Genesis 20:1-21

Transcript (Auto-generated)

This transcript has been automatically generated, and therefore may not be 100% accurate.

Our first Bible reading and that this one is from Matthew. So while I'll open up the rare Bible for me and we will have a read for Matthew.

As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him calling out have mercy amongst son of David when you've gone indoors blind man. Do you believe that I will do this? Yes Lord. There he touched their eyes and said according to your face. Then Jesus warned him so that no one knows about it and went out and spread the needle over that.

This is the word of the Lord. Thank you so for reading that for us. Before Phil comes to speak, we're going to hear a bit more of God's word. But before we do that we're going to sing and this is a song with actions. How God keeps a very special promise.

The grown ups up here have been thinking about a promise that was given that took over 25 years to happen. And it was a promise that a man called Abraham and a woman called Sarah were going to have a baby. And we're going to find out if God keeps that promise in our bible reading. The second Bible reading is taken from Genesis chapter 21 and you can find it on page 21 in your Bibles starting to read at verse one now. The Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said.

And the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age at the very time God had promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him as God had commanded him. Sarah said, God has brought me laughter and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.

And she added, who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age. The child grew and was weaned. And on the day Isaac was weaned, Abraham held a great feast. This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. Thank you Rach. Well, good morning everyone. God made a promise to Abraham and Sarah. He made four promises to Sarah and Abraham.

Wonderful things. Back in chapter 12 there were four things. He was going to make Abraham into a great nation. He was going to bless all peoples through through him and do various other things if my memory could be good. But anyway, you can read about that in chapter 12 verses 2 to 3.

The problem was Abraham had no children of his own with his wife Sarah. Sarah sadly couldn't have children. Perhaps you know somebody who longs to have children but can't have them. It's a very painful experience for somebody. And Abraham and Sarah lived with that experience.

But then things move on and time moves on and they try all sorts of different things to fulfil these promises God made. And then two weeks ago, we heard about some strange visitors that came to visit Abraham and Sarah. And there it turned out one of these strangers was the Lord. And he made a or he said something quite incredible. Is anything too hard for the Lord?

Is anything too hard for the Lord? That's a rhetorical question. Now we all know what rhetorical questions are, don't we? Because this morning I'm imagining there were a few parents asking their children or wives, asking their husbands or husbands, husbands asking their wives rhetorical questions. How many times do I have to tell you to put your shoes on, put your coat on, get ready, get in the car, shut up.

Listen to me. It's a question. It's not expecting you to say, oh, I think you probably need to say it 24 times.

It's a question. It's not really a question at all. It's an expression of frustration. Why aren't you listening to me? So you see, this question that the Lord posed to Abraham was a rhetorical question.

He wasn't really asking Abraham. So what? Is there anything too hard for the Lord?

Is there anything too hard for the Lord? That's a thought provoking question. Well, I'm guessing for Sarah and Abraham there was something that felt too hard for the Lord. He had said they were going to become a great nation and they hadn't even got a child of their own. Who he was saying the promise would go through them.

But you see, this God who made this statement to ask this question of them is the God who works miracles. And when you have a miracle working God, nothing is too hard for the Lord. And we see that in both our readings today. If you flip back to Matthew chapter nine and verses 29, 27, it's a story about two men who are blind. They are following Jesus in his hometown as he wanders around.

And he's performing miracles and he's teaching things and people are really overwhelmed by what he's doing. And they're shouting out to him. This is really interesting what they shout out to him. Have mercy on us, Son of David.

Why are they calling him son of David? Well, we can think about another time. But they're shouting this out to him. And what does Jesus do? He does absolutely nothing.

He doesn't show them mercy at all. It's really striking. He doesn't do anything. But these guys are really sure that he can do something for them, show them mercy. And so they go and knock on his front door.

I wonder how Jesus was when he opened the door and saw these two blind men there.

And he asked him a question. You're saying, show me mercy. Do you believe that I am able to do this? It's there in verse 28. And they said, yes, Lord.

And then Jesus says something really, really striking. What does he say? According to your faith, let it be done to you. And he touches their eyes, and they are healed. Now, I wonder, when they were crying out for mercy, what were they expecting?

Were they expecting to be healed? Because the beginning of chapter nine starts with some friends bringing a cripple to Jesus. He hadn't walked for a long time. He was in a desperate state. And everybody was expecting a miracle.

