Today, we’re going to be talking about something really exciting . . . history.
I know, most of us are not very interested in history but it’s important because the reason some of us drift away from faith is that we didn’t know the history of faith.
So, today we’re going to go back to the beginning and help tie together the history of faith to your faith.
You may not know this but the three largest faith traditions . . . Judaism, Islam, and Christianity . . . all had the same beginning. All three believe . . .
- There is a single God that created the heavens and the earth and that his creation was good.
- The first man on earth was Adam.
- Somehow humanity messed the whole thing up.
- God looked at the world and he had to make a decision, “Do I wade into this mess and try to clean up the mess that someone else created? Or do I just hang a big ‘out of order’ sign over the earth?
- God chose the latter and began interacting with the world in a strategic way to fix the problems of the world through a guy named Abraham.
Today, we are not going to explore each of their paths, but this is the point where the three traditions go their separate ways.
Christianity holds up Abraham as an example to live by when it comes to faith.
If you know anything about Abraham, you’re probably thinking, “Well, that’s a difficult standard to live up to”. I mean, Abraham is this dude who just picks up his entire life; his family, his home, his possession, because God told him to go. He didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t know how he would get there. He didn’t know how he would care for his family when he got there.
But God told Abram to go, and so Abram went. How do you live up to that?
That, however, is not quite the Abram of the Bible. When we get a real honest picture of Abram’s life, his times of great faith and trust in God, are balanced and offset by times of doubt and disobedience.
Throughout Genesis, God appears personally to Abram multiple times, each time to test him and to develop his faith. And you would think that a great man of faith would easily pass all the tests. But in four of these tests, Abram failed miserably.
You see, Abram was a man of faith not because he never doubted, never had any questions, and never failed. Abram did lots of those things. Abram was a man of faith because when he failed, when he fell flat on his face, he got up, brushed himself off, and started over again because He knew that even when he fails, God will not . . . but that was a lesson that Abram had to learn over time.
His first lesson is found in Genesis 12. This chapter contains both the faithful obedience of Abram and the doubting failure. So, it contains a well-rounded picture of faith.
Let’s listen to our text . . . READ Genesis 12:10-20
Let’s put this into context . . . Up to this point, it had been years since anyone had heard from God. But he shows up and speaks to a man named Abram . . . who was 75 years old and should be kicked back in his recliner and enjoying retirement . . . and He tells him to uproot his entire life.
And in return, God promised to make Abram a great nation, to give him a great name, and to bring a great blessing upon the earth which is ultimately fulfilled through Jesus.
So, Abram along with his wife and nephew set out on this journey of faith and they head south until they came to a placed called, Schechem, which is in the middle of Canaan and there God appeared again and said, “this is the land I’m giving to your descendants.”
This is the fourth promise of God to Abram. The first three were a great people, a great name, and great blessing. Now we have the promise of Land. These promises are called the Abrahamic Covenant.
Now, God doesn’t promise the land to Abram, but to his descendants which means that he will have descendants. So, built into this promise is also a promise that he and his wife will have children.
Now remember, Abram and his wife Sarai are well beyond child-bearing years, but Abram believed God and so, he set up an altar to memorialize this covenant because he knows that we all have this tendency to forget the promises of God – especially, when those promises are for generations to come.
Well, Six-hundred years later, when the Israelites come to Canaan in conquest, they begin their campaign by gathering at Shechem to remember the covenant and after they defeated their enemies and gained ownership of the land, Joshua calls the people once again to Shechem to show them that the promises have been kept and they too built an altar and committed their lives to faithful obedience.
So, it is at Shechem where Abram received the promise, and it is at Shechem that the people of Israel received the fulfillment of the promise.
This is where we’ll pick up our text . . . everything seems to be going great for Abram; he’s made it to Canaan, he’s built a couple of altars, his family has been provided for but then a famine hits and what began as a journey of faith, quickly becomes a journey of doubt as Abram is faced with a decision to either stay in the land that God had called him to, and trust in God to provide, or leave the land and trust in man, specifically the Egyptians, to provide.
He decides that his best option was to head on over to Egypt and hang out there until the famine is over.
This shift in trust leads to a time of failure in Abram’s life but as we’ll see, God ultimately uses it as a teaching moment to build Abrams faith.
