Genesis 26:1-33 - Fear-Filled Fighting
Main Idea: Reject the poison of fear, and rejoice in the presence of God.
Fear poisons your assumptions about others. (vs. 1-11)
It makes you think you know why others make their choices.
It stops you from loving like a Christian, not assuming the worst.
It turns you into a suspicious, angry, bitter person.
Fear poisons how you view others’ blessings. (vs. 12-25)
It makes you tout your own accomplishments while downplaying others’.
It makes you attack other people instead of building what God wants you to.
God’s presence makes you a blessing to others. (vs. 26-33)
He causes you to forgive others and reconcile with them.
He causes you to preemptively do good to others.
He causes you to bless others because He blesses you.
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Today, we're going to be looking in chapter 26 at the next portion of the story of fear-filled fighting. Fear-filled fighting.
I have two cups here that have been here the whole time, and you definitely didn't see anyone run to grab them because I forgot to bring them out. So there's two cups here that you can drink from. As you can see, what color are these cups?
All right, they're both blue. One has Gatorade Zero, and the other has Windex. Now, does it really matter which of these cups that I might drink from?
Yeah, okay. What's the problem? Why can't I just drink either one of these?
Yeah, I'm going to get sick. One of these is, if you will, it's poisonous to my innards.
I was pouring Windex into a cup earlier, and I told Owen, because he was with me at that point, I was like, hey, don't worry, I'm not looking to do myself in, I promise. He says, just make sure you sniff before you drink out of one of these cups.
One of those cups is poisonous. The other one, probably a little less so. You shouldn't drink from the one, even though it's more blue, it's got a better color because it is filled with poison.
And today, as we continue our study, Family Feud, we're going to look at a poison that we don't reject nearly as quickly as Windex, but it can arguably be just as destructive to our lives. The poison of fear. Specifically today, fear of other people.
Fear can be a good thing. Should I be scared of drinking Windex? Like if I'm going to take a drink of it, should I be scared of that?
Yeah, absolutely. Should you be scared of crossing a highway when cars are going through? Yeah, fear can be a good thing when it stops you from doing something stupid.
Fear is a really, really bad way of living your life in relation to other people. When you live your life in fear of others, it is a poison that will wreck each and every aspect of your life.
Today, the call is going to be, We reject the poison of fear and rejoice in the presence of God. Reject the poison of fear and rejoice in the presence of God. Would you pray with me?
Dear Lord, thank you for today. God, we ask that you would be glorified in your church. God, if there's someone here today that does not know you as their Savior, we ask that today that they would make that choice.
Lord, we pray for our hearts that as we encounter your word, as we are challenged to follow in your way, not the way of this world, not the way that humanity normally operates, God, may you give us Holy Spirit courage that what you have called us to
do is the good life. It is the plan that you have laid out for us. God, we ask that if there is someone here today that doesn't know you as Savior, today would be the day that they choose you.
And we love you, Lord, and we pray all of this in the name of Jesus. Amen. So we're going to look today in your Bibles.
I forgot them. Turn over to Genesis chapter 26 and beginning in verses 1 through 11. We're going to see the truth that fear poisons your assumptions about others.
Fear poisons your assumptions about others. Scripture says this. There was another famine in the land in addition to the one that had occurred in Abraham's time.
So right as we started the story of Abraham in chapter 12, there was a famine that had occurred. And do you guys remember what country Abraham booked it to when the famine came? Egypt.
So he went down to Egypt, and if you'll remember, Egypt, he got scared of the kind of culture that was down there.
He got scared of Pharaoh, and so he told Sarah, his wife, tell everyone that you are my sister, because if they think that I'm married to you, they will kill me just so they can have you, because you're so gorgeous, babe.
It maybe is a good thing of like, babe, you're so beautiful, I would die for you. It's a really bad way to phrase it. I don't want to die for you because you're so beautiful, so pretend to be my sister.
That's not Marriage 101. Don't do that. So, this is what the author here is showing us.
Alright, Isaac's going to face the exact same type of temptation as Abraham did. And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, at Gerar.
This is the same area, the same country, that we saw Abraham make this exact same mistake, like 15, 20 years later, in Genesis 21. So Abraham made this mistake multiple times.
The first time he did it, he got lots of riches from the pharaoh in Egypt, who was like, Oh, yes, your sister, she's so gorgeous. I'm going to give you this beautiful dowry, this great bride price.
And so Abraham had so much stuff, if you'll recall, as he left Egypt, God came to Pharaoh in a dream and told him, don't touch Sarah. She is married to Abraham.
