Promises in Peril - Genesis - July 5th, 2026 (Sermon Transcript)

This morning, we are looking at a fascinating episode in the life of Abraham.

It may be one of the more overlooked parts of his story, but when you stop to think about it and meditate on it, there are these deep and valuable lessons to be learned, universal lessons, really.

Because I think that everyone who has been walking with God for any length of time has had this experience, whether you've been a Christian for 10 minutes or 10 years, you probably know what I'm talking about.

It's that feeling you have when it seems like you have totally ruined the good plans that God has for your life.

When you disobey God and you find yourself facing terrible consequences, when you do something stupid or foolish and everything just goes off the rails, when you've messed up so many times or you've messed up so badly that you think God must be

finished with you. God had a great plan, but you've totally messed it up. What then? What do you make of that?

Is it true or is there still hope? Well, I've got some encouragement for you this morning. At the beginning of Genesis chapter 12, God gives Abraham or Abram, as he's called there, a series of incredible promises.

He lays out these wonderful plans for Abraham and his family. And now, in our passage this morning, we see him completely blow it. He makes a mess of it.

He immediately does the wrong things. So let's take a look at his story and the lessons that we can learn from it.

2:09

Genesis 12 Reading

Please stand for the reading of God's word. I'll read the text for us. Genesis 12, verses 10 through 20.

Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.

When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai, his wife, I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, this is his wife. Then they will kill me, but they will let you live.

Say, say that you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake. When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.

And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.

And for her sake, he dealt well with Abram, and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels. But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife.

So Pharaoh called Abram and said, What is this that you've done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say she's my sister so that I took her for my wife?

Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go. And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had.

This is the word of the Lord. May you be seated and please join me as I pray for us. Father, I pray that you would be with us here this morning as we study your word, as we receive your word.

I pray that we would receive it with gladness, with full intent to obey you in light of what your word teaches us this morning. I pray that we would be encouraged by it, that you would guide us through it, God.

I pray that your spirit would fill me up and speak through me to your people for their sake and for your glory. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

4:23

Promises in Peril

Now, the title of this message is Promises in Peril. And you can clearly see in the passage, the peril that Abraham went through. But we have to remember also the promises.

We have to remember what happened at the beginning of Chapter 12. At the beginning of Chapter 12, we talked all about this last week. At the beginning of Chapter 12, Abram is just a pagan man living in a pagan place.

He's middle-aged. He's prosperous. He's settled, and he's probably worshipping idols with everybody else in his city.

But then God shows up and calls him. And God will later change his name from Abram to Abraham. So we'll kind of go back and forth between the two.

And God will also later change the name of his wife from Sarai to Sarah. And we'll go back and forth between those two as well. But God shows up, and eventually he changes his name.

Eventually, he changes everything. God gives him these incredible promises. In his infinite wisdom and kindness, he calls this man to follow him and gives him a series of incredible promises for his life.

We see those in Genesis 12, verses 1 through 3. Now, the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

So God promises here to give him a land that he will show him later. Later in the Bible, we find out that this is the land of Canaan.

It covers most of the modern day Middle East, Israel and big portions like all of Lebanon and Jordan and Syria, and like covers most of the modern day Middle East.

And he also promises to make a great nation out of Abraham and his descendants, that will come from him and his wife Sarai.

He also promises that he will bless Abraham and make his name great and that he will bless the world through him and his descendants. So God has this amazing plan for Abraham and his family. And now look at verse 10.

Roughly five minutes later, the entire plan goes off the rails. Abraham, in some ways you could say, is like a kid who gets into Harvard.

Like he has this incredible blessing, this amazing opportunity, and then he like starts dealing drugs his first semester on campus and gets kicked out, just totally blows it. Seriously, look at what he does. God promises him the land.

And so what does Abraham do? He immediately leaves the land that God is promising him, and he goes to Egypt. So how is he going to inherit the land if he's not there?

He loses the land, and then he loses his wife, the very wife that he is supposed to have a nation of descendants with. He's going to Egypt and he gets scared that they're going to take her away and kill him.

So starting in verse 11, we see this ridiculous plan that he comes up with. Just tell everyone that Sarai is my sister, so that they don't kill me and take her. And in verse 15, sure enough, they don't kill Abraham, but they do take his wife.

She's taken into Pharaoh's house to be one of his concubines. So now that he's lost the land and he's lost the wife, how's he going to inherit the land and how are they going to have kids that grow into this great nation?

So all these promises from God, all these plans that God had for his life are now in peril. We also learn that Abraham is a liar, that he's totally lacking in courage, that he's selfish, and that he might be a little bit dumb.

But that doesn't really help us, does it? So what else is there? What can we learn from this whole saga?

