Do You Get Deja Vu

A Case of Spiritual Deja Vu

If you have a Bible, go and grab it and turn it to the book of Genesis. We'll be looking at chapter 20. Genesis chapter 20. If this is the first time that you've used a Bible, or if you don't have a Bible, you can go ahead and use the pew Bible in front of you. If you don't own a Bible, we would love for you to just be able to keep that Bible as a gift from us to you. We would love for you to be able to have a copy of God's word. Again, we'll be looking at the very first book of the Bible, Genesis. We're going to be looking at the whole chapter of chapter 20. Genesis chapter 20.

As we read, we've been going section by section through this whole book of Genesis. We're twenty chapters in now. As you listen to this story, I wonder if you've heard it before. Genesis chapter 20, let me start from verse one:

From there Abraham traveled to the region of the Negev and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he was staying in Gerar, Abraham said about his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” So King Abimelech of Gerar had Sarah brought to him. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “You are about to die because of the woman you have taken, for she is a married woman.” Now Abimelech had not approached her, so he said, “Lord, would you destroy a nation even though it is innocent? Didn’t he himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ I did this with a clear conscience and clean hands.” Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you did this with a clear conscience. I have also kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I have not let you touch her. Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, know that you will certainly die, you and all who are yours.” Early in the morning Abimelech got up, called all his servants together, and personally told them all these things, and the men were terrified. Then Abimelech called Abraham in and said to him, “What have you done to us? How did I sin against you that you have brought such enormous guilt on me and on my kingdom? You have done things to me that should never be done.” Abimelech also asked Abraham, “What made you do this?” Abraham replied, “I thought, ‘There is absolutely no fear of God in this place. They will kill me because of my wife.’ Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. So when God had me wander from my father’s house, I said to her: Show your loyalty to me wherever we go and say about me, ‘He’s my brother.’” Then Abimelech took flocks and herds and male and female slaves, gave them to Abraham, and returned his wife Sarah to him. Abimelech said, “Look, my land is before you. Settle wherever you want.” And he said to Sarah, “Look, I am giving your brother one thousand pieces of silver. It is a verification of your honor to all who are with you. You are fully vindicated.” Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female slaves so that they could bear children, for the Lord had completely closed all the wombs in Abimelech’s household on account of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.

— Genesis 20:1-18 (CSB)

Let's pray.

Lord, we know that we frequently need reminders of the same truth. Lord, help us to not have a heart like Abraham this morning. Help us to be able to take your word seriously and to be able to receive it. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

If you've been paying attention as we've been going through the book of Genesis, this story might feel familiar to you. In Genesis chapter 12, we saw Abraham go to Egypt through the Negev and have the exact same experience that we read in this chapter. He gives over his wife, the pagan king finds out that that's actually his wife, and then he returns her. You would think after something that drastic that he wouldn't do it again. Yet here we see that Abraham has another case of deja vu.

There are a lot of experiences that happened in Abraham's life that demonstrate God's faithfulness to him. For example, he tries to have a son through a different woman, Hagar, and then God intervenes, corrects his course, and then reaffirms to him that the promise will happen through his marriage. And yet, Abraham is still willing to give up his wife again. He's willing to have a case of deja vu.

You would think that Abraham would stop doing something like this after seeing two cities that literally looked like the Garden of Eden get torched into a lake of burning sulfur. And yet he's willing to engage in sin yet again right after this. You may be asking the same question that Abimelech was asking in this chapter: "What made you do this? What are you doing?"

I'm sure there are plenty of times in our own lives where, if you take an honest look at yourself in the mirror, you've asked yourself the same thing. As we examine Abraham's heart and two different people here, we'll be able to see exactly what goes on in our own spirit that makes us do these kinds of things again and again.

So, here's our question for our sermon this morning: What made you do this? It comes down to two things. One, you didn't know. And number two, you didn't care.

