The God who loves long odds

Intro

Right, that’s it! The entire back three rows will remain after class for detention. I don’t know who the ring leader is but I know all of the disruption today has come from that area! No, you don’t need to whine about fairness or you’ll be coming back every afternoon this week!

If this has brought up traumatic memories of your school days I appologise. When it happened to me I remember thinking, this is so unfair! I wasn’t the one talking. I was doing my work. Why am I in trouble? Just because I’m near a naughty kid doesn’t mean I was actually being naughty.

Looking back I wonder if my teachers were leaning on the saying bad company corrupts good morals. Maybe they were betting that disruption spreads, influences everyone around it - a bit like Bart Simpson’s grades.

But what about the opposite though?

FCF:

Is it possible for good people to influence a bad bunch? How many people would it take? What’s the ratio, the odds that you need?

If you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, you’ll know that Jesus calls us to immitate him - and his way of life goes against the grain. But we may at times have found ourselves asking - what’s the point? If as we saw last time in Genesis, I’m accepted by his promise, not my performance, why stick your neck out?

Will me opting out of my toxic office culture really change anything? If I decide not to join in the office gossip, will it make any difference at all?

What difference will it really make if I’m the only one on my footy team that doesn’t swear like a trooper and slag off the umpire? Is that really going to help anything? Or will it just get me singled out? Maybe even exploited?

These are the questions we encounter in Genesis 18. Questions of influence.

And as we look at the story of Abraham once again, we’ll see God encouraging us not to underestimate the impact of any decision to trust him.

We’ll see that God loves to work through us, even the small guestures because he’s a God who can’t resist long odds.

God can’t resist long odds, so bet on his kindness

show

So we pick up the story of Abraham here in chapter 18 with this random story of an ancient BBQ.

Abraham just sees 3 strangers coming towards him in the heat of the day. And he begs them to stay, he makes them a meal, he says hey put your feet up, mi casa su casa.

It might seem a bit strange to us, but this is classic Ancient Near Eastern example of hospitality to strangers. It was just the done thing.

A bit like country people in Australia. If you’re a country person and you’re driving and you’re about to pass someone you raise a finger. Just what you do.

And offering hospitality to strangers was just what you did back then. Except that he’s going waaaayy above and beyond what was expected. It’s the equivalent of an Aussie lifting the whole hand off the wheel and waving all 5 fingers! Unheard of!

He throws an absolute feast. He kills the fattened calf, he prepares milk and curds, and he has Sarah make flat bread. This is after running out in the heat of the day. Bowing down to them.

Ancient patriachs didn’t run. Ancient people unless you were a king, didn’t eat meat very day. They didn’t eat meat every week. This is a really expensive, generous, over the top display of kindness to strangers.

Something has changed for him. Just two chapters ago he was treating Hagar - someone who lived in his own household as if they were a household appliance. Now he’s splashing out for randoms.

explain

What happened? God went all in. If you’ve just joind us, or you need a reminder, the last thing we heard of Abraham was God promising a new relationship, a closeness, and intimacy with Abraham and his family. God had said ‘I’ll be God to you and your family’ so ‘give me your whole heart’.

And Abraham did!

And now, Abraham is generous. He’s kind. He’s displaying the same kindness that God had shown him.

This is a picture of what a relationship with God does. It changes people. It makes them more like him.

Soon, we discover that this is no ordinary BBQ. Among the 3 strangers is God himself. And as God is chatting with Abraham, reconfirming his promise of children, this time Sarah is eavesdropping. You can imagine her cocking her ear, standing next to the canvas.

It’s always a risky thing to eavesdrop isn’t it. You might hear something that shocks you. Something like, you’re pregnant.

Sarah laughs out loud at the thought of having a child in her old age. ‘shall I have such a pleasure’? How does God answer?

“Is anything too wonderful for the LORD”?

It’s not a question of can God do it. But would he? Would he really be so kind?

Abraham seems to be betting yes. I can serve Wagyu to these random guys, God’s not stingy. He’ll look after me.

Sarah's not so sure. Shall I have such pleasure?

