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You know what is really hard for humans to do? Let God be God. We have a list of things that we think God isn't allowed to do, or at least a list of things that we would rather Him check with us first before He does them. He doesn't give us the reason for why He does things, and given all that we read in the Bible, you would think He should be trusted at this point. 

We saw last week that God has a plan for the unplanned. Here God was able to use the sin of Abraham to set things up for turnarounds thousands of years in the future. We've seen God work in all kinds of ways to ensure that the blessing is transmitted from one generation to another. He has planned from the very beginning of this book that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the snake. We've seen that there is a line of the woman and a line of the snake down through every list of names. We had Cain and Abel. The line was clear until Cain killed Abel! Doesn't sound like the seed crushing the head of the snake, does it? But then God brings Seth into the world who ultimately produces Noah. Noah has three sons one of whom (Ham) has a cursed family line that will end up serving the line of Shem. Eventually, we see the line of Shem produce Abraham. It is promised that he will have the seed! We see Ishmael born, but it will be Isaac, the technically second son, who will have the blessing of the seed. 

Up to this point, you could be confused as to how these lines are decided. Thus far, it looks like each person has chosen their own adventure. Abel was a right worshiper, and Cain was not. It wasn't until Cain became a murderer that it was crystal clear who was who. Ham didn't stand out until he mocked his father's nakedness. Ishmael stood out from the beginning, but that was because Hagar wasn't the woman of promise. It might look like that God has thus far been reacting to what humanity has been doing. Yes, the blessing has been safe thus far, but is that because God is simply the best at taking life's lemons and making lemonade? Or is God's control more comprehensive than we might imagine? 

The present story will make clear how it is that God runs the show. This is a passage that Paul makes reference to when talking about God's control of matters. As we will see today, and in weeks following that God sovereignly directs His plans beforehand, yet everyone is both dependent on God and responsible to God.

God sovereignly directs His plans beforehand

We begin with a mini genealogy to signal that we are starting a new episode as it were. This is to orient us to where this story is going next. 

Just like with the Abraham story, the one through whom we are to expect children is barren. We will see this theme pop up again and again in Scripture of the barren woman eventually giving birth. God loves to show Himself being God. Biology isn't a challenge for Him. He makes the barren give birth whenever He pleases, a point made clear as her eventual pregnancy is "granted" by God after Isaac prays. Now, we might think because this whole narrative happens in a single verse that maybe she was barren for a year or so until Isaac prays, and then, boom! Problem solved. But that is not how this story went. Verse 20 tells us that Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah. When we get to verse 26, we find out that Isaac was sixty! This means that they have been waiting the better part of twenty years to have a child, just five years less than Abraham himself waited! Thankfully, Isaac didn't make the same mistake that Abraham did, and truly waited on God's time. There is simply no rushing God. 

Notice both of their commitments to prayer. Isaac must have been praying for the better part of twenty years, and one of the first things that Rebekah does when she feels this sensation of twins is to ask God! In a sweet detail, the Hebrew notes that Isaac prayed "in front of" or "toward" Rebekah (Phillips, 133). Nothing shows your belief that God controls and knows all things quite like prayer. When you are confused on something, you go to the smartest person in the room to ask, don't you? Well, what does prayer say? It says that God is the one you trust. And when we don't give God a thought at all and set out just to solve our problems all on our own, it says who we trust the most. 

Now, here in verse 23, we are told a number of remarkable things. One, we are given our first mention of twins in the Bible thus far, and two, we are told that these aren't just two people but two nations. This is a strong continuation of the promise that was given to Abraham, the father of many nations. 

That multitude is on its way, but there is a problem: they will be divided. One is going to be stronger than the other and will be served by the other. In this we hear echos of Noah's sons in which Canaan would serve the line of Shem. This is also an echo of Genesis 3 in which we are told that there will be two lines, the line of the woman and the line of the snake. This snake just keeps slithering through the story, no matter how close the family is. 

With this pregnancy announcement, we are reminded of a concept that has floated all through Genesis: God's choice. Just like with Isaac and Ishmael, while they were still in the womb, God had their lives all mapped out. Ishmael would have a multitude of sons, but Isaac is going to be the son of promise. One could say, though, that God had to do this because of the mother. Hagar wasn't Sarah, so God simply couldn't have Ishmael be the heir. But here, we learn that God has never been bound like that. God makes clear that He won't be bound by anything. 

In this story, we see that God will isolate all other factors other than His choice to make crystal clear what His level of control is and will be. This time, the mother is the right mother. The father is the right father. They have twins in the same womb. And yet, God makes the choice of one over the other. It will be the younger that rules over the older (which, culturally, is not how that was supposed to work). God is making this choice not on the basis of anything that they have done or not. Paul makes this exact argument in Romans 9. There he is trying to prove that just because you have the right genetic lineage, that doesn't mean you are a child of God. You can descend from Abraham, be a very son of Isaac, sharing the womb of Rebekah, and yet God chooses Jacob and not Esau. 

Why does He do it that way? He simply doesn't tell us. Paul, in that passage we just read in Romans, gets all the way to getting close to answering that question yet the answer is "God will have mercy on whom He wills." In other words, God is God and He will act like God. When the question is posed, "then why does God find fault" Paul responds with, "who are you to answer back to God?" In yet other words, "If it is all down to God's choice, then why are people held responsible for not choosing Him?" If there was another answer that was true, this would have been the perfect time to say it (John Piper, *Providence*). If he could have said, "Well, the person was totally free to make another choice, so it was up to them," he would have. But there is no other answer. The answer simply is, this is how God set it up, and we are not even close to being in a moral place to judge the Almighty for it. 

That offends our senses, doesn't it? Of course it does! We're sinners! We are born in rebellion against God, why would this aspect of His character be any different? We can try to ignore it, but this is what I think this passage is clearly trying to tell us. 

"But Pastor," you may say, "this is something that is often divisive, why do we have to emphasize it?" Well, for one, this is what the passage itself is emphasizing. We have to look at what Scripture says when it says it. 

But the second reason, and the main reason, is that believing something that is untrue about God robs you of comfort. If you believe that God is a harsh father, crossed arms, waiting to zap you for a misstep, you are going to be a joyless, judgmental person, who is robbed of the comfort of a God who joyfully welcomes the prodigal home. If you believe that God is a laidback hippy who doesn't care how you live, you will be careening from one disaster after another because of your sin, being robbed of the comfort of knowing what the good life of obedience can bring. If you believe that God has no control over THE most important thing in your life, your eternal destiny, you will be constantly wondering if you are truly saved or if you have somehow messed up your salvation. 

I'm not sure why we would find comfort in God not being in control of our salvation. Either we actually do believe in God's control of salvation but just don't realize it, or it might be because we don't value our salvation like we should. Imagine if we genuinely thought that God didn't control political outcomes. Imagine if the ballot box was ENTIRELY up to your will and control or other's means of seizing control. Would that cause you more stress than you currently have? If it would, then why wouldn't you want God to control salvation? 

Maybe, perhaps, you think that if God is in control that maybe He won't choose certain people in your life. Perhaps you might even worry that He won't choose you. If that is something that you are concerned about, then there is a very good chance that God is already drawing you to Himself. Unregenerate people typically don't worry about their state before God. As to other people, the fact that God chooses and transforms should give you hope for even the furthest people from God in your life. 

Let's take an illustration from Rebekah's own barren womb. For 19 years, her womb was empty. Assuming that she started marriage to Isaac during child-bearing years (which is the case), after 19 years of trying, one might begin to think that with each passing year, this gets less and less likely. I mean, if one cannot get pregnant in this stage of life, what hope is there for pregnancy later? But what does Isaac do? He prays. I imagine that he prayed many times for this to occur. He knew that God was the one who granted children. Isaac himself was evidence of that. He knew where life comes from, so he kept entreating the source. 

The same goes for salvation. If there is someone in your life who has gone deaf to the gospel for decades, don't stop praying for them. Some people come to Christ twenty minutes before death. That actually happened at the hospital my dad works at. Even if you are in a place where they won't talk to you anymore, you can still talk to God about them. That's where hope comes from. No matter how far anyone has wandered, no matter how deep into evil people have fallen, God can still reach them and give them life just like He did in Rebekah's womb. Just like He did with the writer of Romans. Paul went from Osama Bin Laden to R.C. Sproul in one conversation with Jesus. 

The same can be true of the person you are praying for. So don't stop. Does that person need to express faith in Christ? Yes. There aren't going to be people getting dragged into heaven kicking and screaming, and neither are there going to be people who genuinely desire a relationship with Jesus who will be left at the closed gates. Jesus is not going to miss any one of His no matter how remote or hardened. 

Trust Him. He died on the cross to make salvation possible. He isn't begrudging in His salvation. We don't have to understand every move He makes. We just have to trust that He rules this world in wisdom and love. 

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One thing I love about a good story is a conclusion where everything is wrapped up cleanly. No threads are left bare, trajectories have reached their destination. This chapter begins feeling that way. We are given the final years of Abraham's life in a rapid fire succession of children's names, activities, and final destinations. He has lived well, scattered his seed into the world, and is now coming to the end of his days, old and full of years. There is something satisfying about this. He made it. He saw the three promises made to him fulfilled. Yes, it took him his full life to see them realized, but it was done. Yes, he made many mistakes and sinned a bunch throughout his life, but here it is all laid out for us, so clean, so complete. 

What do you want the end of your life to look like? We are spared the ugly details like what and how much was hurting in Abraham's body, but what do you want this part of your life to look like? Do you want those days of your life marked by gratitude of how God has worked even in the hard times? How does one even achieve a life like this? 

Do you think about it, or does the very thought terrify you? I think that there is a shared fear amongst parents and children, leaders and their followers: what life is going to look like without them. Parents can look at their children and wonder how on earth God is going to do something with them. Children can easily look at parents and wonder what will life be like without their guidance, even the guidance that they resent at the moment. When we get used to God working through certain people, certain channels, it becomes harder to remember that God is the one actually making all of this work. 

We are in the middle of yet another intense election cycle. Part of the angst comes from the real question of how is God going to bring good out of what is happening today. Once agin, buried in a pile of names, is a story of God's faithfulness and redemption for a truly unexpected people. Our two points today will be God has a plan for the unplanned and God's plan is more impressive than you can imagine.  

God has a plan for the unplanned 

As we saw two weeks ago, Sarah has died, yet Abraham's family continued to grow. Life continued for a few more decades after that, and we discover in chapter 25 that he has gotten remarried and had six more sons. Two of those sons also had sons. Abraham's family continued to grow. However, lest we think that God's promise to Isaac was thus threatened, verse 5 tells us that Abraham still gave everything to Isaac. He was good to his other sons by giving them gifts, yet he was still faithful to God's instructions that there would only be one heir of Abraham's full blessing. 

