriors require strengthening meat and that especially when they're under stern conflict they need extraordinary comforts that their souls may be stayed and refreshed. The martyrs protest that they've never had such communion with God anywhere as among the caverns of the hills or the swamps of the woods, to which they were exiled for Christ. And that even on the rock, an extremity of torture or even upon the grit iron in the heat of the fire. Even there, the sweet presence of Christ has been overpoweringly delightful to them so that they almost lost the sense of pain. Spend your strength for God, brother, for when fainting seems inevitable then shall come such a sweet renewing of your strength that like an eagle you shall stretch your wings and mount aloft to commune with God in solitary joys. Christ, your Melchizedek will meet you in your conflicts if he never did before." This is just radical stuff, just thinking it's when we stretch and extend ourselves that we will be fed. A lot of us, a lot of Christians get fear that stepping out in faith to support a brother and sister, acting on a faith, acting on a calling that just seems insurmountable, they just fear that physical exhaustion. Or they do step out initially and it's challenging, it is draining, and upon that first feel of challenge, they fall back to the crutches that they leaned on. That the old man weaned on. The habits, the patterns, the self soothing, the escape. For a lot of Christians, I think a lot of us are really, if we're honest with ourselves, we're living vacation to vacation to vacation to vacation. Those of us who can afford to live here in a place like Boston, take those comforts, take those patterns that you've grown up with, those leisurely activities out of your life. And would you trust God to satisfy you? Now, it's hard, but scripture says he's going to show up. Melchizedek does that for Abram after this battle. The New Testament taps into this. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. The Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our affliction. It's more theologically correct to not say... I don't want anyone to think that Christ is just going to keep popping up in your life physically. The Holy Spirit, John 14:26, the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. So, we have the Holy Spirit. Christ has ascended and his spirit pours out upon us, and he comforts us just on the field of battle. And furthermore, it's not just comfort, it's not just tender soothing love sometimes. Sometimes it is a hard poke. It's a strength and it's a fixing, a recalibration that Christ's presence offers to us. And just in our text, it's subtle, verse 20 B says, "And Abram, he meets Melchizedek, receives his blessing and Abram gave him a tenth of everything." Hebrews 7:4 comments on this. "See how great this man was to whom Abram, the patriarch, gave a tenth of the spoils." Verse 7 says, Hebrews 7:7, "It is beyond dispute that the inferior, Abram, is blessed by the superior." So, Abram, he's this king, this victorious king that just captured this enemy, who's just bossed everybody in the region around for the past decade. Abram is met by Melchizedek and what does he do? He offers a tithe. This isn't tribute. Abram's the victor. Abram sees something in the regal character, the awesomeness of this priest king, and he worships. He's brought to a point of humility. Maybe this is God offering when we're victorious, there's that tendency when we stretch ourselves when we're in faith, there's that tendency to get pride, to well up, to get over confident, to think that we won the victory. Or sometimes when we're not so victorious, when we're still in the battle, and it's challenging and it feels like we're losing; bitterness, anger, entitlement towards God starts growing. And what is the best way to counter that? It is God's presence himself. So, we have... there's nothing that humbles us more, comforts us and humbles us more, than the presence of God himself. And the Holy Spirit, when he comes to us, he gives us these little corrections. I want to hold a grudge against my wife about something, thinking probably she's being childish right now. But, what does the spirit do in such a moment? He reminds me, just little reminders, "You think she's childish? Look at you before your Heavenly Father, look at the way you complain, look at the way that you gripe." He has been gracious to you, you be gracious to her. Pursue reconciliation for my glory. And the Lord meets us. He doesn't just comfort us. He corrects us, and this is like Isaiah, this sort of shock present that we fill in the presence of God. Woe is me, for I am lost. I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. We get the sense Abram's experiencing something like that. He is taken to worship, and taken to service to his God, when he... this replenishment rekindles his faith. My last point, replenishment leads to faith. And the king of Sodom said to Abram, "Give me the persons, but take the good for yourself." But Abram said to the king of Sodom, "I've lifted my hand to the Lord, God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours. Less you should say I have made Abram rich. I'll take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me. But Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre take their share." Abram, he receives the replenishment of the Word, and he's prepared to step forward in faith once again. He's prepared to turn his faith into action, and he has to be swift because what happens? The king of Sodom, this guy who just lost the war, Abram rescued him. He tells him, he's this complete opposite of Melchizedek. He says, "Take the spoil. I want my people." Abram, and this is just what happens, why we need the Lord to meet us in moments because when we often have victory for the sake of God's kingdom, who sweeps in? Satan himself. And a lot of the commentators, they say this is Abram's ultimate battle in this chapter of faith. The physical war, sometimes physical battles for God are easier to face than the spiritual battles. Abram's confronted unexpectedly by the enemy to trust God. And what does he do? He's saying he's caught between choosing taking God's word, his promise of blessing and we're taking this short cut. He rightly deserves this booty, the riches that he recovers from the war. And he chooses God, the presence of Melchizedek says he raises his hand. He's making a pledge. "I've lifted my hand to the Lord, God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours. Less you should say I made Abram rich." And so, this is Abram. Whatever you thought of him in Chapter 12, when in his first trial he went to Egypt and sold his wife, prostituted her to Pharaoh to protect himself. Abram is at... You see the growth here. You see he's willing to forgo really all the pleasure that these riches had to offer. This temporal pleasure to trust that God would fulfill his greater promises. Furthermore, he sees through that this treasure will not satisfy him. It won't deliver like this Lord can, this great God who has graciously revealed himself to him and wants a personal relationship. Abram's holding on to God's promises, though he doesn't see them coming through in fruition right there and then, he trust that God will deliver. So, that's... And he's more prepared because he doesn't stumble. When we lose these battles, when we stumble, it's almost like we have to regain that strength again. We have to regain that cycle, that trust in God. Abram's at a point of strength, he's getting gains. And we can have that in our Christian life. Do you believe that? Do you pursue that? Or are you just constantly just going to those little sources that are going to soothe you, give you temporary satisfaction? Abram places his trust, his satisfaction in God himself and ultimately scripture tells us he finds it in eternity. And by our faith in Christ we, like Abram, have access to the Promise Land. We, by faith, have access to the great treasure, a home in Christ's mansions. And when we're facing this question, am I going to trust God, his promises? Am I going to be honored even to receive his word? And serve him? Or am I going to take the ways of the world? We have to follow our father Abram. Christ himself, his ministry is taking off, Satan approaches him and he takes him to a mountain and he says, "I'll offer all of this to you, the kingdoms and cities of this world, and all that they have if you follow me." Christ said no. What did Christ do in his life? He left his heavenly perfection of Father, Son and Spirit, begotten from the beginning, existed in the trinity. The Word became flesh and dwelled among us. He left a perfect wealth, perfect joy, and splendor and he went to the depths of hell to redeem us. And we, like Christ, we, like our father Abram, we need to make the same choices. We need to choose God, choose his riches, choose his presence over the world's. Will you do that? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you that you are gracious to us. Often we don't deserve your presence. We don't deserve you meeting us in the moment, for we are wondering, we are straying, we are turning away from you intentionally. But Lord, you pursue us, and you give us the chance to turn away, to turn and repent, turn towards you and faith time and time again. I pray Lord, help us to stop the cycle. Help us to stop the cycle, help us to go on an upward trajectory of gains and the faith. However, we just feel the burn and attention of the moment we don't turn to comforts. We don't turn to the things that the world and say, no. First, we turn to you and are fed, and satisfied. Lord, help us to stay faithful until you return. We get to enjoy you in all of your perfect glory. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
Lift up your eyes
April 18, 2021 • Genesis 13
