Obedient Faith (Genesis part 31)
Text: Genesis 17:15-27
By: Ken McKinley
Well we’ve been in Genesis for quite a while now. And this is our 3rd week on Genesis chapter 17. We’ve been looking at Abraham, and we’ve already seen how he had spent 86 years of his life not being a father at all, and then finally he has a son through Hagar, his wife’s maid servant. And Ishmael had been his only son for 13 years and during that time, Abraham had started to waiver a bit, and started thinking that maybe… just maybe, God was going to fulfill His promise through Ishmael. Now there’s application right off the bat, so we need to look at our text and unpack what God’s Word has for us this morning.
(Read Text)
Ok… so far God has given Abraham some pretty amazing promises. Way back in chapter 12 God called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldeans. Then God blessed Abram in Egypt, even when Abram himself was not living as he should have. In chapter 14 God blessed Abram and gave him victory over his enemies. Chapter 15, God literally cut a covenant with Abraham in order to assure the promises that He had made. But Abram had sinned by trying to bring about God’s promise in his own way and in his own strength. The result was Ishmael who the Apostle Paul calls “The son according to the flesh.” And so there’s been a 13 year span that’s taken place before God again speaks to Abram. Last week we saw God reaffirm the covenant with Abraham, and He gave Abraham the sign of the covenant which was circumcision.
And like I said, there’s application right off the bat here, and that’s our first point.
God is persistent in fulfilling His Word and giving us assurance.
Look at verses 15 and 16 (Read). God changes Sarai’s name to Sarah, and He is going make it possible for her to conceive a child. Now remember; God reiterated the promises of the covenant, He gave Abraham a sign of the covenant He changed Abram’s name to Abraham, now He’s changing Sarai’s name to Sarah. All of this stuff is designed to give Abraham assurance. Also remember, this is God speaking to Abraham.
He says that He’s going to bless Sarah by allowing her to conceive. So the promise isn’t coming through Hagar, and it isn’t coming through Ishmael. Then God says she will be the mother of nations. Now God had already told Abraham that he was going to be the father of nations, so again… this is sort of God’s way of saying the same thing that He just said, the promise isn’t through Hagar and Abraham, it’s through Sarah and Abraham. And then God says Sarah will be the mother of kings. So God is saying; basically, that it’s Sarah who the promised seed will come from. She has an important role in God’s plan, and No Abraham, you’re efforts to bring about the promise are not sufficient or acceptable.
Now look at verses 17 & 18 (Read). Abraham didn’t comprehend it. He just wasn’t getting it. He was still looking at things in the natural, worldly sense. And like I said last time, he had basically resigned himself to wrong thinking. He had faith in God, but at the same time, he was limiting God. And not only that, he had grown comfortable in that kind of thinking. And we can be exactly the same way. How many of us have resigned ourselves to thinking Fort Supply Baptist Church is just the way it is, and it’s never going to grow?
Don’t raise your hands or anything. Well let me just tell you, your pastor hasn’t. God brings about the increase, but He does it in His way, not in our way. So what’s His way? Evangelism. That’s why the last week of March and the first week of April, I’m going to blanket this community with door hangers, inviting everyone I can to come to our Easter service on Easter Sunday.
Alright… So, God is reassuring Abraham here that He is going to keep His promise. Again this is assurance for Abraham. And the reason assurance is important is because if we have no assurance of our standing with God, then we’ll either do one of two things. We’ll continually be trying to get it (assurance), we’ll become legalistic… We’ll tell ourselves that we have to pray so many times a day, or for so long, and read our Bible so many times a day or for a certain amount of time, and that we have do certain things, “If I can just do this thing or that thing, then I’ll be right with God.” But the Bible is clear that we are right with God based on what Christ has done, and we can only be right with God if we’re in Christ. And if we’re always trying to make ourselves right with God, and give ourselves assurance, then we’re not doing things like evangelism or ministry. We’re totally focused on ourselves. I’m not saying that we should never examine ourselves. We’re told to do that. 2nd Corinthians 13:5 says we are to examine ourselves and test to see whether or not we are in the faith. I’m not saying don’t do that. What I’m saying is that if a person lacks assurance of their salvation, then they are going to either totally focus on getting that assurance, leaving other important things undone. OR… they’ll give up altogether. They’ll say, “What’s the use? I’m tired of trying.” And they’ll end up kind of like we find Abraham in our text. “What’s the use? I’m old, Sarah’s old. God can’t we just use Ishmael?”
That’s why the Lord is persistent in giving us assurance.
Now the second thing we see here is that even true faith has its struggles.
