Genesis 12:10-20 - Beginning With Failure

Main Idea: Recognize your failures before God, and ask Him to save and change you.

• God does not give us what our failures deserve.

• Our failures still have consequences.

• God can still bless, even in our failures.

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Okay, we are in the series New Beginnings, looking at the life of Abraham in Genesis 12 through 25, by very brief way of review.

Last week, we looked at the fact that Genesis stories all kind of follow this same cyclical pattern, and this will be very important for us in just one second.

We see in Genesis stories, there's always a creation out of chaos, God's establishment of his representatives, sin and failure, de-creation, and then re-creation out of chaos.

And sometimes that looks like on the grand scale, the whole world itself, sometimes it's just within one geographic region of a particular kingdom or in a specific family.

So now we are in the life of Abraham, and we saw how God created, if you will, this family out of the chaos that there was post the Tower of Babylon, and how God had one particular family, the family of Terah, and one particular man and wife,

Abraham, who we know right now is Abram and Sarai. So he establishes Abram and Sarai as the individuals that they would go to the land that was then known as Canaan, where the Canaanites lived, and they would be the ones that would inherit that

particular land that God would make of Abram and Sarai a great nation, and he would send the Messiah, the coming one, that would make all things right. He would send that person through the lineage, through the descendants of Abram and Sarai.

But then we saw just a little sneak peek last week at the first kind of inkling that we have of the sin and failure of Abram, that God had told Abram, leave your land that you've known, leave your father's household, and come to the land that I'm

going to show you. And we saw last week that Abram left the land that he had known and went to the land that God had shown him, but he didn't leave all of his father's household behind. But that was just kind of a little hint.

There's nothing direct in the passage that says, and Abram really messed up in this way. But this week, we're going to see, if you will, a revisit, a retelling of every other sin and catastrophic moment that has come before in Genesis.

So, that's Genesis 3 with the fall in the Garden of Eden, with Satan's temptation of Adam and Eve and how they fell.

Then, Cain and Abel's story where Cain fell and murdered his brother, and then even some from Genesis 6, where the sons of God took the daughters of men that they should not have.

And so, we're going to see how all of Abram's travels play into that particular thing. Today has a main thought, beginning with failure. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, last week was so hopeful.

We had new beginnings. We were promised that we could start 2025 off on a great foot. I don't know about you guys.

There's a strong likelihood in the past seven days, you did not begin with all victories in 2025. I happen to know a couple of you, some of you sent videos that your 2025 started off with a water main break in front of your house.

For some of you, it started off with sickness. I am encouraged by this portion of scripture that God knows that often when we have these new beginnings, when he calls us to something beyond ourselves, we start off on the wrong foot.

We start with failure. And I think even past that today for these failures and what we see from the life of Abram in this passage, that for us, we technically know that we're sinners, but we rarely ever take stock of our sin before God and others.

Every action that we take, every thought that we dwell on, every word that we say, we have an excuse as to why it's not that bad. And really, it's okay.

But the truth is this, sin, every thought, word, action and intention that goes against the word and character of God is a cancerous, contagious, damnable spot that will destroy us and everyone around us.

Abram finds this out a little bit in this passage. He'll continue to find it out over the next probably eight or nine chapters. Want us to summarize all of what we will learn today in this one sentence.

It's there on your handout. It says, recognize your failures before God and ask him to save and change you. Recognize your failures, not just your spouses, not just your kids, not the person, not your neighbor, not your coworker.

Recognize your failures before God and ask him to save and to change you. Let's begin reading in verse number 10. We're gonna look at this passage.

I want you, especially some of you that have been in church for a while, I know some of you that's been like, you know, 40, 50 years, even if you've not been in church as long, still pay attention.

For those of you that know your Bible, you've been around, pay attention to the words that are used and think about Genesis 3 and Genesis 4. First, there was a famine in the land.