The growth of Abraham's family could have ended poorly for Isaac. After all, look at the worry that Sarah had when Ishmael was still at home. She recognized that even one of these competitors to the promise of Isaac was too much to risk. God also backed her up on this and told Abraham to send Ishmael away even while promising to take care of him. It would seem that this same pattern worked out amongst Abraham's other sons. I can't imagine that this was much easier for Abraham to do than it was when he had to do it for Ishmael. But Abraham has learned a lot. He has learned to trust in what God promised him and is now living that out. 

Having now given the rest of the acts of Abraham, Moses records Abraham's death. He lived 175 years, an old man and full of years. Don't you love that? Long life was considered a blessing at that time, and it should be today. A good and long life is one that is spent in watching God work. Will there be many sinful things that you will see and experience? Yes, but getting a front row seat to what God is doing, to watch and learn, is an immense privilege. Imagine what it must have been like to sit down with Abraham having witnessed 175 years of God's work. If God has granted you a long life, use that gift to bless others. Things hurt, life is hard, yes, but could you tell us of the faithfulness of God? Could you walk us through your life in all the hardships and ups and downs with an eye towards how God has preserved you through it all? 

The final phrase in verse 8 is one that I love: gathered to his people. There is some debate as to what exactly that tells us about their concept of the afterlife. The word itself is a term for harvest and was used as a euphemism of death. Whether this means they had a concept of heaven where dead people who believed in God went or not is up for debate. Nevertheless, since we do know that there is a heaven, this is a good word picture to capture that. A plant grows and flowers producing fruit before it is harvested. It gives to me at least a sense of purpose in our growth and output. It also helps remind me that in being gathered up, I'm being transported to more life. 

Being gathered isn't the just the end of something; it is the beginning of something new.  That is what I think we see in verses 9 and following. Isaac and Ishmael burry Abraham in the cave that he purchased, fully cementing Abraham's place in the Promised land. This also shows that the sons have taken the same view of the Promised land that Abraham has. Unlike Abraham's servant that thought bringing Isaac back to the former homeland would be a good idea, Abraham's sons realize that the promise is here. Abraham is no longer another son of Ur. He is the father of Israel. This is an act of faith. 

Verse 11 gives us the final confirmation, however, of Isaac's blessing being received. Abraham can pass on property, but it is up to God to send His blessing on it. He has chosen Isaac, and that promise will be fulfilled. 

But what of Ishmael? After all, he was promised good things as well even if they were not the same as Isaac. We see all of this wrapped up in verses 12-18. Now, what we will see here is another list of names and the aside that he had indeed the 12 princes that God had promised him. Though, to be thorough, the final line of verse 18 tells us that he also lived up to the prediction that he was going to be a wild man against everyone. All that God commanded, good and bad, was carried out. 

Now, most of us would be satisfied here. God promised that Isaac would get the main blessing, and Ishmael would have something of his own. God has done that. God is faithful. Sermon done, let's go home. 

God's plan is more impressive than you can imagine.  

But God has something more for us. 

This is not the last time that these names are mentioned. A couple of these names will pop up again in 1 Chronicles 5:19. It's a blink and you'll miss it moment, but this verse contains the fight with the descendants of Ishmael. Isaac's sons are ultimately victorious in this conflict, but it is impressive to notice that both of these lines are active in this point in history. But then that shouldn't be too deep of a surprise for us as their descendants are still shaping world politics to this day with the conflict in the middle East. 

But this is not the last time that these names will show up. Prepare yourselves for Isaiah 60:1-7. Do not those names sound familiar? These are the descendants of Abraham's second wife and the descendants of Ishmael. They, having been sent away to protect Isaac's inheritance, return to become his inheritance. They come to bring gifts to Israel. You remember what was said on the news. Are you telling me that these people are one day going to get along? Yes. How about that? How does that grab you? How's that for a plan on God's part? Did you see that coming? I didn't. 

Abraham didn't bring all of these things together. He has been dead for a very long time. This is God executing on His plan to bless those who bless Isaac. But how does God pull this off? He does so through the gospel, news that a man has gone into the grave and come out. Because of that you can go to heaven when you die, and one day it will lead to even peace in the Middle East, a place that has been a war zone for the better part of four thousand years. 

That's your God at work. He thinks way bigger than you. For Abraham, yes, sin cost him more than he could have ever imagined. His sin with Hagar in chapter 16 brought lasting consequences that are felt to this day, yet his faithfulness in this chapter 25 will bring in a glorious future where the bows and spears are broken finally. 

So what does this mean for you? What do we takeaway? Does this mean that God will always work things out the way that you want? No. But he is going to work things out in a way that is glorious. That includes the sins that you have committed, too. It can be easy to think that once you have done a certain sin there is no closing pandora's box. In one sense you are right. When you commit sins like Abraham commits, you can cause lasting suffering. But that doesn't mean God can't still work in and through that for His glory. You don't have to live with the constant shame or assume that your Christian life is over. Might things be forever different in this life? Yes, but different doesn't mean done. 

This is even more critical to remember when you have been sinned against. When you are the offended party, it is hard to remember that God can work good things out of what has offended you. But you have to remember this if you are going to have any hope of moving forward. This doesn't mean we treat sin lightly. We need to approach sin like we approach a funeral. As Christians, yes, we have the hope of heaven. We will see them again. One day we will be gathered to our people, too. But the meantime is still sad. It is the same way with sin. Every sin committed is a death of what once was. Sometimes, Jesus resurrects it, and other times He redeems it. Those are the only two options for the Christian. 

As we close, consider these words from Charles Spurgeon: 

“Thou hast been a backslider, perhaps thou art so now, but God, even the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, can purge thee with hyssop, and thou shalt be clean. Thy leprosy shall depart, and thy flesh shall become fresh as a little child. “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” “I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins.” Oh, the blessedness of this! If sin returns upon you, child of God, that fountain filled with blood, which washed him once, has by no means lost its power. You may wash again, backslider. The mercy seat is not removed, nor is the permission to approach it revoked. My heart delights to think I may go to Jesus as a sinner, if I cannot as a saint. I want a Saviour now as much as ever I did; I want new pardon for new sin. I thank the Master for having taught us to say every day, “Forgiven us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Even those who can say, “Our Father which art in heaven,” with a full assurance begotten in them by the filial spirit of grace, yet have need to ask that sin may be forgiven. We want daily pardon, and we shall have it. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 

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​Have you heard the refrain, "I just worry about what it is going to be like for you kids in the future." It's a lament that flows from my own mouth now that the weight of parenthood sits on my shoulders. We just want the next generation to be ok, and if you happen to be in that generation, you just want things to be ok, too! 

In this chapter, we have such a beautiful slice of life in Abraham's family. So far in Genesis, we have only seen Abraham go through these supernatural problems and triumphs. Abraham was sent on this unknown journey into the wild, hundreds of miles away from anything he knew. In the next chapter, his lying is bringing down and entire country with sickness. The next chapter has him taking his personal army to go rescue his nephew from a coalition of pagan kings. After that, God Himself comes down and makes a covenant right in front of him. After THAT Abraham finds himself in the middle of a squabble between his two wives, and then after THAT Abraham has lunch face to face with God, and then after, after THAT God supernaturally gives Him as son whom he asks Him to sacrifice and then stops him last minute. 

Could we get a normal-sized problem to see how to faithfully work through that? 

Have you ever worried about the next generation? Have you ever worried about your own future? Well, Abraham has gone through that, too. So let's take a look at how Abraham (but mostly God) works through passing the torch. 

Obedience is practical yet not presumptuous.  

Let's look at this first section of nine verses. Abraham is coming to the end of his life. He has enjoyed, land, seed, and blessing, but he isn't the only one prophesied to enjoy these blessings. He is going to pass them down to his son, but his son is going to need a wife. As much as possible, Abraham is going to set the stage for this promise to continue. Summoning his best servant, Abraham relates his most important assignment yet: go back to the homeland and find a wife for Isaac. 

Imagine the pressure on that servant! Put yourself in his shoes. The future of Abraham's legacy (and the blessing for the rest of the world!) is now in your hands. Would you not start to think through what might go wrong? The servant does exactly this, and offers practical solutions like bringing Isaac with him. However, Abraham is going to take the trusting route. Leaving the land isn't an option. God has assured Abraham in some way that the servant's way is going to be provided for. 

While Abraham is obedient, he is not presumptuous (Matthews, 328). Maybe by the angel going before the servant, God means for the search to go on for some time. Perhaps God is going to do something that Abraham couldn't possibly plan for (it has happened before!), so in that case, as long as Isaac stays in the land, the servant will have done faithfully. The servant swears to this arrangement by placing his hand under Abraham's thigh (a symbol of Abraham's position of procreative "source of the family" as pointed out by Matthews, 326). 

The servant sets off on his journey and comes to a well. The servant is being strategic here, as this is the place where the ladies gather. Just because we have an assurance that God is going to prosper the mission, doesn't mean that we can go about it sloppy and careless. He is looking for a woman of character. He begins to pray, and I want you to notice how he goes about praying for who to choose amongst this sea of ladies. He asks the Lord that the woman of character would show herself by having her act like a woman of character (Ross, 419). 

You will notice that he doesn't pray that she would wear a certain color, or that she would walk up and say, "The Lord caused me to dream about you, and yes, I'll be Isaac's wife." Those sorts of things happen very rarely even in the Bible! God has given to us what we need in the wise application of His Word. Prayer is not meant to turn God into a Magic Eightball. He has given to us the guidance we need—He wrote it down! We don't have to be airy-fairy mystics wandering around waiting for writing in the sky while the writing sits in the book in our lap. As Dr. Ross put it, "God's will cannot be divined but may be discerned by those who prayerfully and righteously fulfill their covenantal obligations." (422). In other words, use what God gave you, a Bible and a brain. 

You'll notice also the restraint of the servant. Here comes Rebekah, and she says the line! She is ready to water the camels—all ten of them! He watches and waits. There is still the matter of her needing to be a relative of Abraham's. He doesn't know if she will fit this requirement or not. One scholar put it this way, "He is hopeful but not presumptuous, not outpacing God's timing." (Matthews, 335).

However, when the will of the Lord is revealed, the servant is exuberant, and he responds in worship. He praises God for His steadfast love, His always and forever, never-giving-up kind of love. It is clear that God is playing the long game. God's love is not a here today gone tomorrow sort of love. It is going to extend even unto the next generation. 