Audio Transcript: These media have been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning, welcome to Mosaic church. Somebody this week, started on Instagram, a Mosaic memes page. I don't know who it was, but there's some quality content in there. My favorite thus far, was a meme of Bernie Sanders, where he says, "And now I am asking you again, please fill out the connection card. That's me every Sunday." So if you are new, welcome, please fill out the connection card. Either online or the physical one you got in the back. With that said, would you please pray with me with preaching of God's Word. God what a great God you are. You created us for the paradise of your presence, that was the greatest thing in Eden. As a fact that Adam and Eve could walk with you in the cool of the day. Lord, and we gave that up. We believed the lies of the evil one who said we could have paradise without the presence of God. We wanted to banish you God from the garden for which you created us. Instead, we got banished. And we thank you Lord, that you didn't leave us in the state of banishment, or state of ostracism. Instead, you sent us your Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus, you came and you've lived and you called us, you called your disciples and you're calling us. Hey, follow me. You're calling us into that blessed paradise of your presence to walk with you. And we fall short of that Lord so you fulfilled the walk perfectly, and you went to the cross and you died and you were buried. And you rose on the third day in order to offer us redemption, offer us healing, offer us restoration, offer us reconciliation. We thank you for that, Lord. And we thank you Holy Spirit that you are with us today. We feel your presence. We want more of your Lord, we want more of your power. We want more of your presence in our lives. So we welcome you here now. Holy Spirit, take the Holy Scriptures and ignite our hearts, make our hearts burn with the scriptures. We love you and we pray that you bless our time with the holy word. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. The title of the sermon today is lift up your eyes. We're going through a sermon series in the book of Genesis. Jesus in Genesis, we're calling it because all the scriptures point to Jesus Christ. He is the word at the center of the word. He's the living word at the center of the written word, which is also living. And we last week looked at Genesis 12. Today we're in Genesis 13. And we have a text where we see that two people are making choices. So much in life, so much of what we do is based on choices that we make. And the more gravity a choice has the more intentionality we need to have and coming to that decision and making that choice. When you figure out what you're having for lunch, there's not much gravitas there. The answer is always Los Amigos. That's always the answer. When you're deciding where to plant your life, that's a more weighty choice. When you're deciding whom to partner with, who will be your spouse, with whom will you fulfill the calling that God is calling you to, there's more gravity therefore, there must be more intentionality. And it really comes down to calling, what is God calling us to? And that's what we see in Genesis 12. With the story of Abram, who then becomes Abraham. It's a story of calling. What is God calling me to? That's the question I need to answer. And then when I know, when God has made that clear, I have a choice to make, will I fulfill the calling of God? And what's most important from this text, that we're going to look at today in Genesis 13. It's not what a person chooses, it's how a person chooses and why a person chooses. What's the end goal? This is what reveals who we are inside, like nothing else reveals our priorities, our desires, what we want most in life, what we value most in life. We see two men, two very different choices, two very different outcomes. One man is blessed. His children are blessed. He leaves a legacy of blessing. The other person is cursed. His family is cursed. He leaves a legacy of curse. The context is about 2000 years before Jesus Christ, so 4000 years removed from us. Jesus saves a Babylonia named Abraham. And he calls him to himself, to his mission, to a promised land. God promises I will bless you, and I will make you a blessing. And from you will come one who will bless all the nations talking about Jesus Christ. So God calls from Ur of the Chaldean to Haran. He goes to Haran and then to Canaan. And when he goes to Canaan, we read about this last week. In Canaan, he sets up an altar. He sets up a church. This is a place that we will worship God. Abraham said, me and my family, everyone around me, my friends, we're going to worship God in this godless pagan place, and nothing's going to stop us. And then something did. There was a famine in the land. What happened is, Abraham started losing money. Abraham's prosperity started waning. Abraham's stock portfolio was in the red completely. And he decided I need to leave this place of calling, I need to go to Egypt. He goes to Egypt and he knows he's going to get killed because apparently his wife who's 65, his wife or sister, whatever that was, she apparently was really good looking. And then Abraham knew that my wife is going to get taken from me, I'm going to get killed. So he concocts this plan that he's going to sell Pharaoh, his wife. Basically, pimps her up, basically prostitutes his wife so that she can save him. We see all of that. And before Pharaoh consummated the marriage, before all that God intervenes and saves him from this mess. And then this is where we are in the text today. Would you look at the text with me Genesis 13. So Abraham went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had and Lot with him into the Negeb. Now Abraham was very rich in livestock and silver and in gold. And he journeyed on from the Negeb, as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning between Bethel and Ai, to the place where he had made an altar at the first. And there Abraham called upon the name of the Lord. And Lot who went with Abraham also had flocks and herds and tents, so that the land could not support both of them dwelling together. For their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together. And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abraham's livestock and herdsmen of Lot's livestock. And at that time, the Canaanites and the Perizzites were dwelling in the land. Then Abraham said to Lot, let there be no strife between you and me. And between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are kinsman. Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar. This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley, and Lot journeyed east. Thus, they separated from each other. Abraham settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the Valley, and moved his tent as far as Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord. And the Lord said to Abraham, after Lot had separated from him, after Lot had separated from him, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land for I will give it to you." So Abraham moved his tent, and came and settled by the Oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron, and there he built an altar to the Lord. This is the reading of God's holy and air infallible, authoritative word may he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. The four points we're going to look at today to frame up our time. First, choose to repentance and worship, choose to resolve conflict, choose God over prosperity, and choose to walk with the Lord. Choices that lead to blessing. First, choose repentance and worship. Look at verse one. And Abraham went up from Egypt. It's the language in Scripture, not just of movement, it's also the language of spiritual movement. Chapter 12 it says he went down to Egypt. Chapter 13:1 he's coming up. So God is lifting him up. And then the text says he and His wife, what did he tell Pharaoh? So Pharaoh that's my sister. And then God rebukes Abraham through Pharaoh speaks through Pharaoh and says, "How could you lie to me? You're supposed to be a man who knows God." So now Abraham, he feels conviction of the Holy Spirit. He knows he sinned, he and his wife. And by God's grace, God gives them the gift of repentance, rekindles his faith, and by God's grace, Sarah forgives him. And God keeps Abraham and Sarah together because God is a God who cares about covenant marriage. So we see a man who's changed, he changes directions. And that's what repentance is. Repentance isn't just feeling bad about your sin or the mistakes you've made. Repentance is actually making a change in life, a direction change. And he leaves Egypt behind goes up back to Faith back to obedience, back to rich relationship with God. And we also see in verse one, that Lot went with him. In Genesis 12, what happens is God tells Abraham, you need to leave your family. Leave everything behind, because your family are pagans, and they're going to keep you from the Lord. And this guy, Lot his nephew, he says, "Abraham, I'm going to come with you, because I heard that God's going to bless you. And I want to ride the coattails, so to speak of your blessing." And Abraham disobeys God by taking Lot. This is something that the text doesn't give a direct commentary on but what we can discern from the text. So Lot was with him, he was with him in Egypt now he's with him again. Verse two. Now, Abraham was very rich in livestock and silver, and gold. So he had livestock, he had silver, he had gold, but he got more from Pharaoh. So he commits a sin and still from that sin, there's a windfall, and he gets to keep that windfall. And you say, "how does that work? I thought, if I sin, God punishes me. If I do righteous things, God blesses me. Well, that's not the economy of Scripture. The economy of scripture doesn't work like that, because the economy of scripture includes a thing called grace. And what Grace says is that God is much more gracious, much more loving, much more generous with us than we deserve. We don't deserve his blessings. And here, we still see that God treats him with grace. Verse three, and he journeyed on from the Negeb, as far as Bethel, to a place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and AI, to the place where he made an altar at the first. And you see in the Scripture, this emphasis at the beginning. This is where he started his spiritual journey. He came to the land of the promise, the promised land in Canaan, and he built an altar, a place where people could worship God. This is where God met him at the first and there Abraham called upon the name of the Lord. He eventually returns to this place where he started signaling that he returns to a life of loving God, a life of faith where God is now a priority again. And there's so many lessons here for us. There're ebbs and flows in the Christian life, you know this, I know this. There're times in your life where you feel God is in the room, that God's voice is pulsating in your heart. And you just know, you know that God is, you know that God has a plan for your life, you want to obey. And then there're times that, it says if you're walking through the valley of the shadow of death I don't feel God. There's a dryness, there're weariness there. And Abraham, what does Abraham do when he felt that weariness? He goes back to where he had met God, I don't know about you. But there're places in my life where I know that God met me. And every once in a while, I got to go there. I think of this retreat center in Ashford, Connecticut. I grew up in a Russian Baptist household. And this is where all the youth events happened. And it's like, this is a place where you know that the Lord moves partially because so many people prayed over that place, it was a holy place. And every once in a while, you get to go back to places like that, in your life where God meets you. So now God gives him a restored relationship. He sees again, he's regained spiritual sight. And now there's again language of this altar. And let me just pause here and mention the altar. I mentioned this last week and now it's in the text over and over and over. An altar in the Hebrew, if you just do the linguistic analysis, but also the theology behind it, it's a place where you go to meet God. It's a place where you go to worship God. It's the place where you go to bring sacrifices to God. It's a place you go to hear from his word and sync to him and pray to him. And have fellowship with him to tell God your sins and receive repentance from God. It's place where people who messed up their lives can come and confess their sins and find reconciliation with God and find restoration. And this is how God works. And in the Old Testament people who know God love God, know his word, they build altars. In places of godlessness and paganism. And we see the