Two Steps Forward / One Step Back

Text: Genesis 12:10-13:4

Central Idea of the Text: Fear of Survival leads Abram away from God’s land and plan, but God patiently guide him back.

Proposition: Fear is the enemy of faith, and our faithful God will lead his people out of it.

Purpose: All hearers should look past their own fears and failures to the faithful God who will show them how to walk by faith.

To quote one of our former youth group students, Mr. Wyatt Cook and his famous (or infamous) ways of starting his speeches when he was on my speech team:

“Phobias. We’ve all got one!”

Yes we do, Wyatt, yes we do. Sometimes we don’t even know the name for the phobia, but for whatever reason, there seems like a billion of them have been given names. Perhaps you have**Arachibutyrophobia** — peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth. Or **Pogonophobia** — beards. Or **Nomophobia** — being without a phone. Or **Genuphobia** — knees. Or **Xanthophobia** — the color yellow. Or maybe all of this discussion is giving you a **Phobophobia** — developing a phobia (fear of fear itself). I might have just named a phobia you have, but you don’t have to know the scientific name to under stand: When you have a fear.

I was reminded of one of my own phobias that I had to face just this past week. Many of you know that I was at home by myself, catsitting while my daughter and wife were travelling. So it was early one morning, and I remembered as I was getting up before the sun that I needed to take my bachelor self and go change the laundry in the laundry room in our basement. It was pitch black as I opened the laundry room door, and I turned on the light. My eyes in the dark were fixed in the direction of the utility sink that was directly in front of me. And the light that suddenly illuminated the pitch black room immediately struck my eyes. Two sets of eight legs and multiple eyes were staring stunned back at me in the middle of my sink. Without getting into too much detail for those of you with arachnophobia, let’s just say neither of them were small. As we sat and had our five second staredown, like gunslingers at high noon. I had the chill of the phobia run up my spine. Do I run from the room screaming like a little girl, shut the light off and slam the door? Or do I put my big boy pants on again and get ready for war? Being the dad of daughters, I’ve had to swallow the chills many a time and face the beasts, be they spiders or snakes or bats or other strange critters. So I swallowed my fear and went to war. Let’s just say it didn’t end well for the beasts in question. But it was a good reminder again: in the fall, make sure you put out the bug spray.

When it comes to fear we often have three choices: We can flee. We can freeze. Or we can face the challenge before us, knowing that to face the fear is an opportunity for growth. Now when it comes to today’s second account regarding Abram, as we look at the text we will see that Abram will be faced with some things that he may fear. How will he respond? Let’s take a look at today’s text, found in Genesis 12:10-13:4. [Read Text]

Genesis 12:10–13:4 “10 Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. 11 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, 12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.” 14 When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15 And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. 16 And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels. 17 But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. 18 So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.” 20 And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had. 1 So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the Negeb. 2 Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold. 3 And he journeyed on from the Negeb as far as Bethel to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, 4 to the place where he had made an altar at the first. And there Abram called upon the name of the Lord.”

This is the word of the Lord for his church this morning.

Please pray with me: Lord, we love your word. But sometimes when we read accounts like this one, we’re not quite sure what to do with these details. Help us to cross the bridge from Abram’s time to our own to see that the fears that he faced and the faith that you called him into are not so different from the challenges and opportunities of our own day. God help us to not live in the grip of fear. Help us step forward by faith, trusting your promises. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

So last week kicked us off into the text that will be part of our preaching schedule both this year and next year, as we explore the accounts of Abraham and his descendants, the roots of the people of Israel. But as we did so last week, we noted that Abraham’s name (to start) was Abram. We noted that he had a father (Terah), two brothers (Nahor and Haran), a barren wife (Sarai) and a nephew (Lot).

