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Power on the Way (Mt. 28:18)

[Listen to an audio version here]

Because of this past year, many people have gotten out of the discipline of gathering. Before the pandemic, we may have gathered on Sunday and in a small group, but now we have gotten out of the habit. Why is this? Because we are tired, overwhelmed, and busy. That’s what generally keeps people from doing so.

There are so many good things that require discipline. They require strength and power to complete. Where are we going to get the strength, even when things get difficult, to keep going and doing the right things?

But our situation is often worse than that. We not only fail to do the right things. We do the wrong things. We spend our time on that which is useless or positively harmful. Some of you are completely stuck in a pattern of doing the wrong thing. You’re stuck in bitterness or addicted to pleasure or fixated on some wrong in the world. You’re stuck in a toxic relationship and keep going back. You hit a wall, and you keep descending to a low and unhelpful place. You get tired, and you start blaming and attacking. You feel like you’ve got nothing left. I know. I’ve been there, too, especially in this past year.

What are we to do? Well, we don’t have to rely on ourselves. Jesus has what we need, and that is what we learn from what Jesus says in Mt. 28:18, “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.'” He has the power, and He makes it available to you.

Let’s consider this more carefully by looking at Jesus’ authority and then how this power helps us.

Jesus’ Authority & Power
In this passage, Jesus met His eleven disciples on a mountain. Judas had betrayed him and was no more. The eleven remaining disciples met him in Galilee. They went up to the mountain to meet him. Some worshipped Him, and some doubted.

They knew that Jesus had risen from the dead, but what does that resurrection mean? What is its significance? What is going to happen next? Jesus told them. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” He has not only risen from the dead. He is exalted over all things.

Jesus was now exalted as the ruler of heaven and earth with all power and authority given to Him. That is one of the most important aspects of the resurrection. He rules over the entire world with all power and authority given to Him by His Father.

In Psalm 110:1–2, David prophesies concerning the Messiah, “The Lord says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’ The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, saying, ‘Rule in the midst of your enemies!'” What Jesus is saying in Matthew 28:18 is that this had now been fulfilled!

And this is the amazing thing. The Apostles got it. In spite of the fact that they were persecuted and opposed by the authorities of this world, in spite of the fact that they were a small group of believers, they walked around like they owned the place. They believed that whatever happened before their physical eyes, the true reality was that Jesus was reigning right now and was in the process of redeeming and restoring the world through His almighty power. They saw Jesus with the eyes of faith. They saw Him as reigning with all authority and power.

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He Is Risen! (Matthew 27:57-28:20)

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When we think about the world plunged into darkness, World War II is one of those times. The whole world seemed to be engulfed in war, and much of the world was being crushed under the boot of tyrannical government.

We have many stories that demonstrate the tragedy and darkness of World War II. One of the most poignant is that of Corrie ten Boom. She lived in Nazi-occupied Holland during World War II. Her family, trusting in Christ, believed that they needed to help the Jews. Eventually, they were caught. Corrie, her father, and her sister were all sent to Ravensbruck, a German concentration camp. The darkness had gotten deeper.

Jesus’ Burial
Perhaps this is the way the disciples would have viewed the death of Jesus. There was darkness over all the land, and finally Jesus gave up His spirit and died. His lifeless body hung there on the cross.

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The Amazing Benefits of the Cross: Preservation (Heb. 9:11–15)

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How do we know that we will make it ultimately to heaven? There are many things that could turn us aside and lead us astray. There are many challenges that we will face. How do we know that our destiny is secure?

Let’s put this another way. One way that people have often shared the Gospel is by asking, “If you died tonight, do you know for certain that you would be in heaven?” That question is designed to show them they need to receive Jesus as their Savior to be assured of eternal life.

But here’s another question. If you die 10 years from now, can you be sure that you’ll be in heaven? How do you know you’ll still be trusting in the Lord? Maybe you’ve never thought about it, but, once you think about it deeply, it can be rather disconcerting.

The answer to that question is what we want to explore today. We will see today one more amazing benefit of the cross: preservation. It is the assurance that God will not only give us salvation but also assures us that He will keep us in it forever, through all the difficulties and challenges of this life. The blood of the cross testifies that we are secure.

The Background of the Sacrifice
In the context of the Bible, Jesus’ death on the cross is the fulfillment of the temple and the sacrificial system. Whenever you read the Old Testament and see the temple or sacrifices, it is pointing forward to Jesus and His atoning death on the cross. As John the Baptist said, “Behold! The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Or, as Paul said, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.”

When Israel left Egypt, God established a tent where He was to be worshipped that was called the “tabernacle.” Later, Solomon built a permanent dwelling called the temple. It was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, and then rebuilt when the Jews returned to their land following the edict of King Cyrus the Great of Persia.

The temple consisted of four rooms. The first was the Court of the Gentiles. This place was where the people of the nations could come and worship. They could not enter the temple proper. The next room, the Outer Court, was where the Jewish people could enter to worship God. In that room, there was the bronze altar for sacrifice and bronze basin for washing. The third room, The Holy Place, was a room only the priests could enter. In it, there was the altar of incense, the table with the bread of the presence, and the menorah, the seven-branched candlestick continually burning. Finally, there was the Holy of Holies. Only the high priest could enter it and only once a year to make sacrifices on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. This room contained the ark of the covenant, the great symbol and dwelling place of the presence of God in the Old Testament.

Now, to understand the temple, we should understand that the temple represents the universe, the cosmos. The Outer Court is the earth. The Holy Place represents the heavens. The Holy of Holies represents the throne room of God. It is above or beyond the heavens. We might think of the throne room of God as being in another dimension, using the terms of modern physics.

What the temple teaches us is to think of the world as the temple of God. We are here to see, enjoy, and worship God. However, our sin has brought division between us and God. The highest heaven is closed to us. We need it to be re-opened and heaven and earth united so that this world can be the holy temple to God that God intended it to be.

The work of the high priest pointed to a restoration of the world temple of God. The high priest entered the Holy of Holies once a year to make a sacrifice with the blood of another. This pointed to a restoration, but it had to be repeated, over and over again, every single year. What this means is that, “This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper” (Heb. 9:9). We are looking for something better, and that is where Jesus and His cross come in.

The Fact of the Sacrifice
Jesus did not enter the Holy of Holies. He went into what it pointed to, the highest heavens, the throne room of God. “But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation” (Heb. 9:11). He did not enter into a copy of the the throne room of God but the reality.

When He went, He brought a sacrifice but not the sacrifice of another. “He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12). Take note: this sacrifice, unlike the sacrifices of the Old Testament, obtains eternal redemption. The word redemption means payment. It is a full and complete payment that lasts forever. We will return to this point later.

The author of Hebrews contrasts Christ’s sacrifice on the cross to the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament. These sacrifices did serve a purpose. They needed to make them outwardly clean in order to participate in the temple worship. “The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean” (Heb. 9:13). They had some effect but could not cleanse the conscience.

The author then uses this efficacy of the animal sacrifices to then make a comparison. “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!” (Heb. 9:14). It is important to note the wording here. Christ was an unblemished sacrifice. He was a human being who did not sin. But He was more than a man. If he was a mere man, His death would not be sufficient to pay for the sins of the world. He would have to suffer for one person and suffer forever. That would not make a full or eternal redemption. However, He was the Son of God. He offered Himself through “the eternal Spirit.” It was His divine nature that gave the sacrifice infinite efficacy and value so that He could pay for the human race and do it in three days, rising again, showing that His sacrifice was fully accepted! We cannot not praise this sacrifice in any higher words! It is the sacrifice of God for men, but He could not make the sacrifice unless He was a man. That’s why it’s so important to understand the two natures in one person.

The Results of the Sacrifice
What does this sacrifice do? It cleanses the conscience. It gives a real answer to the conscience. The conscious accuses us of sin and is also corrupted because of sin. Thus, it needs a full cleansing. The blood of Christ cleanses us from the guilt and corruption of sin. That’s justification and sanctification! It says that the accusations no longer have effect and that we are now empowered to live a new life.

What is the result? “[S]o that we may serve the living God!” (Heb. 9:14). This word “serve” probably refers to the worship in the temple. The priests serve in His holy temple. We join that service. As it says in Heb. 12:28–29, “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our ‘God is a consuming fire.'” We become worshippers in God’s true temple. This is true in our Sunday worship as we approach the true Mount Zion each week in church, and it is true throughout the week as we present our bodies as living sacrifices to the Lord. The world is the temple of the Lord, and we are called to observe His works and sing His praise. This is our calling each day, each week, and for the rest of our lives.

The author of Hebrews makes another point, though. This sacrifice restores us forever. “For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant” (Heb. 9:15). Once we are called, Christ, through His terrible death on the cross, guarantees that those who are called receive the eternal inheritance. In other words, Christ’s death preserves us. Christ’s death keeps us. Christ’s death insures that we will make it to the end. This is part of His covenant or testament, the gift He bequeaths to us because of His death on the cross. This is one of the amazing benefits of the cross, we are His forever. If we are Christ’s, we can be sure that we will not only be His today but His forever.

Now, there are a couple of questions that arise in relationship to this teaching. First, isn’t it required for us to persevere? In other words, it’s not as if someone could once believe in Christ and then turn their back on Him and be saved, is it?

