Introduction

As noon was approaching, Richie was hungry. His parents had gone out shopping earlier that Saturday morning and promised they would bring him some lunch, but as the clock moved closer to 12:00, he became worried they wouldn’t remember their promise. So, he set out to make something for himself.

Cooking wasn’t one of his strong suits, though. He tried to make pizzas on toast, but he had to use ketchup instead of tomato sauce, and he burned them badly. And in the process of preparing them, he made quite a mess. He would have found the process funny, except that he now how to eat his creation, and he knew he’d have to clean up the mess when he finished. He managed to muscle it down, and it was truly awful. And just then, his parents arrived carrying takeout pizza from his favourite restaurant.

Richie went to all that trouble when if he had just trusted his parents to do as they said they would, he would have had all the pizza he wanted without the mess to clean up.

Hopefully, Richie learned a lesson from his experience: Mom and Dad are trustworthy. Trying to do what he couldn’t do for himself rather than trusting them to do as they said they would just created a mess.

As we continue looking at the story of Abraham, we find that he needed to learn the same lesson. When we left off last week, Abraham had shown remarkable faith by following God’s command to relocate his family to the land of Canaan. But in the story that follows, Abraham loses his nerve and makes a mess trying to get what God had already promised to give him.

Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.” When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman. And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels. But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife, Sarai. So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had (Genesis 12:10-20, NIV).

When it comes down to it, Abraham’s misadventure in Egypt happened because he didn’t trust God to look after him. Abraham did get riches out of it (including a slave girl who would cause…complications in his family). But God had promised to give those to Abraham anyway. But Abraham gets deported from Egypt, and he no doubt strains his relationship with Sarah (Even though she’s still Sarai in the text, I’ll call her Sarah, since that’s what she’ll be renamed to later). So in the end, he gets what would have come to him, but with more heartache than was required.

Like Abraham, we are called to the way of faith, following God and trusting in his blessing. And like Abraham, we may also be tempted to take matters into our own hands, rather than to entrusting ourselves to God. Like Abraham, we must learn this difficult truth: When we follow God in faith, we can depend on God and must not fall for the temptation of disobeying God to achieve the things we have been promised. If we respond to our situation in fear, rather than faith, like Abraham, we’ll have an unnecessary mess in our lives.

Abraham Responds with Fear

In the previous story, God had promised to bless Abraham if he went to Canaan. But it seems he hasn’t been in the land of Canaan that long, when a famine occurs. Abraham is afraid, and his faith falters. We shouldn’t be too hard on Abraham. He’s in a difficult spot. He’s left his extended family behind, so he doesn’t have a network of people to look after him. If this had happened in Harran, he might have pooled resources with his extended family, making it a bit easier. But here, it’s just Abraham, Sarah, his nephew Lot and some servants.

Believing God is a challenge, but it’s a challenge God wants Abraham to go through for a reason. While the text doesn’t give a reason for the famine, we know it wouldn’t come as a surprise to God. So what seems to be happening is that God has led Abraham to a place where a famine is about to happen. If Abraham can trust that God will provide for him, then God can show Abraham how he’s dependable in a tough spot. But rather than seeking guidance from God, Abraham takes matters into his own hands, heading to Egypt.

As he’s about to enter Egypt, Abraham tells Sarah not to tell anyone they’re married. Sarah must be quite a beauty because Abraham is worried that when the men of Egypt see her, they will be so driven mad by lust that they’ll kill Abraham to take her for themselves. I guess she’s quite the looker (Wait, how old is she?). I imagine that if I ever tried the same stunt with Carolyn, she’d have none of it, but in Abraham’s culture, she’s considered her husband’s property, so she has no choice but to go along.

Abraham and Sarah are half-siblings, but the demand that she tell people she’s his sister is a deliberately misleading half-truth. The fact that they’re half-siblings is scarcely more relevant than the fact that they are married. (Icky from our perspective, but maybe less so then. Maybe?). Abraham has an obligation to protect his wife, but he’s putting her in a difficult spot to protect himself.