And if you touch her, I'm going to bring all sorts of plagues and everything down on Egypt. And so Abraham and Sarah, Pharaoh, after he received that word from the Lord, he kicked them out of Egypt.
And so they went, they had all of this stuff that the Egyptians had given them. And there was so much cattle, sheep, all of that, that Abraham couldn't even live in the same area anymore as his nephew Lot, because they had too many animals together.
And so they couldn't graze in any of that. So it caused all sorts of trouble for Abraham. Then Abraham did it again in Genesis 21, only not in Egypt, but in Gerar.
This would be in the land of Israel, Philistia, Canaan. And so that happened with King Abimelech. Same general thing that happened.
And Abimelech and Abraham ended up making a covenant. They were like, hey, could you please not lie to me and mistreat me anymore? And Abraham said, OK, fine.
So all of that's being painted for us right here. Those two things, the Egypt story and Abimelech, the king of the Philistines. The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, do not go down to Egypt.
Live in the land that I tell you about. He says, you are supposed to be here in Canaan. This is the promised land I will provide for you.
Don't make the same mistake your dad did. He says, stay in this land as an alien, and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father Abraham.
Why don't you pause one second? Does God say, I want you to stay because all of the rain will be fine? There won't actually be a famine.
Did he say that? No. But he did say this in that second line.
So stay in this land as an alien. God's reason for Isaac to stay and to trust was because of this. And what are the next five words there?
I will be with you. The antidote to the fear that Isaac was experiencing was not comfy, promised circumstances. It was God's presence is the antidote to fear.
Because if God is with me, then I know wherever I walk, if God is faithful to his promises and he is, then that means I can walk through any valley. And I do not have to fear. You can think back to Psalm 23 and the Psalm of David.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. So then God says this, I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky.
I will give your offspring all these lands and all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring. This is again that messianic promise that was given to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12.
The same type of thing that we're going to see passed on to the line of Jacob in next week's sermon. And as this happens, here's the promise. I will take care of you because I am with you.
He says, because Abraham listened to me and kept my mandate, my commands, my statutes and my instructions. If you remember the story of Abraham, he didn't actually do all of that perfectly.
But because Abraham believed God, Genesis told us it was counted to him. It was credited to his account as righteousness. So even though he wasn't perfect, his belief in his holy providing God, that counted as doing the good works.
And I'm thankful for you and I today that though we are flawed and fail and fall short of the glory of God, that if we believe in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and that we have asked the Lord to place his righteousness on our account, that we are
accounted as righteous. We are, in the words of the New Testament, we're saints, we're the holy ones, we're the set apart ones because of the righteousness of Jesus imputed to our account. It says, so Isaac settled in Jerar.
God told him, do this, and he did it. Praise the Lord. Good news so far.
Problem. When the men of the place asked about his wife, he said, she is my sister. For he was afraid to say, my wife, thinking the men of the place will kill me on account of Rebecca, for she is a beautiful woman.
So he's making the same exact mistake again. He's not having confidence in the Lord's ability to protect him. He's not recognizing God's presence with him, and he's making choices based on fear.
When Isaac had been there for some time, Abimelek, king of the Philistines, looked down from the window and was surprised to see Isaac caressing his wife, Rebecca.
If you're trying to hide the fact that you're married, you probably shouldn't be doing the caressing finally. That's not a great way to hide your love for one another. Abimelek sent for Isaac and said, So she is really your wife?
How could you say she is my sister? Isaac answered him, Because I thought I might die on account of her. Men, if you die because your wife is so gorgeous, that's a cool way to go.
Like, I have a crazy gorgeous wife, and they killed me because she is so beautiful. Here, he is being a coward.
Instead of placing himself in the vulnerable position, he is placing Rebecca in the vulnerable position, just as his dad did with his wife on multiple occasions. This is not healthy. Then Abimelek said, What have you done to us?
One of the people could easily have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us. Side note, you should not just be randomly, you know, easily be sleeping with another person. That's not God's way.
God's way is one man, one woman, one marriage for one life. That's the way that God has designed intimacy to work. But Abimelek says, Listen, you would have been terrible to commit adultery, and that's what would have happened had we not seen this.
So Abimelek warned all the people, Whoever harms this man or his wife will certainly be put to death. So now there is protection that is given. God is faithful even through Isaac's stupidity and his bad choices.
God still protects because he is with Isaac, and he has made a covenant with him. So fear poisons your assumptions about others.
Isaac was suspicious of the Canaanites and thought, Certainly, they're going to have either lustful intent or murderous intent. And the truth is that fear makes you think, it makes you assume that you know why others make their choices.