This is accurate. We must persevere. We must hold on to what we have been taught. We must not give up our hope. But here is what happens. Christ guarantees that we will persevere. He preserves us so that we persevere. Citing Jeremiah 31, the author of Hebrews says that in contrast to the unfaithfulness of Israel in the wilderness, God will make sure that we are faithful, “This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people” (Heb. 8:10). This promise the author of Hebrews applies to us, the true people of God, the true Israel of God. Christ’s death insures that all those who belong to this people will make it to the end and remain faithful.

The second question is, what about the warnings of falling away? Well, it is certainly true that people can fall away from the visible church after experiencing some of its blessings, but they were never true believers who had obtained the eternal inheritance. Hebrews has some of the most severe warnings in Scripture against falling away, yet it also says things like, “Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are convinced of better things in your case—the things that have to do with salvation” (Heb. 6:9). And, “But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved” (Heb. 10:39). Those who have true faith and are called and heirs will not be lost but kept unto the end.

Conclusion
There are so many angles from which we can examine the cross. It is the center of human history and a source of endless wonder, a wonder that even the angels desire to look into.

In this series, we have seen that Christ’s terrible and agonizing death on the cross gets us amazing benefits. He pays everything, and we get everything. We are justified. This means we are declared righteous because of Jesus’ righteousness. We stand perfect and innocent before the throne of God, fully forgiven of all our sins. We are adopted. We not only are criminals who are pardoned, we become princes and princesses in God’s kingdom, exalted to the highest position. We are sanctified. We are delivered from the power of sin and made more and more able to live unto God and die to the ways of sin.

Today, we learn one more amazing benefit. Once we have all these things, Christ’s death preserves us in them. He who began a good work will carry it on unto completion. We don’t have to let the threat of persecution or sword or temptation or the devil make us fear that we won’t make it. Through the covenant established by the death of our mediator, we who are called will certainly and infallibly attain the eternal inheritance. That is an amazing benefit indeed. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!

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The Amazing Benefits of the Cross: Sanctification (Romans 6:1-14)

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Do you ever find yourself doing things you don’t really want to do? Do you know what is right and find yourself unable to do it? Do you ever get stuck in some bad pattern or relationship? This is human life. It is not good but also not uncommon.

Sometimes these bad things get so ingrained in us that we do terrible things. They drive us to do things that leave us scarred for life. At other times, the patterns get so deep that we can’t seem to get out. This is the destructive force of addictions.

What are we to do? The cross is the answer. Today, we look at the benefit of the cross we call “sanctification.” The word “sanctification” comes from the Latin “sanctus.” From that word, we get our words “saint” or “sanctuary.” It means holy. This refers to God’s perfect and transcendent purity and beauty. He shines over the universe like the sun in the sky in absolute glory.

The cross provides a power that enables us to put the old ways in the past and restore our true humanity. It is a power that enables us to live a new life that is good, pure, holy, and right. Sanctification is about transformation, life change, as people often call it. This is what is described in this passage, Romans 6:1–14, so let’s consider it together.

The Context of Transformation
This passage begins with a question. “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” (Rom. 6:1). Now, why would Paul say this? It’s what he has said in Romans 5 that might lead someone to ask this. He says, the sin of human beings gave God the occasion to do something greater even than creating. It gave Him the opportunity to redeem humans back from sin and death. Here’s what he says in Romans 5:20–21: “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” So, why not go on sinning, then, so that we might get even more grace?

Look at this another way, and you will see the common question people have about the cross and its benefits. We looked at two of the amazing benefits of the cross. The first was justification. This means we get declared righteous freely because Christ’s righteousness is counted as ours. We stand before God perfect and complete in Christ’s righteousness, fully forgiven of all our sins. The second amazing benefit is adoption. This means that we are adopted into His family and become sons and daughters of God through the merit of the agonizing death of Christ on the cross. He pays everything, and we get everything. These are the amazing benefits of the cross.

In light of that, someone might ask, since we are completely forgiven and accepted in spite of what we have done, are doing, or will do as a free gift of grace, then why worry about how we live? Why worry about being transformed?

Well, there are a lot of reasons why we should live the right way besides being justified by our works. It’s good to live the right way because it is the right way to live. It benefits us, blesses others, testifies to Christ, and glorifies God. It puts us in harmony with the universe. So, there’s a lot of reasons.

But here is the reason that Paul gives. Shall we go on sinning? “By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Rom. 6:2).

In order to understand this, let’s think about our situation without the cross. Without the cross, we have the law. The law is holy, just, and good, but we are not. We have sinned. We continue to sin. We sink deeper and deeper into sin. The only thing we can expect is wrath and judgment. Without the cross, the destiny of the human race would be what the prophet Zephaniah describes: “In the fire of his jealousy the whole earth will be consumed,
for he will make a sudden end of all who live on the earth” (v. 18). It would be a hopeless situation. We would simply be stuck under the law, under sin, and under wrath.

But we do have the cross! Christ came into the world, was born under the law, took our sin upon Himself, and died the accursed death on the cross.

But that is not the end! After three days, He rose again from the dead. His resurrection meant that He had defeated death, cancelled our debt to the law, and overcame the power of sin. It was a new beginning for the human race.

The Power for Transformation
Now, this power for transformation becomes ours when we are united to Jesus Christ by faith. Here’s what Paul says, “Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Rom. 6:3). When we came to faith in Jesus, we were baptized into Christ. It is the outward sign and confirmation of our union with Him. This means that we are united to Him in His death to sin.

Of course, we not only die to sin, but we rise to a new life: “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Rom. 6:4). What this means is that Christ’s death and resurrection are at work in us to enable us to die to sin and live a new life. He says, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom. 6:5). This refers to resurrection from the dead ways of sin and the resurrection of our body at the end of time. The point here is that the same power that was at work in Christ to overcome sin is now working in us because we are united to Him.

In a way, His crucifixion is our crucifixion. We die to the old self and to the old world. “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin” (Rom. 6:6–7). The basic problem of this world is that we live as if we are the center of the universe rather than God. That’s the problem behind all the problems. It is a fundamental pride that exalts ourselves beyond measure. When we come to Christ, that old self that places “I” at the center is shattered, and we have a new life that is in and through Christ.

Paul underlines this point in Romans 6:8–10, “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.” Christ died to sin. It can never claim mastery over Him again. There will never need to be another crucifixion of Christ. He has died to the world of sin and risen to new life, and so have we. We have now risen to a new life in Him.

That’s why our church’s confession, the Westminster Confession of Faith says that this transformation occurs “through the virtue (or the power) of Christ’s death and resurrection.”

Now, the question that comes up is, if this is all the case, then why do Christians still sin? Paul clearly recognizes that they do sin. Let us make a distinction here between the power of sin and the presence of sin. The power or dominion of sin is broken, but the presence of sin is not eradicated.

What this means is that there is no sin that we should look at and say, I cannot overcome this. We have the power of Christ in us. It does not need to rule in us. The power of Christ is available to overcome it. It will not have dominion over you because you are not under law but under grace!

Let me illustrate how this works out. I remember so clearly one day back in Spearfish, SD where I was struggling with bitterness against a particular group of people. I was on the south side of the church moving the hose to water the grass in that dry environment. I prayed to the Lord and asked Him to help me with that bitterness. All of a sudden, I was transformed. The bitterness was completely gone. I have never struggled with it again. It was instantaneous. It was the power of Christ.

Sometimes the Lord, though, works through a longer process. One Pastor described to me his experience of going on Facebook for the first time. He began to reconnect with his friends and interact with them cordially. They were amazed. They all said, “When we knew you many year ago, you were such a jerk!” He was then amazed. He realized that Christ had been transforming him, but the work was so gradual and so long that he didn’t really see how the power of Christ had transformed him until he got that feedback. So, Christ is at work in us, transforming us in a variety of ways. The amazing benefit of the cross is that it has broken the power of sin so that we can live a new life.

At the same time, there will never be a point where we can say that we are absolutely free from sin and have arrived. There will always be reason to say what Paul says in Romans 7, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Praise be to God through Jesus Christ!” There will never be a time in this life where we do not have to battle against sin. And that leads us to our final point.

Cooperating in Our Transformation
Our Shorter Catechism calls justification and adoption an act of God’s grace. This means it is an act that God does at once. It is simply a gift, and we receive that act by faith. We get adopted and justified when we believe in Christ. Our Catechism calls sanctification a work not an act. This benefit of the cross is different. Sanctification is a work that takes place over time.

Sanctification is also different in that we cooperate in this work. We join what God is doing in transforming our lives. We have a role to play under God. We lean into His work in our lives. Listen to how Paul describes this in our passage. “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11). We are to change our mindset in how we view sin. We are also to battle against it: “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires” (Rom. 6:12). You are not “to offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness” (Rom. 6:13). We offer ourselves to God, we fight against sin, and we change our mindset to take in what Christ has for us.

How do we do all this? How do we join what God is doing in our lives? We pray and ask Him to change us. We read His Word and partake of the sacraments and let them change the way we think about things, like Paul does in this passage. Note that he refers to our baptism and says that it should change the way we think about things. We fight against the old habits. We seek to establish new ones.

And note, in the cooperation we do with our transformation, we are not and should not be alone. We engage the help of other people. We cooperate together in fighting against sin by being accountable to each other; by encouraging each other; by rebuking each other, when necessary; and by praying for each other. We have a part to play, a part completely dependent on Christ, but a real part, in the work of our transformation. This is true in our lives and in the lives of others.

So, in our battle against sin, we should not despair. We have the power of Christ; we have tools for transformation, the means of grace; and we have the church of God to help us.

