Sermons

Genesis 18:16-33 - Why God Came Down - Part II - His Heart and Our Response

May 13, 2012 Speaker: Series: Genesis

Topic: Sunday Worship Passage: Genesis 18:16–18:33

[Text: Genesis 18:16-33)

Scripture Intro: Why did God come down? That is the question we asked last week. Part of the answer was that He loves to be with his people and loves to have compassion on them, even in their brokenness. But He also came down for another reason.

[Read and pray]

Intro: Jenny and I had what some might call a “brief” dating period – about 2 months. We started dating January 1, 2007 when she lived in Wisconsin and I lived in NC. We talked on the phone for hours each night, but we only saw each other once in January and once in February before I moved up to be close to her on March 1st. I already knew what I wanted. My heart was hers and I wanted to know her and be known by her fully and for the rest of my life. Her friendship meant (and still means) everything to me. And so, I had a ring burning a hole in my pocket, just waiting to be put on her finger AFTER she responded to a very important question.

She was doing her student teaching at a local elementary school and I showed up, flowers in hand, eager to propose, but found her keeping detention for a handful of trouble-makers. So, there I was, eager to share my heart and having to be quiet because of a few mischievous boys and girls. But finally the bell rang and I had Jenny all to myself in the classroom. She was distracted by the flowers and the need to clean her desk, so she didn’t notice me at first as I dropped to my knee beside the chalkboard. But I shared my heart with her while she listened. I said deeply beautiful things (that I wish I could remember now) as I shared my reasons for wanting her hand.

In a sense, I was sharing my heart no matter what. I had to share what was inside me. But I was also looking for a response. Silence would have been painful and rejection even more deeply painful as some of you may know. But when I shared my heart with Jenny, her response was exactly what I hoped for. Her “Yes” has turned into almost 5 years of two broken people living in commitment to each other and into two wild and mischievous boys, destined for a few stints in detention themselves (if, that is, they have as much of their mother in them as I believe they do).

Here’s the point: when you share your heart with someone, it is really nice when there is a response.

FCF: Throughout the Story of Redemption to this point, God has been at work demonstrating His heart toward people. In the Garden His heart was broken after sharing His goodness and power and love for the crowning glory of creation, Adam and Eve. In the time of Noah God’s heart was broken as He saw the violence that filled the earth – the exact opposite of His intention for humanity! The Story so far is of humanity running from the LORD. And that is something with which I can identify. How many times has the LORD shared His heart with me and gotten no response. How many times have I broken the heart of God through my disobedience and selfishness?

And yet the Story so far is of the LORD in hot pursuit of His people, eager to redeem the world and unstoppable in His purpose to begin restoring life the way it was meant to be. So, He comes to Abraham and transforms Him in the covenant so that Abraham can begin to respond to the grace that has been shown to him – and in that grace Abraham responds well.

In 18:16 the scene begins to shift away from the focus on God’s desire to be with his people and his compassion on their brokenness to the city of Sodom and its deep wickedness. We were prepared for this story way back in 13:13 when we were told that, “Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the LORD.” Remember that Abraham’s nephew, Lot, had chosen to make his home near Sodom since that was the better looking, more fertile land even though it was outside of the Promised Land. Lot is in the back of Abraham’s mind throughout this passage, even though his name doesn’t show up.

In v. 16 something happens that has not truly happened since before the Fall; God walks on the earth with His friend. Abraham has just experienced to closeness of God and he isn’t ready for it to end so he walks with God “to set them on their way.” Really, God is drawing Abraham closer to himself. The LORD is about to share His heart with Abraham so that Abraham can know the LORD more deeply and fully as friends do with one another. And the LORD is seeking a response.

In vv. 17-19 we get a glimpse of the LORD’s heart. He reasons to Himself that his friendship with Abraham won’t allow Him to hide what He is about to do. Hiding isn’t what true friendship and intimacy looks like. Secrets aren’t kept from one another. Shared secrets actually create intimacy.

