Restoring a relationship can be a very difficult thing. Whether it be a completely severed relationship, restoring a marriage after infidelity or an affair with pornography, or even just after a regular argument.
If you can boil it down to three things that need to happen to restore a relationship after any kind of disruption, I think it would be these, and I think they’re supported by Scripture in how God restores us to himself. First there has to be a mutual desire for the relationship to be restored. God always desires this with us, but we may not always be willing. It takes both parties.
Second, there has to be a truthful acknowledgement or confession of our part in the disruption even if we are only 1% to blame. And both people have to agree about each other’s part. Of course with this also comes real forgiveness where we’re not going to hold this over the other person even if they are mostly to blame.
And finally, and probably most importantly, there needs to be an ongoing change in behaviour. If a person tells me they’re sorry, and continues to do the same things, a continued relationship is very difficult and I lose faith in their apology, as they would if I did the same thing. Trust is vital in a relationship.
If a person doesn’t change, or live up to their end of the “restoration” clause that has been at least unspokenly agreed upon, it doesn’t matter how much confession and desire there is, the relationship will fall apart again at some point. Unresolved issues don’t go away, they just go underground.
So today we’re going to examine God’s method of restoration with us starting with the fact that:
I. God Always Restores (vv 22-24)
After Isaac is born and the king has been restored through Abraham’s intercession, Abimelech and his army commander tell Abraham that obviously God is with you in all that you do. God is now blessing Abraham and Sarah again after they restored their fellowship with the Lord.
This is true for us as believers as well. Though there may be times when blessings are withheld, and we are disciplined, the purpose is always to restore, to draw us back to him. And the purpose of restoration is fruitful ministry and blessing to others.
Listen to Acts 4:13, “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus”. Do people recognize that we have been with Jesus, that God is with us in all that we do? Often it’s truthful boldness where Jesus shines through us.
However, Abraham’s relationship with Abimelech still needs to be restored, because it’s clear that he doesn’t fully trust Abraham after the deception of chapter 20. The king and his commander acknowledge that God is with Abraham and Sarah, and they want assurance that Abraham would play fair because he was so powerful. So they strike up a treaty that Abraham swears to.
Now I think it’s important to look at how God restores people to a relationship with him. First of all we must notice that it’s never God who breaks fellowship with us, it’s always us who abandons God by disobeying His will. He loves us so much that he will not lock us up in order to keep us with Him. He gives us freedom to be with Him or not. But it’s always His desire to have us.
Another thing to notice is that God wants all his children to be blessings to others. When we’re not, we’re also out of fellowship with him. Abraham was out of fellowship with God and he became a curse rather than a blessing - here with Abimelech, when he had a child with Hagar, and when he lied in Egypt twenty years earlier.
This is a critical point for us today. When we are children of God, and we choose not to be in God’s will, we become a curse to the church, and to those outside the church, because of our negative witness. Curse here is really just meaning a stumbling block to others coming to a saving knowledge of Christ, or growing in Christ. This happens in the church as we stir up distractions from the true mission of the church because we are not in fellowship with him, and thus out of touch with his will.
Now Abraham makes up for his previous sin by becoming a peacemaker with Abimelech and bringing blessings again to him and his people. Then what is the next thing we see God do after restoring the relationship and making Abe a blessing again? He tests him, and we will see this famous test in the next chapter with his son Isaac.
I want to take us back to the end of the book of John for a moment and look at how Jesus restores Peter after Peter denies Christ before the crucifixion. Read John 21:15-19.
Peter denied Christ three times and Jesus now asks the same question of Peter three times. He’s getting Peter to really think about his answer. Notice that each time, Peter doesn’t say “yes I love you”, he says “you know I love you”. But I believe Jesus doesn’t know this and he is telling Peter how he can love him.
W hat does Jesus say each time? Feed my sheep, tend my sheep, be a blessing to my people. He’s testing Peter’s willingness to truly follow him and do what he wants him to do. He also tells him that he will be crucified, that’s what the hands stretched out means. Then he simply says “follow me”.
He’s basically telling Peter, if you love me you will feed my sheep, in other words sacrifice self. And you are going to be crucified like me, do you still want to have a relationship me and follow me? Count the cost. I don’t know you love me until you show me.
With Abraham, as soon as the relationship is restored and Abraham again becomes a blessing, the very next thing God does is give him a very difficult and graphic test, telling him to sacrifice his long awaited son.
Tell me, if you were told by God to do the things Peter and Abraham were instructed to do, would you continue to follow Him? Jesus says, if you really want to follow me you will leave your mother and father, obey my commands, carry your cross, forsake all else. He also says in Luke that we need to count the cost before we make the decision to follow him.
See he gives us the choice. We don’t have to do any of these things, and he will still love us and be willing to restore a relationship with us. But as soon as we say yes to a relationship with him again, when we agree to follow him, he expects us to get on with following him.
Why does he make it sound so serious? Because he wants us to understand that eternity is much longer than this life, and this life’s sole purpose is to prepare for eternity with Him. Anything in this life that does not have eternal significance is basically just burned up.
1Cor 3:13-15 “each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day of judgment will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation (which is Jesus) survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (or by narrow escape).
Now remember at this point of abandoning God both Peter and Abraham are already justified, they’re already saved. Salvation is a present possession; rewards are in the future based on our works. But both were out of fellowship, out of intimacy with God, which of course is the greatest reward.
This is the thing that caused Jesus to scream out on the cross, that for that brief moment, for the first time in eternity, he was not in intimate fellowship with his father as he bore all the sin of the world. This was the most excruciating thing for him, not the torture.