Conclusion
The amazing benefit of the cross is because Christ died this terrible death by crucifixion on the cross, the power of sin is broken, and we rise to a new life. The cross tells us that the old habits and the old ways of life do not have to define us. We have died to them and can move forward to live a godly and productive life. There is power for transformation in the cross. That is an amazing benefit indeed. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.

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The Amazing Benefits of the Cross: Adoption (Gal. 4:4–5)

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What is my role in the world? Is it significant? Do I even matter at all? There is something about us that would make us think that we matter. We can think and see the world. We can survey the whole universe and consider it. Our own conscience judges our actions and tells us whether we have done right or wrong. We can connect with other human beings. We can think beyond the world and consider God. There is much that would make us say, we are significant.

On the other hand, there is much that would make us think that we are insignificant. We are a tiny speck in a tiny speck in the universe. We are one of billions of people on the earth at this time, and we are one of billions who have been born and died. It’s also easy to look at the little things we do like cooking, cleaning, going to work, or even doing a vacation and say, does this stuff matter at all?

Think of Josh Dobbs, the former UT quarterback who now plays for the Pittsburgh Steelers. It would seem that Ben Roethlisberger matters because he is the starting quarterback. He has won his team Super Bowl rings. But what about Josh Dobbs? Now, if you were to play Josh Dobbs in virtually any sport, you would probably say, this is the most amazing athlete I have ever seen. Yet, on the Pittsburgh Steelers, he is basically a practice quarterback. And most of us don’t get anywhere near that level of athletic glory! Do we matter at all?

One of the amazing benefits of the cross is that it tells us that we matter and matter more than we could possibly imagine. That’s what our passage teaches us. The cross tells us of our amazing identity and our amazing destiny. Let’s consider this passage more carefully.

Christ Sent into the World
Galatians 4:4 says, “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law.” What we read here is that Christ was sent into the world. This means that Jesus existed before He came into the world. For all of us, we were conceived, and that’s when we started to exist. Jesus existed before He was even conceived.

Jesus Himself was conscious of having been sent into the world. Before He died on the cross, Jesus prayed, “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began” (John 17:5). He existed in eternal glory with the Father before He was ever born.

That same person who existed from all eternity became a human being in the fullness of time. He took on Himself a human nature without giving up His divine nature. That’s why the ancient Council of Chalcedon affirmed that Jesus is one person in two natures without mixture, confusion, division, or separation. That accurately sums up what we have in our text.

The next thing you will notice about Jesus’ entrance into the world was that it came at the right time. God knows how to tell time and in the right time or the set time or in the fullness of time, He sent His Son into the world.

How was it the right time? Religions throughout the world were looking for someone to bring salvation to the world. Many saw Caesar Augustus as the one in whom their hopes would be fulfilled. They were looking for a savior.

The Roman Empire controlled much of the world. They had brought a relative peace, order, and justice to the world that allowed for rapid and safe communication of ideas all over the world in a common language. A few centuries before Christ’s birth, this would not have been the case.

When it comes to the Jews, who were especially looking for a Messiah, their own hopes seem to be dashed. They had been in exile and returned. They had gained independence under the Maccabees but were now “slaves,” as they might put it, under the Roman Empire. Their hopes were exhausted. It was the right time for a savior.

What Christ Did in the World
So, what did the Son do when He was in the world? Our passage tells us. First, He was born. He became a real human being, as we noted above. He was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary and born of her yet without sin. He became a real human being without giving up His divine nature.

Next, we read that he was born under the law. “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law.” Thus, His calling and vocation had a reference to the law.

We might not think God’s law is that important, but God doesn’t view it that way. He created this world as its Sovereign Lord and Judge. He gave a law that was to be obeyed. His holiness demands conformity with this law, and His justice will defend it. This is God as we have Him revealed in the prophets. For example, the prophet Habakkuk says, “You, Lord, have appointed them to execute judgment; you, my Rock, have ordained them to punish. Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing” (1:13a–14b). He says elsewhere, “The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him” (Hab. 2:20). He is the Lord to whom we must give account.

The amazing thing here is that Jesus became a human who had to give account to God. He who was God was also under God. He became a subject rather than the ruler. The Law-giver took his place among those who were called to be servants. He assumed the form of a servant obeying the law.

And what did the law require? If you go back to Galatians 3:10 and 12, you have the answer. The Holy Spirit teaches us, “The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, ‘The person who does these things will live by them’” (Gal. 3:12). In other words, the law doesn’t simply says, “believe, and you will have life.” It says, “Do what it says, and you will have life.” Well, how much do we have to do? In Gal. 3:10 we read, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” The law cannot exempt anyone. It can’t say, “it’s OK that you broke the law.” It just tells us, “you’ve broken the law and now must suffer the penalty.”

So, when Christ comes, He obligates Himself to obey the law and suffer its penalty. But here’s the amazing thing. He does this not for Himself but for us. “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.” He is our substitute and representative before God. He is born of a woman and born under the law not for His own sake but for our sakes.

Our text indicates that He redeemed those under the law. The word “redemption” means payment. What did He pay? He paid the debt of those who owed obedience to God and the suffering that resulted from not obeying the law.

Here’s what Paul says in Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole or tree’” (Gal. 3:12). Christ redeemed us by taking the curse that was due to us so that we would not have to face it. That’s the amazing benefit of the cross. We are all under the curse because of our sin, but anyone who believes in Jesus and wants Him as their Savior can have the curse completely removed.

But there’s much more. It is not as if Christ simply removes the curse and puts us back at square one. He not only removes the curse. He secures the blessing that God promised long ago would come to all nations through a descendant of Abraham. “He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit” (Gal. 3:14).

The Benefit We Get from Christ in the World
So, we have the curse due to us removed and now blessings are due instead of a curse. But there’s more. Christ merited for us not only a life of blessing. He merited for us the adoption to sonship. We actually become adopted children of God through what Christ did. “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship” (Gal. 4:4–5).

Here’s what that includes. It means that we are legally adopted and called sons and daughters of God. It means that we receive the work of the Holy Spirit of adoption. “Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father’” (Gal. 4:6). We are not simply legally adopted, we have God’s Spirit who changes our hearts and enables us to look at God as a Father to us. It means that we are heirs of the entire universe. “So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir” (Gal. 4:7). The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. We get an eternal inheritance in Christ!

Now, think of this. It is a truly amazing thing. If we who were criminals in God’s court and worthy of eternal punishment were pardoned and assumed the place of the lowest servants, we would be eternally grateful. How much more the fact that we are actually taken to the highest position and become the sons and daughters of God! That is beyond belief.

In the classic movie, Ben-Hur, Judah Ben-Hur is a wealthy Jewish merchant. He refuses to turn on his own people, and so he is framed by a powerful friend and sold as a slave. He ends up as a galley-slave where is forced to work at heavy oars day and night for three years to move a naval ship of the Roman Empire. That ship ends up being attacked and sunk. Judah ends up saving Quintus Arrius, the admiral on the ship, from death, and they return to Rome. Arrius is grateful for what Judah has done, and he eventually adopts him as a son.

Now here’s the amazing thing. We can see how out of gratitude for Judah saving him, he might adopt him as a son. But God saves us from death and then adopts us as His children! He does it all! He not only saves us, He saves us through the terrible death of a cross. He undergoes the severe punishment in body and soul that was due to us so that we might come to be adopted as children! That is an astonishing thing!

The Apostle John was captivated by this amazing benefit of the cross. He wrote, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1). What an amazing thing that the God who created the universe and knows all the stars by name who has myriads upon myriads of angels at His service wants to call us His sons and daughters. If we could really get that, it would be the most astonishing and amazing thing we ever heard!

The philosopher Epictetus contemplated the fact that we are created by God. He said, “If only one could be convinced of this truth, that we’re all first and foremost children of God . . . I think one would never harbour any mean or ignoble thought about oneself” (Discourses, 1.3). No mean or low thoughts about ourselves! If this is true for us as created beings, how much more so is it true for those who have been redeemed and adopted into God’s family and are heirs of His eternal kingdom! God loves us more than we can imagine.

Conclusion
How do we know we matter and are significant in this world? God loved us so much He would send His own Son to die on the cross rather than see us perish. He also loved us so much that He adopts us as His children and heirs of the entire universe forever. That is our identity, and that is our destiny, all because of what Jesus did for us in the agonizing death on the cross. That is an amazing benefit indeed. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!

What is my role in the world? Is it significant? Do I even matter at all? There is something about us that would make us think that we matter. We can think and see the world. We can survey the whole universe and consider it. Our own conscience judges our actions and tells us whether we have done right or wrong. We can connect with other human beings. We can think beyond the world and consider God. There is much that would make us say, we are significant.

On the other hand, there is much that would make us think that we are insignificant. We are a tiny speck in a tiny speck in the universe. We are one of billions of people on the earth at this time, and we are one of billions who have been born and died. It’s also easy to look at the little things we do like cooking, cleaning, going to work, or even doing a vacation and say, does this stuff matter at all?

Think of Josh Dobbs, the former UT quarterback who now plays for the Pittsburgh Steelers. It would seem that Ben Roethlisberger matters because he is the starting quarterback. He has won his team Super Bowl rings. But what about Josh Dobbs? Now, if you were to play Josh Dobbs in virtually any sport, you would probably say, this is the most amazing athlete I have ever seen. Yet, on the Pittsburgh Steelers, he is basically a practice quarterback. And most of us don’t get anywhere near that level of athletic glory! Do we matter at all?

