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All right.
Well welcome into the podcast.
I'm Ben and I'm here with Spencer and we're going to be talking about some Abraham getting
his name changed and also some of Isaac today.
And we're going to do it in context and love.
Yeah.
In case you didn't know what this podcast is called, it's kind of weird because this
is like nine episodes in so hopefully you didn't just be like, oh, it's the Randall
McRandall sins.
Random, random sins.
Oh, we're renaming it that.
Yeah.
The random Rick McRandall sins.
So two weird randos talking about Bob.
So the last, the last episode ended with God making a covenant with Abraham, Abraham at
the time.
Yeah.
And walking both ends of the covenant.
Right.
So it kind of just kind of keeps high stepping through Abrams life here.
So one of the things I find interesting right after this is that God makes a covenant and
so God speaks, makes clear what he's going to do.
And then in the next chapter, they're like, Hey, what if we just accomplish God's will
because clearly like this is what he wants to do.
Yeah.
You know what's terrible about this is this like, I feel this because I am terrible at
waiting on the Lord because I'm convinced my timing is better than his.
And there's a passage of time between 15 and 16.
And we don't know like, we don't know the length of that, but there's a little bit of
a passage of time there too.
Yeah.
I know that Sarah feels old and that Abraham is no spring chicken.
Ironically, we're talking about spring chickens and I can definitely hear your spring chickens
outside.
Yeah.
So I do think it's interesting also that the very reason that the even would have Hagar
here because she's an Egyptian was because they were in Egypt and probably shouldn't
have been there to begin with.
Right.
So I just think that you kind of got these things compiling.
I do think also we see here that God still hasn't chastised him.
Nope.
He hasn't.
But we are seeing some of the ramifications of choices, right?
Yep, we are.
All right.
So spoiler alert, if you have not read Genesis chapter 16 through, let's just say 20, 22,
really everything to do with, I think it's actually longer than that, but Abraham through
Isaac, just make sure that you have stopped the podcast and you're going to read that.
We'll be here when you get back.
Don't worry.
We're not going anywhere.
In fact, we're digital recording, so we'll be here forever.
Yes.
Or as long as we use technology, right?
Pretty much, right?
All right.
So humans try to solve God's promises.
Yeah.
I can't think of a more relevant story for the church.
Well.
Okay.
And then it immediately goes to poop.
Right.
Pretty much.
So Abraham, have you ever tried to solve God's promises on your own?
Yes.
How'd that work out?
It didn't work well.
Okay.
Yeah.
Right.
I mean, I've tried to, my life, it was horrible.
Yeah.
I'm reminded of like times that I've served in church ministry, right?
And like, you know what God wants you to do.
And instead of waiting for God to speak, you're like, oh, well, we're just going to go and
do this.
And it's not necessarily even like a biblical precedent.
It's just something you're like, oh, it's going to work.
Yeah.
And then it like all falls apart.
Right.
And then you're like, well, this was, this was a colossal waste of time.
And then like, God speaks and then you go do the thing he told you to do and it's highly
effective.
Uh huh.
Right.
Yeah.
So in this story, like, I'm just going to kind of high, high step it through here.
Sarah, Sarah, I brings Hagar to sleep with Abraham, Abraham at that time and she gets
pregnant.
Um, so apparently his stuff is still working and then she bears a kid and his name is Ishmael,
right?
And she starts to despise Sarah and that Sarah gets mad and Sarah starts abusing her.
And then like, she's like, I gotta go.
So she bails as she runs away and God meets her in the desert and says, go back.
I'm still going to make sure that you're taking care of him and we'll bless you.
And then, uh, sorry, that actually happens twice, once with, uh, uh, before, uh, before
she has a baby and then once after the first time she goes and she is out there and she
calls God, the God who sees me, which by the way, just circle that in your Bible because
that's going to come back around.
Yeah, it is.
Um, but then she has, has the kid, his name is Ishmael and Abraham is 86 years old when
Hagar born.
Okay.
So when Abraham was, when Abraham was 99 years old, okay.
So he was 86 years old when Ishmael was born.
He's 99 now, which means that Ishmael is at least 13 at this point, which in their, in
their culture would have been at least fan of it.
Right.
And God comes and he makes a covenant with Abraham and he specifically is established
in the covenant of circumcision and, and, uh, God makes the covenant.
He says, this is what I'm going to do.
All these different things.
And Abraham was like, well, what about Ishmael?
Can he participate in this?
And Abraham says, listen, I'm going to take care of Ishmael, but this covenant is actually
between you and Sarah.
By the way, um, for my feminist listeners, I love that God specifically is a huge feminist
here.
And he's like, no, no, no, no, no.
It's actually not just you, Abraham.
It's actually you and Sarah.
Then the kid that you two have together is actually going to make a big difference.
Yeah.
That's where the line of promises coming through.
Yeah.
Now, while that may not feel significant reading that in the 2023, that is a huge, huge thing
in this time period.