The same is true for you. God isn't just building the kingdom in your life. God's steadfast love is going to extend to the next generation, too. What will that look like? I don't know. Isaac's life was not exactly the same as Abraham's life, and Jacob's life was not the same as Isaac's life, and Joseph and Judah had very different lives than Jacob, yet God advanced His kingdom through them all. Even "In this story the Lord achieves his purposes through the loyal but cagey servant, the ambitious Laban, and the respectful but independently minded Rebekah." (Matthews, 322). The key in all of this is that the servant is trusting God to work through all these things. 

God will guide to His ends 

What is funny, though, is that God is firmly in the background on this whole story, yet His handiwork is unmistakable (Ross, 415). And that is what the servant attempts to convey as he takes on the second hurdle of his mission: convince the family to let Rebekah go. 

Convincing the family to let their daughter go doesn't seem to be any easier back then than it is now. They love their daughter, and she is obviously a very capable and willing help around the house. It is going to need to be clear that God is the one calling Rebekah, hence this long report in the middle of our chapter. The servant needs to make this very clear that God is the one behind this (Matthews, 339). 

He isn't only convincing the family; he is also convincing us. We have just read all that God has done to lead things just so, and the way that Jewish writing emphasizes something is by repeating it. We are meant to walk away from this story saying, "Ok, ok! God is obviously moving in this situation!" The covenant is advancing! It is going to beyond Abraham. It is so clear that even her family sees it. 

We have the advantage of being on this side of the story, knowing that it all will work out just as promised. But can you imagine the tension in the room with that servant? This is THE ONE for Isaac, but if the family or Rebekah herself doesn't agree, what happens next? This servant cares a lot about Abraham and Isaac. This isn't a business negotiation. This is a fight for the future. The same goes for the family of Rebekah. Do we trust this guy? Even after the initial yes, the family ALMOST stopped it by delaying things for ten days (verse 55). Rebekah comes in at the last moment and decides to leave, closing the matter. All that is left to do is meet Isaac and become his wife, which she does. 

This is only the beginning of her story. We have come to the halfway point of Genesis. We will only see Rebekah and Isaac for just a couple of chapters, yet they will provide the pivot point for the rest of the book. Rebekah is going to be a critical link for the next several chapters as her brother, Laban, will provide Jacob's wives, the mothers of the twelve tribes of Israel, in the times to come. (Matthews, 322-323). We will be wide eyed at all that is going to flow in the second half of this wonderful book. And as if that weren't enough, we will see that God will carry his promises all the way to the true offspring of Abraham, the Lion of Judah, Jesus Christ Himself. 

God has overcome every obstacle. His covenant shall continue. So what are we to draw from this? Is this chapter meant to be an object lesson that as long as you think through things carefully enough and pray sufficiently that God will guide you towards what you want? No. There were at least three different points at which this trip could have failed. Rebekah could have needed to get home and not acknowledged the servant. The family could have said no. Rebekah could have said no, and none of that was in the control of the servant. He did what he could, but there was a reason that he fell to the ground to worship God when it all worked out. God is the one who gets the credit! 

So when things work out in your life, don't pat yourself on the back. Instead, fall to your knees. We have so much to worship God for in our lives. So many details have to go just so in order for our lives to turn out the way that they do. No one is able to even imagine, much less plan, for every setback or obstacle. Instead, don't settle to just be practical or pragmatic. Be practically obedient. Do what God says in wise ways, trusting and worshiping Him with the results.  

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How are you faithful to God when it seems like God is not being faithful to you? All the back in chapter 12, Abraham was promised by God to have a land, seed, and a blessing. Despite Abraham's foibles, God consistently worked out His promises, even though they were often at the last minute! There was, however, one promise that hadn't been fulfilled yet: the land. All of the other promises were fulfilled with Abraham and Sarah together, and I could imagine that he might have thought that the land would come through while she was still alive. 

Do we not do the same thing? Do you have ideas of not only what God has promised you but how He is going to fulfill them? Do we not sometimes feel betrayed when things don't go exactly as we imagine them? 

I can only imagine the despair that such a seeming betrayal contains, yet in this passage, we get to see Abraham reach this point. This chapter is about burying his wife, Sarah, the matriarch of Israel. She was the only woman who could bring in the promised son. Abraham's seed could be delivered only from her womb, a woman blessed with favor from God even if she did laugh at Him! She has been at Abraham's side ever since he left the homeland of Ur. She has seen the delivery of the promise of blessing and of a descendant, but she has not seen a land to call her own. She dies a sojourner. 

How does Abraham react to this new test of faith in God, and what can we learn from it? That will be our focus as we look at our two points today: Death comes for all in the end, but death isn’t always the end.

Death comes for all in the end

The first two verses of this chapter are very matter of a fact. Sarah dies. Sarah is said to have lived 127 years in her life, and interestingly, she is the only woman who's age is recorded (Waltke, 317). Since she had Isaac when she was 90, that makes him 37 years old, and Abraham will soldier on for another 38 years after her death (Waltke, 317). After this Abraham goes in to mourn for her. They have likely been together for nearly a hundred years. 

While we all know that death comes to us all, it isn't like we think about that every day. If I could do a little sanctified speculation here, I could imagine that Abraham might not have been expecting this to happen in just this way. After all, God has granted every promise to them right when it seemed like it wasn't going to happen. All those miles walked before finally even showing them the land. All those decades of waiting for a son to arrive and only when it seems totally impossible does God send them Isaac. All those close calls of kings stealing his wife only for God to intervene and rescue her. Everything has happened at the last minute! 

There is one promise that is still outstanding: a land. Yes, they have seen the land. Yes, Abraham has permission to journey around in it, but there isn't any parcel of land that is well and truly his. I could imagine that he was likely assuming that since the other two promises have been achieved together, that this one would as well. But it isn't. Sarah dies 62 years after they first arrived at Canaan (Matthews, 314). 

Death never comes at the perfect time, does it? We wish for one more conversation, one more project. Just another moment. That deathbed realization can be so painful. It is a cold comfort that we should expect this. It seems heartless to tell someone in that position that death is a part of life, and it is out of our hands now. 

So what are we supposed to do? How do we respond to a death not just in our family, but when that death takes the dreams for our family, when death takes from us not just who should have been but what should have been?  

But death isn't always the end 

Here we witness Abraham's reaction. First, I think we should just take a moment to see Abraham's grief. A right response to death isn't the absence of tears or emotion. See Jesus' reaction to Lazarus. Crying when someone dies isn't a lack of faith. It is a recognition of the horrible consequences of sin in our world and our longing for a world without it. But, secondly, godly grief doesn't stay there in despair. 

Abraham rises to speak with the Hittites, whom verse 7 calls, the people of the land. Abraham, a non-landowner in the Land that God Himself promised him, has to approach the people of the land for a place to bury Sarah.  

The beginning of negotiations goes very well. He is looking for a burial place, and the people seem very willing to let him have basically whatever tomb he would like! He is given great titles and treated very respectfully. However, without tone and vision, it is hard to know what their motivations are. Do they genuinely respect Abraham and are truly honored to give him a piece of their property? Or are they merely offering him something that isn't in writing? In other words, without payment, there would be nothing official about Abraham's claim to the grave, and it could be taken from him at any time, much less future generations (Matthews, 318). 

In either case, Abraham has already found the specific tomb he would like, and he asks to speak with the owner in order to buy it for full price. Once again, the owner is gracious and offers him not only the cave for a tomb, but he even offers the field that goes with it! Once again, scholars differ on possible motivations for this, but the bottom line is that those motivations don't matter much. What matters is Abraham's reaction to the offer. He insists on buying it for full price. Ephron offers it to him for 400 shekels of silver. Again, we don't know for sure if this is a reasonable price or inflated. They didn't have Zillow back then. What actually is surprising is the lack of back and forth. Haggling would have been expected in that culture, and the fact that Abraham doesn't even put forward a counter offer would be surprising. What that does, however, is guarantee that Abraham has that land (Waltke, 321). After all, Abraham accepted the very first offer! He came in at asking price. No one would be able to say that Abraham cheated Ephron or wore him down to sell it below market value. He bought that land fair and square. 

Now, he is a land owner. A wanderer no more. He buries his wife in the promised land. 

Now, to us that might not seem like a huge exercise in faith. We are a very mobile and practical people. We can live hundreds or even thousands of miles from where we are born, and only the more sentimental ones might have preferences on where our body is buried after we die. It is more likely that we will determine where we are buried in terms of costs and convenience. That is not so with Abraham or people like him in this age. As one scholar mentioned, Abraham burying outside of his native land was to cut ties with ancestors (Belcher, 163). This is honestly the final step in leaving the country of his fathers all the way back in chapter 12. He is now saying that the future of his family, his descendants, is right in this place. 

By the time we get to the end of Genesis, we will find that two more generations of Abraham's descendants will be buried there. Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and finally Leah and Jacob. One source interestingly points out that Jacob died in Egypt, and Joseph had his father embalmed (Gen. 50:2), so Jacob's body could actually still be there in this cave these many thousands of years later (Easton Bible Dictionary)! 

So what does all that mean for us? What Abraham is doing in this practical way is not turning his back on God. He could have said that God didn't come through on this promise and go back to the homeland (Ross, 409). Do we not feel that pull sometimes when something really hard strikes us? Maybe God isn't worth following after all? This kind of despair often does come around a death, but it doesn't have to. Some can feel this way after a ministry implodes or a child walks away from Jesus. Abraham holds on even tighter. He places, in a very literal sense, his money where his faith is. He buys this land because he actually believes that there is a future here (Waltke, 320). 

Abraham believes that God works beyond his lifetime. My seminary prof Dr. Ross put it this way, "The point for biblical theology is that Abraham and Sarah had not exhausted God's promises in their lifetime. ... God would do far more for them than he had done in this life —which is the hope of all who die in the faith" (411). Did you notice what he said there? "God would do more for *them.*" Whose them? Abraham and Sarah! Wait a minute, those people are dead! How is God going to do more for them? Don't you mean, "God will do more for their descendants"? No. God brings Abraham and Sarah to a heavenly dwelling. A place to call their own is beyond a piece of real estate, though it is not less than that, as we can see here. 

God promises to give them Himself in heaven. And there is not promise greater than that. Death can't touch that promise. There is no plan that you can make, no hope that you can have for your life that is greater than that. 

However, that is only true if you are in Christ. That is why I put in the outline that death isn't *always* the end. If you are not in Christ this morning, then death truly is the end. This is as good as life will ever be. But if you are in Christ, then this is as bad as it will ever get. Heaven will be more than adequate compensation. 