We Drift Into Danger

Let's start with point number one: You didn't know. Look at verse one again. From there, Abraham traveled to the region of the Negev and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he was staying in Gerar, Abraham said about his wife Sarah, "She is my sister." So, King Abimelech of Gerar had Sarah brought to him.

I think I've seen this film before. It begins exactly the way that Genesis 12:9 begins when Abraham went to Egypt. He travels to the Negev, except this time he doesn't go through the Negev to Egypt. Instead, he settles down between Kadesh and Shur.

Just a little geography, if I could paint a picture for you with my hands. If Mamre, also known as Hebron, is up here, then the Negev is here, and Kadesh and the wilderness of Shur are right here, and Egypt is over here. Last week we saw how Lot, as he leaves Sodom, begs the angels to be able to stay in Zoar in this area close to Sodom. While he knew that the city was going to be condemned, even as he flees God's judgment, he goes to hide in the vicinity of sin. He would rather be shackled close to hell than find refuge in heaven.

And now Abraham moves in the same evil direction from the opposite starting point. He isn't in sin, but Abraham moves in the direction of sin. Do you pay attention to your movement?

Sometimes we think of sin in pictures—the exact moment that we commit a heinous act, almost like a newspaper article with your guilty face plastered on the front cover the moment that you did something wrong. What you want to do is evaluate that moment: your motivation in that exact moment, the context of everything that was happening around that moment, and your thought process in the moment. But as you and I all know, we didn't begin sinning the moment that we started to actually do something, but the moment that our hearts were drawn away.

Don't just look at the moment of sin. Look at your movement. What direction are you going? Where is your heart drawn towards? Where is your heart drifting?

Like we saw with Lot, we get to see that this happens all the time. It doesn't matter if you're a pagan or the patriarch, there is a current that consistently pushes us towards sin and temptation. Unless you push back against that current, you will get swept away into your sin.

It's exactly what happens to Abraham. While he's staying in Gerar, which is a city between Kadesh and Shur, he tells the king of Gerar, Abimelech, "She is my sister," and Sarah is given away again. As the river of temptation drifts Abraham away, he throws God's promises down the waterfall of sin. In one moment, he drags himself, Sarah, Abimelech, and an entire nation into disobeying the Lord.

A Clear Conscience Is Not Enough

But the story focuses on two A's, not one. So we're going to start with the first one, Abimelech. Read with me from verse three:

But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “You are about to die because of the woman you have taken, for she is a married woman.” Now Abimelech had not approached her, so he said, “Lord, would you destroy a nation even though it is innocent? Didn’t he himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ I did this with a clear conscience and clean hands.”

— Genesis 20:3-5 (CSB)

God approaches Abimelech in a dream, tells him, "You are taking another man's wife. I am about to kill you." Abimelech's response is, "I didn't know." In fact, he goes as far as to say that he and his whole nation are innocent compared to Sodom and Gomorrah. Gerar is not engaging in sexual immorality and isn't consciously trying to do anything wrong. On top of that, it seems like God's man, Abraham, is the one who is deceiving Abimelech. Not only did Abraham lie to Abimelech, but you see here that Sarah also does the same thing. She's also willing to engage in this sin.

And so Abimelech is asking, "How else could I have known?" He's a victim of circumstance and deception. So he makes his case before God. He says, "I did all of these things with a clean conscience and clean hands."

God affirms one of those things. See that in verse six:

Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you did this with a clear conscience. I have also kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I have not let you touch her. Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, know that you will certainly die, you and all who are yours.” Early in the morning Abimelech got up, called all his servants together, and personally told them all these things, and the men were terrified.

— Genesis 20:6-8 (CSB)

God actually affirms Abimelech's argument. Did you notice that? He affirms that Abimelech had a clear conscience. His intentions were not to commit sin. And thankfully, he didn't commit any sin. But the reason why he didn't wasn't because he wasn't going to, but because God prevented him from committing it.