Yeah.
One of the things in the story that, uh, before we get too far away from Hagar is, uh, as
you're reading a story, ask the question, like, where does it say God's mad at her?
Right.
Like we've been, we've been talking about this, uh, throughout the podcast about how
understanding God, especially in the old Testament through a loving lens, like in this story
highlights it so well, like there's no spot where God says he's mad at Hagar or frustrated
or disappointed or anything like that.
He does the exact opposite.
He says, Hey, I'm going to bless your kid, even though I, this isn't the way I intended
it, even though this isn't the, um, what I have planned, I'm still going to bless your
kid and I'm still going to bless you.
I'm going to take care of you.
On the flip side of that too.
Yeah.
He does acknowledge that he's sending her back into a bad situation.
Yep.
Like, so I think one of the takeaways here too, is that even when God's going to bless
you, it doesn't mean that your situation is going to improve dramatically.
Yeah.
It means that there's something beyond your current situation that God's calling you to.
Right.
All right.
So, uh, right here, God lays on a new covenant, which is a covenant that can't lose, um, circumcision.
I don't know if you're aware, but it's not something that you can just like lose.
In fact, uh, you would get, you actually get it by losing something.
Um, so, um, so God, uh, in states, the covenant of circumcision and, uh, here is, they actually
are given a name change.
Yeah.
Right.
So Abraham becomes Abraham.
And so we'll, we'll stop saying his name wrong and Sarah becomes Sarah.
Now specifically, his name becomes Abraham because he is going to be the father of many
nations.
Right.
And her name is going to be called Sarah, which, because she is going to be the mother
of nations.
Right.
And as soon as his name is changed, and this, this is actually fundamentally changing Abraham's
identity, which, I mean, it's kind of funny at 99 years old.
Yeah.
He falls down on his face and laughs and he's like, am I going to have a kid at a hundred
years old?
This is crazy.
Oh.
So the name change thing is huge.
Yeah.
Uh, I don't sidestep that.
I feel like we often do sidestep that or we're like, Oh, Abraham, Abraham, same dude.
Right?
No, this actually is a huge point where God is saying you're no longer going to be known
as this.
Now, Abraham was wealthy.
Yeah.
Like he was well known.
He had people, he had money, he had monetary things.
And God is saying, we're taking that name, we're setting aside or changing your name
to Abraham so that your identity, your wealth, your power can be known by me, not by yourself.
Yep.
And then Abraham's answer is to laugh.
And then be like, well, what about Ishmael?
Because it seems a lot easier than having a new kid.
You got to remember Ishmael is 13 years old.
So he's just already gone through raising a kid from adolescence to teenage years.
Yeah.
Right.
And so do I have to do that again at a hundred years old?
Well, I mean, it's a justified response on Abraham's part.
If I start calling him Abraham through the rest of the episode now that his name has
changed.
Yeah, it's so hard, right?
Yeah.
I mean, it's a justified response though.
Like, I mean, think of it if you're at work and you forgot something and someone reminded
you of it, right?
Or if there was a task you're supposed to get done and someone's like brings it up all
the time.
Like those responses justified if something's not getting done.
Right?
And so Abraham at this point is like, well, God, where's my kid?
Right?
Yeah.
And not only that, like, God, I already raised a kid for 13 years.
Like one that you said you're going to bless.
Like, I got to do this again.
And God's like, yeah, because it's with the raw woman.
Yeah.
God's like, you did it your way.
And now you're going to do it my way.
That's not what I had planned.
Yeah.
And once again, we pointed out God does not chastise Abraham or Sarah or Hagar.
He does not.
But he actually makes a statement.
He's like, nope, you did it this way.
But the covenant, the promise, what we're doing is actually supposed to go through Sarah.
Yeah.
And now because we're going to do this, we're actually going to fundamentally change your
identity and call that out into your person.
Now for my charismatic listeners, like, this is a prophetic declaration, right?
They are literally calling, God is literally calling out who Abraham is going to be.
Yeah.
Right?
All right.
So everybody is circumcised now.
All the men in his household, all the foreigners that are living with him, everybody who is
part of Abram's household is circumcised.
And then in the next chapter, God is going to show up in the form of three visitors.
If you want to write in a thing, I'll be like, hey, what's with the three visitors?
I don't know.
There's a lot of speculation about it.
All I know is that it's God and Abraham knows it's God.
Yeah.
Right?
And Abraham's going to be really, really hospitable.
And there's going to be this thing about running and 3C as a flower that's going to connect
to the story of Jesus.
And you know who has some great content on that?
Baima Podcast.
Yeah.
Baima Discipleship.
And we're going to direct you guys over to that one to talk about that.
But God shows up and he comes in.
He's having a conversation once again with Abraham.
And Sarah now hears God make a comment about that there's going to be a baby next time
he comes to visit.
And she laughs.
So Abraham laughs, she laughs.
And once again, God does not get angry.
