WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.960 time or another, maybe more when we're young. The problem is that our heroes so often disappoint us. 00:00:08.339 --> 00:00:15.099 So eventually we learn that our parents are just human, or the athlete we idolize as kids gets 00:00:15.099 --> 00:00:21.719 arrested. The politician we put our hopes in probably should get arrested, but somehow always 00:00:21.719 --> 00:00:29.960 seems to skate. Eventually everybody disappoints us. Now I'm an historian, and so the problem is 00:00:29.960 --> 00:00:36.000 particularly bad for me. The more you learn about someone, the more you realize how disappointingly 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:43.439 human everybody was in the past, not unlike today. So the champion of justice that you so admired, 00:00:43.960 --> 00:00:50.980 well it turns out that he actually treated his family really poorly. Or maybe the wise leader 00:00:50.979 --> 00:00:58.899 was also capable of shocking violence against his enemies. How do you make sense of the failings 00:00:58.899 --> 00:01:04.739 of your heroes? And does great moral failure discredit a person's work? 00:01:07.280 --> 00:01:12.900 Well it's no different for us Christians. Of course we can look to Jesus, a sinless Savior who 00:01:12.900 --> 00:01:18.659 willingly, freely gave his own life for others. The more we learn about him, the more we learn to love 00:01:18.659 --> 00:01:25.420 and admire him. But the other people in the history of the church, the great pastors and missionaries 00:01:25.420 --> 00:01:33.920 and martyrs and theologians, it's not so simple. Even the great people of the Bible are seriously flawed. 00:01:34.840 --> 00:01:40.840 And this evening we're continuing a study on one of those heroes, Abraham. And in the New Testament, 00:01:40.939 --> 00:01:45.939 in the book of Hebrews, Abraham is presented as a hero, one of the great heroes of the faith. 00:01:45.939 --> 00:01:53.379 A man who by faith left his home, left everything he knew, and went to live in the place that God had 00:01:53.379 --> 00:02:01.120 called him to go. And why? Well, Hebrews tells us, Abraham was looking forward to the city that has 00:02:01.120 --> 00:02:07.400 foundations, whose designer and builder is God. In other words, he was willing to give up his home, 00:02:07.579 --> 00:02:14.439 everything he knew, in order to gain what he knew God was building for him. So Hebrews presents Abraham 00:02:14.439 --> 00:02:23.280 as a model of faith, an example for us to emulate. And he was that. But as we'll see this evening, 00:02:23.479 --> 00:02:28.900 there was more to Abraham's story than heroic faith. This evening we're looking at Genesis chapter 20, 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:33.819 a chapter which gives us a very different picture of Abraham. You can go and turn there 00:02:33.819 --> 00:02:38.120 in your Bibles now. If you're using one of the Pew Bibles, you'll find that on page 14. 00:02:38.120 --> 00:02:45.480 And I'm going to read the whole of chapter 20 aloud. So listen as I read Genesis chapter 20. 00:02:45.479 --> 00:02:55.599 From there, Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur, 00:02:55.959 --> 00:03:03.259 and he sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, she is my sister. And Abimelech, 00:03:03.359 --> 00:03:09.259 king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, 00:03:09.259 --> 00:03:14.959 behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man's wife. 00:03:16.359 --> 00:03:20.819 Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, Lord, will you kill an innocent people? 00:03:21.259 --> 00:03:25.840 Did he not himself say to me, she is my sister? And she herself said, he is my brother. 00:03:26.639 --> 00:03:29.959 In the integrity of my heart, in the innocence of my hands, I have done this. 00:03:30.959 --> 00:03:35.840 Then God said to him in the dream, yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart. 00:03:35.840 --> 00:03:40.800 And it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore, I did not let you touch her. 00:03:41.420 --> 00:03:47.080 Now then, return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you and you shall live. 00:03:47.840 --> 00:03:53.379 But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours. 00:03:54.740 --> 00:04:00.199 So Abimelech rose early in the morning and called all his servants and told them all these things. 