You know, sometimes when we're faced with difficult circumstances or we're faced with temptation, we want to be able to appeal to our genuine intentions or our efforts—the idea that if you were to search the depths of our hearts, we meant well. I want you to know that those things do matter to God. God seems to go out of his way to recognize that in Abimelech's heart, knowing that what Abimelech was doing here was with a clear conscience. He affirms him. In fact, that's why God had been guarding him from falling into deeper sin.

A lot of times when we face difficult situations like this, we're quick to blame God for putting ourselves in the sinful circumstances of temptation. But when God reveals his own involvement in this situation with Abimelech, he doesn't seem to identify himself with tempting Abimelech. We know biblically that's not true. James tells us that God doesn't tempt anyone. But do we tend to credit God when he spares us from greater sin? Do you ever credit God for stopping you from falling into deeper temptation?

See that God reveals that what he does in our lives is actually keeping us from sin. We know that to be true. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says:

No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to bear it.

— 1 Corinthians 10:13 (CSB)

Do you understand what that means? There is never an instance where God has allowed you to be overwhelmed with temptation in such a way that you can't say no to it. In fact, God here with Abimelech seems to be proactively staying Abimelech's hand through providential circumstance, preventing him from falling into a deeper sin based on his mercy.

God does the same for you and me. He will proactively prevent you from being able to be tempted beyond what you can bear. This means that in every circumstance of your life, God provides a way out. It doesn't mean that it's easy, but it's true. You can choose not to sin. In every circumstance, God provides a way out. Abimelech credits his conscience; God credits his control. And both are true. Both are true.

But while Abimelech's clear conscience helps give context for why he ended up in this predicament, it doesn't clear Abimelech's name. Notice what God leaves out of his response. He says, "Yes, you have a clear conscience. You do not have clean hands."

A clear conscience alone is not enough for Abimelech's sin. While you may have good intentions, and your good intentions can explain your sinful circumstance, they do not excuse it. They do not excuse it.

When I was a kid, I was playing tennis at Cypress Library, and one day they gave out hot dogs for lunch. We were really hungry. We had been playing tennis for two hours, and my Muslim friend, Mutar, was starving. He took a hot dog and sat down. Now, I was no expert on Islam as a 13-year-old, but I remember asking him before he took a bite, "Hey, Mutar..." He interrupted me and said, "Shut up. Do not say anything." He took a giant bite of the hot dog, wolfed it down in like 15 seconds, and then said, "All right, what were you guys saying? Is that made out of pork?"

Well, it was too late then! My friend was operating under the assumption that as long as he didn't know, it was fine for him to engage in sinful behavior. We do that all the time, right? We think, "I don't really want to know about what you're doing over there. I'm just going to keep doing my thing. Don't let me look at the books. I don't want to know about the taxes. I don't want to know what happens after hours."

But we know from Scripture that that's not true. For one, a clear conscience at the level of Abimelech is exceedingly rare. We're more like my friend than we are like this pagan king. But you can have a clear conscience and still have a tainted soul. The reason is because morality isn't subjective; it's objective. There are objective standards that God holds us to, regardless of whether or not you knew it was good or bad.

God is able to confront Abimelech on the sin of taking a man's wife before the Ten Commandments are ever given at Sinai. Cain is guilty of killing his brother Abel before the law is ever given. Adultery is sin regardless of whether or not you knew that what you were doing was sinful. It's possible for you to be a victim of circumstance and still be a perpetrator of sin. Does that make sense? Context can explain; it does not excuse.

So God, on one hand, acknowledges that Abimelech is a victim of circumstances outside of his control. And at the same time, God holds him accountable in light of his sin. He tells him, "You need to seek forgiveness. You need Abraham to go and pray for you," and tells him, "Give back Sarah, because if you do not do it, you will certainly die."

Does that phrase sound familiar? "You will certainly die." It's a callback to Genesis 3, except in this case, Abimelech has an opportunity to put the fruit back on the tree.