So, they are heading south and as they were getting close to Egypt, Abram starts to get a little worried because he knows that he’s got a hot wife, and that Egyptians are notorious for wanting to marry the most beautiful women. If there was a husband in the way, eh, just kill him.
Well, Abram doesn’t want to be murdered so he comes up with a plan. He wants his wife to tell the guys that are hitting on her, that Abram is her brother.
In this scenario, Abram, posing as Sarai’s brother, could agree to a marriage, but would insist on a long betrothal period. Then, when the famine in Canaan was over, they could just pick up and leave. It was the perfect plan.
But something happens that Abram never counted on.
It never entered Abram’s mind that Pharaoh might be interested in Sarai. While Abram could put off the plans of other men, Pharaoh would not take no for an answer.
He took her into his palace to prepare her to become one of his wives and in exchange he gave to Abram stuff; sheep, oxen, donkeys, camels, and servants. Egypt had indeed provided, just as Abram had hoped, but it came at a great cost.
You see, Prosperity is never a blessing without the peace which comes from being right with God.
But God is not thwarted by lies, doubt or our mistakes. His promises are not so easily broken by man. He made promises to Abram, and although Abram has stopped trusting in those promises, God intervenes, not only to protect Sarai and Abram, but also to protect the promise that he made.
So, he plagues Pharaoh’s household with diseases and Pharaoh is freaking out and he calls in Abram and says, “What have done? Why didn’t you tell me that she was your wife? I might not have taken her as my wife if you had just told me. Take her back, keep all the stuff I gave you, and just get out of here.”
Abram was confronted and soundly rebuked and he had no excuses or explanation. He didn’t utter a word in his defense, in fact, he doesn’t even go back to God and say, “My bad” . . . and yet Abram comes away from his doubting and failure with more blessings and riches than when he came.
Now, if we’re honest, this seem like an odd way for God to discipline. You would think that God would send down fire from heaven, or break his legs, or at least put him in time out.
But instead God makes him richer and gives him everything he wanted . . . so, it seems.
You see, these extra riches are double-edged. On the negative side, this is probably how Abram received Sarai’s maidservant Hagar who later becomes a great stumbling block in their relationship; it is through Hagar that Abram makes his greatest mistake ever.
But the positive aspect of this blessing is that it shows God’s great love and patience with Abram. God is not out to destroy and punish Abram for his lack of trust. Instead, God is showing Abram love, patience, and grace and giving him a glimpse into how he intends to make things right in the world.
Even when Abram doubts, stops trusting in the promises of God, and makes bad decisions, God continues to watch over Abram, and even bless him despite those decisions.
Abram left Egypt even richer than he had come. But none of that was the result of Abram’s faithless and dishonest actions. It was the product of divine grace and providential care. His Grace is Enough.
As we wrap up, you need to know that I am not saying you should go out and sin to see if God will bless you. That’s not the lesson of this story.
Possibly, Abram would have been much more blessed if he had stayed in Canaan. Maybe many of the Canaanites would have left, and Abram would have received some of the land right then. We really don’t know what would have happened.
The point is that God remains faithful to us, even when we are faithless. And he can bless us, even when we are wrong. Sometimes He does discipline us, because He disciplines those He loves.
But more often than not, He wins us over with grace and mercy. He teaches us to be faithful to Him by revealing His faithfulness to us.
This is a step forward in Abram’s faith development. He’s learned that God is a God of love, not of fear.
He’s learned that God is a God of blessing, not of destruction.
He’s learned that God keeps His promises, even when we do not.
He’s learned that when God promises the end, He also provides the means
And he’s learned that when our faith fails, God doesn’t.
These are wonderful truths for Abram to have learned and will aid him as he continues to grow and develop into the father of faith, that we all know and love and have been called to imitate.
Thousands of years later, God steps back into humanity to fulfill his promises to Abraham. He sends his son, Jesus to dwell among us, die for us, and rise again.
The night Jesus was arrested, he gathered with his disciples one last time and as he broke the bread and poured the wine, he said, “This is my new covenant. Take and do this in remembrance of me” so that generations to come would remember.
This morning, come with your doubts and your failures, come to the table and remember that his grace is enough, indeed!