God’s Faithfulness

Genesis 24:1-67

Every person can see God’s faithfulness by looking at the evidences in this passage.

Introduction:

When Jesus spoke with his disciples about God he would use the word Father. It is the opening phrase of the Lord’s Prayer. I have heard people say that many of the terms used by Jesus were terms that would be the equivalent to daddy. Jesus had a close and intimate relationship with God.

In the ideal world this would be a beautiful picture of what it means to have a relationship with God. Maybe if we can move ourselves to a place where we are thinking in ideals rather than reality it would be possible. Many dads in our world are absentee dads. They don’t have any contact with their children or they don’t even know who their children are. Some dads are abusive. There are many ways that we can see the shortcomings of fathers.

This was still the way that Jesus described God. Perhaps we need to look at evidences such as are demonstrated in this passage and accept those as who God really is rather than rely on images that human’s might have created.

Today we will look at God’s faithfulness in the life of Abraham and see evidences of that faithfulness demonstrated.

Evidence I. Blessing for Abraham

A. Abraham seems to be the kind of man that faithfulness follows him everywhere that he goes. Even in the opening verse of this passage we are told that, “Abraham was now old and well advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed him in every way.” God had continuously spoken to Abraham and demonstrated his blessings for Abraham. Even when Abraham was 100 years old God gave him the son he had promised. Now we are told that Abraham was well advanced in years. I can’t imagine what he was when he was expected Isaac. I would guess that this is an indication that Abraham is close to death. The dilemma that Abraham is faced with is he does not want his son to have a wife from Canaan where he is living. So he sends a servant to his homeland to find a wife. “‘To your offspring I will give this land’— he will send his angel before you so that you can get a wife for my son from there.”

B. It seems that Abraham wanted to preserve his heritage. So he sent this servant to find a wife for his son. Part of the reason for this was the promise that God had given to him. It was not a land that was just for Abraham, but it was a promise that had been made to Abraham and his offspring. For many generations God would bless Abraham by giving him this land. The land that Abraham had inherited would belong to him and to his children; even now thousands of years later, the Jews, Christians and Muslims refer to Abraham as their father. Israel was his land and it has stayed a part of the family.

C. In v. 34 the servant even tells those he is addressing that God has blessed his master. Then he goes on to describe the wealth he has accumulated. He talks to them about the son Abraham had in his old age, this of course was the reason for the trip. Then he expresses Abraham’s desire to have a wife for his son from his father’s family.

D. Abraham stayed close to God and God made sure that Abraham was taken care of. I don’t think that everything Abraham went through was easy. He did experience the blessings of God during his lifetime. He was able to see God do some amazing things. God gave him a child at an advanced age. He was received land. His son’s life was rescued from the jaws of death. God repeatedly provided for Abraham. At this point in his life he was a wealthy man with everything he needed and much more.

E. I think we miss out on God’s blessings many times because we don’t know God’s promises. Abraham might have missed out on some of the blessings God had for him, if he would have never seen some of the blessings God offered to him.

Evidence II. Servant’s prayer answered

A. It is great to see the amount of faith that these people have. Throughout the life of Abraham we see the faithfulness of God being revealed over and over again. This had to have some impact on Abraham and his servant. In v. 7 Abraham seems very confident that God will give success to the servant. So, the servant sets out to find a wife for Isaac and in v. 12 he prays that God would bring the right woman to him. He sets us a simply test so that he will be able to identify this woman. He asks that God would identify this woman by having her be the one to offer to help the servant and even more. As the women are coming out the servant will ask the women for help in getting some water. The woman will offer to get him some water and offer to water his camels as well.

B. In v. 15 it says that before he had finished praying, Rebekah came. He recognized this as possibly the answer to his prayer so he hurried to Rebekah and asked her for a drink. She responded just as the servant had prayed. She gave him some water and she offered to water his camels as well. This was confirmation that this was the woman that God had sent for Isaac to marry.

C. Both Abraham and his servant see God’s faithfulness in answering prayers. So does Rebekah’s family. In v. 50 as the servant relays the story to the family Laban and Bethuel say, “This is from the Lord; we can say nothing to you one way or the other.” They realized just as the servant had that this was the work of God. This was a work that had begun with Abraham many years earlier. We see that God follows through and Rebekah continues with the servant to go to Abraham and Isaac.

D. Probably most of us would not consider a servant to be one of the most brilliant or connected people in the world. Here we have a servant of Abraham who is able to ask God for something and see an answer to that prayer almost immediately. He was a man who acted in good faith and he was able to see God do something really amazing.

E. We need to realize that this came to Abraham after many years of faithful prayer. I would assume that the servant had experienced something similar. For us to assume that we might be able to experience similar results without the same amount of preparation would be deceiving. God had done a lot of work on Abraham and his servant, perhaps this is work he has not had time to do with us yet. That power and faithfulness can be ours still.

Evidence III. Right connections

A. I found out last week that my cousin’s husband used to work with the man who is my boss at Dean Transportation. They were in the same area of a school that they worked in. This while the two of them were working in the Jackson area. It seems a little unusual and exciting when you are able to make connections like that. Abraham had sent his servant to find a wife for his son. The woman was to come from Abraham’s family and not from the Canaanites where he lived at the time. The servant went and prayed and found Rebekah. In v. 15 we are told that Rebekah was, “the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah, who was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor.” This man was traveling blind through this country. I don’t know that he had any knowledge of who Abraham’s family was. When he arrives in that town he prays. God sends the answer in the form of a distant relative.

B. It would seem to me that this was something that God had arranged. Abraham had prayed and the servant had prayed, but God had arranged this meeting. This was the woman he had designated for Isaac. All of the best laid plans of Abraham and his servant could not have created such an amazing match.

C. In v. 4 Abraham requests that the servant would get a wife for Isaac from “my own country and my own relatives.” This was the request that Abraham had made. He probably felt that God was leading him in that direction and he probably had prayed that God would grant success in this venture. Not only is he granting success, but this woman that the servant meets is the granddaughter of Abraham’s brother. So she would be something like a great niece. This is not just success, but this is great success. I would like to know what the statistical chances of this happening would have been. If this was just a matter of chance what would the odds have been that the servant would have met this girl? Maybe one in one hundred or one in one thousand. It was no doubt a wonderful answer to the prayers of the servant and to Abraham. I do not believe this was a mere coincidence, but I believe this was a divine appointment. God had arranged this meeting.

D. This was more than an answer to prayer. This was a part of God’s divine plan. We could go back and look at the promise that God had made to Abraham. This promise is what motivated Abraham. This is why God allowed things to work out the way that they did. I believe that just because we pray we believe that we will get what we want. There might be times when God sees that what we want is not what is best for us. So, he might tell us no. This does not make God any less faithful. He still takes care of us.

E. There might be times in your life when you have felt that God has made a mistake in allowing you to be in a situation. It might just be that God has arranged this for you. Our speaker at conference was told that the church he was interviewing for was “The worst church on earth.” This was by the selection committee of the church. Yet he felt this is where God wanted him to go. Do not avoid something because it is uncomfortable. Be sensitive to the divine appointments that God makes for you. These might be inconvenient, but I believe we need to treat each meeting with the idea that this might be something that God has arranged.

Conclusion:

God has made promises to Abraham that he kept. Abraham also had to make sure that he was abiding by the things God had told him to do. This is the same God that we have today. He has not changed. This same God keeps his promises to us as well, and he wants us to living accord the stipulations he has given us.