God Takes Care of You

God Takes Care of You

Intro: How many of you like to be taken care of? Staying in a hotel or going to a restaurant is sometimes the closest we get right? No dinner to cook or dishes to do, someone clears the table for you. In a hotel someone else cleans your room and makes your bed. We dread going home because know we have to do all the work again. Laundry from the vacation has to be done, grocery shopping back to normal life. Our stress levels go up when we think things are not going the way we think they should be or maybe when you have no one else is going to do it for you. And we make decisions accordingly. Sometimes they are good and sometimes. They are not.

But how do we act when we know someone else is taking care of us? Does is give you more confidence knowing that God is there with the plan and we are living in his plan? We are not robots but he has things already known so he is not surprised at your actions. God takes care of the details and he is taking care of us.

Read Verses;

MP: God Takes Care you

I. God Takes Care of You even when you are impatient (16)

Explanation: Chapter 16 can be summed up pretty easily. Abram and Sarai take matters into their own and when it comes to having a child, specifically h a male child. So Sarai tells Abram to take Hagar one of her servants and see if you can produce a child with her. This was somewhat common. There was no fertility doctor to go to get checked out or get fertility medicine so you had to use someone else asa surrogate. If a child was born than Sarai could essentially raise him or her as her own thus securing an heir.

If there was no heir between Abram and Sarai Abraham could have asked for a divorce after ten years of not having a child. By Sarai gets jealous of Hagar because it seems like from the narrative,that Hagar becomes pregnant fairly quickly, when Sarai had been trying for years. This causes a rift in Abram’s household and Sarai ends up abusing Hagar and Hagar runs away.

In verse 7 Hagar is visited by an angel of the Lord and he confirms her pregnancy in verse 11 and says that he shall be a wild donkey of man, his hand against everyone and everyone’ hand against him. In verse 9 tough the angel tells Hagar to go back to Sarai, to submit to her.

She is given a similar promise concerning her son that Ishmael will be have a multitude of offspring as well. Ishmael is the Boys name and the Muslims through Mohammed trace their lineage to Abraham through Ishmael and Hagar.

God has a plan. Ishmael is born when Abram was 86, which is interesting if you see that abrams father was 70 when he had Abram. So he may have a family track record of having kids later in life.

But all of this strife and abuse could have been avoided if both Abram and Sarai exercised patience

Illustration:"Patience on the part of young Clyde Tombaugh is what led him finally to discover the planet Pluto. Astronomers had already calculated a probable orbit for this “suspected” heavenly body, which they had never seen. Tombaugh took up the search in March 1929. He examined scores of telescopic photographs, each showing tens of thousands of star images in pairs under the blink comparator, or dual microscope. It often took three days to scan a single pair of photographs. It was exhausting, eye-cracking work, in Tombaugh’s own words, “brutal, tediousness.” The search went on for months. Star by star, Tombaugh examined twenty million images. Finally, on February 18, 1930, as he was blinking a pair of photographs in the constellation Gemini, “I suddenly came upon the image of Pluto!” It was the most dramatic astronomic discovery in nearly one hundred years and it was made possible by patience."

Abram and Sarai did not want to do the work of waiting so they took a shortcut

Application: We can trust God with His timing

Charles Spurgeon said, Patience! patience! You are always in a hurry, but God is not.

However, It is not easy to wait because we have a finite amount of time.

How much waiting do you do in your life? Avengers End Game comes out in less than a month. High School Graduation is in about two months. Star Wars 9 comes out December 20th so it is about 265 days. There are 270 days until Christmas.

When we are kids, we can’t wait to graduate and move out. Then if we go o college we can’t wait to graduate.if you join the military, depending on how you enlistment goes, you can’t wait to get out, or you cant wait to retire.

In terms of growing up, or working toward retirement or the next job, a lot of things happen.You develop skills that will help you in your next job or the next phase of your life.

“Let patience have her perfect work that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”—.

You can do two things to improve your patience: Wait on the Lord, and submit to God

Wait on the Lord:

We have covered genesis 12-17 know and having an heir has com up in almost every chapter. This consumes Abram and now see that has now consumed Sarai to the point that she has devised a plan that seems like they do not want to wait on God. They want to hurry it up. Part of this satiating in our lives, just like Abram and Sarai’s is a cross we have to bear. This tribulation or trial develops or patience. Our endurance or patience, as Paul says in and 4, Develops character. Our Christian character that we are willing to submit to God

Submission to God

The angel of the Lord tell Hagar to go back to Sarai. That may sound crazy to go back to someone who deals harshly with you,but sometimes that is what God is teaching you.

We have to do what Andrew fuller, who is a southern Baptist theologian, in waiting on God, patience consists in quietly waiting for God’s mercy. When we go to the DMV, or a restaurant we are at the mercy of other humans to do their job and we go and we wait. We may complain,but we wait. But sometimes the waiting turns to Worry and worry leads to taking matters into your own hands like Sarai and Abram.

Andrew fuller also points out Let not your anxiety to avoid trouble lead you into sin.

If we are willing to wait on people to do something, then why don’t we want to wait on Go who is the perfect one, who built and runs the universe to work things out for us and if it si for us,then we will get what he has promised us?

Christ Connection: What has he promised us ultimately? Freedom from his punishment and wrath through his grace. Next week we will be covering because these verses that Paul Explains to the church at Rome is that God, through the blood of Jesus, as a gift of grace Jesus is a propitiation for the sins committed against God.

Transition: When you accept His gift, you enter into the covenant with God.

II. God Takes Care of You when you accept His covenant (17:1-14)

Explanation: The first half of chapter 17 is a reaffirmation of the covenant and an expansion or finalization of Abraham’s legacy ad promises. In verse 5 and 6 God changes abram’s name from Abram which just means father to Abraham because now he is the father of a multitude of nations.