Jesus didn't perform a miracle, at least to start with. He said, your sins are forgiven. So were these people, these blind men, expecting their sins to be forgiven or were receive a miracle of sight? We don't know. It's ambiguous.

But anyway, Jesus heals them. And in the context of what he's going on there, he's effectively saying, I am showing you mercy. I am giving you blind people sight.

And these men have faith in Jesus to perform a miracle. Sometimes we think of faith, oh, I wish I had your faith. We sometimes think, you know, when somebody is hoping for something, I wish I had your faith. These men seem to have incredible faith. They wanted Jesus to be merciful, and they received a miracle according to their faith.

But then what do they do? Jesus tells them, don't tell anybody about what's happened.

He asks them to do something, but they don't do it. They don't have faith to obey Jesus. They have faith for a miracle, but they have no faith to obey Jesus.

And that is the dilemma that God has in the world that we live in. And in the world of the Bible and in the story of Abraham.

People believe he can do things, amazing things on the one hand, but they don't have faith to hold on to his promises.

It feels too much. Why is that? Why is that? Why is it so difficult to hold onto a promise?

Well, we need to look at the story of Abraham, because that is what the story of Abraham and Sarah is all about.

And in chapter 21, that wonderful episode that we had read to us just now this morning, there's been 25 years of waiting. How long do you wait for a promise before you give up?

I'm not very good at being patient. I had a really good joke. I was talking about saying it because I'm an expert at killing jokes. Nick is shaking her head. It's a joke a bishop told about why God is like a builder.

God's like a builder because he started a great building project, creating the world. It's not finished. He's gone away, but he's not told us when he's coming back. Yeah. Have you had that experience you've had builders in?

They started a great job. Gone away. You're never quite sure when it's going to be finished. That's why God is like a builder, you see, it's difficult to wait when we have to wait. We get frustrated when you're waiting for Christmas.

I'm terrible at waiting for Christmas. I want to know what presents I'm getting. And I remember as a little youngster going, finding out where the presents were and secretly feeling them all. What's this? It's very difficult to wait.

But Here, finally, after 25 years of waiting and impossible things, nothing is impossible for Lord because a miracle has happened. Sarah, this old woman, way past childbearing age, she's never been able to have children of her own, has a baby. And she is full of joy. Look at that. She says the Lord, or the story tells us the Lord was gracious to Sarah.

He did as he said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. And she was full of joy. And she was sure everybody would share her joy. There's something wonderful about a new child being born. It just brings out the good in us, doesn't it?

We like to enjoy seeing little babies that the amazement of the tiny little fingers they have. It's just wonderful, isn't it, to see a little newborn baby? It warms people's hearts when you see that sort of thing. And Sarah was sure everybody's heart would be warmed by this.

It feels like a really happy story, a happy ending to a wonderful promise.

But Abraham and Sarah did not make it easy for the Lord.

If you go back to chapter 18, that's when these strangers came to visit. They said, within a year, you will have the child. I promised this child for a long time. In a year's time, you will have the child. And you would think with the Lord saying that to Abraham and Sarah, that would boost their confidence and boost their faith in holding on to God's promises.

But the trouble is, you see, life isn't simple.

At the start of chapter 20, we're told we're not told why Abraham decides to move on. When we move to a new place, everything's up in the air a little bit. All the familiar things that give us routine in life slip away and we become a bit vulnerable. And it turns out that Sarah and Abraham and had an idea of how to cope with going to new places. And it was based really on fear and lack of trust.

Because you see, despite all God's great promises to them, they came up with a scheme to protect themselves. And the scheme was, if you look through the beginning, through chapter 20, the scheme was Abraham was fearful of how people would view him as the husband of Sarah. And he thought it would protect him and possibly Sarah if they didn't let on that they were husband and wife, but that they were brother and sister, which was a half truth because they were related in that way, stepbrother and sister.

And they do that and they bring disaster on the king of the land they've moved to. You see, what happened was that when they moved into the area, for whatever reason, we're not really told, the king took Sarah as his wife. He thought she was a available.

And that resulted in great pain in the king's life. You see, when we don't trust God, it doesn't just affect ourselves, it affects other people. And that is what happened to Abraham and Sarah as they went to this new place. They impacted the life of Abimelech the king. And he said of them, this is really, really striking.

