Don't Steal What You Already Own

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash
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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.