Abraham & Abimelech

Good morning.

Before we move into our normal rhythm of the service, we'll um we're going to have a baby dedication this Mother's Day.

So first of all, happy Mother's Day.

Yeah.

Give a hand to all the mothers out there.

So mothers are where people come from.

So you can't do this without them, that's for sure.

There's this great connection between that I want to kind of elaborate on before we move into this time of a baby dedication.

And that's this connection between the commands in Genesis, where God creates humanity in Genesis 1.28, and he says, be fruitful and multiply and take dominion.

And that's referred to as the cultural mandate.

And that's our call as humans to spread the glory of God throughout the whole world.

And that same image is picked up on by Jesus in the great commission towards us.

And the great commission is go therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to do all that I have obeyed, all that I have commanded you, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.

And this is my favorite, and lo.

I like that.

I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Now, these are two commands from different parts of Scripture, and they're deeply related.

So when we see this baby dedication that we're moving into, we have these new members of our community, these new children that have come from the people in our church.

And our church will commit to rally around these parents to support them growing up in the faith.

And we see this perfect unity of these two commands coming together.

We see the command, the cultural mandate, where God's intentions for the world or that his glory would be expressed through people throughout the whole world.

And so we see new life coming, just as in a picture of that.

But likewise, these parents are committing to raise them up in the Lord, to make disciples of their children, so that the glory of the Lord through the gospel of Jesus Christ might spread throughout the whole world.

And so these two beautiful intentions of the Lord are married perfectly.

And we get to witness that together this morning and come alongside these incredible commands and missions that God has given us and rally in support as a church behind this crazy difficult thing called parenting.

So, with that, I want to invite up uh the parents and the children uh who will be dedicating their children this morning.

Uh Joshua Aragon and Jenica Shippy, dedicating Emory Louise Aragon.

If you want to come on up and we'll just stand kind of like right here.

David and Catherine Townsend, dedicating Caroline Townsend.

Blake and Lauren Ahrensdorf with the twofer of uh Xavier Ahrensdorf and Van Arensdorf.

Nice.

Bring it on up.

So uh want to read you uh a scripture that's kind of a a picture of this, and from one of the one of the great mothers in scripture.

There's uh scripture is just littered with these these incredible uh mothers, uh, and so is church history as well.

Like there's no Saint Augustine without Monica.

Um there's there's no Chandler Bing, really.

Either.

So this is uh they complete each other.

So they're each other's lobsters.

All right.

This is from 1 Samuel chapter 1, verses 20 through 28.

1 Samuel 1:20–28

It says Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Samuel, and she brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh, and she said, I am the woman who was standing here in your presence, praying to the Lord.

For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition.

Therefore I have given him to the Lord, as long as he lives, he is given to the Lord.

That's first Samuel 1, 20 through 28.

So in that we see a picture of parents who have prayed for their children.

And in praying for their children, just as uh Hannah realized, her child is not hers, but her child belongs to the Lord.

And so she commits.

In she goes to the temple, we come to the presence of the congregation, which God indwells the presence of his congregation, which makes this like a temple.

And you are committing to give your children to the Lord.

And the way that you do that is you raise him up, you raise them up in his commandments, you teach them from the very beginning this wonderful knowledge that you have, that God saves sinners, that Christ is their Lord.

Here you go.

And that they can turn to him and always find him present there to forgive them and bring them back in.

And when their lives are shaped by that, then they will be transformed.

And not only is the cultural mandate fulfilled, but the Great Commission is as well.

It's okay, Caroline, we're almost done.

So I'm going to go ahead and read you some uh vows.

And uh all you have to do is say we do.

So I want you to listen closely to the words of these vows and then say we do after them if you do.

And then afterwards, there'll be one vow for us as a congregation.

So I'll ask you all to stand and then I'll read the vow to you, and then you will likewise say we do.

And then we'll all clap and they'll get some Bibles and stuff.

Sound good?

Okay.

Do you now present your child before God in solemn dedication?

We do.

