LAUGH 'N LEARN

An Encouragement Ministry of Verde Valley Christian Church
Of Cottonwood Arizona
http://www.vvchristianchurch.net/

Issue # 283,    May 12,  2008

LAUGH

Jim’s Manuscript

May 11, 2008

“Abraham”

Series: Crash Course On The Bible (Part 2 of 6)

Text:  Genesis 12-25

 Since this is a Crash course on the Bible, we begin with a couple of quiz questions. 

What three disciples were closest associates of Jesus?

a. Matthew, Mark, and Luke

b. Peter, James, and John

b. Peter, Paul, and Mary.

c. John, Paul, and Ringo.

Who was Jeremiah?

a. An Old Testament prophet.

b. A New Testament apostle

c. A bullfrog

d. The weeping prophet

Answers:  What three disciples were closest associates of Jesus?  (B).

Who was Jeremiah?  (A) & (D)

Focus:  Faith produce behaviors, and behaviors have consequences, and some actions set into motion effects that continue long after we’re gone.

The outline spells his name this morning after his name was changed. 

Genesis 17:5 (ESV) No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.

            Now how would you like to be a guy that has waited and waited till he’s an old man and your name is Abram, which already means “exalted father” and finally you have one child…although he’s a child of your wife’s maid…and you are trying to believe what God has promised, but then he changes your name to “Abraham” which means “father of a multitude”.  This is almost too funny.  Abraham sees the humor in it.  He actually laughs when God says, no it isn’t Ishmael that is going to be the son of promise but it is going to be a child of Sarah.  Sarah is 90.  Abraham is 100.  Abraham.  Father of nations.  Funny!  But he believes God.

Romans 4:17 (ESV) as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations"—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

Now let’s get back to the beginning of the story of Abram, whose name was changed to Abraham.  “A” stands for…

Answered the Call  (Genesis 12)

Get a handle on the DATE:  Approximately 2,000 B.C.

Genesis 12:1-3 (ESV)
¹ Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.
² And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
³ I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

God’s call to Abram, later his name was changed to Abraham (“Father of Nations”), has in it a command and a promise. 

The rest of Genesis (starting with Chapter 12) is about the beginning of the Hebrew people.  God founded the Hebrew nation for a definite purpose—that through it the whole world should be blessed.  He founded this nation by choosing to bless a person and make a covenant with him.

God promised Abraham, a believer in Him, that his descendants:

1.     Should inherit the land of Canaan (Genesis 12:1-3)

[This must have seemed amazing to Abraham because the land was not emptied, it was occupied and fortified.  Yet Abraham believed God.]

2.     Should become a great nation

3.     Through them all nations should be blessed.

God repeated these promises to Isaac and Jacob (Genesis 26:1-5; Genesis 28:13-15)…

…In spite of the wickedness of the human heart, God wanted to show His grace. He wanted a chosen people:

1.     To whom He might entrust the Holy Scriptures

2.     To be His witness to the other nations

3.     Through whom the promised Messiah could come.

— What the Bible is All About

Three major religions claim Abraham as a father of their faith: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Muslims). 

He fathered Ishmael, the father of the Arabs. 

Abraham was the forefather of Judaism.

…Through Isaac, Abraham's son, the promises of God were passed down to Jacob, who, despite his many faults, valued God's covenant blessing. He was enthusiastic about God's plan of founding a nation by which the whole world would be blessed. Jacob in his wanderings suffered for his sin, and through chastening came out a great man. His name was changed to Israel, a prince with God (Genesis 32:28). This is the name by which God's chosen people were called—Israelites. His twelve sons became the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel.

— What the Bible is All About

Applications:

1.               Obedience ushers in God’s blessings.  When God calls you or leads you to a place of greater service, remember Abraham.  He usually asks you to leave the comfort and security of your old comfort zone.  Don’t miss out on God’s greater blessings because you have to let go of some of the lesser “good things.”  It is better to choose “the best” over simply “the good”. 

2.               TESTS:  Another test of Abraham’s faith came with the famine…in the very land God had promised.  Now why would God promise him the land of Canaan then bring a famine driving him out of that very land?  This was a test of Abraham’s resolve to believe God.  When you face such tests (and we as a church have been facing such a test with regard to the timing of our new church) don’t start second guessing God.  We also must use our God given intelligence and wisdom to navigate the tests while still being faithful to God’s calling.  As we will learn in a moment however, don’t rely too much on your own intelligent plan, or “rationalizations”.

3.               How did Abraham manage to keep his faith through these early tests?  WORSHIP:  Abraham built altars everywhere he went as continual reminders to worship and remember God’s promise to him.  Abraham’s faith was sustained by regularly renewing his love and loyalty and reviewing God’s word and activity in his life. 

