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Christ Community Chapel is a church in Hudson, OH, that invites people to reimagine life because of Jesus. Learn more about us at ccchapel.com.
Genesis 17: 15 through 21
And God said to Abraham,
as for Sarai, your wife,
you shall not call her name Sarai,
but Sarah shall be her name.
I will bless her, and moreover
I will give you a son by her.
I will bless her,
and she shall become nations.
Kings of peoples shall come from her.
Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed,
and said to himself,
shall a child
be born to a man who's 100 years old?
Shall Sarah,
who is nine years old, their child?
And Abraham said to God,
oh, that Ishmael might live before you.
God said, no, but Sarah,
your wife shall bear you a son,
and you shall call his name Isaac.
I will establish my covenant with him
as an everlasting covenant
for his offspring after him.
As for Ishmael, I have heard you.
Behold, I have blessed him, and will make
him fruitful, and multiply him greatly.
He shall father 12 princes,
and I will make him into a great nation.
But I will establish my covenant
with Isaac,
whom Sarah shall bear to
you at this time next year.
Everybody, good
morning and welcome to Christ
Community Chapel.
I'm really glad you're here. Welcome.
Those of you here in West
and those of you over in the East service
as you tuning in online.
Welcome, everybody.
This is the fifth week.
We are right smack dab
in the middle of our ten week series.
In the Old Testament,
we're looking at the life of Abraham,
and we're calling this series Promises
made, promises Kept.
A promise, by definition, is something
that's going to happen in the future.
And one of the tricky things about
a promise is the timeline.
How long between when a promise is made
is going to pass
before the promise is kept?
If you've ever made a promise to a child,
you know how tricky that can be.
Three weeks ago, Jimmy Cosey preached here
in West,
and then, Jamie Stewart preached in East.
And in Jimmy's message,
he used the illustration
of how he and his wife,
Carolyn, decided to,
give surprise their kids
with a trip to Disney.
And they, we're going to take the trip
later on in the year.
But they wanted to give them this gift
at Christmas,
so that's when they made the promise,
knowing that they were going to be
taking the trip several months later.
But if you put Mickey Mouse
ears under a Christmas tree,
with a promise to a five year old
that you're going to take her
to the happiest place on earth, she thinks
you're leaving in minutes, not months.
That's a problem. And timeline.
That's what Abraham is experiencing in
Genesis chapter 17.
So if you have your Bibles,
go ahead and turn to Genesis 17.
If you want to use one of our Bibles,
have something in your hand.
It's on page 11. Page 11.
Or you can just wait
for the verses to come up on the screen
that I'm going to highlight here.
My my three points that I want to use
to kind of guide our time
together is a pretty simple,
the first point is God delays.
The second point is Abraham laughs
and the third point is God responds.
God delays. Abraham laughs,
and then God responds.
First.
Abraham delays.
There are a couple problems
that people kind of have
with God and his promises.
The first problem that people can have is
they assume that God has made
a promise to them
that he never really made.
And that can kind of sneak up on you.
It can happen without warning
because it's almost a subconscious
assumption of the promise.
When my little brother was killed
in a motorcycle accident at the age of 20,
I got really angry, with God.
And it was hard for me to even figure out
why I was so angry.
And, let me just have a sidebar here
and talk to you as a pastor.
I remember, counselor
telling me that anger
was a secondary emotion,
not a primary emotion.
A primary emotion is is hurt or pain.
And then the secondary emotion is anger.
You don't have anger without pain.
Like, if I were to walk up to you and kick
you in your shin
this morning, well,
you'd probably leave the church, but
you would feel pain.
And then right after pain,
you would feel anger,
pain, primary, anger secondary.
The problem with anger
is that anger pushes people away.
So I was so hurt
when my little brother was killed,
but I couldn't bring that hurt to God.
I couldn't be comforted by God.
Now the psalmist says God
is close to the brokenhearted,
not God is close to the angry.
Nobody can get close to somebody
who's angry. But.
But I finally started to figure out
that I was assuming that God had made me
a promise that he had never really made.
And the subconscious assumption
was that the promise would be that
nothing really bad
would happen to people that I loved.
But of course, God never makes
that promise.
Do you read the Bible?