Do you consecrate yourselves as parents to bring up your child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?

We do.

Do you promise to instruct them in the gospel of Jesus Christ and in the practice of prayer and to guide them in the development of a Christ-like character?

We do.

Do you promise to try, by God's grace, so to shape the home life of your child, both by example and family devotions and by your word and conduct, that at the proper time they will come to an open confession of Christ and membership in this church?

We do.

And as much as you have promised before God and his people to raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, we charge you to set yourselves to that task by the grace of God.

Now, congregation, would you stand?

Do you, the body of Christ, promise to receive these children in love, pray for them, help instruct them in the faith, and encourage and sustain them in the fellowship of believers?

Thank you.

You may be seated.

Congratulations, your children are dedicated.

It's a great task before you.

So you can step off and receive these Bibles, and as you find your seats, let's join together in prayer for the great work ahead of them.

There you go.

Holy Father, we praise you that you still work through the family.

We praise you that you didn't make us isolated from one another, but that you connected us to families together.

And Lord, the brokenness of our families, they point towards the glorious family that we get to be a part of, as you have adopted us into your family as your sons and daughters.

Lord, we pray that the shape of our lives, of being a part of your family, with you as our true Father, might shape the families that we are a part of here on earth.

Lord, we pray that you would equip these parents to bring up their children in the knowledge of the Lord.

That maybe they may be filled with all spiritual wisdom and insight, that you would bless them with all endurance and patience with joy.

Father, we lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

All right.

That's fun to do on a Mother's Day.

So let's go ahead and uh stand up for the reading of Scripture today.

We're very up and down today.

This is Genesis chapter 20, verses 1 to 7.

Genesis 20:1–7

It says, From there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh and Shur, and he sojourned in Gurar.

And Abraham said of Sarah, his wife, She is my sister.

And Abimelech, king of Gurar, sent and took Sarah.

But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man's wife.

Now Abimelech had not approached her, so he said, Lord, will you kill an innocent people?

Did he not himself say to me, She is my sister?

And she herself said, He is my brother.

In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.

Then God said to him in the dream, Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me.

Therefore I did not let you touch her.

Now then return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, that he will pray for you, and you shall live.

But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Okay.

So before we uh get into this text for today, want to make a couple of announcements.

Next weekend we have baptisms of uh a baptism service.

So it'll be a family service.

That means kids are in here.

It'll be a shortened service, then we'll all go outside and um baptize folks in a in a trough.

So that'll be fun.

Uh the evangelism workshop is this Wednesday evening here in the church.

The information for that is in the calendar on our app.

It's also in the calendar on our website.

So the calendar is the best place to find things and to sign up for stuff.

So go to the calendar in the app or on the website.

Sound good?

Also, welcome night.

Uh this Friday night uh at uh my wife and I's home.

There'll be apps and drinks.

If you're new to Redemption Church, uh, meaning like you've kind of come during the past year of COVID craziness, uh, then that's new.

That's new enough.

Um, we'd love to get to know you more.

So uh come over to our house this Friday for some apps and drinks.

Okay, now let's talk about Abraham committing the same sin over and over again.

Let's pray first.

Holy Father, we pray that you would open your word to us this morning, you would give us understanding of the story that we're in, and that you would help it inform the very issues that we face in our own lives today.

Lord, help us understand the patterns that you've written into Scripture so that we might live in your story, not ours.

Lift that up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Okay, so last week Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed.

Abraham was standing on a mountaintop and he was looking out as he saw the smoke of the cities rise up after their destruction.

He had interceded for them from the mountaintop.

And as he was, as he was on the mountaintop, he was it was as though he was talking to God, as though face to face.

And in today's story, we see him move off of this mountaintop, and he it this place where we think, wow, Abraham's really in this great place with the Lord, he immediately turns back to an old pattern of sin.

In fact, almost duplicating precisely the events that we saw earlier in his life.

Earlier we saw he goes into Egypt and he lies, saying that Sarah isn't his wife, and the king takes Sarah, thinking that uh she isn't Abraham's wife, but in fact, just his sister.

