Good morning. Here we are at another tasty Taco Tuesday. I saw another funny taco shirt this week. It said, “The more dangerous the neighborhood, the better the tacos.” If this is true then I’m probably not having the best tacos. Margie and I did have a fun little experiment on Sunday night. There is a mall on the south side of Fort Worth that specifically caters to Hispanics. And I don’t mean casually, we call it the “Mexican Mall” because it’s like taking a trip to Mexico. The signs are all in Spanish, the clientele is 98% Spanish and the goods, services and foods are all authentic to Mexico. (corn in a cup?) Well your average white person avoids this mall like the plague. Whether it be fear or intolerance, they just don’t go. Well, we did. How can you claim to love the people of the world if you won’t even go and embrace the different people groups in you own neighborhood? We walked around the mall, took in the sights, shopped some of the stores and gave out lots of big smiles as the people obviously wondered why two random white people were there hanging out. We had a GREAT dinner at a little taco shop and just had a fantastic time. We were all smiles as at times, we really did feel like we were in Mexico on vacation. As Aladdin would say, there’s a “Whole New World”, right outside your door. It was also a great exercise in swapping places with a minority group. (although Hispanics are due to be the biggest people group soon, so they won’t be a minority anymore) But I could feel the shoes swapped on my feet as the entire night we were the only other white people we saw. For us this was a good exercise in love, acceptance and stepping out. Good times, we’ll definitely be going back. I don’t know about the danger level but the tacos were probably better!
This morning we are in Genesis 21 and it is one of the more misunderstood chapters in Genesis, maybe in the entire Old Testament. You recall that back in chapter 16 Sarah prompted Abraham to go lay with their servant Hagar so that they could have a kid. This of course, was not God’s will and as a result He said that Ishmael would not be His chosen man to uphold His covenant. Later in our story we see that God promises to bless Abraham and Sarah with their own son, one that God would use to fulfill His covenant, Isaac. Well, this morning we get to see the arrival of Isaac. He comes onto the scene in verses 1-2 and as He does it’s worth noting the verse and it’s overlying message. Notice my italics:
“ Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. 2 Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him.”
So, Sarah conceives at 89, gives birth at 90 and Abraham becomes a father for the second time at 100. And this was all as God promised. There’s an entire lesson here for another day, but just notice these two verses and how they drip of God shouting to us about His promises. The promises of God are the strongest bond this universe has ever witnessed. God is truth, He cannot lie, and He cannot rescind. What God promises will happen, the way He says, when He says and how He says. He reminds us of that THREE times in these two verses as He brings forth Isaac. He was gracious to Sarah “as He said, “ He did for Sarah “as he had promised,” and He gave Abraham a son in his old age “at the very time He had promised it to Abraham.” Never, never, never forget or doubt the promises of God. God is truth and His promises are truth. Believe it.
As soon as Isaac arrives the family drama starts. Hagar (the servant mother of Ishmael) and Abraham’s son, Ishmael, starts mocking little Isaac. Well, Sarah is going to have none of it, and she tells Abraham (it seems rather harshly) that not only he, but his mom as well, have to go. And when I say go, I don’t mean to a local hotel for a few weeks, I mean put them out on the street like an unwanted stray cat. Now this request troubles Abraham (Gen 21:11) as it very well should have. By this time Ishmael was in his teens and Abraham of course had grown to love his son. So, if we stop right here, which most of us do, we as well as our society would draw our own conclusions on the story. Sarah is a mean, bitter, new mom and she is uber jealous of Hagar and Ishmael and simply wants to “remove the competition.” I mean really, what a hateful woman to put these poor people out on the street right? AND, to get it done she nags her husband and makes him do it! But keep reading…
“But God said to Abraham, “Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named. 13 And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.” 14 So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.”
Wait, what? God approves of this? You see when God is present, it usually confounds men. The thinking of God cannot be grasped by us. God does approve of this and He pretty much says this is the way it’s gotta be. If I were to tell this story on the 6 o’clock news today can you imagine the feedback I’d get? Throwing out a single mom and her young son on the street with only bread and water? What kind of monster would do this? But we have to go deep here to truly understand. You see Sarah and Abraham sinned against God when they doubted His provision and took getting a child into their own hands. We want to think that after our sin has manifested, that somehow it will now be OK. I can hear the reasoning, “well, God I’ve already done this sin so now you have to accept it, right?” Nope, God will not accept sin. You see, Abraham had been living with Ishmael now for years and He loved him. He had been living with the result of his disobedience to God and it had to go. God brought about an unusual way to achieve this, but ultimately God tells Abraham, you must remove the sin from your life to continue walking closely with me. I gave you Isaac, he is my chosen one, not Ishmael and you can’t have both. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
But can’t we? Here’s our lesson today. Dealing with our two natures. Did you know that if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior that you have two distinct, very different natures within you? Oh, yea you do. You see because of Adam and Eve’s first sin in the garden in Genesis 3, we have all inherited a sin nature. (Rom 3:23) You don’t want it, you didn’t ask for it, but friend, you got it, we all did. Because of this sin nature we all born knowing how to lie, steal, covet, cheat and live in selfish pride. Have you ever noticed that you never have to teach a young child these things? They’re just born knowing them and then parents spend the next 25 years trying to train them out of it! That’s our first nature, one of self-serving, flesh loving, sin.