We listened to those initial promises that God made to Abram when he first spoke to him in Genesis 12:1–3 . You will want to keep those words always on your radar as we go thru this book and thru the Bible, because God’s words are of utmost importance. To keep your eyes and actions on them is life and blessing. To avoid them or disregard them is to your loss and folly. And I was glad to do a little further study into those verses this week. I was reminded that as we read those verses, last week I noted there is a key command that we saw Abram obey in verse 1: “Go … to the land that I will show you.” But what I didn’t note (and I don’t want to make the same mistake this week) is that there is two commands or imperatives in verses 1-3. 2 commands which are each followed by three promises of God. Look at how verse two ends. “I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” It doesn’t necessarily sound like it, but that last phrase is a command. Messianic Jewish commentator Fruchtenbaum says a better literal translation would be this: “Be you a blessing.” When we put a bit more study and meditation into this, what we come to understand is simply this: Abram is not blessed simply for the sake of being some blessing sponge, soaking up God’s blessings. No, from the beginning of his interaction with God, he is bless to be a blessing. All of the ways that he will be a blessing remain to be seen, but the blessings of God’s grace are not be be selfishly consumed; they are meant to be selflessly shared. This is baked into the pie of this covenant and faith, and we will see that more and more played out as Abram’s story progresses.

AND SO … In light of God’s words and promises, we noted last week the steps of movement of Abram. Of course, his travels with his father Terah, had led him from Ur up that Euphrates river valley to Haran. He stayed there until God spoke to him and his father has died. It was then that he departed at 75 years of age, heading toward this land in Canaan that God was promising to give him, taking his wife, his nephew and all of their people and possessions. We noted last week that Abram’s obedient steps showed up in his going, his waiting and his worshipping.

So when a person obeys God, their life is gonna be simple from there on out, right? It’s gonna be a highway to heaven, with zero bumps is the road, right? Boy, if that was the case, and the Christian life was all health, wealth, blessing, no setbacks, no death or suffering, nothing negative ever happened, wouldn't everybody just be beating down our door to follow Jesus. BUT that would be a life lived based on sight and means, not based on faith. Remember, Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” And for faith to grow in us, we are going to have to face our fears. As we look at today’s text, look at the fears that Abram faced, so that we can see the Faith that God produces through these circumstances.

We start by looking at fear. And we see that …

Fear Causes Us to Step away from God

Now, where did I just tell you that Abram was supposed to go to? Canaan, right? So then where did Abram arrive at? Canaan. He pitched his tent there. He built and altar there. AND then??? Verse 9 says “Abram journeyed on south toward the Negeb.” Why? The text doesn’t say. Why didn’t he just stay there where God said: “This is the land!” The text doesn’t say. But you kind of wonder why. Maybe it’s the equivalent of me telling you to go visit your aunt and uncle in Denver, but you stay for a night there, and then hop right back in the car, because you want to keep going west to the Grand Canyon or California. You can go that way, but you just might run into something like Death Valley. And Lo and behold, what happens in verse 10? In the Negeb, there is a famine. And Famine is the first big fear that is an obstacle in Abram’s walk with God. Food insecurity. A big issue, especially when you’re not a settled farmer and you can’t just go to the local Hy-Vee. So what can you do? Well, as I see it, Abram had three choices. Stay where he is at in this Negeb wilderness and take your chances. OR head back north and find the place at Shechem near AI. Go back to the last place where you heard God’s voice and where he made his promise: “This is the land I will give you.” OR, there is option three, which is to keep heading to the South and the West, into the both fertile and idolatrous land of Egypt. Now I know that when you think of Egypt, most of the time, we think of pyramids and sand. But Egypt was also a place of safety and ease because of one key factor. They sat at the mouth of the Nile river, which is a lush and fertile area. This is why so often in this book when there is famine or trial, the grass always looks greener over in Egypt because it literally IS greener.

And isn’t this so often the case with sin and walking away from God’s intention and will? We take our eyes of the Lord and his will. We look at the lives of others and go: “Well, they are doing whatever they want. And it doesn’t look so bad to my eyes. God’s ways would be WAY harder. So I’m gonna walk my own path, rather that walking in his path and staying in the places he has designed for me.” In the end, this fear was a fear of inconvenience. It was a taking of matters into his own hands, which leads to the next challenge and the next fear that Abram must face.