For us, we go, I know that they're thinking, or they did this because, and these are statements where we're pretending to be omniscient, that we can read minds, and the truth is that we can't.
We don't know why other people do the things that they do. You don't know their mind. You don't know all of the reasons.
So don't assume that you know the motivations of others. If you assume that the person at church didn't shake your hand because they hate you, you will drink a poison of fear that will turn into resentment and hatred.
If you think your boss is out to get you and that nothing you do will matter, you will sabotage your career and your testimony at work. When you pretend like you're the all-knowing God, you will make a mess of your relationships.
Fear makes you think you know why others make their choices. Fear stops you from loving like a Christian, which is to not assume the worst. In his letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul said, love does not think evil of another person.
Love doesn't assume wrongdoing or wrong motive about another person. Fear says I have to think evil of this other person, or I will be hurt or disenfranchised. God says love doesn't assume evil about another.
Fear says I have to assume evil about this other person.
But Christian love, the kind of love that's not optional for you and for I, but commanded, is a kind of love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
To bear all things means allowing yourself to not be treated with love sometimes. Fear will try to tell you that you can't trust because you'll get hurt.
God tells you that you will sometimes be hurt, but you can still choose to lovingly trust others despite how they sometimes fail. That's how God treats you. He bears with you, though you sometimes fail him.
He chooses to bear through. He doesn't cast you aside. He doesn't send you to hell.
Instead, he bears with you, even in your failures. To believe all things means that you trust in others. Fear will tell you that if you trust people, they'll take advantage of you or let you down.
God tells you that he allows you to fail him and take advantage of his goodness, so extend that same grace to others. And to hope all things means you assume the best about the motives or actions of another. Fear tells you to suspect the worst.
That way, you'll never be surprised by people's wrong intentions or behavior. But God tells you not to picture everyone else in your head as a villain ready to strike. So fear makes you think you know why others make their choices.
It stops you from loving like a Christian, which means don't assume the worst. Fear will turn you into a suspicious, angry, bitter person.
If you think everyone will harm you, intends to hurt you, or has spoken the words or done their actions specifically to harm you, you won't trust others.
Your right and wrong receptors in your soul will constantly be flagging everyone else's actions, and you'll never be able to let anything go or to forgive anyone or to trust. I think we all agree.
Yeah, that sounds like a poisonous way for me to interact with others in my life. It sounds like poison that I'm consistently drinking into my mind. But how do I overcome that?
How do we overcome this fear of others? What would make you not assume the worst of others? The example of Jesus Christ, who lovingly interacts with us each day, not punishing us for the times we fail or for the wrong thoughts that we think.
Instead of focusing on this fear and assuming the worst, choose to rejoice in God's presence, his state of mind towards you, and move forward with mindset that says, even when others let me down, I'm not going to allow that to change how I treat
people. I treat people the way I do because I am mimicking God's behavior, not because other people have earned it. I do what I do because I'm mimicking God. I'm not doing what I'm doing because other people have earned my trust or my love.
Not only that, in verses 1 through 11, does fear make us believe that we know what others are thinking. Not only does it poison our assumptions about others, but fear poisons how you view other people's blessings.
You can see this in verses 12 through 25. Isaac sowed seed in that land, and in that year, he reaped a hundred times what was sown. The Lord blessed him.
Now, I think all of us would say, that sounds like a good investment. If you invest one dollar in the stock market and you get a hundred dollars that same year from that one dollar investment, you'd go, great, I love that. God here is blessing Isaac.
It says, and the man became rich and kept getting richer until he was very wealthy. He had flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, and many slaves, and the Philistines were envious of him.
The Philistines stopped up all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, filling them with dirt.
So, God's blessing, and they're trying to counter the blessing by filling up the wells with dirt, so they can't get water to give to the animals. And Abimelech said to Isaac, Leave us, for you are much too powerful for us.
Did you read anything in there about Isaac, like stealing stuff from the other people, about him using all of his people to overwhelm, take over cities, kill people, steal things? No.
He says, you're too powerful for us, but Isaac hasn't done anything to him. So Isaac left there, camped in the Gerar Valley and lived there.
Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, and that the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died. He gave them the same names his father had given them. Isaac doesn't stew.
He isn't infuriated by this. He doesn't retaliate against the Philistines. Instead, he just goes, well, my animals, they need water.
The people that are working for me, they need to be able to have water to drink. And so he gets to work doing what he needs to do. Then Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found a well of spring water there.
So now it's not just maintaining what Abraham had done in times past. Now God was providing new wells, new sources of water and living springs for Isaac and for his possessions.
But the herdsmen of Jerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen and said, the water is ours. Well, who dug the well? It was Isaac's servants.
