Good morning. The scripture reading this morning is from Genesis chapter 12 verses 10 through 20. It's in your order of worship. We're reading verses 10 through 20 in Genesis chapter 12. 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. When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, I know that you're a woman beautiful in appearance. And when the Egyptians see you, they will say, this is his wife, then they will kill me, but they will let you live. 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. When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. And when the princes of the Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. And for her sake, he dealt well with Abram and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.
But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh with his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife. So Pharaoh called Abram and said, what is this you've done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say she's my sister? So that took her from my wife. Now then here is your wife, take her and go. And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had, the word of the Lord. Father, we pray that you would give to us the gift of faith, that you would give us the gift of faith, so that we might believe in your promises and so believe in to the one who is the promised one, the one whom you brought up out of Egypt, the one whom you love and the one who resisted every temptation in the wilderness for us, that he might not only live for us but die and be raised again for us. We do thank you for him and help us not to see him in these moments that we have together. Amen. Well, this last week we began a new sermon series in the life of Abram in the Old Testament. He's one of the truly great figures in the Bible and he's actually one of those figures that the Bible actually calls great. God calls him great and one of the things that I think is wonderful about the Bible is how realistic it is. You know, I mean, if you read the ancient myths, all the great figures, you know, these are very strong, stalwart, impenetrable figures. Perfect individuals that frankly most of us can't really relate to, you come to the Bible and the figures, the Bible holds up as great, are incredibly weak and frail while like you and me. Individuals who were called by God but struggled to cling to God in this pilgrimage that we call life. And you know, when we look at just the first week that we opened the series on Abraham last week, we saw that everything began in hopelessness, in darkness. The last ray of hope was gone and then God erupted in the midst of that darkness and called Abraham out of his old life and told him to leave everything behind. In essence, die to self, forsake yourself, give up everything and come follow me and I will take you to a land of promise and you're going to be a person of promise and through you, I will make an entire people of promise. All the families of the world ultimately are going to be blessed. This is the gospel in an nutshell, really, in veiled form here with Abraham. And so God does this and brings him to the out of this darkness, into this promised land of light and hope and blessing and you say, oh my goodness, that's incredible. It must have been wonderful. Well, notice the very abrupt change from the passage last week. We ended with verse 9 and Abraham, or Abraham journeyed on still going toward the negab, everything's going great. Very next verse now, there was a famine in the land. The famines are never good, okay? Famins are particularly disconcerting in agrarian ancient cultures because this man without the ability for you to grow the crops that you needed to grow, you were in real trouble.
would set into the average person's minds, but given that you are called to be a totally different person, you're called to be a person of promise, your Abraham, surely Abraham acted differently. How did he act? How did the great patriarch, the man of faith, Abraham respond? He panicked. He coward. He ran down to Egypt. Egypt had this dependable water supply called the Nile River. A great place to be. Only God didn't tell him to go there. God told him to go to the land of promise. And the question before us this morning is, how do you respond in the midst of difficult circumstances? Every single one of us right now, most of us don't have to look very hard. Every single one of us have pressure points in our life right now. It may be a physical problem, an illness, maybe an extreme physical problem. It may be a great mountain of difficulty in your life. You've had a terribly difficult situation at work happen. Maybe you're without work right now. You're in a financial turmoil. Maybe you're completely lonely in life. You don't have the quality relationships that you'd really like to have. And these are mountains, Steve, for others of us, maybe they're little little flea bites. They're not fun. They're terribly annoying. Nevertheless, we've got those circumstances in our life. And the question is, how do we respond? Because as people of promise, we recognize it until Jesus comes again, we live in a world where there are going to be all sorts of difficulties that come our way. Are we going to panic? Or are we going to be people of promise that claim to the promises of God? And what we have in Abraham is really an encouraging picture. I guess is what I'm saying. Is the Bible doesn't hold up Abraham and say, look, he got it right. Now you who fail, be like Abraham. No, instead it's saying Abraham, this great man of faith, he didn't get it straight. Look into his life, learn from him. And so that's what we want to do this morning is ask the question by looking at Abraham, how do I respond in tough circumstances? And then how should I respond? How do I respond? How should I respond? First of all, how do I respond? How do you respond