- You who are friends and husbands and wives and parents and children, take note. To know someone deeply is not simply to share a movie or a dinner or a common interest. To know and to be known, to experience real intimacy with someone, is to share your heart’s secrets; the dark and the joyful, the fears and the triumphs. Do it wisely. Do it carefully with those you can trust. It may take time. It may be messy because your friend will be just as sinful and broken as you are. And yet if intimacy is what you long for, this is the only way.

Look at the reasons God gives for sharing His heart with Abraham and how He relates all of it to the Story of Redemption and the covenant He already made with His friend:

- V. 18 – Abraham will become a great nation and all the nations of the earth will be blessed in him – that comes from Genesis 12. As the one through whom blessings from God will come, He has a responsibility to know the LORD and the ways of the LORD and to act accordingly. But He can’t act if he doesn’t know what the heart of God is, otherwise he is walking blindly. So the LORD is going to share His heart with Abraham so that Abraham can respond.

- V. 19 – But the LORD also will share His heart because Abraham has a responsibility to the generations of people who will come from him, to teach them the ways of the LORD so that they can walk in the ways of the LORD, too. The text says that they are to “keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice” and by doing righteousness the promises of God will become reality in the world.

Let’s break those terms down. “Justice” is the easier thing for us to get. Simply put, to do justice is to live in line with how things are supposed to be and to seek to make right the things that aren’t how they’re supposed to be.

“Righteousness” is a little harder for us to grasp sometimes. That’s why I wrote you a letter and put it in the pews today. For the saints of the OT, righteousness was found through faith in the LORD and was shown as they embraced the covenant God had made with them.

So the LORD here is saying that He is sharing His heart with Abraham, because He wants Abraham to then share the heart of the LORD with his children and all his descendents so that they might know the LORD and His ways of righteousness and justice and embrace the covenant for themselves. And as they know the LORD and walk in His path, the promised redemption will break into the reality of a broken world and transform it with truth and beauty and justice.

With His reason given, which is ultimately the restoration of all things, the LORD shares what is in His heart. He is going down to Sodom and Gomorrah because, as v. 20 says, He has heard the outcry against them and it is great. The depths of their sexual brokenness (beneath which is deep selfishness and rebellion against God’s good plan for sexuality) will become very clear in the next chapter. But Scripture illuminates other reasons for the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah that came to the LORD’s listening ears. Ezekiel 16:49 says, “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” As the LORD went down to Sodom to demonstrate His justice, His mind was not only on the sexual brokenness, but on all the injustice that happened in that place. In v. 21, the LORD says He will go down to see the truth of the matter. Don’t take this as some sort of failure of God’s power or understanding. Just know that God hears the outcry of sin and is willing to give it His full attention.

shifting toward response

As the LORD shares His heart with Abraham, Abraham understands something. Like Jenny when I was on one knee, Abraham’s God has given him an opportunity to respond in the light of the righteousness and justice of the LORD. He understands his responsibility to be a friend of God and to be a blessing to the nations.

So what does he do in response? He prays…for three things:

- For the glory of God to be known in the earth

- For the righteous to receive the mercy of God

- For time for the wicked to be transformed by the righteous among them.

First, he prays for the glory of God. In v. 27, as the two men (who are actually angels we discover at the beginning of ch. 19) depart for Sodom, Abraham still stands before the LORD. It says, “he drew near” and asked a few questions.

- Remember, friends of God in Christ – you are a child of the King and have free access to the Father through Christ and in the Holy Spirit. Stand before the throne of God in confidence because of Jesus. Draw near to your Father who loves to listen to you.

We have to understand that what Abraham does next is made possible by the LORD himself and because the LORD has shared His heart with Abraham already. Because the LORD is a God of steadfast love and justice, Abraham has questions for the LORD, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?...Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

This isn’t a human berating or teaching God a lesson. This is a human deeply in love with the LORD and wanting the righteousness and justice of God to always prevail so that God is glorified in all the earth. The LORD does no injustice. All His ways are right and true. To destroy the righteous along with the wicked would be contrary to the nature of God and so Abraham pleads for the glory of God to be shown in the earth, which is exactly the response the heart of God loves.