What about family who died without Christ as near as we can tell? This is one of the blessings of the Lord knowing the heart and not us. My father heard a story in the hospital of a man who didn't know Jesus who went from cursing out his mom to repenting of his sins, trusting in Christ, reconciling with his mother, and then died all in the space of 20 minutes. You never know what goes through a person's mind. Let me be clear, no one goes to heaven without trusting in Christ. Jesus said quite clearly that He is the only way. You can't trust in some other god our yourself, but you never know for sure if God didn't get a hold of their heart in the final moments of life. Trust that the Judge of all the earth will do right. 

And, as a side note, this grave that Abraham purchased is still there. There's a Muslim mosque there now, so visiting of the grave site is heavily restricted. I came across one article that asked the question of why God allows a mosque, a monument to a false religion, to remain on a place as sacred as the location of the Temple mount? Why allow such a thing to rest on this grave, this symbol of hope and faith that endures beyond death? 

The article answers that perhaps God allows these things to happen to keep us from going back to them. Instead, He wants us to focus not on Abraham's grave, but Christ's. His grave is empty! And that gives us far more hope than Abraham's grave could ever dream of giving us! 

So what do we take away from this passage? Continue to cling to God's program. You have a hope that exists beyond the literal grave. God isn't done with you just because you're dead. Honestly, He's just getting started. 

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The first week, we looked at how God grows faith which is through trial. Last week, we saw what faith acts like, in that it isn't just a mental affirmation but it is a deep seated trust in Christ that cannot help but be obedient to what God says. Today, we are going to look at what obedient faith brings to the faithful: blessing. 

Now, I'm going to start up front by defining what I am not saying here. I am not saying that obedience always brings immediate blessing. God isn't a vending machine where if you pray and read your Bible a certain number of times God will give you a blessing that day. I've seen the reverse of this in folks responding to minor setbacks like traffic or a crashed computer with, "Well, I didn't pray today! That's why all these things are happening to me!" I mean, maybe, but there is no way to actually know that, nor is a prayed for day always going to be a trouble free day. God isn't a formula where you plug in this to get that in a predictable way. 

I am also not saying that obedience always brings blessings as we would define the term like riches or health. You will often find the most godly people in the world enduring the greatest suffering, so we can't make one to one comparisons here. My mom got cancer, and it turned out to be a painful but deep blessing. My mom has been able to walk many others through the same valley, a blessing she wouldn't have without having gone through it herself. This was certainly not the path we all desired her to go, but the Lord is able to make blessings out of things we wouldn't wish for. 

So what am I saying? I am saying that true blessing comes through obedience. Exactly what that looks like or when it is going to come is up to the Lord, but we see the consistent witness of Scripture is that righteousness brings reward. 

Righteousness Brings Reward 

Now, right off the bat, we see what looks like God granting the blessings of chapter 12 to Abraham because of obedience. Does this mean that Abraham has earned his salvation here? As we saw last week, works display salvation but they do not determine salvation. God counted Abraham's faith as righteousness all the way back in chapter 15, well before he does anything here. God promised that he would have these things, yet God uses his obedience to bring blessing, and at least in this instance, was used to bring blessing to the whole world! 

This has worked in reverse, as well. One scholar noted that when Abraham was disobedient, he was "a burden around the neck of the nations" (Waltke, 310). We remember when he lied about Sarah, both Pharaoh and Abimelech AND the rest of the nations they ruled suffered. We have already mentioned that Abraham's escapade with Hagar has brought us the evening news cycle. Middle Eastern politics can draw a straight line right back to chapter 16 of Genesis. 

Our focus today, however, is going to be the straight line of blessing from Genesis 22 to Matthew 1. 

While God promised to give all these things to Abraham all the way back in chapter 12, and that God empowered Abraham to obey in this way, that doesn't mean that his obedience is unimportant. One Pastor put it this way the promise rests squarely on God's sovereign choice and unilateral oath. But it's fulfillment. Also includes the actions of his people as they obey." ((Phillips, 80). In other words, God uses means to accomplish His will. He certainly can do all things Himself, like evangelizing the world, but He is choosing to use us to bring that about. AS such, we have a real responsibility to carry out this work while resting in the assurance that it will be God's grace alone that ultimately accomplishes it. Even still, we will enjoy the blessing of obeying such a work, just like Abraham. This obedience coming out of faith in God's Word results in this blessing that Abraham gets that has implications for the rest of the world. 

Do you view your obedience that way? Do you see your obedience as important not just for your soul but for the souls of those around you? Do you view your righteousness as having an effect on others that makes a real difference? You may not know this, but I watch your faces on our last song we sing together. Because of my position, I am often aware of hard things going on in your lives, and to see you all sing through those hardships, worshiping when I'm sure you'd rather just be in a room by yourself because of what is happening, it has an effect on me. There is a blessing in you being here for me and for those around you. 

Now, not everyone has the sort of effect on the world that Abraham has, so let's take a look again at the promises that God confirms to Abraham. 

We have here, for the most part, the same promises that we have been hearing about since Genesis 12, with the addition of the word "surely." Once again, Abraham is promised that he is going to have descendants like the stars of heaven. While the Jews are not a small group of people, this promise is applied to all the spiritual children of Abraham. This has been made possible by what comes in the latter half of 17 and all of 18. 

The key word here is "offspring." There is a little vagueness to this word because it is a singular noun but it can be seen as a plural (Matthews, 299). The word has that same broadness in English as well. If I say, "Behold, my offspring!" I could gesture to one child or all of my children, and I wouldn't have to change my wording. I would have to use other words around the word offspring to let you know which is which. It is pretty clear that the word offspring in the early part of verse 17 is plural because we are talking about descendants as numerous as the stars in heaven. Clearly, this is meant to refer to multiple people like we mentioned earlier. 

It is when we get to the latter half of this passage that the words around offspring like "possess" is in the singular. Scholars are divided as to whether this is singular because of the oddity of the word, just like it is in English, or is this referring to one person in particular? 

If this is one person in particular, then this has got to be a very important person. In verse 18, we are told that "in your offspring (again, singular) shall all the nations be blessed." In other words, there is going to be one person in particular who is going to bless all the nations. Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, cuts through the mysteries of grammar and tells us plainly in Galatians 3:16, that this offspring is in fact Christ: "Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ." Because of Christ, as Paul argues earlier in that same chapter, we the Gentiles are allowed to be pulled into covenant with God! God has blessed all the nations by bringing them to Himself. Once, everyone was far off. But now that Christ has appeared, everyone who repents and puts their faith in Christ will be assured of a place in the heavenly promised land.  

What's amazing is that Abraham has no full idea what this means yet. Indeed, even Moses who is writing this down has no idea what this means yet. How could anyone possibly know that this means that God Himself is going to join this line of descendants in the person of Jesus Christ? That wouldn't even be a category for them. The Lord can work in some extremely surprising ways and still does so. He provides for those who obey his call. 

One of my favorite examples of this idea is the missionary Hudson Taylor. He was one of the first missionaries to inland China and went there at the age of 22. Remember, this wasn't the age of easily accessible information about where you are going or how to learn the language or anything like that. Further, he committed to never ask for funding but would rely totally on prayer. Since then, the agency he formed brought 800 missionaries who founded 125 schools! And it wasn't even the big, lifetime achievement sort of things that God used. One time he was traveling with a friend when they were suddenly robbed of all valuables except their theology books that they were carrying for distribution. The next day, they had people coming to them in droves to buy the books which gave them enough money to continue their travels! On not one but two occasions he was physically attacked, and upon noticing that the fight drew a bunch of people to watch, he used the opportunity to preach the gospel! Source: www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/gods-work-gods-way/

In the moment, it probably didn't feel like much. But the Lord used that story to continue to motivate others to similar work. I think the same could likely be said of Abraham in verse 19. After this remarkable moment of obedience and reaffirmation of the promise, Abraham simply gets up and goes home. After this, it is going to be a while before anything amazing happens, yet this was the moment that set in motion the rest of redemptive history. You never know where obedience will take you! 

As we said earlier, it isn't just the remarkable things in life that God uses. In these last four verses, we are told of Abraham's brother having children. Out of the eight, there is one who is going to be very significant in the life of Isaac, Bethuel. He goes on to have a very important daughter, Rebekah, who will become Isaac's wife and continue the line of descendants. At the moment, no one knows that this is in any way significant. Yet the redemption of the world is passing through their ranks. 

So what is our takeaway here? Never underestimate the importance of obedience to God's commands. So many things look deeply insignificant in the moment you first see them, and this works for obedience and sin. So many can pinpoint a moment when they wandered from God because of one decision and many other can point to a similarly small thing that turned them around. My encouragement to you as you struggle down the narrow road is to remember that you are on the road leading to blessing. You actually have no idea how you might be used. From Abraham's perspective, he died with Sarah's one son and had enough land to bury his wife. Sure, rich and powerful, but then what does that matter at the end? I would imagine his surprise if he could see the capital C Church today. 

So, weary Christian, keep looking to Jesus. Trust Him with your efforts that they are not in vain. You may not see your goals accomplished in your lifetime, but trust the Everlasting God to work with your obedience. 

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What is true faith? What does true faith do? Those are two separate questions. If I were to ask you what a flashlight is you might describe it as a metal tube with a bulb inside. If I were to ask you what a flashlight does, then you would tell me that it shines light. 

The same is true of faith. The question "What is faith?" is different from "What does it do?" To hear from our own catechism what faith is: "Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation as he is offered to us in the gospel." That is what faith is. Faith alone is what saves you. Faith isn't works. It is a grace to trust Christ, to count on Him alone for your salvation. Even the book of James is very careful to make a distinction between faith and works as we will see in a moment. 

Now, the question that our particular passage prompts us to ask is, "What does faith do?" It will focus our attention on externals. Works is the arena where true faith is displayed. And this is what we are going to see from our passage today. Our two points are: True faith works and true works only come from faith. 

True faith works. 

As we saw last week, Abraham has been called to a very serious task: sacrificing his son. God gave him the task, and he has set right to it. Three days is a long time to think through what God has asked him, but he remains resolute. This is what faith looks like, so let's see faith undergo the torture test and see how it behaves when the unimaginable is asked. 

As Isaac and Abraham go up the mountain, Isaac notices that something is wrong. They are missing a lamb! Abraham responds that God will provide (literally, the Lord will see) for the lamb. Interestingly, one scholar noticed that the Hebrew can be a bit flexible here. It is possible to read this as saying "my son" is the lamb (Matthews, 294)! Whether that is intended or not, the more important part of that sentence is the leaving the answer to that question to God, as one scholar notes: "Hence, the issue lay with the Lord, not Abraham, for he left it to God to resolve the theological and moral problems he himself created." (Matthews, 285). Abraham doesn't know how this is going to work exactly, but he is leaving it up to God. Abraham doesn't have to know how this test will end in order to obey it. 

