Genesis 20:6-10 Bible Study | Episode #280

November 4, 2023

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Genesis 20:6-10 Bible Study | Episode #280

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Alive, Applying God's Word to your daily life.

Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to.

And allow you to see him and to know him, and to know his will, that you might glorify him, and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus' name. Good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's Morning Bible study. We are in Genesis chapter 20. We are quickly moving through the book of Genesis, but we're we're enjoying it for sure.

And like I said yesterday, it's an opportunity for me to delve into some books, especially as a uh, teach 'em in a Bible study situation where where we can study them and move through them quick enough to keep our attention. And oftentimes that's very difficult to do.

With something that's done on a weekly basis, but we're doing it every morning and been doing this for over a year now. And I've been enjoying it. I hope you have too. This morning we're dealing with a was a king down in the area of Southern Israel. Today probably the area we call the Gua Strip.

And he He was a king, and he was a king in his time. And one of the things you may not understand about Abraham moved his moved his people in his household around because he had such large herds and such large uh, cattle and camels that one area, one small area could not sustain the the depth and the breadth of his wealth and his his his holdings.

And he had a household that at least had. We know over 300 men that could fight. And quite possibly. He had a contingent of thousands that would've been part of taking care of all that he had. So he was a man of great influence and great wealth and the kings of that.

Wanted to be aligned with him. They wanted to have alliances with him. And we even see the King of Sodom wanting to do him a good favor after he had gone and recaptured them and taken back. All that had been taken from the Kings of the South during that war. That happened A couple of chapters.

And but but Abraham didn't want to have anything to do with the king of on the other hand the king of this region Abi lived in Guar. He. He wanted to have an alliance with Abraham, and so he went and and took Abraham's sister as his wife. The problem was, is that Abraham's sister was not Abraham's sister.

Abraham's sister was his wife. And Abraham allowed that to take place as a ruse so that no one would kill him. And take his wife when she was young and beautiful. Now they've just continued on and, that's one of the first things we need to get to when we're studying this is oftentimes the sins of the past just keep on happening because you've not dealt with them, you've not addressed them.

You've not come in and looked at 'em and said, this is something that needs to change in my. And oftentimes they cause difficulties and problems that you didn't even realize what happened down the road because you just failed to failed to adequately deal with the issues of the day.

And, God is revealing those issues to us, not so that he can condemn us. In fact, the Bible is quite clear that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. He's not in the business of condemning you. And oftentimes we struggle with that because we see we see our walk with him as being something as condemning and that God.

All the time condemning sin. God is not condemning sin. God is washing sin. He's washing it away. He's growing us. He's maturing us. He's moving us past the things of our past and trying to help us walk into into the newness of life that comes that comes with the Holy Spirit, changing who we are, changing our will, changing our ways causing our hearts and our minds to be.

To be different, to be new, to see the world from a new perspective. And to continue in the old ways is just to continue in the death. That was before. But we're not we're not dead anymore. We're a new creation. The oldest pass, the newest come. That's what scripture tells us. And as being a new creation, we need to function in those in the ways that God has made us to function in, not in the ways that.

Our flesh just naturally wants to function in, and, your flesh is always wanting to rise up and take control and and it does many times. I know it does for me. He says, And God said to him, and a dream verse six. I he's talking to a bik. He told him he he told him you have married somebody else's wife and I'm gonna kill you for it because obviously Sarah was was going to be the vessel in which the promise of God was going to be delivered to the world.

And he couldn't take her as his wife. That was just unacceptable. And he said, I'm gonna kill you for it. And the ick said look I didn't know. And she told me that she was her she was Abraham's sister and and I hadn't even gone in with her. I've done nothing wrong. In fact, he says, I'm.

I, I've kept my integrity and so God comes to him in a dream and notice God is speaking to him in dreams. I think that's very important. I do want you to know that God speaks to us in many ways. He speaks to us. He speaks to us in dreams. He speaks to us in visions. He speaks to us primarily through his word.