One of the amazing benefits of the cross is that it tells us that we matter and matter more than we could possibly imagine. That’s what our passage teaches us. The cross tells us of our amazing identity and our amazing destiny. Let’s consider this passage more carefully.

Christ Sent into the World
Galatians 4:4 says, “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law.” What we read here is that Christ was sent into the world. This means that Jesus existed before He came into the world. For all of us, we were conceived, and that’s when we started to exist. Jesus existed before He was even conceived.

Jesus Himself was conscious of having been sent into the world. Before He died on the cross, Jesus prayed, “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began” (John 17:5). He existed in eternal glory with the Father before He was ever born.

That same person who existed from all eternity became a human being in the fullness of time. He took on Himself a human nature without giving up His divine nature. That’s why the ancient Council of Chalcedon affirmed that Jesus is one person in two natures without mixture, confusion, division, or separation. That accurately sums up what we have in our text.

The next thing you will notice about Jesus’ entrance into the world was that it came at the right time. God knows how to tell time and in the right time or the set time or in the fullness of time, He sent His Son into the world.

How was it the right time? Religions throughout the world were looking for someone to bring salvation to the world. Many saw Caesar Augustus as the one in whom their hopes would be fulfilled. They were looking for a savior.

The Roman Empire controlled much of the world. They had brought a relative peace, order, and justice to the world that allowed for rapid and safe communication of ideas all over the world in a common language. A few centuries before Christ’s birth, this would not have been the case.

When it comes to the Jews, who were especially looking for a Messiah, their own hopes seem to be dashed. They had been in exile and returned. They had gained independence under the Maccabees but were now “slaves,” as they might put it, under the Roman Empire. Their hopes were exhausted. It was the right time for a savior.

What Christ Did in the World
So, what did the Son do when He was in the world? Our passage tells us. First, He was born. He became a real human being, as we noted above. He was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary and born of her yet without sin. He became a real human being without giving up His divine nature.

Next, we read that he was born under the law. “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law.” Thus, His calling and vocation had a reference to the law.

We might not think God’s law is that important, but God doesn’t view it that way. He created this world as its Sovereign Lord and Judge. He gave a law that was to be obeyed. His holiness demands conformity with this law, and His justice will defend it. This is God as we have Him revealed in the prophets. For example, the prophet Habakkuk says, “You, Lord, have appointed them to execute judgment; you, my Rock, have ordained them to punish. Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing” (1:13a–14b). He says elsewhere, “The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him” (Hab. 2:20). He is the Lord to whom we must give account.

The amazing thing here is that Jesus became a human who had to give account to God. He who was God was also under God. He became a subject rather than the ruler. The Law-giver took his place among those who were called to be servants. He assumed the form of a servant obeying the law.

And what did the law require? If you go back to Galatians 3:10 and 12, you have the answer. The Holy Spirit teaches us, “The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, ‘The person who does these things will live by them'” (Gal. 3:12). In other words, the law doesn’t simply says, “believe, and you will have life.” It says, “Do what it says, and you will have life.” Well, how much do we have to do? In Gal. 3:10 we read, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” The law cannot exempt anyone. It can’t say, “it’s OK that you broke the law.” It just tells us, “you’ve broken the law and now must suffer the penalty.”

So, when Christ comes, He obligates Himself to obey the law and suffer its penalty. But here’s the amazing thing. He does this not for Himself but for us. “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.” He is our substitute and representative before God. He is born of a woman and born under the law not for His own sake but for our sakes.

Our text indicates that He redeemed those under the law. The word “redemption” means payment. What did He pay? He paid the debt of those who owed obedience to God and the suffering that resulted from not obeying the law.

Here’s what Paul says in Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole or tree'” (Gal. 3:12). Christ redeemed us by taking the curse that was due to us so that we would not have to face it. That’s the amazing benefit of the cross. We are all under the curse because of our sin, but anyone who believes in Jesus and wants Him as their Savior can have the curse completely removed.

But there’s much more. It is not as if Christ simply removes the curse and puts us back at square one. He not only removes the curse. He secures the blessing that God promised long ago would come to all nations through a descendant of Abraham. “He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit” (Gal. 3:14).

The Benefit We Get from Christ in the World
So, we have the curse due to us removed and now blessings are due instead of a curse. But there’s more. Christ merited for us not only a life of blessing. He merited for us the adoption to sonship. We actually become adopted children of God through what Christ did. “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship” (Gal. 4:4–5).

Here’s what that includes. It means that we are legally adopted and called sons and daughters of God. It means that we receive the work of the Holy Spirit of adoption. “Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father'” (Gal. 4:6). We are not simply legally adopted, we have God’s Spirit who changes our hearts and enables us to look at God as a Father to us. It means that we are heirs of the entire universe. “So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir” (Gal. 4:7). The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. We get an eternal inheritance in Christ!

Now, think of this. It is a truly amazing thing. If we who were criminals in God’s court and worthy of eternal punishment were pardoned and assumed the place of the lowest servants, we would be eternally grateful. How much more the fact that we are actually taken to the highest position and become the sons and daughters of God! That is beyond belief.

In the classic movie, Ben-Hur, Judah Ben-Hur is a wealthy Jewish merchant. He refuses to turn on his own people, and so he is framed by a powerful friend and sold as a slave. He ends up as a galley-slave where is forced to work at heavy oars day and night for three years to move a naval ship of the Roman Empire. That ship ends up being attacked and sunk. Judah ends up saving Quintus Arrius, the admiral on the ship, from death, and they return to Rome. Arrius is grateful for what Judah has done, and he eventually adopts him as a son.

Now here’s the amazing thing. We can see how out of gratitude for Judah saving him, he might adopt him as a son. But God saves us from death and then adopts us as His children! He does it all! He not only saves us, He saves us through the terrible death of a cross. He undergoes the severe punishment in body and soul that was due to us so that we might come to be adopted as children! That is an astonishing thing!

The Apostle John was captivated by this amazing benefit of the cross. He wrote, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1). What an amazing thing that the God who created the universe and knows all the stars by name who has myriads upon myriads of angels at His service wants to call us His sons and daughters. If we could really get that, it would be the most astonishing and amazing thing we ever heard!

The philosopher Epictetus contemplated the fact that we are created by God. He said, “If only one could be convinced of this truth, that we’re all first and foremost children of God . . . I think one would never harbour any mean or ignoble thought about oneself” (Discourses, 1.3). No mean or low thoughts about ourselves! If this is true for us as created beings, how much more so is it true for those who have been redeemed and adopted into God’s family and are heirs of His eternal kingdom! God loves us more than we can imagine.

Conclusion
How do we know we matter and are significant in this world? God loved us so much He would send His own Son to die on the cross rather than see us perish. He also loved us so much that He adopts us as His children and heirs of the entire universe forever. That is our identity, and that is our destiny, all because of what Jesus did for us in the agonizing death on the cross. That is an amazing benefit indeed. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!

Categories
Sermons

The Amazing Benefits of the Cross: Justification (Rom. 3:19–26)

[Listen to an audio version here]

All around the world, wherever you travel, you will find a rather surprising symbol on the skyline. It is the symbol of the cross.

It’s surprising because the cross was an instrument of a particularly brutal method of capital punishment in the Roman Empire. It does not seem like the sort of thing that you would put your hope in.

Yet there it is. Hundreds of millions of people around the world would say with the great preacher of the cross, the Apostle Paul, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14). Astonishing words!

Why would so many people make their boast in this gruesome instrument of capital punishment? The reason is that it answers the basic questions of life that we all struggle with. In this big universe, am I significant? Do I matter? Am I accepted? Do I have value? Can I fulfill my destiny? What about life after death? In the cross we have all these questions answered.

As we consider the cross, I want you to think of the cross in terms of the benefits or blessings God gives to all who accept His message about the cross. All of these benefits answer some of the basic questions we have about our own life and about existence. These benefits are justification, adoption, sanctification, and preservation. We are going to look at these over the next few Sunday’s.

Today, we begin with justification. The question of justification arises for us when we start to ask, have I made of myself what I ought to have made of myself? What have I done with my existence? As soon as we seek to answer that question honestly, we face guilt. We have not become what we should have. We have not done what we should have. We have, in fact, done many things completely contrary to what we should have. We deal with this as individuals, and we deal with this as a society. We may think that guilt is not a big factor in human life, but, upon further reflection, it really is. As the theologian Paul Tillich noted, it is astonishing how much guilt comes out in psychoanalysis.

But the situation is actually worse than we think. The guilt we feel is sometimes misplaced. We feel guilty about things we should not and do not feel guilty about things we should.

Guilt is not a mere psychological phenomenon. We also have to give an account to God who judges justly and rightly and takes what we have done very seriously. We may not like this aspect of God, but, if we think about it, it’s quite important. Imagine a God who didn’t care about wrongs and injustices. Would we really want to worship such a God? Not at all. We also are opposed to injustices and wrongs but generally the ones that others commit. God is concerned about all of them, and He is no respecter of persons.

When we are dealing with justification, we are dealing with these questions. What does God do with evil and injustice? How does He evaluate it? And how does He evaluate me? This is the most central question of the cross and the most important doctrine of the Christian religion. As John Calvin said, “The subject of justification, therefore, must now be fully discussed, and discussed with the recollection that it is the principal hinge by which religion is supported, in order that we may apply to it with the greater attention and care.” So, with that in mind, let’s dive into this passage.

