WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOD DOING?
GOD WORKS THROUGH SUFFERING AND SIN
GENESIS 12:10-13:18
INTRODUCTION
We were given a gift certificate for Sweet Aroma restaurant in Delavan
at Christmas. We were very excited because we have had very few opportunities
to go out by ourselves during the last two years. In January I made reservations
for Jane and I to go over on a Friday evening. However, when Friday rolled
around Jaimee was sick with a cold and all of our older children had other
plans and could not babysit. So, I had to call the restaurant and cancel
the reservations. How did I feel? Disappointed. (We have gotten to take
advantage of the gift since then.).
Disappointment is a fact of life, isn’t it? Some of our disappointments
are trivial and petty. Like the disappointment many of us felt when the
Packers didn’t get into the playoffs. Or the disappointment we feel when
we missed the sale at our favorite store. However, some of our disappointments
are far more serious. Crushing disappointments like unfaithful spouses,
sick children, divorced parents, unemployment or the loss of a friendship
are also a part of our lives. Jerry and Iris Peterson and I have often
talked about the disappointment they’ve experienced in their ongoing illnesses.
Jerry had open heart surgery shortly after he retired and then a year
later Iris had open heart surgery and then she developed cancer a year
ago and now she’s back in the hospital with cancer. This is not how they
envisioned their retirement years. Our disappointment is directly related
to our expectations of happiness. The more we count on a person or an
event or a possession to satisfy us, the more disappointed we are when
our expectations are not met.
Disappointment can destroy us if we don’t learn how to deal with it.
Disappointment can quickly turn to resentment, anger, worry, fear and
depression. Disappointment can lead us into making all manner of rash
and foolish decisions as we try to obtain what seems to have been denied
to us. That’s exactly what we discover today in the life of Abram. Life
is not going the way that Abram expected. He makes a choice that would
have been fatal if not for God’s gracious intervention. This passage is
so important as it shows that God keeps his promises to his people, even
when his people are faithless. In this passage we get a look at life as
it actually is and see how God sustains his people by keeping his promises,
but not always in the ways that we would plan.
MAIN POINT
God keeps his promises to his people by…
I. Chasing us down when we stray (12:10-13:4)
What do you do when believing in Christ and trying to obey him seems
to make life worse rather than better? What do you do when the first excitement
of knowing Christ wears off and you seem to be the same person you were
before you believed? What do you do if you decide to obey God in a hard
situation and the situation only gets worse? Well, if you are a normal
human being, like Abram, you take matters into your own hands.
Look at v. 10. The land that God has promised to give him and his descendants
isn’t producing enough food to support him and his family so he decides
to go to a place that always has water and food, Egypt. The NIV adds the
phrase "for a while". It is not at all obvious from the Hebrew word that
is used that Abram planned on coming back. Maybe he did, but we don’t
really know for sure. I don’t want to be too hard on Abram. He is in a
situation that is indeed bleak. His livestock were dying from starvation.
He was daily watching his food supplies dwindle. The sun blazed down out
of a bronze sky and the earth was hard and cracked and there was no relief
in sight. He was responsible for his family and so he did the reasonable
but unbelieving thing, he went down to Egypt. He decides that God can’t
be trusted to provide for him. He decides that he knows better than God
and is far more able to provide for his needs than is God. Rather than
trust this great God who had made such great promises, he trusts in his
own strength and wisdom. What Abram does is sin.
Once he moves outside of the promise of God and begins to live by his
own resources we see his wickedness come to fruition. Look at 11-13 (read
it). I want you to notice that this is the first time that Abram speaks
in the story of his life. What are the first words of this "man of faith"?
Fear and greed have such a grip on Abram that he cares about no one and
nothing but his own self-preservation. He concocts a plan that will not
only preserve his life but will also cause the Egyptians to treat him
well. He tells Sarai to lie about their relationship, to say she is his
sister. He expected that the men of Egypt would treat him well in order
to get his permission to marry beautiful Sarah. He did not intend to give
away his wife but he did intend to use her as bait in gaining favor and
thereby wealth.
However, as is so often the case when we begin to plot our own future
rather than resting in God’s provision, circumstances, by God’s design,
quickly moved out of Abram’s control. Read vv. 14-16. Not just any suitor
came calling at Abram’s tent. No less than Pharaoh himself came to make
Sarai his wife. Did Abram give Sarai away reluctantly, out of fear for
his life or did he give her away gladly, because he saw how wealthy he
could become as Pharaoh’s brother-in-law? The text doesn’t clearly answer
but it does cast serious suspicion on his motives. Notice "that I may
be treated well for your sake" in v. 13 and "He treated Abram well for
her sake", v. 16.
