Abraham in Egypt (Part 2)

Sermon by Mark Johnson of Steiger Minneapolis

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.  It came about when he came near to Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, “See now, I know that you are a beautiful woman; and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife’; and they will kill me, but they will let you live.  Please say that you are my sister so that it may go well with me because of you, and that I may live on account of you.”
It came about when Abram came into Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.  Pharaoh's officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.  Therefore he treated Abram well for her sake; and gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and female servants and female donkeys and camels.
But the LORD struck Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife.  Then 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.”  Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him; and they escorted him away, with his wife and all that belonged to him.
-Genesis 12:10-20

            Last month, we started looking at this story, which - to be honest - is a weird story! But even though it’s weird and makes me a little uncomfortable, I think are some of the important lessons we can learn from it. Last month, I told the men that it is never God’s plan for you to live a self-protective, passive life that uses women. I want to call us to engage with real women in the real world, and be the men God created us to be. Second, I talked to the women to remind you that God is your protector and your ultimate source of life, and a man is not. You simply cannot find life in created things, so even the best man on earth will let you down if you try to find your life in him. And then I pointed out that this is first story about Abraham where he doesn’t build an altar, and I wanted to call all of us to remember to make room for the presence of God in our lives. I encourage you to go back to last month’s message and read it if you didn’t get a chance to; it will give you a summary of the story as well as some more detailed thoughts on these points.

This month, however, I want to look at some other things I think we can learn from this story.

First of all, it strikes me that Abraham is in a rough spot. It may be easy to criticize him from our perspective, but he has no easy solution to his problems. He hasn’t miraculously taken possession of the land God said he would give him, there is no promised son in sight, and now on top of that, there is a famine. There he is, in southern Israel, because God has led him there, and from his perspective, he can only see three bad options: stay and starve; go to Egypt, lose his wife, and be killed; or go to Egypt, lose his wife, but live by fudging the truth about his relationship with her. None of those sounds like a good option! So at the very least, we can appreciate that he is not in an easy situation. And you know, I think we need to look long and hard at that and realize that obedience to God may lead us into impossible situations. See, there is a common myth in Christian culture today that promises that saying yes to Christ brings us the easiest and most comfortable life. But I think this is false. I think that, actually, saying yes to God leads us to places that seem impossible to get out of. And the problem is that if we believe that following God will make things easy, we bail out when things get hard. Or we will get bitter and angry because we assume that following Christ should give us a happy, easy life. That idea is not in Scripture, though. Scripture actually says that there is a real cost to following Christ. Now, I believe that following him gives us the best life possible, but it won’t be the easiest or the most comfortable. We need to deal with that and expect that obeying God will sometimes lead us into impossible situations.

Another thing I learned, which is somewhat related, is the fact that Abraham only saw three options, but there was another option. And I think often, there is a fourth option. It never occurred to Abraham that God was stronger than the gods of the Egyptians. God had promised him a nation, but he couldn’t quite believe it. See, the fourth option is the option of faith. It’s the option that believes that God keeps his promises no matter what. And even though Abraham was faithless, God remained faithful.

It seems that we have to learn this truth, then learn it again, and then learn it again. It is easy to fall back into looking at life and seeing only the options possible for humans. But we need to remember that there is a path of faith in impossible situations, and decide to trust God. We need to choose faith over self-protection. I encourage you to examine your heart and ask God if he is calling you to do something by faith. If you have followed him into an impossible situation, ask him to open your eyes to the fourth option, and then make a decision to choose the option of faith.

See, the reason I think it is worth trusting God in situations that are beyond us is that nothing can keep God from accomplishing his purposes. If you read Genesis, you will see that throughout the stories of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), the promise of God always seems to be at risk. There are many stories where the promise seems to be in jeopardy, and if you have never heard the story before, there is real tension - Is it going to work out? Is God going to keep his promises? How?

But right from the beginning, we see that nothing can stop God from accomplishing his purpose in the world. Famine can’t. Major world leaders can’t. Nothing can stop God from accomplishing his purpose in the world. And you know, nothing can keep him from accomplishing his purpose in my life either… except for me. And even then, he often gives us way more grace than we deserve and rescues us from our own mistakes.