This is not about salvation necessarily, but about having a loving relationship with God even after we’re saved. We can choose not to restore and develop this relationship, and we will be no real blessing to anyone, we will bear very little fruit for the Kingdom, and we will basically be useless in the mission of Jesus Christ and his church.
He will not waste his time on us if we choose not to follow him. We see that several times in the Gospels.
It’s kind of like the person who continually invites you to do something with them and you always say no. They stop inviting you not out of spite, but out of common sense. If you decide later that you want to do some of these things, they’ll gladly welcome you, but until then they’re going to move on without you because you clearly don’t want to go.
Doesn’t that make sense? If you say yes to Jesus, he’s going to ask you to do something because he has a very extensive and important mission, and he wants to use his people - the Church. If you choose not to he just says too bad for you, you’re the one who’s going to miss out on seeing me work in and through you in supernatural ways. His mission will continue with or without you.
So God always restores, if we want to be restored. He doesn’t force us. And with restoration he expects us to act as if we have a relationship with him. We get to work with Him taking steps of faith with Him under his promise that:
II. He Always Provides (vv 25-34)
He will always give us what we need when we choose to do His will, follow his commands.
Water was incredibly important in this arid land where most people lived an agrarian lifestyle, certainly Abraham was a farmer. Your life depended on having a good well for yourself, your livestock and your crops, but because of that, if you had enemies, that would be one of the first places they would strike. They would try to seize or fill your well.
Here some of Abimelech’s servants, apparently without his knowledge, seize the well that God provided to Abraham, so rather than fight he goes to the king who he made a pact with. The king states that he didn’t know about it and appears to want to rectify the situation. And the king was probably scared, but the newly restored Abraham instead of punishing the king, blesses him with a peace treaty.
Interestingly, Abraham decides to give back some of the animals that were given to him in an effort to make a covenant with Abimelech. In addition to this, Abraham set apart seven lambs and says that these will be a witness that he indeed dug this well. In essence the lambs are like a receipt for the well, and the well is called Beersheba which means “well of the seven” or “well of the oath”.
These sheep seal the oath, and there’s some very interesting language here that would be quite significant to the Hebrew readers. First of all when Abraham says I swear, the word literally means “to bind seven things”. Why is this important? Because the number seven is a number that signifies completion in the Hebrew world. So it really means that the deal is fully completed.
Now the word seven is also used three times, three also being a complete number, and Abimelech and Abraham’s names are each used seven times in the Hebrew. This passage really wants to emphasize that this is a complete transaction.
But I think the real significance of this part of the chapter is to show that this portion of the covenant between Abraham and God is complete, the promised son has arrived, he is covering more and more of the land of Canaan which is promised to his offspring, and we will see incredible provision from God in the next chapter.
I’ll also have you notice that this transaction had three components; blood sacrifices, witnesses in the lambs, and promises made to each other. You find these same elements in God’s covenant with us through Christ as described in Hebrews 10:1-18. (blood sacrifice of Christ on the cross vv 1-14, witness of the Holy Spirit v. 15, and the promise of God’s word vv 16-18)
Notice how this process includes all three members of the Trinity, the sacrifice of Christ the son, the witness of the Holy Spirit, and the promises of the Father. This is meant to give us full assurance of the covenant that our complete triune God has made with us for all time. It is “seven”. It is finished.
Of course Abraham’s covenant with Abimelech only guarantees Abraham possession of a well that provides water to sustain physical life. God’s covenant with his people guarantees that we have the living water that gives everlasting life to all who trust the Saviour.
We also see here the beginning of the assurance of the Promised Land. Abraham has been sojourning through the land of Canaan for years and everywhere he goes he marks the spot with wells and altars, leaving the mark of God all over this land. God seems to be giving him more and more land in spite of his sinful mistakes, because he is still moving in the right direction toward God.
Here at this well he even plants trees to bless others who may come after him. These trees were also part of the witness of this agreement about the well.
We have been seeing throughout Genesis that God is always what His people need him to be. We have seen Jehovah, the God of covenant and redemption, Elohim, the supreme God of creation and provision, and now we’re introduced to a new name for God, El Olam, the everlasting, eternal God.
We see this name used in Psalm 100:5 “For the Lord (El Olam) is good, his steadfast love endures forever”, and 103:17 “But the steadfast love of the Lord (EL Olam) is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him”. There are many “El Olam” covenants throughout Genesis. His promises are everlasting, he can’t break them, it’s not in his nature.
After many years of difficulty waiting for the promise of Isaac, Abraham and Sarah are restored in relation to God and get the promised son. They now sojourned peacefully in the land of the Philistines enjoying quite a blessed life watching their beloved Isaac grow up. This went on for probably ten to fifteen years, but a time will come again in the next chapter when Abraham’s faith will be tested like never before.
Doesn’t this kind of reflect our Christian walk? We go through struggles and doubts, then there can be a period of relative calm, when we are secure in the Lord, our life seems blessed, but it seems like God never leaves us there, and eventually something will come up that causes us to test our faith and either grow in the Lord, or go backwards.
Our lives and the life of any church will never be smooth sailing all the time. We should enjoy those times that they are, but at the same time we should be growing and anticipating the next test, deepening our knowledge of God, so that we can grow even more as we have successfully prepared ourselves to navigate the next test with God.
Because guaranteed it will be tougher than the previous one. If we haven’t kept up our growth, become more intimate with Him in the good times, we could be in big trouble when the next test comes. Their purpose is to deepen our relationship with Him.
Action Plan:
Ask yourself, have you broken fellowship with Jesus? Can you see a point in your life where you said no to Him, and you’re kind of stuck in your spiritual life since then? When you’re ready (and I wouldn’t take too long) ask for restoration, desire the relationship, and then be prepared to follow whatever he gives you to do.
Then you will see God work, and you will be a blessing in God’s kingdom.
