Off the Path Genesis 12:10-20

Several years ago, one of my friends told me this joke, and the joke went this way.

He said, do you want to hear God laugh? Tell him your future plans. And as I thought about that this week, there's an element of truth to what he's saying, because oftentimes our plans are different from the plans that the

Lord has for us. And the reason that is is because we are selfish.

We want to go our own way, and we don't desire to go the

Lord's way. And even as believers we do that. Now unbelievers always are going against God's will, but even believers can go against the will of God when we do things selfishly.

And what we're seeing in our sermon today, as we continue our sermon series through Genesis, is that Abram does this very thing.

He goes down the wrong path. Last week we saw the Lord make all of these great promises to him.

He promised him that he would have offspring. He promised him that he would have land. He promised that a great nation would come from him.

So you see all these wonderful plans the Lord had for Abram. And Abram goes down the wrong path, even after knowing all of that.

And so our sermon is titled, Off the Path, and we're going to be looking at Genesis chapter 12, verses 10 through 20.

And so I encourage you to turn in the Bible, if you don't have a Bible with you, it's on page 10 and 11 of the

Red Bibles, in the pews. Our big idea, our proposition this morning is, refuse to trust self rather than the all -faithful

God. Refuse to trust self rather than the all -faithful

God. Last week we saw that God chose a man that he would accomplish great things through.

The Lord promised Abram that he would make a great nation from him, the nation of Israel. We also saw the

Lord promise that Abram would be a blessing and a curse to people in the world.

Those who blessed him would be blessed. Those who dishonored him would be cursed. Thirdly, the

Lord promised that through Abram, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And lastly, the

Lord promised that Abram's offspring would attain the land of Canaan, which came to be known as the

Promised Land. So we can see clearly that Abram was God's chosen man.

And when God chooses someone, and that person becomes his child, he will protect him or her to the very end, even when they sin, even when they go down the wrong path, like we're going to see today.

What we're going to see in this text is that the Lord proves faithful, even though Abram does some foolish actions.

In our first point, we're going to see that Abram receives some short -term gain.

He receives some short -term gain from his action, but in the long run, it doesn't benefit him.

And that's the first reason why trusting self is foolish for God's people. The short -term gain does not benefit in the long run.

The short -term gain does not benefit in the long run. I'm going to read verses 10 through 16, and you will see

Abram's selfish actions. 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 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.

Now, we have to remember where geographically Abram is at this point. Last week we saw that he was up in Haran, which is modern day

Turkey, and that he and his family and their possessions went down to the land of Canaan, so they went south.

So the last place we saw him was in the Negev. The Negev was located in southern

Israel. And as verse 10 mentions, there was a great famine in the land, and the place where it says the famine was most severe was in the land of Canaan.

What Abram does is journey to Egypt. Now why would Abram go to Egypt? Well, we know in the present day, the

Nile River, it's one of the most famous rivers in all the world. And so the Nile River and that valley and that region would have been, there would have been food there because there would have been water.

It was a watery region where it would have been more fertile. And so that's where he goes.

Now in verse 11, Abram is making a plan. He knows that he is putting himself and his wife in danger by going to Egypt.

This would have been a very dangerous time. It might be like going to, you know, a downtown

Minneapolis or a dangerous neighborhood. And you're not only worried about your own safety, but you're also worried about the safety of your family.

And Abram is worried about what is going to happen to him as he goes to Egypt. He knows he's taking a risk here.

And as this text says, Abram had a beautiful wife. Abram knows the covetous heart of humans, that they want what others have.

And he knows that when the Egyptians see his beautiful wife, Sarai, they will be tempted to steal her away and kill him.

And so you can see what he's thinking here. You can see the risk he's taking. So Abram comes up with a plan.

Now we're going to see here that this is not a wise plan. This is a foolish plan. But he comes up with a plan. In verse 13, he tells

Sarai to pretend to be his sister and not his wife.

Now this is a half -truth. Genesis 20 verse 12 says that Sarai is the daughter of Abram's father, but they have different mothers.

So Abram and Sarai, they're actually half -siblings, which today might seem very odd.

Back then, not as much. And so he tells a half -truth here, which is a lie.