God never says he will keep us from pain.
He says that he will walk with us in pain.
He says that one day he will overwhelm
and redeem pain.
In John chapter 16, verse 33,
Jesus says this
I have said these things to you,
that in me you may have peace.
In the world you will have tribulation.
But take heart.
I have overcome the world.
Well, that's a different promise
than what I was assuming.
And once I was able to see that
and lay aside
kind of that promise that I was assuming,
then finally, in the anger subsided,
I was able to take my hurt
and my pain to God
and be comforted and begin to heal.
If you're here this morning
and you are angry with God,
what I've just said might be the most
important thing you hear this morning.
And it might be that you're angry with God
because you're assuming he
made a promise to you
that he never really made.
That's the first problem
that people have with God and promises.
The second thing is timeline.
The time lapse between when God makes
the promise and God keeps the promise.
And that's what Abraham is experiencing
in Genesis 17, because in Genesis chapter
12, God makes a promise to Abraham,
and his promise
is that he's going to make Abraham
into a great nation, that he's
going to have many, many descendants.
And the problem in Genesis 12
is that Abraham didn't have any children
yet, and Abraham was 75 years old.
Let me ask you this
if you were Abraham
and God appeared to you when you're 75
and told you
you're going to have children,
how long before
you think your wife's going to give birth?
I would guess right around nine months.
But, you know, Abraham went home to Sarah
and said, God appeared to me, great news.
We're going to have a baby.
Let's get started.
Let's get
let's get this thing going right now.
Here's this. That's Genesis 12.
Genesis 17 is 24 years later,
24 years.
And still Sarah
has not become pregnant.
Why? Why would God
delay 24 years after making a promise?
Why does God
make any of us wait for what
we are longing for God to do?
There are at least three answers, I think
for that least that I can think of.
One I'll called the delayed flight reason.
The second, the fullness of time reason,
and the third, the Lazarus reason.
All right, first,
the delayed flight reason.
I hate when my flight's delayed.
I don't think I'm alone.
Right?
I mean, it's just I remember
sitting on the tarmac one time,
and I was just so frustrated
because we're just sitting there
and I'm looking at my watch,
and I'm just going, this is just silly.
This is silly.
So I, I grabbed one of the flight
attendants and I just say, what?
What's going on?
Why are we sitting here waiting?
And she said, well, well, sir,
they're they're deicing the wings
of the plane for the safety of our flight.
And I suddenly felt a little sheepish,
I because I went from being frustrated
to being grateful because it seems like
a pretty important thing
to do to de-ice
the wings of a plane in Cleveland.
When you're leaving
in the middle of winter, right?
There is a good reason for the delay.
I just didn't know it.
There might be a good reason
why God is not giving you
what you long for.
You just don't know it.
The second reason
is that the fullness of time is.
And there's a verse in Galatians
that says this in the fullness of time,
God sent his Son,
born of a woman, at just the right time.
God sent his son, born of a woman.
Every once in a while someone will ask me,
why was Jesus born in the first century?
Why not a couple of hundred years earlier?
A couple hundred years later?
And historians
and theologians point to three things
that have kind of converged
in the first century
that had never happened
before in the history of the world.
The first was what was called Pax Romana,
the Peace of Rome,
the Roman Empire was so powerful
at that time
that there was
there were no skirmishes, no conflicts
for about 180 years, right
smack dab in the first century.
The second thing
that had happened
was that Greek had become
the the language,
the trade language of the entire empire,
which means that everybody
in the civilized world spoke the same
language, understood the same language.
And the third thing that had happened
was that Rome had taken on it itself
to build a road system
that would connect the entire empire.
That's where the saying says
all roads lead to Rome.
So when Jesus resurrected
the news of his resurrection
could and did spread like wildfire
very quickly throughout the known world,
because there was peace,
there was a single language.
And the roads, in the fullness of time,
God sent his son, born of a woman.
Why would God wait 24 years
to fulfill this promise to Abraham?
Well, a lot can happen in 24 years.
The world can can change in a day.
We all know that
there are a thousand variables
that could happen
just today, let alone 24 years.
People change. The world changes.
Maturity changes.
In the fullness of time.
God sent his Son
to Abraham.
All right, that's the second.
