Sermon Tone Analysis

Genesis 12:10-20; 15:1-19; 16:1-16

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Introduction

- Every day we exercise faith

- on the highway.

-pick me up

- hardware store without my wallet

 

- faith in God

- looking for direction

- experience an illness,

- When our resources are not sufficient

- When our hopes are not being fulfilled,

- “Can I really believe in God

- God made promises to Abram,

- Would Abram have faith in God?

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I.

I Am Afraid!

Genesis 12:10-20

!! A. Fear Expressed

- promises of blessing,

- famine in the land of promise.

Well, moving wasn’t that hard since he was a nomadic shepherd and had already moved a lot and so he went down to Egypt.

The land of promise is very hilly and if the rain does not come on a regular basis, it can result in a drought and create a problem for farming.

Egypt, on the other hand, was flat land and had the Nile River running through it and thus a steady source of water even when things were dry elsewhere, so Abram took all his flocks and herds down to Egypt.

As he approached Egypt, he became afraid.

He knew the power of the Egyptian rulers.

He remembered the promises of offspring and he was afraid that when he went to Egypt, the Pharaoh would kill him and take Sarai to be his wife.

I don’t know how it was that at the age of 75 Sarai was still considered beautiful and desirable, but she was and Abram was afraid for his own skin and that the promise of God would not be fulfilled.

He saw the power and ungodliness of the Egyptians and became afraid.

He knew that strangers are often treated poorly.

Even in Canada today, immigrants are treated with suspicion and sometimes exploited.

Abram knew this and became afraid.

So in order to protect himself, he told Sarai to tell others that she was his sister.

What would then happen was that they would treat Abram well and he could simply refuse to allow anyone to marry his sister.

This was not unusual and we have a number of other stories in which brothers determined whether or not their sister could marry (24:55; 34:13-17.

He feared, but thought he had a good solution that would overcome his fears.

But it turns out it wasn’t such a good solution.

The people of the land did find his wife quite attractive, but things got worse when Pharaoh found out about her and desired her for his own harem.

Pharaoh was not like any other man and Abram could not refuse to give her to him in marriage.

At this point, Abram was in trouble.

He could not tell the truth now because then he would surely be a dead man.

He could not stop Sarai from going to the house of Pharaoh.

What trouble!

His fears were justified, and the worst possible scenario happened.

!! B. Consequences

            When Pharaoh found out about the deception, because God inflicted Pharaoh’s house with diseases, he became very angry.

The questions Pharaoh asks were not nice gentle questions, they were questions spoken in anger.

“What have you done?” “Why didn’t you…” “Why did you…” They are accusatory questions.

His anger resulted in the immediate expulsion of Abram from Egypt.

He said to Abram “Take her and go!”

He then gave orders to his officials to escort Abram out of Egypt.

Sort of like a referee escorting a ball player who has been ejected to the dressing room.

You can almost hear him say - “get out and stay out.”

Abram makes no defence on his own behalf because he is guilty and he knows it.

The consequences of Abram’s fearful action were not the death of Abram, but the expulsion of Abram and Sarai.

His fear did not bring blessing, but trouble.

We have a rather “unheroic performance of the hero.”

Are these the actions of a man of faith?

!! C. When Fears Possess Us

            We would wag our fingers and cluck our tongues at Abram if we didn’t know that we are not much different.

How many times have we failed to express faith because we were afraid.

How often does the obstacle loom large in our minds?

How often are we afraid because what is bothering us seems so large, even larger than God!

You know how you can be fooled by an optical illusion in which something looks larger than it really is?

That is what happened to Abram and it also happens to us.

We fear because an enemy, a difficulty, a problem looks bigger than God and His promises.

As a consequence, we act in fear rather than in faith.

How can we have the courage to trust God even when the thing in our face looks so large.

The first thing we need to do is be reminded that God is bigger by placin our focus on God once again.

We can do this by looking at what God has done.

Meditating on creation is one way to do this.

When we realize the wonder of all that God has made and are astounded at His awesome works, we can regain a perspective on ourselves.

If we would visit the mountains and see how big they are, or at the shore of the ocean or a large lake and realize that God has created all these things, then our perspective can be restored once again and we can realize that God is “bigger than any mountain” as the song says.

We can also focus on God in His word and as we read the creation story or the Psalms which describe the amazing power and love of God, then we can be reminded that God is bigger than any problem we might have and remember that He is worthy of our trust.

Recently someone who is going through difficulty told me that it helps to look out at the trees and be reminded of the creator by looking at His creation.

We can also be reminded of past experiences of God’s work.

If we read Scripture and recall God’s amazing acts in the past - the exodus of Israel out of Egypt, the coming of Jesus to die on the cross and every story of God’s amazing work in between.

As we remember how God has acted in the past, we are encouraged to trust him in the present.

We can also remember God’s work on our behalf.

That is one reason to keep a journal and to record when we see God at work.

Then in a time of trouble, we can remind ourselves of what God has already done for us and have faith instead of fear.

Participating in an act of remembrance is also helpful.

That is why communion is so important.

There is something about physically participating in such an act that reminds us in a tangible way of how God has come to earth to bring us salvation.

Such acts of remembrance can help us take our eyes off of our fears and put them on the Lord.

Another way of removing fear is to talk to someone who has gone through a similar situation.

Sometimes when we have problems, we want to keep it to ourselves.

That is a trick of Satan because if we are not listening to God or to supportive friends, then Satan has our ear.

Talking to others who understand helps us gain perspective and as they pray for us, we are encouraged and blessed.

We learn that although serious, our problem isn’t as big as we thought.

Another thing that happens as we talk to people is that they pray for us.

As we talk to them, we can confess our fears and even the act of saying, “I am afraid, I wonder if God will…” can be a tremendous help.

As people pray for us after this, we can be greatly encouraged not to fear, but to have faith.

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II.

God Is Not Answering!

16:1-6, 15

!! A Is There Another Way?

If we skip over to Genesis 16, we have another story in which faith was tested in another way.

Abram had no children.

I know that today, when a couple desires to have a child and is unable, it can be very devastating.

This was true at that time.

In fact, at that time, it was a disaster.