same thing happen in the New Testament, where the apostles go and they make disciples of all nations by planting altars or churches. And this is where church is. The church is an altar. It's a place where we go and we meet God. And this is crucial for every Christian to understand. That when you come to know the Lord, when you have your sins forgiven, God calls you into a community of faith. He doesn't call you to be out on your own, he calls you into a body of believers, so that you become a member of that body of believers. And I love this altar, I love Mosaic. I love that we are in a place of godlessness and paganism, where very few people know the Lord. And you're here you're serving, you're listening, you're giving and praise God for that. And this is what the text emphasizes. The importance of the altar in our spiritual lives. It should be a priority in our lives. We should make our decisions around the church that we will be a part of, not as just a secondary decision. So that's where the text emphasizes. That's where we start that Abraham has reconciled with God and then Abraham as he's worshiping God. He realizes I need to be reconciled with my nephew Lot. I realize there's sin between us, there's conflict between us. So this is point two. Choose to resolve conflict. Verse five. And Lot who went with Abram also had flocks and herds and tents. So that the land could not support both of them dwelling together. For their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together. For there was strife between the herdsmen of Abrams livestock, and the herdsmen of Lots livestock. And at that time, the Canaanites and the Perizzites were dwelling in the land. So God blessed Abram, and just by virtue of Lot being next to Abram, Lot gets blessed as well in his own right. He's sharing the blessing that the Lord has bestowed on Abraham, and that blessing becomes a point of strife in their relationship. They had flocks and the flocks became too large to occupy the same space in the central plateau of Canaan. They're semi nomads coming into foreign land, they don't own any of the land. So they just try to go where they're allowed to go. And what happens is, they start competing with one another. They're family, Uncle Abraham, nephew Lot, huge age difference in an honor shame society, where the younger is supposed to honor the older, and now they're competing. And Lot knows that he's been blessed because of Abraham, because of God is making Abraham a conduit of blessing and Lot is still competing with his uncle. First thing I just want to point out is, sometimes, when we ask for God's blessings, in particular with prosperity, the reason why we don't receive prosperity when we ask for is because we're just not ready for it. Our character is not ready for it. This is partially why God allows Abraham to go down into Egypt. He allows Abraham sin and folly to be exposed to himself of how dependent he must be on God. God allows that to happen. And then he allows him to come back travel hundreds of miles, meditating on the fact that I'm such a wicked sinner. That I'm so selfish. I love myself more than my wife. I love myself more than God and what he's called me to. And God restores him gives the gift's repentance, and then he comes back and blesses him. And we see with Lot, his character hasn't caught up to the prosperity that God has sent him. So what does Abraham do? So this is really important to emphasize. Lot should not have been competing with his uncle. Lot should have gone to Abraham and say, Hey, man, I don't know what our herdsmen are doing. You know what, I'll just back off a little bit or let's share, let's come to an agreement, something needs to happen. The younger one does not initiate, he lets the conflict fester. So who initiates the process of reconciliations? It's Abraham. Verse eight. Abraham said to Lot, let there be no strife between you and me, between your herdsmen and my herdsmen for we are kinsmen. Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand then I will go to the right, if you take the right hand then I will go to the left. This is basically saying you choose and I get the leftovers. And this is absolutely unexpected in this culture of honor, where you must honor your elder, you must honor your family, who's older. It's counter to every customer of that day. Abram was older, he's richer. Abram has received a direct promise from the Lord. And Abraham is the first. So what this is showing is Abraham came back from Egypt a changed man. He's more generous, he's wiser, he's more noble. And he comes to the situation says there's conflict, and he thinks about himself third. First he thinks about God. Does it honor God when there's strife between brothers and sisters? No, it does not. So he thinks about Lot second, you know what, how am I going to handle this strife? I want to be generous to my nephew. And he thinks about himself third. And when you do that, guess who thinks about your needs? When you put God first, the Kingdom of God first, the calling of God first and others second, you put yourself third, who cares about your needs is God. So he comes to Lot and he says, "Hey, man, we're kinsmen." And the word if you've probably got a footnote in your Bible, it says, "We're brothers." And this by the way, this isn't the word that you use for uncle and nephew relationship. He's saying, We're literally brothers. He's bringing himself down to the level of his nephew. We're brothers. I've got nephews, I love those guys. We've wrestled sometimes. Every once in a while when we wrestle, I pretend we're equal. I pretend we're equal. And after a while, I stop pretending when the second one jumps on. When the second one jumps on, I just stop pretending. Abraham is doing this, he's like I'm coming down to your level. And this shows incredible work of God in his heart. The scripture talks about strife in a Christian community in 1 Corinthians 6. And Abraham was doing what St. Paul said to do in 1 Corinthians 6. In 1 Corinthians 6, St. Paul is addressing Christians who did business together. And one of the Christians shafted the other Christian. Just stole from him, ripped him off. Promised the service or product, charge him twice as much and took twice as long. And so the other guy wants to sue this guy for finances, right? That's the issue. Church is church, business is business. And God goes to this guy, the guy who has been, who's at a loss, who's been injured financially, and God says to that guy, Hey, why not be wronged? Why not be wronged? Do you believe that God is sovereign? Do you believe that God is judge? Why are you suing that guy? Why not be wrong? Why not rather be cheated than bring disrespect upon the name of the Lord. And that's exactly what it is. It's disrespect on the name of the Lord. When we think Yeah, love God, love your neighbor, except when it comes to push them to shove. Yeah, love your brother, love your sister, except when it comes to business and money. No, true love comes especially in that place of conflict. So this is what Abraham chooses. He's like, fine, I'll take a financial loss. You can make more money than I'll make as long as I don't disrespect the Lord. My relationship with you, my peace with you, my peace with God is infinitely more important. In chapter 12, Abraham risked everything to obey God, time passes, he loses his faith. And then he sins himself by becoming more selfish. Lot here and chapter 13, Abraham's faith has recovered, and he lets Lot makes the first choice. Do you not think that Abraham already knew the character of his nephew? Of course, he did. Of course, he did. He knows his nephew is a scoundrel. He knows he's going to choose the best one. But Abraham is showing his faith and action. He says, You know what? Fine. God's with me. God loves me. God promised to bless me. And whatever you decide, God is going to superimpose by his sovereign will a situation where I will still be blessed. And Lot should have said, You're my uncle. He should have said, I've heard the promise you decide for us. So his modesty shows a deeper sin and that sin is selfishness. It's greed. He's opportunistic. He's a financial opportunity. He prioritizes self interest. Lot chooses what's best for Lot and let's see what happens. And this is point three choose God over prosperity, meaning don't do what Lot did. Verse 10. And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere, like the Garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar. This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. In parentheses, just a little note. So both are standing at Bethel, which is about 3000 feet above sea level, and Lot looks and he sees the magnificent Green luscious Valley that's east to South East. He could see the green from a distance. He saw the green. And then there's a phrase that just brought in like the Garden of the Lord. He lifts up his eyes and he sees a land that's like the Garden of the Lord. What's the garden the Lord? It's Eden. He sees something that looks like Eden and he lifts up his eyes. And whenever scripture talks about lifting up your eyes, it's not just talking about physical eyes. It talks about the eyes of the flesh or the eyes of the heart, it's talking about desire. Scripture talks about lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, the pride of life. There's a sense where we follow our eyes, when we love what we see and our hearts follow what we see. And he sees paradise. And his soul is tugging him at paradise. And this is deep down inside every single one of us, we want paradise. We want to recreate paradise, a place with this perfect rest of perfect beauty, perfect acceptance. And this is what he's longing for. Every single person on earth is looking for heaven. We're looking for paradise. We're trying to get back to Eden. We're trying to get to the place of perfect satisfaction, perfect joy, perfect love, perfect acceptance. And every single one of us we have an idea of what it is. We have this idea. And it usually has to do with real estate. There is such a thing as Zillow, there is, that's a thing. That's a thing, where just for fun, you go on Zillow, and like, Hmm, what could I afford in Wyoming? What could I afford in Idaho? Coeur d'Alene it's calling my name. What could I afford? I can afford acres. There's this idea, it has to do with real estate partially because we want to create a home. Like there's an idea of a forever home, we have that idea. That's a thing. You have this. I remember going to Arizona, Scottsdale Arizona with my brother in law, he's a builder is connected with a builder. And we got to tour this house that's getting built in a mountain. It's been carved in a mountain. And they're given us a tour and we go to the bathroom, there's a literal gold tub. Wow. And the guy's like, this is just one of the 14 bathrooms or whatever, it was just something absurd. And you're like, just pulling. This is the paradise on earth, we want to create paradise on earth. The problem is, when we try to create paradise on earth without God, when we try to create heaven on earth without God, there's no such thing as heaven without God. The without God turns anything into hell. And this is what Lot is wrestling with. He sees this fake version of the garden. You could put this into the language of Genesis 3:6 where Eve is tempted by Satan and then she looked and