Good morning everybody, how you doing?
We like to say welcome to anybody that's here in our sanctuary for the first time or if you're joining us online
Welcome, we're so glad you're here to worship with us today. I
Am pastor Nathan and today we begin the study of the life of Abraham
The man known as the great patriarch of Israel and the father of our faith
Abraham is
such a
Epiphytal character in the story of God and salvation, you know aside from Moses
There is no other Old Testament character that is mentioned in the New Testament
more than Abraham
James in his letter called him God's friend, which is a title. Nobody else in Scripture has
Galatians 3 7 said believers in all generations are called the children of Abraham and that includes every single one of us that know Jesus
Christ is our Lord and Savior
Now what's really fun about the life of Abraham is many of the well-known
Stories that we have in Scripture and the well-known truths come from the life of Abraham
You have the promise that all nations will on the earth will be blessed. All people will be blessed. That's in the life of Abraham
What is it that makes a person righteous in the eyes of God? We learned that in the life of Abraham
The story of Abraham and Isaac as he goes up to sacrifice the the promised son. We learn about faith there in such an amazing way
We learned the origin of the animosity between the Jewish people and the Arab peoples
We learn about Sodom and Gomorrah and the story of Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt
We learned about Melchizedek. We learned about the origin of circumcision and what that means as a covenant between God and his people
We also learned that saving faith is not hereditary
That it's about an individual choice to follow God. You don't get saved just because your parents were and
We learned how obedience demonstrates faith so much that affects our lives. We see in the life of Abraham
But we also see that Abraham had struggles, right? He had issues
He made mistakes more than anything Abraham's life teaches us about living a life of faith here on this planet
We see from Abraham what it looks like to have an active relationship with God Almighty
The blessing of simple obedience and and how God deals with our doubt and our worry and our questions
We see very plainly his failures his stumbles and how to navigate all of that because I don't know about you
But we all stumble, right?
Even as Christians, we still have our moments of uh
We're not so happy about and so how do we navigate that as God's children?
We learn what happens when we impatiently take matters into our own hands instead of trusting God
and so
Abraham's life is just so full of wonderful lessons despite all his many failures
It's his faith that scripture remembers in hebrews 11 the great hall of faith
It doesn't tell us there that Abraham lied and Abraham lied again and Abraham doubted God what it tells us
Is that it was his faith?
That did everything it was his faith that allowed him to follow God's call. It was his faith and trust in his God
That saw him step into the promises that his God had for him
But the story of this great man Abraham it all started somewhere
It all started sometime and this is what we're going to be looking at today in Genesis chapter 12
We're going to see Abraham's initial call by God to leave everything he knew
To follow an unseen God into an unknown place
And there where he would be used as a conduit of God's saving grace to all the nations of the earth for all time
But first we're going to worship God because uh, he's God
He deserves our worship. He's worthy of our worship. I don't know about you, but I am so thankful
For God Almighty
That he died for me that he loves me that he saved me
And that he even uses me every day because man, I know what it means to be a Christian
I'm so grateful for the grace of God. Amen. Let's pray father. We love you so much
We're so grateful God to to to know you Lord
God from the very beginning you put a plan into place to to
Save us from our sin Lord to save us from the penalty of our sin
God over and over in your scripture you teach us that it's not about what we do
It's not about our acts. It's not about how good we are. It's not about earning
Your favor lord, but it's about trusting in you believing in you
God be in people that that that believe when you say something will come to pass
It will come to pass no matter what circumstances look like
And so God as we begin the study of the life of Abraham may we be encouraged
Lord to to walk to live the life of faith that Abraham evidenced for us
Not ever thinking that we're going to be able to live the life of faith
Not ever thinking that we're going to be perfect people lord, but that we're going to be saved people redeemed people
People who receive grace and mercy
And people through which you continue to shine the light of the gospel that those who don't know you would come to know you
But God we want to praise your name because Lord we're saved
God we are citizens of heaven today
We look forward to that city that that was built by you that will be built by you lord
We live today holding those promises
Because they are as real now as they will be then
God we love you so much
We thank you it's in Jesus name we pray amen
We are in Genesis chapter 12 we're going to be looking into the first nine verses this morning
But back in the 1920s and 1930s a man named sir Leonard Woolley
Excavated the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur
The work that he did lasted about 13 years and he dug up all kinds of things in this place and actually
Gave us a map of what Ur looked like at the time of um at the time of Abraham and back in ancient Mesopotamia
He dug up places like the great palace of Ur-Nammu
He dug up a royal cemetery that was packed full of gold and silver and ivory treasures
Actually in that royal cemetery they found the um burial place
Um burial place of a queen Puabi which was apparently a very uh famous queen
At the time and what they found is in her burial place. It was her
Coffin and then there were 73 skeletons of servants that were ritually sacrificed as a part of her burial fun place, right?
There was temples discovered to a god named Ningal and Enki
The city itself had walls surrounding it and at the time the Euphrates river actually was right up alongside of the city of Ur
So there was two harbors
Uh there in that city and then of course there was the great ziggurat of Ur which we have talked about a couple times
That is an actual real picture of it. That's not a drawing
That is what they have done to restore most of that
You can actually go visit that today if you're so inclined
But at the top of that ziggurat in that city of Ur was where they worshiped Nana the moon god
And you know all of this background and stuff I share that with you because this gives us the context of abraham's life
This gives us an idea of what he grew up with the culture
He was surrounded by it tells us about his social context his religious context
And really Ur wasn't just some backwater village. It was a very sophisticated
pagan place of spiritual darkness
And that picture of Ur represents the dominating condition of man at that time
You know we came off of the tower of babel where mankind was united in its thought that we don't need god
We will become gods ourselves and then we read how god scattered them by confusing their languages
But unfortunately the sin nature that is still with man today was with them then and caused people to
Seek other ways to satisfy their spiritual need to make up false gods and false pantheons
And that was alive and well in abraham's time
So the condition of mankind then was much like the condition of mankind now and the condition of mankind through all of history
hopelessly lost
hopelessly lost stumbling in the darkness
All except for a distant long forgotten promise to a guy named shem
Who was one of the sons of a man named noah a promise that blessing would come through his line
And so here in chapter 12 begins a story of how god would be faithful
To the promise he made all the way back in the beginning to adam and eve the promise
That an offspring from the their line the line of humanity going all the way down to a certain individual
Would one day be born the messiah to crush the head of the serpent and deal with sin once and for all
And this would come through abraham a man who had come to be known as abraham later on a descendant himself of shem
Living his pagan life in er and that all was just taking place up until the day that the one true living god
spoke
Read with me in genesis 12 verse 1
The lord said to abraham
Go from your land your relatives and your father's house to the land that i will show you
I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing
I will bless those who bless you and I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt
And all the peoples on the earth will be blessed through you
So abraham went
Now we'll stop there
You know here in genesis. We're not told
Specifically what made abraham believe in god
It doesn't say this happened and thus abraham believed
What we do know is that his whole life had been lived up into this point in the false pagan
Religions of his time his whole culture his well-being his reputation was all wrapped up
In in er the city of er the place that had this moon god and these other temples to gods and would ritually
Sacrifice people as a part of their worship
And yet he left all of it
He left his well-being
He left the place he's lived for who knows how long left all the people he knew
And he risked everything that would come from that
From not only leaving but then saying hey i'm not going to worship nana anymore
I'm going to worship the one true and living god
And all the people that were there
I'm going to worship the one true and living god and all the pressure that would come from that
He he risked all of that to come and follow god and the question naturally is why?