As Abram runs from the Famine, he also faces a fear of Fatality, as in, he believe he may be facing immanent punishment and death. Why? Because he says to his wife, Sarai: “You are just too beautiful.” Aww. Isn’t that sweet? But it’s not just something he says to pickup or get her to do him a favor. He says: Sarai, you are just too beautiful. When we get there, you’re going to stick out like a sore thumb. Everybody’s gonna notice it. The cat’s gonna be out of the bag, and where is that gonna leave me? Dead. Now to be clear here, Sarai was 65 years old. We don’t, in our day and age think of a beautiful woman worthy of killing over as someone age 65. Certainly beauty standards for people change over time and culture. But the same word that is used for her beauty, is a verse that is later used in Genesis 41:2 to describe good looking cows. I think it simply a way of saying: she was a fine specimen of a woman … easy on the eyes. Verse 12: “This is his wife” they will say. And then they will kill me. Now, is Abram jumping to conclusions here? Perhaps yes, and perhaps no. We do not know what Abram knew about the Egyptians and their violent intentions to take out the husbands of beautiful women. But we know enough to know that this is not the first time in the text that we will encounter this exact scenario. And it’s quite possible in an idol worshipping violent culture that such things happened on the regular. So Abram, in fear, comes up with a plan for himself to survive. Verse 13: “Say you are my sister.” Now we will find out later on in Genesis that this is half-true because Sarai is his half-sister. [And there is an entirely other conversation on that, but there is no time to chase that rabbit. The simplest thing to say that can be reasoned out with further study is that as this was acceptable in the post-flood times, it was prohibited by God at the giving of the law in Genesis 18:11. What was OK for Abram then is not acceptable now. Rabbit chase over.] But now in saying she is his sister, what are they not saying? SHE IS HIS WIFE. She is meant only for him and no other man.

So Abram’s life, in telling this lie is going to be saved. But, what else is the issue here? WHAT ABOUT HER? What about her life? What about some other welathy man or ruler that might take her for his own wife? Have we forgotten about her?? Apparently she went along with this, because she agreed: Yep, I am dang beautiful. And those men ARE going to want me and they ARE going to kill you. I better just go along this lie/half-truth that you’ve spun up Abram. Lo and behold, what Abram spins up in him imagination did come to pass. But did in have to? NOT AT ALL. What were God’s promises to Abram? I will bless you! I people on earth will be blessed thru you. Did that happen yet? No. Then what has happened? Abram’s mind has looked into the future and been given over to fear. He goes into a mode of protection, rather than just trusting God. This is what FEAR does to us. It looks to the future, fears for the worst, and sends us into a mode of living to protect rather than living to trust.

And what happens? Sure They find food. Sure Abram survives, but now here they are. Sarah being taken to Pharaoh’s palace as his wife, and Abram in a strange idol worshipping land with his wife held captive. His fear leads him now to this lonely place. What will be to the solution out of where fear has led us? The answer is faith.

Faith Brings Us Back to God

It is however interesting, as we look at the way this account plays out: the first faith in this situation that rescues Abram and his family does NOT come from Abram. It comes from a faithful God who is faithful to his promises and who, as Romans 8:28 reminds us, “works all things work together for good, for those who love God are called according to his purpose.” God gave him a promise. Abram: you are going to be a great nation. Abram you have a wife. And she’s not gonna belong to someone else. God is remembering his promise we read in verses 1-3, even when Abram forgets. Now we don't’ know what exactly happened to Pharoah’s household because of his intended taking of Sarai as his wife. Verse 17 simply says that: The LORD afflicted Pharoah and his house with great plagues. No clue what that is, but I do know that if we were doing this passage as a skit at camp, we would have some fun with this. Personally, I like to think that this plague was the plague of shock. Kinda like when you used to play that game Operation, or somebody uses one of those hand buzzers on you. He was like, hey you, let me hold your hand. Bzz. And then hey girl, why don’t you just come over here a talk to (Arm Around). Bzz. And then, you know baby, I was just thinking you could come over my way … Bzz. When God shocks ya enough, you just need to give up. And so when Abram doesn’t stand up to be truthful about his wife or defend his wife, God will be her defense. He guards her life, her honor and her covenant with her husband. God has purposes for this woman with her husband, not some other man!