So Abram went down to Egypt to stay there for a while because the famine in the land was severe. Okay, guys, shout it out. Where had God told Abram to go?

Canaan. Yeah, told him to go to the land that would later be known as Israel. In this moment, there's a famine in the land.

Abram has two choices. Number one, talk to God. We just read in the verses last week, he was going around building all of these altars to God and worshiping him, that God had spoken to him, gave him incredible promises.

And yet, in this moment, Abram does not talk to God. Instead, he goes by just what he thinks. He goes, man, there's a lot of famine.

I've got my herds. I've got my flocks. I just need to go someplace where I know that there's water.

So he goes down to Egypt. This would be both geographically and topographically down to Egypt. Technically, we could also argue as well, morally down to Egypt, as is the case very often in Scripture.

And here, Abram goes down. Verse number 11 is where we get the first, like, definitive sign of trouble. At first, we're like, well, he's not talking to God.

He's not paying attention. He's not asking what God wants him to do. But then in verse 11, when he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife, Sarai, look, I know what a beautiful woman you are.

Very brief pause. If you'll recall from last week, Sarai at this point is like somewhere between 74 and 80 years old. I don't know how many of you would be like, listen, babe, you're 74 and you just still, you're killing it.

But here is what Abraham says to Sarai. He says, look, I know what a beautiful woman you are. Guys, if you want to get a card for your wife, Valentine's Day is coming up in a month.

This is a good start. Don't include any of the rest of this, but that's a good start. I know what a beautiful woman you are.

He says, when the Egyptians see you, they will say, this is his wife. They will kill me, but let you live. So here he's imagining how a particular set of circumstances would go.

He says, please say you're my sister, so it will go well for me because of you, and my life will be spared on your account.

This is a little bit more foreign to us today in 21st century America, but back in these very patriarchal times, you didn't have women that were just like traveling by themselves.

They would often be under, if you will, the ownership of either their parents, of their father in particular, maybe a brother or an uncle, as we would read about in various portions of scripture.

And so he says, hey, I'm just, for all the Egyptians know, I'm just your brother.

And so when they're like, oh man, we really want this gal as one of our wives, I just say, oh yeah, well, you can just ask my brother for the, you know, bride price for the dowry that would be due at that time.

And notice here, he doesn't say anything like benefiting Sarai. He says, please say you're my sister, so it will go well for, doesn't say us, doesn't say you. He says, I want it to go well for me because of you.

And my life will be spared. And who's left with the bill? Your account.

OK, we'll keep on going. Keep Genesis 3 Bible nerds. Keep it in your mind.

Verse 14, when Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. So here it wasn't just that Abram, you know, had been married to her for a long time and had the rose colored goggles.

They noticed that this woman is beautiful as well. Pharaoh's officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh. So the woman was taken to Pharaoh's household.

Back up. She's taken to Pharaoh's household, which gives the impression to many of us, there's a kidnapping. This is, you know, seven brides for seven brothers, for some of you that have seen that movie.

But then we read verse number 16, and we're seeing a little bit fuller picture. He says, he treated Abram well because of her, and Abram acquired flocks and herds, male and female donkeys, male and female slaves and camels. This is a bride price.

If you will, Abram has sold Sarai off to the highest bidder, Pharaoh. But if you'll remember, God had made a promise to Abram, even though Abram has wandered away from the land that he was supposed to be in.

He said, I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse, I will treat with contempt those that treat you with contempt. Someone that steals someone else's wife is treating them with contempt. They're treating them as cursed.

So the Lord struck Pharaoh and his household with severe plagues because of Abram's wife, Sarai. So there's punishment here for some sin. So there are some plagues that come against Pharaoh and his household.

So Pharaoh sent for Abram and said, what have you done to me? Why didn't you tell me she was your wife? This particular passage doesn't go into how Pharaoh discovered that Sarai was Abram's wife.

