Feast and Follow with Knollwood

God is Not Done

Why do so many heroes of the Bible act so poorly? All of the characters that we have met and spent some time with so far all had this tragic flaw at some point in their story. Adam was the literal first one. He was completely set up for success, but when given the temptation to sin, he did. The same went for Cain, the first born of Adam, until his brother did better than he did. Noah pursued after God for over a hundred and some years building a boat to save the world, but he couldn't escape the allure of drunkenness. Abraham started out with immediate obedience to what God commanded him, even if he did have some fits and starts along the way. 

In each of these flaws, however, it seems that they at least started well. Noah was a righteous man in God's eyes before the call to him went out. Abraham obviously started out well, and even the errors that he made along the way were only after much time of waiting and seemingly no move on God's part. 

This little episode is different. For the first time, we are getting an intimate look at these twins from the moment of their birth. We met Noah when he was already 500 years old. We met Abraham at 75 years old. Yes, we saw Isaac when he was born and again at probably 14, but there wasn't a whole lot of interaction with him. One has figured out a few things at this age. Yet here, we are meeting these men very early on. We are seeing them without the years of maturity and therefore getting to see God work on someone from the beginning. 

We will see our main point today: Bad starts don't have to have bad finishes 

When God is God

You know what is really hard for humans to do? Let God be God. We have a list of things that we think God isn't allowed to do, or at least a list of things that we would rather Him check with us first before He does them. He doesn't give us the reason for why He does things, and given all that we read in the Bible, you would think He should be trusted at this point. 

We saw last week that God has a plan for the unplanned. Here God was able to use the sin of Abraham to set things up for turnarounds thousands of years in the future. We've seen God work in all kinds of ways to ensure that the blessing is transmitted from one generation to another. He has planned from the very beginning of this book that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the snake. We've seen that there is a line of the woman and a line of the snake down through every list of names. We had Cain and Abel. The line was clear until Cain killed Abel! Doesn't sound like the seed crushing the head of the snake, does it? But then God brings Seth into the world who ultimately produces Noah. Noah has three sons one of whom (Ham) has a cursed family line that will end up serving the line of Shem. Eventually, we see the line of Shem produce Abraham. It is promised that he will have the seed! We see Ishmael born, but it will be Isaac, the technically second son, who will have the blessing of the seed. 

Up to this point, you could be confused as to how these lines are decided. Thus far, it looks like each person has chosen their own adventure. Abel was a right worshiper, and Cain was not. It wasn't until Cain became a murderer that it was crystal clear who was who. Ham didn't stand out until he mocked his father's nakedness. Ishmael stood out from the beginning, but that was because Hagar wasn't the woman of promise. It might look like that God has thus far been reacting to what humanity has been doing. Yes, the blessing has been safe thus far, but is that because God is simply the best at taking life's lemons and making lemonade? Or is God's control more comprehensive than we might imagine? 

The present story will make clear how it is that God runs the show. This is a passage that Paul makes reference to when talking about God's control of matters. As we will see today, and in weeks following that God sovereignly directs His plans beforehand, yet everyone is both dependent on God and responsible to God.

Just Watch

One thing I love about a good story is a conclusion where everything is wrapped up cleanly. No threads are left bare, trajectories have reached their destination. This chapter begins feeling that way. We are given the final years of Abraham's life in a rapid fire succession of children's names, activities, and final destinations. He has lived well, scattered his seed into the world, and is now coming to the end of his days, old and full of years. There is something satisfying about this. He made it. He saw the three promises made to him fulfilled. Yes, it took him his full life to see them realized, but it was done. Yes, he made many mistakes and sinned a bunch throughout his life, but here it is all laid out for us, so clean, so complete. 

What do you want the end of your life to look like? We are spared the ugly details like what and how much was hurting in Abraham's body, but what do you want this part of your life to look like? Do you want those days of your life marked by gratitude of how God has worked even in the hard times? How does one even achieve a life like this? 

Do you think about it, or does the very thought terrify you? I think that there is a shared fear amongst parents and children, leaders and their followers: what life is going to look like without them. Parents can look at their children and wonder how on earth God is going to do something with them. Children can easily look at parents and wonder what will life be like without their guidance, even the guidance that they resent at the moment. When we get used to God working through certain people, certain channels, it becomes harder to remember that God is the one actually making all of this work. 