Guys, you're probably starting to catch a theme here.
God doesn't get angry, but he does call her out.
He does call her out.
Yeah.
He's like, Hey, did you laugh?
And she's like, No, no, I didn't.
I mean, I've had this conversation with my four year old all the time.
Like, did you do this?
No, that wasn't me.
Yeah.
But yeah.
Well, in her defense, like, I mean, if God is asking you, did you laugh?
And like your experience with God in this culture, right?
Like who is God usually?
God's in this culture usually judgmental, angry, out to punish.
And they're out to literally wipe you off the face of the planet for any slight.
That's not who this God is.
And by the way, that's going to become really important because we're going to be talking
about Abraham and Isaac and there's this mountain scene coming up.
Yeah.
Right.
So God says, No, no, you did laugh.
And then he gets up to leave and he says, tells Abraham, he's like, or actually talks
to himself and he says, should we tell Abraham what we're about to do?
Yeah.
Right.
So there's a nice parody here between like Sarah laughs and then he's like, why'd you
laugh?
She's like, I didn't laugh.
And then like, God's like, yeah, you did.
But you know what?
I have something that I'm holding back, but I'm not going to hold it back from Abraham.
I'm actually going to have this conversation with him face to face.
So God tells Abraham that he says, I'm going to go down to Sodom and I'm going to go see
if it's as bad as everybody says that it is.
And I think historically, the church has had a not necessarily complete teaching.
Yeah.
On Sodom.
Because I think a lot of the times they focus in on this idea of Sodom and Gomorrah was
destroyed because of homosexuality.
Right.
And that's not actually what the Bible teaches.
Actually, in Ezekiel, the prophet addresses it directly.
In Ezekiel chapter 16, verse 49, it says, Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom.
She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned.
They did not help the poor and needy.
They were haughty and did detestable things before me.
Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.
Yeah.
Okay.
Now, are detestable things in there?
Yeah, they are.
Yeah.
But in a list of importance, where does it show up?
At the end.
The bigger issue is that they were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned.
They didn't care for the poor and needy.
And by the way, church, maybe we should listen to that very closely.
There's a tie in there on Matthew 25, where Jesus, when Jesus is separating out the sheep
and the goat, he's saying the big thing in there is, did you take care of those in need?
Right.
And we've, I think- I was hungry.
Did you feed me?
Yeah.
And I was like, I've heard the church be like, oh, well, it's an analogy for the spiritually
needy.
I was like, I don't necessarily agree with that.
I think there's some truth to that.
But also, he's literally talking about food, feeding the needy, literally talking about
giving clothes to those who need it, visiting those in prison.
Right?
Right.
So there's a tie in there that that's what we should be doing.
And that should be a call on our lives.
Right.
And the question is, is when you, when your needs supersede those of the people around
you, you're no longer adhering to this idea of love, God, love of the people.
Right?
Because Jesus' greatest command, he says, love the Lord, God, love your heart, soul,
mind, and strength, love your neighbor as yourself.
Okay?
If you're okay with people being hungry and poor and on the street and all those different
things and not doing anything to help them.
Yeah.
I'm going to have a really hard time understanding that second half in your life.
Now, you can't solve the entire world's problems, but to be unconcerned.
Yeah.
Right?
To be unconcerned at all.
Like it doesn't even move your heart.
Like what kind of person do you have to be that you know that there are children, women,
even drug addicts on the street that are hungry, dying and found an addiction and you don't
even care?
Yeah.
Like I got news for you.
You look like something and it's just not Jesus.
Right?
Well, and you don't have to, you don't have to solve the whole world problem.
Right.
Like where is it at in your community and how can you help with that?
Yeah.
So there is a, there is a local group here in town.
Okay.
That they provide food for people on the street.
Yes.
If you gave them $10 a month, you know how much of a difference that makes?
Huge amount of difference.
And you know how much $10 a month makes to the average budget?
Like the $0 difference.
Yeah.
Right?
Like a lot of us are getting coffee at least twice a month and it's going to be at least
$10.
Yeah.
Now some of you, if you're listening and you don't have that to spare, like listen, man,
give them your time, give them your energy.
Like if you don't have the money to spare, you have other resources.
It's called, it's called you.
If nothing else, lift them up in prayer.
Like give what you have into the kingdom and then don't be surprised when God blesses it.
Yeah.
Now this idea here, right?
And we, I want to carry it on because God says, Hey, I'm going to have to go down to
Sodom and see if this is as bad as it's all the cries out are being.
So there are people crying out.
There's people who are abused.
There's people on the outside that are being abused in the, in the city.
Right?
And by the outside, I'm not saying outside the city I'm talking about on the outside
of power.
Right?
But Abraham has learned something here.
Right?
And, and, and I, and I want to see what you think about this because I've been thinking
about this argument that Abraham has with God and people don't look at it as an argument.
I look at it as a little bit of an argument.
He's being, he's being ticky tack with God.
