Service: Genesis 18:1-8
As God sacrifices Himself to meet us in our moment of need, He asks those who follow Him to do the same. We are forgiven by His grace. He blesses our life by His grace. He welcomes us into His family by His grace. He gives us eternal life by His grace. All of God’s hospitality is given to us in our moment of need by God Himself.
As Abraham sat during the heat of the day, he saw three strangers at the door of his tent. Abraham had likely worked in the morning when the day was cool and was resting in preparation of working again after the heat of the day passed. Anyone in a position to behave similarly would do so. Therefore, Abraham concludes these men are either travelers not from the area or have a great need to be out at that time.
Abraham knows this is an opportunity to show hospitality, one of the primary rules of society at that time. Abraham offers the strangers water, food, and a place to rest. Abraham doesn’t do this to extract money from these visitors; he did it because it was the right thing.
Abraham goes to invite his wife into service. He tells her to prepare cakes for the men to eat. The need is immediate; there is no time to let the dough rise and make bread. Therefore, Abraham tells Sarah to make unleavened bread, which the Bible calls cake here. Abraham is willing to meet the stranger’s hunger in the moment.
Once the preparations for baking were set in motion, Abraham finds an animal proper for being slaughtered and eaten. He finds a calf and hands it to a servant and orders it prepared. Once more Abraham’s attention to speed is apparent. Slaughtering an adult cow would take too much time and produced too much meat for the situation. A calf would take considerably less time to process. Cooking the meat of the calf would take far less time as well.
When the tasks were complete, Abraham brings the food to the visitors. He stood beside them while they ate to make sure any other needs could be timely satisfied. He continues to focus on meeting the needs of the strangers in the moment.
Abraham’s behavior teaches us something about the care of others. Abraham was a wealthy member of the society for that area. He could have easily tasked any one of his servants with meeting the needs of the strangers. Doing so would have allowed him to continue to take time to rest and relax. This is not what Abraham does, though. Abraham serves personally. Abraham sacrifices his own need to rest during the heat of the day for the benefit of someone else. In doing so, Abraham models godliness. As God sacrifices Himself to meet us in our moment of need, He asks those who follow Him to do the same.
