If you have ever been to church or Sunday school, then more than likely at some point you heard the story of Abraham and Sarah and the promise of a child.
The story goes like this. Abraham and Sarah are not able to have a baby. Sarah is long since past her years when she could have gotten pregnant. God shows up one day and tells Abraham He is going to give them a child and makes all sorts of promises to Abraham. Sarah laughs knowing she is too old to get pregnant.
Time goes by and Sarah starts thinking, since she is too old to have a baby, if she let Abraham sleep with her maid servant then he could get her pregnant and since it would be under the same household, then technically God’s promise would be fulfilled. In other words, Sarah doubts God’s promise and decides she is going to help God out.
Well after her maid servant has the child, a little later on, guess what happens. Yep, Sarah gets pregnant. Then they eventually have a big family squabble and the maid servant and her child are forced to leave.
So what’s the point of the story? While there are a number of lessons we could all learn from this, one of the primary lessons is Sarah doubted God’s promise and it caused all sorts of trouble. In fact we are still having this same family squabble going on today between Israelis and Arabs. Of course they each have their versions of the story, but that is beside the point.
The lesson we all can learn from this is a lesson in faith. Instead of this being some isolated ancient incident, we find that this story rings true in our own stories.
For Christians this story holds a very special meaning and we should be the first ones who catch on to it. Unfortunately that is not the case many times, because despite being a Christian we still have our human nature. You know that nature we inherited from our grandparents Adam and Eve. The one that wants to control the situation, that doesn’t want to have to rely on God where when we are presented with an opportunity where we don’t have to, we are usually bound to take it.
So how does this story relate to modern Christianity? Well, it relates all too well. Let me give a series of events we as Christians can relate to that I think helps explain:
1. We are born and we start out knowing nothing.
2. One day we go to church, we are told we are sinners and we need a Saviour and Jesus is the Saviour and if we accept what He did for us then we are set right with God. In other words, we believe (have faith in God and Jesus’ promise) that God saves us and has done everything necessary to set us right with Him and get us home to Him in eternity. From this “entering into God’s grace through faith” we begin to experience love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, self control, etc…
3. After a short while, we begin to notice some problems. We begin seeing the sin issue is not cured, we still have sin in our life, maybe not as much and even though we don’t want to sin we still do, so the problem is still there. Then we have our well meaning Christian friends who say, “oh believing is not enough, you have to live a certain way.”
We then honestly believe that well, they have a point and even have Bible Scriptures they have so handily interpreted for us that support their position. So wouldn’t you know it, we find ourselves in the same position as Sarah was in thousands of years ago. Do we believe God’s initial promise or do we take a safer route and hedge our bet and take at least some of our eggs out of that faith alone basket?
4. So then we assume God is going to need some help in this situation. After all, we see the sin problem and we want things to work out. It’s not like we don’t love God, on the contrary we love Him so much that we want to not assume that He is really as loving and as gracious as we first thought He was. We shouldn’t assume His Spirit will lead us all the time. Look at all the things wrong with this world and even in our own nature. We can’t expect God to do everything.
5. So we change our position (with the most noble of intentions mind you just like Sarah did). God needs help so we are going to help Him. Instead of believing in and telling others the good news we were first introduced to and our hearts embraced, we start adding some caveats. Now you need to clean up your act before accepting Jesus as your Saviour. Now you need to give up “x” or be “y” before God will give you any of the gifts of the Holy Spirit or to even stay saved. Oh and as far as God sanctifying you (making you more holy), well He doesn’t actually do that. You have to make yourself holy and God will help you. Oh and if you fail, that’s your fault because God already gave you the ability.
6. As we go down this road, more and more rules, regulations and fine code get added to the list. We smash our finger swinging a hammer and use a four letter word. We need to repent and get right with God. We are “a” denomination and you are “b” denomination. They need to repent and get right with God. We lose our temper, drink a beer, smoke a cigarette, voted Democratic, missed church, didn’t tithe, looked too long at that boy or girl in the bathing suit when we were swimming, etc… And suddenly we find ourselves disconnected from God and continually trying to repent, but things getting harder and harder to where we begin to despair. Also the devil increasingly gets credited for more and more influence in one’s life to the point where we begin believing there is a devil hiding around every corner and God seems like He is off in the distance watching to see if we pass the obstacle course.
7. Eventually we begin to hide our sins pretending in public we are not sinners or we start grading on a sin curve seeing ourselves as better than some and not as good as others. The one’s that seem like they are the most perfect end up being our leaders and when they end up falling off the pedestal we have them on, we are left in disbelief wondering how this could happen.
8. Many times we adopt just enough “grace and faith” belief to help us along our way and get us back to our religious effort. We look at how hard we tried and that consoles us when we do something wrong. So then those of us who think we perform the best and winning God’s approval end up having very little grace about us. It turns into, God has just enough grace for people who perform to this standard and we move that standard around when we have to so we are meeting it.
9. We damage our relationships with each other and fight over doctrinal differences, who’s right and who’s wrong, we become professional fault finders in others and in our selves, we start out with a desire to live for God out of love and gratitude and somewhere along the way we find ourselves down a dead end road.
This is not some made up story, but has been my own story over the years. The only thing that has saved me from this vicious cycle and the feelings of condemnation it produces is grace. The faith I first believed, without all the extra baggage added on. Simple trusting faith that God has made things right and will make things right and all I have to do is trust Him. And you know what, I find myself growing ever so slowly. Growing in grace and love. Able to love people who before I found unlovable. I still sin of course. Everyday. Some ways I notice and some I may never notice. I’m growing in love though and by the grace of God I trust I’ll be just fine and you will too.
Thanks for reading,
- Dave