she saw that the fruit was good. And translate that with Lot. When Lot saw that the land east of the Jordan was good for food, and that it was delight to the eyes and that it was to be desired to get back to the garden of God. So he moved there and he ate. By the way, just to set the context, Lot knew that God spoke to Abraham. Lot knew about the call on Abram. This is why Lot came with Abram. Abram you're going to be blessed I want to be next to you. I want to get some of that even if I get leftovers. He knew about the call of God. He knew about the mission. He knew about the plan. He blatantly chooses to live outside of it. Calling something that isn't the Garden of the Lord, the Garden of the Lord. He chooses the fertile plain of Sodom, the beautiful farmland prime real estate, and he leaves behind Abram. He leaves behind the altars. He leaves behind covenant community. Verse 11. So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley and Lot journeyed East thus they separated from each other. Abraham settled in the land of Canaan while Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners. He goes further east. What's fascinating is, it doesn't say before this decision, Hey, Abraham, maybe we should pray. Hey, let's go to the altar. Let's think about it. Let's meditate together. Let's ask God, what God wants or where does God want me to live. And he also doesn't visit the town. He doesn't visit the town to see if there's any righteous people. And what's fascinating is there weren't any righteous people, because before God brings down fire and brimstone, sulphur upon Sodom and Gomorrah because of their wickedness has just reached the level that God couldn't tolerate anymore. There weren't 10 righteous people. So meaning before, and the only ones that got saved was Lot's family. So meaning before he made this decision, he didn't ask, Hey, is there a church there? It's a prime real estate, but is there a church there? Who's my wife going to be friends with? Because whoever my wife is friends with, they're going to shape her. Where are my daughters, he had two daughters, where are they going to go to school? Are they going to have Christian friends? Are they going to do that? Perhaps Lot thought, online church is enough for me and my family. Before we move somewhere else, we look for churches so that we know when we get there, this is the wise thing to do. We're going to be in a church, a physical church, with physical people. Because those physical people are going to shape me, they're going to shape my family, they're going to shape my children. You don't say before I go somewhere else, I'm going ... I don't need the church. I'll just watch Mosaic online. I'll just watch another church online. We don't do that. However, with this pandemic, some of us have gotten to a point where online church is enough. Online church isn't enough when your daughter's go to the high school of Sodom and Gomorrah, where the mascot is a literal Satan. We need the church physical Christians in our life. Worshiping online is great, singing online is great, we did it for a long time. It's great. It's not as good. Seeing Vlad on the drums come on, bro. Holy Spirit just every time with his little drumsticks. Every time is online, not as good. Not as good. That's my brother by the way, the drummer Vlad. Ladies and gentlemen, that's my bro and everyone else. Everyone else I can just do that to my brother. It's like I'm telling you, have you ever been to Hibachi? On my birthday we went to Osaka Hibachi. Hibachi is awesome. They're cooking right in front of you. You feel, like you see the joy the people. I'm going to eat, I'm going to eat, it's awesome. There's a show and there's a fire and then you eat and you eat together. Yeah, the food's good by yourself but it's so much better together. It's awesome. Online church is like getting Hibachi grub hub. It's not as good. And I say this with all love. I understand that some people just can't go, I'm just setting us up. New Hampshire lifted the mask mandates, what's going to happen to Massachusetts lifts the mask mandates. Are we going to keep at this, that's what I'm saying. I'm planting that seed, that's how I lead the church. I plant and then I water, and then I pray for the Holy Spirit to bring fruit. Amen. Hallelujah. The scripture doesn't say that Lot made a bad choice. It doesn't say that. But it does bring in this comment about the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah. It's foreshadowing the destruction, foreshadowing that this was a foolish decision. Sodom was prosperous but it was wicked and wicked in the real sense. We're going to stick at home from school centers wicked strong family, awesome. We wicked awesome. No, and then we call cows holy, holy cow. No, God is holy cows are delicious. Awesome is awesome and wicked is wicked. They were wicked people. They hated God. They hated any idea of the principles of God over their lives. So Lot had a decision to make. There's two men, there's two choices, there's two different sets of priorities, there's two different ways of looking at life. And we see one man is wise and one man is foolish. One acted like a believing man should and one act like believing men never should. And that's because Lot prioritized his god over God. He prioritized his god and his god was money. That was his god, that was his idol and that's how he made decisions. Lot saw the fertile plain, he saw the grass, he saw how fat his sheep will get. He saw how fat his cattle will get and they will be grass fed, which is the best way to do it. And I understand there's debate there. So Abraham settles in Canaan. Canaan is the promised land and Lot moves out of the promised land. And he sacrifices his relationship with Abram, he sacrifices his relationship with the covenant community, he sacrifices his relationship with God for grass. Because he asked where will I be most materially fruitful, not where will I be most spiritually fruitful? That's really the difference. That's what we got to ask, where will I be more spiritually full? Meaning, where can I be used by God more than anyplace else? Where can I serve more than anywhere? This is why it's so important to gather together as a church. You're like, I can get the content online. Yeah, you can. Are there people that you can serve there? Like really serve hug, kiss, minister to, pray over, lay hands upon. He prioritized the riches that he could see over the riches that he could not because he was blinded by what the world could offer. That's why in Genesis 3:10 it says, This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Verse 13. Again, that emphasizes the men of Sodom are wicked, great sinners against the Lord. St. Paul, in 2 Timothy talks about this guy named Demas who was one of his disciples. He poured into them, he taught him. And then St. Paul writes that Demas has deserted me having loved this present world. He doesn't say that Demas got this present world, he says he loved this present world. He doesn't say he got it. And Lot's choice lead to destruction. Abraham is going to have to rescue Lot twice from Sodom once in the next chapter. Again, in chapter 18 minutes before God destroys Sodom. And Lot compromised here. And then we see the compromise growing. And chapter 13 he moves next to Sodom. Chapter 14, he's actually inside Sodom. Chapter 19 now he's one of the most respected people in Sodom. Perhaps he thought, I'm going to change Sodom through politics. And he joins whatever the board was. Instead of saying I'm going to change this city through church, through worship, through the gospel, through the Holy Scriptures, and we see this downfall. And the point isn't that Lot went to live to a sinful place that's everywhere. We're in Boston, one of the most sinful places. The point is that he went there with no intention of worshiping God and serving God and actually reaching these people for the Lord. And finally, his dragged out of this place, by angels, with his two daughters, and his wife, who had grown so in love with the materialism of Sodom. She turns around, and she dies. And his daughters are influenced into perversion by Sodom and they commit incest with their father. He starts off as a greedy businessman ends up with nothing a dead wife, and two daughters that committed incest, while Abraham kept prospering. Kept being blessed by the Lord. CS Lewis says, when we put first things first God multiplies the second things. And when we put second things, first, we lose not only first things, we also lose the second things. So Abraham allows Lot to go, and Abraham remains and he walks with the Lord. So choose to walk with the Lord. Verse 14, The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you." Lift up your eyes, same phrase. And you see the commentary from the text. Lot lifts up his eyes, and he only sees with the eyes of his flesh. Of what he can gain, of only material wealth. And God comes to Abram and says, lift up your eyes. Lift up the eyes of your heart and see with faith, what I'm going to give you. I'm going to give you more of me. That's really the greatest blessing of this text. God shows up again, God sees that Abraham is a change man. He's repented, he does the right thing. He's seeking reconciliation and God shows up again. Lift up your eyes, Abraham, see, filter reality through your faith not through sinful desire. Abraham thinks after my thoughts see reality as I've defined it. And it gives a more specific promise of what would someday be his. Lot's lush Valley would soon be barren desert tar pit smelling of sulphur. And here, God says, I'm going to bless you and bless this land. Abraham walks with God and that's what scripture actually ... The commentary of walking the Hebrew word is hâlakh. This is a relationship with God. We see Adam and Eve walked with God. We see that Enoch walked with God. We see that Noah walked with God. Jesus Christ then comes and what does he say to his disciples, follow me, walk with me. This is the greatest thing that God can offer us is himself. Question is, did Lot walk with God? Was he a Christian? Scarcely. Like, barley. He was a barely Christian. How do I know he's a Christian? Because the Holy Spirit comments through St. Peter in 2 Peter 2:7-8. And it says this, If he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked, for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard. Peter calls Lot a righteous man. We don't see him doing many righteous things. Even after we're like, okay, he was disturbed and vexed by the sin around but he didn't do anything about it. And we are never told of one spiritually minded thing that he does anywhere else in scripture. And then even after the destruction of Sodom, he remains a pathetic figure in scripture, with such as the grace of God. God chose this guy, says this guy is mine. Scripture comments on situations like this. 1 Corinthians 3:15. If anyone's work is burned up, that means if you haven't done anything for the Lord, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. So apparently Lot was saved. How? If you believe that we're saved by workspace salvation, what we do for God, how can you say he was saved? Well, we don't believe that, we don't believe in workspace salvation. And the Old Testament doesn't believe in workspace salvation. It's only by grace through faith. The story of Lot is the story of