Early in the morning, he wakes up and Abimelech wastes no time. He gets all his servants together. He tells them what's going on, and they are all freaked out. They are terrified at what they were doing. Abimelech has a clear conscience, and he proves that his conscience was clear because the moment that he found out that he was even in the vicinity of doing something wrong, Abimelech wastes no time. He gets up and he starts acting immediately.

This is immediate conviction and immediate repentance. He immediately lets go of all of his control. He doesn't calculate. He's not trying to justify. He doesn't stay in the bed of sin. He gets up, he announces the situation, and he instills the right tone in his servants. You know what he's not telling his servants? He's not saying, "You know, really when you think about it, what could I have done?" No, he is saying, "I'm about to be judged before a holy God." He treats it with the seriousness that it deserves. He is not flippant about the error that he committed. He takes ownership and he moves to make things right.

While Abimelech is certainly guilty, he demonstrates a true godliness as an example: his sober-mindedness about sin and his desire for a clear conscience. Even the fact that this pagan king is able to react in this kind of godly manner makes our other Abe look that much worse. Because Abraham doubles down.

You Didn't Care: The Strategies of Deceit

This brings us to point number two: What made you do this? You didn't care. Let's look at verse nine:

Then Abimelech called Abraham in and said to him, “What have you done to us? How did I sin against you that you have brought such enormous guilt on me and on my kingdom? You have done things to me that should never be done.” Abimelech also asked Abraham, “What made you do this?”

— Genesis 20:9-10 (CSB)

Abimelech talks from his clear conscience straight into Abraham's compromised conscience: "What have you done? What made you do this?" Because what Abraham has done is calamitous. I mean, he brought enormous guilt on him and the entire kingdom. Abimelech is going as far as to say this is a situation that would never be okay, no matter how much justification you would give it. He says, "This is something that should never be done." Ever, ever, ever.

I mean, think about what just happened last week in chapter 19. An Edenic city torched into a lake of burning sulfur. And now Abraham is willing to drag Gerar into that kind of doomed destruction. He doesn't care. Of course, that's something that should never be done. It's hard to fathom a world or a situation where someone would think that should be done.

Shame on us when we bring God's judgment onto other people's souls—where our convenience draws others into temptation. That's why Jesus says in Luke 17:2 that it would be better for a millstone to be hung around your neck and be thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to sin. Paul warns in 2 Timothy 3:13 that evil people and impostors will become worse, deceiving and being deceived, bringing others into sin as they fall deeper and deeper into it.

Whether it's taking sin lightly in your own life or inviting other people to step into sin, you aren't just letting things happen or doing what everyone else is doing. What we are doing is what Abimelech says here: we are bringing enormous guilt on others in ways that should never be done. Don't do that. Ever.

But Abraham wasn't thinking about Abimelech. He wasn't thinking about an entire nation. He wasn't even thinking about his wife. The only person Abraham was thinking about was himself. Look at verse 11:

Abraham replied, “I thought, ‘There is absolutely no fear of God in this place. They will kill me because of my wife.’ Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. So when God had me wander from my father’s house, I said to her: Show your loyalty to me wherever we go and say about me, ‘He’s my brother.’”

— Genesis 20:11-13 (CSB)

Abraham goes from the patriarch of the promise to a sleazy snake oil salesman. I mean, he is dodging. He's trying to be as slippery as possible. In fact, if you just break this down, this is really helpful. There are three things that Abraham is doing here in order to avoid accountability for his actions.

First, he deflects. He doesn't call attention to the evil in his own house or his own heart, but to his perceived evil outside of himself. Did you notice what he said there? He says, "There is absolutely no fear of God in this place. They will kill me." In other words, "What am I supposed to do? Be honest and die?" Abraham frames his predicament as though he's stuck between a rock and a hard place. What choice did he have? He had to lie. He had no other choice. "I mean, these people have no fear. They're going to kill me."

This is ironic because the only ones in this story who are fearful of God's judgment are Abimelech and his servants. They're the terrified ones. In fact, Abraham is so prejudiced in his focus on them that he didn't bother to look inside. The root problem had nothing to do with the pagans outside of him, but his own pagan heart.