00:04:00.500 --> 00:04:05.259 And the men were very much afraid. Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, 00:04:05.259 --> 00:04:10.899 what have you done to us? And how have I sinned against you that you have brought on me and my kingdom a great sin? 00:04:11.359 --> 00:04:13.979 You have done to me things that ought not to be done. 00:04:15.219 --> 00:04:19.079 And Abimelech said to Abraham, what did you see that you did this thing? 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:23.920 Abraham said, I did it because I thought there is no fear of God at all in this place, 00:04:23.959 --> 00:04:27.740 and they will kill me because of my wife. Besides, she is indeed my sister, 00:04:28.319 --> 00:04:31.860 the daughter of my father, though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. 00:04:31.860 --> 00:04:35.699 And when God caused me to wander from my father's house, I said to her, 00:04:36.139 --> 00:04:41.460 this is the kindness you must do me. At every place to which we come, say of me, he is my brother. 00:04:42.720 --> 00:04:47.639 Then Abimelech took sheep and oxen and male servants and female servants and gave them to Abraham 00:04:47.639 --> 00:04:53.340 and returned Sarah, his wife, to him. And Abimelech said, behold, my land is before you. 00:04:53.780 --> 00:04:59.220 Dwell where it pleases you. To Sarah he said, behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver. 00:04:59.220 --> 00:05:02.540 It is a sign of your innocence in the eyes of all who are with you. 00:05:02.860 --> 00:05:07.520 And before everyone you are vindicated. Then Abraham prayed to God and healed. 00:05:07.820 --> 00:05:12.020 God healed Abimelech and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children. 00:05:12.540 --> 00:05:18.220 For the Lord had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's wife. 00:05:18.220 --> 00:05:29.420 Now this is not a very flattering picture of Abraham, the great hero of the faith. 00:05:30.040 --> 00:05:36.480 In fact, in a strange irony, it's Abimelech, the presumably pagan king of this small city of Gerar, 00:05:36.720 --> 00:05:42.580 who acts honorably. He doesn't know God. In fact, Abraham comes to Gerar and he says, 00:05:42.579 --> 00:05:48.579 there is no fear of God in this place. And yet it's Abimelech who's eager to do the right thing. 00:05:49.759 --> 00:05:54.180 This is a puzzling text. And I want to ask three questions to help us understand it. 00:05:54.199 --> 00:05:57.959 And the first is, why does Abraham pull this trick in the first place? 00:05:59.060 --> 00:06:04.959 The second is, what's so bad about this after all? And the third is, what does God do about it? 00:06:04.959 --> 00:06:13.159 So why does Abraham pull this trick? Well, it seems like this was actually standard procedure 00:06:13.159 --> 00:06:18.799 for Abraham. If you look at Genesis 20, 13, Abraham tells Abimelech, when God caused me to 00:06:18.799 --> 00:06:23.199 wander from my father's house, I said to her, Sarah, this is the kindness you must do me. 00:06:23.500 --> 00:06:29.399 At every place to which we come, save me. He is my brother. So they had a plan all worked out, 00:06:29.560 --> 00:06:34.759 Abraham and Sarah, both together. And this was at least the second time that they 00:06:34.759 --> 00:06:39.800 tried this. If you turn back in your Bibles to Genesis 12, you'll see that they did this earlier 00:06:39.800 --> 00:06:45.860 in Egypt with almost the same results. Abraham was entering Egypt. He was worried that the 00:06:45.860 --> 00:06:50.420 Egyptians would see that his wife was beautiful, that they would kill him in order to take her. 00:06:51.500 --> 00:06:59.399 And so he said that she was only his sister. Pharaoh took Sarah as part of his harem. And Abraham, 00:06:59.620 --> 00:07:04.379 he was just Abram then, this was before the name change. Abram even profited on the deal. 00:07:04.759 --> 00:07:11.939 Pharaoh treated him well and he got wealthy. Now Pharaoh was a mighty king, a king of a large 00:07:11.939 --> 00:07:20.060 kingdom in Egypt. But even when Abraham goes to a small city in the desert, ruled by a small-time 00:07:20.060 --> 00:07:28.539 king like Abimelech, he does this same thing. So why did Abraham do this? Well, it seems pretty clear 00:07:28.539 --> 00:07:34.159 that he was afraid. He was afraid that he'd be harmed or killed because