We ascend the mountain and reach the climax of Abraham's test. Kierkegaard, a danish theologian of the mid 1800s vividly paints for us what Abraham is doing: 

"There was many a father who lost his child; but then it was God, it was the unalterable, the unsearchable will of the Almighty, it was His hand took the child. Not so with Abraham. For him was reserved a harder trial, and Isaac's fate was laid along with the knife in Abraham's hand. And there he stood, the old man, with his only hope! But he did not doubt, he did not look anxiously to the right or to the left, he did not challenge heaven with his prayers. He knew that it was God the Almighty who was trying him, he knew that it was the hardest sacrifice that could be required of him; but he knew also, that no sacrifice was too hard when God required it – and he drew the knife." (quoted in Ross, 399) 

Did you catch all that? This Isaac is Abraham's hope for everything. The covenant with Abimelech, a legacy for him, children to carry his name, live in his land, carry the blessings of nations, and Abraham is about to put a knife through him and turn him to ash. Abraham is not a psycho. Abraham isn't a product of a harsher time that somehow makes child sacrifice easy. We saw how he didn't want to send Ishmael away because he loved him. It's one thing to send away, but it is quite another thing to be the very agent of death for the one you love. 

True works only come from faith. 

How does Abraham do that? Because he believes God. There is a hint about what that looks like in Abraham's mind buried in verse 5. It isn't seen in English, but in the Hebrew Abraham is using all plural verbs. The last part of the verse could be translated, "and we will come again to you." Somehow, Abraham expected Isaac to return with him from the mountain. Even if you don't read Hebrew, the book of Hebrews 11:19 tells us Abraham's thought process: "He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back." That doesn't mean that this test isn't difficult. Stabbing your son, even if you are convinced that God is able to raise him from the dead, isn't easy. 

It is hard to know precisely what Abraham is displaying here, and it might be because Abraham's emotions aren't really the point. The point is Abraham believes God so much that he obeys. Or we could even phrase it, Abraham believes God just enough to obey. 

What is your level of faith? Does it lead you to obey God? James 2 is very clear that a faith that isn't obedient to God is a dead faith and no faith at all. A stone that won't shine underwater isn't a diamond. If your faith in God has never lead you to obey what you read in His word, then your faith isn't real. I'm not asking you if you have done something radical. I'm not even asking if you have done something emotionally difficult. I'm asking you the simple question: do you obey God? If not, what are you withholding from Him and why?

To be very clear, I am not saying that you are saved by works. Even going to James 2:21-24 we will see this. James isn't talking about the reason for your salvation but the result of your salvation. The word "justify" here means "proven." (McCartney, "An Epistle of Straw" The Doctrine on Which the Church Stands or Falls, 289). Going back to verse 20, we see that even demons can believe right things. Your giving mental assent to Jesus doesn't show that you have faith. Faith isn't in your head but your heart. Your faith is shown to be really in your heart when it shows up in your hands, the things you do. That's also what is meant by "completed." (McCartney, 281). This doesn't mean that your faith starts the process and your works finish your salvation. No! But as one scholar explains, the point of faith in Christ is that you will become more righteous (McCartney, 281). We don't just check a box so we won't burn in hell. We come to Christ to begin the process of becoming holier! So if we never obey, we never grow closer to God, then we have to take a look at our lives to see what we have really signed up for. 

God commends Abraham for not withholding his son. Abraham's action in this way shows that his ultimate hope was in God not Isaac. What do you withhold from God? What do you think you can protect and nurture better than God can? Do you think disobeying God's commands to be generous with your money will protect your money? What kind of faith is that? Do you think that raising your kids in the way the world wants you to rather than God will result in better children? Do you think that spending your time, especially on Sunday, the way you want rather than the way God wants will result in better spent time? Do you think that using your sexuality the way that you think is right because it feels good despite what God says about it will result in blessings in that area? Abraham trusted that God could protect his son better than he could, such that even if God commanded him to plunge a knife into him then that was what was needed. 

Now, to be clear, this test was for Abraham, not us. We get our marching orders from God's Word, and God hasn't called us to do specifically what Abraham has done. That said, we are called to the faith that Abraham has displayed. There will be times in the future where raising godly children and grandchildren is going to put them out of step with our culture. They could face a jail sentence. They could face the inability to find prestigious work because of their "extreme" views. They could find themselves on the outs of a culture, having to secretly meet under threat of arrest in order to carry on what you have taught them. Now maybe they wont, but maybe they will. Are you ok with that? Do you trust God enough to teach them to fear God rather than man? Do you trust God enough to face the same fate yourself? If not, then what is your faith? 

I'm not asking these questions to be dramatic. I'm not asking these questions because this is how you wrap up a sermon. I'm asking these questions because I'm afraid that you haven't asked yourself these yet and your soul is in danger. I'm afraid that you haven't sat on the back porch with a cup of tea and seriously reflected on this like it matters. If you haven't, why do you think your children will? 

If you need some help in this, let's consider this story from another angle. Most of the time, I think we legitimately cast ourselves as Abraham in this story. This is a story to encourage us to have the faith of Abraham. This is how we have been looking at it for the past couple of weeks. But there is another character that often is just a supporting role in the story, and that is Isaac. One scholar suggested this approach, and I think this is another good application of this story (Belcher, 156). 

Instead of considering ourselves as Abraham, let's consider ourselves as Isaac. Isaac is led up the mountain and is going to be killed at God's command. That is our position. God's justice screams out for our execution. We have broken those laws that He has given to us thus committing high treason against the God of the universe. There is no reason that we should live for God has called us to be executed. He is just. He is the definition of justice. So God's wrath stands over us, knife in hand when suddenly, God calls out for it stop. God then provides a substitute, the ram, or I guess we should say, the Lamb is offered in our place. The knife is moved away from our chest. We are set free from the altar, and Christ climbs onto it instead. It wasn't as if Jesus stepped in to save us from His Father. It was the Father Who sent a willing Son to spare us from the judgement that we so richly deserved. 

We must never forget what should have happened to us. We must never forget what has been done for us. And it is really only on that basis that works will come. If you are deciding here this morning that it is time to recommit to something here this morning because the pastor said so, we'll take it, but it won't last long. My warning voice will fade in your ears as the days and temptations pile on. Instead, preach the gospel to yourself. Remind yourself what you deserved, and then remind yourself of what God has granted to you.  

So what is our takeaway here? Our takeaway is that faith in God is the only thing that will save you, but if your faith never alters anything about your life, then your faith is dead. True faith will produce holiness in your life. It won't be perfect holiness, but it will be growing holiness. 

The world is and always was too dangerous for dead faith. If your faith is dead, now is the time to notice that. And if you do find that your faith is dead, then you need to run to the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Come to Him asking for that faith; it is a gift He loves to give. He loves not waiting until you're in heaven to make you more like Himself. He loves you. He wants to lead you down the paths of righteousness that, yes, are hard, but He is good. 

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How do you think God should treat you? What does that practically look like? If you don't have an answer for that, consider what the last thing that you complained about was. The last thing that happened to you that you complained about was likely something that you think you deserved from God. "I shouldn't have to do all this work myself." "Why is all this traffic here?" "Do these kids just DELIGHT in messing up the house?" "My family member shouldn't have to suffer like this." Our complaints give insight into what we think we deserve from God, and will likely inform the sorts of questions we bring to these first few verses of Genesis 22. 

We have come to the climax of Abraham's story. We might have thought that the climax was last chapter with the birth of Isaac (Bible Talk Podcast). After all that has been the thing that we have been waiting for, the thing that has been put in danger multiple times, the thing that God kept promising to Abraham in 12, 15, 17, 18, and finally in 21 has happened! But now God is asking Abraham to do the unthinkable: sacrifice him. And it isn't just stabbing with a knife. What God is calling for is a whole burnt offering. If Abraham decides to follow through, there is absolutely no turning back. This would be the total destruction of Isaac's body. There would be nothing to bury but ash. 

Why on earth would God do this? The way that we answer this question gives us some insight into who we think God is and what we think we deserve. 

Who is God? God is our All-Knowing King who deserves our best 

Let's look at this passage in its historical context to truly see what Abraham is going through. For one, we are told that this is a test, but Abraham is not. From Abraham's perspective, the goal has been reached! He has a safe place to dwell thanks to God's promise and that covenant with Abimelech. He's got a well, a son, and a place to stay! Sounds like a land, seed, and blessing to me! And now God comes back with this request to sacrifice his son he's just waited twenty five years for! This seems to come way out of left field here! 

We have yet another advantage that Abraham does not: we know what God requires in worship. We know because of later Bible passages that God roundly condemns any kind of human sacrifice. But Abraham doesn't know that. We know that this is a test, but Abraham doesn't know that. 

So why is God doing this? At first glance, it looks like God is emotionally torturing Abraham with a job that God never intends for him to actually do. This isn't even something that God is going to quickly undo. It is going to take days for Abraham to fulfill this task, and he is going to have to do it alone. It's not like you can tell Sarah what you intend to do! So why is this happening?

Whenever we see God doing something that we don't like, we tend to try to rescue Him from His own reputation. It is as if God needs some PR work to help "put some things in context," even to the point of saying things about God that are patently untrue! If we start from the perspective that God is only nice and never intentionally stresses us out, then we have a hard time explaining a passage like this! But that doesn't stop people from trying. 

One way to give God some PR is to lie about His omniscience. We might say that the reason that God does this is that there is really no other way for God to know what sort of trust Abraham has in Him! The reasoning would go something like, "I mean, this is supposed to be the father of many nations, and we really only want the best for such a character, right? How else is God supposed to *truly* know? It's not like He can read Abraham's mind or anything." This initially has something of a ring of truth. Look at verse 12. God says, "Now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." Seems like case closed, doesn't it? God didn't fully know what Abraham's faith was like, so He tested and found it to be good! 

We can't just point to one verse to prove something, however. We have to see what the rest of the Bible has to say about any particular topic. Isaiah 46:8-10 puts it pretty clearly: "Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it." This is a pretty strong statement of God's knowledge of future events. This is saying that the reason God knows the future is because He is the one who decides it! 

Matthew 10:29-30 "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered." Nothing happens without God's knowledge and permission. We see in Job that not even Satan can act without God's permission. (Job 1-2). 

