Abraham and Sarah

Connection/Tension

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Continuing new series called Once Upon a Marriage. We are looking at some OT couples and letting their marriages speak into our lives. Today we are going to look at the story of Abram and Sarai, or who would later be renamed Abraham and Sarah.

For those of you not yet married, if you do get marriage one day, what do you want out of your marriage? Or for those of you already married, if you could rewind back to your pre-marriage days, what did you think it would be like? Chances are your story went something like this:

You were massively in love with this other person. You had a bad case of the “tingles” when you were with them, and you wanted to marry them. And you assumed that the “tingles” would follow you all the way through your perfect marriage. You’d have the perfect home with the white picket fence. You’d have a couple of kids - one of each. You’d have a dog and NOT a cat. You would have this great career. You’d get to travel some. And you’d grow old together with the “tingles” following you all the way through your marriage.

If you were to fast-forward from the pre-marriage point - 5 years, 10 years, 35 years - and someone was to ask you what you wanted out of your marriage, you might be like many people and say, “we’re just trying to stay married”. We’re just trying to pay the bills and keep the kids out of jail. It’s interesting that so often our expectations don’t line up with reality. And sometimes, midway into a marriage or relationship you end up saying “this isn’t anything like I thought it would be”. Sometimes it's better, sometimes it's worse, but rarely is it like you expected.

I think back to when my relationship with Julie started. For her it started in second grade when she crushed on me when we were playing at a mutual friend’s house. But in high school I started pursuing her. The problem is that she played hard to get. I asked her if she would go steady with me, but she put a future date on her answer. It was football season of my 10th grade year, and she told me she would give me an answer after the next football game was over. It was all I could think about. The night of the game came and I played the WORST football game I ever played. But when it was over, she said “yes”. And we became mostly inseparable after that. Kevin with arms around Julie

We quickly knew we wanted to get married. So we got married while still in college. Here’s us on our wedding day. 80’s hair and tux with tails. We knew we wanted four kids, but we were both going to work a while and get financially established and enjoy being young with money. But then - I’m not sure what happened but I have a pretty good idea - Julie got pregnant while in the middle of her student teaching! How could she let this happen?! I think it was because we washed our underwear together. Not what I was planning! And we had agreed when we got married that it was a high priority for both of us for her to be a stay-at-home mom. All the sudden, my dreams of financial security and having fun were over! We wanted four kids. I wanted two of each. First came Ethan, followed by Katie. So far so good. Ideally I wanted a boy next, but Mollie was number three. But I thought, that’s fine, we’ll have a boy for number 4. And then came another girl, Emilie. [Kids pic] And all the sudden, nothing was like I had planned it. As I look back, things were actually way better, but very different than what I had planned.

Many of you right now, you are going to look at your life and think, this is nothing like I had planned. Some of you may be thinking, by this time I thought I would be married. Some of you are going to say, I am married and I thought my marriage would be much different. If you look at your life and you are thinking this is much, much different than I had planned; I believe that this story about Abraham and Sarah will speak to you in a really profound way.

Text and Context

Genesis, Chapter 12; we will start in verse 1-2, when God speaks to Abram and says this:

Genesis 12:1–2 “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. [*] 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.”

* - And then God makes this phenomenal promise to Abraham, He says:

God says “leave everything that makes you comfortable and go to this place you’ve never heard of”. God speaks to you to do something, but you’re going to have to go by faith and follow me when I call you into the unknown zone. You are going to have to leave the things that are most comfortable to you and follow me by faith, into the blessings. If you look into the New Testament, in Hebrews, we see that Abraham was characterized by his faith.

Hebrews 11:8 “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.”

By faith he followed the voice of God. You can only imagine how that conversation went with Sarah: “So, I’ve been out talking to God, and he has told us to move.” And she’s like, “Oh, really, because he hasn’t said anything to me. Where are we going?” And Abraham is like, “I don’t have a clue.” And Sarah is like, “You got that right.” And I’m sure at this point Sarah is filled with all kinds of peace - not. But she goes because she believed that her husband was a man of faith, and so they pack it all up, leave everything they knew, and by faith just ventured out.