And then God rescues Sarah and returns the couple together.

So we see the same lie in a strange city in God's same rescue in the story.

Now there are many critical scholars uh of Scripture.

Critical scholarship was like a trendy thing in the 1800s and early 1900s, especially for the Germans.

And they're uh uh so if you're reading a theologian and it's like, this is an early 20th century German, put your antennas up.

I know you guys.

Then uh uh in it was commonly thought that this story was just kind of made up, that this was just a repetition of Genesis 12.

Because people were thinking certainly Abraham wouldn't have just done this same thing over again.

He wouldn't have committed like precisely the same sin in precisely this same pattern over again.

It's just a textual mistake.

And to those critical scholars, I think we must ask the question: have you ever been a human before?

This is very much what it's like.

So as we see these patterns, we understand what the shape of our sin typically is.

And as you look through your own life, you'll notice that our lives are patterned in the shapes of the sins that we typically commit.

And here we'll see a couple of factors come together.

We'll see the Lord's common grace.

This is a really important category for us to be able to understand in order to understand how it is we we relate to a culture that's around us.

Secondly, we'll see Abraham's common sin.

The sin that we see Abraham commit here is typical, it's normal type of sin that we commit.

And then we'll see, lastly, the uncommon grace of the Lord.

So, first of all, let's explore this idea of common grace.

Genesis 20, verses 1 and 2, it says, From there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negab and lived between between Kadesh and Shur, and he sojourned to Gerar.

Genesis 20:1

And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, she is my sister.

And Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah.

Okay, so as I said before, Abraham was on this mountaintop up in the north.

He travels to the territory of the Nageb.

Nageb means south.

And as we talked about when we were discussing Sodom, the same way that we would say if we were going down to Colorado Springs, it just means we're headed south.

That same language was involved, uh was implied in uh for the ancients here.

And so there's the sense in which the text is telling us, even geographically, there is a downward move for Abraham.

And we have to relate this to the geography, to the spiritual geography of the book of Genesis, which is that Eden is on a mountaintop, and Sodom is in the lowest place, and so there's this kind of inversion.

And so we see Abraham moving from a place where he's close to God into this more inverted type of realm in the south.

Now he's a true stranger in a strange land.

That's the context where this happens.

And when Abraham ends up in these strange places that are very much unlike wherever he came from, very much unlike Ur, which where he came from.

Those are the types of names, he finds himself particularly tested in his commitment of faith to the Lord, because there's all sorts of pressure around him.

So we see that in the midst of this pressure, Abraham commits to the to the same sinful pathway that he did in Egypt, which is also very far to the south.

And Abraham said of Sarah, his wife, she is my sister.

And Abimelech, the king, sees Sarah and takes her for himself.

Now, what's the danger here?

Why is this such a dangerous uh thing or event to take place?

What's the whole promise to Abraham and to Sarah?

That their offspring is the royal offspring.

Their offspring is the child of promise through whom all nations will be blessed.

And so, for the same reason that uh the people who uh you know assist the queen are eunuchs in order to protect the heirs so that we have this guaranteed genetic purity of where the promise is.

At this point, Abraham is risking all of that.

He's holding up the promise of God and saying, I will risk this whole promise in order to save myself.

And he does that by hiding behind this lie.

So it's a very dangerous moment.

But God, of course, steps in on behalf of Sarah once again to protect the promise.

Genesis 20, verse 3 says, But God.

Genesis 20:3

Of course, right?

Abraham screwed up.

This is the story of Scripture.

Humans screwed up, but God.

Just any but God you see in Scripture, underline it.

But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and he'd throw some shade, and said to him, Behold, you are a dead man.

Whoa.

Because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man's wife.

God steps in and he protects Sarah in the way that Abraham precisely didn't.

God acts as the true husband to his church in this instance.

We see that clarity uh of God's action of protection.

Uh and he rebukes Abimelech.