We see this in verses 17 and 18 as well. Abraham laughs at God’s promise. Most of the time we remember that Sarah laughed, but Abraham laughed first. Keep in mind that Abraham is in covenant relationship with God. God has declared him righteous by faith remember? But here he’s laughing at God. There’s no other way around it… Abraham is struggling with his faith. Basically the problem that Abraham exhibits over and over again in his life is that he lets his natural understanding get in the way of faith. God told Abraham that he was going to make him the father of many nations – but in Egypt, he looked at his surrounding with his natural eyes and understanding and he became fearful that he would be killed. God reiterates the promises and Abraham tries looks at Sarah’s barreness and tries to do it his own way. God again reiterates the promise and Abraham looks at his age and Sarah’s barreness, and he laughs and tries to convince God to accept Ishmael. And the reason this is so important to us is because when we see Abraham, the father of our faith, struggling, it helps us fight the good fight of faith in our own lives. Abraham truly struggled with what God was saying, and the reason for that was because he was looking at things in the natural sense, instead of looking at the supernatural God who had made the promises. But despite all of this; look at how God responds to Abraham. I mean, you might expect God to blast him kind of like He did with Moses in Exodus chapter 4. Remember when God said to Moses, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the LORD?” Well here you might expect sort of the same thing. You might expect God to say something like, “Who made woman’s womb, and who brings forth life and causes children to grow? Is it not I the LORD?”
But that’s not what He does. Instead God is patient with Abraham. And you’ll see throughout the Bible that anytime someone genuinely struggles with their faith, God is patient with them. It’s when they become combative towards God, or they understand what He’s saying but refuse to obey… that’s when the rebuke comes in. But if they are genuinely trying, and the struggle is legitimate, then God is always patient with them… and with us. But He might not always give us the answer we think we want, and that brings us to our third lesson in this sermon.
Sometimes God answers prayers with a NO!
In verse 18 Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before you.” And when you read this in the Hebrew you’ll see that it’s actually akin to a prayer. You can kind of get this from the English translation when you look at verse 20 and see God’s reply. But here’s the thing. God’s will was not subject to the prayers of Abraham.
1st John 5:14-15 says, “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions we have asked of him.”
Basically what’s happened in our text in Genesis is that Abraham has asked God something in prayer and God says, “No! That’s not my will!” Then in verse 19, God tells Abraham exactly what His will is, “Sarah will be the mother, and her son’s name will be Isaac, and it’s with him that I will establish my covenant with!” And then God shows His mercy and compassion in verse 20. He says that He will bless Ishmael, but Ishmael’s not the promised son, and not the one whom God has chosen. So despite Abraham being the father of our faith, and despite Abraham being in covenant with God, and despite Abraham’s desire for Ishmael to be the promised son. God says “NO!”
So what do you do when God says, “NO”? Well that brings us to our final point.
And that is that true faith is always an obedient faith!
Look at verses 22 – 27 (Read). So Abraham has just been told no, but instead of whining or pouting, or trying to circumvent God again… he goes out and obeys God. And you’ve got to realize that this act of obedience wasn’t an easy thing to do. It was going to be painful, and also, even more importantly, it was going to put Abraham and all those with him, in a position of danger. There were other people groups around him, and some of them may not have liked him too much; and in their state, it would’ve been hard for the men of the camp to defend themselves if an invading force had decided to attack them. But Abraham obeys God and does what he commands. And this is why Abraham is called the father of our faith. He believed God and trusted God, and his faith showed itself through his works. Now I want to close with a little poem I found on the internet awhile back. It’ll sound kind of familiar to you, but the message of it goes along with our sermon.
“One night I had a wondrous dream. One set of footprints there was seen.
The footprints of my precious Lord. But mine were not along the shore.
But then some stranger prints appeared. And I asked the Lord, ‘What have we here?’
Those prints are large and round and neat. ‘But Lord they are too big to be my feet.’
‘My child,’ He said in somber tones. ‘For miles I carried you alone.’
‘I challenged you to walk in faith, but you refused and made me wait.’
‘You disobeyed and would not grow. The walk of faith you would not know.’
‘So I finally said, ‘enough’s - enough.’ And there I dropped you on your butt.’”
Now the reality is that God will never “drop” us, but He does expect us to walk in faith. He does expect us to grow in His grace. He expects us to be obedient. In-fact, true faith demands it. True faith is an obedient faith.
So maybe you’re struggling like Abraham this morning. I want to challenge you to go to the Lord. Go to His Word, Go to Him in prayer. But don’t be discouraged if He says “NO.” Just keep walking in His ways and be a doer of His Word and not a hearer only.
Let’s Pray!