Blemishes and All  (Genesis 12:10-20; 20:1-18)

Sometimes it is hard to tell whether Abraham is the mighty man of faith or the wimpy witless husband!  When the pressure was on, Abraham distorted the truth.  When he waits and waits for the answer to the promise and still has no son, and Sarah says take my handmaiden… he says…. Duh… okay.  He has many blemishes.  Isn’t it interesting that the Bible does not candy coat any of its heroes.  Sometimes while reading Genesis it gets a little confusing because blemishes are told without any editorializing.  Bad things are narrated and we are not even told whether they are bad or not.  We just figure it out as we read, kind of like Abraham figures it out as he makes the mistakes.   Let’s take a closer look at his flaws. 

Now Sarah was a babe.  That’s an approximate translation from Hebrew to English (Genesis 12:11).  Abraham was about 75 when he left Ur (12:4), and Sarah is 10 years younger than Abraham (see 17:17).  It seems strange to us that she is a sixty five year old babe!  But keep in mind that Abraham lived to be 175.  To keep the powerful Egyptians from taking his beautiful wife, Abraham came up with this brilliant plan.  He told Sarah to tell others she was his sister.  Now this is a half truth.  Sarah was a half sister.  Now before you get too concerned about someone marrying a half sister, remember this, God had not yet given the laws to Moses which forbids marrying such a close relative.  Anyway, here was his brilliant plan.  Instead of them killing Abraham and taking her, he’s going to, what?  Give her away!  What is he thinking?!   Pharaoh hears about this beautiful woman.  He takes her into his harem.  Abraham, “her brother”, is treated well because of her, given a huge bridal price, and all is going according to Abram’s harebrained self-protecting plan.  Does this sound pitiful to you? 

Applications:

1. Sort of gives hope to the rest of us stupid husbands for the stupid things we’ve done.  Anyway, it is a good thing that God intervenes.  And the only reason, I think, that God intervened is that God had already made a promise, and Abraham is making a mess of it.  Nonetheless, God causes everything to go wrong for the Pharaoh, and somehow he finds out that the reason things are going wrong is that he has taken another man’s wife.  It is pretty bad when those outside the faith are more righteous than those with the faith, nonetheless we see this sometimes even in the Bible.  God rescues Sarah, and preserves her for his promise. 
2. Don’t “Rationalize”… when you rationalize your behavior you are telling yourself a “rational lie”.   Abraham’s plan sounded good to him, but he put his confidence in his “brilliant” idea, a rational lie, rather than the protection of God.  He does this twice, attempting to deceive his enemies.  He is NOT doing a good job protecting Sarah or her honor, or for that matter God’s purpose. 

Righteousness is Received not Achieved (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4; Galatians 3)

Genesis 15:6 (NIV) Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

If you want credit in your account with God, here is how you get it.  Believe God.  Faith gives you credit with God. 

Hebrews 10:38 (NIV) But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him."

God calls His people to LIVE by faith. That implies that not just any old faith is going to do. God wants a faith that changes how we live.

ILLUS: But that doesn’t always happen. According to a poll taken by George Barna back in 2002:  44% of adults make their moral choices based on "the desire to do whatever will bring them the most pleasing or satisfying results."  But only 24% made their choices based upon "religious teaching or Bible content."

Application:  Be a Blessing

1.               Not only was righteousness received, Abraham had a deep and abiding belief that the hand of God’s blessing was upon him.  This too, was something received, not achieved.  In chapter 13 Abraham blesses Lot with his choice of land.  When you know you are blessed it is easier to be a blessing.  Lot chose the choicest land.  But the hand of blessing was with Abraham.  It didn’t much matter which land he gave Lot because Abraham was blessed and trusted God that he would continue to be blessed.  He also knew that he was blessed to be a blessing to others.

2.               Gratitude flows out of a blessed life.

Assurance because he Asked (Genesis 15)

God condescended to “cutting a deal” using the covenant formulas of Abraham’s day.  God gave Abraham his solemn oath as an assurance.  He demonstrated his absolute commitment to his plan to bless all nations through Abraham.  Abraham’s seed (Jesus) would be the one through whom all nations would be blessed.  He would set this up by depositing his Law, His Word, His prophets calling them back, and predicting what was to come, then He His Son the greatest revelation of all.

Application:

Do we believe God’s covenant?  When we do believe his covenant and enter into covenant with God we receive the assurance of his blessing. 

Hagar was a Bad Idea (Gen 16)

There probably isn’t anything harder to do sometimes than just wait.  Waiting is hard whether we are expecting something good, or something bad, or even the unknown.  Sometimes we do the wrong thing when it comes to having to wait.  We try to help God out by taking matters into our own hands (Genesis 16).  That’s what Sarah did.  Abraham complied… “uh, duh…sure…”.   Now, this practice of giving a handmaiden as a substitute wife to produce heirs in the case of barrenness was a common practice back in that period of time.  Having an heir was really important.  Isn’t there a song about that?

“All I need is the heir that I breed?”  

But this was a bad idea with long lasting consequences

Taking matters into your own hands often makes matters worse…

Family problems…

National problems for the rest of history…

Where is this all going?  Climactic conflict between God’s choice and Man’s.

