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Well, I want to encourage you, if you have your Bibles with you this morning, and I hope you do, to please turn to me to Genesis chapter twelve.
And in a moment we will be looking, starting and in verse ten as you turn there.
As I mentioned, we will be partaking in the Lord's Supper today.
And so our elements, we don't pass them out during the service or you do not come forward to receive them and they are back in the back.
And if you snuck by and you didn't get one and you didn't know, that's fine.
I want to encourage you right now be a great time to go back in the back.
We'll give some instructions about the Lord's Supper here at the end of my message before we take this together.
But I do want to share with you, maybe you don't know if you can partake in the Lord's Supper here with us today.
And here's how we practice as our church.
If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, we want to invite you whether you are a member of our church or not.
We want to invite you to take the Lord's Supper with us today as we celebrate Christ in all that he has done.
Well, we are now on week 13 into our Genesis study.
And last week we were introduced to a major person in a major family in Scripture as God made a covenant with this man named Abram who will become Abraham.
All right?
And he is a very important person in Scripture.
In the Bible.
His life is covered from Genesis eleven to 25 in Hebrew eleven, the hall of Faith chapter that's there, right?
Noah, who we would all agree.
Yes.
And Amen.
He is a big deal.
We looked at his life earlier and all that God did, he got verse seven, which isn't critical of Noah, right?
That's one more verse than you and I have.
And so that's good.
But Abraham in the hall of Faith in Hebrews eleven, he gets verses eight through 19.
So it kind of shows that this weight that's there culturally in our world, as far as religions go, that there are three major world religions that trace their lineage back to Abraham being Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
And so as we journey through this burger and I were talking about this this morning, he's like, man, we're really heading towards some meaty stuff as we work through Genesis together.
And a lot of this will be centered around what is happening right here in these early chapters in Abram's life.
And so last week we looked at this that God makes a covenant with Abraham.
And so I'm going to throw these up on the screen just so we can get everybody on the same page.
God says to Abram, he says, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great so that you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse, which will be very important.
So just kind of file that away as we're going to jump ahead here in a little bit in Genesis twelve.
And in you, all of the families of the earth shall be blessed.
And so God made this covenant and he called Abram to obedience, okay?
So God makes this covenant with him.
Abram at this time, but before this is a pagan man in a pagan land from a pagan family, all right?
He's not at seminary, right, getting taught up in what he needs to go and do.
He's not a part of a discipleship program.
He's not a part of a church.
He's a pagan man in a pagan land coming from a pagan family.
And God calls him and makes a covenant with him and calls him to obedience.
And I think this is important, that this is the process that this happens because God does not seek for us to obey Him before a relationship, right, that's legalism.
But God always calls us to obey Him from relationship because we are in relationship with Him, then this is what comes from us.
And so this is what we see in the life of Abram.
And so here's the piece that we saw last or two weeks ago and last week for Abram in this Genesis twelve, one, god says, go from your country and from your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.
So he sets the covenant, he sets the obedience.
And then last week, how did Abram respond to this?
We see compromised but committed, right?
And if we're honest, like this is us on a good day.
There's some compromise that's there, but there's commitment that's to the Lord.
You're going to see Abram take these giant, huge steps of faith.
You're going to see Abram in all of his faults and failures, all of the issues and the struggles that he has.
He's going to be a man that largely for his life, right?
Like all the verses in Hebrews eleven, a man who takes step after faith, after faith, after faith, after faith.
And so you would think that looking at this in Genesis twelve, this is a pretty good situation, right?
Like we know that God is faithful.
It's not that God will be faithful.
It's not that God is sometimes faithful.
It's that God is faithful.
God is always faithful.
God has always been faithful to you.
God is always faithful to me, and God will always be faithful to Abraham.
And we see that Abraham is growing in faithfulness.
It's a cool journey that we're going to see in his life, and we can look at that in our lives.
Hopefully, I got saved at 22.
I'm 44 now, so I've been saved just as long as I haven't been saved in this world.
And I hope that if we could jump in and look back at 22 year old Bo, we don't want to see pre that right.