of his wife. He was a stranger 00:07:34.160 --> 00:07:40.420 in a strange land. He had no family around him. And he was willing to give his wife away to another 00:07:40.420 --> 00:07:47.760 man in order to protect himself. Now if we think back to the description of Abraham as a great man 00:07:47.760 --> 00:07:54.180 of faith, it's hard to recognize that Abraham in this text. But they were the same man. 00:07:55.640 --> 00:08:01.040 Genesis 20 was thankfully not the end of Abraham's story. God was still teaching Abraham. He was 00:08:01.040 --> 00:08:06.819 disciplining him and testing him despite all his failings. And years later, you can read about this 00:08:06.819 --> 00:08:12.980 in Genesis 22, Abraham would trust God enough to offer him even his own son, Isaac. He became the 00:08:12.980 --> 00:08:19.960 man of faith, but he's still very much a work in progress at this point. Now if you like science 00:08:19.960 --> 00:08:26.080 fiction, maybe you've read the Dune novels. Or if you've not read the novels, maybe you've seen the 00:08:26.079 --> 00:08:32.220 Dune movie with David Bowie. It's very 80s, so big hair and lots of electronic music. 00:08:33.079 --> 00:08:41.500 There's a line in the books that gets repeated again and again. Fear is the mind killer. 00:08:43.079 --> 00:08:49.360 Fear is the mind killer. I think we all know what that means. When we're afraid, it's difficult to 00:08:49.360 --> 00:08:56.759 think clearly. It's difficult to use our reason. But fear is not just the enemy of the mind. 00:08:57.419 --> 00:09:05.539 It's the enemy of the soul. It wars against our faith. Will God really give us what he's promised? 00:09:07.180 --> 00:09:12.840 Is Jesus really the good shepherd that shepherds me through danger? You want to say yes, 00:09:12.840 --> 00:09:21.160 but you're just so afraid. Fear wars against love. We want to love God and love the people around us, 00:09:21.220 --> 00:09:27.660 but what if they disappoint us again? What if they hurt us like so many people have hurt us before? 00:09:28.800 --> 00:09:33.980 We want to share and be generous with the possessions that God has given us, but what if we don't have 00:09:33.980 --> 00:09:42.300 enough someday? What if we run out? We're not so different from Abraham. No, we might never find 00:09:42.299 --> 00:09:48.699 ourselves tempted to hand over our spouse to the king of some desert city, but fear leads all of us 00:09:48.699 --> 00:09:55.740 into sin. I suspect that some of us here are even now in the midst of the grip of fear. Fear attacks 00:09:55.740 --> 00:10:02.039 the things that are the best in our lives. Now, the good news the Bible tells us is that the opposite 00:10:02.039 --> 00:10:08.819 is true as well. 1 John 4-7 tells us that there's no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. 00:10:08.820 --> 00:10:16.300 John's not talking about positive thinking. He's not talking about sending good thoughts over 00:10:16.300 --> 00:10:23.160 Facebook to a friend. Those things will not help you overcome fear. No, it's only perfect love that 00:10:23.160 --> 00:10:30.400 casts out fear. It's the love that we receive that sends our fears running. John is saying that it's 00:10:30.400 --> 00:10:38.500 only when we know God's true love for us that we can defeat fear. If God is for us, if he is good, 00:10:38.820 --> 00:10:44.060 and powerful, and powerful, if he is the king of the future, just as he is of the present, 00:10:44.760 --> 00:10:51.640 and if he loves us, well, then we have nothing to fear. On his better days, Abraham knew this too. 00:10:53.080 --> 00:10:59.760 So if you're afraid, what should you do? Sometimes you act. So if you see a spider, you smash the spider. 00:10:59.759 --> 00:11:08.259 But not all fears can be smashed. For the greater fears, the ones that really have a hold on us, 00:11:08.299 --> 00:11:13.480 you can only do this one thing. Meditate on God's great love for you in Christ. 00:11:15.080 --> 00:11:18.879 If he's already given us his son, he loves us, and he will give us everything we need. 00:11:20.080 --> 00:11:24.360 It's knowledge of this love that protects us from making these sort of foolish, 00:11:24.360 --> 00:11:31.639 terrible, self-protective decisions that end up being self-destructive. It's knowledge of God's love 00:11:31.639 --> 00:11:37.639 and faithfulness and power that keeps us from making the kind of mistake that Abraham makes here 00:11:37.639 --> 00:11:45.159 in Genesis 20. Well, this brings us to the second question. What's so bad about what Abraham does 00:11:45.159 --> 00:11:50.340 after all? He is a vulnerable person. And the answer to this one might seem pretty obvious. 