It seems Abraham projects his own shortcomings onto God. Abraham has entered into a relationship where God has become his protector. This mirrors the relationship Abraham is supposed to have towards his wife: As her husband, he is honour-bound to protect her. But Abraham betrays Sarah, whom he’s supposed to protect, and he evidently feels compelled to do so because he believes God can’t be trusted to do what He promised.

His lack of faith doesn’t just harm him; arguably, it harms Sarah a lot more. He basically pimps her out for financial gain. In the ancient world, often brothers would negotiate marriage proposals for their sisters. So Abraham basically offers up his wife to Pharaoh, who will give him great wealth in exchange for rights to his ‘sister.’ Abraham seems to make out pretty well in the exchange, getting livestock and slaves (“Servants” is a polite way of putting it. These people are property.)

Of course, Sarah isn’t the only victim here. God sends diseases on Pharaoh and his household. Pharaoh snapped up what he thought was an available woman for his harem. While polygamy wasn’t God’s original intent, it was widely accepted in the ancient world, especially for royalty. Pharaoh even ‘pays’ for Sarah with the livestock and slaves given to Abraham. Somehow, Pharaoh figures out what’s going on, and he sends Abraham and Sarah away, but he lets them keep the bride price.

So, to summarize the story: Abraham, having gone to Canaan by faith, loses his nerve when famine hits the land and he heads to Egypt, demonstrating a lack of faith in God’s provision. When he’s entering Egypt, he fears that the powerful people there will kill him so they can take his wife for themselves, demonstrating a lack of faith in God’s protection.

But despite Abraham’s failures, God honours his promise to look after Abraham, delivering both him and Sarah from Egypt and even setting them up with great wealth. As Paul so beautifully puts it: “if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself” (2 Tim. 2:13, NIV)

We Must Respond with Faith

While the particulars of what happened to Abraham and Sarah are quite foreign to us, the underlying temptations are familiar. We may also be tempted by fear to doubt God’s provision and his protection. We may be tempted to try to do for ourselves what only God can do for us, and in the process, we may make a mess. But we have the opportunity to learn from Abraham’s failures, and even when we fail, God is faithful to us.

Trusting in God’s Provision

When the early church first started, it was among the poorest members of a colonized people. Jesus gives them a huge job to do: Make disciples of all nations. Surely if God wanted a global church, he would have picked better-resourced people. But God promises to supply his people. Jesus tells us that when we seek God’s kingdom (his reign on earth beginning in our obedience) he will make sure we are looked after:

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matt. 6:31-33, NIV)

I should point out that the promise to supply his people is not meant as an invitation to self-indulgence. Think of it like an expense account. If I were a salesman of luxury goods, I might need to spend big money on wining and dining potential customers. That would be appropriate. I might need to spend money on a fancy wardrobe because top-tier clothes are an expectation in the crowd I’d be servicing. I would be able to justify spending money on things I might enjoy, but there are limits. I couldn’t take my extended family on a luxury cruise on the company dime because that’s not something that furthers the interests of my business.

God’s promise to look after our needs is somewhat similar. It is contingent on us seeking his agenda, not a way of achieving our own agenda. In other words, when our highest concern is his kingdom, he looks after us, but when my highest concern is my kingdom, God supplies me with whatever I ask for, works against what God is trying to do. So I can’t expect God to cater to my every whim, but I can trust God to give me what I need to be obedient to him.

Trusting God’s Protection

Just as Abraham was worried that God wouldn’t protect him from the Egyptians, so we often worry that God won’t protect us either. God has promised to protect us:

If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,” 
and you make the Most High your dwelling, 
no harm will overtake you, 
no disaster will come near your tent. 
For he will command his angels concerning you 
to guard you in all your ways; (Psalm 91:9-11, NIV)

God has taken us on as his people, like a patron in ancient cultures. As a patron, he is responsible for our safety. But many Christians today doubt God’s faithfulness to his promise of protection. We see the waning of the church’s influence over the past 60 years as a worrying sign: might God be abandoning us? Or we fear being taken advantage of by people who are hostile to faith, so we justify hostility towards people who don’t like us, despite Jesus’ command to love our enemies.