God repeats his promise or covenant about his offspring will be exceedingly fruitful. In chapter 15 God made a covenant with Abram and Abram was not required to. Put anything into the deal, because like the theme of this eels sermon is, God takes care to everything.

But it is hard to know who is part of the deal and who submits to God, so God is requiring a sign that demonstrates who is in and who is out. You will have to pardon the pun, but God requires Abraham to put some skin in the game.

God expects all males who wish to follow God to be circumcised. Circumcising is not new other cultures, like the Egyptians did this ad actually Christians are not required to perform circumcision as a part of our faith. It is not an ordinance. For the Hebrews, God requires this action as verse 13 says,so shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant.

Illustration: When our son Austin was younger he had done something so we were pulsing him by taking away his PlayStation and the games.when I went to pick up one of his games and he told me that I could not take that one because he had earned the money to buy it.all the other games had been given to him or bought for him. But this one, this one was his. He paid for this so he had an interest in keepig his game.

We also have to put skin in the game and God does expect us to do so, but he is after the most important part of your body, your heart.

Application: God will take care of you when you return to Him

says If you return,Israel— this is the Lord’s declaration—you will return to me, if you remove your abhorrent idols from my presence and do not waver, 2 then you can swear, “As the Lord lives,” in truth, in justice, and in righteousness, then the nations will be blessed by him and will pride themselves in him. 3 For this is what the Lord says to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: Break up the unplowed ground; do not sow among the thorns. 4 Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts, men of Judah and residents of Jerusalem. Otherwise, my wrath will break out like fire and burn with no one to extinguish it because of your evil deeds.

Returning to him is what God desires the most. Ligonier ministries explains that Verses 1–2 link circumcision of the heart with the salvation of Israel and the salvation of the Gentile nations. If the people would have turned from idolatry and honored their covenant with the Lord, Israel would have fulfilled its vocation to be a light to the world that illumined the path to the only redeemer God (; ).

For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.

So if you say you are a Christian but do not have faith or do not act in Christlike fashion, your heart my still not be completely circumcised. The old parts of the flesh may still be there and need to be cut off.

Whatever your idol is, God is cutting it off from you through the trials he puts us through.

Christ Connection: Christ expects us to circumcise our hearts. We cut out the old person, the flesh and God replaces it with heart aligned with the Spirit.

God never expected Abraham to keep his end of the deal. In fact he already proved that he could not consistently obey and trust God. So he sent His son down to complete our end and God’s end of the covenant.

Transition: Like the first point of patience,the trials will be a lot to handle, the world may seem a little too big and God may at times, seems too small to handle what we think is too big. But God takes care of you when you doubt Him.

III. God Takes Care of You even when you doubt Him (17:15-27)

Explanation: In verse 15 Sarah’s name is changed as well to Sarah. Both means princess but as Abraham’s rightful wife she will be the mother of kings. In order fro this to happen, she wlil bear Abraham a son.

Abraham laughs because he is 100 years old and she is 90, so the natural limitation of age seems too big of a hurdle for God to get over. Later in chapter 18 Sarah laughs when she hears that she will give birth to a boy.

God instructs Abraham that his son’s name will be Isaac. God also says that he will take care of Ishmael but His covenant will be with Isaac Whom Sarah will bear to you this time next year.

Abraham doubts God, even though everything that has happened has happened because of God or when Abraham trusted God.

Illustration: the illustration from the Bible is doubting Thomas from Thomas was told about the resurrection but said he wouldn’t believe unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the hands of the nails and place my hand into his side. Thomas wants proof. And many times we want roof about things too. And that is not always a bad thing.

Application: God can use your doubt to strengthen your faith in Him

One commentator describes, “In a Christian sense doubt is being in two minds about God or his word. It takes many forms. It may have its source in the agonizing questions thrown up by the apparent contradiction between God’s word and human experience (cf. Suffering; Theodicy). Frequently this form of doubt is to be found in the OT when expressions of bewilderment lead to much surer faith. Such doubters need support. Doubt may also imply a desire to know more.”

We see all of this here, Abraham dobs God because what he has experienced so far is contrary to what God is saying. But his doubt will ultimately lead tire faith because at the end of this chapter, abraham and his house are all circumcised, thus demonstrating their faith in God.

Abraham talks to God, so let your doubts lead to prayer. Use prayer to tal its God. Ask him questions. Don’t be afraid. We seeJob ask God questions and he is open to answers. Because even though we are doubtful, God is faithful.

This faithfulness is what makes the covenant work.

Here is the headline from an article in Christianity today An MIT Professor Meets the Author of All Knowledge the author of the article says I used to think religious people were ignoramuses. Then I got smart and took a chance on God. She doubted God but she kept reading th Bible and attending church and accepted Christ.

James 1:58 says 5 Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God—who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly—and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith without doubting.For the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord, 8 being double-minded and unstable in all his ways.

Christ Connection: Jesus had no doubts when he went to the cross. He trusted the father to get him through He took everything to God and he is exalted at the right hand of the father for God’s glory.

Transition: If you put your trust and faith in God, you will be more at peace because god is taking care of everything he needs to take care of.

Conclusion

Your patience can increase by enduring the trials through trusting God

You can prove your faith to God by cutting the idol or idols out of your life

Your doubt can strengthen your faith if you pray

Action:

Examine how you deal with waiting. Is it patient or do you do your own thing and hope God will catch up with you?

Look for the idols and see what surgery you need to remove them from your life.

If you find yourself doubting r laughing at what God wants you to do, talk to God, pray to him. Talk to other Christians because God can use them to communicate with you.

Perform Lords Supper. Use the manual.