Why would he do that? Why would a man who grew up in a pagan culture an idolatrous culture of polytheism?
What was it about what god did that caused him to believe? Well the clue is in the phrase the lord said
That word said there in the hebrew is a very special word. It's amar or amar in hebrew
And it is a verb that refers to verbal communication
It refers to a verbal communication the contents of which
Is assumed to be both heard by the ear and then understood by the hearer in terms of what it meant
And who spoke it
What that all means is that
god spoke to abraham
And abraham heard god speaking to him
verbally
He heard it with his ear
And not just heard it but as he heard it he knew who was speaking in that moment
And this is the clue we get here in these first three verses that in the face of this pagan
Spirituality that abraham grew up in in the face of this pagan spirit spirituality where none of the gods ever responded
Because they weren't real despite sacrifices and prayers and all of this
In this culture where people said these are the gods and they never said a word to anybody because they didn't exist
Abraham heard the audible voice of god
Now it doesn't say he saw god here. That's something that comes later in the story, but he
Heard god speaking to him and in that moment he understood what was being said and by implication
Who was saying it a pretty special moment?
And you know for a lot of us we go man if god just spoke to me well that that would do it right i'd be saved immediately
When I was in a young adult I was working with a friend who would preach the gospel to me every day
And it was honestly it was really annoying right because i'm just like bro. Let's just work
You know and he'd always talk to me about god and talk to me about revelation and stuff
And I told him one day I said look dude
If god poked his head out of heaven and just went boogie boogie boogie. I'm god. I'm in
Sign me up
Jesus for life
I said but god hasn't done that
And that's because he's not real
And he was like whoa you be careful saying stuff like that and
That was the attitude I carried up until god spoke
Now in abram's time they didn't have the word of god today we do and god is still speaking through his word to his people
Now i've had a couple instances in my life where where I believe god verbally spoke to me
And it wasn't that he was standing there. I just heard that voice and if you've ever had that experience
You probably know that it's in that moment when you hear that voice
You know who it is
Speaking it's a pretty interesting moment
But we don't need that today
We don't need that we have the word of god that is god's words spoken to us
However, that doesn't mean god doesn't speak to people per se but in abram's story
I believe what it was that made him go. Oh, this is real. This is god
Is because the lord said to him the lord spoke to him in that place where no god had ever spoken to him
in that place where no god had ever spoken to them
now
The next question that I ask is why did god call abram and not somebody else?
What what is it about this man that that caused god to say you i'm gonna i'm gonna select you
Was it just because he was in the line of shem?
Well, there was other people in the line of shem his his line had gone out. So why abram?
Why did god call him?
Well, we aren't told
and any theory about
Specifically why is purely conjecture the reality is only god knows why he chose abram
But really I believe that that that's the wrong question
The question we should be asking is not why did call abram, but why doesn't god tell us?
Why doesn't god tell us exactly and I believe that's so we learn
Some very important things about god
Mainly that god is sovereign
God is god what that means is he owes us no explanation for the things he chooses to do
He owes us no explanation for the things he chooses to allow or why?
You see the arrogance of humanity is to man to demand god answer me
God you tell me why you now. It's okay to ask god
Can you please share with me why I would love to but as we're going to see through abraham's life
That is all predicated with god. I trust you. I believe in you. My faith is in you first
But for people who demand to say god, i'm not going to follow you until you tell me what I want to know god
I'm not going to listen to you. I'm not going to do anything you want me to do unless you explain to me why?
It's those people that
Quite honestly never come to the lord
You know if if if god's sovereignty isn't enough for us and we demand to to have him tell us exactly
Why he does this or why he does that well imagine if that's what we had here in scripture
God called abraham because he had a cool beard and he did the hokey pokey
If that's what was in scripture guess what?
We'd have the church of the bearded hokey pokey all over the world
Because we would be like that's how you come to know god. That's the people that god selects
That's the people that chooses and we'd be praying for all the people like myself who can't grow a beard to save their life
Because they're so lost and there's no way they could come to christ
But that's not what we have
And so really if you want to try and answer the question why did he choose abraham?
God chose abraham because god chose to choose abraham
That's the answer to the question
Abraham didn't deserve it
He didn't earn it right?
We're not told that you know, he did all these wonderful things and god was like wow. There's a special human. I'm gonna use him
He definitely wasn't worth it because he was a sinner
Yet he was chosen
Now I think the new testament sheds more light on this when we ask this question. Why does god choose me?
Why does god choose anybody?
Why does god say you i'm gonna let you be my child i'm gonna adopt you into my family
I'm gonna give you a free ticket to heaven that when you get out of this place, you're gonna go to paradise
Why does god do that?
Well, the new testament is very clear. It says that because god loves us
God loves you god loves me. I'm so grateful for that
Every day, you know, you I get up and i'm like god, why do you love me?