But 22 year old Bo that came to faith in Christ, I hope that I'm more mature now in my faith than I was then.
And I hope the same can be said for you, that we don't get saved and we're arrived, but we're saved and we're on this process of what God is doing.
So we look at this god is faithful, abram is growing in faithfulness.
So everything should work out well, everything should be perfect, everything should be smooth, right?
That is not going to be the story that we see.
God will be faithful, abraham will grow in faithfulness, but everything will not be smooth.
And all too often, that is a side of Christianity that's falsely taught, and it's a dangerous theology that teaches.
If I, like Abram, believe and trust in the promises of God, then my life will be easy, my life will be smooth, my life will be out suffer without suffering, because I am following God.
It's a false teaching and it's extremely dangerous.
And here's why, three reasons why this is an extremely dangerous teaching.
Number one, your faith does not remove.
You from the brokenness of the world, right?
Wouldn't it be so sweet if Joseph.
Got baptized this morning in like, this bubble and the brokenness of the world didn't impact him?
But it does.
We live in it.
And in God's mission, god calls us to go step out of this world, into the brokenness of this world, and to carry the gospel of Christ for those who are lost, those who are broken, those who are hurting, right?
And so God's faithfulness and our commitment.
And faith to him does not remove us from the brokenness of the world.
The second thing is, your faith does not remove you or I from all sin in this life.
I'm growing in my faith.
I hope that I'm continually growing in my faith, but I am free from the penalty of sin because Christ took that for me, right?
But I am not free from the struggles of my sin.
I've been set free, but I still sin.
I still commit to.
I still commit sin.
I still fall short every single day of what we find and what we see.
I still live in this world, and I can't escape the brokenness of your sin or the sins of others in this world.
That that faith doesn't just simply remove us from all of this and drop us in this state of perfection here on this earth.
We still have to work and we move.
But then the third, and I think this is the most important one is God works in ways you and I cannot understand but need to trust even in suffering.
And this is a practical faith that when suffering, when the pains and hurts of this world, when consequences of sin come at us, we have to cling to that God is working and that God is moving.
And you and I oftentimes cannot understand the why, but we need to trust.
Warren Weirsby said this.
I love this quote.
A faith that can't be tested can't be trusted.
And so that in these moments what's happening is there's this refining that goes on and what has taken place is our faith is being strengthened in the.
Midst of all of this.
So how strong is your faith?
How strong is your faith?
Weirsby wrote this and it just struck me.
I think I know how strong my faith is.
I think I know how weak my faith is.
I think I know more than my wife who knows me better than anyone.
I think I know it better than you.
But weirdby says this.
He says no one knows how strong or weak your faith is more than God.
God knows how strong or how weak your faith is more than your spouse, your friend, your coworkers, your kids, even more than you.
Even more than you.
And so God uses and allows trials in our life to confirm our faith both to ourself and to others, but also to strengthen our faith and remove the imperfections of our faith, right?
And so you look at the things that you've gone through, the battles that you've faced, the struggles that you've walked through, right?
And in all of that there's this thing that God is doing where he's strengthening you.
And so God is going to strengthen Abram.
He's going to strengthen him.
Look at chapter twelve, verse ten.
Now there was a famine in the land.
So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.
So we're going to pause here.
What we see in here is the commitment of the Lord, of the covenant of the Lord and the commitment of Abram.
So what we've seen from, from the very beginning of chapter twelve, but we're going to see these moments of conflict and what we're going to begin to understand of what this growing faith that's not always easy looks like is this that covenant and commitment do not always equal comfortable covenant and commitment do not always equal comfortable.
Before the famine, Abram does what he goes as God says.
God tells him to go step of faithfulness after step of faithfulness.
Where does he go?
He goes where God leads him.
And where does God lead him?
Right to a famine.
You ever felt like that?
Sometimes.
God, I'm seeking you, I'm following you.
I'm trying to set my heart to desire the things that you would have me to desire.
And Lord, where I have found myself is in this famine.
And so as Abram is ready to settle his life in the fall of God god complicates the situation and Abram does something.
Abram moves.