The couple of other times that we're going to encounter this same type of situation in chapter 20 and chapter 26 or 7, we'll get some fuller picture on this. Pharaoh says, why did you say she's my sister so that I took her as my wife?

Now, here's your wife, take her and go. Then Pharaoh gave his men orders about him and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had. Gonna do the Eden things, the Genesis three things first.

The author here takes all of the same vocab from Genesis three, from Genesis four, and from Genesis six and is re-telling the story of the fall of mankind and the fall of the first sons and now is applying it here to a fall of Abraham.

So if you remember from Genesis chapter three, there is something that was very beautiful to look at and was taken. Do you guys remember what it was? The fruit.

Okay, so Sarai here in this story is almost being portrayed like the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Who was the person that took the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Adam and Eve.

Okay, so now you've got Pharaoh and his officials that they see the woman that she was very beautiful, just like Adam and Eve saw the fruit that it was good to look at and they took it. Okay, so now we've got the fruit, we've got Adam and Eve.

Obviously, the one that has a expectation of righteousness and of justice, that's God. And if you will, God is still the same player in the story, if you will, for both of these accounts.

So there's one other person in the Adam and Eve account in Genesis 3, someone that tells a lie that causes Adam and Eve to take what they should not have taken. Who's that? Satan.

God, in both stories, still God. Sarai is the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Pharaoh and his officials are Adam and Eve.

And that leaves one other person.

Abraham, in this moment, is being the seed of the snake, the offspring of Satan, that he, through his lies and treachery, in trying to get what he wanted, the good life for him, life for him, and he sells out his wife.

And he causes Pharaoh to commit adultery. This is not beginning with great things. Hopefully, 2025 has not started off like this for you.

But man, this does not give us a good initial portrait of Abraham. Instead, we see him lying and tricking and working evil.

Even more than that, when we think back to all of the ways that God told Abram that he was going to be a blessing, he completely foils all of it. God said, go to the land, and Abram left the land. God said that, I will bless you.

But Abram believed that the fields and crops of Egypt would bless him. God said, I will make your name great. But yet Abram thought Sarai would make it go well with him.

And God said, I will make you a blessing to the nations. All peoples of the earth will be blessed through you. Yet Abram brought a curse on Pharaoh and his household.

God had a mission, had a purpose, had an identity for Abram. And yet he was walking away from all of it because he was doing what was right in his own opinion and in his own way.

You can also look at verse number 13, where he says, please say, my sister, so it will go well for me. It's taken right from Genesis chapter four, where God tells Cain, hey, if you just do what is right, it will go well for you.

But instead, Abram goes the way of death, the way of destruction. But yet God has made a promise to him that he said, the Messiah is going to come through your line. And so God intervenes and God saves.

And instead of, as we have looked at the stories of Genesis, sin and failure should result in decreation, in the rejection, death, a flood. Something should be happening to Abram for his wickedness.

And yet God protects Sarai and sends Abram and Sarai back out of Egypt to the land of promise with all of the stuff from the Egyptians.

Certainly that looking forward to when Abraham's later descendants, the children of Israel, when they would go down to Egypt in a time of famine, and they would later exit after the spoiling of the Egyptians.

And you can read all about that in the Book of Exodus. So what do we take from this? There's not a lot of great news as I read through this.

I'm not like, man, I just feel energized for my week. I'm like, man, if even Abram, this person that we look at as a portrait of faith, if even he failed in these incredible ways, then what in the world am I supposed to do?

How do I deal with my failure? We're gonna look at three very brief things. I know it's been a little bit longer of a morning.

We're just gonna look at these three truths that this story teaches us. Number one, God does not give us what our failures deserve. God is merciful to us.

I love Psalm 103. It says, Yahweh is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love. He will not always accuse us or be angry forever.

He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his faithful love toward those who fear him.

As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so Yahweh has compassion on those who fear him. For he knows what we are made of, remembering that we are dust.