God will often call you into the life of blessing, but the only road there is the faith road. I don’t know how you respond to those moments, but I’m usually saying; God before I go, I want some details. My experience, however, is that God does not give details! For one, if I knew the details and what would be involved, I probably wouldn’t obey. But beyond that, God doesn’t ask for much of us, but he does ask for faith. Details are not faith.

So, Abraham and Sarah get this promise, to be a great nation. In other words, you are going to have lots of kids, and lots of grand kids. You are going to be massively blessed with children and descendants. But first, you have to go. What is really interesting to me and ministers to me about their story, is if you look at their marriage in the New Testament, they are characterized by being a couple of faith. But, if you look at their life as it is lived out in the OT, you are going to find that they didn't always have faith. In fact, we are going to first see Abraham mess up and falter in his faith. Then we are going to see Sarah mess up and falter in her faith. Then we are going to watch as they both together mess up and falter in their faith.

But the good news is, that even when they were faithless, God was always faithful; and the same will be true in our lives as we get to know the goodness and faithfulness of God. What typically happens when life doesn't go as planned? Rather than being strengthened in our faith, many of us falter in our faith. We don't want to do it, but that is what they did and that is what we can do if we are not careful. Let's look at three things in their marriage that happened when life didn't go as planned.

1. We can fall victim to fear.

That is what Abram did when there was a famine in the land. Basically, the economy tanked and so he moved his family to Egypt, but he made some sinful decisions based out of fear.

Genesis 12:11–13 “When [Abraham] was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sara[h], “I know well that you are a woman beautiful in appearance; and when the Egyptians 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 [i.e. lie for me], so that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared on your account.”

Back then, when you moved into a kings territory, if the king liked what he saw, he would just kill you and take it. Abraham was afraid that the king would kill him because Sarah was so beautiful. So he told her, “say you are my sister” which was a half-truth because she was a half-sister to him which is gross and a whole other issue.

What's interesting about this story though, is that God had promised Abraham, you're going to have kids, which according to my biology class takes a living man and a living woman. All of a sudden he is afraid he is going to die, which tells us that at that moment he was doubting the promise of God. By fear, he made a sinful decision and said let's lie, because I really don't trust God to do what He said He was going to do.

Sadly, this happening all of the time today. We get afraid and are taken off the track of the blessings of God by fear. For example, people today are postponing marriage more than ever, or not entering into the blessings of a godly marriage because they are afraid. What if he cheats? What if she nags? What if we get divorced? What if we can't have kids. Rather than living by faith, suddenly we are living by fear.

You can see this in the lives of people who are married too. God is calling us to tithe, but what if we struggle financially, so we don't obey. God is calling us to be generous, but what if we lose our job? Or God is calling one of us to stay at home to raise our kids, but what if we can't make it financially? Or God is calling us to start a new business, or a new ministry, or whatever, but what if....what if....what if; and instead of building one another in our marriages with mutual and increasing faith, so often we tear each other down with mutual and increasing fear, what if? What if....what if? We talk ourselves out of being obedient to God.

Early in our marriage we became convicted that we needed to establish a habit of tithing. And I grew up in a household where my father tithed, not on the net amount of the check, but on the gross. That was the pattern I learned. So after much inner wrestling - me more than her - we commit to tithe. And then we had a major mechanical issue with our only car - my 1984 Mercury Cougar. It was going to cost something like $500 to fix. By God’s grace we had been given that money recently as a graduation gift. I planned on spending it on something fun. And I can remember sitting at the table staring at my open checkbook, wrestling with “Do I do what I committed to do and write this tithe check?”. I don’t remember an exact conversation with Julie about it - if we had one I know her answer would have been “God will take care of us” bc that’s been her answer for 35 years. And so I knuckled down and wrote the check. And it’s become the habit for the rest of our marriage. And God has never one time in 35 years made me regret that decision. I am convinced that there are many people that God has spoken to, God has prompted you but out of fear you are not obeying the direction of God. In marriages, there is so much fear talk; what if....what if....and what if....what if....what if, and we tear ourselves down rather than saying, “God has spoken, God is leading us”, and speaking faith to one another that leads to obeying the promptings of God.

