Genesis • Abram & Sarai: God's Design to Choose a Family

Our lesson this week is entitled, God's Design to Choose a Family. And I feel like I want to do just a little bit of review before we get started. Last week, we traveled at warp speed, 10 generations over 1,600 years, as we went from Adam to Noah. And the Bible takes us out of warp speed for just a little while, so we can comprehend some things when we get to Noah. And what we learned was that mankind was completely wicked and violent. And that the sin of Adam had compounded itself to the point where everyone was at war with God. And Noah and his family were the only ones who believed God and were carried to safety by resting within the ark. And we titled that session, God's Design to Be Set Apart from the Culture. We read the words of Jesus from Matthew that told us that there was a link between the two cultures. Because Jesus says, at the time of the flood, this is the way it is, so it will be at the coming of the son of man. And so we learned that there's some comparison between those cultures. And we put another piece of the puzzle of God's unfolding story together when we learned about God's covenant to Noah with the rainbow. And we learned that God now says his wrath is pointed toward heaven. Heaven itself will take the wound for the sin of mankind. So then after the flood, except for the Tower of Babel, we returned back into warp speed for ten more generations, only about 550 years this time. And now we slow permanently for most of the Old Testament. And we're given a more step-by-step timeline. We're not going to skip over generations again through the rest of Genesis. So why did we arrive at Abram and Sarai? Why stop at them? Well, the answer lies in one of the sons of Noah, and that is Shem. So before we actually get to Abram, I want to talk a little bit about the fact that Abram is a descendant of Shem, Noah's son. And after Noah and his family began to resettle the world, we had that incident that I think was in our study guide in Genesis chapter 9. And the incident, first of all, let's imagine together for a moment, well, how would you feel if you were the only person on earth? You and your husband were the only ones on earth, just 30 years older than everyone else. No one else knew what a phone booth was. No one else knew that a man went into a phone booth and came out with a cape, right? Like, you're the only ones that had experienced that. Noah and his wife were 500 years older than everyone else on earth. I've always given him a little bit of a pass to drink too much and to end up drunk and naked. Maybe I shouldn't give him a pass, but you know what, I do have compassion. But that's what happened. The Bible tells us that that's what happened. And Ham, his son, went into his tent, saw his father's nakedness, and he went and told his brothers. And I think the implication here was more of he didn't want to protect... It was more of mockery and disrespect rather than, hey, guys, dad's in trouble, let's go help him. It was one of mockery. The other two brothers, Shem and Japheth, well, they, you know, took the blanket and walked backwards, covered their father in a way of honoring him. And so, you read what Noah had to say. And so, Ham and his son, Canaan, there was a curse pronounced over them and said they would be servant to Shem. And the blessing would go to Shem. And then there was this suggestion that Japheth would be blessed through the tents of Shem, which I think is a flicker of the idea that the Gentiles will also be blessed because we know that salvation is of the Jews, that the Gentiles will be blessed through the tents of Shem as well. Well, so Ham and his descendants were cursed because of one incident? Does that make sense? Is that what God is like? I don't think so. I think that in the same way when we walk back in our minds to Cain and Abel and we said that Cain wasn't rejected because of his offering, his offering was rejected because of Cain. I think in the same way that Ham wasn't cursed because of his actions with his dad, his actions were insight into his character in general. That's my take on it anyway. But what's clear is that God has chosen Shem to produce a godly line for his plan. And Chapter 11 recorded for us the genealogy through Shem's line right down to Abram, who's the focus of our study. And our title again is God's Design to Choose a Family, and it's going to play out through Abram and through Sarah, even though she was barren. Now, we are going to get to them, but one more thing before we get there is that I've been thinking about this this week, and I think there's something really humbling on God's part that he initiated his plan of redemption through a family. So walk with me through my thinking here. Do you remember back in Genesis Chapter 3 that we saw the curse on women that there will be pain for us in bringing forth children, the pain involved in bringing forth children? From now on, what we're going to observe is God subjecting himself to that same pain in bringing forth his own children through the method of a family. God himself is going to be wounded in those same ways because of sin that we can look around and say, yeah, that is a great difficulty. I want to prove it to you because I started in my through the Bible reading, starting reading Isaiah, and we just get two verses into Isaiah, and this is what it says. It says,