All of us have failed. Romans 3 says, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All of us have had thoughts that have gone against the will and nature of our holy God.

All of us have said things to one another in cruelty or in gospel, or in slander that God does not have for us to say. All of us have done things, performed actions that God's word has said not to.

And in those moments, we ought to thank God for his mercy that is new every morning. Some people think that God is out to get them, but the truth is this, if God was out to get you, you'd already be gone.

The truth is, God is out to get you to bring you back to himself, to love you, to forgive you, that you would know his love, his forgiveness, what he has accomplished for you on the cross. So today, are you thanking God for his mercy towards you?

Do you realize what your sin, past, present, and future, cost him? We sang the song, the cross of Jesus Christ is the reason I'm alive, for his blood has made me free. It will never lose its power for me.

So if God's been merciful to you, are you giving other people mercy? Are you choosing to not bring the hammer down on your spouse, or the waiter, or someone at church? Or are you wishing that you could really let someone else have it?

Let's be merciful as our father in heaven is merciful.

Not only does God not give us what our failures deserve, as Abram could have just been trapped and not had Sarai, and he married her off to a very powerful king during that time period, and God could have been like, well, those were all of your

actions and your choices, and I'm going to let you live with that. No, he doesn't destroy him. He doesn't even leave him alone just to the consequences of his actions. He doesn't give him what he does deserve.

But our failures do still have consequences. God does not turn a blind eye to our sins. Do you know this story like didn't have to be included in the story of the Bible?

Like you could leave this out and you would still get like there's no, there's not a ton of other portions of the Bible that reference back to it and say, remember when Abram did this? It could have been left out.

But we do have consequences for actions, that God notices when we sin and when we fail. And frankly, so do other people. It can harm our relationships.

There it harmed the marital relationship between Abram and Sarai. I can only imagine how awkward that conversation would have been to be like, Oh, hey, honey. Yeah, where did you get all these goats?

Where did you get the male and female donkeys? I didn't notice we had like a new slew of bond servants, of slaves. Where did you get all those from?

Oh, well, I talked to Pharaoh, and you told him that we were married, right? Well, but look at all this cool stuff. Damaged the marital relationship.

Damaged his relationship with the Lord.

It damaged Abram's relationship with Pharaoh and with his people, that instead of being a blessing, and instead of being able to tell them about like the one true God that brings blessing and happiness and life, and wants to bless all the nations of

the world, instead he was a curse to them, and someone that they literally had to kick out because of all the trouble that he brought on them. Don't think that your failures are without consequences. When you say unkind things, it makes a difference.

When you gossip, it makes a difference. When you treat other people unkindly, it makes a difference.

Think of Hebrews chapter 12 and verse number 15, where the writer there highlights to those believers, make sure that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springs up, causing trouble and defiling many.

Your sin, your failures do not just affect you. They affect everyone around you. My anger, my lust doesn't just affect me.

It'll affect my family. It'll affect how I parent. It'll affect how I treat my coworkers.

We ought to, as I mentioned at the beginning, recognize our failures and say, God, I don't want to have to deal with the consequences that will come on everyone and everything that I love because of sin and its cancerous effect on my life.

God, would you save me from my sin? Would you change me, make me new, make it so that the way I respond to hurt or to hardship or temptation?

Lord, give me a heart like Jesus to obey you, to say no to just what I want, to say no to what the world wants and help me to listen to you.

Paul would tell the Corinthian Church in no uncertain terms, he says, don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God's kingdom?

Do not be deceived, no sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or males who have sex with males, no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God's kingdom. And some of you used to be like this.

He lets them know like, hey, it's not that your sin makes it so that you can't be saved. He says, no, no, no. Some of you used to be in the camp of all of those that do not get eternal life.

He says, and some of you used to be like this. He says, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

So he says, don't live your life acting like those outside of the kingdom of God. Don't act like you are condemned and damned to hell forever through how you live your life today.

