"Make Me a Blessing"
Genesis: Foundations of Our Faith • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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I have just finished listening to another podcast about the harm done by Christians when we begin trying to fix our world while leaving our own lives unexamined. This podcast highlighted the “satanic panic” of the 1980’s. Evangelical Christians, many of whom were well intentioned, were stirring up fear of a conspiracy of satanists trying to destroy our kids, while at the same time there was real abuse happening in churches that was going unreported or worse, was being covered up.
The people of God have the potential to be a great blessing to our world when we walk with God in humility, repentance, and contrition, and we look for the places He is working in our world and participate with Him. And we have the potential to do great harm when we relate to those outside the faith through fear and self-protection. How can God’s people overcome fear and self-protection and truly be a blessing to our world?
What I hope we see in Genesis 20 and 21 is that we as God’s people become a blessing to the nations when we look for the places God is working that might surprise us, when we pray that God opens the eyes of the exiles to the salvation He has provided in Christ, and when we seek the shalom of our neighbors.
Look for the Places God is Working
Look for the Places God is Working
We need a little biblical context to start today. Since Genesis 3, we have been looking for the seed of the woman that will crush the head of the serpent and end the curse of sin and death. Generation after generation, no one has passed the Garden Test. Everyone falls into doing what is good in their own eyes instead of listening to God and living by His word. Who will restore the blessing of Eden? Who will bring wholeness, shalom, to the human race?
With Genesis 3 in our minds, Genesis 20 begins with Abraham coming into the Negev like the serpent coming into the Garden. Abraham is acting as a deceiver.
And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.
This isn’t a total lie, as we find out later, but it is at best a half truth. And as a result of this deception, in a continued replay of Genesis 3, Abimelech took Sarah like Eve took the forbidden fruit. So, what happens next is not a surprise. God came to Abimelech in a dream and pronounces a sentence of death.
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.”
But then there is a twist. When Abimelech declares his innocence in verses 4 and 5, God shows him mercy.
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.”
God Himself had kept Abimelech pure. And He provided an intercessor. Now he faces the Garden Test. Will he listen to God’s words and live or choose for himself what is right and wrong and do what is good in his own eyes?
Early the next morning Abimelek summoned all his servants, and when he told them all that had happened, they were very much afraid.
Abimelech and his crew fear God. And what must have been an uncomfortable conversation ensues between Abimelech and Abraham. Abimelech says the words God had said to Adam and Eve, “what is this you have done?”
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?”
“What did you see?” In other words, Eve saw the fruit and was tempted, Abimelech saw Sarah and was tempted, but what did Abraham see here that tempted him?
But it wasn’t so much what Abraham saw. It was what he could not see.
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.’
You could forgive Abraham for thinking this. The Philistines engaged in worship of gods that involved sexual immorality and child sacrifice. They had a reputation. But what did we read in verse 8? Who is the one in the narrative that feared God? It’s Abimelech. When God spoke, he listened and did what God had said. What Abraham could not see was that God was working in Abimelech’s life. This was so unexpected, Abraham had convinced himself it could not be. Yet, here it is.
In the end, Abraham did pray for Abimelech. And Abimelech’s household is restored to fruitfulness. They can now experience the Eden Blessing. Abraham had been faithless, but God was faithful and is using Abraham despite himself.
When the people of God relate in fear with those outside the family of faith, we can assume that certain people are outside the reach of God. There is a real tendency in some churches to circle the wagons and preach against the sins in the godless culture “out there”, while maybe overlooking our own sins. I’ve even heard Christians blame the godless culture and the public schools for the decline in faith and church attendance. But that’s weak sauce. If we are living transformed lives and teaching our next generation to know the life-changing love and power of God in Jesus Christ, we have nothing to fear from the world. Where is our faith?
Every time the people of God get fearful and self-protective, we create more pain than blessing in our world. Let’s examine ourselves. Are there some people or groups that we just assume do not fear God and are probably too far gone? What if God is working in their lives as He was in Abimelech? What would change in our relationships and in our gospel impact if we entered the lives of others looking for the places God is already working?
Pray that God will Open their Eyes to Salvation
Pray that God will Open their Eyes to Salvation
God might be working in someone’s life, but they may be having a hard time seeing it or understanding it for themselves. Especially when the people of God treat them as if they are too far gone. But God can open their eyes to the salvation He has provided in Jesus.
Genesis 21 begins with the birth Isaac. He is the promised son, the seed of the chosen woman, Sarah. We are laughing and celebrating because God has done what He said He would do.
In the first two verses, Moses says three times that God keeps His word.
The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him.
And in verses 6 and 7, Sarah is sure that God has done it, and that makes her laugh.
And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.”
There is so much joy and hope. He could be the one to end the curse and crush the snake. But there is also this undercurrent,
And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
Well, Sarah, God said that. And He kept His word, as hard as it was to believe. This difficulty in believing God’s word is at the center of all our struggles. “Did God really say...?” goes all the way back to the garden. And as in the Garden, things take a dark turn.
Sarah sees Ishmael “making laughter”, making fun, and she tells Abraham,
So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.”
Sarah is getting fearful and self-protective of the blessing. She demands that Hagar and Ishmael go into exile. But in another twist, where things went wrong in the Garden when Eve did what was good in her eyes and Adam listened to the voice of his wife instead of listening to God, this time God says to Abraham, literally,
But God said to Abraham, “Do not let this be bad in your eyes, because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her voice, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named.
And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.”
God is going to use Isaac to fulfill one promise, and Ishmael to fulfill another. God will use even our choices made in fear to accomplish His plans.
Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael into exile in the wilderness. And just when it seems death is imminent, God provides salvation. The angel of the LORD visits her again.
And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”
Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow.
He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
Most things die in the wilderness. But this is the incredible grace of God. He is there with Hagar and Ishmael in exile. The angel of God, the preincarnate Jesus Christ, reminds her of God’s promise, and God opened her eyes (19) to the salvation He had provided, a well of fresh water
This is such a great illustration of the process of salvation. Even in our own day, people are wandering in exile from God because of their sin. And many of those people feel like exiles from the church because of our sin. Just as Hagar and Ishmael had been exiled from Abraham and Sarah, the church’s treatment of many people we see as non-chosen has driven many away. But God has already provided for their salvation in Jesus Christ, the Son of Promise, the seed of the woman that crushed the head of the serpent when He was crushed for our sins. He did just call out from heaven, but He really came to the earth to preach peace both to the chosen people and those they saw as non-chosen.
Genesis 21:20 tells us the surprising news that God was with the non-chosen son of Abraham. Isn’t that what Jesus came to reveal? He is Immanuel, God with us. Are actively bringing this good news to those who are far from God? How much time do we spend praying that God would open the eyes of the exiles to the salvation we have in Jesus? Oikos list and prayer…
The next movement in the narrative brings us back to Abraham’s relationship with Abimelech. And if we are tracking with the language of Genesis 20 and 21 that repeats the pattern of what we saw in Genesis 3, resulting in an exile, what we would expect next is two brothers that can’t get along, resulting in violence between them. But in our final twist, a significant shift has happened. Abraham will begin operating differently. He will begin to share shalom with the nations, beginning with Abimelech.
God’s people become a blessing to the nations when we look for the places God is working that might surprise us, when we pray that God opens the eyes of the exiles to the salvation He has provided in Christ, and when we seek the shalom of our neighbors.
Seek the Shalom of Our Neighbors
Seek the Shalom of Our Neighbors
Abimelech returns and picks up where we left off with Ishmael. God was with Ishmael, and Abimelech says to Abraham,
At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army said to Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do.
God is with the chosen and the chosen. Now, chosen one, act like it.
Now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity, but as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have sojourned.” And Abraham said, “I will swear.”
This “deal kindly” is the Hebrew word hesed, a word that means something like covenant love shown through kindness or mercy. This foreign king has shown Abraham hesed, and he is asking for the same in return from God’s chosen one.
Then they get into a conversation about a well that Abraham says was stolen from him by Abimelech’s men. This is not hesed.
So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant.
Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock apart. And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart?”
He said, “These seven ewe lambs you will take from my hand, that this may be a witness for me that I dug this well.” Therefore that place was called Beersheba, because there both of them swore an oath.
Now we find out that this is the same well God used to save Hagar and Ishmael. It is Beersheba, which means, “the well of seven”. The word for seven is spelled with the same letters as the word for swear an oath, just different vowels. It is the sheva. So Beersheba is the well at which they swore and oath, and it is the well of seven. And the word seven is repeated three times, and combined with swear an oath and Beersheba, it is used ten times.
Where have we seen this combination of words and numbers before? In Genesis 1, God spoke ten times to create the world, and in Genesis 2:1-3, it says three times that God completed His work and rested and blessed the seventh day. The three-fold seven after God has spoken ten words is a picture of wholeness, completeness, shalom. The biblical pattern is repeated on Mount Sinai when God speaks Ten Words once again. When we live by the word of God, we are made whole, experience shalom, and we can rest in Him.
But here in Genesis 21, Moses has given us a mini version of this message. He paints a picture of Abraham and Abimelech experiencing shalom together in an Eden-like well of seven. To complete the picture, Abraham even planted a tree and called on the name of YHWH the Everlasting God.
Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God.
The altars he built before apparently didn’t seem necessary. In this place, Eden was somehow being restored. He passed the Garden Test. He overcame the temptation of the serpent to live by deceit. He wouldn’t do what was good in his eyes. And so, instead of Cain and Abel violence, he seeks the shalom of a foreigner and makes him a brother through a covenant of lovingkindness.
What brought about this shift? At the center of these two Abraham-Abimelech encounters is the birth of the son of promise, a foreshadow of the birth of the Messiah. In Jesus Christ, God has provided salvation for the exiles, the nations outside the chosen people. When we are made one with Christ through faith, we are restored to the blessings of Eden, communion with God, abiding in Him. And we are restored to our calling as God’s chosen people, to be a blessing to the nations by making Him known.
Who is someone God has put in your life that seems to be so far from God that you have written off any chance of their salvation? Can you look for some way that God may be working in their life and pray that God would open their eyes to the salvation He has provided in Jesus? And in what ways are you seeking their shalom, their wholeness? Your hesed, lovingkindness, might help them see the ways God has demonstrated His love for them in Jesus Christ.
Communion
Questions for Discussion
How have you experienced blessing this week? What has been heavy this week?
Can you share something from last week’s passage that you were able to put into practice this week?
What do we learn about people, or ourselves, in Genesis 20 and 21?
When you see Abraham committing the same deception he had done in chapter 12, or Sarah jealous of Hagar and exiling her again as she had in chapter 16, what thoughts come to mind?
What do we learn about God in our passage?
What is the evidence that something had shifted in Abraham’s relationship with God and with others in chapter 21?
How do these two chapters contribute to our understanding of the gospel?
How will you respond to this passage this week?
With whom can you share this passage this week?