Listen to what happens next. In the palace Pharaoh and his household
all break out with an infectious skin disease on the day he takes Sarai
as his wife. The disease comes upon everyone associated with Pharaoh’s
house and comes at exactly the same time. The outbreak is too much of
a coincidence for these superstitious pagans. He storms into Sarai’s room
and asks why this has happened to them. She tells them it is because she
is Abram’s wife, not his sister. Pharaoh grabs Sarai and charges over
to Abram’s tent on the outskirts of the city. In a rage, he confronts
Abram. "What have you done to me?" "Why didn’t you tell me she was your
wife?" "Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’ so that I took her to be my
wife?" "Now then, here is your wife, take her and go." He ordered his
men to run them out of the country. Abram said nothing in defense of himself
and could not look at Sarai. He hung his head in shame as he listened
to the stinging and well-deserved rebuke of the pagan king.
When Abram loses his wife to Pharaoh what is God going to do? The man
through whom He plans to bless the whole world by making him a great nation
has abandoned both the land God promised to give him and the wife, through
whom God would give him descendants. Abram in his sinning seems to have
negated the entire promise of God. Just like us when we sin. How can God
save sinful people like us? The answer is that he chases us down and grants
us the gift of repentance, just like Abram. He delivers Sarai by sending
the disease and delivers Abram by sending the king to rebuke him. In fact,
the first question he asks Abram is the same one that God asked Eve after
she sinned in the garden of Eden. "What is this you have done?" Abram’s
silence is evidence of his absolute humiliation. God often does this to
his sinning people. He exposes us in our sin so that we are brought very
low and our foolish unbelief and wickedness is exposed for what it truly
is. "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." God makes sure
his people are humble so that he can give his grace to them.
How often I have experienced this. How often I have seen God do this
to others. There are many ways that God creates humility. Sometimes God
humiliates me simply through the convicting work of his Holy Spirit. I
remember one day many years ago when I was running and thinking about
some less than flattering things I had said to another person about a
member of the church we went to. I had slandered a man to another man.
The daughter of the man I had slandered was involved in our ministry and
I imagined her talking to the person I had gossiped to and finding out
what I had said about her dad. I was overcome with shame and stopped running
and began to cry for the evil I had done. I confessed my sin to God. I
began to meet with the person I had slandered in order to work out our
differences. Other times I have been humiliated in more public ways by
my sin being put out in front of others or being rebuked by a friend for
what I have done. At other times I am humiliated by simply confessing
my sin to another Christian. The point is, if you are a Christian, your
sin will not stop God from saving you. He will chase you down, throw you
to the ground in order to humble you and then give you the gift of repentance
and restore you to himself. If God does not deal with us in this way,
none of us will ever make it to heaven. Humiliation over our sin is necessary
if we are going to make it to heaven. God could have left Abram enjoying
his wealth in the land of Egypt. But because of his love for him he humiliated
him.
So he returns to the land of promise and to the last place where he worshipped
God and called on God’s name. Read 13:1-4 and show 12:8. Abram knew that
he had failed to trust in God in his flight to Egypt and in his cowardice
when there. He knew that he had allowed fear and greed to rule his life
and had behaved in a manner that had dishonored his wife. He had spurned
God, despising the goodness and the power and the love of God for him.
O how he wished that he could undo all the evil that he had done. But
he could not change anything. All he could do is turn from his sin and
cast himself upon the mercy of God and of his wife. We know that Abram
was restored to fellowship because when he arrived at Bethel he offered
sacrifices to God and gave thanks to him for his forgiveness and called
on Him again.
It is highly instructive that there was no promise in Egypt, no altar
in Egypt and there was no calling on the name of the Lord in Egypt. In
the land of sin there is only the resources of self. When we abandon God
we always distance ourselves from his worship and from his word and from
prayer. People who say they know God and love God but who don’t go to
church or read his word are liars. When you are in fellowship with God
you gladly join in his worship and gladly seek him in his word and prayer.
Abram returns to the place of dependence and fellowship with God as pictured
in his returning to Bethel. Here is the mark of every true Christian.
When we sin, we are ashamed of our sin, mourn our sin and return to God
in confession and in his word and worship and prayer.
Have you gone into the land of sin because you’re disappointed with how
God is dealing with you? Have you taken matters into your own hands rather
that wait for God to provide? I tell you to turn around. Come back to
Christ. Humble yourself under God’s mighty hand in confession and calling
out for mercy and he will deliver you, in his way. Don’t wait for him
to humiliate you the way he did Abram. Are you in disappointing circumstances
right now? Whatever you do, don’t leave behind the God’s promise in Christ
and try to overcome the circumstances by your own plan. Wait for God to
deliver as Abram does in the next scene.