Do you realize that your actions have consequences and that your life does not belong to you anymore? Paul would later tell the Corinthians, you can't do whatever you want with your body because it doesn't belong to you. It belongs to the Lord.

And so you have a responsibility to live for him. So choose your actions and words and thoughts this week in the light of God's word.

And then lastly today, not only does God not give us what our failures deserve, and not only do our failures still have consequences, but God can still bless even in our failures.

And we see this through the fact that no matter how terribly he received it, Abram leaves Egypt in a better financial position than when he entered.

He got the donkeys, he got the slaves, he got the camels, he got all of these things that would have been signs of great riches in that early ancient Near East. So he goes and he's blessed, but it wasn't because of his good works.

It didn't come because he was following the Lord. We'll see some of that in the next two chapters. But here for this portion, he's blessed even in his failures.

I want to tell you today, God will bless you even in your failure because he is good, not because you have earned it. One side, great, wonderful, that's amazing. Thank you Lord, that I don't have to like, you know, earn your blessings.

That's great. There is a dark side to this. Very often, we can evaluate our life and our heart in light of our circumstances.

We can say like, hey, God, thank you that, you know, I've got the newest boat and a new car and the newest phone and everything is going great in my life. And that must mean that like, you're really happy with me. And it's not that way.

As Jesus would tell the disciples, it reigns. There's provision for both the just and the unjust. So don't evaluate your walk with God and you're standing with him by your circumstances, evaluate it by God's character.

Paul highlighted this for the Corinthian Church when he said, I discipline my body and bring it under strict control, so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

I want you to know for your life, there is a standard of right and wrong that is entirely reliant on the Lord. Don't worry, no one died, pretty sure. There is a standard of right and wrong.

We are called to follow the light of Jesus and to walk in the way that is right. As we do that, we know that obedience brings blessing and disobedience brings conflict, as my parents would often say.

But don't say, OK, everything is going great in my life, and so God must be happy with my sin. I know I've not given this area over to the Lord, but everything's going so great, I think I'm fine.

Don't count on God's goodness in your life as a overall endorsement of what you're doing. Instead, take every moment, every aspect of your life. Don't allow there to be a room in the home of your heart that is not open to your Savior.

Don't be like, hey, God, you can come into my Sunday morning room, and this is beautiful. Look, you can do whatever you want in the Sunday morning room. But in my Tuesday night room, just don't go in there.

Or in my, you know, in my finance room, don't go in there, don't touch anything. We ought to say, God, I want you to bless all areas of my life, and I don't want to assume that I'm receiving blessings because of my sin.

Here Abraham, he sinned, and yet God still blessed him, but it was because God was good, not because Abram was good.

But what a wonderful truth on the good side that Jesus is the perfect example of this, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That though the wages of sin is death, the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

That while we were dead in trespasses and sins, Jesus made us alive and brought us to himself. So today, what do we learn from beginning with failure?

From this failure story of Abram, we can learn God doesn't give us what our failures deserve because he's merciful and he's kind. Appreciate that, thank him for it, and then be merciful and kind to someone else.

Secondly, our failures still have consequences. So don't just embrace your failures going, no, well, God's probably not gonna zap me with lightning, so I'm just gonna do what I want.

No, no, realize that your sin affects other people, and so choose to follow the way of the Lord. And then lastly, God can still bless even in our failures. So don't just assume, because things are good, that you're doing everything right.

Instead, evaluate your life in the light of the word of God. This morning, we can choose when we fail to either say, well, I gave it a good try. Maybe I'll try following Jesus next January.

We could try and just give up and be like, well, you know, the Jesus thing didn't really work out. You know, I failed for a couple of weeks.

As we'll see over the next couple of months, Abram makes a little ground, but over and over and over again, we see his failure. But we have a faithful God who forgives, who loves, who restores, and who wants to save us and to change us.

When we begin with failure, will you begin to call on the Lord?