Abraham

Intro

Thanks for joining us this evening! For those who don’t know me, my name is Austin and I am the pastor here at the Fold And i am so happy you have chosen to join us today. Today we will be diving into our second study under this topic of Faith Through Failure. If you were not here last time, what faith through failure is, its a study where we will be looking at individuals in scripture that us as a christian faith really look up to. But there is a catch, we aren’t just looking at the amazing things they did. But rather where they messed up. failed and sinned. The reason we wanted to look at this is so that we can learn from their failure, how to continue the faith even if we drop the ball. Last time we looked at the first two humans ever created, Adam and Eve and how their sin had such a wide spread effect throughout the world, but even through that, they continued to strive after God and obey his words.

Let me ask you a question to start out. Have you ever been in a position where you are corrected in either speech, action or mindset by someone you’re supposed to be an example to? Far too often in this world, followers of Jesus are being held accountable to how they act and speak by those who don’t believe in the same faith or have any faith at all. And to me that is really sad. We as people who are to show Jesus to the world are sometimes being corrected and reminded that we aren’t living the life we tell others to live. This is something that can be very embarrassing. And today we will be looking at an individual who did exactly that.

Body

Today we will going just a little further in Genesis to genesis 12:10-20. But i will give you some background before we jump in. At the beginning of chapter 12, we can see the call of Abraham. God called him to leave his country of Ur to go to a place he had nothing called Canaan. And through that, God rewarded his obedience. God appeared to him a second time. Abraham responds in worship where he builds an alter to God. And just a fun fact, this was one of five altars that Abraham would build for God. So through seeing all of this, you would think everything is going great. He is obedient, he is within the will of God, and God blesses Abraham, but then something happens. Just like so many of us who start out a great a strong christian life, there will be moments where we begin to stumble, and Abraham is no exception. He continues to make two really dumb decisions. The first is that after finally attaining the promise land, he leaves it. A famine hits the land and rather than having faith and sticking it through, he leaves and heads to Egypt. And then after they get to Egypt, Abraham gets caught in a lie. So lets start reading in verse 11 of chapter 12,

“As he was approaching the border of Egypt, Abram said to his wife, Sarai, “Look, you are a very beautiful woman. 12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife. Let’s kill him; then we can have her!’ 13 So please tell them you are my sister. Then they will spare my life and treat me well because of their interest in you.”

He thought that God had forgotten him.  He was like, “I know God told me to go here and promised to bless me but my needs are not being met here, so I will go somewhere else just temporarily.”  He turned to the world to meet his need instead of God. Food was plentiful in Egypt.  There was no famine there.  He didn’t plan to stay there forever, just until the famine was over. One cannot fault Abram for doing this; after all, he needed water for his large household and his animals, he just wanted to look out for everyone. But there is no sign that he was walking by faith when he went. His custom of building altars ceases, and his deception takes center stage. His plan was probably based on the social customs of the day in which the brother would arrange the marriage of his sister. He may have thought that if someone was attracted to her, that person would have to deal with him, and that would give him time to get away. So he instructed Sarai to say she was his sister in order that things would go well for him. But the one thing he did not count on was Pharaoh—a person who did not need to negotiate. And this is where we will continue reading,

New Living Translation Chapter 12

And sure enough, when Abram arrived in Egypt, everyone noticed Sarai’s beauty. 15 When the palace officials saw her, they sang her praises to Pharaoh, their king, and Sarai was taken into his palace. 16 Then Pharaoh gave Abram many gifts because of her—sheep, goats, cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.

This is where the biggest plot twist comes into play. Not only did they not kill Abraham, he actually became more wealthy because Pharaoh wanted sarah. But through all this wealth, he was now bound to an agreement with Pharaoh because of the lie he had started. And the unfortunate thing for him, he couldn’t stop. He had dug a hole so deep, he couldn’t get out. Here he was in Egypt, without Sarah, and without the blessing that God had set in place for him that he just left behind. And just think about what Abraham did here. He allowed his own wife get taken into the Pharaohs house so that he could save his own life. Lets continue at verse 17,

New Living Translation Chapter 12

17 But the LORD sent terrible plagues upon Pharaoh and his household because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. 18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram and accused him sharply. “What have you done to me?” he demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ and allow me to take her as my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and get out of here!” 20 Pharaoh ordered some of his men to escort them, and he sent Abram out of the country, along with his wife and all his possessions.

This not so little white lie didn’t just hurt him, or his wife, but the people in Pharaohs house became sick. Abraham was supposed to bring blessing to everyone.  Instead, he brought a curse to Pharaoh’s whole household.  Abraham was causing the Pharaoh to commit adultery. And since Abraham wasn’t looking to God in this time of need, God had to intervened. This made the people of the palace to realize that there was something wrong with this addition of Sarah. So that is where we see the moment that Pharaoh speaks up and speaks firmly to Abraham, the restoration of Sarai to Abram came with a rebuke from Pharaoh but on God’s behalf.

A man that was supposed the be such a great example for the world had just made a massive blunder. It was to an extent that another human, not from the same faith corrects Abrahams action. Pharaoh asks, “why didn’t you tell me she was your wife?” Pharaoh was an honourable man and did not condone this behaviour for anyone even for himself. And at this moment, Pharaoh had all right to kill Abraham, but he was gracious and exiled them with all they had. This was an embarrassing moment for Abraham, he knew he messed up. And you would think this was a turning point for Abraham, but it wasn’t. Only a few chapters later, we can see him make another massive blunder, that we wont get into. But what does all of this teach us about Abraham and humans? It shows us that even after we become a believer in God, it doesn’t make us stop sinning. There will still be that pull to sin. Scripture even tells us that if we claim to be sinless, we are liars. In 1 John 1:8 it says,

1 John 1:8 NLT

If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth.

And what we can see with Abraham, even the most mature, and Godly men and women have weaknesses, flaws and faults. I have them, you have them my parents have them and other pastors have them.

But also, what do we learn about God?  We learn that God is faithful, even when man is unfaithful.  He keeps His promises, even when Abraham blew it and did some really stupid things. God still fulfilled the Abrahamic Covenant.  He cursed those who cursed Abraham and blessed those who blessed Abraham.  He could have taken back all of the promises He made to Abraham and sent him back to Ur but He did not do that.  God is bigger than any mistake we make.

Let me tell you this now, just as Abraham did, you can be right in the center of God’s will and experience trials. You can be right where God calls you and still experience hardship in your life. Abraham was in the will of God.  He was in the place where God led him, told him to be and said he would bless him.  He was in the Promised Land and there was a famine, a famine in the Promised Land.  Difficulties and problems are not necessarily an indication that we are out of the will of God. So what can we learn through all of this?

Even in the moments where we are closest with God and feel such a strong connection with him, something can come up in our lives that throws a wrench in that relationship. And it is up to you to choose how you will respond. Will you be like Abraham and take the easy route out or will you persevere? Will you continue to stay in the will of God or will you take matters into your own hands and keep digging yourself a bigger hole?

The choice is yours.

But let me encourage you, there will be times that you will make the wrong choice, that is inevitable. But how you respond after making that choice is what matters. Will you again be like Abraham and not ask for help and find yourself getting deeper and deeper or will you call out to God and ask for him to intervene? Even through Abraham continued to make wrong decisions, God still made him the father of many nations and kept his promise that he would have as many decedents as stars in the sky. God is faithful, even when we are unfaithful