And what Abram is doing here by telling this lie is taking things into his own hands and not trusting

God. Remember last week, the promises that God made to Abram. By making those promises, the

Lord was making it loud and clear that he was going to be with him through thick and thin.

So when Abram and his wife go to Egypt, Abram should have remembered that the Lord was going to take care of him.

Not too long before this, God promised to Abram that he was going to have offspring. And out of this offspring would come a nation that was going to attain the land of Canaan.

This was all going to come from this man, Abram. At this point,

Abram and Sarai did not have any children. Abram should have known that he was invincible.

Nothing was going to happen to him. No one could touch him. God's great plans for the human race depended on him having children.

And he didn't have any yet. You can see that God was going to protect him no matter what.

But what is Abram fearful of in this story? He is fearful of dying.

He is fearful of being murdered. Abram's sin is great here. He is not trusting the

Lord. He is trusting in himself. And that is why he devises this foolish plan.

We know that Abram is a faithful man. We saw this last week. We know this because last week the text told us that Abram went from the land that he knew to a foreign land as the

Lord had told him. So Abram trusted the Lord in that instance. He was obedient.

But just because he is a faithful man does not mean he is free from doing foolish things.

Noah was a faithful man. But he drank too much wine and became drunk. Remember we saw that probably two months ago?

Righteous people do sin. But they are different from unbelievers in that they are repentant. And there is a sorrow for their sin.

And their sins are forgiven. It is clear in our text that Abram is sinning because he is trusting in self rather than in God.

He is trusting in self by making a plan that will save his life. He is thinking, if they believe she is my wife, they will kill me.

But if they believe she is my sister, my life will be preserved. And we in our own lives have tendencies to do foolish actions like this.

And let me give you an example. Every week I pray for the offering. I always pray that the

Lord owns everything we have. And the Bible actually gives us clear instruction about we should be generous with our money.

We should be generous with our possessions. And the Bible even commands us to give to the state.

And we call that taxes. The Lord Jesus said, give to Caesar what is

Caesar's. Give to God what is God's. So we should give to the church. We should pay our taxes.

But there's a lot of people in America and all over the world who try to take things into their own hands.

And they do that by saying, you know what, I'm going to find a way not to pay my taxes. And they also say, you know what,

I'm going to find a way not to give to the church or not to give to missionaries or not to be generous in my own life.

And so what they're doing is they're taking things into their own hands by saying, you know what, I'm not going to trust the

Lord. I'm going to trust myself to take care of myself. And so I'm going to gather all of my money, all of my possessions, and I'm going to hold on to it so tightly that no one can take it from me.

And so we can do this too. The short -term game might seem like it is the right move because you will have no money.

You'll have less money in your pocket when you're generous. But God is not pleased and it won't end well. So we should trust the

Lord's way even when it seems more difficult. Because if you think about it, if we're generous, it is more difficult because we're thinking, okay,

I could have used that money for something else, right? But when we realize, no, the Lord calls us to do this, he's going to provide for us.

If we're generous, he's going to provide for us. Actually, the scripture says, those who sow sparingly will reap sparingly.

Those who sow bountifully will reap bountifully. And the Lord actually even says that we should test him in our giving.

In Malachi, it says we should test him and he will open up the windows of heaven to us.

And so the Bible is clear that the Lord blesses generosity. And what we show when we're generous is that we trust him.

We're not taking things into our own hands. We're not trying to just preserve ourselves.

And certainly in Abram's situation, it was more difficult for him to tell the Egyptians, this is my wife. Because he would have been putting himself at risk.

But he should have told the truth because God was going to protect him regardless. He was

God's chosen man. And what he does instead is to create an awkward situation.

The Egyptians think Sarai is on the market. And so they tell Pharaoh, they tell the most powerful man in Egypt, that this beautiful woman is on the market.

So there's this beautiful woman that came from the land of Canaan and now the Pharaoh is going to take her. So Pharaoh, who has all the power to do whatever he wants, this is what he does.

In verse 15, it says that he took Sarai into his house. And what that means is he took her as his wife.

He probably had lots of wives, but now she is his wife. So Abram's wife becomes

Pharaoh's wife because of the sinful plan of Abram. So he put himself in a very difficult situation.