Will God be kind? Will he give me life? What kind of a God is he? Does he enjoy finding fault? Is he the kind of God that is harsh, quick tempered, hand always drifting towards the ‘smite’ button?

‘I didn’t laugh’ she said, because she was afraid. Which shows that she didn’t yet know God.

Illustration - someone else who wasn’t sure God was kind? Martin Luther? Augustine?

Martin Luther thought he knew exactly what God was like. He thought he knew exactly what God expected of him and in his tireless, obsessive, even crazed efforts to please God, he came to the point of hating him. Luther famously used to spend up to 8 hours a day confessing his sins to the head of his monastery. Imagin how the guy felt. Oh no, not Martin again. What is it this time.

He picked over and over his sins, endlessly trying to clear himself of any thing he might have done wrong but he could never find peace.

He said “though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction.”

Luther thought that God was a relentless nitpicker. A bloodthirsty tyrant just looking for an excuse to give him the flick. And because Luther thought that he said, “I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners”

Application

What these three guys at a BBQ, who turn out to be God himself and two angels, are showing us is that God’s character is kind. Is anything too wonderful for him?

How we answer that will determine the course of our lives. If the answer is ‘yes, some things are too wonderful for him’? He’s not the kind of God that would be generous, that would be kind, then how could we possibly trust him? We may try and avoid angering him, but we won’t give ourselves to him.

But what if he’s the kind of God that loves to give good things?

What if Abraham’s feast is just a pale shadow of the feast we celebrate at communion? What if the most fundamental thing we know about God is his loving kindness to us? When you receive the bread, I often say to you ‘eat this in rememberance that Christ died for you, and be thankful’. That is God’s invitation for you to bet on his kindness.

It’s true, that God does call us to walk his way. It’s true that we all fail. But if you’re feeling like a bit of long shot, if you feel anything like Sarah - afraid, or Luther, exposed, God is inviting you to come and feast at his table of grace.

God can’t resist long odds, so bet on his kindness.

transition

But the point of his kindness and mercy, is mission.

As we see in the next section.

God can’t resist long odds, so bet on his mission

state

Some of us may have no trouble believing that God is generous. It’s not a hard thing for us to image that God would be kind. Perhaps we’ve grown up being told that God is always there for you. He’s always got your back. Perhaps Jeremiah 29:11 is your life verse

Jeremiah 29:11 NRSV

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

Some of you might even have that hanging on the wall at home.

Whatever the case, the point of God’s mercy is mission.

The reason why God chose Abraham and Sarah, the reason why in Christ he chooses us, is for mission.

show

Genesis 18:17–19 NRSV

The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? No, for I have chosen him, that he may charge 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 about for Abraham what he has promised him.”

explain

At this point, Abraham and Sarah have heard multiple times that God is going to give them a child. We’ve seen in Genesis repeated assurances that those who bless Abraham really do find themselves blessed, and those who curse him really do find themselves cursed. When God says something will happen - it will happen.

Is anything too wonderful for God? No.

Ok, so when Abraham and his family are called to ‘keep the way of YHWH by doing righteousness and justice’, they should be going, sure. Of course I’ll trust you, God you’re kind.

But God goes further. God doesn’t hide his strategy from his covenant partners. God promised to be God to Abraham and his family. And so God says, here’s the point of all this: immitate me, keep my ways by doing righteousness and justice and you will see all nations come and find blessing.

This is how all nations will be blessed.

Does the way I live really make any difference?

If God is kind, and gracious, if he welcomes me into his family as a gift, what is the point of living differently?

From the very earliest days of the church people have asked this question: if God is gracious and kind, why does it matter how I live?

And if living his way goes against the grain - as we’ll see next time we look at Genesis, why risk it? There’s a lot we could say on that, but the answer God gives to Abraham and Sarah here is this:

when God’s people live God’s way, he’s willing to bet that all types of people will come and say ‘I wan’t that’.

It’ll be attracitve. More than that, God promises he’ll use our immitation of him to draw people in.

He’s urging us, take the bet.

He’s urging us, take the bet. Go on, see what will happen when you live my way. See what will happen when you immitate my righteousness, my generosity as Abraham did.