And he's like, well, what if there's 50 righteous people there?
That's not who I've understood you to be.
God's like, ah, you know, and he's like, well, what about?
And what about, and what about, and all the way down to 10 people.
Right?
And I wonder when I look at this, like, did God want him to go further?
Maybe.
I don't know.
Right?
Like, because it seems like God is not offended at all.
Abraham is way more worried about offending God than God has offended the situation.
Yeah.
Right?
And it seems like God is actually having this invitation like, Abraham, are you going
to be the kind of person who lays yourself on the line for other people?
I would, you know, as we're talking, I would actually argue, I think God did want him to
go further.
I mean, he did.
Because, I mean, back up to a few episodes ago, the flood, right?
God found one person.
Right.
Yes, he rescued his whole family, but he found one person and then did away with the rest.
So and that was with the world.
We're talking just, we're just talking a couple of cities now.
Yeah.
And I think like, if God found one person within a couple of cities, I would argue that
he did want Abraham to go further in the conversation.
Well, and I'm going to jump ahead a little bit and this is going to be a few episodes
from now, but in the book of Exodus, Moses is going to go up the mountain.
They receive the covenant.
Israel is like, yay, God, we're going to follow you.
Woohoo.
Yeah.
And then there's this thing called the Golden Calf, it's that, right?
And all this is happening.
What's that?
We never built those.
We never do.
And while Moses is on top of the mountain, right?
And they're like partying down below, having their crazy calf worship in time, right?
Because that's what you do.
You worship cows, right?
Somebody in the Midwest is like, that is what you do.
I mean, you do in Hindu culture.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah.
That's, you know, let's just cut that out because that's, that's going to be mildly
offensive.
Yes.
So while they are down at the bottom, worshiping these gods that they've made, God is at the
top and he has this interesting conversation with Moses, right?
And it's really interesting to me because he comes down and he says, my fury is bridled
against these people.
I'm just going to wipe them out and just start over again with you, Moses.
And on the surface level, it looks like he's, God is just upset.
But I noticed something and I pointed it out that in the text, like Moses then steps in,
he says, no, God, that's not who you are.
Do you really want to defame your name?
You just took down Egypt.
You just brought them out of the land of Egypt.
You brought them here.
Your people, do you really want to be the God who just wiped them out in the desert
because you got annoyed?
Yeah.
That's not who you've been the whole time.
If you need to take out your rage on somebody, why don't you take it out on me?
And God says, okay, I'll forgive them.
Then Moses goes down the mountain and he sees the people and what they're doing.
And he's got these stone tablets and he is annoyed.
He's like, what is going on?
This sounds like the trumpets of war.
And he throws the tablets down and he breaks them.
I believe it's Joshua, but it might've been Aaron, but I think it's Joshua.
He says, because he's like, that's it, these people are the worst.
Moses says, we're going to wipe them out.
And once again, somebody comes and they say, well, why are you so mad?
You know that the people are a stiff neck people coming out of captivity.
Can't you have some compassion on them?
So the difference is, unlike God, Moses' anger isn't relented.
Now I also noticed that God doesn't chastise Moses for his chosen leadership style, but
I do notice that they are confronted with the exact same situation and they do not react
the same.
And it's these kinds of things that we want to critically read when we read the Bible.
Because sometimes I think our temptation is be like, oh, we always just need to act like
these guys.
Yeah.
No, we're supposed to call back like God.
This actually calls forward to even calls, it even calls further forward to the words
of Jesus, where Jesus is like, hey, pray for your enemies.
Yes.
Pray for those who persecute you.
Right.
It's really easy to intercede for the people we like.
Right.
It's not easy to intercede for the people we don't.
Correct.
But we're still called to love them and we are called to intercede for them.
So coming back to Abraham, because we got way off there, but whatever, it's a great
tangent.
I mean, it ties back in because you have Abraham interceding for if there are righteous people
on Sodom, Moses doing the same thing.
Totally.
Well, and as far as rabbit trails go, it's a good one.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, that's where we found like bugs bunny down that rabbit trail.
We like rabbit trails.
Yes.
So they have like, Abraham has this conversation with God.
And I just, I look at this and I was like, I feel like the invitation here in Torah is
to be the kind of person who's willing to have this kind of conversation with God.
And all throughout scripture, it seems like these are the kind of people God's looking
for.
People who are going to push back against what God is doing.
Not because they don't trust God, but because they're like, I know your nature.
Is this really what you're doing?
Yeah.
By the way, you're going to hear a lot of that on this podcast because we're going to
talk about what we see God doing in the Bible and what we see him doing around the world.
And then we're going to talk about what we see happening in the church.
And we're going to say, hold on a second.
I understand you're saying that you're following God.
Why doesn't it look like him?
And it's not because we want to bag on the church.
We love the church, but we also love you too much to leave you that way.
And the church, people are drawn to the church and the church just explodes in growth and
people come into know Jesus and believers say, Hey, I am going to intercede for those
who persecute me, for those who hate me.
