Bridge Church Vancouver

We have been thinking about our ‘carbon footprint’ and the effects of our actions on our society and environment.  I am also challenging us to consider the effects of our spiritual footprint as well.  What will be the effects of our spiritual lives on our society and environment.

One of the great effects of our spiritual lives is the legacy impact of difficult situations.  All of us - from time to time find ourselves in very difficult situations and the ways in which we deal with these situations says a lot about our faith and leaves a trail for others on how to deal with difficult situations when then come.  

William Carey (1761-1834)
Raised in the obscure rural village of Paulerpury England;  apprenticed in a local cobbler’s shop; converted as a as a nominal Anglican; took up the faith enthusiastically and with little formal education taught himself New Testament greek from a borrowed grammar book.  
When his master died, he took up shoemaking in Hackleton where he met and married Dorothy, who soon gave birth to a daughter.  The cobblers life was hard, the child died at age 2 and the Carey family sunk into poverty and stayed there.  
“I can plod” he later wrote, “I can persevere to any definite pursuit.”  all the while he continued his language studies, adding Hebrew, and Latin and became a baptist preacher.  He also continued his life long interest in international affairs, especially the religious life of other cultures.
He became impressed with early Morravian missionaries and increasingly dismayed with his fellow protestant’s lack of interest in missions.  He believed Christs great commission applied to all Christians at all times and there was no room to ignore this call.  
in 1792 he organized a missionary society and at it’s inaugural meeting preached a sermon entitled “Expect great things from God; Attempt great things for God”; within a year Carey, his pregnant wife, 3 young boys and a friend of Wiliam’s were on a ship headed for India.

Carey had grossly underestimated what it would cost to live in India and the early years there were miserable.  Carey was forced to move his family repeatedly as he sought employment to sustain his family.  Illness, lonliness and regret set in and he wrote “I am in a strange land, no Christian friend, a large family and nothing to supply their wants.”  but he also retained hope “Well, I have God and His Word is sure”.  
He learned Bengali and in few weeks began translating the Bible into Bengali and preaching to small gatherings.
When Carey contracted malaria, then his 5 year old Peter died of dysentery, it became too much for his wife Dorothy whose mental health deterioriated rapidly.  She suffered delusions, halluciations and threatening her husband with a knife.  She eventually had to be confined to her room and physically restrained.  William would often write his sermons in his room next to Dorothy’s room while she wailed and cried uncontrollably.  
“This indeed is the valley of the shaddow of death to me”  Carey wrote though characteristically added, “But I rejoice that I am here notwithstanding; and God is here.”
After 6 years, in 1799, Carey’s circumstances began to change and he was invited to locate in a Danish settelment near Calcutta.  He was under the protection of the Danes who permitted him to preach legally (in the British controlled areas of India) previously all his missionary work had been done illegally.
Others began to join his efforts, one was a printer who began to financially support the Carey family.  In Dec 1800, 7 yrs after arriving, Carey baptized his first convert and two months later he published is first Bengali New Testament.  With this and subsequent editions, Carey and his colleagues laid the foundation for the study of modern Bengali which to this point had been an “unsettled dialect”  
Over 28 years Carey continued to expect God to do great things and he translated the entire Bible into India’s major languages; Bengali, Hindi, Sanskrit and over 200 other languages and dialects.  
He also sought social reforms in India, including the abolition of infanticide, widow burning (sati) and assisted suicide.  He helped found the Serampore College in 1818, a divinity school for Indians which still operates today
by the time Carey died, he had spent 41 years in India without a furlough.  His mission could only account for some 700 converts in a country of millions but he laid an impressive foundation Bible translation, education and social reform.  
His greatest legacy was in the worldwide missionary movement of the 19th century. He is known as the father of Modern Missions and He inspired and influenced missionaries like Adonriam Judson, Hudson Taylor and David Livingstone and thousands of others.

In many ways “who we become is forged by the challenges we face”  That was true for William Carey and also true for Abram, the father of our faith.  

We are going briefly look at this story in Gen 12.  At the age of 75, God called Abram to leave everything he knew and go where God told him and God promised he would give him the land of the Cannanites and make him into a great nation of people.  Abram journed from the northern edge to the southern desert called the Negev.  

The Negev is not a pretty place, and while treking through this a famine gets to be a big problem for Abram, so he does what any smart person would do, he leaves and goes to Egypt to find food.  

Abram has now journeyed from one end of Cannan to the other and he has realized first-hand that one of the major drawbacks of this promised land is it is periodically subject to famine, since it’s rainfall is sporadic.  During such a crisis many inhabatants have to migrate further south to Egypt to keep themselves and their flocks alive.  Abram goes as well to find food.  

Egypt was a unique because of the Nile river that floods annually and keeps the land lush.  The flood waters would soak the soil and deposit rich new silt fertilizing the ground.  After the Nile receeds the land would produce bumper crops.  The height of the Nile river varied from year to year, depending on the amount of rainfall in central Africa.  When there was less rainfall in central Africa there would be a famine in Egypt, those occasions were rare and they do not correspond to the rainfall in Cannan.  Egypt was usually the attractive place to go when hard times fell on Cannan. 

