"MOVING OUT" | Go From Your Country | Genesis 12:1-4

Moving from one place to another is idealized as a way to pursue a batter life, from the city to the suburbs, to a larger homes, a worker who change locales to take advantage of a new job opportunities, to start a new marriage , to pursue a dream, immigrates who go from their county to the United States. Whatever the reason we can all agree that moving out takes courage and it is risky. Have you experience the midst feeling (joy and fear | hope and uncertainty) of moving out?

Today, I want to share with you few thoughts about theme: Moving Out with subtitle of go fro your country.

COUNTRY

Represents: our comfort, safety formality and to live our lives from the inside, from the seen to the unseen. from a place of seeing is believing to a place of having seen yet I believe.

750 Engaging Illustrations for Preachers, Teachers and Writers 281: Guidance

Author Gary Thomas, founder of the Center for Evangelical Spirituality, writes in Discipleship Journal:

When my wife and I prayed extensively about buying a house, we gave God many opportunities to close the door. God appeared to bless the move. Five years later, our house is worth considerably less than what we paid for it.

“Why didn’t God stop us?” my wife and I kept wondering. After all, we had given Him plenty of opportunities. But one day as my wife was praying, she sensed God asking her, “Have you ever considered the possibility that I wanted you in that neighborhood to minister there rather than to bolster your financial equity?”

We thought of the people we have been able to reach, and then asked ourselves, are we willing to surrender to a God who would lead us to make a decision that turned out to be undesirable financially but profitable spiritually? Does obedience obligate God to bless us, or can obedience call us to sacrifice? Think about the cross before you answer that one.

MOVING IS CHANGING

Let’s admit, moving out requires change and change is scary and difficult and it is hard. Movement challenge to choose to stay with the present or old way or the future. Chose faith and obedience or fear and doubts.

Nicodemus

In the Gospel reading of today, John 3 Nicodemus a religious man, one of the chief teachers who understood the Jewish Torah (first five books of Moses) and the traditions of the elders of the Jews had to move to a new understanding of how to live from the inside out. He wonder "How can these things be? He thought in physical terms, and understood physically, but he was a religious man, highly respected. Nicodemus was confused about spiritual matter.

Being religious does not get you into the Kingdom of God. A new birth must take place. 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!”

ABRAM MOVE OUT

God told a seventy years old man to move out from his country(were he has build a comfortable life, got marriage, has his friends) family and father’s house to a land (unfamiliar)

Gen. 12:1-4: The Message Translation:

“God told Abram: “Leave your country, your family, and your father’s home for a land that I will show you.I’ll make you a great nation and bless you. I’ll make you famous; you’ll be a blessing. I’ll bless those who bless you; those who curse you I’ll curse. All the families of the Earth will be blessed through you.”  So Abram left just as God said, and Lot left with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.”

TRUST AND OBEY

The hymn writer says:

“When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word What a glory He sheds on our way! While we do His good will, He abides with us still And with all who will trust and obey.”

Key note: walk with the Lord. God said to Abram “ Leave Your Country for a land I WILL SHOW YOU. Meaning God will walk with him and navigate him to the land.

Movement is response of Faith - to experience God we must move out from the comfortable, the regular ways of doing things to the unknown trusting only in God to lead us to our destiny.

To be a blessing to our family, community and nation.

This Lenten season will you trust God and move out from looking and acting from the outside to the inside? Remember:

“With God All Things Are Possible”