Abraham panicked. God had already given him a promise, I am going to give you kids. He's like, they are going to kill me! He stopped believing the promise and gave in to fear. We can fall victim to fear. Then the second thing when life doesn’t’ go as planned...

2. We get ahead of God.

First, Abraham messes up, and now it’s Sarah’s turn.

Genesis 16:1–2 “Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children. [*] She had an Egyptian slave-girl whose name was Hagar, and Sarai said to Abram, “You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave-girl; [**] it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.”

* - God, you told us we are going to have kids, but we are not having kids. You are taking way too long, God. I'm tired of waiting on you so I am going to make it happen.

** - Pause there. Some guys will be thinking, Wow! She just told me to go sleep with someone else, that’s awesome!. That is not awesome, for so many reasons. If you think about it, her name was Hagar! That just couldn't be good! I'm picturing steroids, weight lifter, hair under the arms; Hagar. I'm just saying...

“Maybe I will get children through her.” What did she not say? She didn't say, “God can do this, God can bring about his promises, or we can do this (whatever God led us to do)”. Instead, it’s “I will take control and make this happen”. God is not doing it, therefore I will get ahead of God and force it. If you read the whole story, Abraham gave in, and he got with Hagar and she gave him a son. It nasty, I mean like cat fight, jealousy, and years and years of trouble because they tried to force something before it was God's will.

This happens all of the time. Hopefully not having two wives, but something like it. FOMO. There’s a young Christian girl and all of her friends are getting married and there's nobody there and so she's got some guy who is not a Christian, and instead of waiting on God's best, she compromises and settles for a guy with a pulse. She gets ahead of God and compromises. Or, I’ve seen this so many times, a young couples just starting out see how their parent’s are living in their 50’s, and they in their 20’s want to live that way too. And instead of waiting and managing money wisely like God's Word says, they go out and put a financial noose around their neck getting into debt trying to accumulate all of these blessings before the right time - and then spend the next 20 years strangling themselves because they got ahead of God. The list could go on and on. Someone doesn't like their job and they panic, I hate my boss! So, instead of waiting on God to provide a job, they quit and nine months later they are unemployed, wondering why they can't pay the bills, because they forced it. They panicked, they got ahead of God, which is so common and so dangerous. God, you’re not doing it, so I will.

Here's what we have to remember. God is rarely early, but He is never late. He is the God of perfect timing. So often we panic. Where is God? What is he doing? Why isn’t this happening? So we feel like we've got to do something to force it. But waiting on God is not the same as being passive. Waiting on God is active, faith-filled living. It's being faithful to do what we know we are supposed to do until he reveals the next detail of his plan. We serve God, believing that what He said will come to pass. Even when we are faithless, He is always faithful.

Sarah panics, it's not coming down the way she wants, so she gets ahead of God. When life doesn’t go as we planned, we start making decisions based on fear, and we get ahead of God. And finally, when life doesn’t go as planned...

3. We don’t believe God will do it for us.

He may do it for someone else, he may answer your prayers, he may do a miracle in your life, but I just don't think he's going to do it in my life. And quite honestly, I can understand why Abraham and Sarah would feel this way. Because the verses we are going to look at next are about 25 years after the original promise. Think about it; God says you’re going to have kids. They assume it will be soon-ish and start decorating the nursery. A year in they are going; oh, thought it would be by now, but it's not. Another year or two go by and it's like, maybe we should go to the doctor and get checked out. Why is this not happening? And then time just keeps passing with nothing happening, and all of a sudden you begin to lose your faith.

It's interesting how Abraham and Sarah both react when God comes to them again almost 25 years later and says now very specifically, I am going to give you a son.

Genesis 17:17 “Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?”

Like, this is WAY before the invention of Viagra and I'm an old man! Things don't work like they used to God! He's like, are you kidding me? I would have believed this awhile back, but God I'm just not seeing in now! Interestingly, Sarah responded the exact same way. She overheard God talking to Abraham:

Genesis 18:12 “So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?”

She's being kinda sarcastic, rolling her eyes, “yeah, right”. But listen to what God says:

Genesis 18:14 “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”

I can't prove this, but I believe at that moment there was something that shifted in their faith. Is anything too hard for the Lord? Oh yeah, you are the God who says all things are possible! And at that moment, all of their unbelief, all of their machinations to make things happen, must have gone. Okay, we are going to take God at His word.