in the midst of difficult circumstances? And let's look at Abraham to get a glimpse of how we may respond as well. Well, Abraham did not respond well. There are a couple of things. First of all, the famine that we've already mentioned. It caused him quickly to abandon the land of promise. The text emphasizes this. There's no hint. There's no revelation that God said, go down to Egypt. It simply says there was a famine in the land. You ought to trace through these first couple of chapters in Abraham narrative, all the times land is used. I mean, it is the main word used in this section. And so there was famine in the land. The point is, this is the promised land. This is the place. God said, Abraham, go here. It is going to be a place flowing with my promises, a land flowing with milk and honey. It's going to abound with my riches. But to the naked eye, Abraham sees only famine and he picks. And so he went down to Egypt. Several commentators suggest there is, I mean, obviously there's literal truth there and primarily literal. But probably, literally, there is a symbolic point here as well. He threw away so quickly he abandoned the promises of God and went down to Egypt. What did he do? Well, he panicked and gave way to pragmatism. Pragmatism means bottom line what's important. The end justifies the means. And so I see famine. I see problem. I see no way out. I'm going to go where there is ample water supply. And therefore, a way out of my crisis that I'm in right now. And so he goes down to Egypt and this pattern of pragmatic action continues. He gets there and immediately he panics because he recognizes that his wife is a babe. She's really gorgeous. And if this is not a good thing in the context of Pharaoh's authority. In the ancient world, a king or ruling figure would have a harem. And, you know, he could not be outheramed by anyone. So he had to have the most beautiful women as a symbol of his royal authority, you see. And you're saying, OK, but she was 65. Now, I mean, you know, there's a lot of women. Many of you are there this morning that as you get up in age, you still retain that real striking beauty. But one of the solutions perhaps to this element in the text is that the patriarchal age for their lifespan tended to be about double what it is for our lifespan. So that you could say that a person at age 65 was maybe physically more like someone half their age. We're not certain about that. That's just one solution to it. Nevertheless, this caused Abraham to freak. And so he said, now here's what we're going to do. And he started going into these half truths again, pragmatic thinking. A pride really developed. God, I know you got your plan. But God, there's some problems here. And so I think you probably need some consulting here. You need some tweaking to your plan. You need my help because things aren't working out the way that you said they would God. I don't just see that line of thinking swarming around his head. And so essentially what's happening here is he's helping God out through his pragmatic ways. And he is protecting himself because what he tells her in verse 12, notice the way it's put when the Egyptian see you, they'll say, this is his wife, then they'll do what? They'll kill me. And he's primarily concerned with whom with himself. But they'll let you live. Say you're my sister that it may go well with me because of you and that my life may be spared for your sake. In other words, it's far better for you, Sarah, if you're left okay because you're going to fare better if I'm okay. Yeah. He's really concerned about his own neck at this point, you see? And so he's engaging in half truths. Why is it a half truth? Well, she really was his sister and you go, oh, gross. But back in the ancient days, there's no recorded laws at this point that there was anything foul about this. She was his half sister. We learn later in the book of Genesis. She was his half sister. Genesis 20 amplifies this for us, but also his wife. And so, you know, he's telling part of the truth, not telling all the truth. There wasn't a lie. Really? I mean, you know, have you ever been in a situation at work where your boss has put pressure on you? Bottom line is important. Bottom line is not fat enough. And so, you know, you need to say this to the clients. Yeah, but boss, that's not completely. It was not a lie. You're just not telling him everything. You're telling him about the black. You're not telling him about the red. Okay. The red's there. They can figure that out on their own. You're just telling about the black. See? And so, through this reductionistic pragmatic line of thinking, we go down to Egypt because of the pressures that are before us. Right? Are we engaging Gaza? Because, you know, it gives us that sweet little morsel, that bridge of entry into another relationship, because we can talk bad about someone else. And it kind of brings this point of sick relational union with someone else. And it's the truth, you know, but is it the truth in love? Is it following the biblical principles of going to someone directly? It's the truth, but it's not all the truth. See? And so, we go down to Egypt because of the circumstances that bring panic in us. And he was protecting himself as the bottom line. And the question is, what do you do to protect yourself? How do you respond to tough circumstances? Do you panic? Do you give into pride? Do you gloss over half truths? The example of Abraham is a pretty sorry one right here off the bat. But it ought to be one that in a strange way is encouraging to us because we recognize and can identify with his weakness. How did Abraham handle things? He panicked and defaulted to pragmatism over promise. And in pride, he sought to protect himself through lies. How do you handle the tough circumstances? How do I handle them? That's the question that we need to consider. Do we