Father Abraham
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Ever made a bad choice that put you in a tough spot? No need for testimonies, but I’m sure we could all tell stories.
What does a bad choice mean?
Going to the grocery store and forgetting the one ingredient you really needed for dinner?
Forgetting your wallet at home and only realizing it after you’ve ordered and eating your dinner out?
Or choosing to be selfish in a relationship rather than patient, caring, understanding?
Maybe we’ve been at our whits end and just chosen to do something wrong because we didn’t have the conviction or energy to do the right thing?
There are times we might feel like we are just born already being wrong.
Our skills don’t match our goals.
Our learning and training leave us unaware of what we don’t know.
Or what we have learned growing up is how to do all the wrong things, in the wrong way.
Is there no end of ways we can be in the wrong? In the view of our culture, we can’t agree on what IS wrong… or right. No winning there.
In the eyes of God, we can never meet the standard.
As we look at the first part of Abraham’s life - from his introduction to just before Isaac is born - we will be presented with so many people who seem to do the wrong thing. But that’s not the message. This is a message of real redemption. Of God’s mercy to all people.
Pray
A Woman At A Well
A Woman At A Well
I want to start this morning with a story about a woman at the well. She was an outsider, and there was some sexually questionable activity in her recent past. She was discarded by her community, but God came to give her hope and healing. He did ask that she return to her community with a different mindset and message than she had before. God not only brings her a message of hope, but uses her to share that message and impact the world.
Actually, there are two stories. Let’s start with the one in John 4. Jesus was down near Jerusalem in southern Israel, teaching, gathering disciples, and baptizing people. When He gets on the radar of the Pharisees, He moves His ministry back up to Northern Israel to the Sea of Galilee.
To get there, they have to travel through the region of the Samarians. These were a group of Jewish believers who thought they were the rightly keepers of the religion of Yahweh. They mutually excluded each other from contact as much as possible. So what would Jesus do traveling through their territory?
7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
Studying Genesis this week, I was struck by the similarities between this account and the one in Genesis 16. God had just promised to bless Abram and make him a great nation. But Abram was getting old, and had no children.
So instead of trusting God’s plan, he and his wife devise a plan to do God’s work for Him. They give Sarai’s servant to Abram to bear a child by.
Application: They think that because God had given them a promise, they could achieve it any way they wanted. Does the ends justify the means? This is one way we get into bad decisions. When we trust God with the promise but not the process. It’s easy to give God credit. But are we willing to give God control?
Well, they did it their way, and it didn’t work out well. As soon as Hagar is pregnant, she starts giving Sarai the stink eye. Sarai now puts all the blame on Abram, who doesn’t set things right, but turns them loose - “Do whatever you want, Sarai” What is missing in this whole scene? Andy one asking God’s opinion! They did, as we read in the book of Judges, whatever seemed right in their own eyes.
Application: This is another way we mess things up. When we encounter important choices, and we don’t seek God’s direction. SOMETIMES God’s answer will be to do what is before you. Does that align with what is good and Biblical? Then good. SOMETIMES God asks us for the impossible. Will you trust Him? But, we can’t get the right answer if we don’t ask the right question - Lord, what would YOU have me do?
So Sarai sends her pregnant servant out into the wilderness to fend for herself. And here is where we first find the Lord in this passage.
7 The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. 8 And 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.” 9 The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” 10 The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” 11 And 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.
The Lord has plans to deal with our mess! Ishmael was the son of promise, but God promised to make him a nation. Hagar, was mistreated, but wan’t innocent either. God would provide the blessing He intended through her enduring trial.
When we think of the person God chose to select our from the nations to build His own people, we find plenty of bad behavior, lack of trust, and questionable obedience. But God’s purpose wasn’t thwarted by any of it.
Application: We WILL find our selves in troubles of our own making. But we make a true mess when we don’t take God’s gentle corrections.
When we tell someone what we REALLY think - will we respond to that prompting “Was that in love?”.
When we let temptation linger and start to ponder it - will we see the sin as filthy rags or continue to imagine it as desirable?
But how can we hear that voice that called Hagar back home, or calls us to flee temptation? We can only hear it if we are looking for it. I was at a gathering Friday night. It was loud! Everyone was talking and excited to see each other. But when I wanted to have a conversation, I had to focus on them, physically lean in to pick out their voice over all the others.
Hearing God’s voice is the same. If you wait for it to shout louder than everything else, it’s too late. We must physically lean in - that means we have to spend time reading the Bible and in prayer. We have to focus on His voice - that means developing a habit, a desire, to know God’s will. And it means recognizing that God has called us to follow Him, that means He will give us something to follow.
