I. Why was Abraham in exile?
·
God called Abraham to leave his home and go to a
new land. (Genesis 12:1-3)
When Abraham steps on the scene in Genesis 12, humanity is
in shambles. After God preserved Noah and his family through the Great Flood,
Noah’s descendants rebelled against God and built the Tower of Babylon.[1] In
response, God drives the people out of Babylon—but in chapter 12 he chooses one
man out of Ur (which is in Babylon) and calls him to take on a new mission:
The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your
people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you
into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you
will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I
will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis
12:1-3, NIV)
God calls Abraham to leave the land of his birth, his family,
and his home, and go into a strange land. At this point, God doesn’t even tell
him which land he’s going to! This is the literal definition of exile: to be
cast out of one’s home.
·
God promised to give the land to Abraham’s
descendants.
But isn’t God bringing Abraham to a new home? That might
have been Abraham’s hope, but that’s not how God’s plan worked out. Instead, it
is says:
Abram traveled through the land as
far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time
the Canaanites were in the land. The Lord appeared to Abram and
said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” (Genesis 12:6-7, NIV)
See, God did not promise to give the land
to Abraham—he promised to give the
land to Abraham’s descendants. God
was planning on giving the land to a nation, not a small family, and so until
Abraham’s family became as big as a nation, they would simply be wanderers in
the land of Canaan.
·
Abraham was in exile because he was waiting for
God’s promises to unfold.
Abraham was an exile in the Promised Land because he was
waiting for God’s plan to be fulfilled. God promised to make his family a
nation, and that takes time. Abraham was in exile, not because of anyone’s
sinful actions or persecution, but because God had a plan and that plan
involved waiting. Abraham was not in the land of Canaan to evangelize, to
conquer, or to condemn; he was simply there to wait for the future fulfillment
of God’s promises. This is how the author of Hebrews describes Abraham’s
journey:
By faith Abraham, when called to go to a
place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and
went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger
in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were
heirs with him of the same promise. For he was
looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and
builder is God…. All these people were still living by faith when they died.
They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them
from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers [Greek:
exiles] on earth. (Hebrews 11:8-10, 13, NIV)
Sometimes we experience times of exile in which there is no
major mission to be accomplished. Maybe it’s because we are not in the right
place to accomplish a mission (like being in isolation because of Caronavirus!)
or because God’s plan requires us to wait—but there are times for each of us
when we simply have to wait. And waiting can be the hardest thing God asks us
to do. Abraham is a great example of how hard waiting can be!
II. What was Abraham supposed to do in his exile?
·
Abraham was supposed to believe in God’s
promise. (Genesis 15:1-6)
Our first question during exiles like Abraham’s is always,
“What am I supposed to do?” We want to be active, we want to move forward, we
want to feel like we have some kind of control over our fate. But that’s not
what God asks us to do. When Abraham struggles with God’s plan—for him to wait
for God to give him a family—God takes him outside and shows him the stars:
He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and
count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall
your offspring be.” Abram
believed the Lord, and he
credited it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:5-6, NIV)
This is an incredibly important moment in the story of
Abraham. God reiterates his promise, and Abraham believes it—even though he’s
100 years old and has no children! And by the sheer act of believing in the
promises of God, Abraham is counted as “righteous”—meaning he is officially “on
God’s team.” That’s all he had to do: believe that God would fulfill his
promises! It’s as easy as that! …Or is it?
·
Abraham was supposed to stick to God’s plan.
(Genesis 16:1-6)
The stories about the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and
Jacob’s sons) can be strange and bewildering at times. It can help to remember
that the story of Abraham’s family is the story of God’s promise to a specific family line. The drama of
each story is always based around the inheritance of God’s promises from one
generation to another. So while it may seem like Abraham’s job is done now that
he’s been “counted as righteous,” the very next chapter shows us that it simply
isn’t true—because Abraham immediately
puts that inheritance at risk:
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no
children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; so she said
to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep
with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what
Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten
years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her
husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
(Genesis 16:1-4, NIV)
Abraham and Sarah lost patience waiting for God to fulfill
his promise, and so they found another way: by victimizing their slave girl,
Hagar. It is true that Abraham was counted as “on God’s team” in chapter 15,
but in chapter 16 he scores a goal for the other team by having a son by
another woman. Suddenly the inheritance of God’s promises is in jeopardy: if
this new child becomes Abraham’s heir, then it will disinherit the son that God
promised to give them through Sarah. Ultimately God will overcome this obstacle
that Abraham put up to his plan (God always does!), but this story demonstrates
to us that it isn’t enough to just to mentally believe that God will fulfill
his promises. We also have to believe through our actions—we have to stick to
God’s instructions instead of making our own plans. Abraham’s mission was not
just to wait, but to wait faithfully—to stick to the plan, even when he was at
his most impatient.