The third reason,
though, is the Lazarus reason.
Like in John chapter 11, where we read
the story of Lazarus and Jesus.
Lazarus is a friend of Jesus. He's sick.
His sister sent word to Jesus.
Your friend Lazarus is sick. Come now.
Jesus doesn't come for a while.
By the time he gets to Bethany,
where Lazarus was living,
Lazarus has died
and he's been dead for four days.
When Jesus arrives in
the movie The Princess Bride,
miracle Max,
played by Billy Crystal,
said, there's a big difference between
someone being mostly dead
and being completely dead, right?
If Lazarus had just been mostly dead,
there might be some other reasons
why he got better.
His immune system
finally kicked in the medicine
his sisters have been giving him.
Finally began to take effect.
But with Lazarus being completely dead,
well, that means it's only Jesus.
It's got to be 100% Jesus.
You know, with Abraham,
why would God wait so long
to fulfill the promise of Abraham?
Well, Abraham says it.
Can a man who's 100 and his wife,
who's 90, have a baby?
Well, now, now,
now it has to be 100%.
God, there are some things in your life
where God waits until you know
that it's unmistakably 100% him,
100% grace.
And that's hard.
And that brings me to the second point.
Abraham laughs.
So God makes this promise in Genesis
chapter 12,
24 years later, he restates the promise
and Abraham responds two ways.
The first thing is he laughs.
He laughs.
Now what's interesting
is that next week I'm going to speak on
Genesis chapter 18, where Sarah laughs.
But Sarah's laughter
is more cynical than Abraham, I think.
Abraham laughs because now he
he knows that it's a promise
that it's almost too wonderful
for him to believe, because he knows
he's aged out of participating
in this promise.
Now it has to be 100% God.
It's got to be 100% grace
and and laughter sometimes
is the most appropriate response to grace.
My wife, Karen and I went to a graduation
this last week.
It was a graduation that was held at,
Restore Addiction Recovery kind of center.
It's a
residential place where we actually was.
We helped start it.
Right. It's what we're doing.
The five k run to help
fund restore all of that.
But it's a program where
men who are struggling
with addiction going,
and it's a year long program,
which is a super long program.
And if you go the whole year
one, you are completely transformed.
But two, they have a graduation for you.
And there are two men who are graduating
who had spent a whole year
in the program,
and their names were Jake and James.
And one of the things about addicts
is that they realize they understand
grace better than most,
because they know
they can't do it themselves.
But they asked me to pray
at the end of this graduation.
So I was and,
Jake and James were up with me.
And so I was praying for them,
and I was thinking, Jesus,
I was just saying Jesus, I'm so grateful.
You're the kind of God that leaves the
99 sheep to go after the one.
Because
you went after Jake, you went after James.
And when I said you went after
James, James was standing next to me
and he said, Amen.
And he kind of chuckled.
And that was exactly the right response,
because if I talked to James
and I said, James,
how is it that you're a Christian?
He would say, yeah, it's crazy.
And it it's crazy
that Jesus would come after me.
Come after me. Listen,
I have news for you.
If you are a follower of Jesus right now,
you weren't part of the 99.
You're the one.
No one comes to Jesus.
It's a 100% Jesus going after you.
Every one smile, the sheer wonder of that.
That Jesus knew you before you were you.
And he called you
by name and he went after you
should make you just laugh.
Just laugh.
And that's the first thing.
The second thing that Abraham does is
the first thing is laugh.
The second thing is he,
he tells God that that he's covered
God with plan B, that's what he
this is what he says in verse 18.
So God restates
the promise, you're going to have a son.
And then Abraham says this.
And Abraham said to God, O
that Ishmael might live before you.
Remember last week Zach preached on this,
and and, if you haven't
listened to that sermon, you should.
It's a really good sermon.
But plan B was just a mess
all the way around.
It was like God had promised Abraham
and Sarah they were going to have a sign.
He delays. They lose patience.
They decide to hatch their own plan.
And that involves Abraham
sleeping with a slave girl named Hagar.
And the result of that is a son
named Ishmael,
and that's what Abraham says to God.
I got you covered.
Plan B is in effect right?
And, what's interesting is that
God, doesn't he?
He blows right past that
plan B, it doesn't throw him out of whack.