He preserves himself and puts his wife at risk. So not only does Abram not trust the Lord, he's being a lousy husband.

Ephesians 5 .25 says, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

Abram is not serving his wife or putting himself at risk for his wife. To the contrary, he's making it easier on himself and putting his wife at risk.

This is a reminder to husbands, we need to lead. We need to protect our wives, even if it means putting ourselves at risk.

If a burglar comes to your door, do you say, you know what, take my wife, just don't harm me?

Of course not. Husbands should be willing to take a bullet for their wives if it comes to that.

My friend Scott, who was here last week, Scott and Jen are our friends. Scott told me one time, he has two daughters.

One is about 20 years old and one is about 17. And he said, someday a man is going to ask to marry my daughters.

And I'm going to ask them, are you willing to take a bullet for them? Because that's important.

Men need to do that. They need to lay themselves down for their wives. And Abram did not do that here.

What we see in this text is that Abram benefits greatly from telling this lie in order to preserve himself.

In fact, verse 16 says that for her sake, he dealt well with Abram.

He had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

So not only does Abram's life get spared, he's put in a position of authority. He benefits from this.

So this is odd. This was not God's plan that his wife would be the wife of Pharaoh.

And that he would have a position in the completely wrong place. We saw

God's amazing plan for Abram last week. And Abram is changing the plan.

God promised that Abram would have the land of Canaan. And now he is sharing his wife with Pharaoh and living in his house, all in an effort to preserve himself.

And he's doing all of this in a place, Egypt, where he's not supposed to be. Where he's not supposed to stay long term.

So we know that God is not going to allow this. Because if he did, we'd be in big trouble.

Remember, the human race depends on Abram and Sarah having a child. And from that offspring would come

Jesus Christ. The Messiah, the Savior of the world, comes from this line. So there's a lot riding on this.

So God's not going to allow this. He already promised that through Abram, all of this was going to happen.

So this is the first reason why it is foolish for God's people to trust self rather than God.

The short term gain does not benefit in the long run. The second reason why it is foolish for God's people to trust self rather than God is the

Lord thwarts plans that deviate from his will. Now what we see is that the

Lord does not bless this plan of Abram. We're going to see that here in a second. It is interesting how the

Lord brings about consequences for Abram's sin. And this is how it goes down in verses 17 and 18.

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 you have done to me?

Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? So this consequence may seem strange since Pharaoh and the

Egyptians had no idea that Sarai was Abram's wife. But the

Lord shows his disapproval of this plan set up by Abram. The Lord is not going to leave Sarai as Pharaoh's wife.

And he's not going to leave Abram in this place where he has this position of authority in Egypt.

What the Lord is doing here is bringing what is hidden into the light. Abram and Sarai knew what they did and they were content continuing this charade.

But God was not going to continue it. The Lord put a stop to this.

And the means he uses is by not afflicting Abram and Sarai, but actually afflicting

Pharaoh and the Egyptians. That might seem kind of strange. Why doesn't he just afflict the people who caused the problem?

But he actually does it to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. All of these people get sick in Pharaoh's house.

And this doesn't normally happen so they know something is up. The author does not tell us how they knew, but not long after the

Pharaoh took Sarai as his wife, very bad things started to happen. Things that are way out of the ordinary, like a plague.

And so when something like that starts to happen, they're starting to think, okay, something's off here. And ever since I took this woman as my wife, this horrible thing has happened to me and all these other people surrounding us.

And it very well may have been that the Pharaoh confronted Abram and asked about this woman. They probably thought she is cursed if she brought all this calamity upon them.

That is when Abram would have told them, she's my wife, not my sister.

When Abram saw these plagues come upon Pharaoh's house, he knew why he had to come clean.

So God thwarts or brings to an end this sinful plan of Abram. We make plans in our lives that don't conform with God's will, do we not?

That's what Abram does here. When I graduated from college, I had all these plans of how my life was going to go.

And my brother and I, we moved to Eden Prairie from Mound, which is about 20 miles away.

And we had these plans, you know, we're going to find a new church. Because up to this point, I had only belonged to one church in my entire life, and that was

Mound Evangelical Free Church. And so my brother and I were thinking, okay, let's find a church out this way.

