Introduction
This morning we begin a series on the life of Abraham (Gen. 12-22) by studying Abraham's early faith. The New Testament teaches that Abraham is "the father of our faith" (73 references in the New Testament; see Rom. 4:1-5; Gal. 3:6ff.; Heb. 11:8-19; Jas. 2:21-24). This means that even though Abraham lived 4100 years ago in a very different culture, we can still learn from Abraham's life what a vital faith in God looks like. Today we will study Abraham's early faith . . .
Abraham's "conversion" is similar to our conversion
Abraham's "conversion" came in response to God's promise (read 12:1:4a). Although there are elements here that are unique to Abraham, there is an essential continuity between his conversion and our conversion to Christ today.
In both cases, God's initiates a promise/offer. For Abraham, it is the promise/offer of a nation, land and blessing (12:2,3). For us, it is the promise/offer of forgiveness and new spiritual life through Jesus (Jn. 6:35).
In both cases, our part is simply to receive God's promise/offer by faith – to take God at His Word. For Abraham, this faith agreed to leave Haran for Canaan (12:1,4 – without knowing where he was going). For us, this faith agrees to entrust ourselves to Jesus and begin a personal love-trust relationship with Him (Jn. 6:35 – without knowing much about what this will lead to).
In both cases, this initial faith-decision begins a process of growing stronger in faith. Abraham's faith eventually becomes strong – but initially it is weak and shaky, mixed with doubts and lapses.[1] Yet God remains committed to Abraham, and works in various ways to mature his faith (Jas. 2:21-23). So it is with us (Col. 2:6,7a). Let's first trace this pattern in Gen. 12,13 – and then we will apply it to us and distill some additional lessons from these chapters.
Abraham's imperfect faith & God's perfect faithfulness
Read 12:4,5 (MAP). Abraham trusted God by leaving Haran for Canaan (500 miles away), even though he didn't know where he was going (Heb. 11:8). This decision in middle-age[2] is quite impressive. But we should also note that he took Lot with him, though God told him to leave his relatives (12:1). Maybe he felt that he needed Lot's help with their flocks. Whatever the reason, this faith-lapse causes problems in Gen. 13 and beyond, as we will soon see.
Read 12:6-9. God reinforced Abraham's step of faith by appearing to him again and reiterating His promise – this time clarifying that Abraham's descendants (not Abraham himself) would receive actual possession of the land. Abraham responded by building altars to God at various places, and by "calling on His name." "Calling on the name of the Lord" involved not only private prayer/worship and sacrifice. It was also a public witness to God's reality in a godless land. The oak of Moreh (12:6) may have been a Canaanite cultic center (see 12:6b). If so, Abraham's altar would have been making a very counter-cultural statement.
Read 12:10-13. Although this decision to escape the famine by going to (fertile) Egypt sounds understandable, it was almost certainly a lapse in Abraham's faith. There is no evidence that he inquired of God, and God had told him to live in Canaan). This faith-lapse led to problems. Realizing that Sarah's beauty is now a liability to him, Abraham urges Sarah to lie about them being married. In the Egyptian culture of that time, a blood-relative could negotiate the dowry for his relative. Abraham evidently thought that this plan would buy time for him to react (flee?) while marriage negotiations were being made. But it was profoundly unloving to Sarah, and (even more importantly) it manifested a lack of trust in God to protect them. One faith-lapse often leads to another.
Read 12:14-16. Abraham's plan backfired, because Pharaoh asserts his power, gives Abraham a dowry (without negotiations) and takes Sarah into his harem.
Read 12:17-20. Here we see God's mercy and patience with Abraham despite his faith-lapse. He sent great plagues on Pharaoh and his house. These plagues are evidently accompanied by the explanation for them. It's not difficult to see God's discipline behind Pharaoh's rebuke (12:18,19a). Yet God also protects Abraham despite his faith-lapse so that they emerge unharmed and financially better off! Pharaoh's words (12:19b) parallel God's word (yalak) to Abraham in 12:1 – was this also a disciplinary reminder to Abraham?
Read 13:1-4. Abraham went back to Canaan (even though the text doesn't say that the famine had ended), and resumed his mission: worshipping God publically and scoping out the land that would be given to his descendants. In this setting comes another test, one that Abraham "passes" this time.
Read 13:5-7. So great are his and Lot's flocks that the land can't sustain them – so their herdsmen began to have serious quarrels (reeb may refer to legal disputes).
Read 13:8,9. He could have exercised his right (by age and God's promise) to take the better grazing lands. But this time, rather than use his superior position to provide for himself, Abraham expresses trust in God's provision by generously giving Lot first choice on where to live.
Read 13:10-13. Lot's response (13:10) may echo Eve's response (3:8). By putting his own financial prosperity first (and without consulting God?), Lot seems to have been motivated by greed – and this led to serious spiritual compromise and peril (Gen. 18,19).
Read 13:14-17. Note especially the phrase "lift up your eyes and look." It is identical to what Lot did when Abraham gave him a choice (13:10), but this time it is God asking Abraham to look as He reiterates and amplifies His promise to Abraham.
Read 13:18. In response to God's promise-reiteration, Abraham relocated to Hebron where he continued his mission of publically worshipping God and scoping out the land that his descendants would one day receive.