He speaks in into our heart's the in the quiet times where it's just us and him. He will speak to your heart. He speaks he, for and here's the cool thing about God. God speaks to each individual in a very unique way. He has a unique personal relationship with you.

And so oftentimes people want to emulate. The way God speaks to someone that maybe they maybe they respect or admire. And when they say God speaks to me this way, then they search for God to speak, for, speak to them the way that he is speaking to the person that they, they admire.

And oftentimes they're disappointed that God's not not got, God's not treating them the same way. Listen. God is a God of equality, but he's not a God of saying this. We're all equal at the foot of the cross, but we're not all the same. And understanding, equality and sameness are two totally different things.

Equality is that we're equally paid for and bought at a price we're equally atone for. We equally. We're equally empowered and gifted in the sense that we have the Holy Spirit and we have the guidance of God Almighty himself, but we're not all the same and we're never going to be the same.

And in fact why would we wanna be the same? The wonders and the beauty of God's creation is the. Is the differences and the uniqueness of individuals and peoples and places and locations. And, one of the things that I deal with on a regular basis in the law is that land is unique.

There's no one piece of land that is exactly the same as any other piece of land. And you go I've been to a neighborhood and I've seen two lights. And and those two lights look like they're the exact same lights. They're not, I can tell you that they're not. You place the same house on both those lots and the water will drain differently and the house will settle differently and and your neighbors to your left and the right won't be the same.

And let me tell you something, there's really not any. In the world we live in today, there's not any sameness going on really at all. We're equal before God, but we're not the same before God. He speaks to you individually and that's very important for him because he wants to show the tremendous nature of his grace and his grace being alive in you in the very unique way.

It is glorifies him. In a unique way that no one else can to understand that you glorify God uniquely in a way that no one else quite can do The same way is a powerful notion. It's a powerful understanding and and so how God speaks to you and how God works his way and his will out in your.

Is a powerful understanding to have. He's actively, regularly, all the time speaking, moving, meeting with you on a regular basis, and he is glorifying himself uniquely through you. And How he moves in your life, how he reveals himself to you in your life is very unique. Now he doesn't do any of that outside of his revelation, full revelation to you, which is his word.

He doesn't do it outside of that if you say God told me this, and that's qu quite clearly not what God says in his word. Then I can tell you this, God didn't tell you that. And if you have a dream that God said go into the neighboring town and kill 20 people, I'm gonna tell you that's not in the Bible.

That's not . That doesn't work for God. If you tell me that God said something that quite clearly his scripture says, that's not him, then that's not gonna be him. And you're hearing someone else, you might be hearing yourself or more, more disturbingly you might be hearing of hearing from somebody else that you don't need to be listening to.

And and God speaks to us and then he gives us the outline of how he speaks and how he moves. And that outline is Jesus Christ. He is the, he's the parameters by which God moves because God moves only through him and he moves through him to us and through us. And obviously he's not going to move outside of his son.

He's not gonna move outside of his spirit. And both of those are at work in your life. And so he is not gonna move outside of them when he is moving in your life, when he is revealing himself in your life. He says, Yes, I know. God said to him, Yes, I know. You did this in integrity of your heart.

Notice you did this rightly. You did this because you weren't trying to do anything evil. In fact, you were trying to build a relationship, build an alliance. And you know what? There's nothing wrong with trying to build a relationships with those who are walking with God and a bi quite clearly.

That's what he was trying to do. He saw a man who was walking in the blessings of God. He saw a man who. Who was experiencing the blessings of God. And he wanted to align himself with that man. And that man was Abraham. And he is the man of promise. He is the man of God's promises. And so when when he looked at Abraham and he said he said, Abraham, I am I wanna be a part of your life.

I wanna be a part of what you're doing. And he took Abraham's sister as his wife. He was just trying to get as close as he possibly could to Abraham. What he didn't know is Abraham hadn't fixed that problem of deceit and sin in his life, and it caused it caused a bi X issues.