As our NT reading says, you might find yourself hosting angels at your next BBQ.

illustrate

In his book ‘How to talk about Jesus without being that guy’ Sam Chan tells this story about what happened one day when he was out watering his front lawn. He was there about 5pm, holidng a hose when he noticed that every other bloke in the street was doing the same thing. Suddenly, one of them ran inside and came back out with a six-pack of beer to share with the other blokes. And they all started chatting. After a while, their wives came out to investigate what was taking so long. When they saw the beer, they went inside and came back out with a bottle of wine. After some more time, the kids came out and started to beg for food. So Sam ordered some pizza and invited the neighbours and their children to keep hanging out in his backyard and living room after dinner. They got talking, and kept talking, and it got dark, and they kept talking. And as they talked, the started discussing deeper and deeper things. The relationships that started at the point of a raise of the finger moved to the level of sharing hopes and dreams for the future, and talkining about the point of life,

Sam’s openess to a bit of generosity meant that the conversations moved from front yard to backyard conversations - They get the relationship closer to engaging at the level of what matters most to people, which is where the gospel sits - the gospel about God and his kindness to human beings, his desire for relationship, his grace.

Sam went on to talk about how he’s seen God use even small act of generosity, and welcome, to draw people in to actually want to discuss Jesus.

apply

Hospitality and kindness like this is costly. It costs time, effort and money. It costs us mental energy to come up with creative ways to do it. Not all of us can just drop everything and have the entire street over for pizza. Maybe we still live with our parents. Maybe we just don’t have the space.

I talked at the start about what might happen if we opt out of a toxic work culture. Here’s an idea, instead of just opting out of some negative behaviour, gossip or something like that, instead of opting out like Sarah or Martin Luther would’ve done before they knew God’s kindness, what would happen if you bought everyone a round of coffee?

Or maybe betting on God’s mission might look like baking a cake for someone. Or turning up to their house with pizza. Whatever it is, God longs to use it.

And although it might not seem like much, God can’t resist long odds, he wants to use our immitation of him, our ‘walking in his righteousness and justice’ to call others into his family.

Go on, bet on his mission see what happens.

transition

But what if you have the neighbours from hell?

God can’t resist long odds, so bet on his mercy

State

There's always a danger that when we hear God saying, do justice and righteousness, we will think it means judging those who disagree with us. We've seen this in our culture recently. People care about justice - left and right have different definitions but both care about it deeply. And because there’s this deep sense that it matters, people are willing to call out anyone who seems to be getting in the way. Both sides value victory, neither appears to value mercy.

But look at Abraham.

In verses 22-33. Abraham hears that the angels are on their way to Sodom because their injustice stinks to high heaven. We’ll get to what exactly their in justice is in a couple of weeks. But look at what Abraham says in verse 25

Show:

Genesis 18:25 NRSV

Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous 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?”

And then he asks God to smite the evil doers?

No, he asks for mercy! He asks God to bear with the city that becomes a byword for injustice because of the righteous people in it. Even if there are only a handful.

Explain

At one level, he's likely worried about his relative Lot.

But at another, he's displaying God's own character.

This is not Abraham twisting God's arm. It's not God desperate to hit the 'smite' button but Abraham getting in the way and God going 'ooohhh okkkk alright I'll be merciful'.

No, Abraham is learning what it means walk in God's way of righteousness. He’s learning that God would much rather offer mercy than condemnation. He’s learning that praying for, interceding for the world at its worst, is a God-like thing to do.

He’d much rather bet that a handful of righteous people in even the very worst city, mighty draw people back to him.

And though Abraham stops at 10, God himself brings it all down to 1: as Jesus stands alone as the one righteous human being in a world that has completely turned it’s back on God. Jesus, the one completley just and righteous man, draws people from every place back into relationship with God.

Apply

Can good company improve bad morals? Can a handful of people who try to immitate God transform a dark place into a beacon?

Yes. God is calling us to take his bet. Intercede for the nations. Bet on God’s mercy. Pray for your workplace. Your neighbourhod. Pray for those neighbours from hell if you’ve got them.

If God holds out hope for even the worst city, to walk God's way means to bet on his mercy.