The Meaning of the Word “Justify”
The key to understanding this passage is to understand the meaning of the word “to justify.” Here is its most basic meaning, “to declare righteous.” It is not to turn someone into a righteous person or make them just. It is to declare someone righteous. When you justify someone, you say that they are a righteous person or have done what they were supposed to do. Got it?

Now, I’ll ask a question. Can you justify God? Think about it for a second. If you said, “no,” then go back to the definition. Can you declare God to be righteous? Of course you can. In fact, you not only can, but you should and must. In Luke 7:29 we read, “All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus’ words, acknowledged that God’s way was right, because they had been baptized by John” (Luke 7:29). The word translated here “acknowledged was right” is “to justify.” Same word as in our passage.

Now, here’s another question. Can you justify the wicked? Think about it for a second. Well, you can. You can declare them righteous, but you shouldn’t. God actually says that. The King James Version brings this out, “He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord.” To justify the guilty is to say that the guilty is righteous and to do that is to lie and bring about an injustice.

So, in light of all that, how can God justify the ungodly? Romans 4:5 says that He is the “God who justifies the ungodly.” He is the God who calls sinful, wicked, adulterous people perfectly righteous and completely innocent? How can He do that? It would seem to be a lie. It would seem to be a miscarriage of justice. It doesn’t make sense!

You can see that the weight of this question is evident in this passage. He presented Christ as “an atoning sacrifice” (Rom. 3:25) so that He might be “just and the justifier” of the one who has faith in Jesus. In other words, there was a question about whether God would be just in justifying a believer because that believer is not just. To declare him righteous would be wrong. So, how can we put these things together? Well, I’ve hinted at the answer here, but let’s take our understanding of the word “to justify” and plug it into this passage and see if we can resolve it.

Romans 3 & Justification
In Romans 3, we read that no one will be justified by the works of the law. We should read “works of the law” as doing of the law. Now, why would no one be declared righteous because they did the law. Is there something wrong with doing what the law says? Of course not! Normal justification would result from someone doing the law and being declared righteous on the basis of having done the law. They do what the law says, and then they are declared righteous.

So, why can’t anyone be righteous on the basis of doing what the law says? The answer is that we have not done what the law says. The law says to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. None of us have done this. In fact, we have done the opposite. So, when we hear the law, we do not hear it rightly, if we hear it saying, you have done all these things. Rather, “through the law we become conscious of sin.” That is, it tells us that we have not done these things.

We can’t be declared righteous on the basis of the law, because we’ve all broken the law. If God evaluates us on the basis of the law, then we will be condemned as guilty not justified as righteous.

So, what are we to do? There is another righteousness, a different sort. It couldn’t come from obeying the law. It came from God. Now note that the Law and the Prophets testify to it (Rom. 3:21). Here the word “law” does not refer to God’s commandments. It refers to the Old Testament. What Paul is saying is that the Old Testament showed that there was another way to be justified. Paul will elaborate on this method throughout the book. See especially chapter 4, where he shows how God justified ungodly Abraham and David.

Paul describes this righteousness by saying this righteousness is by faith. What this means is that it is a gift from God. Faith does not do for someone. Faith trusts what someone else will do. So, faith is a fitting virtue to be the recipient of another sort of righteousness.

This other righteousness is a gift from God that is given to anyone who believes. Being a Jew or Gentile gives no advantage in justification, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). Everyone is condemned on the basis of the law. Everyone can be declared righteous on the basis of a righteousness from God, if they will only receive it by faith.

The question then becomes, how in the world can God simply declare people righteous who don’t deserve it? It would seem to be a lie. It would seem to be unjust. Imagine a professor giving a test. Some do not study and do badly. Others study hard and get an A. Then, the professor simply says, “I have decided to simply give everyone an A.” That would seem unjust.

So, how can God do it? Well, He satisfies the demands of the law on behalf of sinners. How? “All are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24). The word “redemption” means a payment. The law demanded that we “pay” righteousness and “pay” the penalty of death, if we did not give that righteousness. “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Jesus paid the righteousness we owe and paid the punishment due to sin on the cross. That is what redemption is all about. The cross is payment for sin and the fulfillment of the righteousness we owed to God. So, we get declared righteous freely because Christ pays for us! He pays everything, and we get everything! That is an amazing deal. All we have to do is accept it. It’s a gift!

Paul drives this point home in verses 25–26. He says that there was a problem in the past. God declared people righteous, but no payment had been given. “In his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished” (Rom. 3:25). The Old Testament is full of sinful people, but God justified them freely by His grace, even though payment had not been given.

How could God do that? He knew that in the fullness of time, the Son would come and would redeem them through the cross. God presented the Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (Rom. 3:25).

In doing this, God demonstrated that He was and is righteous. Because Christ pays the just penalty of the law, we can be declared righteous. It is not our righteousness, it is Christ’s. As a result, God is both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

If we believe in Jesus, then God declares us perfectly righteous, just as if we had been as righteous as Jesus and suffered all that He had suffered. That is the amazing benefit of the cross. We are justified, declared righteous, because of what Jesus has done.

Conclusion
Justification by faith alone is the foundation of our faith and of our faith in the cross in particular. I think you can now see why John Calvin said that this doctrine is the “principle hinge by which religion is supported.” It’s really essential. Martin Luther said that the church stands or falls based on this doctrine.

For us, as individual Christians, it is a foundation for unspeakable joy and peace, a refuge in the midst of the storms of life. It’s easy to see why Paul concludes his letter with a blessing of joy and peace by the power of the Holy Spirit. Justification by faith alone provides us a basis for that joy and peace (see Romans 15:13).

This is the amazing benefit of the cross. God takes sinful people, people who have ignored Him and flaunted His laws, people who have hated each other, and have misused all the gifts He has given us, and He declares them to be perfectly righteous forever because of what Jesus has done for them. That is an amazing benefit indeed. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.

Categories
Sermons

The God Who Sees Me (Gen. 16, Part 4)

[Listen to an audio version here]

This passage is about two women struggling with significance. Do they matter at all? Sarah struggles with it because she has borne her husband no children. Hagar struggles with it because she is a slave. Today, I want to look at Hagar a little more closely. Through Hagar, we will see God’s solution to our struggle with insignificance and, by extension, the anxieties of life and our pride that tries to solve them on our own.

We have been considering how the Bible teaches that sin is a wrong response to our anxieties about life. We have anxiety over our prestige, position, and provision. We respond to this sinfully when we try to solve it on our own without reference to God. We try to make ourselves bigger or retreat into a smaller world where we can be in control. This is the pride solution. The result of wrongly calibrating our position in this world through pride is that it disrupts our relations with others and leads to injustice. How do we get out of this? Instead of trying to solve our problems on our own, we submit to God’s solution and trust Him.

The Bible teaches us the solution to sin, but it also teaches us about sin. It does this so that we can repent of our sin and turn from it to find grace, healing, and restoration in Christ. That healing is the primary focus of our message today.

Hagar Unseen
Hagar believed that she was not seen. She was invisible. She didn’t matter.

I remember visiting the Oak Alley Plantation in Louisiana. Anna, David, and I took a tour of the home. They described the situation. While the people ate dinner, a black slave would fan the diners so that they could be cool. If someone came and waved a fan by you, you would probably think it a little awkward. However, after a while, you would get used to it. Eventually, the person would be virtually invisible.

A slave is not “seen.” They rarely get the respect and honor of human beings. That’s no doubt how Hagar felt. She was not seen. She was invisible. She was just a cog in the household machinery.

Then, something changed. She was chosen by Sarah to bear a child for her master. She probably looked up to Abraham as a significant man and a leader. It seems like she would have been deeply moved to be chosen for this special role. Now, she would be seen.

Then, she got pregnant. Now, for sure, she must have thought, she will be seen! I am significant! She began to like this new role. She began to think that she was seen. In fact, this dramatic shift began to go to her head, and she started to look down on Sarah.

Well, Sarah did not like that very much. In fact, she was furious at the situation and relieved her anxiety first by taking it out on Abraham.

Think about things from this perspective. Hagar was now noticed. She was no longer invisible. She was seen by Abraham. Then, Sarah brought her complaint to Abraham. How did Abraham respond? “Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best” (Gen. 16:6). He only saw Sarah. He did not see Hagar. She was unseen again.

Sarah then mistreated Hagar. Then, Hagar fled into the wilderness.

Hagar Seen
However, someone did see Hagar. Someone noticed her and cared about her. The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert. . . . “And he said, ‘Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?'” (Gen. 16:7—8). Someone took an interest in Hagar and what she was doing. The “angel of the Lord” wanted to know about her. She was seen!

Let me say something here about “the angel of the Lord.” Sometimes in the Bible, an angel refers to a spiritual being that is intelligent and powerful that performs the work of the Lord. Some of these angels turned from the Lord and are often called “demons.” Angels and demons play an active part in the history of this world.

However, “the Angel of the Lord” is sometimes an appearance of God Himself, as it is in Gen. 18, for example. In Exodus 23, the Lord says, “See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him” (vv. 20–21). This Angel of the Lord was none other than God Himself. He speaks of Himself as God, is worshipped as God, and is obeyed as God. I believe this is actually the 2nd Person of the Trinity, the Son of God, Jesus taking on a human or other form before His incarnation. We call this a Christophany, an appearance of Christ before the incarnation.

I believe the Angel of the Lord here is God Himself, though, even if it is an angel, I still think the passage works. I think it makes more sense, though, to see it as a Christophany.