Lessons for our faith-walks
We learn from Gen. 12,13 that true believers in God/Jesus sometimes lapse into faithlessness, but God remains faithful to the promises He has made to us. Paul summarizes this lesson this way (read 2 Tim. 2:13; EXAMPLES: forgiveness/acceptance; Spirit's indwelling; eternal life). God remains faithful, not because He "believes in our potential" or even because He knows that we will go on believing – but because He cannot deny His own character (veracity). Knowing and affirming this lesson gives stability to our faith.
We learn from Gen. 12,13 that putting our faith in God often has practical ethical implications. Positively, Abraham's trust in God in 12:4 involved obeying God's command to "Go," and after he returned to Canaan it entailed being generous to Lot. Negatively, Abraham's failure to trust God when the famine hit led him to disobey God's directions, and in Egypt it led to lying and sinning against his wife. So it is with us (allude to Jas. 2:17,26; read 1 Pet. 4:19). We entrust our souls to a faithful Creator by doing what is right. "Faith" that does not manifest itself in ethical obedience is called hypocrisy – and hypocrisy is a crisis in the American evangelical church (in ethical areas related to sex, money, and power). What are the current ethical implications of your faith in God? Are you responding with obedience?
We learn from Gen. 12,13 that a wrong response to fear is the enemy of faith. Abraham's fear of want during the famine led to a lapse in faith in God's provision. Likewise, Abraham's fear of people in Egypt led to a lapse of faith in God's protection. We cannot prevent such fears in a fallen world, but we can choose how we respond to them (JOHN WHITE'S REPLY). If we focus on them and listen to them, they will grow and control us. But if we focus instead on God's promises and the next step of obedience, God will meet us there, provide for us there, and guide us from there. This is why God told Joshua as he faced a very scary step of faith (read Josh. 1:9).
We learn from Gen. 12,13 that God often disciplines us for our faith-lapses. This does not mean that God rejects us or retributively punishes us. But He does allow us often to experience the negative consequences of not trusting Him, and He correct us – sometimes directly, but also sometimes through other people (e.g., Pharaoh). God's aim in His discipline is to redeem our faith-lapses by teaching us lessons that help us later on (read Heb. 12:6,10,11). Abraham learned from his Egypt faith-lapse that he could trust God to provide/protect, and he demonstrated this in the way he handled the situation with Lot. Many of us are arrested in our spiritual discipline simply because we refuse to be trained by God's discipline. How has God disciplined you over the past year? What lessons have you learned through His discipline?
We learn from Gen. 12,13 that wealth is not a sin in itself or antithetical to genuine faith in God. Abraham is the father of faith, and he was "very wealthy." But wealth does not protect us from problems, and it exposes us to special difficulties (Abraham's conflict with Lot) and temptations (Lot's choice to live in Sodom) to our faith. Longing for wealth or loving it will negatively impact our faith (read 1 Tim. 6:10 – illustrated later through Lot). What challenges is money/wealth currently posing to you? How are you handling these challenges?
We learn from Gen. 12,13 that God is often working through our faith to do things that go beyond what we can think or imagine. Note the amazing parallels between Abraham's sojourn into Egypt and return to Canaan, and Israel's later sojourn and return.[3] How encouraging this must have been for Moses' audience as they traveled across the Sinai wilderness! Similarly, we do not know the ultimate ripple-effect of our faith-decisions on others – either on our contemporaries or on those yet to come (read Eph. 3:20,21). We receive occasional glimpses of this (EXAMPLES), but one day we will see the full ripple-effect each step of faith to serve Him (1 Cor. 3:13). This floods each and every day with meaning and significance!
Conclusion
NEXT WEEK: Genesis 14 – "The War of the Kings & Melchizedek"
QUESTIONS & COMMENTS
[1] The fact that God narrates the faith-lapses of biblical characters underscores an important hermeneutical principle: narrating a behavior event does do imply that God condones it. We must look to the Bible's ethical teaching to determine God's evaluation of the behavior of biblical characters.
[2] "The key to the whole problem lies with the patriarchal life-span, which was still approximately double our own (this seems to have been a special providence [cf. Deut. 34:7]: there is no indication that it was general). Abraham died at 175 and Sarah at 127; Jacob was to think 130 years 'few and evil'. Their continued vigor shows that this was no mere postponement of death but a spreading-out of the whole life process: e.g. Abraham at, say, 110 in chapter 22 has the vitality of a man of, at most, seventy. Sarai's sixties would therefore presumably correspond with our thirties or forties, and her ninety years at Isaac's birth with perhaps our late fifties." Kidner, D. (1967). Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 128). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
[3] "One cannot miss the deliberate parallelism between this sojourn of Abram in Egypt and the later event in the life of the nation in bondage in Egypt. The motifs are remarkably similar: the famine in the land (12:10; 47:13), the descent to Egypt to sojourn (12:10; 47:27), the attempt to kill the males but save the females (12:12; Ex. 1:22), the plagues on Egypt (Gen. 12:17; Ex. 7:14–11:10), the spoiling of Egypt (Gen. 12:16; Ex. 12:35–36), the deliverance (Gen. 12:19; Ex. 15), and the ascent to the Negev (Gen. 13:1; Num. 13:17, 22). The great deliverance out of bondage that Israel experienced was thus already accomplished in her ancestor, and probably was a source of comfort and encouragement to them. God was doing more than promise deliverance for the future nation; it was as if in anticipation He acted out their deliverance in Abram." Ross, A. P. (1985). Genesis. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 1, p. 49). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.