And then uh Abimelech uh responds in his innocence.

And he says in verses four through five, Now Abimelech had not approached her.

So he said, Lord, will you kill an innocent people?

Did he not did he not himself say to me, She is my sister?

And she herself said, He is my brother.

In the integrity of my heart, in the innocence of my hands, I have done this.

Okay, now look at this.

Abimelech, the the king in the south, right, the the king of the upside down, the demigorgon, this wicked sort of king, is showing his own innocence to the Lord.

And it's a type of innocence which actually exposes and condemns the lie of the person of promise who is Abraham.

And God r recognizes this uh righteousness of Abimelech and responds in kind to it.

Do you see how the strangeness of this dynamic?

Right where we don't expect to find righteousness, we find it.

And right where we expect to see righteousness, which is in Abraham, it's not there.

He's the liar.

In Genesis 20, verse 6, God responds to Abimelech.

Genesis 20:6

Then God said to him in the dream, Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart.

Listen to this.

And it was I who kept you from sinning against me.

Therefore, I did not let you touch her.

Now, Abimelech's sleeping, which means he got Sarah and then made it through the rest of the day to the point of falling asleep.

And he didn't touch Sarah.

Now, this must have resonated with Abimelech in the dream when he said, when God says, Notice, you didn't touch her, you didn't commit a sin against me, that was me.

And Abimelech must have thought something like, Yeah, that isn't really like me.

But what's being exposed here is this strange theological category that uh theologians have wrestled with, and it's something that if you try and define it, it you just push it and it kind of squishes away.

But it's called common grace.

And this is almost like a proof text that people use to describe the common grace of God.

That is the grace of God that is extended to all people all over the world.

What does this mean?

It means that all of creation is radically corrupted by sin.

There is not a rock you can turn over.

That doesn't bear the scars of sin existing in the world.

Everything is corrupted by sin.

All of us in our hearts bear the evil and indignity of original sin in our hearts.

And yet, by the grace of God, things are not as bad as they could be.

That's what common grace means.

Things are not as bad as they could be.

There's this restraining power that God offers in the world to create a space where his grace is able to move forward on behalf of his people that all people in the world benefit from.

And that means that even in a world as wicked and corrupt to its core as ours is, that we can, even in the strangest, darkest places, even in the Nageb, we can expect to see God's grace is present.

Now, there are three sort of implications of common grace and ways to help understand kind of the mechanics of common grace or how this works.

First of all, we see common grace, which is we see common grace demonstrated towards everybody just in creation itself.

So creation is made good.

That means that we're physical bodies contained in finite space.

That's actually a good thing.

That the trees grow and all of these beautiful things that we see in creation.

Creation was made good.

And sin doesn't operate like another creation that comes in to try and battle this creation.

So it's not sin operates more like a parasite.

And sin can only latch on to, the only thing that's available for sin to latch on to, is the good creation.

So it can corrupt and twist and pull things away from the goodness that they were intended to be demonstrating, but it can never eliminate the intrinsic goodness of creation.

And so just in the fact of creation's goodness itself, we experience a sort of common grace.

Secondly, we see God's common grace demonstrated in his upholding of creation and sustaining of creation.

Do you know that God didn't just make the world and then step away?

But that he actually sustains it and upholds it by the word of his power in every present moment.

And as he is sustaining it, he sustains it with a promised consistency.

And we see this expressed in the covenant with Noah.

Remember, Noah goes through the flood and then he comes out and God makes a covenant with him.

He makes the sign of his covenant is the rainbow.

And the rainbow represents there will be consistency of seasons.

There will be consistency and predictability in the way that the earth operates for you.

And then later, the same principle Jesus will use to explain and say, when he calls you to love your enemies, Jesus will say, Be just like the Father who loves even the wicked by making the rain fall on the wicked and the righteous alike.

If a wicked person tills their field and places seed in it, and right next door a righteous person tills their field and plates places their seed in it, when God causes the rain to fall, he doesn't make a distinction between them.

He chooses to love even the wicked, even his enemies.