9:00

God Greater Than Sin

I want to give you three lessons to take away from this. Lesson number one, God is greater than our sin. God is greater than our sin.

This is the story of human history, really. We sin, but God is mighty to save. If our sin had the ability to stop God and ruin his plans, then the world probably would have ended long ago.

We would have self-destructed centuries ago or millennia ago. But the Bible, the story of the Bible, is that God has the power and the plan to overcome our stupidity and sin. I mean, what is the gospel?

What is the gospel? It is the good news that through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God has overcome our sin. Even though we have blown it a thousand times, God still has the power to overcome our sins and give us hope.

We still have a glorious eternal future before us. Therefore, no matter what happens in your life, no matter how many times you mess up, God has the power to make something good out of you and your life. That's the message.

That's the hope. That's the good news. So many people feel like they are a lost cause.

Like, they really feel this way. I've talked to these people. They feel like they're a lost cause, that it's too late, that they've blown it too many times, that they've made too many mistakes.

But you're never a lost cause. God is never, never made impotent by our sin. He always has the ability to overcome our sin and foolishness.

A lot of people also fall into a similar trap, where they think that they've made the wrong choice, they've messed up so many times, that God had this wonderful plan, but we blew it, and God's now on plan B for us.

So we trust God a little bit more than the first person, where they think there's absolutely nothing that God can do.

But we don't trust God quite enough, because we think, well, I was on plan A, but then I did this, and I made that mistake, and I committed this sin, and this happened, and now I'm on plan B. Now we're consigned to like the lower tier.

But then, of course, you mess up again, and you get moved to the backup plan. So now we're on plan C, and then you mess up again and again. But here's the truth.

If that's how it works, if God is that impotent, if we are that powerful, and God is that weak, if God is that beholden to our faults and our wills, if that's how it works, then you wouldn't be on plan B.

You wouldn't be on plan C or D, or you'd be on plan ZZZ by now. You would be 10 million miles away from God's plan for your life. But that's not how it works.

Look at Abraham. His foolishness had absolutely zero effect in derailing God's plan. Praise God for that.

God overcame his foolishness. He gets his wife back, and God even blesses him more in the process, exactly like he promised. Look at verse 16.

Abraham totally blows it, and as a result, what happens? He gets incredibly rich, and for her sake, it says, he, Pharaoh, dealt well with Abraham. And he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

He blows it, God overcomes it, and he gets incredibly rich in the process. This is not a pattern for us to imitate, by the way. But it is a reminder that God can and will bless us despite our sin.

And yet, we have to take responsibility. Look at verse 18. So Pharaoh called Abram and said, What is this that you have done to me?

Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Abraham gets called before one of the most powerful rulers in the world, and he gets called out. He gets humiliated.

He did something stupid, and God uses Pharaoh to make sure that he recognizes his own sin and stupidly. So just because God can maintain his good plan for our lives despite our sin, this is not a license to continue in sin.

It's comforting to know that God can overcome our sin. It gives us hope. It relieves the pressure to be perfect.

Let me say that again. It relieves the pressure to be perfect. If you think that if I mess up, then I go to plan B, and if I mess up again, then I go to plan C, and God is just powerless to bless me despite my sin.

If that's the way that you think, the entire burden of your life is all on you. All the goodness that might happen in your life, it's all up to you and your behavior and your wisdom and ability to make the right choice.

So when we get this truth that I'm trying to tell you that God can overcome our stupidity and sin, when we understand that, it relieves the pressure to be perfect. It reminds us that God is in control. He is sovereign, and we are not.

And yet again, it's still not an excuse for sin. But the big picture is that we don't have to be afraid that we are going to ruin God's good plan for our lives.

15:41

God Greater Than Fear

But as FDR said in his famous speech in 1933, the only thing that we have to fear is fear itself. Looking again at the passage, verse 10. Why did Abraham leave the promised land to go to Egypt?

Because he was afraid. Because he was afraid there was a famine. And he was afraid that him and his family were going to starve.

And so he decides to go down to Egypt. They have the Nile River and that whole river basin, and it's very fertile, and they're not experiencing the famine the same way that the land of Canaan is.

So we're going to go down there, and we'll sojourn there for a while because they'll have food. Now, to be fair, the Bible does not condemn him for leaving to Egypt. That might have been a reasonable thing to do.

Maybe. But it also seems like it was probably a bad idea that came from a place of fear. At the very least, we can say, he made that decision in some way related to his own fear.

But then you get to verse 12, and you get some confirmation. You can see, this is a man who was deeply afraid. He thinks that the Egyptians are going to kill him and take his wife.

And so what does he do? He sacrifices his wife to save himself. That's the plan.

Verse 13. Say, you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake. Like, sacrifice yourself to be one of Pharaoh's concubines so they don't kill me, and that it'll go well with me.