the fall. Genesis, the Fall is repeated over and over and over. God gives an explicit command, the command is broken, judgment comes and people are cast out of God's presence. That happened with Adam and Eve, that happened with Cain that he's cast out after killing his brother. It happened with the Tower of Babel where they tried to create paradise on earth apart from God and they were cast out from each other and from God. And with Lot heard an explicit command of God, left he was expelled. So how did Lot get back to God? How was Lot considered a righteous person? Hmm, Well, this land where Abraham was called to, is a land that then later is going to have another garden. Scripture talks about gardens often. In the beginning there was a garden, the Garden of Eden. In the end there's a garden. Revelation 20 new heavens and new earth, there's going to be a garden, a well water garden. But for us to get from here, we're cast out. Now how's God going to save us? How's God going to save a person like Lot? How's God going to save a person like Abraham who also sinned, or like one of us? And get us to that garden, the garden that we're really longing for. How are we going to get there, from this garden to that garden? Well, there's two other gardens in Scripture. The first is the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus Christ in the garden of Gethsemane is crying out to God, My God, my God, if there's any other way, let this cup pass. The cup of condemnation wrath poured out on me for the sins of everyone including Lot including every single one of us. But let not my will but yours be done because I want to give everyone heaven. I'm going to go through hell to give everyone heaven. And then Jesus Christ goes to the cross and he does, he experiences hell literal hell, this is being abandoned by God. He cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why was he forsaken? Because, he took our sins upon himself. And then he dies and after he dies, the soldiers come up to him, and they were going to break his legs in order to be done with the crucifixion. And they saw that he was already dead. So they speared his side and blood and water come out. He's taken down from the cross. And then Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus come to him, and they take his body. Where do they put it? John 19:41. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had been laid. He was placed in a tomb in a garden, you get death in a place of life. Adam, the first man entered the garden alive and he left it dead on the inside. He brought death into the garden of God and Jesus entered the garden of God dead because of sinful loss of hearts like ours, and through his death, he brought life back into the garden. The whole point of this is that Jesus Christ is the garden. Jesus Christ is Eden, Jesus Christ is paradise. Lot was chasing a garden, outside of God. Abraham, he's in a barren desert and God comes to him, now there's a garden because God is paradise. This is the point that Jesus is The Promised Land. So how can we get more of the Promised Land, the more of the presence of God into our life. It begins with repentance. Repentance and faith, Jesus says, but repentance and faith is two sides of the same coin. Because true repentance and faith isn't just oh yeah, I believe in Jesus. True Faith assumes repentance and you say something like, I believe I crucified Jesus, my sin, my selfishness, my greed, my lust crucified Jesus. That's what repentance is. And you ask for forgiveness and you ask for the Holy Spirit, and then you asked for God to give you strength to honor him and follow him and walk with him. Lot, okay, you got saved, bro. You got saved. But your life was a legacy of curse and destruction. And some of you perhaps may be saved and perhaps you're on the same path was like, Yeah, I believe. Yeah, I follow Jesus but I love the things of this world more than Jesus. Repent of that sin, turn back to the lord, walk with him that's where the true blessing is. What's fascinating is that this text begins with the worship of God and ends with the same thing. Verse 18, Abram moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, and there at Hebron, there he built an altar to the Lord. He goes to another place where God called him and he plants another church because that's what he does. What's fascinating is, oaks of Mamre is 20 miles south of Bethlehem. And this is close to the place where Abraham bought the only property, the only real estate he ever got in his life. He bought it here. God promised him the promised land, Abraham ends up with only a little tiny piece for what, is the burial cave of Machpelah. All he got, the only real estate that he got is where he was buried. Incredible commentary. That God promised him the promised land, takes him to the promised land, doesn't give him any of the promised land, but only gives him himself because God is the promised land. And he only got the piece of real estate that he was buried in. And that's ultimately the only piece of real estate we ever get. So we need to be as people thinking, what comes after this? What comes after this real estate? What comes after is the promised land in heaven and the presence of God if we believe Jesus Christ. Every day, we're faced with the same question. Will I follow Jesus today? Will I take up my cross and follow Jesus today? Will I make every sacrifice necessary to obey Jesus today? Consider carefully before you choose. Trade, trace each alternative out to its end. Look to Abraham who walked with God, and got God, which is the greatest blessing. And look to Lot who left God to enter Sodom and all he received was destruction and pain. But praise be to God, we have forgiveness that he offers us that we can turn even if we went on the path of Lot. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for this text. What a text, what a rich text. We thank you, that you blessed our time with the Holy Scriptures. By the power of your spear we thank you for this community, we thank you for this altar, so to speak. Where we can come and we can worship. We can sing to you, we can pray to you, we can honor you, we can sacrifice to you. We can be transformed by you. And we're here so that those around us also are served by us and come to know you. Continue to build your church here in this place and we thank you Jesus that you are our garden, you are Eden and you are paradise and pray this in Jesus name, amen.
Spiritual Schizophrenia
April 11, 2021 • Genesis 12
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning, welcome to Mosaic Church. My name is Jan. I'm with the pastors here at Mosaic, along with Pastor Shane and Pastor Andy. If you're new or visiting, welcome. We're so glad you're here. We'd love to connect with you either through the connection card in the worship guide, the physical one, or you can get the one online on our website or in the app. One quick announcement, we are celebrating baptisms today after the second service, so if you weren't planning on coming back, now you can go to brunch after the service, come back, and we're celebrating two people getting baptized as a testimony to what Jesus did in their life by saving them. With that said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's holy word? Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a faithful God, that you are immutable; the same yesterday, today, and forever more. And because you are the same, when you promised to pour out your love on us; by the power of the Holy Spirit, when you draw us to yourself, you make an eternal covenant and you never turn your back on that. We thank you that you're faithful even when we are faithless. Lord, we don't just acknowledge, we repent of areas in our lives where we have not obeyed you fully, where we have not been faithful to your word, to your commandments, to your will, to your desire. And we haven't just broken commandments, we've broken your heart. We pray today that you show us from the example in the story of Abraham that you are faithful to your relationship with us and you call us to do the same. As a spouse, you love us with a sacrificial, eternal, unending, unconditional love. We pray, Holy Spirit, come into this place today and show us that when you come, when you call, when you summon us, we have no choice but to follow, but to do your will, and that's where blessing is found. We pray that you bless our time with the holy scriptures. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Today, we are starting a new sermon series called Jesus in Genesis Season 2. One was Season 1; Season 1 was in 2016. You can get those sermons online. And what we're doing is we're looking at this ancient text and we're showing that it's actually incredibly relevant to our day and age today. One of the reasons why it's so relevant is despite that world is changing materially, it hasn't changed spiritually. The same God, the same Satan, the same spiritual principles either for blessing or for curse. And the same principles that we see operating in Genesis, when we take those principles and we apply them to our life, God uses that incredibly. Today we look at the story of Abraham. He's one of the two or three most consequential people, men, to have ever lived. Jesus, Saint Paul, and then it goes Abraham. Three of the main world's religions revere him; Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. He is the great patriarch of Biblical history. He's the great exemplar of faith and of faith by grace, that faith is a gift, salvation is a gift. We know more about his life than anyone else in Biblical history except for Moses, David, Saint Paul, and the Lord Jesus himself. What made this man so remarkable that God would call him a friend? He's a friend. He's the father of all those who believe in Jesus Christ, scripture says. Jesus even said that Abraham was a believer in him even in his own lifetime. Jesus said, "Abraham rejoiced to see my day and was glad." Paul uses Abraham's life as the crowning illustration and demonstration; this is what the life of a Christian looks like. This is what it means to believe and to be saved. God himself, when he introduces himself, he says, "I am the god of Abraham. I'm that guy's God." Incredible. Great though he be, in the very first text where we are introduced to this man who leaves everything to follow God, to obey God, in the same text, he disobeys God so egregiously that it's actually shocking that this text was included in scripture; where he sells off his wife to Pharaoh in order to save himself. What's the lesson here? The lesson here is that there's a tug of war for your soul, and that tug of war is between heaven and hell, that's how precious your soul is; God and Satan are vying for it. And God calls Abraham and says, "That guy's mine. He belongs to me." The very next text, Satan comes and tempts him; tempts him with doubt, temps him with unbelief, tempts him with disobedience. And what we see here is that there's a so-called spiritual schizophrenia that on the one hand, we see incredible juxtaposition of faith and doubt, obedience and betrayal, heroism and cowardice, we see it in the text. And the reason why, this is how I'm framing the text, it's because we see it in ourselves. One day you are on fire for God, you love him with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. The next day it's as if you've never met him, it's as if you are, spiritually, practically an atheist. So how do we deal with that today? Well, this is what we'll talk about from Genesis Chapter 12. Would you look at this incredible text with me? Genesis 12. "Now, the Lord said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you; and him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the Earth shall be blessed.'" So Abram went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarai (his wife) and Lot (his brother's son) and all their possessions that they had gathered and the people that they had acquired in Haran and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the Oak at Moreh; and at that time, the Canaanites were in the land. "Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, 'To your offspring I will give this land.' So he built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him." "From there, he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on, still going through the Negeb." And there was a famine in the land, so Abram went down to Egypt, to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai, his wife, "I know that you are a beautiful woman in appearance. And when the Egyptian see you, they will say, 'This is his wife.' Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake." When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. And for her sake, he dealt well with Abram. And he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels. The Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife. So Pharaoh called Abram and said, "What is this you've done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, 'She was my sister,' so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go." And Pharaoh gave orders concerning him and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had. This is the reading of God's holy inerrant, infallible, authoritative word. May write these internal truths upon our hearts. What in the world is going on here? The first thing I was meditating on this week is the conversation that Sarah and Abraham had as soon as she was released. When he looks at her and says, "Is this going to be a 20-minute fight or is this a week-long fight? I don't know what's going on." My wife when she gets mad at me, she hits me with two hands. I think that's what was going on there. We'll deal with that. What's going on in this very sordid text? And what's fascinating is this text is the beginning of the Christian faith, not just the Christian faith, but Judaism. And Islam looks to Abraham as the father of their faith. So what is going on this text? What can we learn? And how can we apply this to our life? Three points: tremendous faith, tremendous faithlessness, and tremendous faithfulness. First, tremendous faith. God shows up and he speaks to Abram, and this is how God reveals himself to each and one of us. He's always revealed himself like this, through speaking through his word. The Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you." How did the Lord speak? How did Abram hear his voice? We're not told. God speaks in different ways, communicates to human hearts in a myriad of ways; sometimes it's in dreams. We hear about this from the Muslim world that God, Jesus himself, appears to people in dreams and saves them miraculously even today. Most often, he speaks to people through his word. When you're reading his scripture, you hear his scripture read or preached and you feel like God himself, the voice of the living God is speaking to you. Abram, here's God, and for him it's enough. It's the self-authenticating word of God. And God comes and he doesn't just say, "Go." It doesn't say, "Come." It's not an invitation. It's, "Go." It's a commandment. God reveals himself, offers Abram a relationship... By the way, the names, if you're not familiar, Abram later will be changed to Abraham. But it sounds weird so I just keep Abraham. Sarai becomes Sarah. And that's to show that God has, he has authority to change our identity by changing our name. So God calls Abraham, speaks to him. What we see here, what's fascinating is there weren't many faithful people to God in that day. One guy we do know is Melchizedek, in chapter 14 we meet him. So there were other faithful believers in God, but this one is special because God, through this one, through Abraham, God promises to bless all the nations by sending the Messiah. So he meets God, he changes absolutely everything. This is awesome. And you look at this and you say, "This guy had an encounter with God. Where did he come from? What did he do to deserve this? Has he always loved and sought after God? Is he being rewarded for his faithfulness?" And scripture says no. Scripture says, in Joshua 24, that actually Abraham and his family were all idol worshipers. So he doesn't come from a Christian family, he doesn't come from a faithful family. He comes from a family that wanted nothing to do with God. They worshiped creation rather than the creator. And that's the problem that every single one of us wrestles with until God calls us, is we're all living for something and for something that we find to be worthy of our time, our energy; be it pleasure or comfort or significance etc., it's physical things. We're worshiping physical things, we're worshiping creation instead of creator. So what changes his mind? What changed the trajectory and the nature of his life? He heard the voice of God and he obeyed. He didn't just hear God, he heard God. He didn't just listen, he heard God and he obeyed. And this is how the Christian life begins, with God speaking, our listening, our obeying and trusting, believing. And this is how we continue to grow in the Christian faith. What's fascinating is I love how real the story is, did Abraham obey immediately? Did he obey immediately? Is he like, "Oh, God just told me, now I'm going?" Well, actually, I don't think so. And we can get this from Genesis 15:7. "And he said to him," in 15:7, "I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess." So God calls Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans, which is Babylonia at that time. So Abraham wasn't Jewish yet. He was a pagan, he was a Gentile. God calls him out of Ur of the Chaldeans. So he's living in Ur of the Chaldeans, God calls him out. And then what we find fascinating is in Genesis 11:27-32, we see that he's not living in Ur of the Chaldeans. Look at the text. And this is the genealogy of Abraham. Now, these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor and Haran, and Haran fathered Lot. So remember that; Haran is the father of Lot. Haran died in the presence of his father Terah, in the land of his kindred in Ur of the Chaldeans. And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah, and the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Iscah. Now Sarai was barren; she had no child. Terah took Abram (his son) and Lot (the son of Haran), his grandson, Sarai (his daughter-in-law), his son Abram's wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. And the days of Terah was 205 years, and Terah died in Haran. So there's two Harans here. One Haran is a name, this is Lot's dad, and then Haran is a place. So here we see that they live in Ur of the Chaldeans and they were on their way to Canaan, they were on their way to the promised land, and they get to a place called Haran and they stay there. They stay there. And you connect that with Genesis 15; Genesis 15, God said, "I called you out of Ur of the Chaldeans." So God called the whole family of Abraham, including Abraham's dad, including all his brothers. "I'm calling all of you from Ur of the Chaldeans, pagan, idolatrous city, to this promised land in Canaan." And they're going, they're on their way. They obeyed. And then they get to this place called Haran, and scripture says they settled there. They're called, they go, they stop halfway. God comes again to Abram a second time, by the grace of God, and says, "I didn't call you to Haran, I called you to Canaan." And Abraham, at this moment, finally obeys. And I love this as an illustration for faith today, that there has to be growth in the faith, growth in obedience; but you can't just settle, you can't settle for halfway obedience or halfway faithfulness. That's not where God's blessing is found, so Abraham finally obeys. What's fascinating is when God saves us, he doesn't just save us from sin, he saves for something. What he saves us for, is for his mission. So he saves us from our sinful life of idolatry and he wants us to go to this place, whatever this place is for you, in order to be part of the mission of God. He saves a guy and says, "Go," and continued to bless. And that's verse 2, "I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing." God is a God who loves to bless, he loves to be generous with us. And the greatest blessing that he can give us is himself, the blessing of his presence in a relationship. So God is saying, "Go," but he's also saying, "Come and follow me to this place." But in order for us to experience the fullness of the presence of God, God first tells us to leave things behind that don't glorify God. Verse 3 says, "I will bless those who bless you; and him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the Earth shall be blessed." He uses the word 'blessed' in these very few verses five times. Why is that important? Because in Genesis 1-11, scripture uses the word 'blessed' five times. So in a few verses, we have a trajectory changing a few verses to show that God hasn't left people in their sin. So Genesis 1-3, everything is perfect. Genesis 3 comes the fall; and then the fall is Genesis 3-11, is just the regression of people from the purpose of God. And God finally says, "No, I'm not leaving you in your sin. I'm going to come, I'm going to bless." So Abram goes, verse 4, "So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran." Leaves everything, closes his eyes so to speak, takes the hand of God and goes. What's he leave behind? He leaves behind family, friends, most likely his business, most likely accumulated property through generations. And he goes, leaves everything behind to follow God at 75. My parents immigrated from the Soviet Union in 1989. My dad was 30 years old, my mom was 27. 30 years old, zero English. My dad thought he was going to Germany, so he studied German. Now, zero English, shows up with three kids, fourth on the way, because he felt like God said, "Go." I look back at him, I'm 38 now, I look back, "30 years old, you did that. That's nuts." Abraham was 75, seventy-five. That's 10 years into your retirement. You're chilling. What are 75-year-olds thinking about? They're thinking about, I don't know, vacation, relaxing, rest. They're not thinking about starting a brand new purpose in life, a mission in life. Granted, years were different back then. Because we find out that Sarah was 65 and apparently she was really good-looking at 65. I think food was different; no GMOs, it was all organic. They lived a lot longer. I don't know. The aging might be different, so 75... The point here is he's set in his life, he's set in his patterns. 90% of people that come to faith as Christians come to faith before the age of 18, why? Because after the age of 18, it's hard to change your patterns of thinking. God comes and he saves a guy who has no Christian background, no Christian friends, no Christian parents, and he saves him and just converts him radically, and it shows just the grace of God. A quick chronology of Abram's life; 75 he's called, he enters Canaan. 