God Who Can Be Moved

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[0:01] and let's see here i'd like to invite you you can turn in your bulletin or in the bible that you have we're reading from the new revised standard version genesis 18 20 through 32 following on from last week where three visitors came to visit abraham and sarah and they were met with abraham's hospitality but also then said by this time next year when we return sarah will have a son and that's the miraculous fulfilled promise that god may had made to abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky so we more or less continue where we left off there but in this case that as the as the narrative continues abraham and yahweh the lord consider the fate of sodom and gomorrah as as pastor victoria mentioned in the children's sermon and from last week this is the introduction from last week you we saw that basically abraham had finally turned the corner and the second act of his life is beginning like he had finally started to show some real faithfulness to god he had made a lot of mistakes up until that point and the first thing he does this is great the first thing he does in his second ask is to ask god in a very bold way for mercy to be shown to other people not just to himself this is really great he has a heart of mercy for people he doesn't even know

[1:28] now his nephew does live in the city of lehman and he's a very good person and he's a very good person and he's a very good person in that town there's no doubt but i think he he seems to feel for the whole town or the two towns and this is a sign that he's had personal growth in his life and and things are going in the right direction for abraham and also this passage reveals some things about god and that's probably where we're going to spend a little bit more of our time is on god than on abraham that when we put them together with other passages paints a picture of god that is a little more nuanced perhaps than the god that we grew up with and that's probably where we're going to spend our time if we end up with some verse verse verse verse verse for great verse great lower, they're called small caps is how it's written. And whenever you see that in the scriptures, that means underneath that is the Hebrew word Yahweh, I am. Sometimes you see Lord without that, and that just means somebody's master. And then if you just see God, it's a different name for God, like Elohim, things like that. So then Yahweh said, how great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin. I must go down and see whether they

[3:03] have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know. So the men turned from there and went towards Sodom while Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham came near and said, will you indeed?

[3:22] Sweep away the righteous with the wicked. Suppose there are 50 righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the 50 righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked. Far be that from you. Shall not the judge of all the earth be a slave of the Lord? Shall not the slave of the Lord be a slave of the Lord? earth do what is just? And the Lord said, if I find at Sodom 50 righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake. Abraham answered, let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord. I who am but dust and ashes, suppose five of the 50 righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five? And he said, I will not destroy it if I find 45 there. Again, Abraham spoke to him, suppose 40 are found there. He answered, for the sake of 40, I will not do it. Then he said, oh, do not let the Lord be angry if I speak. Suppose 30 are found there. The Lord answered, I will not do it if I find 30 there. And Abraham said, let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord. Suppose 20 are found there. And he answered, for the sake of 20, I will not destroy it. Then he said, oh, do not let the Lord be angry if I speak just once more.

[5:11] Suppose 10. Are found there. And the Lord answered, for the sake of 10, I will not destroy it. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this word. We ask that you would add your blessing to it. In Jesus' name, amen. I want to tell you about the God that I grew up with. And this is a very good God that I grew up with. And it's not a different God. Because God is God, right? But it's different in how I understood God as a child from how I understood God now. And the God I grew up with knew everything. He was a bit like Santa Claus. So like, he knows when you've been naughty. He knows when you've been nice. He's got a list, you know. So be good for goodness sake, right? This is Santa Claus God. He knows everything. He knows what you're thinking. So don't even think bad things about God because you'll be busted, you know. Think, now how do you do that? How do you like, you can't control what you think. I mean, you can and you can't. You can control what you spend your attention on. But your brain does all sorts of crazy things. And as a kid, I was like, ah, I thought bad things about God. I don't want him listening to me. It's like the CIA, you know. He has these listening devices everywhere. He just

[6:33] knows what I'm doing all the time. And then, of course, you could say, well, why should I pray? Why should I confess anything? He already knows it all. Well, we know the answer to these things. Those are more for us to do, right? It's important for us to acknowledge. The other thing about God is, so we call that God was omniscient, right? He knows everything. Well, I also was taught that God was everywhere. Like, he's just, he's behind you. He's next to you. He's in, you know, he's everywhere. He's omnipresent. You know, you can't, there's, which is true. There's nowhere you can go that he won't be there.

