The Ongoing Presence of Sin
The Gospel in Genesis • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Introduction
Introduction
Welcome back to the book of Genesis! We have taken a break to focus on and celebrate Advent as we celebrate the birth of our Savior.
Now we are coming back to the book of Genesis. Genesis is the book of Beginnings. We have seen God speaking Creation into existence and creating man and woman in His image for His glory. We have seen sin come and mar God’s good creation, but we have also seen God’s plan of redemption being inaugurated through His promise to Adam and Eve and then through the covenant made to Noah and his descendants to never destroy the earth again.
And now we are in the middle of the story of Abraham and how God has called him and chosen him to be the blessing to all the other nations. It will be through his family that God brings the One who will defeat sin and death and the evil plans of the serpent.
With Abraham, we have seen God take this 75 year old pagan, call him to another land, give him this promise, and declare Abraham righteous, not because of what he has done, but simply because he believed God and is walking by faith.
But we see that this man who has been declared righteous is not perfect yet. Abraham has had his ups and downs and now we are about to see another account of his failing.
Genesis 20 (ESV)
From there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.” Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, “Lord, will you kill an innocent people? 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.” 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. 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.”
So Abimelech rose early in the morning and called all his servants and told them all these things. And the men were very much afraid. Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? And how have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and my kingdom a great sin? You have done to me things that ought not to be done.” And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What did you see, that you did this thing?” Abraham said, “I did it because I thought, ‘There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’ Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. And when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is the kindness you must do me: at every place to which we come, say of me, “He is my brother.” ’ ”
Then Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and male servants and female servants, and gave them to Abraham, and returned Sarah his wife to him. And Abimelech said, “Behold, my land is before you; dwell where it pleases you.” To Sarah he said, “Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver. It is a sign of your innocence in the eyes of all who are with you, and before everyone you are vindicated.” 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.
Do you ever struggle with a particular sin and wonder why you cannot just seem to get past it. There are some things that don’t tempt you, but then there’s those temptations that keep coming back over and over again.
Back in Genesis 12, we see Abram and Sarai in Egypt and we saw a similar incident where Abram lied about Sarai being his sister instead of being his wife for fear of his own life. And we saw God work to protect both Abram from his own fearfulness, and Pharaoh from his unknowing sin.
Now, we see Abraham falling back into the sin of his own fearfulness and pulling the same stunt that he pulled in Egypt.
Except, this time it has the potential to be worse, because back in Genesis 18 God promised Abraham that the promised child would come within the year, so most likely Sarah is now pregnant, but instead of this child being known as the child of Abraham, it has the potential to be seen as the child and descendent of Abimelech.
Abraham’s sin has a greater potential to destroy the work of redemption that God has begun in Abraham’s family.
Keep Fighting Against the Presence of Sin
Keep Fighting Against the Presence of Sin
There are 2 extremes believers can fall into:
There are 2 extremes believers can fall into:
Either sin is no big deal
Or they are perfect as they are and no longer struggle with sin
John Wesley and the Holiness Movement
Acknowledge your continued need to grow
Acknowledge your continued need to grow
Justification
Sanctification
Glorification
Pray for God to Search Your Heart and Reveal Your Weaknesses
Pray for God to Search Your Heart and Reveal Your Weaknesses
Psalm 139:23–24 (ESV)
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
A Doctor does a physical exam to determine where you are at in your physical health and knows what issues might cause you problems and need to be addressed.
Pray to God for Strength to Keep Fighting for Joy and Love for Christ
Pray to God for Strength to Keep Fighting for Joy and Love for Christ
Abraham’s problem was not that there was no fear of God in the place, but that he himself had no fear or love of God
Abraham feared what others thought instead of trusting in what God has promised to Him and seeking to love and revere the authority of God over his own self-preservation.
Our sin always comes about because we either place too much stock in my own pride and pleasure or in what other people might think of us instead of what God thinks and has already spoken to us through His Word.
Seek Accountability from Others to Help you bear your burdens
Seek Accountability from Others to Help you bear your burdens
Remind Yourself of the Destructive Nature of Sin
Remind Yourself of the Destructive Nature of Sin
We need to remind ourselves that sin is extremely destructive
We need to remind ourselves that sin is extremely destructive
When God commands us to holiness, He does not do so to put unfair restrictions upon us.