I'm going to intercede for them.
It just every time, like every time in scripture that happens, there's redemption one way or
another and you'll actually, you'll actually see like hint of redemption in the Sodom and
Gomorrah story too later on.
So we're going to, we're going to skip over the Sodom and Gomorrah actually being destroyed
and not because it's not a good story, but there is some great coverage once again on
the Baymell podcast.
Check that out.
Yeah.
I think that they do a great job with it.
And we're really trying to focus in on like, when we're talking about the church, how do
we look at the context of Torah and how do we live it out?
We don't want, there's people who have done really deep dives and we want to refer you
to them.
Correct.
So Baymell podcast, Bible project, they've done some really deep dives and go look up
their stuff.
They can really help you if you're wanting to learn more of that.
Yeah.
There's also some really good stuff.
Once again, we quote from him liberally, liberally, liberally, words are good today.
Yeah.
There's also some really good stuff from a Jewish rabbi, Rabbi David Foreman.
He's got great content, alephdata.org.
And that is a Jewish site, so there's not going to be a connection to Christianity,
but it's going to help you understand Torah and its language and context.
Yes.
Right.
All right.
So Sodom and Gomorrah is destroyed and there's a lot more to that story.
Once again, every time you come into a story where things are different, like, so we talked
about the flood, right?
We're like, Hey, this isn't a story about why God destroyed the world.
Great pond, by the way.
What did I say?
A lot more.
Oh, a lot more.
I didn't hear myself say that.
Oh man, I am so punny.
I didn't even mean to.
But often in these stories where we're like, Oh, there's complete destruction and blah,
blah, blah.
We think that's the point.
Yeah.
And you need to look beyond the event to what, why would they actually put this down in text?
Because even the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, there's actually way more about the cities
than the actual destruction.
Yeah, absolutely.
There's a lot more going on with the characters, which tells me it's probably not a story about
how it happened as why and who are these people, right?
So then we come to this part with Abraham and Abimelek.
And it's very familiar to what happened in Egypt.
I was like, this is almost a play by play exact same thing.
Abraham does the exact same thing.
The one thing that I thought was interesting here that is different is that Abimelek, one
doesn't send Abraham away, right?
He does give him stuff like so Abraham grows even more wealthy, which is not surprising
in this situation.
But also one of the things that I love that God does here is Abimelek is stricken with
the disease, right?
And he makes a right and he's like, Hey, go live wherever you want.
It's all good with me.
But then Abraham actually has to pray to God and then God heals him.
And then God also opens up the wombs of the women in their society again, which is a very
big deal.
Right?
Yeah, it says here that the Lord kept all the women in Bimelek's household from conceiving
because Abraham's wife, Sarah.
And then the next chapter is God's gracious to Sarah after these women are able to become
pregnant again.
Sarah became pregnant and bore a son and his name is Isaac, which means he laughs.
Yeah.
Good old mothers, mothers issue there, right?
Yeah.
So when his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised as God commanded him.
Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
By the way, you need to really pay attention to these ages here because there was like
this small like one verse section where Ishmael was zero years old and he was 13.
And now it's been like one year's time and we've covered like three chapters.
Like you really have to pay attention to how much time is actually passing.
Yeah.
And to be 100 years old as a newborn, like I can't even imagine that.
Yeah, no kidding.
So here is the place that we want to get to and have this conversation today.
I think like this is going to be the crux of our conversation today, probably Mount
Moriah, right?
So we have been talking about these events that God is, there's these events going on
where God is interacting with his people, right?
And we need to look past the event.
So God comes to Abraham and he says, hey, you know that kid I just gave you?
I need you to go to the top of the mountain and sacrifice him.
Now on a broad level, I look at this as a father and I'm like, what?
Right?
Yeah.
But in the culture of that day, most of the gods required your firstborn son for sacrifice.
Yeah.
And I'm like, as barbaric and horrific and everything that it is, this is not uncommon
in this culture.
So you hear this story and you're like, God is barbaric and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And it's all about faith.
And I think there's some great illusions that we're going to have to the future about like
Jesus and coming down as the son and laying himself down and offering himself for the
father and all these different things.
And that's great.
But in this moment, why is God doing this?
Do you think that when Abraham leaves that mountain, he's ever going to think God is
like the other gods around him?
No, no.
So Abraham's actually going to be on top of this mountain.
And like Hagar says, God is the God who sees me.
Abraham is going to say, God, he's going to name this mountain, the Lord will provide.
So Abraham's lesson moving forward is to actually fix everything that was broken in the past.
Right?
Because what was the issue with Hagar and Ishmael?
They got their mission, but they decided to provide themselves the solution.
And you can even take that all the way back to Lot.
Right?
They take Lot with them because if Abraham's going to have a descendant and we know that
Sarai is barren, then if it's going to come through his line, it's got to go through Lot.