What have you done to us? How have I wronged you that you have brought such guilt upon me and my kingdom? You have done things to me that should never be done. You see what had happened.

Sarah had become the wife of this king. And there is something special about a marriage relationship in God's eyes. It goes right back to Adam and Eve. And their initial union talked about a man and a woman becoming one emotionally, physically. And in that there is something very special and it is to be protected and kept as sacred.

And when that is broken, that in God's eyes is a great sin. It's a great distrust of his promise, it's a great breaking of faith in him.

And that in turn brought great trouble on the king because the king said, I'm not guilty in this, my conscience is clear, I haven't done anything wrong. It's Sarah and Abraham that have done something wrong.

But nonetheless he had been brought into their wrongness. He'd been caught up in their deception.

And it points to the fact that just because our conscience is is clear, doesn't mean to say we're in the right. You see, we can be ignorant of what we're facing and still be in the wrong. When you are driving down the road and it suddenly becomes 30 miles an hour from 50 or 70 miles an hour, and you miss seeing the sign, the fact that you missed seeing the sign doesn't stop you being guilty of breaking the speed limit.

You might be ignorant of what you've entered into, but you're still guilty. And that is what happened to the king. Because of what Sarah and Abraham brought into his life. They brought trouble on him.

So the first great lesson is don't distrust God. Hold onto his promises. When we break his promises, when we don't hold on to promises of God, it brings trouble on us and it brings trouble on other people.

And that happens to other members of Abraham's family.

In God's mercy, like Jesus was merciful, Sarah had the child, a promise. The Lord was gracious to Sarah, and he did as he said.

And they held a great party. When Isaac, the little lad, was about three, he was on his own feet. He didn't need to be fed by his mum any longer. And that was a great joy to celebrate. And the people of Eastern cultures know how to celebrate and have a great feast.

And so Abraham had a great feast.

But the trouble is, not everybody was enjoying what was going on. And the person who wasn't enjoying what was going on was Ishmael, his other son. You read about him further back in Genesis, where Abraham and Sarah have this idea of how they'll fulfil the promise. And they basically arrange to have a child by one of the Sarah's maidservants. And that disobedience of obeying God and trusting in his promises caused a shadow on their lives, caused great pain.

So when Sarah saw Ishmael not laughing in joy, but laughing in mockery, she was absolutely livid. And she said, he's got to go. And that caused Abraham great upset and anger. But he's my son.

And you see, that is what happens when we disobey God. There are consequences to the things we do, and we find we've got to live with those things. What things have you suffered in your life because you haven't obeyed and held on to the promises of God?

See, just because we have faith in God doesn't mean everything is going to go smoothly if we're disobedient to God.

And what Abraham and Sarah have to come to terms with is that they are given a great child of promise, but their Behaviour is going to cause great pain to Ishmael and his mother, Hannah.

And there is no avoiding that pain.

They have to live with it.

Sometimes there are painful things in our lives that we just have to live with. And so it casts a whole new perspective on that question. Is there anything too hard for the Lord?

There isn't anything too hard for the Lord. The Lord can even heal our broken hearts from pain, emotional and physical pain that we cause to ourselves and we cause to other people. It feels like everything is broken and falling apart sometimes in life.

And yet nothing is too hard for the Lord.

He can heal even that.

So as we think about these things today, what is there in your life that feels like it's just too hard for the Lord to sort out? What pain in your life are you suffering because of mistakes you have made? Perhaps in all innocence, but you are having to live with that pain.

The story of Abraham and Sarah is that God is able to heal that pain and able to redeem that pain and give us new hope.

So just as we come to the end of this time, let's just close our eyes and think about some pain in our life that we're suffering because we've not been faithful in obeying Jesus, in obeying God, we've been like those two blind men. We've experienced some wonderful things, but we've also been disobedient.

Let me pray. Father God, we thank you that you are the God who keeps his promises. Nothing is impossible for you and you delight in showing us mercy and kindness. Help us today, help us this week to live with the pain of our foolishness, of our sin, but to see you at work in the midst of it and to bring us through and to heal us and strengthen us and enable us to keep going. And that in the midst of all that there is a great joy to be found.

For in those dark places where you are often closest to us and we're able to experience your great comfort and enable us to keep going and to become more like you, who suffered so much because of people's sin and disobedience. You are merciful and kind and you overcome being vengeful. You show mercy and kindness. May we be merciful and kind too. We pray.

Amen.