And note the humble progression of Abraham’s requests as he prays for the righteous, if there be any, in that land. Beginning with 50 and working through 6 requests down to just 10 people, Abraham asks that for the sake of just a few righteous, would the LORD spare the whole place? The LORD’s answer? A deep, resounding “Yes.” Those who embrace the LORD will have nothing to fear. The righteous and just King of the Universe has a care for each of them.

But look beneath Abraham’s prayer and you will see the third request. He does not simply pray for some sort of magical rescue of the righteous out of the destruction. He doesn’t ask that the destruction be averted if there isn’t someone who loves the LORD in that place. Abraham has known God’s heart of justice and Abraham knows the deep brokenness of Sodom. If God determines that the place is hopeless, then it is within His sovereign right to rain justice on the place.

But Abraham’s response to God instead flows out of his calling to be a blessing to all nations of the earth. He prays that the LORD, for the sake of just a handful of people faithful to the LORD and His covenant, would relent altogether and spare the whole place, including every single wicked, evil, altogether corrupt person in all their sexual, economic, selfish and rich brokenness.

Abraham understands that while the people of God remain in a place, there is hope that transformation is possible; that righteousness and justice can prevail; that cries of injustice can be soothed with life made right; that the good news of the redemption God has in store can break the most sinful of people and draw them to the knowledge and love of God and of others.

Wrapping up

The LORD shared His heart with His friend, Abraham, and by doing so gave Abraham an opportunity to live out God’s calling on his life. He heard what the LORD loves and then he ran after the same thing, pleading for the LORD to demonstrate His righteousness and justice.

Whenever the LORD shares His heart with people, He is always looking for a response. First, He wants us to embrace Him with our hearts and embrace His promises to us. But second, our response must include some sort of action that flows out of the grace that has been shown to us.

In Christ, God has come to us once again and has shared His heart with us. His heart is full of compassion and grace for sinners. His heart is full of love for His enemies and He rescued through the work of Jesus. His death paid for our sin and brokenness, mine as bad as Sodom, and his resurrection has demonstrated the heart of God for renewing all things and making all that is sad and grievous and broken and wrong untrue and gone forever in the new heavens and new earth.

And as we respond to the loving heart of God and embrace Christ, we ourselves experience the same grace Abraham received from the LORD, the full acceptance and friendship of God that comes through faith alone. Like Abraham our sins are forgiven. And like Abraham we have been given a calling from God. He is looking for a response of action on our part.

- First, we embrace our place in this world as the righteous people of God and pray for this place. Apart from the work of God through the Holy Spirit, there is no transformation – not in us, not in our neighbors, not in our government, not in our culture, not in our economic systems. Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” He also said, “With God all things are possible.”

So pray fervently. Pray believing that God cares about this world to renew and transform it. Pray for the kingdom of God to break in and reign in all its beauty and goodness in all places on this globe.

- Second, we work toward that end. Just as Abraham knew that where the LORD has His people there is hope for that place, we must understand that we are here not as a social club or theological think-tank. We are the salt of Fuquay – preserving, flavoring, transforming salt – and shaken over this community by God himself. We may be tempted to say that this world is going to hell-in-a-hand-basket and we may rightly grieve the brokenness we see, but two angels of God have not yet come to destroy this place. That tells me that there is hope here because the people of God are here.

We each have a role to play. We have many gifts in this body; gifts of speech, gifts of service, gifts of listening, gifts of compassion, gifts of time, gifts of creativity. How can each of us contribute to the work of the kingdom here as we hear the cries of unrighteousness and injustice in this place?We’re sometimes tempted to think that what is valuable to the kingdom of God is a big work that takes many people and lots of time to do. Those can be useful, yes. But when Jesus sent out the disciples to do his work he sent them two by two. Look around you. Find a brother or sister and pray together for the LORD to transform this place and use your gifts, given to you by the Holy Spirit, to do the work.

God has shared His heart with us in Jesus and invites us to embrace him and to act. Go now in the power of the Holy Spirit, following your Lord and Savior who goes in front of you and goes with you into the calling God has given to you and do it in repentance and faith with all your might so that the glory of God is known in this place.

Varina Sized

Join us Sunday at 

11:00am