·
Abraham was supposed to trust in God’s
promise. (Genesis 20:1-18)
There is another aspect of waiting in exile: not just
believing that God will do what he said he would do, but also trusting that God
will protect us long enough for his plan to be accomplished. Abraham struggled
with this part of the mission as well:
Now Abraham moved on from there into
the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. For a
while he stayed in Gerar, and there Abraham
said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” Then Abimelek king of Gerar
sent for Sarah and took her. (Genesis 20:1-2, NIV)
Now remember, the plot of Genesis is driven by inheritance.
So when Abraham lies about his wife and another king takes her for himself, the
whole project is in jeopardy again. If Abimelek marries Sarah, according to
ancient custom, she can never bear legitimate children for Abraham. She
wouldn’t be able to give birth to Isaac anymore. Why did Abraham lie and put
the mission in danger?
Abraham replied, “I said
to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will
kill me because of my wife.’ (Genesis 20:11, NIV)
Abraham lied because he was afraid that Abimelek would kill
him to steal his wife. This is a very human thing to do: even though Abraham
trusted God to give him a child thirty years after he started collecting social
security, he somehow didn’t trust God to protect him from Abimelek. In the heat
of the moment Abraham resorted to deception—and risked the victimization of his
own wife—in order to protect himself.
Waiting in exile is hard because we have to trust: we have
to trust that God will deliver the promise, but we also have to trust that God
will protect us so that we can receive the promise. Abraham failed in his
mission here, and it is only because God intervened and protected him from his
own mistakes that Abraham, Sarah, and the promise survived. Sometimes we feel
like waiting for God means doing nothing, but in reality it means doing one of
the hardest things we can be asked to do: stay faithful to the promise, even
when we have reason to be afraid or impatient.
III. How did God use Abraham’s exile?
The last question we have to ask, now, is: what is God doing
during all of this? God makes the promise, he accepts Abraham on his team, and
then Abraham (seemingly) does everything he can to spoil the mission. How does
God respond? Tied up in this question are questions about salvation—are we
saved simply by believing in God, or do we have to do something to earn
salvation? Truth be told, the story of Abraham is not about salvation—when
Abraham is “justified,” it means something different than how Christians
normally use it. Rather, Abraham’s story is about faith: what it means to
believe and to be faithful to God. And so God’s response to Abraham’s
questionable faith is important for understanding how he responds to our
questionable faith, as well.
·
God tested Abraham’s faithfulness. (Genesis
22:1-18)
Genesis 22 contains one of the most powerful stories in the
Bible, and it begins in a shocking way. In Genesis 21 God finally delivered on
his promise to give Abraham a son, whom he named Isaac. Then, in chapter 22,
this happens:
Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him,
“Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. Then God said, “Take your son, your only
son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as
a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” (Genesis 22:1-2, NIV)
God “tests” Abraham by commanding him to sacrifice his own
son. Now, human sacrifice is definitely wrong in scripture, but this isn’t just
any sacrifice. God is demanding the son of promise, the one for whom Abraham
had been waiting all these years. Suddenly, at least from Abraham’s
perspective, it is God who is putting the mission in jeopardy. What will
Abraham do? He obeys. In spite of all his previous failures to obey and trust
God, in the most difficult test of his faith, Abraham finally lives out the
faith he expressed in Genesis 15. He takes his son to the mountain to sacrifice
him. But remember, this was only a test:
But the angel of the Lord called out to him
from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. “Do
not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know
that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your
only son.” (Genesis 22:11-12, NIV)
God stops Abraham just in time, and Isaac is allowed to
live. Our first reaction is relief—thank goodness Isaac, and the promise,
survived! But then we moderns react in horror: how could God possibly do
something like that? Why did he administer such a cruel test? If God already
knew what was in Abraham’s heart, why would he do such a thing?
