Genesis 20:14-18. 14Then Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and male servants and female servants, and gave them to Abraham, and returned Sarah his wife to him. 15And Abimelech said, “Behold, my land is before you; dwell where it pleases you.” 16To Sarah he said, “Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver. It is a sign of your innocence in the eyes of all who are with you, and before everyone you are vindicated.” 17Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children. 18For the Lord had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
Do you remember what the word intercession means? It means to pray for someone. A few days ago, we saw Abraham interceding for (praying for) His nephew Lot and the people of Sodom. God (Jesus) visited Abraham, told him that Sodom was going to be destroyed, and allowed Abraham to pray for Sodom to be spared. Abraham had been doing really well at trusting God, so Abraham praying for other people made sense.
But here in Genesis 20 it doesn’t seem to make sense. Abraham is not where he should be because he left the Promised Land. He hasn’t done what he should do; he lied about Sarah instead of trusting God. He put Sarah in danger, Abimelech in danger, and the promise of God in danger. But still God tells King Abimelech that Abraham should pray for him.
Genesis 20:7. Now then, return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live.
Why does Abraham get to intercede for Abimelech? After sinning like he did should Abraham be allowed to pray for Abimelech. Maybe Abimelech should pray for Abraham. And why should God even listen to this selfish liar, Abraham?
But when we think this way we are forgetting that everything God does is from his grace. Abraham gets to pray for Abimelech because Abraham has received God’s grace, not because Abraham is a better person than Abimelech. When we have Jesus we always have God’s grace and we can always pray to God, even if we have messed up really, really bad like Abraham did.
There are two things we can learn from this part of the story. First, with Jesus we can always pray to God. And second, people always need us to pray to God for them, to intercede for them. God wants us to always be going and telling everyone about Jesus, and we always can. Not just when we’ve been good or done everything right, but all the time. We don’t have to wait until we are perfect before we do what Jesus wants us to do, because we are never going to be perfect until we get to Heaven.
God didn’t give up on Abraham. Even though he stumbled and sinned, God’s friendship with Abraham remained true. And Christian, God hasn’t given up on you. He is ready to use you today, no matter what you did yesterday. God’s mercies are new every morning; all we have to do is embrace them moment by moment.
No, we don’t deserve to be used by God. Neither did Abraham. We have no goodness of our own that makes it so that we can pray for others. But we do have Jesus! The Jesus who died on the cross. And the people around us need to see and hear about this Jesus. And maybe it is our failures and sins that actually help people to see the glory of God’s grace in the cross far greater than if we were somehow “perfect.”
You: Do you ever feel like you can’t talk to God because of your sin?
You with Jesus: How can Jesus in us actually use our mistakes to show how kind he is?
Prayer: Father, I want to pray for people, but sometimes I’m not sure I’m allowed to because I have done wrong things. Show me that I don’t have to be perfect to pray, I just have to trust you. Amen.
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