Genesis 18

If you’ve ever reached that point where you ran out of hope that God would answer your prayer, you’re in good company.  Sometimes we know what God’s promises are, we’re just not sure they apply to us.   We’re in Genesis 18 today, the part of the story where Sarah has a very honest moment and then Abraham intercedes for people who have long since walked away from God.

Transcript

0:00

If you've ever reached that point where you ran out of hope that God would answer your prayer, you're in good company. Sometimes we know what God's promises are, we just forget that they actually do apply to us. On that very happy note, welcome to Meet Me in the Word. I am genuinely glad that you've joined us today. For those of you viewing this episode, you may have noticed that we've shifted things up in the background, just trying a new approach with all of this. And for those of you who are listeners rather than viewers, uh, don't worry about it. But would you do me this favor? Just go ahead and rotate your phone 90 degrees, and then whatever you imagined this to look like in the past, just know that it's totally different. All right, that's ridiculous. Uh, we're in Genesis 18 today, and it's the part of the story where Sarah has a very honest moment, and then Abraham intercedes for a group of people that have long since walked away from God. We're going to jump right into our text, but first let's pray. Jesus, thank you for being patient with us. Thank you for understanding our quirks and the variety of things that happen in our lives that are just kind of sometimes nonsensical. So, God, we feel safe with you, and I'm so glad for that. Would you lead us? Would you meet with us? Amen. All right, Genesis 18, we're going to summarize the first uh about eight verses. Uh the Lord appears to Abraham, and there are two others along with him, so three people show up, and Abraham knows that it's the Lord. In fact, he bows before him and then immediately moves into hospitality mode. He and Sarah fix up some food, and when all of that's done, uh Abraham and the three visitors sit under a tree and enjoy their food together. And that's where we jump in here at verse nine. Where is your wife Sarah? They asked him. They're in the tent, he said. Then one of them said, I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son. Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, After I am worn out and my Lord is old, will I now have this pleasure? Then the Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh and say, Will I really have a child now that I am old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son. Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, I did not laugh. But he said, Yeah, you did laugh. We're going to pause here for just a moment or two and make an observation or three before we move to the next scene really of this story. The next verse kind of moves us on from this moment. But three things I wanted to iterate at this point. The first one is that the Lord uh reiterates the promise that he's made to Abraham and to Sarah. And this time he gets very specific about the time. This time next year, you will have a son. I'm going to come back, and by the time I return, you'll have uh a baby boy that'll be with you. The second bit is that Sarah is tired of promises. I don't know if you can relate to that or not, but I I can kind of get it. And I don't know if that's she if it's that she didn't believe or what was going on in her heart, but but she'd heard this promise before, you know, and it's been years. In fact, it's been decades since the promise was first given. And she's at that place where she's just like, she's run out of hope. She's not she's not certain that this will actually take place, and she expresses that in that honest moment when she laughs, and she kind of is at that point of exasperation, and that's just where she's at. And then thirdly, attempting to cover anything up with God is really futile. And I appreciate that while Sarah is chastised about her response and kind of called out on her little lie, she's not really punished beyond that. But she's like, What are you doing? Uh God's looking at her and saying, Yeah, come on now. I I know all of the ins and outs of your of your heart and your mind. I I know what's happening, and don't try to hide all of that from me. Sometimes we need to hear that too, don't we? Where we maybe feel some sense of shame or embarrassment or even fear. And so we try to pretend like the thing didn't happen. And God's like, Yeah, I I saw it, I heard it, I I know what happened. It's get over yourself already. Anyway, that's what happened there in that moment. We're gonna move on to verse sixteen and see what happens next. When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. Then the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him, for I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him, to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him. Then the Lord said, The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous, that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know. The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham approached him and said, Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people living in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike? Far be it from you, will not the judge of all the earth do right? The Lord said, If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake. Then Abraham spoke again. Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous is less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people? If I find forty-five there, he said, I will not destroy it. That dialogue, that exchange continues until Abraham has a pledge, I guess pled with the Lord, all the way down to ten people. God, if there are just ten righteous people, will you spare the city? And God says, Yeah. Yeah, if there are ten righteous people, I will not do the thing that I am about to do. I think that's absolutely amazing. Let's make a few more observations of this text uh as we kind of mull it over. The first one is that God will not let sin carry on uh unhindered. In other words, sin that is left unchecked, unconfessed, that's a massive problem. And the way you uh, I guess, see this text, or at least the way that I see this text, is just looking at the words on the page. It reads a lot like the description uh during the uh chapter six, during the the season of Noah, except that of course applied to the whole earth, and this is limited to uh a couple of cities that are that are present there. But it's this sense that that sin is is there's no restraint. It's just run amok, it's it's it's gone all over the place, and there seems to be no sense of it slowing. The people have given themselves over to it, and and they have just they've not only like made mistakes, they are happily continuing in uh that lifestyle and and in the thing that they're that they're doing. So the sin has grown to the place where it's unchecked, unconfessed. That's a problem. But I wanted to make sure that I said this like God will not let sin carry on unhindered. And Jesus is the ultimate response to that situation. Now, Jesus, the the presence of Jesus, the the incarnation, the Christmas story and the Easter story, and everything in between, all of that speaks to this recognition that, again, God will not leave all of that, you know, just carrying on as though there's no hope for us. And he he responds in grace and mercy, in presence, in kindness, in the person of Jesus. And when we put our hope and our faith in Jesus, then our sin gets addressed as well. And it's a really quite a quite an amazing thing. All right, the second bit is that Abraham interceded for everyone in the city on behalf of the righteous ones. Like, wow. Think about that for a moment. And and and I'm sure that Abraham did have humanity like in his mind in general, uh, but but I I think he was thinking a lot about Lot, you know, the one that he knew, uh or the group of people that he knew, the Lot and his family. And still he comes to the Lord and and he he says, uh, God, if if there are fifty, and we don't know the population of Sodom and Gomorrah, we don't know how big or small that city was, but anytime you call something a city, fifty is not a large number. And and and so Abraham's there and he's saying, Look, Lord, I know you have justice in your heart, and and what you intend is is right because of the sin of the people, but but don't don't slaughter, right? Don't slaughter the righteous along with the wicked. Don't treat those two groups of people the same way. And he and he just comes uh toward the Lord for the sake of the righteous ones. By the way, if if the Lord um didn't uh meet out judgment, then a whole bunch of people who were like just outright rebelling against God, they were gonna just carry on with that. And and that's the context of of this dialogue. I just I find it amazing that that uh that kind of intercession or that kind of negotiation, if you want to think about it that way, is is for the righteous, but everybody uh would ultimately benefit from that. And then finally, notice the Lord's patience with Abraham about all of this. You know, for as much as people talk about the wrath that we see in the Old Testament, and I I get that. I mean, it's definitely a different response to sin than what we see in the New Testament. God does, though, even back here in this moment, he he demonstrates a softness, a willingness to listen to somebody who he loves and who loves him, a somebody that he or a person that he has chosen, and that person, Abraham, has chosen to follow God. He makes mistakes, yeah, but but there's this sense that he wants he wants God's plan to work out. And and when we place our hope and our faith in the Lord, I I believe that that the Lord is has that same kind of patience with us. And I find that to be deeply encouraging. You know, when we're coming to the Lord and we're pleading about one thing or another, and you know, we're we we prayed and we talked to him about it yesterday, and then we're back and we're talking to him about it again today, and we're gonna talk to him about it tomorrow, right? Like we're we're that squeaky wheel trying to get the grease, you know, we're we're that person, or we're coming to him and and we've got all kinds of anxious thoughts, or we've got all kinds of doubts and questions and ups and downs, all of those different kinds of things that we experience as humans. God's there and he's like, Yeah, I know. I know where you're coming from. I love you. You're kind of quirky and you're not really getting all of this, but that's okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna stay with you. And that's an incredible thought for us to keep with us. I want to leave you with a couple of questions to mull over in reflection. Which story uh resonated with you the most? Maybe the story to do with with Abraham and Sarah and and just the promise of that child that just connected with you for whatever reason. If that's true for you, then then hang out with that story a little bit longer, talk to God about it. If the story about Abraham pleading with God for for this for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, if that connected with you on some level, then just stay there for a moment and and don't don't rush out of this season. And then secondly, what moves you to plead with God? You might have something that's specific to your life right now that you're pleading with God about. But in general, what what moves you to that place where it's not a casual request any longer, what is just pleading, seeking God, asking him time and again to move in that particular situation. But continue to bring that towards him. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you that you are with us, that you care about us, that you see us. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your response. Help us to walk in freedom and in strength. Amen.