The Philistines had not dug it, so the water was not theirs. So he named the well Essek because they argued with him. Then they dug another well and quarreled over that one also.
So he named it Sitna. He moved from there and dug another, and they did not quarrel over it. He named it Rechaboth, not the place over in Delaware, and said, for now the Lord has made space for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.
Here, notice, though they are putting in the work, and you just have the complaining Philistines that they're not doing the work, but they're pretty sure, you know, this is really our thing, even though you've done all the work for it.
Isaac doesn't get embittered against them. He doesn't attack them. He just goes to a new place.
They want that one too? Great. I'm going to go to a new place, and God keeps on blessing and blessing and blessing.
Says, from there, he went up to Beersheba, and the Lord appeared to him that night and said, I am the God of your father, Abraham. Do not be afraid for, what does he say? I am with you.
Don't be afraid, because I'm here. Don't be afraid, because I'm with you. I will bless you and multiply your offspring because of my servant, Abraham.
So he built an altar there. At an altar, you worship. At an altar, you surrender what is yours so that God can be praised and exalted.
You sacrifice so that God is thanked. So here, Isaac has so much abundance, he has over and above to be able to give to the Lord. He pitched his tent there.
Isaac's servants also dug a well there at Beersheba. So from this, we can see that fear poisons how you view others' blessings. First, fear makes you tout your accomplishments while downplaying the accomplishments of others.
The Philistines here, they claim, oh yeah, that's our well, the one that you just dug, and this new one that you also dug, that one's ours too.
Trying to tout their own greatness, their ability, their ownership, while downplaying what Isaac and all of his servants had been doing. Proverbs says every person will proclaim their own greatness, but a faithful person who can find.
Fear tells you that you are unimportant unless other people think you are great. Unless you have a specific title, unless you're given a specific dollar amount every week, that you are not as important. You are not great.
But the truth, the truth of God, is that if you exist, you are important. You are valuable. You are loved.
You are worthy. And God thinks that you are great because you are his creation. Why do I say that?
Because you and I were made to be pictures of God and his character, what he's like to all of creation. We were created to show every person in spiritual being what our Lord is like.
Number two, Jesus Christ left heaven to become a human and die in your place and in my place so that we could be reconciled to God both now and forever and so that we could be shown God's love personally for all of eternity.
So you're important because God created you. You're important because Jesus died for you. And then third, God trusts and loves you so much that he has given you the mission of making new disciples of Jesus.
That's a mission he hasn't even commissioned the angels to do.
So you are valuable and you are important because of who made you, because of the death of Jesus Christ on your behalf, and the offer of free salvation and adoption into God's family, and because for every Christian, God has given you the eternally
important mission of proclaiming the gospel. So don't feel like you need other people's affirmations to be important. I love the words of the Francesca Battistelli song, I don't need my name in lights. I'm famous in my father's eyes.
Make no mistake, he knows my name. I'm not living for applause. I'm already so adored.
It's all his stage. He knows my name. Then celebrate other people's accomplishments.
Brag about other people to other people. What we most often do is complain about people or degrade them to others. But Paul told the Roman church to rejoice with those who rejoice.
Tell your friend at church how much you love seeing that other person serving or singing during a really hard moment of their life. Tell your spouse what you love seeing in the lives of your kids.
Talk about what a good job your co-worker is doing to your other co-workers or to your boss. You get to choose whether the words you use will build up or tear down.
And scripture tells us, let no foul language come from your mouth, but only what is good for building someone up in need so that it gives grace to those who hear. That doesn't just go for don't curse or blaspheme.
It's also don't be a whiner or a complainer or a gossip. Don't constantly talk trash about your sibling, about the opposing political party or about your neighbor. Choose to follow the advice of many parents through the years.
If you don't have something nice to say, keep your mouth shut. Don't say it. Fear poisons how you view other's blessings.
Lastly there, it makes you attack other people instead of building what God wants you to. These Philistines, they could have dug their own webs.
They could be out making more crops, more money, but instead they were wasting their time harassing Isaac instead of doing what they were supposed to do.
God has enough to accomplish in you and through you that you don't actually have the time to spare that you are wasting on fearing other people's importance or choices. God wants to build something in you.
He wants to build that fruit of the spirit in you that you'd begin exhibiting God's characteristics in your thoughts and words and actions.
He wants to build you in spiritual maturity so that you're able to make new disciples of Jesus by teaching them about the gospel and then having them learn from your relationship with Jesus.
God wants to build you in spiritual knowledge so that you can teach young moms and grandpas and kids in the Tabernacle kids class about the Bible and what it means to follow Jesus. God has a work for you. He wants to grow you.