And of course, this is being spoken to Judah, the children that are the offspring of Abraham, the family that God chose, okay? It continues on in verse 3,

Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly. Listen, they have forsaken the Lord. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They are utterly estranged. God's kids, through the family that he chose to bring them forth. He chose to create a family and say, you are mine, the offspring of this family, you are mine. And look what he suffers with, the pain in bringing forth children. They are estranged, they have rejected, they have not loved and embraced the Lord, but they have forsaken and were estranged. And that points to exactly why God needs a plan set in motion to redeem his kids from the peril that they're in. Well, what did we learn as we went through our scriptures on Abram and Sarai? Let's turn our focus now to them. First of all, we learned that like Noah, they lived in a culture, when they were in Ur of the Chaldeans, they lived in a culture that was very anti-God and multi-God in its influences. We learned that God called them out of that place. He required them to disconnect from what was familiar and to travel to a new place. And I don't think that this was to save them from the bad characters in Ur, from the cultural, because Canaan is going to be the same or worse. So it wasn't a matter of saving them. But I think my observation is that God does this at times to teach, to disconnect from what is familiar and what is stable, and to teach people to trust in and rely on the Lord. And that is what we will see through the life of Abram and Sarai, learning to trust God, learning to listen to his voice. Now, this isn't a Bible doctrine. This is my personal observation, that oftentimes God does this in the lives of people that he desires to use. He often picks them up and disconnects them from what is familiar and puts them into an entirely new place for a few purposes, one of which is to be able to learn to trust God without all the familiar trappings that go with what came first. So I wanted to mention that, just maybe that has been your history at some point in your life, that God has picked you up and moved you. And you can see that your level of trust in the Lord and learning to let him lead you just flourished through that. Maybe he's doing that right now in your life. And to just even be able to say, it's okay. It's okay sometimes when God disconnects. But the third thing that we learn is that God made his plans very clear to Abram, and he doesn't always make plans. It's clear, even for us today. But he gave Abram beacons of light every step of the way. And I want to go through some of those with you. The first one that we see is in chapter 12, verse 2. Even before Abram and Sarai left Mesopotamia, God had said to them,

because that was God's design to use a family to bless the other families of the earth. And then the second time is when Abram and Sarai arrived in Canaan. Now in verse 7, God said,

And that's when Abram built an altar to the Lord. And then after he went to Egypt and he returned again to Canaan, and he had separated with Lot, in chapter 13, verse 12, God shares his plan again. And he says to Abram,

And so God went out of his way to make his plan clear to Abram. Well, let's talk for a minute about this famine and this sojourn to Egypt, because we've studied Ruth together. And so when we hear about a famine and someone thinking that they're going to sojourn for a while in another country, we tend to say, what good can come from this? This is not a good idea, don't do that. But nonetheless, Abram took Sarai and he went to Egypt and he went there and he assessed the culture. He looked around to figure out what the culture was like and he played his hand of cards dependent on what he saw. And what he saw was that he thought he needs to tell his wife, tell them I'm your brother so that they will deal well with me. And so he fashioned himself to fit into that particular culture. It was a huge risk because Abram had received all this revelation from God. He knew that he and Sarai were an extravagant part of God's plan. So this was a huge risk to do this and I don't think it was a good idea. Sarai was taken into Pharaoh's court and God had to rescue them by having Pharaoh himself confront Abram and say, this was a bad idea, this wasn't good. And so after all was said and done, Abram left Egypt with more than he came with. I've often viewed that and even taught that as God's blessing on Abram. And maybe it is, this is very subjective. But what I see personally on this pass through, I ask myself the question, why did I think Abram getting all that stuff? And you listed the stuff in your study guide, you looked it all up. Why did I think that that was a blessing? Well, because I'm a materialistic girl living in a materialistic society and more stuff equals more blessing. That's how I view my world. Is that how I should view my world? So I began to ask the questions, huh, was it not all that stuff that caused the strife between Abram and Lot and eventually separated them from one another? Was it not all those men servants and maidservants that allowed Hagar to be in the mix and go with them? I wonder if that was so much of a blessing. You can decide for yourself what you think about it, because the Bible doesn't tell us necessarily what it is. But again, we can look at this and kind of turn it inward and process it in our own lives and ask that question. Lord, is there anything I have collected in my time in the world, in my time in Egypt, that is dangerous for me, that I haven't even asked the question? I have just thought, the Lord's blessing me, maybe, maybe not. Maybe it's good to stop and ask the question. Is there something dangerous that I need to get rid of? Well, we're going to cover Lot in a later chapter, so we won't even talk about that right now. We want to move forward with more of the narrative of Abraham, and so we're going to scoot right to chapter 15. Do you remember the first time we came out of warp speed and landed on Noah? We ended up with the Nohic covenant. Now when we come out of warp speed and land with Abram, we end up with the Abrahamic covenant. And this covenant really began in chapter 12, and it has been building, but it settles itself here in chapter 15. So you can turn to chapter 15, verse 1, and we're going to begin reading how this went. It says,