86 is the birth of Ishmael. At 99, he gets the covenant sign of circumcision. At 100, Isaac is born. Between 115 and 125, he was commanded to sacrifice Isaac. 137, Sarah died. 140, Isaac was married. And 175, Abraham died. So Abraham does obey God, he leaves everything in chapter 5, and Abram took Sarai (his wife) and Lot (his brother's son) and all their possessions that they had gathered and the people that they had acquired in Haran and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem to the oak of Moreh. At the time, the Canaanites were in the land. So Abraham doesn't go from one idolatrous pagan center of worship to a place where there were believers, no, he's the only believer. There's no Christians in Canaan, there's no Christians in Ur of the Chaldeans. So God saves this guy and sends him as a missionary into this place where there's pagans. And this is why the place at Shechem and the oak are mentioned. Why are you mentioning an oak? Because the oak was the place where the pagans worshiped their tree gods because they thought they connected them with Heaven and these were their fertility gods, and that's why there's a prohibition law of Moses against planting trees like this in the temple precinct. So Abraham goes to the place, he passes through Shechem, a Godless place, and then verse 7, "The Lord appeared to Abram and said, 'To your offspring I will give this land.'" He says, "Do you see this land? This land full of pagan worshipers, people who don't love God, who love sin, who actually hate God because they love sin. I'm going to give you this land." So he built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him. Why is Shechem important? Shechem has been this place where God has his people make a decision. Abraham, in the same way that you made the decision are you going to obey God or not, the people of God had to make a decision at Shechem a few times. At Shechem, the people of God had to make a decision between the mount of curse, Ebal, and the mountain of blessing, Gerizim. At Shechem, Joshua gives a final address to the people of God and says, "Who are you going to worship from this day forward?" At Shechem, Solomon's kingdom was divided. And God brings Abraham to Shechem in the very shadow of the Canaanite shrine to idols and he promises him, "I'm going to give you this land." And what Abraham does is he builds a defiant declaration to the fact that God called him through this altar that, "We claim this place and we will worship the Lord here." Remember in verse 8 and 9, "From there, he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb." What's fascinating is he leaves, most likely, a luxurious life. And I say luxurious because we see that he had a lot of cattle but I also say luxurious because Sarai was barren so they didn't have kids. So if you're in 75 and 65 and you've been working your whole life without kids, you've got a lot of disposable income. So a luxurious life, most likely a huge house. Now he goes and he pitches a tent. And this is a sign that this is by the grace of God. "I'm going to live here, an impermanent structure." And before he pitches that tent, he builds something, he builds an altar to the Lord. And this in the Hebrew is a play on words. He pitches something, an impermanent structure for himself, and builds a permanent structure to God here in the altar, so we see his priorities. And then scripture says, "And they called upon the name of the Lord." And this isn't just, "I'm going to pray to God." They had a corporate worship gathering. So Abraham, what he's doing is he actually started a church, he planted a church in a Godless place, in a place called Shechem, and he said, "Here, this is our place, this is our town, this is our city, and we are going to worship God here and declare God." So I see incredible faith. Abraham, this is incredible. You left everything. I hear stories of missionaries that leave everything and they go to the Middle East to preach the gospel. You left... That's awesome. So you have this incredible faith, that's point one. And I want to just pause there and say, praise God for Abraham's faithfulness, praise God. Abraham, when I get to heaven, man, high five, good job. Thank you for obeying God, awesome. And then, all of a sudden, there's a change in the text, and this is point two: tremendous faithlessness. Verse 10, "Now, there was a famine in the land, so Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land." Egypt was a typical place of refuge when there was a famine, why? Because the Nile provided water, so food, Egypt. Did God, Abraham, tell you to go to Egypt? No, he did not. God told you to go to Canaan, he actually told you twice, "Go to the land that I will show you." So there's no reason to think, in the text, no reason to think that Abram thought he was free to leave the land. And when scripture is silent on something this big, that's of significance. God doesn't tell Abraham to go to Egypt. Abram then when he does go to Egypt, he doesn't do what he's done already twice, is build an altar to God. Something's shifted with Abram. Was the famine real? Yes. Did God tell Abram to go to Canaan? Yes. But in Canaan, he experiences trouble, he experiences obstacles. When God calls you to something, when you know that God called you to something, you need to know that you will meet difficulty. Because if God calls you to something, that is his will. And there is an enemy who hates God's will, and he will challenge you with everything you have. Where in the world do we get the idea that ease is a sign that you are in the will of God? Where in the world do we get the idea that comfort is a sign that you are in the will of God? Smooth sailing is a sign that you are in the will? Where did you get that idea? Joel Osteen, that's where. It's not true. It's not true. It's not true. Actually, if you study the lives of believers in scripture, the more committed they are to the will of God, the more trouble there is, the more obstacles there are, the more suffering there is, Abraham. Because when God gives you the gift of faith to do something incredible for God's glory, God is going to allow that faith to be tested, so that it can be strengthened. So Abraham goes down to Egypt, he went down. And it's fascinating, in the Hebrew it says 'down', he went down to Egypt. And then when he comes back in Chapter 13:1 it says, "Abram went up from Egypt." And yes, this is a way to describe travel a common way, but scripture also uses this language to describe spiritual movement. He came down as he left the place where God called him, and then he goes up when he leaves the place that he wasn't supposed to be. So you see the temperature shift in his spiritual life and spiritual health. Scripture also says that he went to Egypt to sojourn, which suggests that he was planning on living there for a significant period of time, and he stayed there long enough to accumulate great wealth. So afraid for his safety, afraid for his comfort, afraid for his prosperity, he goes to Egypt; first compromise. As soon as he gets to Egypt, we see a second compromise, where he's willing to actually lose his wife, lose his marriage. When confronted with trouble, it's as if his faith deserts him. God promised, God said, "I'm going to bless you. I'm going to make of you a great nation. I'm going to make your name great." Which that promise assumes that no one's going to kill you, not yet, not until you have a kid. "And whoever curses you, I will curse," God said. So God promised that, "I will be with you." And Abraham, he makes a decision as if God had never spoken, as if God isn't there. And he disobeys God and that begins with disbelief. It's a thing called spiritual amnesia, and every single one of us we struggle with this. And I know every single one of us struggles with this because I struggle with this. Good Friday comes, Easter comes, wonderful weekend, everything's amazing, everything's tremendous. And by Tuesday, I'm like, "Did Jesus come back from the dead?" Yeah, he did. "Pastor Jan, go online, listen to your sermon again." Yes, he did. Jesus came back from the dead. God is with us. God still loves us. And this is why we need the word of God, this is why we need time with God, in order to remind ourselves; because our predisposition, our set mode isn't to believe in the Lord. Verse 11, "When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, 'I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance.'" Great start, Abraham. "And when the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife.'" That's true. "Then they will kill me, but they will let you live." Why is this? Because we know this from archaeological accounts that Pharaoh could take any sojourners' or immigrants' wife or children. So he says, "Say that you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake. Say that you are my sister." What's weird is that it's technically true. That's weird. It's his half sister. Technically it's true, but he's hiding that truth with a lie, so technically it's true, so let's just say this. And by the way, this says a lot about... So people are like, "Abraham, Father Abraham, he's the father of our faith." He did some weird stuff in Haran. Apparently, this was allowed in Haran. And what does Haran mean in the Hebrew? It means West Virginia, where you can marry your half-sister, so that's just weird. And by the way, this is incredible proof of the veracity of scripture. Because if I were inventing a religion, I would not say that the founder of our religion married his half-sister, that's weird. And then in the law of Moses in Deuteronomy actually says you can't do that, that's actually forbidden. So Abraham didn't know... It's to show that this is actually true. But Abraham, he knows that he is risking death. So he enters into Egypt and he says, "Okay, go along with this," and she does. And she does. And verse 14, "When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house." The words "taken into Pharaoh's house" assumes already a formal relationship, perhaps marriage, so she's included in his harem. And then later in the text it says that Pharaoh already called her his wife, so we see a progression in the text. And verse 16, insult to injury, "And for her sake, Pharaoh dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, ox and male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels." And this is suggesting that Pharaoh pays Abraham off. So basically he bought... Abraham sold his wife. There's other words for that. But basically this is sexual trafficking, selling his wife. This is as bad as it gets. In order to save himself, and in order to get prosperity, in order to get comfort, he is willing to give up on his covenant relationship with his wife. This is as dark as it gets. But God, praise be to God, he doesn't leave him here. He doesn't allow this to happen in verse 17, "But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abraham's wife." God intervenes, that's the point here. God rescues Abraham's marriage. It's as if the Lord is saying, "I'm more invested in your marriage than you are. I need you married because I made this promise." So God intervenes. God is faithful when we