So stop worrying about and fearing other people and what they have or don't have or what their choices are, what their words are. Focus on your walk with the Lord. That's your mission.
That's what God wants you to build. Stop wasting your time filling other people's wells up with dirt and start digging some wells of your own. And then the last set of day in verses 26 through 33, God's presence makes you a blessing to others.
Now Abimelech came to him from Gerar with Ahazaph, his advisor, and Phicol, the commander of his army. Can everyone say, uh-oh? Okay, all right, the army is coming.
What's going to happen here? Isaac said to them, why have you come to me? You hated me and sent me away from you.
They replied, we have clearly seen how the Lord has been with you. God's presence. It's the antidote to fear.
They feared Isaac, but when they saw God's with him, the fear goes away. We think there should be an oath between two parties, between us and you. Let us make a covenant with you.
You will not harm us, just as we have not harmed you, but have done only what was good to you. Is that true, guys? No.
They did them rotten. So here, they're butler and mob. They're saying political things.
That's not true. Sending you away in peace. You are now blessed by the Lord.
If you're like me, someone that's mistreated you, that has spoken evil about you, that's been filling up your wells with dirt, that's been claiming ownership over what God has called you to, I might be like, no, I'm not making a covenant with you.
You know, go back to Genesis 12. Those who curse me, God will curse. And so, God, get them.
That wasn't Isaac's behavior here, because Isaac has been blessed by the Lord and blessed people, blessed people. So he prepared a banquet for them, and they ate and drank. They got up early in the morning and swore an oath to each other.
Isaac sent them on their way and they left him in peace. On that same day, Isaac's servants came to tell him about the well they had dug, saying to him, We have found water. He called it Sheba.
It's seven. Therefore, the name of the city is still Beer Sheba, the well of the seven, today. Here, God has a sevenfold blessing that he gives to Isaac, because Isaac was intent on, I'm not going to live in fear anymore.
I'm going to live in God's presence and accomplish what God has called me to. I'm not going to waste my time fighting. I'm not going to waste my time trying to get revenge, I'm not trying to establish myself as someone important.
I'm just going to be about what God has called me to. And whatever God does, that's his thing. But I am with the Lord.
So as of today, God's presence makes you a blessing to others. God causes you to forgive others and reconcile with them. This is what Jesus did for us.
We were alienated from God. Did God do us wrong or did we do God wrong? We did God wrong.
We were the ones that sinned. We broke the relationship through refusing to be who God had created us to be, which was those showing the image of God to the world. But yet Jesus came and He reconciled with us.
He pursued us. He loved and forgave us before any of us were even born. And so God causes you to forgive others and to reconcile with them.
Paul told the Corinthian Church that Christ reconciled us to God, and He has given us the ministry, the service of reconciliation. To be a Christian is to be a reconciled person with God, who then reconciles with others.
Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians that the reason why we reconcile with people is because God forgave us, so we are commanded to forgive others. You might say, but they don't deserve for me to forgive them. You could be right.
But you are not letting go of hatred and a desire to get even because the other person deserves it. You are forgiving them because you are modeling behavior you have seen from your heavenly father. He loves the unlovely.
He forgives the unforgivable. And so should you. Not only does God cause us to forgive others and reconcile with them, he causes us to preemptively do good to others.
Isaac here, he prepares a banquet for them, even though they were the ones that sent him away and harassed him. Jesus was preemptively good to us. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
He didn't wait until we got our act together. No, he came and he preemptively did good. We're not called simply to be kind to those who are kind to us.
We are to be like our endlessly generous father. Who can you launch a preemptive strike of kind words or generous actions this week? And then lastly today, God causes you to bless others because he blesses you.
Blessed people ought to bless people. Forgiven people ought to forgive people. Saved people ought to guide others to salvation themselves.
Jesus' endless blessings on you and I ought to free us and compel us to bless others with our words, our attitudes, and our actions.
I loved how one person phrased it, generosity, this desire to bless others, is the recognition that I will survive even in the face of unmet needs, that my heavenly father looks after me even as he does the sparrows.
And so I can choose to give generously, liberally to others as a result. Today, you got the choice. There's two cups to drink.
There's a cup of poison. Fear makes you assume things about others. It makes you focus on trying to undo what others are doing instead of focusing on yourself.
But God's presence shows a different way, that I'm forgiven, I'm loved, I'm important in the eyes of Jesus Christ. So I don't have to fear anyone else. I don't have to fear their judgment.
I don't have to fear their accomplishments. I can choose to forgive and to love. Which cup are you going to drink from today?