What he's telling
Abraham is, I have plans for you, Abraham.
I have plans to absolutely change you,
to transform you and through you,
to change the whole world.
And of course, that's the promise,
the plan that he has for you to
if you're a follower of Jesus.
And that brings me to my third point,
which is God's response that God responds,
So God promises Abraham
a son in Genesis 12.
He waits 24 years.
He restates the promise in Genesis
chapter 17.
Abraham laughs, and then he says to God,
listen, I understand the promise.
I just want you to know
I've enacted plan B.
You're welcome. Right.
And this is God's response.
This is verses 19 through 21.
It says, God said, no,
but Sarah, your wife shall bear you a son,
and you shall call his name Isaac.
I will establish my covenant with him
as an everlasting covenant
for his offspring after him.
As for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold,
I have blessed him, and will make him
fruitful and multiply him greatly.
He shall.
Father 12 princes.
I will make him into a great nation.
But I will establish my covenant
with Isaac,
whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time
next year.
A couple of things I want you to notice.
One is God doesn't get mad at Abraham.
He doesn't tell Abraham how disappointed
he is that he hatched this plan
because it's like God is says to Abraham,
yeah, yeah, I saw plan B
and it's a mess.
But I want you to know
I'm going to I'm going to help you
with that mess.
But the promise I made you
is the promise I'm going to keep.
Because when the God of the universe
has a plan and makes a promise,
there's absolutely nothing
that can stop him.
You've got.
God has a plan for you,
and he's made you a promise.
This is the promise.
This is from Philippians
chapter one, verse six.
It says this, and I am sure of this,
that he who began a good work in
you will bring it to completion
at the day of Jesus Christ,
that God is going to complete
what he started in you
when you came to faith in Jesus.
And what it means is that God is promising
that he's going to make you into something
you're not.
He is in the process of making you like
Jesus.
His plan is to fill you with love
and joy, peace, patience, goodness.
He's going to make you good
and gentle and patient and faithful.
All the things that you're not.
I feel like I'm constantly coming up
with Plan B's
that will somehow make my life good.
And God is saying, listen,
I'm going to blow right past plan
B, I, I can even incorporate
some of what you've done.
I will fix your messes.
But I want you to know
that the promise I've made to you,
I'm going to keep
right now.
I remember as a kid
playing a game called risk,
and if you ever played that board game,
it looks something like this.
The whole idea of the game is
that somehow you you're going to slowly
take over the world as a player.
You're going to it.
You go country
by country, region by region.
The game of risk is not a board game
that you can play quickly.
You can't play it an hour.
It takes a day, sometimes two days, right.
To actually and I think that's the way
God works in our lives,
at least in my life.
Like there's all kinds of things
that I'm doing.
But he is slowly moving,
slowly taking them slowly,
making me more like Jesus.
Country by country, region by region.
And there's no variable in my life,
no experience that he cannot use
to make me like there's no experience
in your life, no plan B that will derail
his promise to you,
to make you like Jesus
and in the fullness of time,
when we finally realize
that grace is seeping
deeper and deeper into our souls,
we will realize that our entire lives
God has been working his plan
and fulfilling his promise.
So no matter how long
you have been waiting for
God to do something in your life,
no matter how messed up your plan
B has made, your life,
I just want you to know
that God has a plan and a promise for you.
And when the God of the universe
has a plan, it makes a promise.
There's absolutely nothing
that can stop him.
Promises made
and promises kept.
Would you pray with me?
Father in heaven, I come to you.
And I am so grateful.
First, I want to pray for anybody here.
Anybody, listening
or watching that, struggle
or struggling with anger towards you.
I pray that today might be a day,
that they put aside the anger.
Look at your real promises,
the promises that you have made
and that they would find comfort
and healing with you.
I pray for those of us
who just need to be reassured
that you are progressing,
that you are fulfilling
your promise to make us more like Jesus.
I pray that we will be more like
Jesus tomorrow than we are right now.
I pray that you would fill us more
with love and joy and peace.
All of that make us into what we are not,
so that one day we will praise you.
And when we do,
we will be like your Son Jesus.
Thank you for giving us
such a wonderful Savior.
We pray this in his name. Amen.