And then God takes away Lot.
And he's like, okay, well, God, you made this, you know, as Eliezer.
And he says, nope, it's not going to be Eliezer.
It's going to be your seed.
Abraham's like, oh, I got it.
Okay.
So let's go together with Hagar.
No.
Okay.
I can just see God like scratching his head.
He's like, no, not that.
And he's like, he's like, no, no, let me explain it.
It's going to go through you and Sarah.
Those are the important people in this equation.
You two are going to have a child and I'm going to do it in such a way that nobody else
can understand that or can, and I'm going to do it in such a way that nobody else can
claim that it happened anyway, except God did it.
Okay.
Then they have the kid.
And in a lot of ways, they still haven't learned their lesson because they're still having
things with Abimelech and they're still having things like God's not providing, like we're
going to go and, and create for ourselves.
And so God says, okay, Abraham, here's the deal.
And this is the way that I read it.
I want to know if you really trust me.
So I want you to take your kid up there.
And I really want to know if you've learned who I am.
And Abraham is really faithful.
And it says here that he's like, he's like, I don't know how it's going to happen, but
I'm going to follow God's word.
And even if he has to bring Isaac back from the dead, I'm going to do what God tells me
to do.
And God stops him and he says, okay, now I know you are God who provides the Lord will
provide.
And it's from this point forward that we start seeing Abraham actually trust in that and
not in his own craftiness.
But I think this is also going to be a problem throughout his generations.
And I think through our generations and, and so like, let me kick this over to you because
I've been talking way too much, right?
I think that the tendency with us is a God gives a promise and we're like, we will provide.
And I don't want to discount us participating with God, but we, we try to provide not what
God actually wants.
We try to put our own two cents in and then it just ends up being a frigging mess.
Oh, totally.
So something in the story is that I think we often skip over to is, so they're going
up on the mountain and Isaac.
And so this is picking up in verse seven.
Isaac turned to Abraham and said, father, yes, my son, Abraham replied, we have wood.
We have, we have the fire and we have the wood.
The boy said, but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?
God will provide the sheep for the burnt offering.
My son Abraham, Abraham answered and they both walked on together.
So Abraham, Abraham here is like, I know God's promise.
I know he's going to provide.
Right.
But I'm still going to walk down this path that he asked me to walk down.
I would like to make the argument that we don't do that as a church.
I would like to make the argument that we're like, okay, we know God is going to provide.
So we're going to, we're going to do more of the Abraham and Hagar situation and try
to try to make that provision happen ourselves.
And so, you know that, I mean, you know this in my job that I have to do a fair amount
of fundraising for a bunch of different things.
And that's part of my job.
Fundraising explodes when I pray about it.
When I pray about it and do little, it explodes.
When I don't pray about it and put my hands to the grind and just try to get it done.
You know, a little bit still happens here or there, but that's not when it takes off.
When things take off is when I say, okay, Lord, I am going to lean in to what you have.
I know you're going to provide.
He gives everything he needs.
He gives everything he needs to for us so that we can be successful in what we do.
Well, and what happens when you take that hand of faithfully praying into something
and putting your hand to the grind?
Yeah.
And how do you combine those?
Oh, amazing things.
Amazing things, right?
Amazing things.
It's almost like two hands work a lot better than one.
Yeah.
Right?
But it's keeping the focus to focus, right?
Like I got to put God first in the prayer part and then put my hands to the grind.
Right.
Then put my hands to work.
When you reverse that order, I've actually had the Lord show up in my life and be like,
you got this backwards.
Right.
You need to adjust this in your life.
You need to fix this.
You need to pray about it.
Come to me first and then start moving.
So I don't want to, I think that we talk about this story a lot and there's some really good
takes on it.
A lot of really good takes on this particular story.
And I don't want to discount like the vision of Jesus, but I also want us to verge us not
to run to Jesus so quickly and forget the point of the story where we're sitting.
Right?
This is something I was talking about with my wife recently.
Right?
And I said, one of the issues that I have with the way that we read the Bible is we
want to read Jesus into everything rather than reading through the Bible and into Jesus.
Right?
Because Jesus steps into a context.
Yeah, he does.
Right?
And so then he's speaking into generations of context that people are just like blowing
past.
Yeah, he is.
And it's just, it's unfortunate that we're in such a hurry to get to the New Testament
that we forgot that it started in Genesis.
Yeah.
Well, and it's hard to actually make sense of the story when you don't understand the
nature of what it was supposed to be.
Right.
And we've talked about this, but you can't, like if you just jump into the context of
where Jesus is at, okay, and you forget everything that happened in Torah, right, you actually
have a pretty big issue because there is a design that God put in place for us.
And when we live outside of that design, that's when we find that we separate ourselves from
God.
And this is a tough one to talk about, but we can do that with Jesus, where we can say,
oh, well, I'm following Jesus, but then when in reality we're living completely outside
of the design God has for us.