When you get caught in sin, where do you start? Do you start outside? We use our circumstances to deflect from our corruption inside, as though if you somehow just knew the context—if you knew all the stuff that was going on outside of me—then we don't ever need to go in here. We think, "Even if I were a saint, I'd probably be forced to do what I did." Except, if we're being honest, we're not saints. You and I, we are sinners. And our motivations are anything but pure.

In fact, Abraham shows a lack of fear of the Lord in the exact same sentence where he says that they don't fear the Lord, because he expects that they will kill him. Keep in mind, this is less than a year out from when God said that he will receive a son, yet he sees the threat of the sword of a pagan nation to be inevitable. He is so busy pointing his fingers outward that he doesn't bother to look inward. He deflects.

The second thing Abraham does is he misleads. He tells half-truths. He is fluent in technicalities. I mean, technically he wasn't lying because Sarah is his sister, or at least his half-sister. He wasn't lying when he said she was his sister. He just conveniently left out the part where she was his wife. Abraham is insistent on saying, "I didn't say anything untrue." Notice his priorities. Does he really care about the wrong that he's doing, or is he more concerned about being right?

But again, Abraham, in his attempt to wriggle himself out of this mess, actually ties himself into a worse knot. He just planted his flag in the reality that Sarah is his sister. In Scripture, we would call that incest. In fact, Deuteronomy 27 would instruct us to stone someone to death for engaging in that kind of sin.

Now then, if Abraham were here and he carried the same spirit—which I don't think he does anymore—he might say something like, "Well, if you look at my genealogy written down in Genesis 11, you would know that she's my sister from my father, but really from another one of my father's sons. So, it's most likely she's a daughter of Haran, who's probably my half-brother, and so she is my niece twice removed." I don't know how you would break that down. "So that's why she's called Terah's daughter-in-law in chapter 11 and not his daughter."

But quite frankly, if I told you all that, I think you would be a little confused. And more importantly, I think it misses the point. Getting caught up in all the technicalities that Abraham is throwing out is actually a distraction from what matters. Abraham didn't say that Sarah was his wife. That is the main issue.

When you listen to someone talk, it's easy to tunnel-vision on what they're actually saying to try to figure out whether or not what they're saying is technically true or false, right? But if you do that, you're only reacting to what they say, and what they say isn't necessarily where you should be paying attention. In fact, if you follow and chase down every rabbit trail that they offer in front of you, you will probably end up lost.

Take a step back. Take time to consider whether they've said everything that's true. Because often, the stuff they don't talk about is the thing that actually matters. J.I. Packer put it this way: he says that a half-truth masquerading as a whole truth is a complete untruth. Let me say that again. A half-truth masquerading as a whole truth is a complete untruth. Because Abraham is more interested in proving that he's right than recognizing where he's wrong, he misleads. He's negotiating, he's strategizing, and with his words, he mimics the serpent more than he does his God.

Perhaps worst of all, number three, Abraham blames. He blames. Notice the subtext of what he says about God there at the end. He said, "When God had me wander from my father's house..." Is that what God had Abraham do? Wander?

If you remember Genesis 12 with this phenomenal promise of a people, of a place, and of power; if you remember the vision and the covenant that he establishes with Abraham in Genesis chapter 15; if you remember the certain promise that he gives Abraham, even allowing him to witness the judgment on evil cities while promising to make him an immense blessing to the nations—is God making him wander?

Instead of focusing on all the things that God had promised him, in order to try to shield himself and look a little bit better to a pagan king, he minimizes the God of the universe. "He made me wander from my father's house." He brought him to this foreign land where he's walking around through this desert alone. And so what other choice did he have? He had to demand loyalty from his wife, didn't he? Yet he shows no loyalty to his God—the God who is providing things beyond his comprehension, beyond what he could possibly imagine. He shows him no loyalty.