00:11:50.340 --> 00:11:56.240 He gives his wife to another man in order to protect himself. Now, if you're married, 00:11:56.620 --> 00:12:02.080 you probably said vows, and your vows probably didn't explicitly say that you would not give your 00:12:02.080 --> 00:12:09.280 spouse to a Middle Eastern despot if you felt threatened. But it was at least implied in the vows. 00:12:10.519 --> 00:12:20.139 Abraham certainly failed spectacularly in his duty to love and cherish and care for his wife. 00:12:20.340 --> 00:12:25.139 Husbands are called to lay down their lives for their wives, to treat their wives the way Christ 00:12:25.139 --> 00:12:29.920 has treated the church. And Abraham does exactly the opposite. He gives his wife away to protect 00:12:29.920 --> 00:12:37.540 himself. So that's obviously wrong. It's a moral failing. We can understand that. But there's something 00:12:37.540 --> 00:12:43.759 even worse in this text, something that's maybe not quite as obvious. And it's this. 00:12:43.759 --> 00:12:50.500 In giving his wife to another man, Abraham is putting God's entire plan of salvation at risk. 00:12:51.480 --> 00:12:55.919 Keep a finger in Genesis 20 and turn back just a few chapters to Genesis 17. 00:12:55.919 --> 00:13:02.360 Look at verse 3. Genesis 17.3. It says, 00:13:02.360 --> 00:13:10.940 Then Abraham fell on his face, and God said to him, Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be 00:13:10.940 --> 00:13:18.080 the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall 00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:23.659 be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly 00:13:23.659 --> 00:13:28.440 fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my 00:13:28.440 --> 00:13:33.120 covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you, throughout their generations for an 00:13:33.120 --> 00:13:41.280 everlasting covenant to be God to you, and your offspring after you. So God here made a covenant 00:13:41.280 --> 00:13:47.720 with Abraham. He promised to give Abraham countless descendants, and to be his God. And if we look down 00:13:47.720 --> 00:13:52.980 at verse 19, we learn how that covenant is going to happen. God said, No, but Sarah, your wife, shall 00:13:52.980 --> 00:13:58.420 bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an 00:13:58.419 --> 00:14:04.319 everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. As for Ishmael, that's Abraham's other son with 00:14:04.319 --> 00:14:08.679 another woman. I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and multiply 00:14:08.679 --> 00:14:14.799 him greatly. He shall father 12 princes, and I will make him into a great nation. But I will establish 00:14:14.799 --> 00:14:22.759 my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year. So God had just made this 00:14:22.759 --> 00:14:30.220 covenant with Abraham. He had promised to give Sarah a son, Isaac, through whom this covenant would proceed. 00:14:30.639 --> 00:14:36.019 And later on, we learn more about this son. We learn that God had intended to bless all the nations of 00:14:36.019 --> 00:14:42.819 the earth through this son of Abraham's. It's through this family line that Jesus would eventually come to 00:14:42.819 --> 00:14:49.539 us. This is God's plan of salvation, not just as a blessing for Abraham, but for the entire human race. 00:14:49.539 --> 00:14:57.959 And at most, a few months later, Abraham gives his wife to another man. So you can see the problem. 00:14:58.799 --> 00:15:06.059 What happens if she gets pregnant? What if Sarah's son is Abimelech's son? What if it's not actually 00:15:06.059 --> 00:15:14.639 clear who the father is? It's a disaster, not just for Abraham and Sarah, but for all humanity. 00:15:14.639 --> 00:15:20.080 And it's once you understand this, that the details of Genesis 20 start to make sense. 