are faithless. It doesn't say how Pharaoh connected the fact that there was a plague with Sarah, it doesn't say, but clearly the plague had to... It was clear that this plague is on account of Sarah. We don't know what there is, but clearly there's something there. And obviously, in some way, the Lord made it clear. So Pharaoh calls Abraham and says, "What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go." Genesis 12:20, "And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had." And that's how the text ends. Starts with this incredible crescendo of faith; this man leaving everything to follow God, and it ends with darkness and despair and gloom, period. Thanks be to God, that's not where the story ends; because, thanks be to God, Jesus Christ redeemed this story as well. And this is point three: tremendous faithfulness. You can ask this question, "How is Abraham even in the Bible after this?" Every single time God enters into covenant with a person, you just need to know that God promises, "I'm entering the covenant with you." Every single time the covenant is betrayed from the people's side. As soon as God makes a covenant with Noah, Noah betrays that covenant with sin. No sooner that God makes his covenant with Abraham, Abraham throws the entire covenant to jeopardy with his unbelief. And the point here is that we all are like Abraham, that's why he's the prototype for the believers, this is why he's the prototype for what it means to be a follower of God. We start in this place of God-forsakenness where we have been unfaithful to God, that one day we believe, the next day we're a sniveling coward and seeming to not believe at all. Every believer, every single one of us, we suffer from this spiritual schizophrenia, this mixture of spiritual sanity and loss of one's spiritual mind, faith and unbelief, courage and cowardice, obedience and flagrant disobedience. At one moment, Abraham has this incredible trust and then turns his back, and this happened with every single person in scripture. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Hezekiah, Josiah, Judah, the Apostle Paul himself, the great Apostle Paul who saw Christ. Christ, the resurrected Christ, revealed himself to Saint Paul. And Saint Paul tells us himself that throughout his Christian life, through all his years of following Jesus Christ, all his days and nights and various Roman prisons, through all his stonings, throughout the beatings, throughout the scorn, throughout the humiliation, throughout all the hard work, throughout all his victorious preaching and missionary work, evangelism and church planting, throughout all of it, he was sick to the heart because of his own sin. And he writes this in Romans 7:14-25, "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin, for I do not understand my own actions; for I do not do what I want, but do the very thing I hate. Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me; for I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing." "Now, if I do what I do not want, it's no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am." This Saint Paul, end of his life, has done so much great things for God. He's a believer for decades, he says, "Wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin." Saint Paul said this. This is tug of war between flesh and spirit. David could have said this. When we talk about King David in scripture, which King David do we like? Do we like the King David who fights Goliath by incredible faith? Yeah, I love that King David. The King David who writes the psalms? I love that King David. The King David who just defeats a military with his army, I love that King David. But then there's another King David, the King David that commits adultery with another man's wife and then kills her, the King David that neglects his own family so much so that it tosses the house of Israel into disarray for centuries; there's that King David. Or which Peter, which Peter do we love? I love the Peter that falls down at the feet of Jesus Christ after the haul of fish when he obeyed Jesus and says, "Wicked man that I am, Jesus, depart from me." And we struggle with the Peter who, right before the crucifixion, in pure unadulterated cowardice, denies Jesus Christ three times. Same thing with Abraham here. In the face of danger, he's willing to give up his wife because he disbelieves in God. He struggled with the same thing. So Abraham himself needs a savior. So where do we see Jesus in Genesis here? Where do we see Jesus in chapter 12? We see it in chapter 12:3, "In you, God promised him, in you, all the families of the Earth shall be blessed." How? And I love this because God here doesn't leave humanity on their own in their sin. The God of the Old Testament is a missionary God, saving people, on mission to bless the Christ, the gospels and the missionary Messiah. The Holy Spirit of the book of Acts is a missionary spirit. The church of the New Testament is a missionary church. In this verse right here he says, "In you, all of the nations will be blessed." How is this working? The deeper sense here is the promise in Genesis 3:15 where God says, "I'm going to send a seed. I'm going to send an offspring, one who will crush the head of the serpent. Through this seed, through the Messiah who will come in human form, all of the nations will be blessed." And the reason Abraham could be called, spoken to, forgiven time and again, the reason why he's called righteous is because of Jesus Christ who came through his genealogy, through his line. Jesus was faithful, because Jesus was faithful, because Jesus never obeyed halfway, never compromised in the face of greatest temptation and pressures, in the face of even death itself. Jesus Christ went to the death for his bride, which is the church, because he loves with a covenantal love. Jesus was faithful to the death. And Genesis 12:7, I don't know if you caught this in the text, said, "The Lord appeared to Abram." In verse 1, it said that God spoke to Abram. Here it says the Lord appeared to Abram. "To your offspring, I will give you this land. So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him." Whenever a word is repeated twice in a sentence in the Old Testament, you're gonna go like this is important. He appeared to him. How did he appear to him? Perhaps in a vision, or perhaps this was a Christophany. This is perhaps, perhaps, Jesus Christ himself. And you say, "Where did you get that Pastor Jan?" Hold on. Hold on. And you should be very skeptical. Is it from scripture? Is it from scripture? I'm going to show you a couple of places that makes me think maybe, maybe. In John 8, Jesus Christ is having a conversation with the Pharisees and he says this, "Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad." That's an interesting, interesting turn of phrase. But on first reading, what I'm thinking is, "Oh, Abraham, by faith, believes that he'll see by faith that Jesus will come," right? That's the first reading. But is that how the audience understood it? So the Jews said to him, "You're not yet 50 years old and have you seen Abraham?" So the original audience, when they saw that Abraham will rejoice to see my day, how they interpreted, how they understood what he just said is: "You're telling me you saw Abraham?" And what's the response? Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." Because he's God. And they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. Did Jesus see Abraham? I think so. I think so. And this is the reason why Abraham can be called the father of faith, can be called the righteous, because he knows that he, in and of himself, has no righteousness; but there is one who, through him, will come to save him, and Abraham believed. So what made Abraham great wasn't just his faith, because it shows that he was also a sinner, it was his faith in Jesus Christ, knowing that he will be forgiven despite his sin. Galatians 3:7-9 gives us something similar, "Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the scripture foreseen that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham." So God preaches the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, "In you, shall all the nations be blessed." So then, those who are of faith, are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. The beauty of Christianity is no matter how back and forth we are in the faith, God always remains faithful. He will continue pursuing you if you are his. And Jesus has made the church into a family so numerous that it's impossible to count. This is the nation that he's talking about. All the nations will be blessed, exceeding all borders, nationalities, ethnicities, social classes, etc. Thanks be to Jesus that when you repent of your sin, when you respond to the voice of God, the word of God, when you turn to him, you are justified at that very second. And Martin Luther used the phrase "Simul justus et peccator", "I'm simultaneously justified, although yet a sinner." And that's all of us. And the way that we grow in our faith is by receiving the word of God, listening to the word of God, obeying the word of God. I'll close with this; Abraham was called a friend of God. Abraham was called a friend of God, even though Abraham turned his back on God in this text, and turned his back on his wife. Abraham did not understand covenantal love, not yet, but he did afterwards when he understood that God did not leave him even when he turned his back, that God loved him with a love that he didn't even love his wife with. And Abraham is called a friend of God. And I find that fascinating because if you... He should be called a sinner, a coward, a person that gave up his wife, but he's not. And what's fascinating is that God views us through the grace of Jesus Christ, that's the beauty of it. And I'll just connect that with Job. Scripture says, "You have heard of the patience of Job." You have heard of the patience of Job. What's fascinating is that you read Job, and he's not very patient. For 38 chapters, he's just whining, and for good reason. But God looks at Job through the work of Jesus Christ and says, "Look at the patience of Job." So how can God call Abraham a friend? Because he looks to Abraham through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that's why he can be called a friend of God. Why all of this? Because of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. And that's why when he is faithful, he's faithful to the end. I'll close with 2 Timothy 2:11-13, "The saying is trustworthy, for if we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself." Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are faithful you are faithful to the end, that when you chose to come and save us, even in the face of great suffering, you went to the end. We thank you Jesus that when you call us to yourself, you give us the power of the Holy Spirit. And we thank you Holy Spirit that you are with us. And if there's any vacillation in our faith, any of this to and fro, I pray that you, by the power of the spirit, solidify us in the gospel. We thank you for the example of Abraham. We thank you that he was faithful in responding to the call. And even when he was faithless, you remained faithful and you came and saved him from himself, from his sin. And I pray that you do that with each one of us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.