And it comes back to Matthew 25 for me, where when Jesus turns to the goats and he's like,
away from me, you didn't do these things.
And they're like, well, what do you mean we didn't do?
Like what?
We know who you are, we followed you, and Jesus is like, sorry, he's like, away from
me, you didn't do these things, you didn't take care of the hungry, you didn't take care
of the poor, you didn't take care of those who need clothes.
Essentially what's going on there is Jesus saying, you didn't live into the design that
God had for you.
So one of the things I think is really evident throughout the story of Abraham is God is
starting to reveal to Abraham how he is different.
So we tend to think of holy as like people singing in the cathedral, right?
With like the high choral movements and like somber.
I was like, but that's not actually who God is, right?
I mean, I'm not saying that God's never somber or serious.
I think a lot of times he shows up, he is serious.
But if you've read the Bible for any period of time, you also know that God has a sense
of humor.
Oh yeah.
Right, and if you don't see that, then man, I feel for you.
Right?
But God is revealing to this family now who he is because he's going to use this family
to put his story on display.
And so he starts it with Abraham and he's looking for a specific kind of person, but
he also is cultivating in Abraham and Sarah to be a different kind of person, to raise
a child, to be a different kind of person who's going to raise children, to be a different
kind of people.
Yep.
By the way, what do you think discipleship is?
Right?
Yeah.
Discipleship is not, I want you to ask Jesus into your heart.
Discipleship is, I'm a follower of the way of Christ.
Do you want to follow with me?
Are you interested in becoming like me as I become more like Christ?
Yeah.
Like that's the invitation.
And you were talking about like Matthew 25 where he's separating the sheep and the goats
and I remember I saw this video and it was an unfortunate video and I don't want to quote
these people out of context.
I'm not even going to mention who they are, but they were talking about how there was
a church in Portland who goes and administers food and first aid and all these things to
people on Saturday nights in the red light district.
Like they take care of these people and they meet with them that are hungry and sick and
poor and drug addicted and all these different things and they just go and meet their needs
where they're at and they look for opportunities to share the gospel, but their primary purpose
there is to actually just care for the outcast.
Right?
And the pastor got up and he said, this is not gospel work.
The work of the gospel is to proclaim Jesus in all situations and Jesus himself says,
you'll always have the poor with you.
Friends.
That is the worst use of contextual scripture that I've ever heard.
Now I'll explain to you why it's the worst because it betrays the very heart of Jesus
in the community and you do not want to be that.
If you're modeling your life after Jesus, Jesus healed, right?
Jesus fed.
He fed, right?
There's times where Jesus healed and fed and proclaimed who he was, right?
There's also times where Jesus just said, you're healed.
And he didn't proclaim who he was.
And so it's more important in my mind, it's more important to be Christ in the community,
live it out because people are going to see that.
That doesn't mean you're not going to talk about Jesus.
Let's be clear on that.
But if you live it out, people are going to see that and they're going to want to know
what's different.
Correct.
Yeah.
And I think there's a conversation to be had because if all you're doing is feeding people
and you're never actually taking care of their bigger problem, then I liken it to this.
If somebody comes in to me with an ongoing headache and a knife on their side, my first
thing is going to be to dress the knife in their side.
Yeah.
Now, I'm not saying that the headache isn't important.
They might have cancer, they might have seizures, they might have just a regular headache, right?
I don't know what that is, but I can tell you the immediate need is the knife in their
side.
And very often there is something that is affecting people and maybe it's a long-term
cancer in their body, right?
I'm speaking metaphorically here by the way.
But they've got a knife in their side in the terms of like hunger, housing, medical, whatever
it is.
And you have to address that first.
Now, if you don't believe me, go to Isaiah and it says, a king will rule in righteousness
and princes will rule in justice.
Each man will be like a stream of living water in a thirsty land.
And then the eyes of those that can see, okay?
So they can see will be open and the tongues of those that can speak will be loosed.
Okay.
They can already see, hear and speak, but they're not able to because their thirst is
overpowering in a thirsty land.
You are supposed to be living water first.
And we're not getting as far in this podcast as I'd hope we would, but I think this is
important.
Yeah, right.
I can hear the clickety clackety of the keyboards, right?
As the emails come in from our seven listeners.
We've got more than that.
I don't know.
I've listened to it quite a few times.
I can hear the clickety clackety of the computer's screen as like people are typing towards us,
right?
And they're like, well, but you can't just do good and not share the gospel and I'm going
to be with you.
But why don't you try being good first?
Church, why don't you just try being good first?
Like can you imagine if the church, like everybody who claims to follow Christ in America tomorrow
went and fed one hungry person and they gave a shirt to like somebody who's homeless and
they gave one dollar to solve the problems in America each.
And what we're not saying is we want the church to become the new social services.
No, no.
What I'm saying is do you think it makes a difference when we love people first and then
talk to them about Christ?
Because I hear a lot of people and I know these people, like they are people who come
and talk to me and they're like, well, I love you.