In the book of Acts, Luke keeps repeating the message that the Gospel continues to spread no matter what, and we see the same thing here. God’s promise is sure, regardless of the circumstances. And in our lives, there may be discouraging times, opposition, bad people, bad parents, bad leaders, bad spouses… lots of things. But nothing can keep God from accomplishing his purpose or stop his Kingdom from spreading.

What that means is that we need to stop using those things as excuses for why we aren’t doing better spiritually. We are not victims. Many of you reading this have been victimized—some of you horribly—but nothing can stop God’s purpose in your life. You may have been victimized, but you are not a victim. God can still bring about his purposes in your life. We cannot say, “If they would just get themselves together, then I could really do something.” We just can’t say it! Nobody can keep God from doing what he wants in my life—not people, not Satan, no one.

When God made these promises to Abraham, they encountered famine, Pharaoh, and all sorts of other trials, but none of those things were a match for God. I hope this gives you hope. No matter what you are facing, he can overcome it. Just keep saying yes to God. He will help when you fall down or encounter opposition, and nothing can stop his purposes for you.

The last thing I want to point out isn’t just how you personally are affected by the things in the story, but is a bit of a bigger picture. Because I think that this story also shows that one person’s choice can affect the whole nation. Abraham’s choice to be deceitful resulted in plagues coming on an entire nation! So I have to ask, Can the stuff I do when no one is looking affect a city? A nation? And I think the answer is, Yes.

Think back to the story of Babel. The people made a decision to build a tower, and there was such power in their unity that God confused their language to prevent evil from spreading further. Now, God desires unity, but in this case, he was opposed to the purpose behind it. And now, in Abraham, God is beginning to unify the whole world again. He wants to bring blessing and unity to the world through the blessing of Abraham. And what does that look like? What does his Kingdom look like? Well, the church is the visible representation of the Kingdom of God, so if we function the way God desires, we all hurt or rejoice together, amd everything we do affects one another. That is the kind of unity that God has in mind for the world.

Do you realize that today, we are more connected as a world than we have been at any time since the tower of Babel? Technology, travel, communication, business… all these things have increased the unity among people worldwide. And that will either turn good or bad. What that connection definitely means, though, is that our little choices matter even more. Someone writing one sentence in a blog can and does affect the whole world.

Jesus used the leaven as an example of how the Kingdom of God will affect the world—basically, he was saying that very little can affect a lot. You can also think of things like a computer virus; one little thing affects the whole world.

The same thing was true with Abraham and Sarah’s choice. It affected the whole nation. So our choices today—individually and as a group—can also affect the whole world. I think that’s staggering! We are not isolated people. What you do in private affects me, and vice versa. This is true as the Body of Christ, but it also affects the whole world. Our words, our thoughts, our decision to seek God or not… those things affect the world.

Everything matters. Choosing to live by faith affects more than just me; it affects my friends, my church, my neighborhood, and even the world.

So what do we do with that reality? I think that if we choose to take it to heart, there are two possible responses. We can either become paralyzed by fear and constantly worry about screwing things up for the whole world, or we can get excited about the possibilities of living in this season. We don’t know why we’re here now, at this point in history, but we are, and we know that our choices for obedience or disobedience and for faith or unbelief will affect the whole world, so we can be excited about the part we have to play.

No matter what, none of us has the option of saying that our relationship with God is a private matter or that our sin only affects ourselves. It’s simply not true.

So practically, what do we do about that?

I think we need to build an altar. Begin where Abraham forgot. Make room for God in your life. The world changes so fast, and you have to have something solid in your life—something that doesn’t change. Do that however you need to do it, whether it’s building a physical altar, going for walks, spending time with other believers, listening to music, or whatever. Do what you need to do. I think it’s a good idea for all of us to start with the Word of God, though. Read it. Read it again. If you’re going to have faith in the God of Abraham, you need to know who he is, because when we do, we have the potential to change the world for good instead of evil. We need to know his character—what he’s for and what he’s against—and we need to do the work to make space for him in our lives.

You know, it was hard work for Abraham to build an altar. His altar was made of rocks, and he had to haul them by hand to build his altar. And sometimes it’s hard to build an altar in our lives, too. Carving out space for God can require cutting some other things out, but the choice to do that or not will affect way more than me. So make space for God.

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