He's like because I choose to and i'll make yeah, but right and we all will but I did this or I thought this
Or I stumbled in this and god's like yeah, you think I didn't know that?
But lord why?
Because I love you
Because you're my creation
That is why I came to the first and died so that you could have faith in in the work that I did for you
And say okay because of that work because jesus died on the cross god in the flesh
He shed his blood all the penalty is paid for and if you just believe
You're forgiven
You're my child
And and that's just mind-boggling
When we think of what god did and why he did it
But he doesn't choose any of us and he didn't choose abram because of anything about abram
It was simply because god loved him and that was the one he chose
Now the point of all that is abram's story as we get through his story and we'll be studying it for a number of weeks
His story is not about
What type of person do we have to be so that god will choose us?
That's not what the story is about abram's story is look at what god does in the life of a wretched sinner
Who has faith in him?
That's what the story of abram is all about
And I love that because if it was about this is the type of person you have to be many of us would be disqualified
well, i'm not
Of the line of shem i'm not
Blessed to grow a beard whatever right it's like no this is look at what god does in the whoever
Or as john 3 16 puts it whosoever
Would believe in him that's what the story is all about and so as we get into it
We see the impossible magnitude of god's call in abram's life and it's really a command of god
Which god has the authority to do but
It's an incredibly difficult thing he said in verse one
He essentially tells abram leave your country leave your people
And leave your relatives and that's what it says and leave your father's house right abram's
Immediate family was going to go with him, but the but the extended family the relatives god said leave all of that
And that would be difficult enough to leave your country to leave your people to leave your relatives
but then he says
Go to a land that i will show you
How vague is that?
Have you ever been frustrated at god saying something to you that's vague?
God can you just give me the d i'll do it details lord i'm in
He just says trust me great i'm trusting you what do you want me to do
Pray, okay i'm praying but what do you want me to do?
And sometimes god will call like that and he does this with abram just look
Trust me
Go to a land i will show you he doesn't tell him where and i believe that just forced him to trust god's word more right
If we're able to say god you are god you are almighty you are completely trustworthy you cannot lie you do not lie
When you say jump i don't even have to ask how high
Because if you want me to jump 30 feet guess what's gonna happen when i jump i'll go 30 feet
Right the idea is is god i trust you i have faith in you
I have faith in you
I don't need to know why
Sometimes it would be cool to know why but i don't need to know why before i follow you
As if god said go
Don't ask are we there yet?
Just go and trust that i will tell you you're there when you're there
And this call of abraham it really is a picture
Of the gospel this call to leave everything behind and trust god and move forward and say i don't know what the future is going to hold
But i trust god with it it is a picture of the gospel you see in matthew 1037 it says this
The one who loves a father or mother more than me is not worthy of me
The one who loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me
Now sometimes we reverse like that and we go wow god's a meanie
You know he's not saying hate your family
What he is saying is when we leave everything in this world and say god i'm gonna follow you
He said that love you have for god that drives you to obedience and following of him
In comparison to how you love your family it's gonna be completely the opposite he's like look you love your family that's great
But i am the priority i am god almighty i am your creator
You gotta love me first
And then everything else will fall after that in mark 835 he says whoever wants to save his life will lose it
But whoever loses his life because of me and the gospel will save it
The idea is the gospel calls us to leave everything
To rest our hope for everything
Our hope for our family our hope for our future our hope for our business our hope for our workplace
Whatever it may be to rest all of that on christ
He says stop trying to lean on your own ideas and your own understanding and trust him
And for some people that's been a situation where they had the greatest job in the world
And one day god says hey i want you to quit your job and they're like whoa what
Well, this is a great job god
You know and i didn't ask you if it was a great job i told you to quit
Yeah, but god in your infinite sovereignty you you need to have my input
No, i don't
That's what the lord says and i've had
Countless stories and testimonies told to me of people who made these really crazy decisions
Walked away from businesses walked away from jobs
And and god then gave them something better
Now for those of you that made a connection i did not intend here that does not apply to your marriage, okay
You're married for life, all right
But it's the idea of god i will follow you and i will i will put you as the priority you're the you're
You're the priority over even my family
Because i know if i follow you my family will be taken care of
If i follow you i know you're gonna work in my life so that i'm a good husband and a good father and so
That's the idea here the gospel says look
Give up everything put god as the priority without having any of the answers about your future told to you
When jesus calls us calls us he doesn't guarantee the future
He doesn't guarantee the future
He doesn't call us and say well from now on your future is going to be completely stress-free
You'll never be in debt and you're gonna get a new car
And you know honestly if that was what jesus said for salvation i think everybody would get saved
So many people look at god as a cosmic vending machine
Beep boop give me what i want
And they approach god with that unless you promise me what i want i'm not gonna give you anything
If you promise me what i want i'm not gonna commit to you
Now jesus does promise that he will be with us
He promises us that he's gonna take us to be with him
He promises us a whole lot of stuff he promises forgiveness he promises grace and mercy he promises inner peace
He promises our ultimate good, but he never promises the exact details of your future outside of your going to heaven
And some of us will approach jesus and go you know
Unless you tell me that i'm getting married in seven years. I'm not gonna i'm not gonna follow you
He's like i'm not gonna tell you that
Unless you tell me this, you know if if you're looking for
Upfront promises of an effortless and stress free life stress free life before you put your faith in jesus you're never gonna get them
You're never gonna get them because
God says believe in me because i'm god
Believe in me because you're a sinner and i've told you i came to save you
That's why we believe in god. He tells us that ultimately yeah all of our problems will be solved
But if you insist on clinging to your own requirements before committing to christ you're never gonna come to christ
Because if god said okay i'm gonna meet one of your requirements you're gonna be like oh well guess what i have another one
And that's not how it works and if you never come to christ you're gonna find yourself one day standing before god almighty the creator of the universe your creator
And you're gonna give account for your life
And if the account of your life is hey i lived selfishly i denied you you never answered my requirements and therefore i'm not obligated and god's gonna be like
It's hell
Because you're still a sinner if you die without christ
And so we're called to trust in his word and what he says simply because he said it it's hard
But we can do it
As a believer when we say okay god i'm yours
He sends the holy spirit to dwell within us
Empowering us to be able to do what he's calling us to do
i've been able to find myself through the power of the holy spirit many times in my life to believe the impossible thing and for some reason i'm like
No, it's it's a sure thing
Now my pre-christian days would be like oh no that's impossible i don't understand this i don't understand this i don't see how this could happen
But the holy spirit allows us to trust in god and he's telling us to trust in him
And he allows us to trust in god in a way we couldn't do without him
And so we're called to follow him in faith
We're called to follow him based simply on who he is
He is god he is trustworthy he is faithful
He is true
And that should be enough for us
Now what does he promise to abraham we read that in verses two and three
I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing
I will bless those who bless you
I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt and all the peoples on the earth will be blessed through you
so
This was both promises that abraham himself would experience and promises that he personally wouldn't experience
But his descendants would experience verse two is the personal blessings, right?