I do love this section of scripture. It has the most occurrences of God Himself interacting with people outside of Jesus. We see again and again, the “Angel of the Lord” or Yahweh being identified as the one speaking. This is God Himself. They are called theophanys. The second person of the trinity walking, speaking, eating, judging, and delivering. Most of them are with Moses. But we see God speaks with Sarai, and Hagar and others. The most transformative of these are the covenants God establishes with Abraham
Covenants
Covenants
On either side of this story of God encountering and encouraging Hagar, God establishes two covenants. They are covenants of multiplication and blessing, and of separation and representation.
1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” 2 But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 4 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.” 5 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.” 6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
God promises to multiply Abram’s descendants. Abram does the math - 0 X all the stars in heaven still equals 0! I’m glad we serve a God who CAN multiply by 0! Abram is called to believe the impossible. He might struggle later, but right then, he believed the Lord! God establishes a covenant of multiplication.
Next week, we’ll see how Abraham’s faith grows. But in that process God reasserts this covenant. And then adds that through these innumerable offspring, or though ONE of them, the whole world will be blessed. It was a covenant of blessing.
Then, after Sarai and Abram choose their own solution and Hagar encounters God (13 years later), God affirms His connection to Abram and His descendants.
1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, 2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” 3 Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, 4 “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. 7 And 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. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.” 9 And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. 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.
This is a covenant of separation and representation.
God has already called Abram out of His land and away from His people. God is now making that call a covenant. What is profound about this covenant is that God promises Abram to be the father of a multitude of nations. But through His son who will be the recipient of this promise, he in only the father on one nation, one people - the Jewish nation. What is happening?
29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
All who place their faith in Christ are Abraham’s children. From every tribe, tongue, and nation - homeless, and rulers. If you have Christ, you have it because of the faith like Abraham’s and the covenant God made with him.
God separated Abraham from the nations. He multiplied that faith through the nations. And He calls us out - separated from this home to another home. We are counted with the stars of heaven.
But this is also a covenant of representation. The sign of circumcision. The other nations all worshiped other gods - spiritual beings of real power but created by God and rebelling from Him. Those nation worshiped the created gods - works of God’s hands - by building alters and idols that would call the god to them to work for them. These idols were metal, stone, and wood - but all works of their hands.
God - who created everything - desires worship in spirit and in truth. That’s what Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:24. With Circumcision, there is a parelel with idols. The item calling for the presence of the deity is not wood carved by man, but man circumcised at God’s command. Later, God would command through Moses that they make not carved image to worship. That’s because WE were created as the image of God. Not that we are an item to be worshiped, but that we would invoke God’s presence.
We represent God in this world. To bring God’s presence as we seek Him, follow Him, and worship Him. And that we would draw others to God.
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
We, as Abraham’s offspring, are the temple of God, the priests of God. That we might be that place where God intermingles with His creation. And be the ones who represent God to a lost world.
The Rest of The Story
The Rest of The Story
As we work our way out from the center of this large text of Genesis, we’ll find additional parings. On either side of the covenants, there is a story of rescue from Sodom. The first by Abram’s strength (14:1-14:24). The second by God’s, with Abraham’s intercession (18:22-29).
Outside that, we have the two instances of Abraham and Sarah deceiving first the Pharaoh of Egypt then a king named Abimelech. In both they claim Sarah is Abraham’s sister (she is is half-sister), the monarch marries her, their household suffers, then when Abraham tells the truth, things are resolved. I am of the opinion that second event actually took place earlier than it’s placement in the text. But it was placed there to function to enforce the mercy of God and the focus of this passage.
Finally, on the very outside of this section, we have first Abraham entering the Land God would show him and Isaac entering the world as the promise God would fulfill. That puts the focus of Abraham’s early life - his struggles, sins, intermittent faith, and his walk with God not on Abraham, but on this lowly servant Hagar - the outcast woman at the well.
She receives a promise meant for someone else. She is protected from the wilderness by God’s mercy, not once, but as we’ll see next week, twice. She is visited by God who cares for her, is tender with her, but calls her to truth. God has listened to her affliction.
Hagar is the image of one who is outside the covenant, but inside God’s promise and protection. So what do we do when we are afflicted - by our own bad choices or by others or by the general brokenness of this world? How do we respond to sin against us? How do we respond to the pain of disease and loss?
Let’s see how the two women responded.
13 So 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.”
The first thing we can do in those troubled times is acknowledge the Lord’s presence and character. God DOES love you, and cares for you. First see and acknowledge Him.
Returning now to the Samaritan woman, her response is helpful too.
28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”
She acknowledged Jesus too, but then she took action because of what He said. If we hear Jesus’ words for us, and do not do them, Jesus tells us that we we are building a house on unstable sand - maybe a multi-million dollar house on a cliff in Malibu, CA. But when we DO what He tells us, there is certainty there.
John goes on to tell us that many people believed Jesus because she had brought His message to them and then they came to hear themselves. We can be in whatever situation sin and stupid lead us to, but there is nothing God can’t multiply by 0 and get redemption. That was the case for Abraham and Sarah. It was the case for Hagar and the Samaritan woman. And it’s the case for you.
All it takes is a little faith.
Pray