At any rate, God saw this slave woman and took an interest in her. She responded, “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai” (Gen. 16:8).

God told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her” (Gen. 16:9). How can she do this when Sarah treated her so badly? The answer is that God would be with her and bless her. Her significance was not in what Sarah or Abraham thought of her but in what God thought of her. In addition, God had a big plan for her and the child in her womb, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count” (Gen. 16:9).

Notice that the Lord was not unaware of the challenge of her predicament. He said, “You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery” (Gen. 16:11). Ishmael means “God hears.” Her challenges and difficulties were not unnoticed. God hears. God sees. God sees and hears Hagar.

Hagar was deeply moved by all of this. She finally knew that she was seen. She responded with a deep acknowledgement of this blessing. She “named” or “praised” the Lord: “You are the God who sees me.” “I have now seen the One who sees me” (Gen. 16:13). She knew she was significant. Others may not have seen her, but the Lord, her Creator, saw her and believed that she was significant.

After this, Hagar returned. How did she get the strength to show respect and honor even when it was hard? She saw the God who saw her. She found her significance in the fact that God valued her.

Conclusion
And that, my friends, is the way out of the disruption and dissolution of the pride solution. God shows up, and we see Him. That means more than mere intellectual awareness. We actually see Him, believe Him, and trust Him. We find the solution to the basic challenges of life in Him. That is the trust solution that overcomes the pride solution to anxiety. We trust God with our anxiety because above the problems we see the God who sees us.

When we see the problems of life that cause us so much anxiety but also see the Lord who is above them, we can experience a peace and joy that transcends those problems. This faith-filled vision of reality enables us to re-engage in our families, communities, and churches in a way that brings healing and restoration rather than disruption and dissolution.

Like Hagar, we can go back to our daily lives in confidence because we know the One who rules over all things and has all problems in His hand, and we know that He sees us and values us. I see the God who sees me. Amen.

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Sermons

Pride, Anxiety, and Injustice (Genesis 16, Part 3)

[Listen to an audio version here]

Where does injustice come from? Humans can treat each other with astonishing cruelty, far outstripping even the most vicious animals. How does it come about that humans behave so unjustly?

When we see injustice, it’s easy to simply look at its perpetrators as evil. Now, don’t get me wrong. Injustice is evil. We should condemn it. However, we also need to seek to understand it.

Injustice is born not only out of pride but also anxiety. We worry about our position, our prestige, or our provision. We make ourselves bigger and claim more for ourselves than is due in order to maintain it.

It’s easier to see how this occurs on a large scale. Why did the United States invade two nations in the early 21st century? Was it not driven out of anxiety over terrorism? Now, you can debate whether those wars were just or not, but the point is that this action took place in the context of anxiety.

Why is China so concerned about a few rocks in the South China Sea? Is it not at least partly anxiety over their position and prestige? People can be just as anxious about maintaining their prestige as they are about maintaining their provision.

In the United States, why did slavery exist? It was anxiety over being able to maintain a particular way of life. The owners became dependent on it in order to maintain their prestige as a sort of American nobility. They feared letting it go because they feared losing that prestige, prosperity, and position. Booker T. Washington wisely noted, “Having once got its tentacles fastened on to the economic and social life of the Republic, it was no easy matter for the country to relieve itself of the institution.”

If you view injustice from this lens, it makes a lot more sense of what we see in the world. Injustice is worthy of condemnation but also of some compassion in light of the challenging position nations and individuals find themselves in.

Now, I want to try to consider how this manifests itself in daily life through this text, Genesis 16. Remember, the Bible reveals the solution to sin but in order to enable us to understand that solution, it also helps us understand sin itself. It does this so that we can repent and find healing, grace, and forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

So, let’s consider what this passage teaches us about sin from the life of Hagar, Sarah, and Abraham.

Hagar
We have already explained Hagar’s anxiety and pride. Hagar’s anxiety was that she would not be seen, that she was insignificant. Once she was “seen,” she immediately took this blessing and made it bigger than it was. “When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress” (Gen. 16:4b). That is a perfect example of pride. We take something that we have that is good, make it more important or valuable than it is, and use it to exalt ourselves above others.

If you ask people how much something is worth, they will give you one answer. If they own the very same thing, and you ask them how much it is worth, then they will say it is worth much more. We tend to value everything more highly if it is “ours.”

And what does this lead Hagar to do? What she gives to herself, she takes away from Sarah. She fails to give her the respect and honor that is due her. Instead, she looks down on her with contempt.

The most basic justice we owe each other is respect. When our anxiety goes up and our pride goes up, respect often gets thrown out the window. That’s why Peter says, “Show proper respect to everyone” (1 Pet. 2:17a). Even when we are telling people why we believe in Christ, we must do this with “gentleness and respect.” Peter says.

How do we show respect to people we struggle with? One, we can honor their basic humanity. Two, if they are believers, we can honor their faith. Three, we can relate to them with curiosity rather than a conclusion. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. Those are the virtues of honor and respect.

Patterson, Grenny, Macmillan, and Switzler in their excellent book Crucial Conversations, note that in order for productive conversations to take place, you need two things: safety and respect. This is basically “gentleness and respect.” These authors note that when safety and respect break down, the ability to have a productive conversation breaks down. And that’s exactly what happens here.

Sarah
Remember that Sarah is already anxious in this passage. She is understandably anxious about not having borne a child for Abraham. To relieve her anxiety, she chooses a common but unjust relief for that anxiety: giving her slave to her husband to have a child through her.

There is no doubt, though, that when Hagar became pregnant, she became very anxious about the situation. When Sarah’s anxiety up, Hagar’s respect also broke down. The result was that Sarah’s anxiety went way up, and she relieved her anxiety in a common from: attack.

Listen very carefully to what she says, “Then Sarai said to Abram, ‘You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me'” (Gen. 16:5). “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering” (Gen. 16:5).

Was Sarah right? In one sense, yes. Abraham was responsible. He had not taken leadership when he should have.

On the other hand, this clearly omitted a key point, namely, that she originated the idea and strongly urged it upon her husband. So, there’s something very important here. When things go wrong, our tendency is to blame others. This began with our first parents. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the serpent. Both attempts to blame had some justice but omitted their own part in it.

This is the dissolution that takes place when we employ the pride solution to our anxiety. It leads to recrimination. It separates people and arms them for war, as it were.

But there is something else here. It’s so hard for us to deal with the abstract problems of life like loneliness, insecurity, and meaninglessness, that we try to make it concrete by blaming others for it. Think of Sarah’s issues. They are big, and to some degree, unsolvable. It makes it a lot easier to blame Abraham.

And let me tell you that there is nothing more common than this in life. We feel the anxiety of life, but it’s hard to articulate that life is just hard. So, we bring it down to our level by blaming Democrats or Republicans or Donald Trump or immigrants or China or whomever. In our daily lives, we blame our parents, our spouses, our children, our neighbors, our friends, our town, our church, our pastor, our congregation, or anyone else.

I know the power of this from my own experience. I admit that when things go wrong, I will blame my wife, even if she had nothing to do with it. I know I do this. I’ve worked hard not to do this, but it’s astonishing how readily my mind goes there when my anxiety goes up. I even know it’s a lie. There’s a part of me that wants to believe it. It’s powerful because it relieves the anxiety. Our whole body starts working towards it because it naturally tends to move us toward that which makes us feel better.

Allow me to extend this out a little bit further through a common example. Loneliness is an existential problem. It is basic to existence. However, in our society, loneliness is a bigger problem than usual because of the breakdown of so many common forms of interaction, including just walking places.

Now, what happens when our anxiety goes up, and we begin to feel like we are lonely? We tend to blame our family, our community, or our church. “These people,” we say, “are just not friendly.” Take note. That might be true to a degree. It’s not always easy to break into a community.

But let’s also notice something else. Loneliness is not a problem people can really solve for us. It’s an existential problem. It’s a problem that is not wholly in any community. The community may be at fault to a degree, but we rarely ask the question, how hard have I worked to build relationships? Relationships take work! That is a more accurate view of the matter, but when anxiety goes up, all that goes out the window. We respond in pride and injustice like Sarah did, blaming others.

Abraham
By now, we have a strong sense of what Abraham is going to do. He is going to avoid the problem and distance from it. He is going to be passive where he should have been active.

How does he respond? “‘Your slave is in your hands,’ Abram said. ‘Do with her whatever you think best.’ Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her” (Gen. 16:6).

Abraham refused to take leadership and allowed Sarah to vent her anxiety and frustration on Hagar. It was wrong for him to sleep with her, but it was also wrong to allow her to be mistreated.

Standing up for just treatment of others is not always easy. Treating others unjustly may relieve the anxiety of a powerful person in our life. When that happens, it will cost us something to stand for justice. So, we need what Abraham lacked, courage. However, Abraham had developed a pattern of dealing with anxiety by avoiding the problem. When the family got tense, it was all too easy to acquiesce in injustice.

The result was not only that Hagar fled. You will also notice that Abraham and Sarah’s choices would affect the generations. When God tells Hagar that she will have a child, here is what He says about this child, “He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers” (Gen. 16:12). The pride and anxiety in this family will reverberate through the generations.

Conclusion
That’s a pretty bleak picture, but it’s not the end of the chapter. Even though we have looked at length at the problem of sin in this chapter, this is not primarily what the chapter is about. What happens to turn back the disruption and dissolution of this chapter? God shows up.