In the promise God gave Abram, He didn’t specifically say “I will feed you in times of famine” and God had not given Abram any conditions associated with this promise - God had said he would give this land to HIS OFFSPRING - but what about him?  He has people to feed today! and so he heads south to Egypt, it says in v 10 he planned to live there for a while.  Abram was doing what made sense to him in his current situation. 

The idea was not particularly a bad one, but he had not thought it through before he set his course of action -

sometime when we are facing a difficult situation, we make a bad decision - okay - everyone will do that from time to time, we don’t always make the right decisions, but how do we handle it when that happens.  
sometimes we are faced with a difficult situation and we allow fear to influence us that leads us to sin, to choose to do something that compromises our relationship with God or compromise our relationship with someone else



but this is where the problems begin...He is sitting in line at Egyptian border waiting to get to the customs agent and  He says to Sarai - “your beautiful, the Egyptians see you and they’re going to kill me to get you if they think your my wife, so tell them your my sister, so they will treat me well and not kill me.”

Abram had not thought through the situation before he got there.  He knew his wife was beautiful, but he had been captivated by the need of his day not who he was in a relationship with.  He was trying to fix his problem – He was ‘tunnel focused’ all he could see was the problem of his rumbling stomach – How many times do we do that?

Abram was a real person - he made bad decisions and he sinned like everyone...
Abram dealt with fear - Fear leads to failure in this situation.
    Abram was afraid of the famine - goes to Egypt
    Abram was afraid of Egyptians - has Sarai lie
    Abram’s fear lead to sin, it compromised not only his wife, but also what God had promised.

it seemed to work - the Egyptians thought Abram was Sarais brother and began to give him all kinds of stuff.  
we will want to control What we fear, and in our search to control situations we will exceed our abilities and sin.  
for instance, if I have a fear of failing in the eyes of my friend, I might lie, or steal or cheat something to appear to be something more than I am.
If I have a fear of looking foolish -

God said His blessing of Abram would be His Presence - the relationship He was establishing with Abram.  

Abram was already a wealthy man when he left Haran
    Don’t confuse God’s blessing with good circumstances

    Pharaoh gave Abram all the wealth - not God & not God through Pharaoh
    Abram became immensely wealthy - and it creates some significant challenges for him - we will look at one of these next week, and Abram handles that situation entirely differently.  
    Do not mistake physical blessing with God’s blessing - TRAP

Abram had not only put his wife at risk but also the promise that God gave him

Only God’s intervention delivers Abram and Sarai from Pharaohs power so that they may return to Cannan together

When we are faced with a famine – a difficult circumstance – it is a time for us to trust God not try to get control of the circumstances or be distracted by the worlds standard of blessing.  This doesn’t mean we don’t do anything, because we must respond to the challenge – but it means we look to God to take direction from Him and expect Him to be faithful.

Faithfulness of God -
Since the promise of establishing a nation through Abram and Sarai was jepardized, God entered the scene to rescue Sarai and protected Abram.  

God inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household.  The Hebrew word “disease” can also be translated “plagues”  The Egyptians undertood that spiritual realities bear physical consequences and that diseases and plagues were brought on by powerful dieties.  Pharaoh knew that a very powerful god was cursing him becasue of Sarai’s presence in his household.  Pharaoh himself was considered to be a god, he would therefore respond with deference to Abram and Sarai only if he believed that the source of the plague was a mighty god.  From another perspective, as monarch of the country, he should have sought to protect these visitors to his land instead of being enamored with Sarai’s beauty.  

Pharaoh responded to Abram with outrage, but also desiring to save face, he places the blame for the disease and the consequences of Pharaohs actions squarely on Abram, and as a god/monarch he acts with a degree of mercy in letting both of them leave Egypt with all the gifts he had given Abram.   

Not only does Pharaoh ‘let’ Abram & Sarai leave Egypt - He has his men escort him out of the country.  

God wastes no time in getting Abram out of this situation and Abram finds himself back in the middle of the Negev in famine.

1 Cor 10:13
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

You may not make the best or right decisions.  You may mess things up but if you are God’s - God is on your side.

Everyone makes bad decisions, sins - that is common - What is not common is...
God is faithful - he will be true to himself, what he has said & promised and He will be faithful to his relationship with you.  

Do not let fear or sin distract you – but let your relationship with God lead you – He wants you to learn how to hear his voice over the circumstances of the world.

the tests are to shape us, strengthen us, make us more into who God intends us to be - not to destroy us but shape us - Remember...

This is a test - it is intended to be hard - a challenge – but God is faithful.  He has a great track record of rescuing his people from trouble and bringing them back to a place with him

He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear -
dont’ focus on what you can or can not bear - focus on HIM
    you can control your thoughts – be willing to change & don’t be afraid

Be willing to trust God and change your perspective – do what seems right and good and know that God will be faithful to protect you.  Don’t be afraid of failing, don’t be afraid of unknowns, don’t be afraid of change and changing, don’t be afraid to trust God, don’t be afraid. 

“Expect great things from God; Attempt great things for God”