It seems pretty obvious that the Bible wants us to know that God knows and controls all things. But let's imagine for a moment that He wasn't. Let's see what happens when we try to rescue God's reputation with a lie. Let's say that God really doesn't know what is going on inside of Abraham. Let's say that God doesn't really know what the future holds. Let's say that God is not the one who brings trouble into Abraham's life, or, for that matter, our lives. Let's give Satan free reign to do what we wants apart from God's will. Then that means God is winging it. Sure, He could be a better winger than you or I am, but He would be making it up as He goes. That makes the success of the cross a matter of luck. The walls of Jericho could have just as likely stayed up as fallen down. You could have just as likely gotten cancer as not. God doesn't really have anything to do with that. 

I don't know about you, but that is a terrifying world to live in. That removes all purpose from everything that I go through. Yes, blessings could have come from God, but only because it happened to work out. 

No, God controls all things even the hard things. But there is another mistake that we can make here. There is another route to PR for God that makes the mistake in the opposite direction. We can too quickly run to the explanation "Well, God is God and you are not, so shut up!" It's the old "Because I said so" answer. There are times when that answer is appropriate. In fact, sometimes that is the only true answer we can give. The Apostle Paul uses just that when talking about why God chooses some for salvation and not others. Paul could have explained it any other way if there was another way to explain it. But sometimes we run too quickly to that answer. Yes, God is a mystery beyond all comprehension, but there are things that He reveals about Himself and how He works so that we may praise Him. 

Through trials, God grows faith in Him

The book of James, specifically chapters 1 and 2 read almost like a sermon on this chapter. We will explore more of those connections next week, particularly chapter 2, but for now, let's look at the surprising statement to open in James chapter 1. We get the greeting from James that in modern times would be shortened to just, "Hi, this is James writing a message to the Jews who have been spread everywhere." Opening formalities. The first sentence is basically, "Be joyful that hard things are happening to you." Excuse me, James! A little comfort, please? People have been kicked out of their homes, separated from their way of life, exiles starting their lives completely over again. Why start with this? 

James starts here because there is more to life than comfort, and in fact God will use our suffering to produce something in us better than a comfortable life. God is using these very things to build faith. Look at the next verse, "for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." Look at that word "produces." It turns out that in the Greek, the original language this letter was written in, that word means "produces." Paul says the same thing in Romans 5:3-5 "Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." 

Now, this doesn't mean that troubles save us. Faith is still a gift from God, but trials do grow and strengthen it.  

The sufferings that God brings into our lives are for our benefit because it grows our faith in God. In other words, these tests not only show what our level of faith is, but it also grows us. It teaches us how faithful God is. 

It works the same way with testing kids in school. Tests reveal what the student knows, but they are also teaching tools in themselves. I had vocabulary and spelling test in my first English class in community college 14 years ago. I don't remember what words I had been tested on, except one that I got wrong. I will never forget that "superannuated" has two "n"s. The test revealed what I didn't know *and* pushed me to remember what I got wrong. The difference between my English teacher and God, of course, is that my teacher didn't know what I knew or not. God does know what I am, and He will send these tests to reveal that to me and to grow me. 

That is what God has been doing to Abraham this whole time. God has been revealing to Abraham who he is and making him into someone new. One scholar points out that these opening two verses mirror what we saw in chapter 12 (Matthews, 283). God is telling Abraham to go to a place that He will tell him, leave, and sacrifice yet again. 

Just like chapter 12, Abraham sets off, but in the narrative that follows, this is a different man. In earlier passages, when God said that he would have a son, he thought that his heir would be Eliezer. Then when he had Ishmael and was still told that a son would come from Sarah, he offers up Ishmael as the heir. No such substitutions are offered here. He just gets up and starts the work (Matthews, 291). He doesn't even try to negotiate things down like he did for Sodom and Gomorrah (Matthews, 296). He is a changed man. God grace in God's trials have brought him to this point. 

He has become convinced that God will provide. As my seminary professor Dr. Ross put it, "Belief that the Lord will provide enables the true worshiper to sacrifice without reservation." (400)

Do you believe that God will provide for you? Do you trust God to bring you to heaven one day? Has that conviction not grown under trial? Has not your comfort increased as the years have gone on? 

If it hasn't, perhaps you are looking to the wrong source of strength in your trial. Maybe you think that you got yourself out of difficulty. Maybe you think your life is a product of chance and not mercy. If that is your hope, it will be revealed to be the sandy foundation that it is. Only trial will reveal that. 

So what is our takeaway here? Our takeaway is that we shouldn't expect that God will never bring difficulty into our lives. Sometimes, as one theologian put it, God will test us to the point that God appears to be our worst enemy (referenced in Ross, 396). After all, who but a worst enemy would take a child from you? Yet even in this, God is working in you, as blindingly painful as it is. But He isn't doing this because He lost control. He isn't doing this because He's a monster. He's doing this to reveal to you the faith—the greatest gift He could possibly give— that He Himself planted in your heart and is even now strengthening. In your troubles here on earth, He is preparing you for heaven. So don't shrink back from trial. Don't say its useless. 

But don't seek it, either. God will bring it when He thinks you need it, and He is a better judge of that than you are. Instead, continue to look to the cross. See God bring the greatest good out of the greatest suffering, and know that He will do the same for your suffering when it comes. 

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What are you known for? It can be something positive or negative. What do you think people think about when they think of you? What would you like them to think? 

Here is this passage, we get a glimpse of what is thought about Abraham. And what we find is that there are positive and negative aspects! As one scholar points out, "It is ironic that the two things Abimelech knew about Abraham were that God was with him and that he was not altogether trustworthy (recall chap. 20)." (387) If you remember what we talked about a couple weeks ago, the last time Abraham and Abimelech met, Abraham was pulling the ole' "she's my sister, so don't kill me" routine. Abraham admitted to Abimelech that this was something of a habit of his. 

From Abimelech's perspective, he needed to make a covenant with Abraham, but the opening reason actually has nothing to do with Abraham, per se. We are going to explore what that is by looking at our two points today: Our relationship with God is the most valuable thing we have and Bringing others into that relationship is the kindest thing we can do. 

Our relationship with God is the most valuable thing we have 

Let's begin with Abimelech's opening line with Abraham. Remember that Abimelech is the local king of the area that Abraham is currently camping in. When Abraham arrived and lied to Abimelech, Abimelech almost committed a sin that would have killed him. What's worse is that the whole of his household was affected by something until Abraham prayed for him and God healed. 

It is Abraham's relationship with God that has impressed Abimelech. Now, remember, Abraham is still very powerful in many other ways. He is still very rich. He was wealthy when we met him, and he has only gotten more wealthy as things have progressed. In fact, Abimelech just added another thousand pieces of silver to his already full coffers. He has already been known to take on and win in battles with his own army (see chapter 14). This is probably why Abimelech takes his general with him (Phillips, 37)! He's got servants, animals, money, and a literal army, but Abimelech sees through it all and notices the God behind it all. 

Do you see God behind your blessings? Have you ever noticed when things go bad we say, "God why are you doing this?" but when things are going well, we say, "Well, my hard work has paid off!" Yes, God uses our efforts, but He is also the one who supplies our efforts. We should thank Him accordingly. Even the pagans in this chapter can see it. He wants to be with Abraham because Abraham is with God. 

So, because Abimelech knows a good thing when he sees it, he wants to make a covenant. Now, as we said in the introduction, Abimelech's experience with Abraham thus far has been one of deception. He wants to make a covenant to ensure that neither Abraham (nor his descendants!) will deal falsely with him in the future as he has in the past. Further, he points to his own kindness to Abraham and asks for similar behavior from him in the future. 

I think this again points to how much respect that Abimelech has for God here. Scripture doesn't tell us whether he becomes a full fledged believer in God or not, but he apparently is so impressed with him, that he is willing to look past the sin of Abraham in order to be in covenant. This once again shows how wonderful God has been to Abraham. God's grace to him outshines even Abraham's sin. 

That is something that we should endeavor to display. One piece of worldly advice is to never apologize for anything or admit wrongdoing. The logic goes that if you have to apologize for something, then you are showing weakness. You are admitting that someone has something on you and if you apologize, you are putting yourself in debt to them forever. This shows up in parenting as well, even as Christians. We can think that if we apologize that we will lose legitimacy as parents. But this isn't true. It's when we can point away from ourselves to God that we actually fulfill our purpose here. The purpose of our lives is not to present as perfect people who have it all figured out. We all know that this is a lie anyway. The goal of our lives is to point to God who is perfect and forgiving. Does that mean that it doesn't matter how we act? No. Does it mean that if we sin publicly that it can do damage to our witness? Yes. But don't fall into the trap of pretending like you never need the grace of God. Repent when you need to repent and praise God for the progress he is making with you. 

Now, we move on to the covenant proper. Abraham agrees to enter into covenant with Abimelech, but there is an issue to resolve first: ownership of a well. In a semi desert environment, water is pretty important. Animals, servants, and as we will see in a moment, plants need water if they are going to make it. It seems to be that there is a dispute over who actually has the watering rights to this particular well. Abimelech has been unaware of this problem but is quick to resolve it. Aside from the animals that they have brought to make the covenant, Abraham has brought seven lambs as a physical witness about the well in particular. 

Because of all of this, the place is named Beersheba. The Hebrew here is littered with the number seven. Some think that even the word for "swearing" as in swearing an oath (not swearing as in bad language) is literally to "seven" oneself. The name of the place has been called such because oaths have been taken. 

Again, as we have covered before, to make a covenant, the two parties would slaughter animals, split them in half, and then walk in between them together. The idea is that the oath functions as something like a prayer to God. The prayer would be saying, "If I don't fulfill these promises that I am making here, may God do to me as I have done to these animals." This is a pretty serious promise to make and one that shouldn't be entered into lightly. 

Now, some may have questions here as it relates to Jesus' teaching about swearing and oath making. In Matthew five, Jesus tells the crowd not to swear but to simply have your yes be yes and your no be no. Is Abraham sinning against Jesus here? I think the answer is no. There are times in which it is appropriate to make oaths and promises (after all, God makes covenants in the Bible Himself). But I think Jesus is dealing with a people that had a whole system of oaths that was very confusing. Some would say, "Well, if you said, 'I swear by the temple I will do this thing' then you have to do it, but if you say, 'I swear by the gold of the temple' then that isn't binding." and it was a whole system that can be done away with by simply telling the truth when you talk. Frivolously swearing is a bad thing to do. Just do what you say you are going to do. You can actually see a bit of this in part of the reason Abimelech is making this covenant in this way. Abraham has already lied to him! Part of the reason this is necessary is because Abraham has already shown himself to be distrusting. 

All this side note to say, if you are asked to take an oath in court, I think that you biblically can. If however people are demanding that you make a ton of promises to do things, then you may have a lying problem that needs to be fixed. 