He says. He says he says, For I also, God is speaking to, for, I also withheld from you sin against me. Therefore, I did not let you touch her. Notice God was at work in Abe X Life, and that's what he's saying. I've been protecting you in this situation. I knew that your heart was in this situation.

I knew that you were trying to do the right thing. And that's one of the great things about God also, that we oftentimes miss out on God. Is not really, he is not really interested in in rewarding you for the outcome of your faith. Did y'all know that he's not, He is in charge of the outcome of your faith.

By the way, I don't know if you knew that or not. He is, he's rewarding you for the exercising of your faith. That's what God's in the business of doing. He wants you to exercise his faith. Your faith. He wants you to trust him. He wants you to. What it is to trust him. He wants you to know what it is to walk in faith with him.

And and he is, he's in charge of the outcome. So many times we try to walk with God and faith and we wanna see really big things happen in the kingdom, in our lives. And they're not happening in the moment. And we become depressed and we become upset and we become distraught because things are not working out the way we perceive them to.

Supposed to be working out and they're just not, they're not coming about the way we we want them to. And and then we turn away from our. That is, that is an antithesis of what God is wanting to actually do in your life. He wants to teach you to walk by faith and he is in charge of what that faith brings forth.

He's in charge of what that faith accomplishes. And let me tell you something. The typical story that I love to tell is that the missionary who goes to. To to the area of the world where the people are just so resistant to the good news of Jesus Christ and he spends his whole.

Sharing the gospel, loving the people there. Loving being a good neighbor, a good friend, being a person in the community that is a difference maker changing the world he lives in. And yet no one seems to come to a saving. Or a life changing relationship with Jesus Christ, except for maybe one or two or three.

And many would say that man who gave his whole life really gave his life for nothing because nothing came about. That's just not true. That's not true. And in light of God's revelation and his understanding. That might man might have accomplished more than we any missionary who went and saw thousands and thousands come to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And oftentimes those situations happen in such a way that one person that came to Jesus Christ is the initiating point to where thousands and hundreds of thousands come to Jesus Christ. Way after that missionary has gone on to be with the Lord and you say that wasn't his work.

Yes, it was. It was the extension of who he was. That person who came to Christ and maybe her son or grandson came to Christ, maybe a decade later. That grandson grew up to be or granddaughter, grew up to be a great warrior for Christ. And sharing the gospel to the people of that region and changing the world they live in.

That's a legacy of the of that missionary who in his lifetime. By his own standards and through his own eyes, might have even been considered a failure, but he wasn't a failure. And oftentimes what you want to accomplish in the Kingdom of God and what God is accomplishing through you are divergent.

They're not the same. They don't, they're not. They're not they don't work together. What God's accomplishing through your faith is his will and his. And remember that I, my, I'm trusting God for his will and his way, not my will and my way. And knowing that, seeing that understanding that helps you to continue to walk faithfully before God.

Not worried about the outcome, but worried about the faithfulness that that God is concerned for with you. He said verse seven, he says, Now therefore, restore the man's. For, he is a prophet and he will pray for you and you shall live. What he's saying is give give Sarah back to Abraham.

And Abraham's gonna have all, he's gonna have a relationship with you because you haven't been trying to do anything evil. In fact, he's not even, he's not going to he's not going to uh, Condemn you. In fact it is really his fault. He did all this happened. Anyway he's going to he wants to be aligned with you.

You're a man of integrity. Go and do right by Abraham and he will do right by you. And he's a prophet and he will pray for you and you shall live. And doing things the right way and not the wrong way always works out ultimately for God's best because God is in the business of placing you on the right path and causing you walk in the right ways.

He says, But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die. You and all who are yours. What he's saying is, He's saying is what the Bible clearly. The way of the righteousness life and the way of the lost is death. There's a way that seems right to man, but in the end it, it ends in death.