So, what’s the second nature? Well, if you came to a point in your life where you accepted Jesus, you got a new nature. By admitting that you had this sin nature and you couldn’t control it, you were in essence giving up and asking to be saved from it. There’s only one way to ever get this done and that’s through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus died on a Cross, was buried in a tomb and three days later was raised to life so that we could have eternal life with Him in Heaven. As you accepted Jesus, at that moment, you were changed. You were given a new nature. God’s Holy Spirit was given to you, to come and live within you. And my friends, this is where the fireworks begin.
Two natures, vehemently opposed, living right there inside of you. Battling, warring, always in opposition. Listen to this as Paul nails this war that even He fought with daily:
“As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”
Do you remember on the Bugs Bunny cartoons when the little angel and devil would come down and sit on his shoulders? The little angel would whisper the right thing to do but then the little devil would quickly tell him just the opposite. He would listen to them both carefully and then make his rabbit decision. Does this ring a bell for you? It should. The Holy Spirit of God is living within you and it is telling you the ways of God that you should be operating in. But at the same time your fleshly sin nature is telling you just the opposite. Oh, what a war we have raging inside us constantly!
As this battle rages, there comes a time when you must choose. You have to decide which nature you are going to live by. You have to either permit the Holy Spirit of God to make your decisions or you will go through your life controlled by your flesh adn it will distance you from God. But in order to choose the Holy Spirit, you have to make some hard decisions. You see, you can’t have your cake and eat it to. You can’t have a peaceful existence with both of those little guys on your shoulder whispering to you. One can stay and one has to go. If you walk with God, the sin has to go. This is the crux of our message this morning. At all costs, Abraham had to remove the sin from his life if he wanted to walk closely with God. That’s why this story is so hard for us today. Our fleshly sin nature says, “let the boy and his mother stay! We can all live together as one big unhappy, miserable family!” The world says, “don’t be mean and kick them out, just let that sin hang around and live with it.” You see, the world loves sin and our true nature loves sin, only by a conscious act do we make a decision to remove the sin from our lives and live in the righteous way of God.
Today you will walk as Jekyll and Hyde. You will personally experience this raging war that is constantly going on inside of you. One thought tells you to serve yourself and do what feels good, and the other says to serve God and serve others. You will have to make a decision, you cannot serve two masters. So how do you win this war? Well, the first thing you need to admit is that you cannot fight it on your own, you need help, a lot of help. But rest easy, God has given you many weapons at your disposal to fight this fight. But just as with any weapon you must wield it. God has laid the tools you need to fight this fight at your feet, you must simply reach down, pick them up and use them. It’s on you. Here’s your tool bag:
1) God’s Word. Study it, read it, memorize it, live it, journal about it, meditate on it day and night. My friends it’s really very simple, the more of God’s Word you have in your life, the less sin you will encounter. I heard an old saying that says about God’s Word, “this Book will keep you from sin, but sin will keep you from this Book.” Be in God’s Word daily.
2) Prayer. God’s Word is how God speaks to us and prayer is how we speak to Him. Admit your sin, ask forgiveness and tell Him your struggles with sin. He is faithful to hear, He is faithful to forgive and He is faithful to help you. Be careful not to pray for selfish things but always for spiritual strength and understanding.
3) Your church. My friends, you are not the only one fighting this war. Every fellow Christ follower is in the trenches too. Do you want to face the enemy by yourself or do you want a few platoons of soldiers at your side? Get into a local church and fight alongside other Christians. Fighting alone is futile. This can very simply be the difference between victory and bitter defeat.
4) Serve. Do you have an internal or an external focus in your life? Take this test. Roughly log every hour spent today. At the end of the day, look back and see who each hour was spent on. Were 90% spent on yourself? 75%? 50%. Work on this number. Get it lower. Working 50 hours a week and the waching Netflix for another 25 won't get it done. Serve others. Volunteer at church, help your elder neighbors, go to youth camp and help. And I highly recommend you go a mission trip. Yes that means you take off work and even pay for it out of your own pocket. Trust me...it will change your life. My friends to truly walk in the Holy Spirit is to serve others. When you truly serve others, the Holy Spirit will be active and vibrant within you and you’ll feel it, this is walking with God.
I pray today for each of you. That you are prepared and equipped for this battle. It will not be easy, at times it will be excruciating as seemingly impossible decisions face us. I can’t imagine Abraham’s tears as he sent his son out into the desert that day with his mother. A skin of water and some bread. Abraham must have been heart-broken. But ridding ourselves of our sin is never easy. But God demands it. It’s the only way to truly walk with Him.
Pray for each other as you fight the good fight today.
Comments