Bringing others into that relationship is the kindest thing we can do. 

Now, the covenant has been made. Everyone goes home. And Abraham plants a tree. Now, why is this here? Do you finish this chapter thinking, "It feels like I stumbled across a meeting minutes document where there was a dispute over a well that got resolved and a tree was planted." It doesn't seem to stir the soul, does it? But that is likely because we despise small things. 

It's a detail that is easy to miss, but did you notice that this covenant included offspring? Abimelech isn't just making a covenant with Abraham, but he is making it with the future descendants of Abraham, WHICH HE NOW HAS! Isaac is going to be key in this covenant (Matthews, 276). It isn't much of a promise to guarantee good behavior out of a 100 year old. How long is that covenant supposed to last? How much peace does that really bring? But now there is a SON. There is the future. Again, it is a small detail, but how much does that shout God's goodness to Abraham. 

What about the well and the tree? Well, the tree that Abraham plants is a kind of tree that makes for wonderful shade (again, important in a semi-desert region) and grows like 20 to 30 feet. To plant something like that, you are intending on staying a while. You don't go to the trouble of planting and caring for a tree if you don't intend to enjoy the shade of that tree. As one scholar pointed out, "To plant a tree in Beersheba presupposed a constant supply of water and indicated a determination to stay in the region. Here, then, was faith and security." (Ross, 389) That brings us to the well. Abraham has a spot to call his own. God has come through for him on His promises. 

The chapter ends how it began, pointing to God, the everlasting God. Just like this covenant is going into the future beyond Abraham, God is going far into the future as well (Belcher, 152). God is already in the future just waiting for us to catch up. In that sense, we should almost stop saying, "Well, I'm just waiting on God." No, God has already provided for you in the future; He is just waiting on you to get there. 

That is what we need to be inviting people into. God fulfills His promises. 

So what is our takeaway in all of this? Besides the obvious one that we have been hammering here (trust God because He fulfills His promises), I would also say look for God in the little things, the details of life. 

If you say something like this, you aren't sinning or anything, but have you ever noticed that when something big happens we say, "Oh, man, that is a God thing." And what we mean by that is that there is no way that this could have happened by anyone's effort. Clearly God is moving in a wonderful way and we want to acknowledge that. Nothing wrong with that at all, but it is incomplete. God is in the little details, too. He is in the well disputes. He is in the subclauses of covenants. All of it is meant to point to Him. Give God glory in the small things as well. It'll make you more grateful and aware of God's working in your life. And a person who does that really shines God's grace in their lives. I'm not talking about being a Pollyanna pretending that everything is great all the time, but I am saying that we shouldn't just be looking for God in the telescope. Only aware of God in the big things. Notice God in the microscope as well. The small details of life are just as important in advancing God's purposes in your life. 

Finally, let's be grateful for the covenant that God has made with us in Christ. I'm sure Abimelech was excited to be in covenant with Abraham who was in covenant with God. It is great to have capable friends. But we have a gift far greater than Abimelech. We aren't friends of friends with God. We are in covenant with God Himself. That is something always worth celebrating even when the telescope and the microscope are smudged. God stands right here with you, just as He promised.  

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Have you ever waited a long time for a blessing? Maybe it was marriage or children, maybe it was entrance into ministry, retirement, whatever you've been waiting for. What did you feel once you got it? In some ways, before you achieved it, it sort of seemed like life would just sorta stop once you got there. We wouldn't have put it that way while working towards it, but it does kinda feel that way, doesn't it? You achieved your goal! Now what? God still has more for you to do. It turns out that once you got married you didn't just ascend into heaven. Once you got your goal, you didn't find total security. You've gotten the blessing, but you still have to trust God. 

Well, this is the chapter that Abraham has been waiting for since chapter 12. Thousands of miles traveled, over two decades of waiting, two kidnappings of his wife, and two countries nearly destroyed because of it, here we are, the birth of Isaac! The promise is fulfilled! But life keeps going. The need to trust in God's working is more needed than ever. And if one thought that being asked to be patient was hard, oh just wait until we look at what is in store for Abraham in the next two chapters. 

Today, we are going to look at our two points: God provides His promises AND God protects His promises. 

God Provides His Promises

In our first section, we see the fulfillment of God's biggest promise so far, a son born to people far too old to have children. Notice how often the same words or concepts are repeated in these verses. "as he had said...as he had promised...at the time which God had spoken...as God had commanded him...God has made" this is a very God-focused fulfillment. This birth doesn't happen without God. There was nothing that Abraham and Sarah could have done to make this happen. Truly, they have kinda done everything to make this *not* happen. I mean, Abraham gave away the key to this promise, Sarah, at least two recorded times, and as we saw from the previous chapters, he had placed her in danger of that many other times. This is grace upon grace. 

To help sell the God centeredness of this even more, Moses reminds us why this had to be done by God. Abraham was 100 years old. Sarah disbelieved the promise the first time, laughing at the very thought. Because of that, God tells them to name the child "Isaac" which means "laughter." Now, every time she calls her son, she will be reminded of the fact that God does incredible things. He does things that take you from unbelief to disbelief. 

And aren't you glad He works that way? It's not up to us to be perfect or pull it off. It can be easy to beat on Abraham and Sarah for their lack of faith, but honestly, we can all point back to moments in our lives for weak faith, so to beat on them too much causes us to miss the point which is God works mercifully. Yes, Abraham and Sarah haven't been shining examples at this point of stellar faith, but neither am I! Aren't you glad that God doesn't need elites? He carries you along! 

And yet, we see them both obedient to what God says. They did, in fact, trust him, and they did, in fact, do what they were supposed to after he was born. But the hard part was yet ahead. 

God Protects His Promises 

As we head into the next section, we begin to see the family drama surface. Abraham has another son, doesn't he? Yes, they have been waiting for Isaac, but Abraham and Sarah aren't the only one's impacted by his arrival. Hagar and Ishmael enter the stage for the last substantive time. As one scholar put it, "Abraham is caught in the predicament that polygamists always experience: he ultimately must show preference for one child over another." (Matthews, 269).You'll notice as we go through here, the name "Ishmael" is never spoken by Abraham and Sarah. Sarah just calls him the son of a slave. 

The drama begins upon the celebration of Isaac's weaning, with Ishmael laughing or mocking Isaac. There is division in the commentaries whether this is laughing *at* or laughing *with* Issac. But in any event Sarah sees something that she doesn't like. There can only be one heir, and we need to be clear that it isn't going to be Ishmael. Scholars point out that the word that she uses here translated "cast out" has the connotation of "get rid of" and is the same word that is used of casting Adam and Eve out of the Garden (Matthews, 269). 

Now Abraham doesn't want to do this. Illegitimate or not, Ishmael *is* Abraham's son. And this is well before the time of homeless shelters or really any sort of easily accessible economic opportunity. It's not like Abraham can just drop her off at the Hilton. In the end, she is going to get a skin of water and a loaf of bread. 

We would start to criticize Abraham for listening to Sarah again, but God steps in and of all things, agrees with Sarah! Indeed, the plan is to have Isaac be the heir, but that doesn't mean that Ishmael gets nothing. God still has a promise for Ishmael, because he is Abraham's son. Abraham is going to have to release Ishmael to God's care. In some way, this is practicing for what God will ask him to do in the next chapter. There is going to be nothing to stand in the way of Isaac being the heir. 

The next day, Abraham gives Hagar just a little bit of food and water for the journey and sends her on the way. One scholar noticed that the Hebrew saves giving Ishmael to her for the very end, almost drawing out the emotional weight of waiting until the very end to hand over Ishmael (Matthews, 272). This is obviously very difficult but, as one commentator points out: "Abraham learns that (due to his own mistake, 16:4) the divine purpose at times can be an unpleasant task" (Matthews, 273). Abraham would never have to be in this heartbreaking position had he not decided what he did back in chapter 16. 

It is amazing how often sin can have multiple consequences. We thought that the problems that Abraham would suffer were confined to chapter 16 with sending Hagar away that time. But this wouldn't end with a fight between Hagar and Sarah for who was going to be the wife. Now it is going all the way to who is going to be the son. 

The consequences also descend onto Hagar and Ishmael, the true victims in this. Around 14 years ago, she thought herself to be the queen, but now she finds herself wandering around in the desert with a loaf of bread and a skin of water which quickly run out. 

You just never know how long sin's consequences can last. I heard one story of a couple that worked through infidelity in their marriage. Many years later, one spouse developed dementia, and all they could remember was the sin not the reconciliation. I can't imagine what that must have been like to watch a sin resurface like that. 

Sin is awful, but God is good. He begins to make good on His promise at the darkest part of Hagar's experience. The water is gone, the bread is crumbs, and Hagar assumes the end is upon them. In an absolutely heartbreaking scene, Hagar assumes her son is about to die, so she leaves him under a bush with the idea that at least she won't have to watch her son die. And it is here that God hears. God heard the cries and responded. He shows her a place where she can have water. From there, God fulfilled his promise to Ishmael, too. He got married, and became a great nation, just as God said He would.  
 
Now God comes through here, but what happens when it looks like from our perspective that He doesn't. Not every desert child is rescued. Why? What about when God doesn't seem to protect His promises? 

The answer to this question is not emotionally satisfying, but it doesn't have to be in order to be true. These are the questions you need to wrestle with now to be prepared when tragedy strikes. 

The key to answering this question is the larger perspective, particularly the vastness of future time. Here is Isaac. In the course of his lifetime he has two sons, and that's about it. Even in Genesis, the story of Isaac is remarkably short. He only gets like three chapters, considering that we have been banging the drum on this kid for the last ten, it seems kinda anti climatic. 

But the reason why he is important is Who he ultimately produces, Jesus Christ. In that sense, he was very important, but in and of himself, he doesn't seem all that consequential. There is no way for Isaac or Ishmael for that matter to see that this is the plan, but if they could, playing a large part in bringing the Savior into the world would be an honor. 

We never know where we are on God's timeline. Any individual tragedy that we have in our lives is truly impossible to know *exactly* why we are going through what we are. The key is not knowing why but knowing Whom. We will see that play out in greater detail in chapter 22, when Abraham has to be willing to let another son go, this time having to hold the knife itself. 

I'm sure the disciples thought that all hope was lost when Jesus was on the cross. Imagine their joy to find that it was exactly that tragedy that saved them and the rest of the elect! 

So what do we take away from this passage? 
Learn to trust God not His blessings. It's a very subtle shift, and sometimes it seems as though I am asking you to be a wet blanket. "We got a massive inheritance!" "Well, you still can't relax because after all, God could just take it away!" That's not the attitude that I want you to have. 