Application:   A lack of faith and taking over for God and doing things “My way” rather than “God’s way” always leads to problems!  Example:  Our modern culture tells us to live together, see if you are compatible before you get married.  God says, No, don’t do that.  Wait till you have a marriage commitment before having sex.  Which will you believe? 

Columnist Terry Mattingly writes:

Data from the University of Wisconsin provides a painful bottom line: couples that cohabit before marriage increase their odds of divorce by 50 percent. Researchers found that only 15 out of every 100 cohabitating couples were married after a decade.[1]

Accepts His Covenant Obligations (Gen 17)

Now in one sense the covenant is unilateral.  Abraham wasn’t called to walk between the animals, only God did.  God is going to come through to make sure his promise takes place regardless of how Abraham or any other particular individual was able to correctly follow God’s plan.  Yet, for the individual and the blessing being applied to that individual, our part IS to remain faithful to our covenant making God.  There were covenant obligations placed on Abraham.  If he wanted to enjoy God’s blessings he must accept those obligations, and he did. 

What were those obligations?  The sign God gave Abraham for this covenant was circumcision!  Ouch!  That’s why I labeled chapter 17  as Crying Then Laughing.

Crying (Genesis 17:1-14) then Laughing (17:17)

Crying often comes before laughing.

Blessed are those who are poor in spirit…  Blessed are those who mourn…  These attitudes presuppose the New Covenant blessings.  You must recognize your spiritual bankruptcy before you will reach out to a savior.  You must mourn your condition and mourn your sin, and repent if you hope to be comforted.  So, also, for Abraham, first was faith, then that faith led to the obedience that hurts (circumcision) then God blessed Abraham’s faith.  Faith and obedience together is what James calls true faith.  

Then the next thing we read is that God’s promise sounded so funny to old man Abraham, he fell down laughing!  

Application:

Covenants always imply a high level of commitment. 

Commitment often precedes the blessings.  First comes the faith, and later comes the reward.

God’s covenants require total commitment, even though we cannot produce a perfect performance!  The perfect commitment is not perfect performance, it is a whole-hearted no holds barred commitment that God calls for.  Will you give me your whole heart?  That’s covenant loyalty!

Laughing then Lying (Genesis 18:12-15)

She laughed.  Then, when caught, she lied. 

Genesis 18:12-15 (ESV) ¹² So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?"  ¹³ The Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say, 'Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?'  ¹⁴ Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son."  ¹⁵ But Sarah denied it, saying, "I did not laugh," for she was afraid. He said, "No, but you did laugh."

But God got the last laugh when Sarah laughed all the way from the geriatric ward to the maternity ward.  Laughter was born.  Isaac is named laughter.  Everyone was laughing then.  Ninety years old and she has a baby.  Abraham is 100.  God specializes in the impossible.  God is just trying to teach us about faith and about his promises in the face of what we consider impossibilities.  We need to laugh more and trust more. 

Laughter (Isaac) is born

Moriah Test Passed

God Tested Abraham.  God tests Us also (Genesis 22)

Our faith and our commitment will be tested. 

One man once observed:  It’s easy to SAY you believe in something… but it’s a much different thing to actually prove it. 

That’s what Genesis 22 is all about. Notice what it says in the first verse: “Some time later God TESTED Abraham…” Genesis 22:1

Why test him?  Because it’s easy to SAY believe in something… it’s a much different thing to actually prove we really do believe something with our life and actions. 

Genesis 22:15-18 (ESV) ¹⁵ And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven ¹⁶ and said, "By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷ I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, ¹⁸ and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice."

Besides his character being deepened and strengthened, Abraham learned a deeper lesson, that God would provide even the impossible.  Hebrews tells us that Abraham believed that God could raise Isaac from the dead, which is why he was willing to obey. 

But what we learn is that God did provide the lamb not only to replace Isaac, but us, when God provided HIS only son.  This act of Abraham paralleled what was coming in the future… on that very mount, where the temple was put (for the sacrificial system) and the ultimate sacrifice took place on Calvary!

Will God be first in my life?

That’s the question isn’t it?  We must be careful no matter how good something is, not to let something else take the altar of our devotion.  What is your Isaac?  What do you need to lay on the altar of worship and make sure your heart is more devoted to God?  When you do this, he often gives us back what was so treasured in the first place and reminds us that it is his, so hold loosely those things that are his.

Conclusion:  Abraham was called God’s Friend.

Abraham was called "God's friend" (James 2:23; 2 Chronicles 20:7; Isaiah 41:8: Psalm 25:14; John 15:14-15)…

James 2:23 (NIV) ²³And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend.

Psalms 25:14 (ESV)  ¹⁴ The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.

John 15:14-15 (ESV) ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵ No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

When you enter into covenant with God, you are called “God’s friend.” 

Have you entered into covenant with God?  He has opened a way for you; it is called the New Covenant through the sacrifice God’s only son made for you.  Now we can enter into covenant by faith in God’s promise also.

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