That’s not the only thing. What else did God promise in verses 1-3 to do? He is going to bless Abram. And God is faithful to that promise too, because when Pharoah gives Sarai back to Abram, he doesn’t say: “Give me back the stuff, animals and servants I gave you for the brideprice.” Pharoah just says: “Gah! Why didn’t you tell me the truth! Take your wife and get out of here.” In doing this, Abram’s wealth, possessions and influence have greatly been increased. God’s blessing in this moment for Abram is seen in a very tangible way, so much so that Abram is leaving Egypt with way more than he came with. Genesis 13:2 says that Abram was now very rich in livestock, silver and gold. Note with both of these things, these are God keeping his promises inspite of Abram’s operation by fear rather than faith. Abram, as he left Egypt had to be reflecting on what God had done to spare him, his wife and his household.

So what does Abram do? He responds to the faithfulness of God with more faith. He could go in a lot of directions upon leaving Egypt. Into Africa? Back to Ur? Nope. He returns back thru that wilderness of the Negeb, where they encountered the famine, and back to that place there between Bethel and Ai, the place where he built that altar and last worshipped the LORD. So isn’t it interesting that given his new found freedom from Egypt, he goes back to the last place that he heard God’s voice. And verse 4 concludes saying that Abram called on the name of the LORD. It’s as if, knowing that he had feared and doubted, Abram knew that he needed to get back to the place where he had gotten off course, and stay closer to this place where God was going to fulfill his promises. These are certainly faithful actions or return, repentance and worship, but they display for us what ought to be the proper response to our faithful God.

Today’s account has laid out for us in Abram’s story what it means to live by fear, and what it means to live by faith. And as we’ve learned, our daily fears are much bigger that spiders or diagnosed phobias. They are the things that keep us frozen, stuck, stagnant and dying.

When we live by fear, we are blown by the worries of today and fear of our circumstance.

When we live by fear, we look for man’s wisdom and use our own mere logic for solutions rather than pursuing God’s wisdom.

When we live by fear, we assume the worst about our futures and forget God’s promises.

When we live by fear, we become a pushover to the crowd and popular opinion.

When we live by fear, we selfishly assume self-preservation is the highest goal and we forget the needs and love of others.

When we live by fear, we believe that death is the final word, and we do everything we can not to talk about it.

But when we live by faith? We remember God’s promises and we remember that they are true.

When we live by faith, we look for God’s hand at work in the world around us.

When we live by faith, we turn from our sin and live differently.

When we live by faith, we return to the place where we departed from his will.

When we live by faith, we seek his face and worship only him.

When we live by faith, we fix out eyes on God’s promises and the life and blessing that is ahead for those who love HIM.

Like Abram, we at times get scared, freak out, make our own plan, run away. But we have a God who is VERY patient with us. And that is why he sent Jesus. Romans 5:8 reminds us: “8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

The sacrifice that Abram made on the altar, to worship? To atone for sin? To be in right relationship with God? Jesus has now laid his life down on the cross. That’s the place right relationship with God starts from and returns to. And when we encounter Christ at the cross, and he removes our sin? We experience the life of faith he offers without the shadow of fear. Isaiah 41:10 “10 fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” 1 Peter 5:7 “7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” 1 John 4:18 “18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” 2 Timothy 1:7 “7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” Our fears melt away in light of the savior.

Where is fear keeping you frozen? Scared of that conversation? Scared to speak up? Scared of the effect on a relationship if you spoke up for truth and for Christ. Scared to open the door to the possibility of God’s call on your life? Afraid of people? Afraid of what someone might say if they labeled you a Jesus Freak?

Where is fear stopping you from seeing God’s promises for your future? Are you scared of cancer? Scared of falling? Scared of losing control in your life? Scared of facing death? Christ give us the hope that will carry us through every one of these challenges. Remember the words of the Song: Because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone. Because I know, HE HOLDS THE FUTURE: Life is worth the living, just because he lives.

Where is fear preventing you from taking the next faithful step? For some it’s the fear of losing control. It’s the fear of telling someone else, I’ve decided to follow Jesus. It’s the fear of declaring in your baptism: I’m a Christian! I belong to Jesus! It’s the fear of letting go of that sinful habit that seems to control you. Its the fear of what might happen if you left the place you are to go to the place God would show you.

If fear is driving your resistance to Jesus, today is the day to say: NO MORE FEAR. I CHOOSE JESUS AS MY LORD AND SAVIOR. Where he leads me, I will go.