approach our life? And we say, God, I know you've promised to bless me, but the reality over here, here's the promise, but the reality over here is, I'm hurting. I don't have what I sense I should have to make up that blessing that I'm supposed to have as your child. And so we have this gap between promise and reality. How do you bridge that gap? What do you do? Do you panic? Do you flee down to Egypt when there's sudden unexpected unemployment or sickness or crippling health problems? Temptations that you cannot triumph over. Death, frustration, maybe within the body of Christ, disillusionment in relationships. How does fear work in you? How do you handle it? Well, in one sense, when you result to panic, when you give in to panic and fear, you're not handling your circumstances. What's happening? They're handling you. They're controlling you. You don't control them. You see? And so the real thing to begin to see is how enslaving it is. Egypt symbolically, think of who the first people are that are hearing this text that Moses has written. It's the people of Israel. When, just after they came out of 400 plus years of what? Slavery in Egypt. Don't you see the immediate, obvious application to the original audience? Don't abandon the promises of God and the God of promise out of pragmatic fear. Don't go down to Egypt because if you do, you'll get enslaved and you'll be stuck there. You won't be handling your circumstances. They'll always be handling you. And so the question is, how do you handle tough circumstances? And then, how should I handle these things that come into my life as a man of promise? And it really calls into question as well, am I a person of promise? Do I really have I really sunk my spiritual teeth into the truths that are given to me in the Bible? Alright, so let's get at that a little bit. How should we respond? Given how we know, like Abraham, we tend to respond in panic, how should we respond as people of promise? And a simple answer is, don't panic. Don't panic. But there's three ways I want you to see that. First of all, don't panic instead in every single, in every single difficult circumstance of life, whether it's the mountain or the flea bite, in every single one of them, see them as an opportunity for spiritual growth. This is how Peter, and we looked at this a couple of weeks ago, Peter came to learn this the hard way in his epistle, first Peter 1.7, I like the NIV translation, he says, these have come. Speaking of all different kinds of trials in life, these have come so that your faith of greater worth than gold, he's saying, think of what is most valuable to you. I want you right now to think of what you value most in life. And Peter's saying, that's a nothing compared to your faith. It's a nothing compared to the faith that God has gifted to you in Jesus Christ. Now, when you're going through difficult circumstances, you must see that circumstance from God's divine perspective as an opportunity to refine that faith, that Peter says it may be proved genuine. It's a refining process, see where the gold of your faith is being put through the fire and the dross and impurities are being taken out, so that at the end of the day, when Jesus comes back, you will be one who is praising and giving glory to him. So James begins the exact same way, right off the bat, he goes directly to this point of application. I think it's because it's about the most universal application in life, everything one of us faces difficulties. James 1, to count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds. And you say how sick, how massacistic. And it's one thing to just say, get through it. Stick with the promises of God. But James is saying, no, I command you to enjoy it. How in the world can he say that? Because he says, you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. That is, it is growing you. Don't you see that? What's the first thing you're going to do when difficult things come across your path? You're going to be like Abraham and you're going to panic and you're going to go down to Egypt. And what the Bible is urging us to do is to not do that to see it first, to force yourself to see it. I want you to write this down if you have something with you. Write it down. The first thing you got to do is to see that difficult circumstance as a place of growth spiritually. Evidently, Abraham did not see that. He didn't see that without claiming the promises of God, he was starving to death in the midst of this literal famine. He didn't see the spiritual symbolism. And he went down to where things would be easier. And of course, they weren't easier. They were even more difficult down there. And I don't know what it is about difficult circumstances, but I don't seem to grow spiritually personally when everything's going great. If you ever felt that way, everything's great. There's no trouble in some of you going, I've never been in that situation, but that's a good thing. Because when everything's going great, what tends to happen? Well, it's like a muscle that isn't used for an extended period of time and just atrophies. You just get lazy. Comfortable conditions breed soft saints. There's a study done by the University of California, Berkeley, where they took an amoeba in one of those little tiny microscopic creatures and put it in a completely perfectly stress-free environment. Ideal temperature, optimal concentration of moisture and constant food supply, whatever in an amoeba environment would cause heart attacks and stress, they got that out of there. As the ideal condition, and just so the amoeba could thrive, right? No, it very quickly died. Bizarre. Why? Well, scientists determined there's something built into that little tiny creature that requires stress. It requires some difficulties in the growth process. And if that's true for a little tiny amoeba, consider what is like for a human