This is what we mean by common grace.

And finally, this changes the sort of distinctions that we would typically make.

We typically think that there is sin outside of the chosen people of God, and there is grace inside the chosen people of God, and that that would be the boundary.

But instead, this helps us to understand, and we see it particularly in this story, that there is sin and grace outside of the church, and there is sin and grace inside of the church.

But what is the distinction?

The distinction is that the church has the promise of God for salvation.

That's the distinction.

You cannot draw the line of it's the wicked people over there and the good people over here.

That line can't be drawn.

The line that can be drawn is to these in the church, the promise has been given, and they have received it by faith, not in any way because of their own righteousness.

Do you see how that informs how the church relates to the world?

Now, God continues on, and he says, Now then, return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you and you shall live.

But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.

Now God still refers to Abraham as his prophet.

Isn't that amazing?

And there's kind of a double meaning here.

To Abimelech, who is a pagan king, he would have thought of a prophet not in terms of truthfulness or moral righteousness, but instead he would have thought of a prophet just in terms of power.

Now, by the way, oh that's the same as us.

We think of prophets not in terms of truthfulness or moral righteousness.

We think of prophets in terms of power.

But Abraham is a prophet of the Lord, and what does a prophet mean?

It means they speak the oracles of God.

And that means that what they say is declaring the very word of God.

It must be truthful, it must be righteous.

So we see Abimelech hears prophet of God, and he just hears, okay, powerful guy that I shouldn't mess with and should probably return his wife.

Abraham hears prophet of God and he realizes in no way do I deserve this title.

And yet God extends it to me.

Here we see the exposure of Abraham's common sin.

Genesis 20, verse 10.

Genesis 20:10

And Abimelech, uh Abimelech gives Abraham a bunch of stuff.

Look, hey, you can dwell in my land.

Uh your God came to me in a dream last night, so I've got some things for you.

You can dwell in my land.

Uh here's some uh sheep and goats, and here's a thousand pieces of silver for your wife.

So, you know, between you and me, nothing happened.

Here's a thousand pieces of silver to prove it.

And then Abimelech says uh to Abraham, after saying, Why did you deceive me this way?

He says, What did you see that you did this thing?

That you deceived me and put me in this position to be so vulnerable to your God.

And in Abraham's answer, we see a diagnostic of the way sin works in our hearts.

Just how common and ordinary the sinful patterns of our hearts are.

We'll see humanity's fallenness in our facts, in our values, and in our motives.

Humanity is prone to fallenness in all of these areas.

Genesis 20, verse 11.

Genesis 20:11

Abraham said, I did it because I thought there's no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.

So here we see his fallenness in terms of facts.

There's no fear of God at all in this place.

Well, God showed up to Abimelech in a dream, and he basically turned pretty quickly.

But Abraham had a particular understanding of those who were outside the promise.

He had no concept that he could enter into a land in the south and still see some goodness and some righteousness.

I know many of you have that too.

That's why you moved to Colorado.

But there's this dynamic here where he confuses his facts and instead informs this assumption of there could be no goodness here.

I know those types of people.

I know what they're like.

I know what the people who live in that neighborhood are like, I know what the people who listen to those radio shows are like, I know what the people who align with that part of the political spectrum are like, I know what they're like, and there can be no goodness there.

And so how but notice the irony in Abraham making that assumption: who does he start to act like?

He starts to act like there is no God.

He starts to act like the wicked.

As Nietzsche would say, if you stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss stares right back at you.

When you find that you're able to justify your actions based on your percept your perception of your enemies, it only works in one direction.

You become your enemies.

That is the way that it works.

Nietzsche was saying it's a very dangerous business fighting monsters.

We should see to it that we don't become them.

Next, once he confuses his facts, then it becomes very simple for him to confuse his values as well.

In Genesis 20, verse 12, I love this word, this besides.

Genesis 20:12

He says, besides, uh, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father, though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.

So it's like, look, yeah, did I lie?

But look, the lie wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.

