Lessons learned from Abraham
Genesis chapter 18:1-18:15
Introduction-
Last week we looked at the Tower of Babble.
The lessons learned as God dealt with pride and disobedience.
We saw that God used Noah and his family to humanly replenish the earth and that motives matter to God.
Just because everyone is doing it does not make it right. It is only right if it lines up with God’s word and God’s direction.
We ended last week realizing that God will use ordinary people to do extra-ordinary things if we will let him.
This mourning we will look at Abraham.
Abraham is considered the Father of the Christian faith. He was to be the Father of many nations.
God made a covenant with Abraham that affected everyone after him.
Abraham was the tenth generation after the flood.
The flood is in the rear view mirror and people continually get worse and worse.
Let me give you some background before the text this Mourning.
We are in the book of Genesis and will for a text be looking at Genesis chapter 18:1-15.
Abraham is a righteous man, meaning that he follows after God by Jewish customs.
He lives on his father’s land and has great wealth. He is married to his half-sister Sarai. Sarai cannot have children and is barren. Abraham is 75 years old.
God calls Abraham to take his wife and leave what he has in Ur. Remember that Ur was in Northern Iraq, and go to a land that He will show him. FAITH, EXTREME FAITH! (Many would stop as soon as God would have told them to give up what they had.)
Abraham moves into Canaan and great famine hits and they move toward Egypt. In Egypt, his wife was young and beautiful, Abraham lies and says that Sarai is his sister instead of his wife so that he is not killed by the king of Egypt. Chaos breaks out, disaster hits Egypt and the king figures out that Abraham is lying and sends Abraham and his wife out of the country.
In his calling, God tells Abraham that he will be the father of many nations- yet he has a wife that is barren and unable to have children.
He is running into all kinds of problems listening to God while things are going on in his life. (anyone else relate to that)
Abraham and his nephew Lot’s herdsmen cannot get along and are always fighting and Abraham and Lot decide to split and go in different directions. His nephew Lot chooses what appears to be the best land and takes land back to Canaan. Abraham goes the other way towards Egypt.
The covenant that God made with Abraham is called the Abrahamic covenant. It said that God would multiply his seed and from his seed the nation of Israel would be blessed and become a great nation.
For ten years, Abraham could not understand how God’s covenant with him would come to pass with his wife Sarai being barren. So Sarai and Abraham decide to speed up the process and that Abraham should sleep with his slave girl Hagar and have the promised seed of God. She immediately becomes pregnant and Abraham is now 85 years old.
Hagar and Sarai have issues as Hagar flaunt that she is pregnant and Sarai sends her packing with her son Ishmael.
The text this mourning is right between Abraham’s impatience with God and having a child with Hagar the slave girl and Abraham having a son with Sarai his wife as God has promised.
Maybe you are at an in between spot this mourning- between doing something hastily out of impatience. Maybe you have even made some mistakes already and waiting for God to do what He has promised.
In my life, fingers pointing at no one but myself, I have been impatient in waiting on God and done things to hurry the process. It has never gone well. There has always been consequences.
Genesis chapter 18:1-15 Read
Abraham is visited by the angel of the Lord and two angels. He recognizes these visitors as being important and throws down the hospitality to them. He has his wife prepare the finest meals and the best of everything they have. Wash your feet, feed you, house you, send you on your way.
(9) “Where is your wife Sarai?” in the tent he answers.
(10) “Then the Lord said, I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarai your wife will have a son.”
Sarai hears, she laughs out loud- thinks about her husband who is wore out and how she is wore out, and the years that she has been waiting.
(13) “Then the Lord said to Abraham, why did Sarai laugh and say, will I really have a child, now that I am old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarai will have a son.”
(15) Sarai lied and said that she did not laugh
It starts out with a lie or exaggeration- we get caught by God
I didn’t say that- yes you did
I did not do that- yes you did
I wasn’t thinking that- yes you were
I didn’t mean that- yes you did
I did all I could do- No you didn’t
God doesn’t have a problem hearing and God does not have a problem listening and understanding- yet we argue with God.
Abraham, why did you wife laugh? Why wouldn’t she believe that it is possible to have a child at old age? Is anything too hard for God?
You have to answer that question this Mourning. Is anything too hard for God?
If you put him in a box-yes.
If he is not bigger than our abilities.
If He is only as big as what you can see-yes
Only what you in your little mind- yes
But if God is bigger than what you can imagine, more than what you can see, he has no limitations, no boundaries set by us, He is capable of doing anything except going against His word.
There are some lessons that we can learn from Abraham.
Some positive and some negative- each show us a lesson.
Negative
I. Impatience will cause you to do the wrong thing
Abraham was a man of faith- Abraham had much money and left a lot to follow God. But because he did not wait on God and trust God to bring the promises to pass, He did the wrong thing.
Trusted God ten years before Sarai and Abraham agree to have a child with Hagar the slave girl. This was not what God said and Ishmael is not the promised son.
Created problems with the family.
He could not undo the birth of his son. He loved Ishmael. He was not the promise.
Abraham did it instead of God doing it.
When we are restless while waiting on God, we use poor judgment. (Anyone know what I am talking about)
That is when we blame God for our situations. We imply that God has not been good to us. We blame God, we blame others, everyone but ourselves.
We have to realize that God knows what is best for us, and not waiting just causes us to make mistakes we regret.
“ They that wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength, they shall mount up like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
Paul tells us to “Not grow weary” Gal 6:9
“For in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
Positive
I. God loves faith in action
Abraham had a choice.
Settle in where he was at, comfortzone, no risk, that would have been easier- or obey God- leaving a place of comfort and going to a place that I will show you.
Faith in action!
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.”
He had no idea what was ahead of him, but he knew that if he obeyed that God would be there with him.
Did he make mistakes- yes!
I believe that he should not of went to Egypt- I think he went after the Lord said no. definitely should not of deceived the king and put his wife in such a bad spot.
I am glad that God is a God of second, third chances! That He desires dependence, trust, and faith in him- not in our ability to please him. He give us help and chances to make things right. He wants us to learn from our mistakes and move forward.
God plan from the beginning was to use Abraham, an ordinary person to do something extra-ordinary because of his dependence on God.
King David, Moses, Abraham- great men of God, but all had baggage that God dealt with and still used them mightily.
That gives us hope. Amen. There is still hope for you and me to accomplish something for God. It is never too late to learn from our mistakes as long as there is breath in our bodies.
God responds to faith! Even in the midst of some failures.
Abraham and Sarai are recorded in the book of faith- Hebrews 11
“By faith Abraham, even though he was past age and Sarai herself was barren- was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.”
Abraham believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”
Close-
Impatience will cause you to do the wrong thing- getting ahead of God often causes us to do things in our own ability, which are limited. We cannot see what God is doing behind the scenes, closed doors, waiting on things to fall into place.
“God is not slack concerning his promises as some count slackness, but longsuffering toward us.”
Time often is our enemy because we can’t wait. We interfere with God’s intended purpose.
Deut. 29- “the secret things belong to God”
God often hides from us how He will fulfill his promises in our life. But reveals that we need to stay within his plan.
God never tires and does not grow weary- we are weak but he is strong.
I would much rather do thing God way and his strength instead of our limited abilities.
Amen.