God’s promise to protect us is dependable, but it needs to be understood within a broader context. The more attentive of you may have recognized verse 11 from the Psalm as a verse Satan quotes to tempt Jesus to jump off the temple. Satan is tempting Jesus to force God’s hand to protect him so that he can be immediately seen as the Messiah by the Jewish religious authorities. This is a temptation to shortcut God’s plan for how Jesus will become king: Satan is offering a kingdom without the cross. Jesus refuses because he understands that God is faithful to protect him from pointless suffering, but that God does ask him to suffer out of love for others to bring about their redemption.

Throughout his ministry, we see God protect Jesus. So, for example, Jesus is able to escape a crowd attempting to kill Jesus in Nazareth, his hometown (Lk. 4:28-30). Those attacks weren’t a part of God’s plan of redemption, so God faithfully defended Jesus.

But when God’s redemptive plan required Jesus’ suffering sacrifice, Jesus submitted to it (Jn. 12:27-28; Mt. 26:38-42). As with Jesus, so with us: God is faithful to protect us from pointless suffering but he asks us to follow Jesus’ example in submitting to suffering that plays a part in his grand plan of redemption. So we go through things that may even seem senseless at the time. We see Children being abused, faithful people afflicted by mental health challenges, or bodily ailments, or we see people being the victims of crime. But I believe God only allows these things to happen when they have redemptive possibility.

Personally, I wrestled with this as I thought about why God would allow my father to die when he was only 33. What could that accomplish? Only God knows for sure, but our suffering can help us learn to hope in God, rather than in perishable worldly things. Or it can give us an opportunity to display peace in hard times, so others see God at work in us. Or maybe, it gives us an opportunity to show others God’s radical forgiveness, so that they can understand that God can forgive them. On this side of eternity, we won’t know the precise reasons why some individual misfortune happened to us, but we can trust that God doesn’t let it happen for no reason.

Trusting God’s Faithfulness

As God provides and God protects, hopefully, we can stand in faith. But when we don’t, when we shrink from the challenge of faith as Abraham did, we can know that God remains faithful. As we saw above, there were consequences for Abraham’s lack of faith: it harmed both Sarah and Pharaoh’s household But God still honoured his commitment to protect and bless Abraham.

God calls us to stand in faith. In all likelihood, we will probably fail that test at times. And just as with Abraham, God is patient with us in our failures. There will be more opportunities to learn to trust. At the same time, that’s not to say that we can afford to be nonchalant when God tests our faith. When my faith buckles, I don’t lose my place as a member of God’s people, but I may still experience consequences. So may others, even people I love,  and I may find that I get sidelined in God’s great drama of redemption. God will bring about his kingdom, but he’ll do it with others who learned to trust him when he asked them to do hard things.

Conclusion

So in this story, Abraham serves as a cautionary tale and an encouragement. Abraham’s failure reminds us not to doubt that God can provide for us, even if we need to understand that provision means God will give us what we need for the job he has given us, not a blank cheque to satisfy our every desire. Abraham’s failure also reminds us not to doubt that God can protect us, but we need to understand that God doesn’t protect us from all unpleasant things. He does protect us from suffering that doesn’t bring the possibility of redemption with it. Finally, Abraham’s failure reminds us that even when we are faithless, God remains faithful. This doesn’t mean we should consider obedience optional — the consequences for failure are very real, yet this means that when we have failed, we can hold on to hope, knowing that God doesn’t reject us when we fall short. God is calling each of us into our own Canaan—a place of uncertainty where our faith will be tested, but we need not be fearful. Because he is faithful.