In fact, it was even partially true.

Of course, you didn't know that at the time, but now I'm informing you, see, it wasn't that bad of a lie, right?

Do you see when he's confused his facts, then now he's the one who is in charge of them.

And in becoming in charge of them, he is able to, in a with this cashier, how do you say that?

Casistry?

Casuistry?

Second one?

Okay.

Matthew's not here.

No.

Or sophistry.

Where's Matthew when you need him?

Uh grant himself this ability to reason in a way that is valid but not sound.

Valid means if you were to check the premises of the argument, you would say this argument works.

These things imply this conclusion.

So we can make valid arguments regarding the facts.

This argument regarding Sarah is a valid argument.

Is she your sister?

Yes.

You know, it checks out.

Is it is she your sister?

A sister is the daughter of your father.

Sarah is the daughter of your father.

Sarah is your sister.

That's a valid argument.

Abraham probably thought to himself, I did it.

I've made a valid argument.

But soundness is when the premises of the argument are true.

And this argument is valid, but not sound.

There's a reality that must be dealt with as well.

And finally, his motives are exposed.

In Genesis 20, verse 13, Abraham continues, and when God caused me to wander from my father's house, I said to her, This is the kindness you must do me.

Genesis 20:13

At every place to which we come, say of me, he is my brother.

Okay, now we see that the motive, the guiding force behind Abraham's understanding here was not one of protecting the promise of God.

It was not one that saw God's glory as his highest calling.

It was not even one that owned his position as his husband to tend to and protect his wife.

But instead, it was one that placed himself and his own security precisely at the center of his understanding.

And in that he talks just like a pagan.

This translation is actually pretty generous when it says, and when God caused me to wander.

That's not actually what he says.

He says, and when the gods caused me to wander.

He's talking just like a pagan.

He's talking just in the terms of Abimelech the king.

And notice where he places himself.

He places himself as the victim of the story.

Who caused him to wander?

It's the gods that caused him to wander.

Look, if I had it my way, I wouldn't even be here in the first place.

God is the one who put me here.

If you really want to bark this up the chain, then you should talk to him.

Do you see that this is exactly the same language that Adam used in the garden?

Oh, why did you eat the fruit, Adam?

Well, the woman that you made for me, this is the same.

The same sort of deflection.

And so we see that his facts are off, his values are off, and his motives are off.

Next, we see the uncommon grace of God towards Abraham and Abimelech.

And it says, Then Abraham prayed to God as he was commanded to.

Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, and also healed his wife and female slaves, so that they bore children.

For the Lord had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's wife.

Okay, so Abimelech had given all the land and the money, and Abraham was told by God, now your job is to pray for Abimelech.

In order to close this, you need to intercede on behalf of Abimelech.

Do you see that there are two forms of grace that are taking place here?

There's a grace towards Abimelech.

That's the most clear, right?

Abimelech was kind of on the hook because of this sin, which, although wasn't in his motives and intentions, was a matter of fact in the world, and that he did take another man's wife.

And God extends this grace towards Abimelech, so that the curse that he was experiencing from that sin was then lifted just by the intercession and the prayer of Abraham.

So Abimelech really experiences this grace.

But don't you see that this is also a grace of God towards Abraham?

Abraham is held in the position of prophet.

God still says to Abraham, Speak my words, and they will happen.

I will continue to treat you in that way, despite your sin here.

But likewise, look at the change of heart that God is causing to take place within Abraham.

He is saying, you need to treat this outsider, the person whom you assumed there was no goodness in.

You need to advocate for them so that you can see to their flourishing.

This person who you wrote off because you thought they were just your enemy, you need to adopt the posture that I have taught you, which is to love your enemy.

And Abraham even God even binds up Abraham's own success as a prophet with his intercession for these people that he thought were his enemies.

Do you see that the shape of the of the way that the Christian is to interact in the world?

This is not the elimination of boundaries.

That's one mistake.

It's not as though there is no such place where there is wickedness and where there is immorality.