God keeps his promises to his people by…
- Chasing us down when we stray
- And by…
II. Keeping us from evil (13:5-13)
Read 13: 5-7. What’s the first thing that happens when Abram returns
to God in the land of promise? He encounters another difficult and disappointing
circumstance. Isn’t that the way life goes? We are confronted with sin
and repent and come back to God and are happy and assume that now things
are going to go well and bang, something happens to rock our faith, to
call God’s goodness and power into question again. Abram discovers that
the land cannot sustain Lot, himself and all the other inhabitants of
the land. The place is too crowded. Not only is Abram confronted with
questions about God’s provision but he is confronted with a relational
conflict on top of it. His herdsmen and Lot’s begin to fight with one
another. Trusting God is tough enough when it seems like God’s promises
are not panning out but when a domestic quarrel is added, life can become
unbearable. How often do couples, faced with tight finances, make matters
worse by accusing one another of creating the problem? How often do siblings
faced with the failing health of their parents make matters worse by squabbling
over the inheritance? How often does insecurity in your place of employment
become worse as employees slander each other to try and maintain their
own position?
How will Abram deal with this disappointment, this threat to God’s plan?
Abram responds in faith, rather than fear. He displays the response of
a person who has submitted himself to the will of God, whatever it may
mean. He displays a confidence that his life is in God’s hands and so
whatever God does is OK with him. Read vv. 8-9. He is able to deal generously
with Lot because his life is not tied up in his possessions. He is able
to be a peacemaker because he doesn’t need anything from Lot. He is happy
in God. He doesn’t fight for his rights. He doesn’t demand his way. He
tells Lot, you take whatever part of the land seems good to you and I’ll
take what’s left. Are you tired of fighting with your spouse, your siblings,
your parents, a co-worker? You can stop the quarreling in a moment. Give
in. Don’t demand your own way. Entrust yourself to God and let the other
person have his way. Submit to God by submitting to your adversary. This
isn’t passivity, this is aggressively trusting God to take care of you.
He is our refuge. Abram, by giving Lot his own way, puts himself in God’s
hands.
After Egypt, Abram doesn’t trust his own judgment. He sees God in these
difficult circumstances, the way he should have seen God in the famine.
He is not sure of what God wants to do and so he puts himself in God’s
hands by putting himself in Lot’s hands. In doing this God delivers him
from two evils. Read vv. 10-13. First, he makes it clear that the descendant
to whom he will give the land is not Lot. At this point, the natural heir
of Abram is Lot. By separating them, God shows that Abram’s heir will
be a direct descendant, not the son of his brother. God removes any temptation
Abram might have had to look to Lot as the fulfillment of God’s promise.
Then notice the disaster that God delivers Abram from. We discover that
Lot, while being in the company of Abram and appearing as though he was
part of the company of faith is actually not a person of faith. He has
only one criteria for decision making. What place will most enable me
to get what I love, more life in this world? He has no concern for God’s
will. He is only concerned with accumulating more of the good life on
earth. So when he looks out at the land he sees the plain of the Jordan
River which is on the edge of the land of promise, and he picks it for
his place to live. Look at what we are told about the plain of the Jordan.
It is a very fertile place with plenty of water. It is like the garden
of Eden in its fertility, like Egypt with a constant supply of water and
therefore not susceptible to the droughts and famines that plague Canaan.
What’s the last thing to happen in Eden? The temptation, sin and judgment
of Adam and Eve. What happened in the land of Egypt? The temptation, sin
and judgment of Abram. Is Lot stupid or what? Then we have this foreboding
statement, "This was before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah". Lot is
moving to a place that God is going to destroy. Then to top it all off,
we find out that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah are sinning greatly
against the Lord. The last time that statement was made, God sent a flood.
But, heedless of the danger, Lot goes to live among these people.
Listen to what Paul says in his first letter to Timothy, "People who
want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish
and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the
love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money,
have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."
A desire for the good life leads Lot and that desire leads him to the
brink of destruction. Notice that God delivers Abram from the danger by
giving Lot what his heart desires. From a human point of view, Lot is
getting the better deal. He is moving into the place of abundance while
Abram is living in a land full of Canaanites and Perizzites that cannot
sustain all its inhabitants.
The United States is a dangerous place to live for the Christian. Our
consumer culture feeds our greed with promises of the good life that can
be had with just a swipe of the credit card. How many of us have gone
to live among the cities of the plain by taking advantage of easy credit?