[7:03] I was taught that he had always existed, which blew my mind as a kid. I was like, how, how? Well, I didn't understand how time worked and nobody really does anymore. Anyways, he has always existed. How do you wrap your mind around that, you know?

[7:18] And that he will always exist, right? He knows what I'm thinking. So we know God is omniscient. He's omnipresent. He's all powerful. So he's omnipotent. And because of all the different foods he likes there, he likes both meat and vegetables. So he's omnivorous. He's not omnivorous. We don't know that, but this is another omni word that we like to throw in there. But God has all those things. But the other thing about God is that he's omnipotent. He's omnipotent. God is that, and this isn't a word that I knew, but this is something I thought about God. And there's a lot of people who think this about God, is that God is what's known as impassable. That's I-M-P-A-S-S-I-B-L-E. Impassable. And that means that he cannot feel deeply about things and other events cannot move him to experience pain or pleasure. He can't be goaded into anger. He can't be brought into joy because he's himself. The other, he's sort of constant. And we have verses like that that talk about the constancy or the impassibility of God, that he's always the same. So you may remember a verse in the Bible that says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, day, today, and tomorrow, and forever, right? We get the sense that God is always God. And that's

[8:35] sort of this always the sameness of God. Now here's another word, and we're going to write it down. It's called the aseity. God. A-S-E-I-T-Y. You know, you could look it up. A-S-E-I-T-Y. The aseity of God. That God is absolutely independent from any other being. In other words, he doesn't require other people or other beings to exist for his existence, right? And his decisions and his movement in the world and everything he does, he's not forced to do those things by anyone else. He's really a self-made, you know, not even self-made, but he just is independent. So I could go on and on, but you get the picture. And this is a good God. This is the same God who sent his son into the world. This is the same God who loves me very much. This is the same God who gave us the scriptures. But as a child, that was my view of God, was he was a bit inapproachable. He didn't have a lot of highs or lows. He didn't change a lot. He knew everything, and he could do anything, right? So you get the picture, right? But even before we read this passage, which maybe I asked you to kind of think, well, what is God up to here? Because he seems to be having sort of a haggling match with Abraham, right? And that seems odd for

[9:54] a God who is the God of my childhood, and we'll get into that. But even before this passage, there's some chinks in this armor of this sort of this tough, unchangeable God. For one, he does hear, and he does listen, and he does act. And so if you look at the beginning of Exodus, and you look at the beginning of Exodus, and you look at the beginning of Exodus, and you look at the beginning of Exodus, and you look at the beginning of Exodus, and you look at the Exodus, which is the next book, right? It says the people were in the land. They were slaves under Pharaoh. They cried out to God in their anguish. And it says that God heard their cries. And after all these centuries that they had been there, decided to do something about it. So there's a sense that God is moved to action by this lament, by this plea, by this request for help. So he acts on their behalf. And so he says, I'm going to do something about it. I'm going to do something. I'm going to do something. I'm going to do something. I'm going to do something. He sends Moses. He brings the people out with a mighty hand. And also the other thing is, if we think about the Trinity, which we've been talking about more often than usual lately,

[10:53] which I think is great. And thank you for Holy, Holy, Holy. It was a great song. In the Trinity, we have these inner relationships among the three persons of the Trinity, right? So there's relationship between the parts, the persons of the Godhead. And there's the possibility of them moving each other and changing, being changed by each other. That's what relationships do. If you're in a real relationship with somebody else, it's possible for them to influence you. Otherwise, it's not a relationship, right? It's just a wall between you. And when you're in a relationship, you're vulnerable to other people, right? And you take on their sadness and you take on their joy. You're in community with each other. And so if God and the Trinity is in community, I'm not, externally you could say he's not acted upon if he's just the Trinity, but the interior dynamic of the Trinity is such that God is not impassable at all. He's moved by all the movements within the Trinity. Now you also, if you want to think that God's omnipotent, great. But if you look at Genesis 32, it turns out that God has a wrestling match with Jacob and he's unable to win. What do you think of that? That's a head scratcher. I mean, we could go on and on and on.