In the fist half of the chapter, God is nowhere to be seen. It’s all about the humans and what they do. It’s almost as if God doesn’t exist. Then, at the lowest point, when everything is falling apart, God shows up. We’ll consider that in more detail next week.

For now, note that this is our great hope. God shows up. The Son of God comes in human form and becomes a part of the human family to heal the human family and all our individual families. Pride, anxiety, and injustice don’t have to be the last word. God’s grace gets the final word. God sees us, and when we see the God who sees us above our problems, that makes all the difference. Amen.

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Sermons

The Pride in Anxiety (Genesis 16, Part 2)

[Listen to an audio version of this sermon here]

Life is full of problems that we can’t solve. What will people do? Will they abandon us? Will they try to control us? Will they move on and leave us behind, alone?

Will we have enough? Will we be taken care of? Will some unexpected threat rob us of our way of life? Will those we love have enough?

Will we be able to understand the situation in the world? Can we understand it enough to function and act in our interest? Is our life significant? Does anything we do really matter?

Will we be able to do what we need to do? Will we get sick and be unable to work or serve those we need to? Will we make mistakes that will harm us? Will we be able to get the things done that we need to?

These sorts of questions can easily overwhelm us. Life is full of anxiety and unsolved problems.

So, what are we to do? We have two options. One, we can seek to solve these things ourselves. This is the pride solution. It leads to the dissolution and disruption we see all around us.

The other option is to trust God. We see the problems, but we see the God who sees us above them. This trust leads us to a joy and peace that enables us to accept our place in the world and to serve others in love.

Today, we want to consider the sinful pride solution that we all tend to employ. Pride is endemic to the human race, and it is a wrong and unjust attempt to place ourselves at the center of things. When we get anxious, we easily try to make ourselves big or retreat into a smaller world where we are in control. We will see this in the life of Hagar, Sarah, and Abraham.

Now, remember that the Bible teaches us the solution to sin, but it also teaches us about sin. The goal of teaching us about sin is so that we can repent, turn from it unto God and find healing, grace, and restoration from the Father, in Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is one passage that teaches us about sin, and, it is a very instructive one.

Hagar
Hagar’s pride is quite out in the open. It is probably what we think of when we think of pride. “[Abraham] slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress” (Gen. 16:4).

Now, think about Hagar. All her life she was considered to be very low. Sarah was above her as her mistress. Hagar might have wondered if her life had any meaning or if she had any significance at all. That is certainly the anxiety of a slave.

Then, she was chosen to have a child for Sarah with Abraham. In her eyes, this must have been an amazing privilege. Then, she actually conceived and was pregnant.

It is not at all surprising that at this point that she would look down on Sarah. She was able to get pregnant, and Sarah was not. It was wrong for her to view things this way, but think about it. She had been looked down on as a slave her whole life! Now, she had the child of her master in her womb. She had significance! It’s only one small step to compare herself to Sarah in pride.

There is anxiety in pride, but there is also pride in anxiety. We can condemn Hagar, but we can also see with compassion how the difficulty of her situation might have led her there. If we can see the anxiety in pride, then we can see the sinner with compassion and condemn their sin.

In addition, how common is this pride? We seize on almost anything we do well as an excuse to look down on others. If we are in better shape, have better behaved children, are a better cook, are more successful, have nicer things, study more, or are better at sports, we value it far more than we should. If we find others doing things well, we tend to downplay it. We value ourselves in excess of what we should and do not value others to the degree we should.

We also take pride in our own particular virtues. If people are good at getting things done and being on time, they look down on those who aren’t and highly value their own virtues. If they are good at dealing with people, they look down on anyone who is impatient or rude with people. It’s the sinful tendency of all of us. We inflate our own virtues.

Of course, we learn to be clever about it. We find pride in things that are bigger than us. Patriotism is a good thing, but our love of country can easily blind us to our nation’s weak spots and become an occasion for exalting ourselves. We can have pride in our nation or group, which is more plausible than exalting ourselves. However, we get exalted with the group, and so we can have our cake and eat it, too.

Even self-loathing can contain an element of pride. German psychologist Dr. Karen Horney had an astute observation about this. She said that our imagination tends to construct our self-image as “a hero, a genius, a supreme lover, a saint, a god” (Neurosis & Human Growth, 22). But what happens when reality conflicts with this illusion? She says, “What does it do to a person when he recognizes that he cannot measure up to his inner dictates? To anticipate the answer briefly: then he starts to hate and despise himself” (ibid., 85). She said that this was so common in her dealings with people that she concluded that “pride and self-hate are actually one entity.” So, she suggested that we call “the sum total of the factors involved by a common name: the pride system” (ibid., 110–111).

Pride is the true endemic. It persistently manifests itself in human life in all sorts of ways. We are all trying to be the star of the show. We will see this a bit more as we look at Sarah and Abraham.

Sarah
How did Sarah’s pride manifest itself? She thought she could control life. She was anxious about her childlessness, which is completely understandable. The method she chose to deal with it was common in her day, but it was contrary to God’s law. She let her desire to be in control overcome her principles.

Often, this sort of pride starts as a good ambition. God has not made us to be passive in the face of the world. He has made us to be active. We should not sit passively in the face of problems. We should seek, under God, in acknowledgement of His Lordship, and in dependence on His power, to make the world a better place.

However, this desire so often gets out of bounds. We begin to believe that we should be exempt from the common problems of human life. Others may have to wait or struggle or experience illness, but I should be exempt! This is the pride in anxiety.

Then, it leads us to deal with others unjustly. It leads us to punish others when we feel out of control, either by a verbal tongue-lashing or by withdrawal. We find all sorts of ways to put others under our control. We shall see this in the next sermon.

Then, we compromise our standards. We should be able to enjoy this or that, we might say, so we steal or lie or skew things in our own direction. The lie at the root of all this is that we can be in control of the world. It is thinking that we can look down on the world as God does. We can’t.

That’s the pride in anxiety, and we need to repent and acknowledge our limited control of the world. Sarah needed to repent of her belief that she could control what she could not. This was the pride in her anxiety.

Abraham
And what about Abraham? We might not think that he is prideful. If anything, he seems to be self-deprecating. He just allows Sarah to lead. “Abram agreed to what Sarai said” (Gen. 16:2).

But if we think about it a little bit more, we can see that Abraham feels the anxiety just as much, and he also has pride. The pride of the compliant is that they can make everyone happy all the time.

So, they will go along with whatever others say, even if it is harmful and even if it is unjust. Whomever they have chosen to make happy will feel accepted and affirmed, even if they do wrong.

Abraham’s pride is to think that he can solve someone else’s fundamental issues. He can solve Sarah’s problems, he thinks. He can make her happy all the time. To do this, he will refuse to take a stand about what is right, will engage in what is actually an affair, and acquiesce in the mistreatment of others. As long as Sarah is happy in the moment, everything will be sacrificed. This is Abraham’s pride, that he can make someone happy all the time.

It’ easier to see the pride of Sarah. It’s harder to see the pride of the compliant. We often rebuke the person who is actively prideful, but we miss the pride in the passive. We see the person who wants to control everything, but we miss the person who sits passively by and refuses to control the things that they should. Both are rooted in pride, pride in our specific characteristics and personalities.

Conclusion
We are guilty before God because of our sin, but we often suffer from false guilt. We feel guilty because someone we care about isn’t happy, but this is not our responsibility. We feel guilty because we made mistakes, but we are not exempt from mistakes. We feel guilty because we didn’t anticipate every problem, but there is no way we could. Others come to us with expectations that we should have done this or that, and we acquiesce and are apologetic. Much of this is rooted in our pride, that we could avoid all mistakes, that we could make everyone happy, that we could fulfill all expectations, that we could have succeeded in everything. We need to watch out for these things.

Our true guilt begins with our pride system. It is to think that we are much greater than we are and can solve life’s problems on our own. Ironically, when we think that we can control all sorts of things that we can’t, we end up losing sight of controlling the things that we can! By refusing to accept our place under God with Him as the star of the show, we miss the role we could play.

Consider Jesus. Read His life carefully. You will find that He showed compassion to people. However, he never refused to take responsibility for what was His. He did not let others deter Him from the path the Father had set for Him. He was willing to speak His mind, though He did it with great wisdom. He trusted His Father, even when His Father said to go to the cross.

And it is the Spirit of Christ that is working in us, if we have trusted Him and invited Him into our lives. He can help us to see what is our real obligation and what is not. He can help us see our significant but limited role in this life. He can help us to take responsibility for what is our responsibility and let go of what is not. “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires” (Rom. 6:11–12). The goal is that we would live out of the life of Christ. This will empower us to live a life of joy and peace in loving service to others instead of the disruption and dissolution that is all around us. This is the grace and the gift that is abundantly ours in Jesus Christ. This is seeing the problems of life but seeing the God who is above them and who sees us. Amen.

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Sermons

The Anxiety in Sin (Genesis 16, Part 1)

[Listen to an audio version of this post here]

Where do the basic problems of society come from? Certainly there are difficult challenges that have to be overcome to justly feed, clothe, and shelter the people of a nation.

However, people can be fed, clothed, and sheltered and have many pleasures available to them and still be miserable. Families still break apart. Neighbors still look at each other with suspicion. People still suffer from depression, anxiety, bitterness, and substance abuse. So, where does all this come from?

According to the Bible, the basic problem is a disruption in our relationship with God. It is the human attempt to place oneself at the center rather than submitting to God as the center of the universe and Lord of all. It is sin.