And so we went to several churches. Eventually, we found a church we liked. We stayed there for two months.

But then we had this dissatisfaction that, you know, maybe we were supposed to do something else.

And we loved the church that we came from. We loved Mound Free Church. That was our home church. The pastor there was great.

We were learning a lot. We were growing. And so we thought, you know what? It's a little bit of a drive, but maybe we should go back there.

And so like a vortex, we were sucked back to the same place we were before.

And we came to Mound Free. And now I see God's plan. You know, hindsight is 20 -20.

The Lord's plan was to bring me into that church where I would get more involved, where I would eventually enter the leadership there.

Because I did a pastoral internship there. I eventually joined staff. I was an assistant pastor there.

And that prepared me to come here, to be your pastor. So we see all the Lord's plans. And I was able to do that at Mound Free Church because of the connections

I had. They knew me. I had a good friendship with the pastor. And it was a smaller church where I could get more involved and use my gifts.

And so it was amazing to see the Lord. The Lord's plan was not to send me to a different church, to a different community.

His plan was to send me right back where we were. And you can think of your life.

You may have had a plan long ago that you were going to do this and that with your life. But God closed that door and said, no, you're not.

And he instead has placed you here in Eureka to be a part of this church, to live for him in this community.

God's plan for Abram was not that he was going to live in Egypt in this lie. We already saw

God's plan for Abram last week. This great plan that he had for him. And if you think about your own life,

God's plans are so much greater than the plans that we have for ourselves. Our plans are either way off and really selfish, or they're actually pretty mediocre when you think about it compared to the plans that God has for us.

And Abram's plan here, I mean, he had some good things happening. He had authority in Pharaoh's house.

But still, it paled in comparison to these huge promises that the

Lord made to him just last week when we saw that. It's a no -brainer that the

Lord was going to bring Abram's sinful plan of self -preservation to an end. So this is the second reason why trusting self is foolish for God's people.

The Lord thwarts plans that deviate from his will. The third reason and final reason why trusting self is foolish for God's people is

God proves himself faithful at every moment. At this point in the narrative,

Abram is probably thinking, I'm in big trouble. The most powerful man in Egypt knows that I lied to him.

He lied to the Egyptians, and by telling this lie, he probably thinks he's going to die.

He's going to be executed for what he has done. And so at this point, he just wants his life to be spared.

He's thinking, I'm toast. But the Lord is faithful. Abram is

God's chosen man. The fate of all humanity hinges on this man, Abram.

Because as I already mentioned, Christ is going to come through his line. God's not just going to forget about this plan that he made to Abram.

He's going to continue with him. He's going to be faithful. And Abram is a great example of a godly man who does something very foolish.

But God stands with him because God is faithful, and he knows the outcome of Abram's life.

God is writing Abram's story, and he knows that his life will be one of triumph and not tragedy.

We see God's faithfulness in the last two verses of this account, in verses 19 and 20.

This is God being gracious to Abram. So the Pharaoh says to him, Why did you say she is 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. So what we see in these last two verses is that the

Lord is not done with Abram. By sending a plague and willing that the

Pharaoh would let Abram go, we see the Lord standing with this man. The Lord stands with his chosen people.

If the Lord were not faithful, you know what he would have done? He would have left him in Egypt. Unchose Abram, and chosen his brother instead to keep this line going.

But God's faithfulness to Abram still stands. He says, No, you're the one I'm going to accomplish this through.

There's not going to be anyone else. I'm doing it through you. God keeps his promises. God still has big plans for Abram, even though he took part in something very foolish.

Abram didn't deserve God's faithfulness, but God's faithful to him nonetheless. The Lord still promised that offspring would come from him.

The nation of Israel would come from him. Salvation would come to the world. And Abram is a blessed man.

He's God's chosen man. And God's going to continue with him. And in the following chapter, and we'll see this next week,

Abram leaves Egypt and goes to the place where he belongs, the land of Canaan. That's where all the promises were leading him to.

And all because the Lord was faithful to him. Now if Abram had remembered God's faithfulness before he made this decision to sin, he would have saved himself so much trouble.

How awkward was the situation? He's living a lie. His wife is married to the most powerful man in Egypt.