As a side note, shame on any husband who treats his wife like this. It is never okay to use your authority to stand in the way of someone's ability to obey their Lord and Savior.

When we shift the blame of our sin from ourselves to anything else outside of ourselves, we are ultimately blaming God. When you're driving on the freeway and you get road rage at that other car, you are blaming the God who put that car there. When you blame others, you blame the God who placed them in your life. When you blame your circumstances, you are blaming the God who is orchestrating all things together for his glory and our good.

Abimelech might have sinned, but Abimelech didn't know. Abraham sinned, but he didn't care. And the prophet of God is speaking lies about his circumstances and the God who placed him there. All of his actions reveal a heart too cowardly to trust in God's promises. He did, and he continues in this story to do, what should never be done—this enormous, guilty, heinous deed. He does it twice. He did it again.

The God Who Heals and Restores

And so will you. I think there's a reason why Moses includes this story. I don't know when in his life he wrote it. One thing I do know is that Moses failed, and he failed again. He starts out by murdering an Egyptian and running for his life. And next thing you know, he fails in this same area, not just spiritually but also geographically, in Numbers chapter 20 in Kadesh—in this very area.

The Israelites complain about wandering in the wilderness. They blame Moses for leading them out of the wilderness to die, saying they were better off in the shackles of sin and slavery in Egypt. And Moses, in his frustration, blames the people and then strikes a rock twice, even though God only told him to hit that rock once. As a result, God punishes him for his sin.

God tells Moses that he committed that sin because he didn't trust him. Moses could blame all sorts of people. I mean, have you ever been around non-stop, annoying, complaining people for decades after you led them through the Red Sea? I'd be pretty frustrated, too! There's plenty of context to point to. And yet, God does not excuse his sin. Moses fails again.

And so will you. And your loved ones, your conscience, and even your Lord would be right to look at you and ask, "What have you done?" All of us have to come to grips with our sin. And after you've reckoned with what you have done, honestly looking at your sin for what it is, abandoning your excuses, having to face the depravity of your own actions and of your own conscience, then you have to ask yourself: What can you do?

The answer doesn't come from what we do or who we are, but has everything to do with who God is and what he's done. Look at verse 14:

Then Abimelech took flocks and herds and male and female slaves, gave them to Abraham, and returned his wife Sarah to him. Abimelech said, “Look, my land is before you. Settle wherever you want.” And he said to Sarah, “Look, I am giving your brother one thousand pieces of silver. It is a verification of your honor to all who are with you. You are fully vindicated.” Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female slaves so that they could bear children, for the Lord had completely closed all the wombs in Abimelech’s household on account of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.

— Genesis 20:14-18 (CSB)

Quick side note: the Old Testament views childbearing as an extension of the promise in Genesis chapter 3:15 about the seed of the woman who will come and crush the seed of the serpent—the one who finally brings salvation, talking about Jesus. So whenever you see children being born in the Old Testament, it's meant to be an extension of God's promises leading up to Jesus. This is not a statement saying that if you're unable to have children, you're somehow cursed. That is not what this is talking about. That's not how the Old Testament views it, either.

There's a reason why in the New Testament, the call to get married and bear children in an imperative sense actually disappears. Paul talks about the goodness of singleness. Jesus talks about the need to be born again. In other words, this passage is not saying that you are unable to have children because of some kind of sin on you. I think that's worth bearing in mind.

What we do see in this passage is Abimelech acting justly before a holy God. Not only does he return Sarah, he does everything he can to make himself whole before Abraham as well. You see him go above and beyond. Imagine a guy just deceived you, and you give him a thousand pieces of silver! I don't know how much that translates to in American dollars, but it is a lot of money. He gives him a ton of money. And the women under Abimelech's household are able to bear children again, released from this curse.

If you read this story, you might be thinking to yourself, "What on earth is going on? Why is Abimelech, the righteous one, giving Abraham stuff? Why is Abraham then going before the Lord to give Abimelech grace?"