[12:10] So what's going on there? Does God choose not to win? Is he trying to teach Jacob a lesson? You know, all sorts of great questions. We can preach on it some other day. You know, I have here in my notes, what a wimp. Now God's not a wimp. God is not a wimp. But how can he not beat Jacob in a wrestling match? How can that happen? You know, and he may say, well, maybe it was just an angel. Well, maybe, but Jacob calls him God and God, and he asked him his name, right?

[12:40] Finally, this is a little more, one more thing. If you look at the incarnation of Jesus, right? That shows an extreme lack of impassibility, right? Jesus gets angry. He gets joyful. He's loving. He has all the range of human emotions. There's not a human side of him that was distinct from the God side. We believe they were all together. It's not like a piece of plywood where there's one, one half of the sheet that's Jesus and the other half of the sheet that's God. And the human side of him is not the God side. It's not the God side. It's the human side of him. The human side only did human things and the God side only did God things. We believe they were totally enmeshed with each other. They were, they were, you know, two natures, but one being, really. And so God in Jesus cries, weeps, laughs, gets hungry, gets wounded, dies, bleeds and dies, right? So God, and so Jesus is not impassible, but Jesus is God, right?

[13:43] So then we're, then we're, we're starting to kind of dismantle the God of my childhood. Maybe the God of my childhood is different from the God of your childhood, but I'm going to, who, whose God of your childhood is a bit like my God of my childhood? Okay. So we've got a few hands coming up here in the, in the crowd, just so that you know at home, about 70% of people raise their hand and the other 30% are, are too afraid to, or no, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I just, I don't always like raising my hand for things because that's, I don't like raising my hand for things. Exercise, you know, but as we get older, I think this to develop a more nuanced view of God, I think is a good thing for us. It helps us. We wrestle with this, just like Jacob wrestles with God. We wrestle with who God is and what his personality is like. And I, there's definitely a part of me that loves the God of my childhood because he's in one way, he's really safe. He's not going to go and change. He's always the same and he's strong. Right. And he's not going to take any guff from anybody. And he's not going to be, he's not going to be taken in by anybody. He's not going to be fooled. But as you get older, I think you find room for a more nuanced view of God. So today we see that

[14:54] God is in a relational conversation with Abraham in an incarnational way. That's sort of the theme here that God is in a conversation with Abraham in an incarnational way. Remember last week, we talked about these three men show up at Abraham's tent, but it says Yahweh showed up at Abraham's tent and it was three men. And that's hard. So who were the three men? Were the three men God? Were the three men angels that came with God and God was sort of somewhere else? It doesn't say. You can spill a lot of ink on this. All it says is that the Lord, Yahweh, came to Abraham's tent. When Abraham went to find out who was there, there were three men there. He fed these three men lunch and they ate it. Okay. So this incarnational, they were there. They're there to deliver the promise, but then they're also there to have the conversation. Now, interestingly, in our passage, if you noticed that the three men went away or the men went away to go walk down into the valley to find Sodom and Gomorrah and investigate, but the Lord stayed behind. So then in this section, it's a bit confusing. We'll have to go through it. And I don't have any answers for you. It seems that Yahweh stays and the three men go, but yet