I don’t know what your specific situation is, but this is your word for today. You may still be waiting for marriage and feel like it’s too late and that no one is out there. That is such a difficult place to be, but hold to your faith, because nothing is too hard for God. Maybe you want children but haven’t been able to conceive. I know that must be painful. But don’t lose faith, because nothing is too hard for God? There are those who may be in a financial mess. It feels like you will never climb out of it. Is anything is too hard for the Lord? Some might be thinking our kids have rejected God. Do you really not think that the Hound of Heaven isn’t pursuing the one you love and can bring them to a point of total submission to God? Is anything too hard for the Lord?

For those of you who are married, if you are honest, you may be saying it’s not where it should be. If there's one piece of common advice woven through this whole series, it is this: Change the orbit of your relationship. Maybe your marriage has been orbiting around your kids, or around your careers, or around what you want to get out of it. Instead, invite God into the center of your marriage. Let your marriage begin to orbit around him. That's the whole idea summarized in one sentence. Just invite Him in. Don’t play the church game, going to church to check a box and get on with your life. Do not insult God like that. Don't play Christian. Invite God in. Take your spouse’s hand and just say, God we've been distracted or we are not where we want to be, and we invite you to be the Lord of our marriage. And then buckle up and see what God can do! If he has done it for others, he can do it for you.

Gospel/Response

When life doesn't turn out as you plan, especially when life doesn't turn out as you plan, you embrace Him! You don't need all of the things you want...you need Him, and He alone will be enough. And whenever your faith starts faltering, as it's so easy to do, you hang on to Him. The good news is, even if you are faithless right now, Abraham and Sarah were faithless, I've been faithless. But, in the last season of your life, you can be characterized as they were by being faithful. Even though they messed up again and again, here's how the New Testament describes Abraham.

Romans 4:19–21 “[Abraham] did not weaken in faith [*] when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. [**] No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”

* - Something happened, there was a transformation in Abraham’s thinking

** - Abraham considered the facts. He’s old, Sarah is infertile. But there is a profound difference between fact and truth. Facts can change, truth never changes. The fact was his body was dead. The truth was God gave a promise. Truth trumps facts. I’m preaching to myself a little here.

When life doesn’t go as planned, don’t waver in your faith! Be strengthened in your faith. But even if you do falter, here's the great news: when you are faithless, He is still faithful. Invite Him to be the Lord of every area of your life. Especially your marriage and watch as He leads you, maybe out of your comfort zone, but into the place of blessings. It may not be in your timing, but He is never late.

Pray for marriages to be strengthened in faith...

Pray for those who are faltering in their faith...

There may be some of you that you don't really know where you stand with God right now. Have I been good enough? Have I done too many bad things? Am I really right with God? If that is you, I want you to listen to this. It says in the NT that Abraham believe God and it was credited to him as righteousness. His trust, his faith was credited to him as righteousness. He was made right with God, not because of religious works he did, but because of his faith. If you have been trying to be right with God and thinking you need to do something good to get him to like you, let me just tell you right now, you will never succeed. It is completely by God’s grace that we are saved, not by our good works. It is only by faith and the perfect work of God through His son, Jesus; because God loved us so much that He sent His sinless son, to take our sin on the cross as our substitute. He stood in our place and took the death consequences of our sin. Jesus died and He rose again, and now anyone, and that includes you, who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. If there are those of you here and you've tried to be a good person, tried to stop being a bad person and maybe you've done some religious things, but you don't know where you stand. Today, call on the name of Jesus and by faith you will be saved. By faith you will be forgiven, by faith you will be filled with the Spirit of God. You are listening to this today because God ordained for you to be here to be saved by grace through faith. (next steps slide)

I invite you to pray this today: Heavenly Father, save me from my sins, make me brand new. My life is no longer my own, I give it to you. As you sent Jesus for me, I give my whole life to you. Fill me with your Holy Spirit, so I could serve you. Give me faith to follow you always. Thank you for new life, now I give you all of mine. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.