The Promise
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Where is the gospel?
Where is the gospel?
// ?
// sometimes ‘grace a NT thing’ -
// God of OT a different god?
God’s Blessing
God’s Blessing
Genesis 12:1–3 (NIV)
1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
2 “I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”
God’s Place
God’s People
God’s Blessing
Good news for us too - not parochial only or primarily, not ethnically exclusive either -> this is the good news for all the nations...
4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
As opposed to the human efforts.
2 Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods.
Other gods...
9 This is the account of Noah and his family.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.
God has come to bless.
God the creator - who spoke the cosmos into being by his powerful word;
Has spoken this blessing in the midst of a cursed world to start something new.
God’s Place
God’s People
God’s Blessing
Traced through the Bible - as we look now for the promised seed to rescue humanity and defeat the snake, we’re also watching for these three.
Place begins to be Canaan // but shifts via Jesus (as the holy place) to new creation
People begins as Israel // but shifts via Jesus (as holy Israelite) to the church
Blessing begins as material prosperity // but shifts via Jesus to sharing God’s glory as forgiven renewed children of God
// move with security (guarantor, another’s word)
/// is faith a blind step into the dark?
Faith
Faith
1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
He’s given a promise that relates to the future, that is mostly intangible (famous, blessing) - and has to leave all he knows (family, home town).
On top of that, Ur is the centre to all appearances - probably largest city in the world, civilized,
Ziggurat of Ur.
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran.
He obeys. Leaves his dad, and everything else.
Abram’s journey
Modern day middle east
8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.
His permanent contributions are acts of worship.
Worth reflecting on our own life and acts - [what is our legacy in this world?/what do we leave behind us? - worship, or stuff]
Faith takes what God gives:
Lot and land
9 Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.”
God has promised. Abram will trust that word. God will give him land.
Tithe and treasure:
20 And praise be to God Most High,
who delivered your enemies into your hand.”
Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
Abram wins a great battle, rescues Lot and additionally also rescues Sodom.
Gives.
22 But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “With raised hand I have sworn an oath to the Lord, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, 23 that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the strap of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, ‘I made Abram rich.’
Abram takes what God will give.
Faith takes what God gives.
Faith takes God at his Word.
Hints here that the promises are not satisfied merely in Israel:
tents, fruitlessness:
10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.
16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Faith sees by hearing God’s word. The eyes of faith are fed by the ears.
// be like Abram? // []
Failure and God’s faithfulness
Failure and God’s faithfulness
12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”
Famine forces him to Egypt.
He has a barren wife (Gen 11:30)
sons of God taking beautiful daughters of man (Gen 6:2)
Well founded fear. But this is hot on theheels in the account of his obedience into the unknown, constructing altars, calling on the name of the Lord.
(Though it is conspicuously absent - only recurs again back in the land in Gen 13:4)
His fear endangers Sarai. Puts the entire ‘great nation’ progeny at risk if she genuinely becomes Pharaoh’s wife.
Not in God’s place. A real threat to being God’s people. Famine and fear do not look like God’s blessing. [Nor a blessing to the nations here either].
So quickly, everything is under threat and in danger.
13 if we are faithless,
he remains faithful,
for he cannot disown himself.
The BIble is not a morality tale (though there is much to learn). Not Aesop’s fable- the moral is don’t lie. It’s a rescue story, good news - God’s work:
17 But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai.
This is gift/grace from beginning to end.
8 Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”
God preserves Abram because God’s rescue is all God’s Work to bring people from every nation into rescue.
As we sit here in Alice Springs let us take God at his word now too. Our rescue comes through Abram’s seed Jesus - by grace.
But it doesn’t end with us. The many language and people groups in this town of Alice Springs are not yet blessed by coming into God’s family. They do not know Jesus.
God’s people, God’s place, blessed in Jesus - may God do this here.