[16:14] there's a conversation between God and Abraham. So is God in physical form when this is happening? It doesn't say. I just don't know how to have a conversation with, maybe God was just in his ear. I don't know. Okay. I don't know, but there's a conversation and God, at least as in part of this story, is there in the flesh. Okay. Okay. So, um, let's see, there's two, I want us to note two important things about this conversation and you want to write these down because these are, they're short and they're kind of both important. The first thing about this conversation is that God started it. Like your kids are like having a fight and you're like, who started it? Who started it? You know, and they're always say the other one did well in this case, God started the conversation. It wasn't Abraham asking him a question. Abraham initiating, God initiated a conversation with Abraham, an invitation into the conversation. That's important. The other thing is that the conversation kept going. It wasn't a short conversation. It was a long conversation with back and forth, okay? So the first is that God started the conversation. The second is that it kept going in a back and forth way, okay? So first of all, we'll say God started the conversation, and this is how it goes. If you go back to verse 20,

[17:33] God says, Is this like saying, oh, nice weather we're having today? Kind of. He's making a statement, but it's a statement with an invitation to comment back on it, right? Otherwise, why would he share his thoughts?

[18:01] Now, again, we're going to have to go back and forth. We're going to have to go back a little bit and say, why does God need to go investigate this? Do you all catch that? Like, if he knows everything, if he's Santa Claus God, he knows exactly what's happening in Sodom and Gomorrah. But here he is with Abraham saying, I have a little sleuthing to do. I need to go down there and find out what happens. And that, of course, later on, we find out what happens. So where's the omniscience of God? A little, maybe a foretaste here, and we'll get to it. God may be limiting himself in some way for the sake of having a conversation and a relationship with Abraham. We'll get to that. But God should be able to know this. But in this case, it seems that God doesn't know. There's another episode with Abraham when Abraham takes Isaac up the mountain. And God says, I don't know yet what he'll do. I have to find out what he will do. How do you not know what he'll do? You could say, well, that's for Abraham, learn that he would do it. So it was more for Abraham's sake. We'll get to that. So the conversation starts saying, look at this town. I don't know what's going on down there. I'm going to have to figure it out. So that's how the conversation starts. And it's almost as if God

[19:19] is saying, I have a decision to make. I want you involved in this decision-making process. I want you involved in the decision, what happens in your world, right? So that's an invitation to conversation, it's an invitation to be in the counsel of God. Wow. So that's not very impassable either, because God is asking for advice. He's asking for input. Would he ask for it if he was always going to disregard it? Well, he doesn't disregard it, as we'll see, right? So that's the first thing. God is setting this up as a conversation and a fact-finding mission, and he seems to be asking for Abraham's help and opinion on things. So then it follows that the second thing is that the conversation goes on for a long time. Abraham pleads that if there are a certain number of righteous people to be found, then the city should be spared. And there's actually, did you notice how many times Abraham comes back to him, right? 50, 45, 40, 30, 20, and 10. That's six different numbers. There's six times that Abraham, that's, I'm not saying that this number six is special, like if it was special, it would have to be seven. So we don't know what, you know, but there's this boldness of Abraham to keep the conversation going, to keep haggling with God for

[20:42] a lower price, you know, in effect, like almost like they're at a market or something like that. And also Abraham reminds God of his mercy and of his reputation, right? He says, you would not wipe away the righteous with the unrighteous. That would not be fair. Far be it from you. The judge of the world should do what's just. So he's kind of, he's almost like pushing this back at God. He said, are you really the just judge of this entire world? Then how could you do something so unjust as to destroy innocent people along with the wicked? It wouldn't be fair. In Exodus 32, Moses comes down from the mountain with the tablets and he comes down and it says, it's kind of like you come in and your kids have made the house a total mess, you know, and you're like, oh my goodness, what have you done? He comes down the mountain and they're worshiping a golden calf, right? And Moses is upset. God is upset. And God gets so mad. He says, I'm going to destroy them all. And I'm going to start over with you, Moses. I'm just, let's just, you know, plan, plan C basically, right? And Moses talks God out of it. Again, is God impassable? Maybe not there either. Exodus 32, he says, God, do you want that on your reputation that you brought all these people out into the wilderness

[22:06] just to destroy them? Nobody's ever going to trust you again. You can't do that. Let's give them one more chance, right? And God does. God is evidently persuaded by Moses not to destroy all the people, right? So Abraham does something similar. He says, look, you're the, you're the just God.