The Bible not only teaches us the solution to sin. It teaches us about sin itself. It helps us understand our fallen condition so that we can repent, that is, turn from sin and back to God and find healing and redemption through the death and resurrection of Christ.

The Bible teaches that sin is complex. It involves many factors. It does so through numerous historical accounts or stories and through numerous explanations. This month, we are going to look at one of them. It is the story of Abraham and Sarah and Hagar. It began with a plausible choice, but it ended with severe disruption of the family system. We will see in this series how sin works, how it affected this family, and how we can find deliverance from sin.

Here is a basic outline. Sin is occasioned by but not caused by anxiety, our emotional response to the basic problems of reality. In the face of anxiety, we can seek our own solution or trust God. When we seek our own solution, then we are involved in pride. The result is dissolution and disruption in our lives and relationships. The counter-measure to pride is when we see the God who sees us and find our relationship with God restored through His favor offered freely to us in Jesus Christ.

In this sermon, we will consider anxiety as the occasion for sin.

Sarah
“She had borne him no children.” How many people suffer with an inability to have children? Not everyone wants to have children, but, for those who do, they enter into marriage with a vision of what their life will be. They will get married, they will have children, they will watch them grow up, and they will see their children moving out and eventually having children of their own.

Then, things turn out differently. At first, they may think that children are just not coming right away. Then, the years go by. They visit doctors to no avail. Time passes, tears fall, and the dream fades away.

In the meantime, they watch all around them, and they see their friends. They see the births, the birthday parties, the first day of school, the awards, the sports, and on and on. They try to be happy for their friends, but each time they see the good their friend enjoys, it is like a little dagger thrust into their soul.

That’s the situation that Sarah faced. “She had borne him no children.” The years went by, and she had borne him no children.

Remember that Sarah lived in a society in which having children was even more important for a woman’s status than it is in our own. Children were not merely a good to be enjoyed, they were often essential for the economic well-being and status of the family. To lack them was a threat to the family’s existence and prosperity.

Abraham and Sarah also had more reason to be concerned. God had promised Abraham that He would bless the entire world through his seed. But no children had come. They had to wait and wait and wait and wait and wait . . . That had been more than 10 years earlier. When would the promised child come?

It’s not surprising that in light of all this that Sarah came up with a solution to resolve her anxiety over childlessness. She would use a method that was very common in her day. We have many records of just such a solution being employed in the ancient world. She would give Abraham her slave Hagar. Abraham would sleep with her, and Sarah would have a son through Hagar that would be hers.

It was a common solution for the time. It was what many people they knew no doubt had done. It made sense in some ways. But it was contrary to God’s law for marriage, and, as the rest of the passage shows, it totally disrupted the household and the relationships in it.

Abraham
Up to this point, we have only spoken about Sarah. But what about Abraham? What was his role in all of this? “Abram agreed to what Sarai said” (Gen. 16:2).

Abraham was passive. He did not try to solve the problem. He simply goes along with what Sarah suggests. We might say that he distances himself from the problem.

If you read the life of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you will see that passivity is their common response to anxiety. Abraham gives up Sarah to the King of Egypt to avoid their problems. Isaac does the same when they encounter the Philistines. Rebekah says to send Jacob to her brother, and Isaac simply goes along with it. Jacob’s wives tell him to sleep with their slaves, and he does so. He seeks solace for the death of his wife in his son Joseph and refuses to take leadership in the family. His daughter is violated, and he does nothing to redress the issue so that his sons act to do something instead. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were problem avoiders. That was their response to anxiety. They generally went along with whatever anyone else suggested. They distance. That is their response.

But let’s consider Abraham a little more carefully. Think of his situation. No doubt, he struggled with not having a son. However, he had watched his wife struggle even more. He knew how much she suffered. He knew how anxious it made her. He knew her tears and pain.

So, after all that time, when his wife made the suggestion, he responded by passively acquiescing. She firmly believed that this would solve the problem and relieve her anxiety. How could he refuse? Have you ever seen someone really upset? Then, they suggest something that will help them. You may not agree, but it’s hard to say, “no.” This happens all the time in our lives. Someone feels pain, and they think that something will relieve it. We don’t like their pain, and so we go along with it.

Beyond this, Abraham had no doubt seen innumerable examples of this very method for getting children. People get children from their slaves all the time, he might have reasoned. He might have seen times where this worked out with less problems.

He also knew that God had promised to make a nation of his descendants, but had He promised that Sarah would be the one who would bear the son for him? Perhaps there was another way. After all, consider the circumstances. Sarah was getting old. She may not be able to have children. Perhaps Sarah was right. That’s how Abraham might have approached the situation.

The plan was reasonable. It seemed to solve the problem. However, it was contrary to God’s law, and it brought severe disruption to the family.

What We Learn About Sin & the World’s Problems
1. Anxiety is not sin but it provides a temptation to sin. It is Sarah’s anxiety over her situation that leads her to sin. There was nothing wrong with concern over the situation. The question is, what would she do with it?

As you look throughout the Bible, consider carefully how it presents sin. You will see that it begins with anxiety over a threatening situation.

You can see this throughout Genesis. Eve saw the greatness that she could have and chose the forbidden fruit in order to solve it. After the flood, the people feared being scattered and sought to build a tower that would reach heaven. Isaac feared for his life and so lied about his relationship with his wife. Joseph’s brothers had anxiety over their relationship with their father and they let it fill them with hatred that sold their brother into slavery.

You can see this in the book of Exodus. The Pharaoh feared the threat from the Jewish people, and he enslaved them. The Israelites lacked water and food, and they complained in unbelief against God and Moses for leading them out of Egypt. Moses took too long on Mount Sinai. They had to wait and wait and wait . . . and so they built a golden calf that would lead them as their god. Anxiety provides a temptation to sin.

2. Sin is worthy of blame but also compassion. How is it that we can condemn sin and have compassion on sinners? Because there is pride in sin, but there is also anxiety in sin. Anxiety is an emotional response to the basic challenges of life that we all experience. Sinful pride is a wrong solution to the basic problems of life. However, we can have compassion on people like Sarah because they are dealing with very difficult issues, and it is hard. So, we should try to see the pride and the anxiety in sin so can properly condemn the sin and have compassion on the sinner.

3. Anxiety can lead us to want to control things in a sinful way. This manifests itself first of all in the fact that we focus on our own efforts rather than seeking God. It’s not to say we should be passive, but a righteous person approaches problems with constant dependence on God. I have often sinned in this way. I find myself working on a problem as if it all depended on me. I have often found myself well into a problem and then realized, “I should seek God for help on this.” I’m still a long way from where I should be.

What are other ways this manifests itself? How often do we seek to control others when we feel anxious about a situation? How often do we lash out at other people when we feel anxious or upset? How often have we made quick decisions that really were more designed to relieve our anxiety than being what is best? We so often want to do something that will help us feel in control. We sacrifice our own standards because we want to get on top of things. These are the sorts of temptations to sin.

The pandemic has unmasked our own sinful attempts to control things. We can do this by embracing wishful thinking that either says all this will just disappear or that if we simply embrace “science,” we can master it. We try to take control by blaming someone for this problem, whether it’s China, Donald Trump, or Bill Gates.

Conspiracy theories are simply a common human way (on all sides) of trying to make difficulties more understandable. They have a certain plausibility, but they involve jumps in our reasoning that we take because they fit our already preconceived notions. It’s interesting that immediately after this presidential election and the last election that both sides immediately claimed that the election was stolen. Both were adept in seeing the implausible jumps in reasoning that the other side made. Both were completely blind to their own. It’s a human problem. It’s rooted in our desire to be in control rather than trusting God.

4. Anxiety tempts us to sin through passivity as well as activity. It’s easy for us to see the sin of Karen. It’s not as easy to see the sin of the passive Abraham. Adam’s sin was passivity in acquiescing to his wife, and so was Abraham’s. In the face of anxiety, we can fight, but we can also flee or freeze.

So, when our anxiety is up, we should also watch out for passivity. Here the error is the reverse of the last one. In Sarah’s case, she was trying to control things that she couldn’t. In Abraham’s case, he wasn’t controlling things that he could. That was his sin. His anxiety lead him to a sinful passivity and distancing.

A friend of mine and I were talking about what happened last spring. He told me about the worship leader in his church who simply ghosted him. He just stopped communicating with him. No good-bye. No arrangements for his duties. He just ghosted him and stopped responding. This was not because the worship leader had thought clearly about how he should react. It was just an emotional reaction routed in the overwhelming nature of what was happening.

Do you find this happening to you? Do you find yourself going to silence when thing get tough? Do you find yourself abandoning your duties? Do you find yourself running to things that will enable you to escape such as food, alcohol, or sex? If so, you should consider whether you are trying to deal with the challenges of life in a sinful way. In a way, this is just as much an attempt to control the world without God. It is making your world smaller instead of trying to control the big world out there.

So, what are humans to do? They have two possibilities. They can try to be the source of their own security, or they can trust God. They can see the God who sees them. In the midst of our anxiety, God shows up and assures of His love. That’s the big picture of history. Christ sees us and comes into the world and dies for our sins and rises again. This is a foundation by which we can respond to the anxieties of life. It is a perfect solution to the anxieties of the world, not by eliminating all problems but by trusting the God who has them all in His hand. In this way, we can let go of trying to control what we can’t, control what God has put in our power, and leave the rest to the Father who loves us and has given His Son for us and so will not fail to give us all other things as well. Amen.