And I was like, man, if you love me, I'd hate to be your spouse.
Because if this is what love looks like for you, I'm not sure that you understand how
much Christ loves you.
And I'm saying if we lead with love, if we lead with compassion, we lead with given,
we lead with self sacrifice, we lead with laying ourselves down, now suddenly the ground
is fertile and the ears are ready to hear and the eyes are ready to see.
And I also think there's something about that type of life that God is attracted to.
Because he's like, I can use that person.
I can pour tons of blessing through that person so that this world knows how much I care.
Well John has some, first John has something to say about that.
Where say if you love God, but you hate a fellow believer, what are you?
Not even just a fellow believer.
Yeah.
Just anybody.
Like, and please understand, I am not saying you're not going to struggle like in some
people that are real difficult.
We all do.
Right?
We all do.
But like even these people that we, like when I talk about like these hard situations, these
hard conversations, these difficult situations I run into, I actually, the reason I'm so
upset is because I see so much potential in these people.
Yes.
Exactly.
Like we're talking like, God is just going to shift to 5%.
Uh huh.
And like their whole life, like they are a battering ram for the kingdom of God.
It's going to be great.
Yeah.
Right?
They are, they are going to do wonderful things and I trust that the Holy Spirit is going
to move through them.
Yeah.
But I'm also not going to pretend like what we do in America as a church is okay.
It's not.
Like, here's the thing.
So at our church is like, if we got known as the church who is overly involved in loving
the community and light on the gospel, we'll figure it out.
Actually just had a conversation with someone today who's thinking of coming over to our
church because they see that in us.
And that was their exact words.
It was like, I see that you actually genuinely love people and care for them.
Yeah.
And what I see in the life of Abraham is God is making his people fully aware of who he
is and then he's calling them to something deeper.
And that invitation is for us too.
Absolutely.
And I think sometimes we're so convinced that God of the Old Testament is fire and brimstone
and ready to burn us up at the wrong thing that we can do that we then move that in our
faith in the way that we deal with other people.
Whereas what I see most of the time through the Old Testament is God has extreme compassion
and patience with the people around him.
And he only acts when nothing else is available.
Let me rephrase that.
He only acts to correct his children when nothing else is available.
He's acting all the time, trying to bring them back, speaking to them, sending them
prophets very frequently that they're not listening.
Even in the life of Abraham here, he's going through and frequently he's like, no, we're
doing this.
Yeah.
No, this, no, this.
Hey, you know how those guys do this?
Well, I'm not doing that.
I'm doing this and inviting Abraham into this kind of relationship where he is a partner
with God.
I don't know why God likes to partner with us.
Like it seems like it'd be way easier for him to just do it himself.
Except that we think God is building a fence and he's trying to raise sons and daughters.
Yeah.
We are looking at the same thing and missing the point.
There's two big things that I see in this passage that I think relate to us today.
One is God's not mad at Abraham or Sarah.
And they messed up a lot in their story.
He's not mad at them.
He loves them.
Okay.
The second thing is, is because of God's love for them, he is so patient and kind and gentle
towards them.
Like, and there's some correction that's in there too, but he's extremely patient with
them.
Right?
Now relating that to us today, like God is not mad at you.
You've heard us say this on the podcast before.
He's not mad at you.
He loves you.
He's going to be extremely patient with you.
Right?
Those two things are huge to understand.
I've always, growing up, I understood sin in the context of it angers God.
And then they've always translated that to, because it angers God, it means God's angry
at you.
Yes, sin angers God, but God's not angry with you.
He wants to bring you back.
And I think we need to separate those out a little bit and understand that.
That's a good word.
Guys, there's a lot of things to learn from Abraham.
And please, we are skimming a stone across the surface here.
There is a ton of resources.
The Bible Project has a ton of stuff going on in this area of Genesis in the life of
Abraham and a ton of things on like the Mount Moriah, the Baymaw Podcast, Marty Solomon,
Brett Billings, they do a great job of talking about these things and different things when
we're talking about.
What we really want to do in this survey of Torah is we want to talk about what are some
things that God is doing in his setup of people, of his nation.
What is God doing in the setup of his nation that we can really hold onto into the teachings
of Jesus and how we live today?
So hopefully that's what you get from it today.
Hopefully that's what we're talking about.
We want to be a church that actually looks like Jesus, that functions in the identity
set forth in Abraham and moving forward all the way to Jesus.
And to look like Jesus, we have to know the nature of God and we need to understand that
correctly.
Yeah.
So in the next episode, we are going to be skimming even a quicker stone as we're going
to talk about the rest of Isaac, we're going to talk about Jacob, and we're going to talk
about Joseph.
We're going to wrap up Genesis, the whole back end of Genesis in one episode.
Yeah.
If you have questions, email us at loveincontext.gmail.com.
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Yeah.
Thank you guys for listening.
Thank you so much for listening today.
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God bless.