We are in the middle of yet another intense election cycle. Part of the angst comes from the real question of how is God going to bring good out of what is happening today. Once agin, buried in a pile of names, is a story of God's faithfulness and redemption for a truly unexpected people. Our two points today will be God has a plan for the unplanned and God will continue to work through that plan without a patriarch. 

For When Obedience is Confusing

Have you heard the refrain, "I just worry about what it is going to be like for you kids in the future." It's a lament that flows from my own mouth now that the weight of parenthood sits on my shoulders. We just want the next generation to be ok, and if you happen to be in that generation, you just want things to be ok, too! 

In this chapter, we have such a beautiful slice of life in Abraham's family. So far in Genesis, we have only seen Abraham go through these supernatural problems and triumphs. Abraham was sent on this unknown journey into the wild, hundreds of miles away from anything he knew. In the next chapter, his lying is bringing down and entire country with sickness. The next chapter has him taking his personal army to go rescue his nephew from a coalition of pagan kings. After that, God Himself comes down and makes a covenant right in front of him. After THAT Abraham finds himself in the middle of a squabble between his two wives, and then after THAT Abraham has lunch face to face with God, and then after, after THAT God supernaturally gives Him as son whom he asks Him to sacrifice and then stops him last minute. 

Could we get a normal-sized problem to see how to faithfully work through that? 

Have you ever worried about the next generation? Have you ever worried about your own future? Well, Abraham has gone through that, too. So let's take a look at how Abraham (but mostly God) works through passing the torch. 

Dying in Faith

How are you faithful to God when it seems like God is not being faithful to you? All the back in chapter 12, Abraham was promised by God to have a land, seed, and a blessing. Despite Abraham's foibles, God consistently worked out His promises, even though they were often at the last minute! There was, however, one promise that hadn't been fulfilled yet: the land. All of the other promises were fulfilled with Abraham and Sarah together, and I could imagine that he might have thought that the land would come through while she was still alive. 

Do we not do the same thing? Do you have ideas of not only what God has promised you but how He is going to fulfill them? Do we not sometimes feel betrayed when things don't go exactly as we imagine them? 

I can only imagine the despair that such a seeming betrayal contains, yet in this passage, we get to see Abraham reach this point. This chapter is about burying his wife, Sarah, the matriarch of Israel. She was the only woman who could bring in the promised son. Abraham's seed could be delivered only from her womb, a woman blessed with favor from God even if she did laugh at Him! She has been at Abraham's side ever since he left the homeland of Ur. She has seen the delivery of the promise of blessing and of a descendant, but she has not seen a land to call her own. She dies a sojourner. 

How does Abraham react to this new test of faith in God, and what can we learn from it? That will be our focus as we look at our two points today: Death comes for all in the end, but death isn’t always the end.

God Provides for Righteousness

The first week, we looked at how God grows faith which is through trial. Last week, we saw what faith acts like, in that it isn't just a mental affirmation but it is a deep seated trust in Christ that cannot help but be obedient to what God says. Today, we are going to look at what obedient faith brings to the faithful: blessing. 

Now, I'm going to start up front by defining what I am **not** saying here. I am not saying that obedience always brings *immediate* blessing. God isn't a vending machine where if you pray and read your Bible a certain number of times God will give you a blessing that day. I've seen the reverse of this in folks responding to minor setbacks like traffic or a crashed computer with, "Well, I didn't pray today! That's why all these things are happening to me!" I mean, maybe, but there is no way to actually know that, nor is a prayed for day always going to be a trouble free day. God isn't a formula where you plug in this to get that in a predictable way. 

I am also not saying that obedience always brings blessings *as we would define the term* like riches or health. You will often find the most godly people in the world enduring the greatest suffering, so we can't make one to one comparisons here. My mom got cancer, and it turned out to be a painful but deep blessing. My mom has been able to walk many others through the same valley, a blessing she wouldn't have without having gone through it herself. This was certainly not the path we all desired her to go, but the Lord is able to make blessings out of things we wouldn't wish for. 