·
God’s test revealed Abraham’s faithfulness. (James 2:20-24)
In order to understand this test, we have to remember the
context of this story. When we think of tests, our main point of reference is
the tests we take in school. These tests are used by teachers to discover how
much their students know. The problem here is that God knows everything, so he
must already know what Abraham would do if he tested him. So why would God put
Abraham through such a traumatic experience if it was entirely unnecessary? In
the ancient world, however, the primary context for testing was not academic,
but metallurgic—that is, testing metals to discover what they are made of. The
difference is important: in this kind of test, the true nature of the object is
not just discovered—it is revealed.
When you test a metal, the metal is changed, it’s true nature is made visible.
God did not test Abraham in order to find out whether he had faith—God already
knew that. God tested Abraham in order to reveal his faithfulness—in order to
reveal that he was faithful. After all, if Abraham has faith, but that faith
never actually affects his actions, what is the point? It would be like having
a chunk of metal that has gold inside it. If the gold is never revealed, does
it really have value? This is exactly what James is getting at in his letter:
You foolish person, do you want evidence
that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our
father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son
Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his
actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he
did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says,
“Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and
he was called God’s friend. You see that a person
is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone. (James
2:20-24, NIV)
Notice what James says here: that the statement from Genesis
15 (“Abraham believed in God, and it was credited to him as righteousness”) was
fulfilled in chapter 22 when he was willing
to sacrifice Isaac. The story in Genesis 22 made Abraham’s faith real—it
brought it to the surface, made it visible.
This is what God’s testing does. God isn’t being arbitrary
or callous. He isn’t a kid on an anthill doing experiments on us poor mortals.
God’s tests are opportunities: they
give us a chance to become the people God is making us to be. They give us a
chance to use the qualities he has given us, to show that we truly are a
redeemed, sanctified people. The way we behave in exile is a test, because it
shows who we really are. The longer this exile lasts, the more we begin to see
what people are really made of. They begin to reveal more of themselves, what
they believe in and what they care about. As Christians we should seek to
reveal that we have been transformed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ into new
creations.
·
God used Abraham to set an example of
faithfulness for his people. (Galatians 3:1-9)
It’s possible that you are beginning to feel like a failure
at this point. Maybe you look back at the choices you’ve made, and you feel
like you have failed the tests God has put you through. If that’s you, I want
to remind you of one important fact about Abraham: he failed tests too. We’ve seen two of those failures today! In
fact, that ruse with Abraham calling Sarah his wife? He did that twice! When
God tested Abraham in Genesis 22, he was giving Abraham another chance. And
when Abraham passed the test, God used it to make Abraham into an example of
faith to his people for the rest of history! Thousands of years later, when
Paul wanted to convince the Christians in Galatia that God’s people are defined
by their faithfulness to God, instead of their obedience to the Law of Moses,
he reminds them of Abraham’s example:
So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work
miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you
heard? So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as
righteousness.” Understand,
then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture
foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel
in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those
who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
(Galatians 3:2-9, NIV)
Here is the amazing thing about Abraham’s story: even though
Abraham’s job was essentially to wait while God fulfilled his promise to bless
the world, the faithfulness Abraham
showed while he waited became part of that blessing. God built his people,
not just on Abraham’s family, but also on Abraham’s example—an example he set
through God’s testing. For thousands of years now God’s people have looked back
on Abraham’s example and been encouraged, challenged, and reminded to do the
same.
I don’t know where you are in your exile, and I don’t know
how God is using your exile, but I know that we are all waiting—waiting for God
to restore us to health and fellowship. No matter what else is on your plate—no
matter how many or few opportunities you have to actively build the kingdom—I
want you to know that there is power in the way you wait. Waiting patiently on
the Lord is a hard calling, and it is an honorable one. Be encouraged: what you
are doing matters. The way you wait, the way you keep the faith, the way you
resist the urge to take matters into your own hands—all of this brings glory to
God and testifies to the world that we are a people of hope, a people who
follow a king that is working powerfully in the world to bring all people to
himself. The author of Hebrews says this about the people of God who wait
patiently and faithfully for the future promises of God:
People who say such things show that
they are looking for a country of their own. If
they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had
opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing
for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to
be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews
11:14-16, NIV)
God is not ashamed of those who are waiting, of those who
have nothing to do but wait. God loves his people, and he is preparing a city
for us—a city that will fulfill every promise he has made to us. So take
courage. Follow the example of Abraham: approach each challenge as a test that
will reveal who you truly are. And if you have given your life to Christ, then
your testing will reveal that you are a new creation, a child of God, beloved
and transformed into the image of Jesus Christ!
Stay healthy, and stay hopeful. Go in peace to love and
serve the Lord!
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