You're going to be a great nation. I'm going to make your name great
You're going to be blessed and you're going to be a blessing to people
Verse three it's kind of the the global ones right that he wasn't necessarily himself going to experience but they were prophetic
Bless those who bless you that was in his lifetime curse those that curse you or curse those who treat you with contempt
That was both in his lifetime, but it would also apply to his offspring
Now when you read verses two and three and you go, okay, maybe blessing is a big part of the promise, right?
I'm going to bless you. You're going to be a blessing blessing blessing blessing. Maybe that's a big part of the promise to abraham and it is
Now if you've ever asked the question, what does it mean to be blessed or what is a blessing?
Right. That was one I struggled with as a christian or before I was a christian
I'd hear christians go i'm so blessed. I'm like, what does that even mean?
That's one of those weird christian words, right?
Brother be blessed what?
Use real words
But once I got saved all of a sudden I was like, oh, i'm blessed
I get it. I get it now, right?
So what is it? To to bless someone to pronounce a blessing on them simply means a proclamation of goodwill happiness and god's favor on them
So what you're doing is is literally proclaiming
And follow me here before you go. Oh, here we go into the prosperity gospel. It's proclaiming goodwill saying I am I am saying god
bless you
In a sense, you're praying you're saying god bless this world
According to your promises. It's not an if because if you're doing that according to god's promises, it's true already
God bless them according to your word bless them according to your character
Being blessed is being in the condition
Where a blessing could be fulfilled, right?
I'm in a condition where where god's truth his promises is is is coming true in my life. I'm blessed
God's favor is upon my life. I'm blessed, right? That's what it means to be blessed
Now the personal blessings that abram is given here had to be really difficult to imagine
Because in chapter 11, we are already told that abraham's wife was barren. She can't have kids
And then god's like hey bro, you're gonna be a great nation
serious
Right. We don't have all the you know in vitro fertilization and stuff in these times. You know, how's this gonna happen?
a great nation
Now what's interesting is the word nation there is the hebrew word goi? singular plural. It's going
These two words we see found used throughout scripture to refer to gentile nations
Abraham i'm gonna make you a nation among nations
But you go why is he using this word for gentile nations? Well think about it. There's no jewish people yet
They're all gentile nations at this point and the idea here is god is saying i'm not just gonna bless one people group
I'm gonna bless all people through you. You're gonna be a nation among nations. That word also carries the idea of
of being a political power
That you're not just gonna be a group of people but but you're gonna be a a powerful political entity
With a land and a language and a government
That's that's what you're gonna be able to do
Your offspring are gonna be a a population that is ongoing with its own identity and that's what we have in israel today
Then he says a great name that word name really it means reputation. You're gonna have a great reputation
When people think of abram, they're gonna say oh man, he's he's he's a solid dude, right?
Here's what's interesting back in chapter 11 when we looked at the tower of babel chapter 11 verse 4
We read there that the thing that they wanted they said let us make a name for ourselves
That's exactly what they were trying to do we want to be famous without you god we want to be well known without you
And here abram not asking god's like i'm gonna make you
A person with a great name
I'm gonna make you well known and why?
It's because he was god's name
He's a faithful man and today his name is great because we still look at him today and go
What a fantastic example of the life of faith
Now
Abram was given this blessing. He didn't seek it himself
And anytime we try and seek a great name for ourselves through our own efforts
Well, just like the tower of babel. It doesn't get done
But he's a faithful man and he's a faithful man
And he's a faithful man and he's a faithful man
And we have to prove ourselves through our own efforts. Well, just like the tower of babel. It doesn't get done
But if god raises you up
Then praise god, but be humble in that right?
It's god who did the work some people god raises up to have positions of influence or
Or authority, right?
Sometimes god raises up people to have have massive influence over the culture and and if god does that praise god
It's not wrong to have a great name
It's wrong to say I have a great name
because of what I've done.
But those who have a great name and say glory to God,
God uses them to affect mighty things in our world.
Then verse three, he goes from the personal blessings
to Abram onto what I would call the global blessings.
He says, I will bless those who bless you
and curse anyone who treats you with contempt.
Now this applies to Abraham specifically,
but it also applies to his offspring.
And today we know there's a lot of anti-Israel rhetoric
all over the place with the war that's been going on
between Israel and the Gaza Strip there
between them and the Palestinians.
There's people all over our country and all over the world.
They're like, we hate Israel, burn them down.
How dare they defend themselves?
And I know there's a lot of layers to this,
so I'm not trying to get into all the political layers
of that, but the idea is around the world,
there's this renewed vigorous anti-Israel talk.
We hate them, we hate them.
It's been that way for a long time.
We know back in during the Holocaust,
very anti-Israel in Germany specifically.
But when we look at here what he says,
I'm gonna bless those who bless you.
I'll curse those who hold you with contempt.
If we think of all the nations throughout history
who turned against Israel,
where are they today?
Babylon, Assyria, Rome, Egypt, where are they today?
Those empires are either gone or they're second
and third rate nations today.
Why?
I believe it was mainly and largely
because they turned against Israel.
God said those who curse you, those that hold you,
your people, my people with contempt, I will curse them.
And curse incidentally is the opposite of blessing.
God's favor be upon you.
God's disfavor be upon you, that's a curse.
May God not work on your behalf, that's a curse.
And we see that happening and that's why today
in our country it's such an important thing
when we start getting involved in the political thing
and voting for people that you'll hear pastors,
myself included, always talk about,
hey, the people that support Israel,
those are the ones we wanna look at.