being created in the image of God. That growth process is absolutely indispensable. And so the question that this text is begging us to ask is, what is God teaching me in the midst of this circumstance? If I am in the midst of this difficult circumstance, regardless of what other people have done to me, regardless of things that seem unjust, God from His angle is using this to mature me. I am in the laboratory of God's sanctification. He's at work. What is He doing in me? And so the question that this text is begging you to ask yourself is, what is God teaching you? Now the proverb author gives us a pretty graphic picture to startle us into thinking about this, Proverbs 26-11, like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly. And one of the great things about using that verse as a preacher is, I don't have to illustrate. I mean, you're seeing it going, gross, I can't believe he just said that. But that image will stick with you. The next time you panic over something that comes across your path and you want to go down to Egypt, you want to blame other people, you want to do so on and so forth, and let go of the promises of God. The first thing you do is say, what is God teaching me here? God, I beg you. Show me. Ask your close friends. What might I need to learn? There was a funny Ziggy comic strip that I ran across. You remember Ziggy? And this one, Ziggy, looks like a tornado has hit him. He went through Dorothy's tornado and he didn't make it. He just totally befuddled and all these dizzy circles are flying about his head and the caption reads, it seems like every time I try to learn from my mistakes, I get information overload. All right, that's not a bad thing. If we engage in that process and you're saying, yeah, okay, God is downloading to me, message after message after message, things I need to learn, things I need to grow up. That's okay. Because until Jesus returns, we are in the laboratory of life, we are growing sanctification as an ongoing process. God is at work. Don't go down to Egypt. Don't escape. Remain amidst the God of promise, all right? That's the first thing that we should do. The second thing that we should do, don't panic. The second way we should not panic is to see that these, in these difficult circumstances, God and his purposes are there. God hasn't left the land of promise, so to speak. God hasn't left you. He's right there. I mean, isn't it amazing? We learned last week that after Abraham arrived in the land of promise, he sets up all these altars and what happened? The God of promise appeared to him. How many of you have had God speak to you audibly? Don't raise your hand, all right? I don't have God audibly speak to me. He speaks to me by means of his spirit in the written revelation of his word. How many of you had God appear to you? Please don't raise your hand, okay? That just doesn't happen ordinarily today. Abraham had both of those dynamics at work and he still went down to Egypt. As soon as things went south. Isn't it amazing? Abraham, wake up! The God of promise hasn't left you. You may not be able to see him or hear him, but he's there. And boy, that's one of the real problems, isn't it? Because when we face difficulties, it's like if you ever been in an elementary school cafeteria at lunchtime, nightmare, don't do it, okay? It's screaming pandemonium, cacophonous, hellish racket, right? And that's what it's like when you go through these myriads of difficulties, is all these voices screaming chaos. And it's like, it's as though the promises of God, the voice of God is a whisper. And what we have to do is figure out by faith how to mute, put in the mute button on all those ridiculous noises of our circumstances and let the whisper of God shout to us. And remember, I mean, one of the things he whispers to us is this, Jesus, well, the Old Testament says, never will I leave you or forsake you, says the Lord. Jesus even more closely personalizes it at the last words of Matthew 28, as he ascends into heaven, behold, I am with you always. What a picture. I'm leaving, but I'm not leaving. I am with you. And by means of his spirit, Jesus lives in us. But it's so difficult to see that I ran across this study, and this is hard for me to believe, at least the bureaus of standards for our country came up with this, that a dense fog that covered seven city blocks to a depth of 100 feet. Alright, think about this, a dense fog covering seven city blocks, a depth of 100 feet could be contained in less than one glass of water. I mean, that is remarkable to me. And that's a nothing, isn't it? Compared to contrast that little tiny glass of water with the God of the universe who simply by the word of his power, he called life into being out of nothing. And he called Abraham out of Er of the Caldeans into the land of promise, and he calls you and me out of the darkness of this world into the light of the gospel in his son, Jesus Christ. He is far greater than that fog, but the problem is the fog of our difficult circumstances, though it's nothing compared to him, keeps us from visibly upon our senses. Knowing him and seeing him and hearing him. So like Abraham, we freak out, we panic, and we go down to Egypt. We need to recognize that he is right there with us. There's a story about a little boy who was walking with his grandfather one day, and the grandfather asked him, excuse me, the grandson asked, how far are we from home? Granddaddy and the grandfather said, excuse me, no, I got that bath squirt. The grandfather asked the grandson, how far are we from home? And the grandson said, I don't really know. And the grandfather said, well, where are we? And the grandson kind of stopped now. He says, well, I don't know. And the grandfather said, well, then I guess that means young man that you're lost. And he looked up in his grandfather's face with a smile and glimmering eyes and