And he did all this just because he was trying to preserve himself. And if Abram would have been honest from the beginning, what probably would have happened is

Abram would have been up front with the Egyptians about Sarai being his wife, and God would have protected him.

He would have found food and been on his way back to the land of Canaan. But instead, this odd ordeal occurs in Egypt.

And what is so incredible about this is that even though Abram sinned big time, God was still faithful to him.

And as we think about the Christian life, as we walk with the Lord, oftentimes we go off the path, don't we?

We're staying on the path that the Lord has for us, and then we go off the path. And we think, okay, is the Lord done with me?

No, he's not done with you. He's committed to you. He's faithful to you, just as he was faithful to Abram.

And so what do we do? We get back on the path, and we keep going. And then at a later time, we probably go off the path again.

But then we get back on, and we keep going. The Christian life is one where, I mean, imagine going down one of the paths here in St.

Croix. You're off in the woods, in the ditch, every once in a while, but then you get back on, and you keep walking, and then you get bumped off into the ditch, and then you get back on.

That's what the Christian life is like. God stands with you. He doesn't say, all right, I'm done with you after you've gone on the path once or the wrong path.

He's faithful to you. But we make it so much more difficult for ourselves when we go against God's will and sin.

But if we find our satisfaction in him and his plans for our lives, we will save ourselves trouble. It is important to point out that sometimes suffering comes in the

Christian life when we don't sin in order for God to produce something in us. God is making us holy, and he sends something difficult our way.

But other times, discipline comes when we go down the wrong path. God's saying, nope, don't do that.

It's just like a parent disciplining their child. You say, no, don't do that, and then you put them on the right course.

God does that with us too. He shows his tremendous faithfulness by standing by his people, even when they go down the wrong path at times.

But what the Lord does is he sovereignly keeps us on the path, and he does this because he loves us. He does this because he has a plan, and that plan is that in the end, we would be presented before him holy and blameless.

He has this amazing plan for his children, and we should praise the Lord for his faithfulness.

So this is the third reason why trusting self is foolish for God's people. God proves himself faithful at every moment, and when we trust his faithfulness and do not sin, we save ourselves much heartache, and Abram learned this the hard way.

So what we've seen this morning is we need to refuse to trust self rather than the all -faithful

God. And the three reasons we saw is that short -term gain does not benefit in the long run.

The Lord thwarts plans that deviate from his will, and God proves himself faithful at every moment.

What we need to understand is that the Lord is writing your story. He's writing every one of your stories.

Psalm 139 verse 16 says, Is that amazing?

The Lord knows the outcome of your life. He knows what he's doing in your life. He's got a plan.

You've already seen that, and you're continuing to see it in the present and then in the future. And as you travel down this path, the

Lord calls you to trust him as you go through this life. And what the Lord has done is he's given you a companion.

He's given you the Holy Spirit. He doesn't leave you in this journey in life to go on your own.

He gives you the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, to help you along the way.

That's why when you read the Bible, it says we should do things by the Spirit. Galatians 5 .16, it says,

It's not an audible voice, but it's a voice that says, No, you shouldn't do that. You should do this.

That's the Holy Spirit speaking to you. And he speaks to you as you read the

Word of God, as you sit under the preaching of the Word of God. And the more understanding you have about what the will of the

Lord is, because the will of the Lord is this, what he tells us in the Bible. When we understand what this says, then the

Spirit can work in our lives that much more. And so we need to listen to what he has to say.

And as you walk by the Spirit, as Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 says, Next week, we will see the story of Abram and Lot as they leave

Egypt and go back to the place where they belong, the land of Canaan. And what we're going to see is that they will separate in that story.

Let's pray. Father in Heaven, we saw your tremendous faithfulness in this account today.

And Lord, why does the author, Moses, include this in the Bible? He does it because there's something that his readers can learn from this.

And here in the 21st century, in Eureka, we can learn much from this passage about not going down the wrong path, but staying on the path that you have planned for us.

And you have made promises to people. You have promised that in Christ we have eternal life, that in Christ we will be with you forever.

And so even when we go down the wrong path and we realize what we've done, you graciously take us and put us back on the path, and we walk with you, and you are a great

God, and we worship you, we praise you for that. In Jesus' name, amen.