And Abram believed God and he counted it to him as righteousness, which is a great verse for us to know. Now remember, not everything in God's word is easy for us to understand, but we live on promises more than explanations. Abram lived on promises more than explanations. And yet, he came to a point where he was longing for a few explanations. A little bit of proof that these things would happen, that this land really was his. And can you give me a title deed or something that I can show my sons about the promises that you've given me? And because God said, I'm the Lord, verse seven, I'm the Lord who brought you out of Ur the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. And Abram said, Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it? Could you give me an explanation here? Could you give me proof? And God willingly obliged Abraham. In this chapter was something known as cutting a covenant. It's sort of like making a contract with someone. And it was a ritual involving the death of multiple animals. And God instructed him how to do this, what animals to take, how to do it. But Abram took these animals and he cut them in half. And it says that he laid each half over against the other, so that there was a pathway between halves of dead animals. And the point was that it would be something that the two people making an agreement would each share their promises. You're gonna buy a pickup, right? This guy promises to give you the pickup. This guy promises to give you the money. That's a contract. And so you walk between these animals to prove, yes, this is what I'm going to do. And what you're saying by walking this path is saying, if I don't do what I have promised, may I end up like this? It's kind of like when we were in fifth grade, cross your heart, hope to die, stick a needle in your eye, right? It's exactly the same thing. But so this is the scene that's playing out, promises on both sides, walking through this. But something happens, and it says a deep sleep fell on Abram. And in verse 13, it said, then the Lord said to Abram, and here's the explanation that's coming. He said,

Can we pause just a moment here and talk about that phrase, because it tells us something about God. He says the reason that they're going to be in captivity and they won't come back to this land for 400 years, probably about 600 years from this moment. The reason is because I'm giving the people in this land more time. God has a great amount of mercy and he is long suffering, but he does set a timer. We learned that last week. And he says the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet fully come to itself. And so I'm giving them all this time. Then my timer will go off and you'll get the land. So we learn God's mercy, even toward people that aren't his chosen people. He was long suffering with them, and that's a Bible truth for us to remember. Back to verse 17,

