CALLED DESPITE FAILURE

Transcript

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Hello everyone. This is Pastor Dean Thompson with the word of hope. Encounters with grace called despite failure. For I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of Genesis twenty eight verse fifteen. Abraham travels to a world of powerful city states and hungry migrations. Famine drives him to Egypt, where Pharaoh's court held absolute power, and a beautiful woman could be seized for the harem without recourse. Twice in Egypt and again in Gerar under the Philistine king Abimelech, Abraham resorts to the same cowardly deception. He passes off Sarah as merely his sister to save his own neck, exposing his wife to real danger. In the ancient honor culture of the region, a man's protection of his household was the measure of his worth. By that measure, Abraham fails and fails twice. Here is the scandal of grace. The father of the faithful is a repeat liar, who endangers his own wife, and God's covenant does not lapse. In Gerar, it is God, not Abraham, who protects Sarah, appearing to the pagan Abimelech in a dream and restraining him. The promise God made in Genesis twelve rests not on Abraham's flawless character, but on God's unbreakable word. When Paul later calls Abraham the model of faith, he is not pointing to a perfect man, but to a man who for all his tumbles kept believing the God who kept keeping his promise. We imagine God's calling depends on our reliability. And so every failure feels like disqualification. But the covenant was never anchored in Abraham's performance, it was anchored in God's faithfulness. Your calling does not evaporate the moment you fail it. The same God who protected the promise through Abraham's lies is committed to finishing the good work he began in you. Grace is not God overlooking your failures, it is God working through them to keep his word. O God, our faithful God, our failures are real, but your promise is greater. Please do not leave us until you have done all you have spoken. Carry the calling that we cannot carry ourselves. Please keep us by your grace and present us faultless before your throne. We thank you. Amen. God bless you, brothers and sisters.