So what am I saying? I am saying that true blessing comes through obedience. Exactly what that looks like or when it is going to come is up to the Lord, but we see the consistent witness of Scripture is that righteousness brings reward. 

Faith's Only Window

What is true faith? What does true faith do? Those are two separate questions. If I were to ask you what a flashlight *is* you might describe it as a metal tube with a bulb inside. If I were to ask you what a flashlight *does*, then you would tell me that it shines light. 

The same is true of faith. The question "What *is* faith?" is different from "What does it do?" To hear from our own catechism what faith is: "Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation as he is offered to us in the gospel." That is what faith *is.* Faith alone is what saves you. Faith isn't works. It is a grace to trust Christ, to count on Him alone for your salvation. Even the book of James is very careful to make a distinction between faith and works as we will see in a moment. 

Now, the question that our particular passage prompts us to ask is, "What does faith do?" It will focus our attention on externals. Works is the arena where true faith is displayed. And this is what we are going to see from our passage today. Our two points are: True faith works and true works only come from faith. 

When God Seems to be Your Worst Enemey

How do you think God should treat you? What does that practically look like? If you don't have an answer for that, consider what the last thing that you complained about was. The last thing that happened to you that you complained about was likely something that you think you deserved from God. "I shouldn't have to do all this work myself." "Why is all this traffic here?" "Do these kids just DELIGHT in messing up the house?" "My family member shouldn't have to suffer like this." Our complaints give insight into what we think we deserve from God, and will likely inform the sorts of questions we bring to these first few verses of Genesis 22. 

We have come to the climax of Abraham's story. We might have thought that the climax was last chapter with the birth of Isaac (Bible Talk Podcast). After all that has been the thing that we have been waiting for, the thing that has been put in danger multiple times, the thing that God kept promising to Abraham in 12, 15, 17, 18, and finally in 21 has happened! But now God is asking Abraham to do the unthinkable: sacrifice him. And it isn't just stabbing with a knife. What God is calling for is a whole burnt offering. If Abraham decides to follow through, there is absolutely no turning back. This would be the total destruction of Isaac's body. There would be nothing to bury but ash. 

Why on earth would God do this? The way that we answer this question gives us some insight into who we think God is and what we think we deserve. 

God in the Microscope

What are you known for? It can be something positive or negative. What do you think people think about when they think of you? What would you like them to think? 

Here is this passage, we get a glimpse of what is thought about Abraham. And what we find is that there are positive and negative aspects! As one scholar points out, "It is ironic that the two things Abimelech knew about Abraham were that God was with him and that he was not altogether trustworthy (recall chap. 20)." (387) If you remember what we talked about a couple weeks ago, the last time Abraham and Abimelech met, Abraham was pulling the ole' "she's my sister, so don't kill me" routine. Abraham admitted to Abimelech that this was something of a habit of his. 

From Abimelech's perspective, he needed to make a covenant with Abraham, but the opening reason actually has nothing to do with Abraham, per se. We are going to explore what that is by looking at our two points today: Our relationship with God is the most valuable thing we have and Bringing others into that relationship is the kindest thing we can do. 

From Unbelief to Disbelief

Have you ever waited a long time for a blessing? Maybe it was marriage or children, maybe it was entrance into ministry, retirement, whatever you've been waiting for. What did you feel once you got it? In some ways, before you achieved it, it sort of seemed like life would just sorta stop once you got there. We wouldn't have put it that way while working towards it, but it does kinda feel that way, doesn't it? You achieved your goal! Now what? God still has more for you to do. It turns out that once you got married you didn't just ascend into heaven. Once you got your goal, you didn't find total security. You've gotten the blessing, but you still have to trust God. 

Well, this is the chapter that Abraham has been waiting for since chapter 12. Thousands of miles traveled, over two decades of waiting, two kidnappings of his wife, and two countries nearly destroyed because of it, here we are, the birth of Isaac! The promise is fulfilled! But life keeps going. The need to trust in God's working is more needed than ever. And if one thought that being asked to be patient was hard, oh just wait until we look at what is in store for Abraham in the next two chapters. 

Today, we are going to look at our two points: God provides His promises AND God protects His promises.