and then he defines the borders of it, and you can read that. Now, I want you to notice something. We talked about the money and the pickup. In this situation, only one person spoke and only one person had the. opportunity to give his promise. And this smoking fire pot was, in a way, the presence of the Lord walking between. Abram was asleep. Abram didn't have the opportunity to make a promise. Abram didn't walk between this. And we get another puzzle piece to our story of redemption that says, all is of God. All of this is of God. God makes the promises. God fulfills the promises. Man does not fulfill the promises. Sinful man is incapable of fulfilling the promises. God does the work. God took the wound that was headed now to heaven. God makes the promises. God fulfills the promises. And are we not glad? Do we not understand, in deep within our hearts, how unfaithful we are to keep a promise? We don't have to worry. This is grace in the Old Testament. The grace that we know about in the New Testament is shown us first in the Old Testament. This is God's grace saying, it's all about me. I love it. Well, as we turn to, and I want to be able to go cover chapter 16 too here, we want to hold tightly to our title of our lesson, which is God's design to choose a family. Not just a man, but a man and his wife. That's what a family is. And God's plan is going to unfold through this family that he chose. And it's important for us to remember that God accomplishes things his way. In this case, the plan of redemption was going to go through this family, Abram and Sarai. The same is true for us today. We cannot create some type of plan and bend it and say, this is God's plan. God's plan goes forward his way, the way that he determines. And so we hold tightly to this concept. Now, not holding tightly to this part of God's plan contributed to the tragedy that we see when Sarai thought that we should get this show on the road and turned toward Hagar in order to accomplish that. That was not God's plan. That was not his design for how he wanted to accomplish it. We're going to take a much closer look at Hagar also in a few lessons to come. So we're only looking at the story from Abram and Sarai's perspective. But you read the story, and you read that Sarah grew tired of waiting on the promise that God had made. And she eventually, because she grew tired, she embittered her heart, even to our God, and blamed God for her barrenness. She hatched a plan of her own, which included a much younger fertile female, because she was now 76 years old. And when everything happened according to the way that Sarai had manipulated the situation, and it all went exactly the way that she hatched her plan, then after that, then she blamed her husband and was harsh with this other person created in the image of God, her maidservant. So things have begun to quickly deteriorate here. I love this chapter, and I want to give you a lot of time and space to dialogue over this chapter, because is this not so relatable for us? You know, I look at this, and I look at the trouble that Sarah got herself into, and I think, huh, how do I know these things? I wonder how I know these things. Maybe you think the same thing. Do you have an Ishmael in your life? A time, a situation, a place, when you just decided, I don't care anymore. I'm getting this show on the road. This is how it's gonna go. And you manipulated a plan, and it ended up right that way. And how happy were you after that? How much happiness did that bring into our lives? You know, it's so relatable. We grow tired, we lose patience with God's plan. We know the promises in God's word, and yet because we don't seem to be fruitful and walking in something or victorious, we turn around and blame somebody, maybe God. We've taken matters into our own hands, we've hatched a plan, and then we've manipulated the circumstances, and we know all about this. And we can see in all of us, this is in the same way that we're daughters of Eve, we're daughters of Sarah, aren't we? We can see so many shades of ourselves in this story and in Sarai. Sometimes we're victorious, we walk in God's promises, we walk in patience. Sometimes we're not so victorious, and we cave to this type of failure here. And I'm sure there's some type of application in your life right now, or in your past, or maybe something that God is sparing someone from. In this room, somebody watching this video, and the Holy Spirit is speaking to you and revealing to you that the path that you're on at this moment is a path of destruction, because what you're doing is exactly what Sarai did. And that's awesome when God turns us from the path. You know, sometimes people say, well, God told me this and such, and you think, what? Serious, does God speak to you like he told you, right? This is how God speaks to us. We read the word of God, and it comes alive all of a sudden, and it imprints itself on a situation in our life, and we listen to the Holy Spirit, and we change course, because God has spoken to us through his word. So what I want to do is just end here with the real narrative, not the personal application, but the real narrative of what's happening. So Ishmael was born through Hagar. He was born of the flesh. He was born of the slave woman. And in the story of redemption, he represents what we pointed out a few weeks ago, that the natural comes first, and then the spiritual, this rhythm that we're going to see on and on, because he was the first born. And he represents the natural. Paul gave the insight to the Galatians that he represents the old covenant, which came first, but does not have power to save. Next week, we're going to get to Isaac, who is the son born of the promise, the son born of the spirit, the son born to the wife, because God chose, God's design was to use a family. And he represents the spiritual, which came second, and Paul told us he represents the new covenant, because of the promises. It's pretty beautiful, isn't it? So even through the error made, even through the mistake made through Sarai, God redeems these things to be able to give us this narrative for us to understand its part. God has woven it into his plan, so that now we can see that it is not of the slave woman, it is not of the law, it is not of the old covenant, it is of the promise, it is of that which is to come. So we're going to hit the pause button right there. We'll go into the story of Isaac next week in our lesson, and we will continue God's unfolding story of redemption. Father, thank you for these chapters and all the concepts. Lord, I know that there's so much personal application in here, so much for us to just draw into our own hearts and hear your voice through what we read in the Bible. But more importantly, Lord, to see Jesus, to see the promise of Jesus shining through in these chapters. And to know that even at this point in the history of man, you are giving a picture of the promise to come. And Lord, we rejoice in that. Lord, I just wanna thank you that we can serve a God who has the entire plan mapped out, and you know the beginning from the end. We rejoice in that, Lord, because we know that we serve and worship and honor a mighty God. So thank you for this. Lord, bless my sisters as we discuss in Jesus' name, amen.