Now, there's a lot of debate on this.
Was Abram sinful in leaving and going to Egypt?
There's answers on both sides that say yes.
Both sides that say no.
The real answer is we don't fully.
Know which is the easy answer.
But I don't think so.
I don't think so because of this word.
Sojourn it's not that he's running from and going to set things.
It's that there's a season that's that's there it's a season of difficulty.
It's a season of famine.
Abram doesn't stay there in that but instead he seeks out for a temporary time.
And so while we don't know that Abram was sinful in leaving here's what we do know whether he was sinful or not god was with Him.
God was with him.
I think sometimes when we get in these situations we can look at factors that are surrounding them that we cannot know.
We can speculate on factors.
We can look at scenarios.
We can nitpick things apart.
And we can miss that through all of where we are going in the famine, in the sojourn and everywhere in.
Between that God is with us and God was with Abram.
So now Abram will face what he faces not in his own power or his own ability, but with God.
This is the difference.
This is a difference between you before.
Christ and you with Christ that Christ isn't just your Savior but Christ is God with us and that God is with us and that he does not leave us.
In fact, he sends us his Holy Spirit.
And so when we go through seasons when we go through these famines of life we can cling to the hope and the truth that God is with us.
So do they hurt?
Yes.
Do we enjoy them?
No.
Are we excited when they happen again?
No.
Is it difficult to walk through?
Yes.
But through it all, God is with us.
Any famine, any financial famine, any relational famine, any health famine, any economic famine any famine that you've gone through as a follower of Jesus Christ you've walked through it.
You've got the bumps, the bruises, the scars and the stories to tell, but you did not go through it alone.
You as a follower of Jesus Christ did not go through it in your own power.
You did not go through this isolated.
You went through this with God.
And whether you want to acknowledge it or not god was doing something in it for your good and his glory.
Paul writes in Philippians four he says, not that I am speaking of being in need for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.
Right.
That's such a good verse.
In whatever situation I am to be content.
He says, I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound in every circumstance.
I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.
Here's the secret.
Here's where here's what he's learned.
Here's what prison.
Here's what beatings has taught Paul.
I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
That's not about a sport, a report card or a job interview.
Paul writes that from prison I can.
Do all things through him who strengthens me.
I can face prison unfairly and unjustly because of him who leaves me there no, because of him who strengthens me.
And so with every beating that comes his way, it's a spiritual muscle that's developed.
I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
He says in this season, in this famine of prison, that he finds himself he's content, he knows how to abound.
He's learned the secrecy of having plenty and can do all things.
It's a picture of growing faith in difficult circumstances.
I believe that Abram decided to travel to Egypt to escape famine for the sake of his family and for those that were with him.
I believe that Abram did this with a heart to follow God and depend on him.
I believe it was a logical decision in his mind that is going to shake out in many different ways as we see this.
But God says no matter what season that you face, no matter what famine may come, that I am there and I am growing you Abram.
I don't know what season you're in, I don't know what battle you face.
But the Bible tells us that we do not face our battles in this life as those who have been defeated.
But we face the battles of this life, of the ones in victory.
We still face the battles, but he's faced them with us and he's already won them.
Covenant and commitment do not equal comfortable.
But covenant and commitment do equal strength.
Covenant and commitment do equal growth.
Covenant and commitment do equal a special spiritual endurance in you.
That only happens when you and I face the famines of this world for God's glory in our growth.
Let's look at starting verse eleven.
And when he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife they said to Seriah, his wife, I know that you are a woman, beautiful in appearance.
And when the Egyptians see you, they will say, this is his wife.
Then they will kill me, but they.
Will let you live.
Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you and that my life may be spared for your sake.
Now, guys.
Have you ever started a conversation with your wife and thought midway through it, I shouldn't have done that right now.
Bad timing, bad topic.
Like, this is just not good.
I feel like there's never been more one than right here.
But Abram fears a couple of things as they approach Egypt.
He fears, number one, that surah's beauty will attract the attention of powerful men.
And since the second part of that, it's not like they're just going to look at her and make some comments, okay?