How many of us are enslaved to a lifestyle rather than to our Savior,
Jesus Christ? We need to learn from what we observe in Lot. He chooses
what looks good but it is going to cost him everything in the end. How
many have made a lifestyle the chief thing and have lost everything because
they were unwilling to trust God for his provision. When we moved to Janesville,
our realtor, for the fun of it, took us through a house that was far beyond
our means. It was beautiful. There was a huge satellite dish in the yard,
a boat in the garage along with a brand new Chevy truck. There was a large
screen TV in the family room with surround sound speakers. As we went
through the house we noticed indentations in the carpet where pieces of
furniture had been. On one of the mirrors there was a picture of two little
boys. We later found out that the owner’s wife had just left him, a year
after they had built their dream house.
Don’t believe the lie of the American dream. You will not find what you’re
looking for in a lifestyle. You cannot live in the land of God’s promise
and the land of money’s promise at the same time. If you make your decisions
based on where you can find the most of life in this world, you will lose
everything. Only by submitting to God’s will, will we be delivered from
the evil that is in the world.
God keeps his promises to his people by…
- Chasing us down when we stray
- Keeping us from evil
- And by…
III. Strengthening our faith with promises (13: 14-18)
God has told Abram that he will make him into a great nation. But rather
than becoming greater he has just become smaller. He still lives in a
land inhabited by other people. The potential for discouragement is great.
So notice that God comes, after Abram has lived by faith, and strengthens
Abram with his promises. Read vv. 14-18. Look at how God intensifies his
promise to Abram. He shows him the extent of the land he is going to give
to him and his descendants. There actually is a point near Bethel in Israel
where you can see the Mediterranean Sea on the west, the Jordan river
on the east, the sea of Galilee and Mt. Hermon in the north and the Dead
Sea and the Negev in the south. Then God tells Abram that his descendants
will be as numerous as the dust of the earth. He will have so many descendants
that they cannot be counted. Then he tells Abram to take a survey trip
and look at the land He is going to give him. Abram obeys and travels
throughout the land and finally settles in Hebron, where he builds another
altar and worships God for his kindness.
This is how God works in our lives. When we entrust ourselves to him
and his care and abandon all self-confidence and give up trying to find
life in this world, he intensifies his promises to us. His word becomes
a life-giving and faith sustaining fountain to us. When we live like Lot,
pursuing life in this world, we never discover the joy and hope that comes
from God’s word. It remains a sealed book. It is dry and dusty and irrelevant.
Sermons and talk about Christ are meaningless to those who have not abandoned
themselves to God. But the moment you give up trying to find life here,
by your own cunning and ability, then the word of God becomes a source
of strength and hope and happiness that exceeds all expectation. I have
to ask you, how does the Bible affect you? Is there any hunger in you
for this word? Do you eagerly drink from the fountain of God’s promises
every day? Is your faith sustained and strengthened by hearing his word
preached? The certain mark that you have abandoned yourself to God is
that you love his word and find all your hope fixed on its promises, not
on your plans and abilities. If you do not have a desire for God’s word
it is because you have not abandoned yourself to God. You are trying to
find life among the cities of the plain.
This passage shows us the cycle of Christian living. You are given a
promise and you act in accord with it. Then you find a greater hunger
for God and his promises. He gives you more assurances of his protection
and provision and you trust them and seek more. As I have meditated on
this passage this week I have gotten so excited because I see what happened
to Abram happening in your lives. I have seen this pattern in my own life
and in the lives of scores of others. I think of the first student that
came to faith in Christ with me in 1977. I shared the gospel with Rory
when he was a freshman at MTU and he trusted Christ. We met weekly to
study the Bible together and he began coming to our large group meetings.
He was seeking God in the word and prayer. He came to church for the first
time in his life. I was really looking forward to what God was going to
do in his life the following year. During the first semester of his sophomore
year he met a beautiful young woman who was not a Christian and began
dating her. Very quickly his interest in God’s word and spending time
with Christians evaporated. He finally refused to even talk with me and
I lost touch with him. I bumped into him a couple of times during his
junior year but he was always distant and non-interested. We left Houghton
at the end of that year. How surprised I was a year later to find out
that Rory was one of the key leaders in the church we had attended and
that he was planning on being a missionary. I got in contact with him
and discovered that he had finally abandoned himself to God and broken
off his relationship with the woman. His passion for God and God’s word
became insatiable and in less than a year he found himself pursuing a
life of missionary service. Rory and his wife Mary and their four children
live in the jungles of Papau New Guinea and they are helping to plant
churches among the Lamogai people. Not everyone who abandons themselves
to God becomes a missionary. But everyone who abandons themselves to the
care of God find God’s promises to be life sustaining. All who live in
this manner wonderfully influence the people around them to find hope
in God.
God keeps his promises to his people by…
- Chasing us down when we stray
- Keeping us from evil
- Strengthening our faith with his promises
© Copyright 2000 John Swanson.
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