Episode Details

The Faithfulness of God

Genesis 12:4-13:1; Remsen Bible Fellowship; 11/3/2024

Introduction

Is God waiting around to zap you every time you do something wrong? I think there are a lot of Christians who walk around with this paralyzing fear that if they somehow miss out on or step out of “God’s perfect will” for their life their lives will be ruined, God’s blessing squandered, and they will have blown it irreparably. But what we find out when we read the Bible is that God is writing this whole story using flawed and sinful characters.

We can talk about God’s will in two senses: his revealed will, that is what Scripture tells us to do. Behave, think, and life in this way, not that was. And life is better when we walk in obedience to his revealed will. But there is also the secret or providential will of God, by which he (according to Ephesians 1:11) brings all things to pass. And you can’t get outside the providential will of God. You can’t thwart him, you can’t stop him, you can’t mess up God’s plan. You aren’t that powerful. He is working all things together for his glory. And if you love him, that which brings him glory is also that which is for your eternal good. He uses it all, the good and bad, the easy and hard, your obedience, and even your sin. That’s good news for us, because we are all too often marked by doubt, sin, and failure.

Transition

Last week we read God’s call and promise to Abram. Abram was to leave his home, his family, and all he had known in order to follow the Lord to an unknown land. But the Lord promised that this would ultimately result in Abram being blessed - God would show him a land, make him into a great people, make his name great, and bless all the world through him. Now that promise - and Abram’s obedience - will face its first stress test.

Text

Genesis 12:4-13:1, So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD. 9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.

10 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. 11 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, 12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. 13 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.” 14 When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15 And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. 16 And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

17 But the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. 18 So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so