He's fear for more than that.
His fear is that since they're not of the same morals or ethics as Abram, then what they will do is they will murder him for his for his what?
For his wife.
So what Abram decides to do is to trust a half truth.
We'll get that here in just a second.
Instead of trusting God, so he says, we're going to trust God, and we're going to leave our family in our home, in our country and trust him and go.
But now we're going into Egypt, so we're going to fall into this half truth.
And here's the half truth.
Sarah was his half sister, so he's not telling the full lie, but he sure ain't telling the truth.
And by trusting the half truth, he also trusts the assumptions that come with it.
They will kill me, is what he believes.
By trusting the half truth, he saves.
Himself and puts his wife at risk.
By trusting the half truth, what does Abram choose?
Deception and assumptions over honesty.
This is who he is and this is what we see from Abram as he enters into Egypt.
He chooses assumptions, deceptions, and at his core, selfishness over the truth of God.
Now, let's remove the scenario and let's look at ourselves.
I know that I can fall into this black pit of assumptions.
And when I fall into the black pit of assumptions of not what I know, but what I think, what I assume in this situation, what it spins out in my life isn't good as well.
It spins out into some of the very same things deception, manipulation, lies.
And all of it, right, is focused in and looked at me, the selfishness.
So this is what we see in Abrams.
So what happens?
Look at verse 14.
When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw.
That the woman was very beautiful.
And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh.
And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.
And for her sake, he dealt well with Abram.
And he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, female servants, male servants, female donkeys and camels.
Verse 17.
But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh in his house with great plagues because of Sarah Abrams wife.
I mean, now the assumptions, they begin.
To ring true, right?
He was right.
She's very beautiful.
She's noticed she's taken.
But here's where it kind of falls and it gets gross and sinful quick.
She's not stolen, she's traded for.
We're going to take her.
We're going to give you these things.
Says they did well by him.
And what happens in this is god has called Abram to be a blessing.
But what happens now?
Abram doesn't bring a blessing.
Abram brings a curse.
Was he right in the assumptions?
Sure, he got some things right.
He knew culture, he knew ethics.
But in that, in all that he knew even moving past them, he still didn't trust the will and the plan of God.
And so instead of being a blessing to them, he becomes a curse church.
The best way to be a blessing.
To others is to stay in the will of God.
The best way that you and I.
Can bless others is to stay in the will of God.
It may not be what you think they want, it may not be what.
You think they need.
But I can tell you, if you want to bless your family, if you want to bless your marriage, if you want to bless your friends, if you want to bless your church, the best way to do that is to stay.
And to seek, to stay in the center of the will of God.
But Abram chose to lie and receive instead of standing for the truth.
And Abrams concerned that he will die.
But think about this.
If Abram dies, then God's a liar.
God's told Abram what he'll do.
But in these moments, knowing what God says, abram doesn't trust it.
God, I know that you've told me that you're going to make a great nation from me, but God, I could die in this situation.
So God, I think you could be lying to me.
So I let my thoughts and my emotions determine my direction and not the truth of God's.
Word, verse 18.
So plagues have happened to Pharaoh, called Abram and said, what is this you have done to me?
Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?
Why did you say she is my sister?
So that I took her for my wife.
Now then, here is your wife.
Take her and go.
And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had.
That is such a gut punch in Scripture.
The heart of a man who does not know the Lord.
What is this that you have done to me?
Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?
Why did you say she's my sister?
So I took her for my wife.
Covenant and commitment, unfortunately, on our end, do not always equal faithful.
Do not always equal faithful.
They do on his end, but not on ours.
You and I, there's blatant rebellion and.
There'S passive aggressive rebellion.
And I find that the blatant rebellion that you and I have in our life, it's easy to identify, it's easy to attack, it's easy to be held accountable for.
But this passive aggressive rebellion, sometimes that we have, it can look like this.
We can hit a stride in our.
Life where we become self consumed in our faith.
We say all the right religious things.
We do a lot of really good religious works.
We say that we're about the will of God, but the truth is when we hit this, that we desire to do the will of God, but in a way that we see fit.