said, no, because as long as I'm with you, I can't be lost. Don't you see? I mean, don't you see what Abraham didn't see in this instance and what we don't see normally, that were never lost as long as we are with him and he with us? Do you know Christ? I mean, that may be the most important question of the day. I'm not asking, have you been to church a lot or have you tried to be a decent person? But do you know God? Do you know the God of Abraham who was a weak man? Do you know his strong God who delivered him out of Egypt? Has that God delivered you out of Egypt of your own sin and have you come to him by faith? Because if so, then he lives in you and he will never leave you or forsake you and as long as you are with him, the God of promise, his presence is with you and he will never let you go. You don't need to panic because every situation that's difficult is a place of growth and God's laboratory of grace. It is the very place where the God of promise, his presence is known and so you don't need to panic and finally you don't need to panic because you can rely on his faithfulness, even amidst your unfaithfulness. One of the most refreshing things to me personally about this passage is how Abraham, though Abraham was unfaithful, God remains faithful and he did so in some creative ways. I don't know if you noticed, but here Abraham, you know, has basically sold out the land of promise and now he sold out his wife to cover his own tracks. But what does God do through the Pharaoh? He blesses Abraham. It says in verse 16 that he dealt well with him. He had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, so on and so forth. And at the beginning of chapter 13, after he's gone about of Egypt, it says, verse 2, now Abraham was very rich in livestock and silver and gold. Why would he have to go down to Egypt in the first place? Because he freaked out over economic collapse. He saw chapter 11 written all over his forehead. And so he in an unfaithful, pragmatistic way goes down to Egypt and what does God do? He blesses him. But that's the gospel, don't you see? God doesn't help those who help themselves. God helps those. Who live utterly forsaken lives from him. That's what grace is about. God erupted into Abraham's life in the first place when Abraham was worshiping other gods. And now he comes back and continues to remain faithful and blesses him even in his unfaithfulness. And then he delivers him, and I love this, out of Egypt using the hand of Pharaoh and as a result of a plague. Did you notice that? It says in verse 17, the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues. So Pharaoh called Abraham and said, what have you done to me? And he sent him away. And it says in chapter 13 verse 1, he went up from Egypt. Now think again about the original audience here. What did they just witness? And they're out in the wilderness. What are they doing? Grumbling and complaining? We want to go back to where? Egypt. And he's showing them here in the life of Abraham. Abraham went back to Egypt. It got him into trouble. But the same God that just delivered you redeemed you out of that slavery by great plagues did the exact same thing long ago through Abraham. And these Israelites looking back to what God did through Abraham also were being encouraged to look forward to God, what God would ultimately do through the ultimate son of Abraham. Because see, when Matthew starts to write his gospel in the first page is the gospel of Matthew, he talks about how when Jesus was born, King Herod wanted to kill him, to kill all these little kids. So it said that Mary and Joseph, his parents, Jesus' parents, went where? Down to Egypt. But what Matthew goes on to tell us is he didn't go down to Egypt ultimately because of fear of Herod. But for a theological reason, as a sign, and it says, as the prophet said, so it might be fulfilled that out of Egypt I have called my son. Wow. That's the gospel, my friends. Abraham and panic, without God's revelation to do so, escaped down to Egypt and like the Israelites it only led to enslavement and further panic and fear and pragmatism. And God said, Abraham, weak man, people of Israel, weak, you and me today in our weakness don't panic, see every situation is difficult as an opportunity for growth. Recognize it in every difficult situation, you don't need to panic because God is right there, the God of promises is right there and ultimately you don't need to panic. But you can rely on his faithfulness even in your weakness and unfaithfulness because of the great ultimate promised son. And God called out of Egypt that same son who had his baptism, heaven opened and said, this is my beloved son whom I'm well pleased with. And then God sent him into the wilderness like the people of God to wander for 40 days, to be subject to every possible temptation with the devil repeatedly saying, if you are the son, then do this. And Jesus resisted and angels came and worshipped him. That's where we're ultimately headed. We're in the midst of this pilgrimage called life wandering in the wilderness headed toward the promised land. But that promised land where there will be no more famine only feasting is the place where we meet the promised one, the son who was called out of Egypt for us. Who in him we find the strength to not panic but trust in the midst of whatever difficult situation you're facing right now. So how do you respond? How should you respond? Don't panic. Be people of promise by looking to the great one, the strong one, Abraham's greater son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, thank you. Would you take this truth now and breed it deep into the fabric of our being that we might grow more and more through our difficulties, that we might be people of promise, holding out life and hope to people in this world without it. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.