Abraham Waited Twenty Five Years: The Year of Double Blessing

Sermon outline

Abraham waited twenty five years between the promise and Isaac, so do not lose hope in the gap: God protects what He has promised, and 2025, the house's twenty fifth year, is a year of double blessing and great grace to be used for His purposes.

1. What twenty five means in a life

   At twenty five a person is young and yet old enough to make big decisions. The immature carry on partying and arrive at fifty with nothing but a volatile lifestyle, while the mature choose stability. Tastes change, careers take calculated risks, self-confidence grows, money is spent carefully because you are now paying, old using relationships fall away and parents become advisers rather than decision makers.

   Illustration: You start at the corner shop, upgrade to Pick n Pay, then to Woolworths, then to the import store. When Mom and Dad pay at the restaurant you order an extra meal to take home; when you pay, you watch the budget.

   “Some things take on significance in our lives while other things fall away completely.”

2. God is starting something that will outlive you

   He reads the call and covenant of Abraham: God blesses those who bless you and curses those who curse you, so to reject you is to reject God. From Genesis 17 he declares that 2025 will be fertile, and that God is beginning works in His people that will still speak in generations who do not remember their names.

   “Your seed, your life, your covenant, your work that you have done with the Lord will be speaking in those generations.”

   • Genesis 12:1-3
   • Genesis 17:4-8

3. Twenty five years in the gap: do not lose hope

   Abraham was seventy five at the promise and a hundred when Isaac was born, so he waited twenty five years. He did not lean on his own understanding or try to get around what God was doing, and he did not waver but grew strong in faith, fully convinced God was able. In the waiting we can choose to doubt, so we must remind ourselves of God's character and of what He has already done, and use those as anchor points. God gives what you need, which is not always what you want.

   “Do not lose hope. Do not become disillusioned. This year, we shall see the birth of something that the Lord has promised.”

   • Genesis 21:5
   • Proverbs 3:5-8
   • Romans 4:20-21
   • Numbers 23:19
   • James 1:17

4. When God has promised, He protects the promise

   In Gerar, Abraham called Sarah his sister and Abimelech took her into his court, but before anything could happen God came to the king in a dream and he pleaded for his kingdom and sent her back. When you are walking in God's ways, no man, woman, group or political party can take what the Lord has given you.

   Illustration: His own paraphrase of what God told Abimelech in the dream, which he calls a Wesley translation: if you touch that woman, your goose is cooked.

   “When God gives you a contract, no man, no group, no race is going to take it away from you.”

   • Genesis 20:1-7

5. Twenty five through Scripture: grace, completeness and sacred duty

   He walks through places the number appears: the tabernacle instructions in Exodus 25, the offerings at the dedication of the tabernacle, the Levites who could serve only from twenty five, Ezekiel's temple visions, the distance Jesus walked on the water, and kings who began to reign at twenty five. For the church it speaks of grace, redemption, divine timing and divine intervention, but also of a sacred duty to complete what God has told you to do.

   “Know that your life has significance. I don't care how old you are.”

   • Exodus 25
   • Numbers 8:24

6. Your purpose is not for you

   There was a purpose in the pain, and whatever the enemy meant for evil the Lord turns for good. We do not find our purpose, we serve God's purpose, and the blessing is for His purposes too. Christians who only want inflow and give no outflow become selfish, jump from church to church and live in fear of losing what they have. In Christ we were chosen before the foundation of the world and have every spiritual blessing, and the foundation will always be Christ, never a man, a company or the economy.

   Illustration: When you look down you see the circumstance; when you look up to the Lord you see where you are going. You don't look into the maze, you look over it.

   “We don't find our purpose, we serve God's purpose.”

   • Genesis 50:20
   • Ephesians 1:3-10
   • Psalm 121:1

7. The word for 2025: double blessing and great grace

   Life may have felt like an uphill battle, but this year God will give favour never known, put your face in other people's dreams and bring back what was stolen. The empowerment is double: greater understanding in the word, double the authority in speaking it, and a voice that becomes the answer in the room. Unmerited favour and open doors come to the diligent and consistent, and everything will be done with ease.

   Illustration: When you buy a gift for a child in the family, nobody can ask you to justify it; the child simply receives it. God never has to justify to any man the goodness He gives His children.

   “The giver of the gift does not need to justify to the receiving end why you're getting it. You just receive it.”

   • Proverbs 13:22

In this message