Genesis 21:1-21
When I was a child growing up I wanted the approval of my parents and teachers in the things I did. As an adult when I received God’s grace and love I wanted the things I was doing to meet with God’s approval. Our culture has changed. Children and youth don’t seem to care if what they are doing meet the approval of parents, teachers or God. The result for our country and world is that the very gift of life has become very cheap.
The life that is being lived without God’s approval produces the culture that has devalued God’s gift of life. When we look back to the 1960s we see life being invaded by the 1969 Woodstock Values. These same godless values have taken control of the major institutions: home, church and government. Let’s look at the Woodstock values: the cancer of drug abuse has killed and wrecked millions of lives since the 1960s. Drug abuse has led to a life that has become very cheap. The drug users do not care if they die of an overdose of some drug as long as they can have a high. The news often tells the stories of the mother’s boyfriend having killed a child while she was at work. Drug abuse produces all kinds of crimes; robbery, murder and the abuse of family members.
The Woodstock values have produced the death dealing disease of aids and millions of babies being aborted. The Woodstock values also are telling people what they want to hear, not what they need to hear. The Woodstock values claim that you can blame others for problems and troubles without every taking responsibility for your own actions. The Woodstock values have devalued the value of work. The Woodstock values say, “Why should I work when I can live off the taxes that the working people pay?” The Woodstock values have produced a generation that believe they should be given a free ride and live off the labor and work of others. The Woodstock values have corrupted them, saying to these people that the government will take care of you. These same political crooks in government don’t tell these Woodstock folks all it will cost them is their freedom. The price comes high in every part of life when we sale the heritage of our freedom for a check from the government.
The Woodstock values have also invaded the church by the way of Universalism. We hear much from the church about God’s unconditional love. That is only a half truth about the nature of God. To receive God’s love that changes lives we must respond and accept first that what we have been and what we are doing is not pleasing to God. You see, the God of love is also the same God of judgment. The people with Woodstock values do not understand that the God of judgment will not accept us as sinners unless we ask for his grace and love to change our values and the way we live and think.
Living life without God’s approval will produce a broken and sad culture. God had promised Abram and Sari a son. Time went by and Sari said to Abram, “I have not been able to bear children for you, so I will give you my servant Hagar”. She said to Abram, “The Lord has prevented me from having children. Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her.” And Abram agreed with Sari’s proposal. So Sara, Abram’s wife, took Hagar, the Egyptian servant, and gave her to Abram as a wife. This happened ten years after Abram had settled in the land of Canaan.”
The truth is that Sarah and Abraham did not seek God’s approval and they did not believe God world give them a son. “Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born. And Sarah declared, ‘God has brought me laughter. All who hear about this will laugh with me. Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse a baby? Yet I have given Abraham a son in his old age.”
A problem was created by Abraham and Sarah because they did not seek God’s approval and the problem has lived through the ages. “When Isaac grew up and was about to be weaned Abraham prepared a huge feast to celebrate the occasion. But Sarah saw Ishmael, the son of Abraham and her Egyptian servant Hagar making fun of her son Isaac. So she turned to Abraham and demanded, ‘Get rid of that slave woman and her son. He is not going to share the inheritance with my son Isaac.”.
This upset Abraham very much because Ishmael was his son. But God told Abraham, “Do not be upset over the boy and your servant. Do whatever Sarah tells you. Isaac is the son through whom descendents will be counted. But I will also make a nation of descendants of Hagar’s son because he is your son too.”
The troubles still affect the mid-east and the rest of the world because Abraham and Sarah chose not to wait and see God’s plan. When we visited Egypt several years ago an Egyptian said to us, “The trouble with the Jews is that they don’t want to accept that we are cousins.” Hate and anger live a long time in the hearts of people that reject God’s plan made on the cross for each of us.
Judas betrayed Jesus because he did not want to wait on Jesus’ plan: the cross. Judas wanted power and riches now. The Woodstock values continue to live because we do not seek God’s approval. We need to seek God’s approval by worshiping God and praying for God’s plan for our lives. Without God’s plan the price is pain, suffering and death.