[22:28] You're the just God of the world. Why would you do something so unjust? You're the just God of the world. Why would you do something unjust? You have your reputation to worry about. Okay. So go back and forth, 50, 45, and so on down to 10. We know that not even 10 people were found righteous. Okay.

[22:47] And we know the cities were destroyed and that's a story for another time. But the story for today is the conversation. God started it. God asked Abraham to help him and Abraham boldly kept on asking God to be more merciful. And it seems that God was indeed moved to change the standard each time Abraham asked. God kept saying, okay, okay, for this smaller number, I'll let it be, right? So God is evidently moved, moved by Abraham's pleas. Now, and I, if you're thinking this, I'm really glad, but I want to register that there's one possible explanation for this other than that God is not in, okay? And you may be thinking to yourself, and this has been posited by many theologians, and I think it's an okay interpretation, all right? That God knew all along what he was going to do. He knew what, he knew what Sodom and Gomorrah were actually up to. He didn't really need to investigate it. He knew that Abraham was going to keep asking for a smaller number. God knew all this in advance. He went through all these steps with him so that Abraham would learn to be bold and merciful. And so, you know, I think it's a good interpretation. And I think it's a good interpretation. I think it's a good interpretation. I think it's a good interpretation.

[24:01] So this was for Abraham's benefit, you know, and this makes kind of sense, right? And then we can preserve the God of my childhood in a nice way, because God is like this sort of fatherly teacher who's teaching a kid almost like how to ride a bike, you know? Like, I'm pushing you along, and then I take my hands away when you're not looking, and you're like, oh, is my dad still pushing? Oh, sorry, okay, oh, okay, right, right. I was told not to give away the secret sauce just there. That doesn't happen. But the child is, or the, But Abraham's like, I can ride my bike, you know, so that this is all for Abraham's benefit, that he learns that he is merciful, learns that he can be bold in speaking to God. So we preserve God's omniscience. We preserve God's impassibility. We preserve God's aseity. There's that word again. You learn a new word. Jackie, you love it when you learn new words, don't you? Aseity. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop.

[24:53] So, and I think this is an okay interpretation. And you may have it. I don't quite share it, but you may have it. And you know what? It's not worth fighting about either. This is an important topic, but it's not important enough for us to break up over, you know, like if we're a boyfriend or girlfriend or something like that. It's not that important because it's not the absolute center of our faith. And there can be something comforting and reassuring about a God who doesn't change. You know, that's really powerful. But to hold this together, then we'd have to believe that God isn't quite being on the level with Abraham. Do you know that? Do you get that? Like he's kind of testing him or teaching him something, but he's going through this charade with Abraham.

[25:37] For me, and this is just my opinion, this is my interpretation of it, that makes God less of an honest actor in this relationship. And it makes it less of a relationship. It's more of a, it's not relational. It's kind of more, it's something else, right?

[25:58] So, he's leading Abraham to think that his opinion counts when it actually doesn't, right? I don't know if God's quite like that. So this would be, okay, I already read that part. All right. So, I think, and this is again my view, is the more plausible explanation of all this and other parts of the Bible passages that we've been seeing, is that God has entered the scene in the flesh. Right? He comes, he eats. He's entered the domain of humans and he's interested in relationships with someone on a more equal level. Okay? So God limits, in this sense, God, when he has these interactions, and this is not all the time, but when God has interactions with humans on their level, in some way he limits his own power. He limits his own omniscience. He limits his impassibility and aseity. He limits all these things about him. He limits himself. So that a relationship that's closer than here and here can happen, but it's closer to here and here can happen. And isn't that a relationship? More of a relationship? Because a relationship between equals is more of a relationship than a relationship between people who have vastly different levels of power and influence. It's hard to be best friends with your boss. Have you noticed that?