The people who say, no, down with Israel, we hate them.
I don't want them leading our country
because if they lead our country, our country's gonna end up
like these other nations that are nothing anymore.
And so it's a very, very important thing.
But this is a global blessing, it's like,
look, the people around you, if they bless you,
I will bless them.
They will get to partake of some of the fruit
of the blessing in your life.
And then the last thing I want us to notice
about this promise is how many times God said, I will.
Did you notice that?
I will make you a great nation.
I will bless you.
I will make your name great.
Five times he says, I will through this.
It's like he's going, Abram, look,
I understand you're a pagan idolater.
I understand you're raised in this culture.
I get it, you're probably, and I believe he was,
polytheistic, I understand that, Abram,
that's who you are right now.
I get you can't have kids.
But trust me, believe in me,
and then I'm gonna do all these things in your life.
Now what I do find interesting here
is it doesn't say, if you follow me,
then I will make you a great nation.
Now there's a lot of those in our scripture,
they're called conditional promises, right,
where God says, look, if you do this, this will happen.
He tells us it's the cause and effect of the promise.
If you do this, this will happen.
He tells us it's the cause and effect thing.
But again, God is sovereign.
And so God is saying, here's my instruction to you,
follow me, here's my promise, I'm gonna do these things.
Now some people look at that and they go,
oh, it's a conditional thing,
but it's not there in the language,
and I just find that interesting.
Back to why does God work in people's lives?
Because he wants to.
Why does God use certain people and bless them?
Because he wants to.
Why does God do anything he does?
Because he wants to, he's sovereign,
and it's not for us to question.
What do you do with God's promises today?
What do you do with God's promises?
He says, look, those who follow me,
this is what I do in their life.
He doesn't say that I'm gonna react to you
and you're gonna react to me.
He's like, no, I've chosen you as my partner.
You put faith in me, but I've chosen you as my kid.
This is what I'm gonna do in your life.
Just follow me.
Just trust me.
What do you do with them?
Do you believe God's promises?
Really?
That's the question that always comes to my mind
when I'm like, God, I believe you,
and my brain goes, really?
And I'm like, hmm, I gotta think about that.
Do I really stand on God's promises?
Do I live my life going, he said this,
it's as good as true, and so I'm gonna live like it?
I'm a citizen of heaven, so I'm gonna live in this world
like I'm just passing through, if you do,
then live according to his promises.
Stand on his promises.
Practice them.
Too many believers, I think, in the church today,
just in a general sense, they're just sitting in the pew
instead of standing on God's promises.
They just wanna show up to church and get fed,
and that's great, but then they wanna leave here,
and throughout their week go,
I don't know if God is true,
and I don't know if that's real,
and I know God said this word, but I'm not sure.
And God's like, I want you to stand on my promises
every day, not just sit in a pew once a week.
Now, we come here together to learn,
so that then we go live,
and that's why our church's mission statement writes,
know the truth, live the truth, and then share the truth.
Now, when God says, believe me, trust me, do what I ask,
he then says, watch what I will do in your life.
When God says, look, I want you to be generous
and give the way I'm calling you to give,
do it, and watch what I will do in your life.
When he says, serve the way I'm telling you to serve,
sacrificially, give of yourself and your time and your gifts,
and watch what I will do in your life,
love the way I'm telling you to love,
and watch what I will do in your life.
And that is what we see in the life of Abraham.
God said, go, he went, okay, and God's like,
hey, by the way, watch what I'm gonna do in your life.
He's like, cool, but the what I'm gonna do in your life
didn't affect his obedience to God,
he just said, you're God, I'm gonna go.
So Abraham, he here alone is blessed by God, right?
Him, the person, you, Abraham, I'm gonna bless you.
My favor is on you.
I'm gonna cause you to be well known.
I'm gonna cause others to experience this goodwill,
this favor through you.
If they bless you, I'm gonna bless them.
And all the people on the earth,
ultimately, will be blessed through you.
And that is his offspring, and that which takes us down
through Isaac and Peter, and all the people on the earth,
Isaac and Jacob, and then all the way down to the 12 tribes,
but sadly, Israel never fully rose up to the task
of being a blessing to the whole world.
And that's what we see as we go through the Old Testament.
They would have good times, they would have bad times.
But through Christ, who is the ultimate offspring of Abraham,
blessing came.
And it wasn't just to Jewish people,
it was to the whole world.
That those who had put their faith in Jesus Christ
would receive salvation.
They would receive the promise of heaven.
Not only that, they would be given a new heart.
They would be filled with the Holy Spirit,
able to live a life that glorifies God,
and in the process, just be able to walk day to day,
seeing God's glory in everything that happens.
What a blessing.
Galatians 3, 8, 9 says this.
Now the Scriptures saw in advance
that God would justify the Gentiles by faith,
and proclaim the gospel ahead of time to Abraham,
saying, all the nations will be blessed through you.
Consequently, those who have faith are blessed with Abraham,
who had himself had faith.
So what we see here in Genesis 12,
according to Galatians 3, is the gospel.
It's the good news announced in advance to Abraham.
And that good news is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
It really is saying, Abraham, because you believed,
others get to believe.
Because of your belief, you experience the blessing
of God working in your life,
and because of that faithfulness,
other people, all the people of the world,
get the same opportunity.
Think about it.
What if Abraham said no?
I mean, some of you are gonna go like,
well, God woulda did it.
Sure, that could happen.
But if Abraham said no, I'm not gonna follow you, God.
In one line of that, we don't have the nation of Israel.
We don't have the Messiah.
But it's because he had faith, he believed.
God said, cool, I'm gonna use you.
I'm gonna work through this line
and bless the entire planet.
And then that is the responsibility we have today
as the church, is to keep proclaiming that truth, right?
So after this amazing promise, what do we see him do?
Go to a land, I'm gonna do all these things.
It says, so Abraham went as the Lord had told him.
And that's one of the biggest lessons here.
When we read God's word and he says, do this this way,
you know what that means?
Do that that way.
Right, you go, oh, well, that's simple, duh.
But how many of us go, oh, God said do it this way,
I'm gonna do it a little different.
