Abraham's Life Journey (3): Hebron and Gerar
Abraham's Life Journey • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Scripture reading: Gen. 17:15-16
Scripture reading: Gen. 17:15-16
And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”
We’ve been studying from book 10 of the history of redemption series, and the title of that book is ‘The Ten Bestowals and Ten Commands in light of God’s administration in the history of redemption.’ And we’re looking in particular at Abraham’s life journey. One thing that could be said is that it’s a journey of discovering the friendship of God. As time goes by and different events happen in his life, Abraham discovers just how good a friend God is. So what are some qualities you look for in a friend? Here are a couple that we’re going to see in today’s study.
A friend keeps their promises
A friend shares their secrets
A friend has your back
A friend tells you what you need to hear
A friend keeps their promises
A friend keeps their promises
We’re continuing from where we left off last week. Abraham’s now 99 years old. He’s living in Hebron with Sarah, Hagar, and their son Ishmael. But God comes to him after 13 years of silence and tells him that Ishmael isn’t it. Rather, Abraham will have a son with Sarah, who’s 90 years old. And what does Abraham do?
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 ninety years old, bear a child?”
I think we all know that feeling of a deep belly laugh that leaves us doubled over and gasping for air. That’s Abraham right now in the face of God.
And then in chapter 18, Abraham encounters what we call a theophany, a physical encounter with God. God doubles down on the promise, and this time Sarah laughs. And then it gets awkward because she’s not supposed to laugh.
But there’s something special this time. God’s not only repeating His promise. He goes one step further and says when it’s going to happen. You know when you happen across an old friend on the street, and you’re like, ‘We should catch up sometime.’ That catchup isn’t going to happen 90% of the time unless you say when. That’s what God is doing here.
The Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him.
Now the English says ‘about this time next year.’ But that’s not what it says in the Hebrew.
The Hebrew literally says ‘I will surely return to you in the time of life.’
The phrase is ca’et haya, and it’s an idiomatic phrase that refers to the season of spring.
And more than that, God uses another keyword in v.14.
Is anything 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.”
The keyword is ‘appointed time’, which is the Hebrew word ‘moed.’ And moed means ‘place of meeting’, but more significantly, it is the word used to describe the religious feasts ordained by God. There were three feasts in total, one in the spring, summer, and fall.
In the summer, they had the feast of harvest.
In the fall, they had the feast of booths.
So what was the feast in the spring? It was the feast of unleavened bread. And the first day of the feast of unleavened bread was also called the Passover. So what this tells us is that Isaac would be born at the moed of the ca’et haya: the feast of the spring season, that is, the day of the Passover.
In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening.
So when was Isaac born? On the 14th day of Nisan the first month.
A friend shares their secrets
A friend shares their secrets
Now God says all this, and then He goes to find a vantage point to checkout the city of Sodom. Abraham escorts Him, and God explains why He chose Abraham.
The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, 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.”
You know that feeling when you’re about to share a secret with you friend, and then you go like, ‘I’m not sure if I should tell you this or not...’ but you’ve already decided in your heart to say it? That’s what God is doing here. And what’s God saying? God’s saying that He will tell Abraham His secret plans. And what’s more, God explains why He chose Abraham. He chose Abraham so that Abraham’s descendants would keep the way of the Lord, the way of righteousness and justice. Jesus also talks about this in the Gospel of John.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
So what is Abraham’s response? Abraham draws nearer to God and intercedes on behalf of the city on account of God’s justice.
Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
Abraham here focuses on God’s character. He says to God, ‘Aren’t You righteous? Do the righteous thing!’ What’s Abraham doing? He sees that God’s about to condemn the entire city because of the wickedness of the many, and he asks if it goes both ways.
Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty 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 that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”
What’s he saying? He’s saying, ‘Could you value the righteousness of the few so much that it covers the wickedness of the many?’ And to his surprise, he discovers that God is so much more willing to save than to condemn. He discovers that God is agreeable to spare the many for the sake of a righteous few.
Abraham’s discovered a key principle: the righteousness of someone else could save an unrighteous person.
And so Abraham whittles down the number from fifty righteous to forty-five, to forty and then finally Abraham says ‘What about ten?’ But he stops there.
Perhaps he was banking on Lot, Lot’s wife, Lot’s two daughters, their fiances, and their fiances’ parents. Perhaps not. Perhaps he wasn’t sure if Lot was righteous enough to cover the whole city. Because that would have been Abraham’s best bet. Do you know a man righteous enough to cover your sins? I do. And this is what He said as He prayed for me and you.
And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
Jesus consecrated Himself because He knew that His righteousness would be ours.
So back to Sodom and Gomorrah. How does this episode end? It ends with God saving Lot because of Abraham.
So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of 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.
God remembered Abraham, and because of that, Lot was saved from the judgement. That is our hope.
For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.