I don't think you can escape the conclusion that Abraham is acting like an absolute coward. That he's doing something that is disgusting and despicable and weak, something a man should never ever do. And why did he do that?

Because he was afraid. Because he was afraid. And I would argue that a great deal of our sin and disobedience comes from a place of fear.

Fearful people don't make good decisions. Did you know that the Bible commands us repeatedly to not fear?

Repeatedly, over and over and over again, there's an urban legend out there that says that the words fear not appear exactly 365 times in the Bible, one for each day of the year. I thought that was true, but apparently it's not true.

It's an urban legend. But depending on the translation, the Bible contains around 100 to 150 commands to fear not. So not exactly 365, but that is a lot of commands to not fear, between 100 and 150 times.

And why does God command us and remind us so often and so clearly to not be afraid? Well, because he wants us to trust him. If we have to be afraid of all the time, of all kinds of things, what does that say about God?

It says that he's not good at taking care of us, that he's not powerful enough to meet our needs or make sure that we are protected. If God's people are afraid, it must be because their God is not powerful enough, or wise enough, or good enough.

Our fear speaks negatively of who God is. God wants us to trust him. We shouldn't be afraid because fear is the opposite of faith.

And because when we're afraid, we do stupid things. God does not want you to be afraid. I love what Jesus said in his final lesson to the disciples.

In John 14, Jesus shares his last words before his crucifixion. He knows what he is about to experience, and he knows what the disciples are about to experience. It's one of my favorite passages in the whole Bible.

If you haven't read it, or if you haven't read it in a long time, I would encourage you this week, read John 14 through 17, the last discourse of Jesus.

He knows his disciples are about to go through the most terrifying, devastating experience of their lives. So he begins his last sermon with these words. Let not your hearts be troubled.

Believe in God. Believe also in me. And a little while later, he says this in John 14, 27.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

You see, God is greater than our fear. And in the end, he overcame Abraham's fears, and he has the power to overcome yours as well.

21:19

God Greater Than Heroes

Finally, we learn that God is greater than our heroes. Think about the whole arc of the book of Genesis leading up to Abraham and including Abraham. God creates the world, right?

And it is very good. Adam and Eve are set up in paradise to be fruitful and multiply and rule the world on God's behalf. But then they fall.

They disobey God, and they bring sin and sadness and chaos and destruction into the world. But then, we meet Noah, and Noah is a righteous man. And God wipes everybody out with the flood, and he gives Noah a chance to do things right.

Noah is going to be the great hero. Adam failed, but Noah is going to succeed. And then what happens?

Noah gets drunk and passes out naked in his tent, and things devolve into sin and rebellion once again. But then, we meet Abraham, and Abraham is this incredible hero of the faith. And God is going to make a great nation out of him.

He's going to give him this land. He's going to make a great nation out of him. He's going to bless him and bless the whole world through him, but it turns out, he's a fool and a coward.

According to Islam, Abraham is like the epitome of heroic faith. According to Jewish tradition, Abraham is the epitome of faith. Many people treat Abraham like he is the author of faith.

But there's only one hero and one author of our faith.

Hebrews 12-2 says, Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

You can call Christianity an Abrahamic religion, but he is not the founder of our faith, Jesus is. You can look to the great moments of faith in Abraham's life as an example for us to follow, but he is not the author of our faith, Jesus is.

Jesus is the only one with the power to sustain and grow our faith to completion. And Hebrews 12 is reminding us that he endured the cross. He made atonement for our sins, and he is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

In other words, he is completely victorious. Your sin has been dealt with. He is the reason that we can know that God has the power to overcome our sin.

Jesus is why we know that, because Jesus demonstrated that. Jesus achieved that victory. The power of sin in your life has been defeated.

Therefore, you don't have to be afraid that your sin has ruined God's good plans for your life. You don't have to be afraid because you saw what happened with Abraham. You saw what God can do despite a person's sin.

But even more than that, you don't have to be afraid because you can be confident that Jesus has defeated the power of sin. The Bible says that the penalty of sin is death. Follow the logic with me.

This is so important. The Bible says that the penalty of sin is death. When you sin, when anybody sins, the consequence is death.

And Jesus died as a consequence for sin. And yet what happened then? He rose again, defeating death, right?

Demonstrating that he is defeated sin, which caused death in the first place. So here's the take home message for you. When you mess up for the thousandth time, look to Jesus.

When you are convinced that all hope is lost, look to Jesus. When you make a mess of your life, call out to Jesus. Jesus did not come to save the righteous.

Jesus did not come to heal the healthy. He did not come to fix those who can fix themselves. Jesus came to save sinners.

Abraham sacrificed his wife to save himself. But Jesus sacrificed himself to save you.