00:15:21.059 --> 00:15:27.480 This is why God comes to Abimelech in a dream and warns him not to go near Sarah. This is why there's 00:15:27.480 --> 00:15:32.799 this public business about the animals and the thousand pieces of silver. Everyone needs to know 00:15:32.799 --> 00:15:39.860 that Abimelech was not the father. And if you compare this with the first episode, with Pharaoh in Genesis 12, 00:15:39.860 --> 00:15:45.139 there, there's no promise of innocence, no public pledge. This was before the promise of a son through 00:15:45.139 --> 00:15:51.620 Sarah. But now God wants to make it very clear that his promise of salvation is still at work. 00:15:52.759 --> 00:16:00.019 And this brings us to our third question. What does God do about this dysfunctional, sinful situation? 00:16:01.279 --> 00:16:06.399 Because as you've probably figured out, this is not actually a story about Abraham after all. 00:16:06.399 --> 00:16:12.319 This is really the story of God's actions to bring redemption to the world. 00:16:14.120 --> 00:16:19.639 Now, if you've read the Bible much, you may have noticed how much it seems to emphasize the flaws 00:16:19.639 --> 00:16:27.459 of its people. It starts with Adam and Eve. Then we come to Abraham. Abraham led a very long and very 00:16:27.459 --> 00:16:34.139 eventful life, and we only get bits and pieces of that life. But Genesis decides that we need to hear 00:16:34.139 --> 00:16:38.720 about him giving his wife to another man twice. Of all the things we could learn about Abraham, 00:16:39.019 --> 00:16:45.279 that's what we learn. Things don't get much better when you jump to his son Isaac and grandson Jacob. 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:50.639 Jumping forward, we come to Moses, a man who murders an Egyptian and then isn't allowed into 00:16:50.639 --> 00:16:57.080 the promised land because he's impatient with God's people and God's commandment. Or King David, 00:16:57.080 --> 00:17:04.440 the great king of the Israelite people. He's sort of a reverse Abraham. He doesn't give his wife away 00:17:04.440 --> 00:17:09.660 to keep himself safe. He actually takes another man's wife and then kills her husband in order to 00:17:09.660 --> 00:17:16.660 cover it up. David's son Solomon has 600 wives. We can go on in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, 00:17:16.900 --> 00:17:22.720 things aren't much better. Paul, who writes much in the New Testament, is a persecutor of the church. 00:17:22.720 --> 00:17:29.059 He has blood on his hands. He has to eventually rebuke Peter, the chief of the apostles, because Peter 00:17:29.059 --> 00:17:36.259 doesn't want to associate with non-Jews at one point. On and on and on, again and again, the Bible 00:17:36.259 --> 00:17:45.140 emphasizes the flaws of its heroes. Now, other religions don't do this in the same way. This is unique to 00:17:45.140 --> 00:17:52.259 the religion of the Bible. Why does Christianity do it? Now, part of it is just honesty. 00:17:52.720 --> 00:18:00.640 It's an honest depiction of what human life really is like. Oliver Cromwell was, in the 17th century, 00:18:00.740 --> 00:18:06.720 the Lord Protector of England. The story goes that one day he was having his portrait painted by a 00:18:06.720 --> 00:18:13.779 famous portrait painter, and he saw what the painter was doing, and he demanded that he be painted warts 00:18:13.779 --> 00:18:20.039 and all. And that's actually where the phrase, warts and all, comes from. Now, this is one of those 00:18:20.039 --> 00:18:24.619 historical anecdotes, which may not actually be true. There's no way to really prove it, but if it's 00:18:24.619 --> 00:18:31.779 not true, it should be. And certainly, if you look at Cromwell's portrait, it's very warty. It's not a 00:18:31.779 --> 00:18:37.680 flattering portrait. Portraits back then were just like portraits today. The artist generally cleaned up 00:18:37.680 --> 00:18:44.440 the image a little bit, tried to present the subject in as attractive and noble and heroic way as 00:18:44.440 --> 00:18:50.259 possible. But Cromwell was a Christian, a very serious Christian, who knew that he was flawed, 00:18:50.340 --> 00:18:56.580 not just physically, but morally. And he didn't want to cover that up. So why does the Bible show 00:18:56.580 --> 00:19:03.140 the warts of its heroes? Because it's honest about human nature and the reality of sin, even for the 00:19:03.140 --> 00:19:11.180 best of men and women. It's a warts and all picture of humanity. There's a deeper reason that the Bible 00:19:11.180 --> 00:19:18.360 highlights the sin of its heroes. The biblical authors want to make one point very clear, 00:19:20.019 --> 00:19:25.440 that the great work of salvation is God's work, and it's not ours. 00:19:27.720 --> 00:19:33.299 Human beings have a part to play. God told Abraham to leave his hometown and go to a strange land. 00:19:33.820 --> 00:19:40.320 Abraham had to go. God calls us to preach the good news and to believe the good news about Jesus. 