Our hope is that God remembers Abraham and spares us from the judgement. And our hope is that God remembers Jesus, whose righteousness covers our sins. If we hope in Jesus, if we have faith in the righteousness of Jesus, then we are the true descendants of Abraham.
Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.
A friend has your back
A friend has your back
All this happens while Abraham is living at Hebron. And now he moves further south to a region called Gerar.
From there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar.
But here Abraham repeats a mistake from back in Egypt. He says that Sarah is his sister. And Sarah, being a beautiful 89 year old woman, gets taken by Abimelech the king of Gerar. But God steps in and appears to Abimelech in a dream and tells him that Sarah’s married. And Abimelech pleads his innocence before God. Look what he says.
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.”
And what does God say?
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.
God says, ‘It was I who kept you from sinning against me.’ Even though Abimelech is a king, we can relate to him in that we too commit sins against God without knowing. Now do you think God would have intervened if was any other married woman? We don’t know. But what we do know is that God will intervene if the person belongs to Abraham’s household. He’s done it before in Egypt, He’s done it again in Gerar, and He will do it when Satan tries to steal us from the palm of His hand.
And what’s more, Abraham plays the middleman between God and Abimelech.
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 yours.”
Earlier, Abraham interceded for the city of Sodom. That’s the role of the priest. But here, God calls Abraham a prophet. Even though all this has come about because of Abraham’s failure to fear God more than men, God still honors Abraham in front of kings. Make no mistake, he doesn’t deserve this honor at all, but he’s not the one who walked between the animal pieces.
So then Abimelech returns Sarah to Abraham, and gives him some livestock, servants and a thouand pieces of silver as compensation. Abraham then fulfills his role as a prophet and prays for God to heal Abimelech’s household from barrenness.
Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children. For the Lord had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
So Abraham plays the middleman between God and the nations. That’s his role in redemptive history, and the fulfillment of God’s promise in Gen. 12:3.
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.”
A friend says it as it is
A friend says it as it is
After all these events, Abraham is a hundred years old, Sarah is 90, and Isaac is finally born while they are in Gerar. And Sarah says to send Hagar and Ishmael away. Abraham can’t bear the thought, and so he consults God. Now, if you were God, what would you say? I might tell Sarah to suck it up, since all this was her idea anyway. But God doesn’t say that. God tells him to listen to his wife. So Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael away.
Last week we saw that Ishmael represents a narrowmindedness about God. And about two thousand years later, the Apostle Paul writes a letter to the Galatian church, and he talks about Ishmael and Isaac.
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 and one by a free woman.
But the son of the slave was born 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. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.
The covenant at Mt. Sinai was where Moses gave the law. That’s in Exodus 20 and the following chapters. So what’s he saying? He’s saying that there are two kinds of people. There are the Ishmaels, and there are the Isaacs. And the primary difference between the two is the foundation of their relationship with God. What’s a foundation? It’s what keeps your relationship going. And the foundation of our relationships are always different.
You know this from your own experience. The foundation of your relationship with your boss is based on a contract. If you don’t meet your key performance indicators, your KPIs, your relationship isn’t going to be so good.
But KPIs aren’t a thing when it comes to family. At least I hope not. You don’t say to your family, ‘You’ve not done this and this, and you’ve not improved. If this keeps up, I’m going to have to fire you.’
That’s what the Apostle Paul’s saying when he talks about the Ishmaels and the Isaacs. He’s saying that the Ishmaels make their performance – their righteous deeds – the foundation of their relationship with God.
But if the law is the foundation of your relationship with God, if that’s all you have to go on, then he says that’s slavery. It’s slavery to your performance, and God becomes your boss instead of your Father. And depending on whether you sinned or not, you’re either going to feel terrible about yourself or you’re going to feel overbearingly prideful. In other words, if you’re an Ishmael, if the foundation of your relationship is the law, then you’ve built your house on sand.
Now what about the Isaacs?
Now you, brothers, 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. But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
The Isaacs are the ones who make not their performance, but God’s promise, the foundation of their relationship with God. And the Apostle Paul says that that’s what frees us from slavery. Why? Because now it’s not about what you do, but about what God has said. And God proves it to us over and over again that what He has said, He will do. We are freed to enjoy a relationship with God that is as unshakable as God Himself.
That’s what makes God so great. That’s what takes the burden off our shoulders, and frees us to worship God in adoration and thanksgiving. Because God is mighty to save, and faithful to keep His promises even when we’re faithless.
In the words of the theologian Geerhardus Vos,
Legalism lacks the supreme sense of worship. It obeys but it does not adore
And in the words of my favorite anime when I was growing up,
In the ninja world, those who don’t follow the rules are trash, but those who abandon their friends are even worse than trash
That’s the essence of Abraham’s life journey. Abraham’s life journey is about discovering who God is, the kind of relationship God wants, and the promises of God that belong to the descendants of Abraham.
May we trust not in our actions or smartness or determination, but only in the promises of God. And I pray that as Abraham became known as God’s friend, may we also discover the friendship that God offers us.