You know, he said, he said be generous,
I'm gonna be halfway generous.
He said, serve one another with your gifts,
but I never get involved.
Or, you know, you know, he went.
God said go, he went.
You know, James tells us that,
he goes, don't just say you have faith.
He goes, let me see your faith in your obedience.
Let me see your faith in your works.
That's what James talks about.
You say you believe God, you say you believe his promises,
I should see that evidenced in your life.
Doesn't mean you're gonna be a perfect sinless person, no.
Because you still have the sin nature with you,
but are you a person whose goal, whose desire,
to say God, I wanna obey you, God, I wanna glorify you,
God, I want my life to be whatever you want, I'm yours.
Use me, God.
And then God says, great, I want you to do this.
Awesome, no question.
I want you to serve this way.
Got it.
And that's what God is talking about here.
He wants us to be people who just go when he says go.
Now, verse four says, so Abram went,
as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him.
Lot's gonna be a major player in the story of Abram,
and so we're told here that Lot's a part of his leaving Ur.
Genesis 11 tells us that when they left Ur,
it was actually Abram's dad, Terah,
that led the entire family out.
We're also told in Genesis 11 that Abraham's brother,
named Haran, had already died.
So what we see here is Abram stepping in
to look after his brother's kid, Lot.
Now, we're not told how old Abram was when he left Ur.
We're not told how old he was when he settled in Haran,
but we are told how old he was when he left Haran.
Now, between the first part of verse four,
so Abram went, just as the Lord told him,
and Lot went with him, and then the space
between the start of Abram was 75 years old,
there's a gap there.
Right, this is a new gap theory.
There's a gap right there.
And what that gap is is this.
When you read it, it looks like God spoke to him,
gave him this promise in Haran,
and then he left Haran, right?
But Acts chapter seven, verse two,
very specifically tells us that God gave him
this promise before he left Ur.
And so when you look at the chronology, he was in Ur.
He got told, hey, go, leave your people,
leave your country, leave your family.
And then verse four here, the first part, it says,
so Abram went, right?
And then there's a gap.
Because Genesis 11, 31 says, when they came to Haran,
they settled there.
And then after that gap, we then see Abraham
was 75 years old when he left Haran, okay?
So he left Haran, his dad was dead,
tells us that in Acts seven, four.
He took his wife, Sarai, his nephew Lot,
all the possessions they had accumulated,
and all the people they had acquired in Haran,
and they set out for the land of Canaan.
So after 75, or at the age of 75, after his dad had died,
after they had been spending time in Haran,
he finally sets out, not knowing where God was leading him.
Now, there are a lot of people who look at this,
look at the fact they settled in Haran,
look at the fact that it was his dad that led him out of Ur,
as Abraham partially obeying God's call, right?
What did God tell him to do initially?
Leave your country, leave your people, leave your relatives.
But when they left Ur, it wasn't Abraham
leaving his relatives, he was actually
still with his relatives.
Speculatively, Abraham hears God, oh my gosh, God,
you're real, goes up, hey dad, God talked to me.
And then they probably had a conversation,
you're crazy, da-da-da, back and forth,
no, it's real, speculative, right?
But then he said, hey, I gotta go.
And then his dad leads the family out.
So people go, that's a partial obedience by Abraham,
he didn't leave his relatives at that point.
We also see that when they got to Haran,
the scripture doesn't tell us, God said, and here we are.
It just says they settled in Haran,
and then later it says he left Haran.
So we know that this stop was a delay of some kind.
It was them stopping and not fully following through
on God's promise.
You know what Haran means, incidentally?
Delayed.
They left Ur and went to the town of Delayed.
Then after his dad died, he finally left to the land, right?
It's very interesting, because that's exactly what happened.
God made some amazing promises to Abraham,
said hey, this is what I'm gonna do,
but because Abraham didn't completely follow through
on everything God told him to do,
the promises that God was gonna work in his life
were delayed.
You guys understand that?
When God says to go or to do something,
and we're going and saying, yeah, God promised,
he's gonna do this, and I'm being obedient to him,
and I wanna see God work, and we kinda obey.
We maybe do most of it, or we go part of the way.
All we're doing is delaying the blessing God has for us.
God says go, and we're like, okay,
and he goes go until, and whoa, I'm gonna do it this way,
and God, you don't understand,
and I need to add this to my obedience,
and then we go, where's the blessing God promised me?
God, I'm doing what you called me to do.
And he's like, no, you're not.
You're kinda doing it,
but you're delaying the blessing I have in your life.
Now, of course, in God's great mercy,
we aren't disowned when we do this.
He doesn't cast us out for our partial obedience,
but we could delay the blessing in our lives
when we aren't fully doing what God calls us to do
and be an obedient in that way.
So, verse five, when they came to the land of Canaan,
Abram passed through the land to the site of Shechem
at the Oak of Morah.
At that time, the Canaanites were in the land.
The Lord appeared to Abram and said,
to your offspring I will give this land,
so he built an altar there to the Lord
who had appeared to him.
So, this little aside here, remember,
Moses is writing this whole account
while Israel's in the wilderness,
they're out of Egypt, they're wandering,
they're gonna go into the promised land
and guess who they're gonna run into there?
Canaanites.
And so, Abraham has been spending a lot of time saying,
where did these people come from
and why is God telling us to conquer them
and why should we be obedient to that?
So, here we have this aside again,
hey, the Canaanites, they were there when Abraham got there.
And that simply indicates that there's gonna be opposition
when he gets to the promised land.
That it's not gonna be smooth sailing,
that even though God is saying,
I'm giving you this land and it belongs to your descendants,
that there's gonna be opposition.
But what's interesting to me is,
is if you look at the map,
Haran's right up there at the top, right?
And so, he went down from, or up from Ur,
hit Haran, hung out for a while,
and then God said, okay, your dad's dead, go.
Boom, and so he goes south
and he enters into the promised land.
Now, there's so many cities,
even cities that were major population centers of that day,
but it doesn't tell us any of those details.
All it says is, he passed through the land
to the site of Shechem at the Oak of Morah.
Why that detail?
Like, who cares about a tree, right?
What does that have to do with anything?
Well, morah means teacher or oracle giver.