00:19:40.319 --> 00:19:43.659 God does. We're to preach the good news and we're to respond to it in faith. 00:19:44.759 --> 00:19:53.779 But ultimately, it's God who does the work. Just look at Genesis 20 with me. See how God redeems 00:19:53.779 --> 00:19:59.740 this terrible situation and not only brings it back from the brink of catastrophe, but actually uses it 00:19:59.740 --> 00:20:06.039 to further his own plan. In verse 3, God sends a dream to Abimelech, warning him not to go near Sarah 00:20:06.039 --> 00:20:12.019 because she's another man's wife. He also prevents the conception of other children at this time, 00:20:12.079 --> 00:20:18.180 so there could be no confusion. In verse 14, he uses this terrible mistake to actually bless Abraham. 00:20:18.859 --> 00:20:26.420 Abraham comes out of this situation wealthier than before. In verse 15, God provides through Abimelech 00:20:26.420 --> 00:20:32.759 the opportunity to dwell in the promised land. If we look ahead to chapter 21, verse 22, 00:20:32.759 --> 00:20:40.579 we see another brief encounter between Abimelech and Abraham, and Abimelech allows Abraham to put 00:20:40.579 --> 00:20:48.000 down roots. It's kind of a long story. Abraham digs a well for his animals to use. His men and Abimelech's 00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:52.480 men fight over who gets to use the well, but it ends with him making a treaty with Abimelech, 00:20:52.799 --> 00:20:58.799 a permanent treaty that recognized his legal right to use this well. Now, that seems like a bit of 00:20:58.799 --> 00:21:05.259 strange property law until you realize that this was the promised land, the land that God had promised 00:21:05.259 --> 00:21:11.159 to give to Abraham, and this is the very first moment where Abraham has a permanent legal foothold 00:21:11.159 --> 00:21:19.559 in that land. God is already bringing about his promise, not just for a son, but for a home for his 00:21:19.559 --> 00:21:27.680 people. Now, friends, if you pay attention, you'll find this same pattern over and over and over again in the 00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:36.340 Bible. God creates a people for himself. Those people are faithless, but God remains faithful, 00:21:37.080 --> 00:21:42.820 even in the face of their sin. This was true in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve turned their 00:21:42.820 --> 00:21:49.400 backs on God and went their own way. It was true with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It was true when God's 00:21:49.400 --> 00:21:57.920 people came out of Egypt and grumbled in the desert. It's always been true. Most of all, of course, 00:21:58.480 --> 00:22:04.920 it's true in the work of Jesus Christ. God sends his eternal son into the world. 00:22:06.700 --> 00:22:14.680 He is sinless. He does acts of power and mercy, but he's greeted with hostility, 00:22:14.680 --> 00:22:21.320 hatred. They mock him, they kill him. And yet, even through this great sin, 00:22:22.860 --> 00:22:25.100 God's purpose of salvation goes forward. 00:22:26.900 --> 00:22:30.640 Anyone who believes in Jesus can have eternal life. 00:22:31.700 --> 00:22:37.779 It is simple faith in Jesus that allows us to share in God's promises, those promises made to Abraham 00:22:37.779 --> 00:22:45.339 so many thousands of years ago. A family forever. We're adopted into God's family. We're called his 00:22:45.339 --> 00:22:52.559 children. A home to live in. Well, we are promised a promised land far more glorious than anything 00:22:52.559 --> 00:23:02.519 Abraham ever anticipated. Most of all, God promises himself. When God made his covenant with Abraham, 00:23:02.639 --> 00:23:06.799 he promises to be faithful, not just to Abraham, but to future generations. He says, 00:23:06.799 --> 00:23:16.379 I will be their God. He promises to be a father to us, to provide for us, to lead us, to protect us, 00:23:16.819 --> 00:23:26.359 to love us. So if you're a Christian, Abraham's story is part of your story. That's why we still 00:23:26.359 --> 00:23:34.079 read it so many years later. We can recognize ourselves in Abraham, afraid, prone to doubting 00:23:34.079 --> 00:23:41.059 God's promises and protection, wanting to take matters into our own hands. But it's more than that. 00:23:42.099 --> 00:23:49.539 So we also share in these great promises. In fact, we know these promises. We share in these promises 00:23:49.539 --> 00:23:54.480 more fully than Abraham ever did. Because all of these promises have been fulfilled in Christ. 