No, those places absolutely exist.

It's absolutely true that there is just true wickedness, true immorality, true godlessness.

But here's the question: how do we relate to those places?

As enemies who do not deserve the truth, so we can just amuse them with our lies, or we can we can neglect and manipulate them in any way that we desire.

Because they're immoral, we get to be immoral too.

That's what Abraham originally.

That's the way Abraham originally acted.

But no, in this very pattern, we see, yes, there is a real boundary there, but what matters is the way you act amidst that boundary, which is a call to love your enemies.

Do you see the dynamic of that difference here?

If you don't, God will drive it home far more completely, just in the next seven verses that follow these.

Because you know what happens right after Abraham's great repetition of this same sin?

Do you know what happens next?

Isaac is born.

Abraham doesn't get his act together.

And then God says, you know what, you've been on a pretty good stretch lately of acting well.

And you know what?

You've, in fact, let's just forget the whole Abimelech thing.

Let's just forget that even happened.

Well, actually, that is kind of what God does.

But God's not saying, like Abraham, you know, the intercession for Sodom and Gomorrah, that was great.

We had some awesome time together.

The way that you denied the king of Sodom and you didn't take his gifts, but instead you gave a tithe to Melchizedek, those things rock.

So, you know what?

Now's the time.

I'm gonna give you that child of promise, Isaac.

No.

He gives him the promised child, Isaac, immediately following Abraham's own sinful work.

Why do you think God does that?

That's right.

Because he's showing that God is a God who loves his enemies.

God is a God who extends his promises to us by God's grace alone.

So who are we coming to when he calls us to return?

Now, God shows this grace by giving a son to Abraham right after this repeated sin.

Oh, but how much more do we know of this story?

How much more do we know that God is willing to give a son while we are in the midst of our sin?

From the line of Isaac will come Jesus Christ, God's own Son, who is sent into the world, not just to show us that he's gracious.

But to perform his gracious action towards us.

Not just to show us that he can look past unrighteousness, but to show us that he himself will take the consequences of our unrighteousness upon himself, so that by his death we might be freed and counted as righteous.

God himself draws the only true boundary in the world between sin and righteousness.

And that is one that places all of humanity in the category of sinful and unable to come before our righteous Father.

But what does God do with that boundary, with the clear enemies of Him and His goodness on the other side of it?

He loves His enemies, even at great cost to Himself.

And because of that grace, like Abraham, we're called to do the same.

We experience it as we look to the cross.

And we did a lot of things at the beginning of the service, so I'm going to skip a question today.

But if you have any questions after the service, you can come.

I'll be right here.

Now, with this in mind, let's turn to a time of communion.

Remembering the uncommon grace of God that's showed to us, common sinners.

Even the wonder of a Father who upholds a world that's wicked like ours, so that he can demonstrate his grace to more and more people, even before we would otherwise destroy ourselves.

What a glorious, gracious God we serve.

I know that there are many of you in here today with sins that weigh heavy upon your heart.

You can come to this God.

He is gracious towards you.

In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul writes, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

As we take communion today, we'll remember how God loves his enemies by taking on our own punishment, who is us, so that he might call us family.

In the same way that we saw the families up here, we are family of God.

So we celebrate that and we proclaim it together when we share this meal, which represents Jesus' broken body and his poured out blood, which bring us in.

And as we eat from the same tables and as we consume this and bring it into ourselves, it becomes a living reality in our own hearts and in our own lives.

So let me pray and bless this meal, and then we'll take communion together.

As we take communion, you can also go and get your kids and bring them in, and we can all sing together the last couple of songs.

Holy Father.

We praise you that you did not wait until we were righteous to rescue us, but in our unrighteousness you came and found us at the greatest cost to yourself.

Who is like you, Lord?

None compares to you.

Lord, we pray that you would be glorified in our remembrance together of participating in this family meal that you call us to even this morning.

Lord, you call us to eat at your table because of your grace.

Let it transform our hearts, Lord.

In Jesus' name, amen.