And so, what it's telling us is,
he came to this place where the Oak of Morah
is understood to be a place
where the Canaanites would gather together to hear oracles.
There was soothsayers that would like,
look at the rustling of the leaves and go,
oh, the gods are saying, do this.
Pretty silly, huh?
People go, who would do that type of thing?
Oh, let me drop my tea leaves in the water
and get my future out of it.
And so, there was this place that what we're being told
is when Abraham gets to the land
and starts traveling through the land,
right there in the middle of the promised land
is guess what, idolatry.
False gods.
Abraham had come all the way from pagan idolatrous Ur
to end up in pagan idolatrous Canaan.
What's the point?
Why?
Because again, God doesn't say follow me
because I'm gonna make everything perfect here on earth.
He doesn't say follow me because I'm gonna take away
all the problems here on earth.
He says follow me in the midst of this pagan place.
Follow me in the midst of this.
You can hold my promises as true,
you can hold my promises as real as if they're in effect
right now in the midst of this pagan place.
Now you notice earlier it said the Lord spoke to Abraham
here and now says the Lord appeared to Abraham.
That word appeared, it's not an allegory,
it means he appeared.
It means he visibly appeared to him.
This is what we call a theophany in the Old Testament.
A physical representation or appearance by God,
it's a theophany.
And so again, we see Abraham who had followed
an unseen God to an unknown land
is now granted an audience with God.
And really in our lives, I mean the application of this
is when we just follow God,
we're gonna see more and more of God in our life.
The closer you stay with God and the longer you walk
with him, man, the Holy Spirit just does this work in you
and you start getting really aware of,
oh that was the Lord.
And God answered the prayer.
And you just start seeing this.
He's appearing to you in more ways.
I know right here it's a physical appearance,
but the idea is that through our obedience,
we see God work.
And sometimes I'll talk to people and they go,
I never see God do anything.
I'm like, all right, do you do anything to serve the Lord?
No.
Do you read your Bible?
Not really.
Do you pray?
Well, never.
Do you worship?
No, I listen to death metal.
I like death metal by the way, but anyways.
You're not walking with the Lord.
Why do you expect to see him?
And so in obedience, we see the Lord working.
But we learn here that when we leave it all,
when God calls us to leave it all,
and we just follow God in faith,
he guides us, he directs us,
he gets us to where he wants us to go.
Now again, my question is,
why didn't God tell him up front back in Ur?
Hey, you're gonna go to Canaan,
and that's gonna be a land I'm gonna give
to your descendants, so go.
Why didn't he say that to him?
Now some might look at it and he goes,
well, he said, go to a land that I will show you
and I'll make you a great nation.
So possibly Abram just inferred,
oh, hey, this is gonna be where my people grow.
But I think it's more than that.
In Proverbs three, verses five and six,
it says, trust in the Lord with all your heart
and do not rely on your own understanding.
In all your ways, know him
and he will make your path straight.
The idea there is trust God,
accept that you're not gonna fully understand
everything God is leading you to do
and even in that situation, take a step of faith
and he's gonna make your path straight.
So God says, hey, I want you to take a step
and you go, well, where are we going?
He goes, nah, I'll tell you when we get there.
But take the step of faith and you take the step
and he goes, cool, okay, now here's the next step.
But God, I don't know where we're going.
You don't need to know.
You just need to take a step and trust me
and on and on and on.
God doesn't always or even often show us
the final destination of what he's calling us to do.
Sometimes he does, but a lot of times
he just calls us to step out in faith, why?
Because I believe that largely what God has in store for us
is something impossible for us to fathom.
Like if God said, hey, this is what I'm gonna do for you
and you're like, I'm in, let's go.
And he goes, yeah, but here's the difficulties
you're gonna go through to get there.
Never mind God, I'm good in error.
I'm good in error.
Look, I won't worship Nana anymore, but I'm good.
No, no, no, no, no.
No, I'm gonna do this wonderful thing.
Oh my gosh, I can't even imagine doing that,
but here's the things you're gonna go through to get there.
And God knows us, we're weak.
We want our own comfort.
And so what he says is take a step.
And then we take the step.
And then take the next one and on and on.
So what's Abraham's response to God's faithfulness?
What does he do?
He worships.
He builds an altar.
That's the indication of worship
where they would do their offerings and praise God.
Abram's life is marked by the altars he made for God.
It's just really beautiful, right?
He didn't build towers, he didn't build cities.
When Abraham left the earth, what was left behind
to tell you that Abraham was there?
Architecturally, altars.
Altars, he would go to a place, build an altar.
Go to a place, build an altar.
Hebrews 11, nine says, by faith he stayed as a foreigner
in the land of promise.
Living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob,
coheirs of the same promise.
For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations
whose architect and builder is God.
Abraham knew the promise, he believed in the promise.
He said, my offspring is gonna bless the whole world.
This land is for my people.
And so he shows up in this land,
he's like, there's the Canaanites,
and there's the tree of Mora,
and there's all this pagan adultery,
and he goes, I don't care about that.
God said, so boom, build an altar, praise the Lord.
God, I trust you, I believe in you, praise God.
But he's like, I'm going, we're going to heaven.
This isn't permanent, this is a gift from God,
but this isn't permanent.
So he lived his life as a pilgrim,
lived his life as a sojourner.
He knew that, no, I'll settle down when I get to heaven.
But in this life, we got work to do.
In this life, we're gonna be doing
what God's calling us to do.
It's not time for me to just stop.
I'll stop, I'll rest when we get to heaven.
And then verse eight and nine,
from there he moved on to the hill country east of Bethel
and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west
and Ai on the east.
He built an altar to the Lord there,
and he called on the name of the Lord.
Then Abraham journeyed by stages to the Negev.
Now Bethel here was very similar to Shechem, right?
Bethel, it's known that during this time,
it was a very important Canaanite pagan center.
It's where they had a temple to the god El,
which was like the Zeus of the Canaanite pantheon.
And so right here at Bethel,
there's this major idolatrous worship,
and then Ai's on the other side,
and it says here he built another altar.
I don't care about that false god,
I don't care about that, I'm gonna worship the Lord.
And then it says something very interesting,
he called on the name of the Lord.
You know what that word called means?
He proclaimed.