And it's this passive aggressive rebellion that is at its heart still rebellion.
Abrams walked away from faithfulness and into a world of self preservation, but God has remained faithful.
God's still faithful.
And regardless of what those verses look like in your life, as we choose this self consumed idolatrous, how do I.
Want to do what I want to do and call it the will of.
God faith, we can fall right into it.
And in that we become these people who look at next step of faith to next step of faith, to next step of faith, to choosing the sins and the pursuits of this world.
And all of a sudden what we're awakened to is our failure.
I imagine in this moment when Pharaoh addresses this to Abram, it hit.
It hit.
I believe that we're going to get a couple more verses here in a little bit, but it hit him.
And Abrams got to do something with his failure.
He's got to do something with his sin.
He's got to do something with his lack of faith and trust in the Lord.
And I think there's only two things that can be done.
Number one, is he going to abuse grace?
Is he going to abuse grace?
Apostle Paul talks about abusing grace in Romans six one through two.
What shall we say then?
Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
By no means.
How can we who died to sin still live in it?
There is this we think this is foolish to even say, but we do it more times than we would like to admit that we will continue on in our sin because we know that God's going to forgive us and that's grace abuse.
If any one of you had a friend who treated you that way, you would no longer be their friend anymore.
And if you were in a relationship where a person took advantage of you and mistreated you and abused you over and over and over again simply because they know that they can come back to you and say, I'm sorry and you're going to forgive them, that is not a healthy relationship.
But the truth is, when you and I abuse grace, that's what we do to the Lord over and over and over again.
So is he going to abuse grace?
But the other aspect is he going to live in grace?
Living in grace.
Look at verse chapter 13, verses one through four.
So Abram went up from Egypt, where.
They went down to Egypt.
Now they go up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had in Lot with him into the NEG.
Now abram was very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold.
And he journeyed on from the Nageb as far as Bethel.
Remember this from last week as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ae, to the place where he had made an altar at the first.
And there Abram called upon the name of the Lord.
Abram says when this hits him, I'm not going to abuse this relationship, but I'm going to live in the beauty of it.
Abusing grace says, I'm sorry I got caught and I wanted an excuse to get by so that I can do it again.
But living in grace says, I'm sorry that I offended the heart of God and I want God to transform me.
And so what does Abram do?
What does he do?
I love the first four verses of this chapter because Abram just returned to God.
God hadn't left Abram, but Abram had tried to walk away from the Lord and he needed to get back to where he was before and remind himself not of his faithfulness, but to the Lord.
And so he called upon the name of the Lord.
Would you pray with me?
God?
We come to you this morning and just the goodness and the blessing, Lord, of who you are.
And, Lord, I pray, I don't know what season, what famine, if we feel like we're in a time of plenty.
Or, Lord, in a time of few.
But, Lord, may we know that you and your goodness are with us, Lord.
As we prepare to take the Lord's supper together this morning.
You know us better than we know ourselves.
And Lord, I pray that you would.
Reveal to us the sinfulness of our.
Hearts, Lord, that we would come broken before you, Lord, in repentance for who we are and for what we've done.
Jesus, speak to us through your spirit and only how you can convict us and bring us to the sweet spot.
Of forgiveness and grace at your feet.
Lord, if there's anyone here who does not know you, lord, I pray that maybe today could be their first step of obedience.
And it's found not with a list of things to do, but it's found as a savior to receive you, Jesus Christ, as their lord and savior, to place their faith, hope and trust in you to understand that they are a sinner who deserves the wrath of God, an eternity of h***.
But that in you and in you alone.
We know that Jesus Christ died for us on the cross of Calvary to pave the way for us to be in relationship, to be made right, to be made whole, clean by the blood of the lamb.
And that a relationship with you isn't just simply where we spend eternity, but a relationship with you is who we get to spend today with.
Your spirit lives in us.
So Lord Have.
Your way.
In Jesus this name we pray.
Amen.
Thanks again for listening, and be sure to check back next week for another episode.
In the meantime, you can visit us@willeridgechurch.org or by searching for Willow Ridgechurch on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.