It is not because of their predicament or their personalities. The thing that distinguishes between Abimelech and Abraham before God has nothing to do with who they are, but who has God's promise. In other words, the difference between Abraham and Abimelech isn't that Abraham is better. It's that Abraham has God's grace. None of his prosperity comes because of his conniving or his deception; it is God's intervention. None of Abimelech's forgiveness comes from his own integrity or his own clean conscience; it is because God is the one who heals. It is because God is the one who heals.

Abraham is the one who is supposed to pray for him, not because Abraham is a great dude. You read this chapter, and he is anything but a great guy. It's not because of who Abraham is; it's because of who Abraham represents. Abraham is the one through whom God will fulfill his promise to bless all the nations. Abraham praying for Abimelech is an extension of that promise and responsibility.

Yet the Bible does not mince words in giving you a front-row seat to all of Abraham's failures. The reason is so that you would know that you cannot hope in Abraham, but in the Son of Abraham—a true High Priest who is actually able to stand before God, not just as an intercessor because of his role (even though he's a bad person), but as a righteous man, the God-man.

Hebrews 4:15 tells us that we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. Can you imagine that? He understands exactly what it is like to be in your context. He can explain it all. He knows exactly how it feels. And yet, he doesn't have to give a single excuse because he never sinned. He is able to simultaneously understand and yet stand righteous before a holy God. And rather than wagging his finger at you, he uses his righteousness to cover you with his blood. That's what Jesus does.

That's why the author of Hebrews is able to say, "Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Jesus intercedes on behalf of sinners like you and me so we can be found righteous in his sight. Even though you and I are despicably sinful, even though we have done things that are vile, enormous, guilt-giving—things that should never be done—Jesus hung on the cross to pay that penalty for us.

He knows our weak frame. He knows our wicked hearts. In fact, even on the cross as he is bearing the eternal wrath of a holy God, he is able to pray, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." He paid that penalty in full, dying on the cross and then rising from the dead three days later.

We fail again and again because we're weak and sinful, but Jesus will forgive again and again because he is strong and gracious. If you believe that, if you're willing to let go of your own strategies, plans, and efforts to try to vindicate yourself, if you believe and go to him, you can be forgiven of your sin and have complete faith in him. More than that, you can have faith and trust him with your whole life.

Think about the kind of life that Abraham would have lived if left to his own devices—tossing his wife over to every single pagan king he interacted with, having to try to fend for himself, keeping himself up at night, strategizing about how to will his own way, and having a son born from someone other than his own wife. Think about where that would have led him.

With the Lord, there is no need to panic or compromise because you have the God of the universe who cares for you. In fact, God loves Abraham too much to let him keep going in his own insane strategies to make something of his own life. And you can avoid so much grief and pain by choosing to start new today.

I don't care about your context. I don't care about all the things that happened years ago. Those things certainly help explain your current situation, but they do not excuse you from this amazing opportunity that you have today. Don't tell me where you came from; tell me where you want to go. You can repent right now because you have a God who is willing and able to forgive, who sees everything that you are, who is clear about the evils of sin and the certain judgment that will come for those who give themselves to a life of sin, but a God who is also willing and able to forgive and will certainly lead us in the ways of righteousness.

You might be discouraged by your failures that seem to keep coming and crashing on your life like the ocean waves. But the flood of grace is greater than any repetitious failure that you and I will engage in this week or for the rest of our lives. When you and I do it again, when we find ourselves facing this deja vu experience of the shackles of sin, our loving God will certainly discipline us towards godliness. And he will also delight to demonstrate to you his graciousness over and over again.

As you come to grips with your ignorance and your iniquity, you can look to Jesus because he knows you and he loves you. If you know him, you can love him, too.

Let's pray.

Lord, we pray that you would help us to be found faithful in your sight. We can only do this by your grace. So we do ask, Lord, that you would use our lives in any way that you choose because you are worthy of it all. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.