I want you to have the same attitude that Elon Musk has when he finds out he made another hundred million dollars: "Oh, that's nice." Appreciate the blessing, but know that you are already provided for. Celebrate from a place of already-at-rest. Let the blessings find you sleeping in your Father's arms. 

You know, the funny thing about ultra billionaires is what they do once their survival is guaranteed. They will never have to worry about where their next meal is coming from ever again. They couldn't spend all of their money if they tried. They seem to either start looking horizontally, beyond themselves, wondering how they can help, or they start looking vertically wondering if they can find something beyond all of us. 

I'm actually not surprised that billionaires get into rockets. Who wouldn't want to see if God is up there? Of if He isn't, than what might be? 

The fun thing for you all, is you can skip all the work that it took for those guys to get to that point! Becoming a billionaire the likes of Musk or Bezos requires a great deal of continual work. Anyone who says being a billionaire is easy has never looked at Musk 120 hour a week schedule. 

But you can skip that. God provides for your survival. He keeps His promises to you to never leave you So you can now look horizontally to see how you can help others. No, you can't donate billions of dollars to change the world, but you can change the world for a elderly person in need of a visit at the senior center. 

Most importantly, you can, and should, look vertically, and unlike the billionaires mentioned so far, you do know what is out there. And you can spend that time not in rocket design meetings, but worshiping the God that they are so desperately looking for. 

Spend time in worship of that God, and you, too, will go from unbelief to disbelief. 

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Organized people talk about the power of habits, the things that you do everyday without having to really think about them. Most of us don't have to have a check list that includes brushing your teeth at night because that is (hopefully) an established habit! Using the power of habit can be an amazing force for good if you have developed good habits. A habit of exercise, Bible reading, and prayer will make for an incredibly healthy life. 

But the power of habits can work in the opposite direction as well. What is your habit when you are scared? Do you jump into over planning mode? Do the opposite and run and hide? Distract yourself? Indulge in a sin? 

At the beginning of this study through Genesis, I said the the first 11 chapters could be summarized "Who God is." Creator, Judge, Provider, Promise Maker. I then said that the chapters about Abraham could be summarized that God is faithful to the scared. 

At the end of chapter 12, we saw partly how I got to that conclusion. Abraham (Abram at the time) was walking through Egypt, and he was afraid that the Pharaoh would want Sarai and be willing to kill him for her. To cover for this possibility, he made her tell the half-lie that she was his sister. No murder required! Just pay a bride price. 

Now, God delivers him from this stupid idea after Sarai gets kidnapped, basically, rescuing not only Sarai, but the promise that a seed would come through her to Abram. Can't have a kid with Sarai if Sarai is married to the Pharaoh, right? 

Well, we moved on through the rest of the chapters 13-19 and we might conclude that Abraham is finally over this fear. After all, he's been personally visited by God on a number of occasions, most recently over lunch where he not only heard the promise again but was given an exact delivery date on that promise, one year from then! He also went on a daring raid in chapter 14 where he took on a bunch of armies that stole his nephew! He doesn't look scared anymore! 

He certainly does look brave, until we get to chapter 20, that is. Here we see with disappointment that Abraham seems to have one specific fear: having his wife stolen from him after his murder. And he doesn't seem to be able to give this one up, even despite the glorious promises made to him, particularly the promise that all those who curse Abraham will be cursed, and the promise that he would have a son by Sarah in the coming year. What's worse, as one scholar points out, Abraham puts "the very Promise... in jeopardy, traded away for personal safety. If it is ever to be fulfilled, it will owe very little to man." (Ross, quoting Kinder, 370). In other words, Abraham puts Sarah, the only channel for THE blessing that they have been waiting decades for RIGHT as it is about to be fulfilled, in danger to preserve himself (Ross, 370). 

Now, lest we come down too hard on him, we will see that we often do the same thing. In our outline we will look at a couple of points: You don't have to steal what you have in Christ
and While God is faithful, our decisions are not consequence free.

You don't have to steal what you have in Christ 

Let's start with our passage. The set up is clear enough. Abraham is journeying around the land, and he comes to a place called Gerar. Near as we can tell, this is a little under ten miles away from Gaza, a location we have all become a little more familiar with in recent months (Matthews, 251). Abraham enters into the place and tells Sarah to, once again, pretend to be his sister. Abimelech (whether that is his name or title isn't completely known), decides that he wants her for his harem, and marries her. 

Total disaster, panic mode! The son of promise is supposed to come from Abraham through Sarah, but now Abraham has just given her away. We have already seen the total chaos that it caused when Abraham had children by Hagar, and we saw that God wasn't just going to accept any child conceived by Abraham. It had to be Abraham AND Sarah for it to count! Abraham blows it right at the end. It is like watching a football player run all the way towards the end zone, and right at the end, because he was showboating drops the ball and loses the game. It is bad enough when it happens to the player and they aren't at fault, but come on, Abraham! This is a totally unforced error. 

Do you look back on times like that? How many times you fumbled the ball in your own life? It kinda makes you wonder how you got this far in life at all. We can all think of little things that we've done like that. Looking around for your phone while you're talking on it! But what about those times in which you've REALLY messed up? What brings us back? 

If we were writing this story as a movie today, how would we resolve this conflict? We would probably write this as a daring rescue movie, where Abraham, seeing his error, goes on the ultimate mission to break into the harem, rescue his wife, and flee the pursuing armies! We would write it where Abraham is the hero, figuring out how to un-mess up his life.

But that isn't the story God writes. God intervenes. God has made a promise to keep Abraham and Sarah safe to deliver on his promise. Despite Abraham trying to secure this on his own, he blew it up. God steps in to rescue and does so via dream. 

He informs Abimelech in no uncertain terms that he better give Sarah back to Abraham! Abimelech tells God that he didn't know that he was doing anything wrong, and God, being gracious, knows and kept him from sinning in that way. Nevertheless, Abimelech HAD to return Sarah, which he promptly does the next day (8-9). Abraham gets a real tongue lashing from Abimelech. Abimelech is rightly angry for Abraham tricking him like that to almost commit a sin that was evil even in pagan eyes (Matthews, 256)

What is amazing is Abraham's response. First, it assumes that he was in fact guilty of what he is accused of: lying in a terrible way. All he can really do is offer up excuses as to why (Ross, 373). Number one, he was afraid that there was no fear of God in this country. That shouldn't matter. God doesn't only work if you believe in Him. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, whether you are an atheist or Christian. Number two, it actually is kinda true that Sarah is his sister. Come on, Abraham.

But number three is almost bitter. First, Abraham says in Hebrew, "When the gods caused me to wander." The verb is plural. Abraham is either diluting his theology to accommodate Abimelech's view of God or maybe even Abraham is questioning who God really is (Matthews, 257-8). Secondly, he reveals that this has been a pattern for a while (Matthews, 247)! Ever since they left he's been pulling the old, "she's my sister" line. Hey, lying worked before without a problem. Let's keep going with it. 

Sadly, what this means is Abraham has been committing this sin and thereby dishonoring God, putting his wife in danger, suffering a needless troubled mind on his part and hers, all for something he already had guaranteed: safety. God promised from the beginning a land, seed, and blessing, but Abraham just couldn't believe it. 

While God is faithful, our decisions are not consequence free.

What's worse, his actions have had consequences for people. After Abimelech gives back Sarah, and offers gifts as proof that Sarah was untouched, Abraham prays (the first time we see prayer explicitly mentioned in Genesis, according to Matthews, 259) and there is healing and fertility restored to the people! That is a pretty large consequence for a lie! 

God was faithful, yes, but that doesn't mean that Abraham could sin without consequences. We saw what happened with Hagar. Now we see what happens to the poor people of Gerar. They are blessed in the end, and no permanent harm done, but wow, sin is awful, isn't it? 

So what can we learn from all of this? 

 Sin will not disqualify you from God's promises to you, but boy can you make it hard on yourself and others by trying to steal what you already have in Christ.

Wrong beliefs are going to send you to wrong action every single time if you really believe them. Now, sometimes it looks like that wrong action works out, but that doesn't justify it. Getting money via theft doesn't justify it. Abraham probably pulled this "she's my sister" stunt a number of times (see verse 13) (Matthews, 247), but that didn't make it the right thing to do. 

Thinking that you save yourself by your own personal holiness ignores the perfect holiness you have in Christ and makes you miserably anxious and constantly needing to prove to yourself and others that you qualify for heaven. Not only do you already have the approval of literally the only Being in the universe that matters, but you make everyone else feel like pawns in your salvation project. You have the righteousness of Christ. Relax!   

Thinking that you are able to control the souls of your children is another thing that can keep us up at night. I haven't been the parent of an adult yet, but I can extrapolate that after being able to solve all of their problems more or less for a couple decades, I might begin to believe that I can truly change them if I need to and that is God's area. He told me to proclaim to them the works of the Lord when we sit down, rise up, and walk along the way, and that's all I need to do. I'll do it to the best of my ability because of my love for Jesus. And because of my love for Jesus, I will put my children into His hands, but they are so much more capable than mine. 

You have God's written word, a blood-stained cross, an empty tomb, and the sacraments that you can use every other sense you have to perceive the truth that God has forgiven you of your sins, will bring you to heaven, and do what is just and right in the world. What else do you want? 

You have more advantages than Abraham did. Abraham didn't have the whole picture. Yes, he heard directly from God face to face, but that was a handful of times stretched out over something like forty years. You hear from God every single time you open God's Word. 

"Yeah, but it was a personalized word to him!" Ok, two things. 1) That matters surprisingly little when the fulfillment of that promise isn't given for twenty years. You have the advantage of seeing how God works in the totality of Abraham's life in twenty minutes. Nothing in Abraham's life went quickly or easily. His faith had to operate on hilariously less than yours does. 2) You HAVE been given a personalized promise that goes WAY beyond real estate and family size. Christ promises to each of you that He is working all things to your good (Romans 8:28), provide for all of your actual needs (Matthew 6:25-34), and that He will be with you until the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). And, oh, by the way, AFTER that end of the age is a place of blissful paradise where you will live (Rev, 21-22) that Christ Himself is preparing for you (John 14:2) in such a way that you can't even conceive (1 Cor. 2:9). And that is prepared—and if only I could look at each of you in the eye and say this with your name—for you, brother and sister! And that was only the first six promises that came off the top of my head when I was writing this. There are so many more! This is your good news! This is the gospel for you, now will you believe it or not? Will you live like that is true or not? There's hardship if you don't, and there is joy if you do. It really is that simple. You don't have to steal what is yours. You don't have to sneak food out of your own fridge. Just enjoy it.