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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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