[27:24] It's very hard. It can happen, but it's hard. Okay? Because your boss can fire you. Your body can fire you. Your boss has to evaluate your work. Your boss has power over a lot of your life. And it's, can you be yourself, completely yourself around your boss? No, you can't. You know? So when God enters the domain of humans, it seems like he limits himself. This is ultimately true in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, isn't it? Right? God becomes flesh so that he can experience flesh. Go to the cross as a sinless human and redeem all of humanity.

[28:06] You know how Jesus says to his disciples, I no longer call you servants, I call you friends. This is the movement. You're not my servants anymore. I'm not this one that's way above you. Now we're on this level together. So I think that's what's happening here and in some of these other places in scripture that I've mentioned. Okay? Okay. When God enters the human experience for the sake of relationship, he gives some things up. He limits himself.

[28:37] And look at how the conversation starts. There's this pain coming from the cities. There's outcry. Not necessarily from the people who are being wicked, but maybe by the people who are the victims of this wickedness. How great is the outcry? God, he's moved. People are getting hurt. There's something wrong there. God's upset about it. I need to know what it is. I need to bring justice to it. And so in this incarnational mode, he can have his mind changed. He can have his plans altered. He can set the bar lower because his friend pleads for it earnestly. So God is into this space where he can be moved upon by Abraham. So now you can, again, I said, that's my opinion. You can disagree with exactly what all this means, what this passage means and others like it. And that's a great conversation. But what can we make of it today? Because we're done now. We're pretty much done now. In the time that we have. Just a few minutes that we have left. The minute we have left.

[29:32] Jesus coming in the flesh is the fullness of these moments when God comes down for relationship. There's only a few of these passages in the Old Testament where this happens. They're fabulous. But then it's almost like God says, okay, that was great. Let's not just do this for an hour or two at a time. Let's do it for a lifetime. Let's do it for 33 some years. Let me go into the world in the flesh and really relate to these people. Because I love it. I love them. And I don't want to be their teacher. I want them to be or their master. I want to be their friends.

[30:06] Right? I want to do it for a lifetime. I want to embed myself deeply in the lives of men and women who I love and who love me. And I feel their joys. And I weep when they're hurt. And I identify with their temptations. And all this because I want to have a deep and life-giving relationship with my people.

[30:25] And this is what he does when he comes to you. This is what happens. This is what happens when he comes into our lives. He doesn't come in as the childhood God, as Santa Claus God. Although I think that God is kind of true in some respects. He comes as the God who wants to be your friend, who wants to be in relationship with you. He wants to be able to be acted upon by you so that you can be acted upon by him. He wants to be vulnerable with you so that you will be vulnerable with him. He wants to experience everything you experience so he knows what your life is like.

[30:59] He wants to be moved by you. Have his mind changed by you. He wants you to plead for mercy for others and for yourself. He wants you to wrestle with God and sometimes win. He wants you to haggle with God over what justice looks like. This is the God who comes in the flesh, the relational God.

[31:18] I can't really have a relationship with my childhood God, right? He's too far away. I can't tell him things that he doesn't know. There's like, oh, you already know. I can't tell you anything new. I can't tell you anything new. I can't delight him with surprises. I can't surprise that God. Isn't the best thing in a relationship a surprise? You come home and there's flowers waiting for you, right? Or a card or a mess, you know?

[31:42] This God, the one who shows up the tent, who promises a baby to a childless couple, who draws a friend into a conversation, this God I can relate to. And so can you. Let's pray. Father, thank you again. Thank you for your word. Thank you.

[32:00] Thank you that you come in the flesh to this world, that you limit yourself in some ways that you can have relationship with us. Thank you that you drive us to mercy. And thank you that you start conversations with us and listen to us. Amen.