00:23:54.480 --> 00:24:01.960 He is the one who provides us with an eternal home and a family that does not fail us. 00:24:03.160 --> 00:24:09.779 He is the one who said, not only I will be your God, but I will be Emmanuel, God with you. 00:24:12.059 --> 00:24:14.380 So what do you have to be afraid of? 00:24:14.380 --> 00:24:23.140 God is for you. If God is for you, even when you're stumbling into the same sins again and again, 00:24:23.220 --> 00:24:30.420 against all reason, you can still trust him. His goodness and wisdom does not depend on your 00:24:30.420 --> 00:24:37.020 performance. Now, to be sure, you should put away sin. If you're in the habit of handing your wife over 00:24:37.019 --> 00:24:44.099 to strange men, you should stop doing that. It doesn't help you. It doesn't honor him. But don't 00:24:44.099 --> 00:24:52.119 despair in your sin. Confess it and look to God for mercy. You will find it. Now, if you're not a 00:24:52.119 --> 00:24:58.200 Christian, if you're just curious about the Christian faith, then the case is a little different. 00:24:59.359 --> 00:25:04.000 Maybe you're hesitating, wondering whether these promises really can be believed and trusted. 00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:09.039 Or maybe you've been disappointed by Christians you know, Christians that remind you more of Abraham 00:25:09.039 --> 00:25:17.500 than they do of Jesus. Well, all I can do is point you to God himself. He is the one who works for 00:25:17.500 --> 00:25:24.799 salvation. He is the one who brings redemption. He is creating a family for himself. And all who believe 00:25:24.799 --> 00:25:32.880 in his son will be cleansed of sin and adopted into that family. Abraham was a remarkable man of faith. 00:25:32.880 --> 00:25:39.760 If you come back on next Sunday night and hear about Genesis 22, you'll hear all about that. 00:25:40.540 --> 00:25:48.160 But he was just a man. An Irish friend of mine used to tell me that the best of men are men at best. 00:25:48.500 --> 00:25:54.020 He said it in an Irish accent, so it sounded better when he said it. But I've never forgotten it. It's true 00:25:54.020 --> 00:26:00.880 of Abraham. He was one of the best of men, but just a man. So we can learn from Abraham, from his triumphs, 00:26:00.880 --> 00:26:05.080 as well as his failures, but we're not going to put our faith in him. 00:26:06.600 --> 00:26:08.580 We shouldn't put our faith in ourselves either. 00:26:10.080 --> 00:26:12.920 It's the story of Abraham which is meant to point us 00:26:12.920 --> 00:26:16.520 to the one trustworthy being in all of the universe, 00:26:16.700 --> 00:26:19.900 God himself. And we do not need to be afraid. 00:26:20.720 --> 00:26:22.700 We can put our trust in that God, 00:26:22.700 --> 00:26:28.440 the one who is at work for the salvation of his people in the days of Abraham and who is at work today. 00:26:29.720 --> 00:26:30.279 Let's pray. 00:26:33.539 --> 00:26:36.840 Father, we do thank you for the great promises we have throughout the Bible, 00:26:37.519 --> 00:26:38.779 the promise we have in the 00:26:38.779 --> 00:26:41.580 gospel, what we call the good news of Jesus. 00:26:41.579 --> 00:26:45.639 Lord, we thank you that through Christ we can be 00:26:45.639 --> 00:26:48.220 delivered from our own stupidity, 00:26:48.579 --> 00:26:49.819 our own sinfulness, 00:26:50.139 --> 00:26:51.119 our own selfishness. 00:26:51.939 --> 00:26:53.899 We can be brought to 00:26:53.899 --> 00:26:56.319 the place that you would have us 00:26:56.319 --> 00:26:57.599 by your grace and mercy. 00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:00.119 Lord, I pray that you would help us to cast away 00:27:00.119 --> 00:27:01.579 all fear of this world, 00:27:02.059 --> 00:27:03.799 help us to cast away all self-trust, 00:27:04.220 --> 00:27:05.279 and put our trust in you. 00:27:05.539 --> 00:27:07.740 We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. 00:27:07.740 --> 00:27:07.839 Amen.