Anything that's not in God's will is ultimately death. And understanding that is important too. Understanding that walking in your own will and your own way ultimately lives, leads to death. And Abraham understood that and a bik who is a man of integrity, and he's obviously a man that God spoke to.

So he's a man of faith. He. He was spoke to in a dream. He's a man who hears God and does what he says. That's faith. And he is going to be aligned with Abraham and they are going to be not only politically aligned, they're going to be economically aligned. They're going be tied together A bilac, it says a bilac rose early in the morning and called in his servants and told all these things in their.

And the men were very much afraid. Notice his servants are men who fear God also. He they, they understood that uhoh, we've we're in a dangerous territory here. We need to get it fixed, he says. And a ette called Abraham and said to him, What have you done to us? Notice he's not happy about the situation he's in.

He wanted to be aligned with Abraham and. And be friends, and he's called Abraham out. There's nothing wrong with calling somebody else. Every once in a while he says, I called Abraham and said to him, What have you done to us? How have I offended you that you have brought on me and my kingdom a great sin?

You have done de to me that ought not to be done. What he's saying is, You should have told me. And oftentimes we are afraid to hurt somebody's feelings and tell them the truth. Remember you want to tell them the truth for the purpose of their best. And that's love. But failure to tell someone the truth that is for their best.

Is also a failure of love. You don't love someone when you don't give them the information that they sure enough needed to do the right thing and to walk in the right way. He said then Alabama said to Abram, What did you have in view that you have done these things? This thing, what he's saying is what were you trying to accomplish?

What were you trying to do? I think that's great of a too. He didn't cut off his relationship with Abraham cuz this happened. He wanted to find out what Abraham's purposes were in this and, That is a great a great key to life. One of the things I've learned in the year and a half to two years that I've known Pastor Kerry and we've gone on this great adventure together as pastors of Lake Community Church.

One of the things I've learned is, He always tries to find the intentions of the people's hearts. In a, in any situation, that's a difficult situation. He always tries to find the intentions of their heart, and he always tries to leave their heart in the right direction and not in the wrong direction.

Situations and struggles and difficulties don't always have to end in somebody being rebuke and destroyed. They can alway, they can oftentimes end and somebody revealing. What they were thinking and allowing the Holy Spirit to teach them and to show them and to reveal to them what the right path is and how they aired in, in, in the way they were dealing with the situation.

And, if life with Christ is anything, it sure is a learning experience and. So many times believers think that I'm I, it's necessary that I walk perfectly before the Lord immediately. And if I fail in any way I'm a failure to myself. I'm a failure to my family and I'm a failure to God and I'm just never gonna make it being who I thought I was gonna be in the kingdom.

And that's just not true. The one thing for sure that life is. Is a learning experience. And if life's not a learning experience, then we're all doing we're all destroyed. Walking with God and learning to walk with God is a important. It is a it is a life giving. It is a natural part of the Christian life and To do right and learning to speak to others and find out where their heart is and build those bridges as best we can.

Sometimes people won't let you build a bridge to 'em. They'll let you bridge, build a bridge across the river, but they won't let you put the foothold on the other side. Sometimes that happens for those folks, you just love 'em and let 'em go. But for most people they will let you show them the.

And and they'll trust you more because you were willing to look at them as they are as broken. But spirit filled followers of Christ that need a little bit of push sometimes, a little bit of guidance sometimes, and a whole lot of love and a whole lot of expectation that God's grace can change everything.

And if we do that regularly with each other, We build the kingdom. And if we do that regularly with each other we make a difference in the world we live in. And I would say to you this morning that it is of the utmost importance that we do the things the right way when God shows us the right way.

And we make every effort to try to figure out what that. Not just for our benefit, but for those that we love around us, which ought to be our neighbors. And for sure it ought to be other believers in the church because the law of the spirit tells us that we could love God, love each other, and love our neighbors as ourselves.

And if we'll do that there's not much God can't do in and around us.

As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus' name.