When God commands us to holiness, He does not do so to put unfair restrictions upon us.
He does so because He loves us and knows how life is best to be lived.
His commands are good. They are not meant to earn God’s love. They are an expression of God’s love for us.
For Abraham
For Abraham
His selfish sin is putting Sarah in danger
His selfish sin is putting Abimelech and his people in danger
His selfish sin is putting the plan of salvation in jeopardy
He has become a curse to the nations around him instead of being the blessing that God has called him to be.
For us
For us
Our sin affects those around us
We never sin in a vacuum
Our sin always has ripples that affects the people around us
Our sin keeps us from being a blessing to others
Our sin tarnishes the testimony we proclaim
Our sin has the potential to turn someone away from the Gospel
We do not want fear to keep us from doing what we need to do, but there is a proper and healthy fear that helps us operate within the proper boundaries of life.
When Scripture teaches the fear of God, it is not some kind of dread of God. It is the awe and reverence of who God is and how to live in proper relationship to Him and to others around us.
When we teach our kids to look both ways before crossing a street, or when I’m teaching my daughter how to drive, I want them to develop a proper fear and respect of the nature of the road. I don’t want them shaking in fear when they come to a street that paralyzes them. I want them to respect the street for what it is, a place that is useful and good for transportation, but also a place that can bring death and destruction when we do not properly respect it and use it the way it is intended to be used. There should be a proper respect and fear of the car we are driving or the cars that are being driven around us. The right kind of fear can actually free us to live with joy and confidence when we treat those things with the proper respect they deserve.
We ought to fear sin and the danger it brings, but the right kind of fear and respect for God can actually cause us to live in joy and freedom when we know how God wants us to live in relation to Himself and to others. If we seek to live in love and submission to God and love and service to others, when we are honest, when we work hard and live with integrity, we have no need to fear what others might think of us or what they might discover about us.
Receive God’s Grace In Spite of Your Sin
Receive God’s Grace In Spite of Your Sin
Here’s the good news of this story.
As terrible as this sin was and the results could have been, God has been incredibly and infinitely gracious to both Abraham and Sarah as well as to Abimelech and his people.
God intervened by stopping Abimelech
God intervened by stopping Abimelech
God came to Abimelech in a dream and stopped him from committing this sin against Sarah and Abraham.
God could have remained silent and let Abimelech continue with this unknown sin and let him bear the consequences of sin. But He graciously stops him and spares his life.
Think of all the times that God has intervened when we have sinned and messed something up and things did not end as badly as maybe they should have.
He doesn’t always keep us from bearing the consequences of sin, but if we are honest, we will admit that we never really bear the full consequences that our sin ultimately deserves. God is always gracious to intervene and lessen the consequences of our sin, even when we may not see how God has intervened.
Of course, we know that God has intervened in keeping the full penalty and consequences of sin because of the Cross. Christ has come to take on the full penalty and punishment of sin on our behalf.
God disciplined Abraham through Abimelech’s rebuke
God disciplined Abraham through Abimelech’s rebuke
After God reveals to Abimelech that Abraham has deceived him and that he is about to die because he has taken another man’s wife, Abimelech comes to Abraham to question and rebuke him.
Here, Abraham is, the man chosen by God to bless the nations, and he is being called out for his deception and for his lack of fear for God and lack of love for his neighbor all because he wanted to save his own neck.
This is a very humbling and humiliating experience for Abraham to be called out like this.
God is in the process of disciplining Abraham for his sin and lack of trust in God’s provision and protection.
And yet, this discipline is part of God’s grace to Abraham!
This discipline is the proof that God is still working with him and still loves him in spite of his sin and that God wants to transform Abraham into the image of Christ.
It is the love of a parent that seeks to discipline a child when they do something they should not do. It should be love to help guide and develop character and behavior in such a way that the child develops into the kind of person that will flourish and succeed in life.
God continued to use and call Abraham in spite of his failure
God continued to use and call Abraham in spite of his failure
And here’s the greatest aspect of grace: God continues to use Abraham in spite of his failure here.
God does not write Abraham off because of his failure, but calls him to get back up and keep pressing on!