He proclaimed, that means he was proclaiming God
while he was there in the land.
Oh, Canaanites, Canaanites, spooky tree, so what?
God is the one true God, and I will worship him.
And you guys need to know him, that's the implication
that he was proclaiming the name of the Lord.
And I find it very interesting
that as he's proclaiming the name of the Lord,
God originally said, I will make your name great
in Abram's response, is I'm gonna praise your name, God,
I'm gonna lift up your name.
And so then, he ends up down in the Negev,
and that's just at the very bottom of that map there,
underneath Israel, it's called the Desert of Negev.
It was basically the southern border to the promised land.
So here we see that Abraham's journey has taken him
from the northern part of Israel
down through to the southern border.
Not only did he physically see the land
that God had promised to his descendants,
God said, this is the land I'm giving to your people,
but he walked through it.
And as we read, as he went through the land,
he worshiped through the land.
What that is is symbolically, it was him taking possession.
Was it his right now, was his people there right now?
No, but this land is as good as mine, why?
Because God said so.
But idolatry, so what, God said so.
I will have victory here.
He trusted the Lord, and that's the big thing
about his life of faith.
It was so beautiful.
The Lord had made promises, he rested on those promises,
and that's really what faith is.
Faith is we hear God's word, we hear his promises,
we place our trust, we place our faith in him
and what he said, and then our belief is evidenced
by us living according to those promises.
Well, if God said this, it has to be true,
therefore I should live this way.
We do what his word says, and we do all that knowing
and expecting his promises to be true.
Because they are true, why?
Because he's God.
And that allows us to live today
as people who possess the promise.
We are citizens of heaven, the Bible tells us.
This is not our home.
Today we are citizens of heaven,
not we will be citizens of heaven.
Yeah, we will be citizens in the New Jerusalem one day,
but today we are pilgrims, we are sojourners,
we are citizens of a kingdom that is not of this world now.
And so God says, cool, you believe that?
Live like it.
Stop caring about the things the world cares about,
stop living the way the world lives,
stop prioritizing what the world prioritizes,
because this isn't your home.
And so the gospel that was declared in advance in Abraham,
it's true today just as it was then,
that all the people of the world are blessed
through Abraham's offspring, through his faith.
Abraham believed, because he believed he went,
eventually got there, right?
But as he went, he worshiped, and as he worshiped,
he proclaimed the name of the Lord.
You want a pattern for your life, there's a great one.
Go.
And while you're going, worship.
And while you're worshiping, proclaim the name of Jesus.
It's kind of similar to what Jesus said at the end of Matthew,
go therefore into all the world, preaching the name,
teaching all the things I've shown you,
baptizing people in the name of the Father, Son,
and the Holy Spirit.
And lo, I will be with you until the end of the age.
It didn't matter what the world was,
what the world was in front of him.
His God was as real as real can be.
It didn't matter what the situations were.
God had made promises, so he lived like those promises
are true, because they are true.
What God had said would be was as good as done in his life.
The land belonged to his people, so he set up shop,
he put down the altars, he said, this is for the Lord.
That's true faith.
That's a great example of how to live a life of faith today.
That's the example for us.
So if you've been living a life and you're just like,
I know the Lord, I'm a Christian,
but I'm kind of halfway being obedient, fix it.
I believe God has blessings in your life
that he wants to do, and you're going,
why aren't the blessings coming?
And God's like, hey, why are you stopping in Haran?
There's things that God has been leading you to do,
calling you to do, and you're like, well, kind of, sorta.
And then you're going, see, this is a terrible situation.
This isn't the blessing God told me I would have,
because you haven't gone all the way yet.
But then again, it's not that God's going,
well, you're not my child anymore,
you didn't obey perfectly, you're done.
No, he goes, come on, I got something for you.
Trust me, have faith, believe, walk the walk of faith.
Do what I'm telling you to do,
and watch what I will do in your life.
Let's pray.
Father God,
we trust you so much, Lord, and yet we don't trust you.
God, we struggle with this sinful life,
this flesh that we still have with us, Lord.
We know that Abraham dealt with it,
we're gonna see this as we go through his story.
We know that Paul dealt with it in the New Testament.
Lord, we know Paul even taught on that and said,
why am I doing things I don't wanna do,
and I'm not doing the things I wanna do?
But Lord, those aren't the things that make us saved.
They do evidence our salvation, however.
But Lord, we're saved because we trust you,
we believe that you are real.
And God, in the face of our stumbles and our falls,
Lord, you still want us to know that you love us,
that you died to save us,
that you want to live in the world
that you want to bless us and work on our behalf.
And God, we get to experience that
because Abraham experienced it.
We are blessed through Abraham.
As he had faith, we have faith,
and we get to experience, Lord, that relationship with you.
To be able to be people who walk through this life
despite the fact that there's idolatry everywhere
and paganism everywhere, that we would be people
who set up altars and just praise your name.
That God, it wouldn't be only when we're
within the walls of our church, Lord,
where, okay, it's safe for us to worship here,
that we'd be people worshiping everywhere,
praying everywhere, lifting up holy hands everywhere.
God, people filled with your spirit,
shining the light of the gospel,
because Lord, the gospel is for them too.
So Lord, I pray that you would help us, God,
to be people of faith, to live a life of faith,
to follow after Abraham's example,
to be obedient, Lord, and to go and to do
when you call us to go and do.
And while we're doing it, Lord,
that we would just worship you in every place,
and that through all of that, Lord,
we would proclaim the name of the Lord,
the truth of who you are and what you've done,
that others would come to know you as well.
God, I don't understand how and why you love us,
and how and why you chose us,
but I do understand that you love us.
You love me, Lord.
And every person in here can say that,
that knows you, you love them.
If they don't know you, they can believe that you love them,
you died for them.
And Lord, for those that don't know you today,
God, just impress upon their heart right now
that all they need to do is believe,
to put their faith in you for their salvation,
for their future, for everything,
and that when they do that, Lord, they will be saved.
For us that know you, God, help us increase our faith
that we would walk boldly, confidently,
fully committed to what you're calling us to do, Lord,
that we would see the blessing of you in our own lives,
and that blessing would flow out
to touch the lives of others.
We love you so much, we thank you.
It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.